Once upon a time there was a girl—me, actually—and she wrote a story about a girl who fell in love with the Phantom before he met Christine. And the story was crap.

Years ago I wrote a story called "Fortunes Charms". The story covered the life of a girl with whom the Phantom was in love, a sequel dealt with the Phantom's obsession with Christine due to grief over her loss, and the last part was about the girl's reincarnation and return to Erik. Potentially not bad, actually crap. Back then my only exposure to the Phantom of the Opera was the Wishbone version, the Andrew Lloyd Webber Original Broadway Cast recording, a not-so-great matinee performance at Her Majesty's Theatre, and the 2004 movie version with Gerard Butler. Let's just say that the story was as bad as my Phantom knowledge was little.

Fortunately time has rectified that fault and I have not only read the book several times, but I have seen a many of the different movies as well, the good and the truly dreadful (*cough*DavidStallermusical*cough*).

So my first ever fanfiction was horribly bad. But the plot actually had some really good points, and the whole idea kept coming back to me. So after a lot of research, much rethinking, and testing all sorts of different point of views, I've written the story again. This time, if it's not too egotistical to say, I think it's much, much better.

The chorus girls chatted away while changing and getting ready to go out to dinner with rich admirers. It was the last night of the current opera, and they had a week off before rehearsals for the next started. The general dressing room danced with a kaleidoscope of colours: the different shades of hair, natural and not; the dresses, most indecent and some so decadent as to be in bad taste; the face paint smeared over faces, some pale from lack of sun and some red from too much drink.

Only one did not join the others. She didn't stand out. She was just a small shadow in one corner that no one noticed. Others would frequently bump into her because she faded into the corner.

But one of the girls did notice her. She was new to the Opéra Populaire. Irinushka Feodorovna had not succeeded in joining the Russian ballet, and had come to Paris to see if the French ballet would accept her. Not only had they welcomed her, but the ballet mistress Mme. Sevestre promised that Irinushka would be the next prima ballerina as soon as La Belle Flame and the manager realised she was no longer young enough, or good enough, for the position.

When Irinushka first noticed the shadow of a chorus girl, she crossed her fingers in the sign against evil. There was something dark hanging over the girl. Irinushka repeated a prayer in her head as she finished dressing and left to meet with the handsome Duc that had invited her to dinner.

Though the small chapel in the opera house was Roman Catholic, Irinushka received permission from both the manager and the priest (who only occasionally came to check on the chapel—he knew anything else would be throwing the scriptural pearls before the debauched swine of the opera house) to place a few icons there.

Irinushka stepped down into the chapel. She made a point of saying prayers after each performance and evening out with a gentleman. Very few in the opera house took advantage of the tiny chapel. Those who wanted to flaunt their religious natures went to finer, larger churches nearby. The rest didn't go at all. Irinushka liked the privacy of the opera house chapel. But today she was not alone. Kneeling in front of the prayer candles was the shadow girl. She wore a simple black dress and the only jewellery was the wooden rosary in her hands.

Irinushka left as silently as she could. She didn't think the other girl had seen her.

Over the next few weeks, Irinushka continued to keep an eye on the strangely quiet, dark haired girl. Irinushka learned her name, but she decided to secretly call the girl Rusalka. The girl fit the description of the undead nymphs that came out at night to sing and dance and lure men to their watery deaths. The more she saw of Rusalka the more Irinushka was convinced that the name suited her. She only wore dark dresses or her white practice outfit when not in costume. With her black hair and pale skin she looked like a ghost walking around the opera house and in its poorly lit halls.

Irinushka found her several more times in the chapel. When the chorus girls were allowed free time, instead of going out and about the city like the others, Rusalka stayed in the opera house and often disappeared somewhere in its dark corridors. Irinushka watched her fade into the shadows and come out of them on many occasions. A few times she spied Rusalka on the stairs leading to the roof. When attending the funeral of a French friend of her father, Irinushka saw Rusalka walking in the graveyard past the tomb of Pierre Abélard. There seemed to be almost a cloud of death hanging over her.

Irinushka also noticed that Rusalka was a good dancer, and had an incredibly beautiful voice. Over time her voice kept improving, but Irinushka couldn't figure out how. Rusalka never seemed to take lessons. Perhaps she made a deal with the devil and he was her teacher. She almost thought that instead of Rusalka, the girl should be called Strigoaică. It was a creature she learned about from her Romanian cousins: a witch risen from the dead that sucked the life out of the living. But there wasn't anything evil about her exactly. She just seemed too close to Death.

After a some months, Irinushka became the new prima ballerina. Since the prima donna preferred working with the previous ballerina, and had no wish to return after the Siege of Paris had finally ended, she did not continue as the first soprano. The whole opera house was shocked when the manager announced who would replace her: Irinushka's little Rusalka. Rusalka already had private chambers away from the prima donna dressing room, and kept them to avoid as many people as possible. Irinushka discovered that the future prima donna's apartment was located high in the opera house in an unused corner surrounded by old storage.

There were whispers among the cast that the Opera Ghost made the manager pick Rusalka for the coveted position of prima donna. Irinushka had heard tales of the ghost before, but she never believed any of it. If there was a ghost then it was only Rusalka herself.

Then there was the terrible accident. The new ballet mistress, formerly just the assistant, Mme. Giry found the prima donna dead from a fall down a set of stairs leading from the roof to the prima donna's private quarters. Everyone started saying that the ghost was no longer pleased with his protégé and had pushed her down the stairs. But pushed or not, the fall broke her ribs and killed her.

Irinushka caught a look at her Rusalka as they took the body out. She was dressed in a white gown and looked like a ghostly bride. The face looked like it was in pain and anguish. Irinushka feared that the girl would indeed become a rusalka. The only way to save her from that fate would be to avenge her death. But how had she died? And if it was the ghost, what then?

Irinushka went to the grave to pray for the dead woman's soul to find peace—and to allay Irinushka's superstitious fears. There was a stone covering the length of the grave and a large cross on the head stone. Though the grave site was fitting for her status as the prima donna, very few—if any—had visited the site since she never performed after becoming prima donna. From the snow Irinushka could see the imprint of just one who had recently knelt in front of the grave and put his arms on the stone covering. She placed her bouquet with garlic concealed within next to the single white rose with a black ribbon. She repeated her prayers, but even then had a sense that Rusalka would not find peace in death.

Because of that feeling, Irinushka decided that she must leave the Opéra Populaire. Only bad things could come from this, and she didn't want to be a part of it. People from the Theatre Royal in London had asked her to come. Now she decided she would go to England. Crossing herself, she stood and took one last look and the grave. Swiftly she left the cemetery.

The snow continued to fall over the grave and soon covered the words on the headstone:

Musette Rigaud

Elle dance avec la Mort

et chante aux Fantômes

Next up, the Phantom's perspective.