The Phantom and the Shadow Chapter 2

The Phantom and the Shadow

Chapter 2
And so the Dragon enters the scene

It was now two years since Erik met Stella,
and she had now become one of the two things that brought light into his life of darkness because she was the only one beside Madam Giry that didn't fear his face. Madam Giry had been like a mother and a teacher to both of them, she had learned them how to write and to read she had even tried to teach Stella how to dance ballet.
But sadly that hope of ever seeing her on the stage as a dancer had come to an end for during her practice she had stumbled into an old fragile statue that where holding a marble ball in its hands the ball had always been quite loose on that statue and unfortunately the ball rolled out of the statues hands and Stella who was on her hands and knees did not see the ball roll out of the statues hands and land onto her toes before it was too late.
Erik would never forget that horrible scream that followed or the tragic news when Madam Giry came back from the doctor carrying a crying Stella in her arms her broken toes would heal but she would never be able to dance ballet on the tip of her toes again. Erik felt so sad for his sister's broken dream that he sang her to sleep every night so that she wouldn't cry herself to sleep, when her toes healed she tried to dance ballet again but she couldn't find the same balance in her toes again, as a condolence gift from Madam Giry, she gave Stella a violin and said that if she couldn't dance on her toes then maybe the music in her heart could dance for her.
So Stella tried the violin and amazingly enough it helped Madam Giry then started teaching them music and singing she now had become quite good on the violin but she and Erik where still kids and as all kids are they where adventurous' sometimes ad night she and Erik would spend hours running around the hallways of the opera Erik smiled when he remembered how they had even found a place where they couldn't be seen during any performance but they could see and hear it all
of course it was Box Five. No one in the opera house beside Madam Giry could understand how before almost every performance that the box was half destroyed like a bunch of wild kids had been let in there, the curtain over the box had been torn down and the chairs were thrown left and right and some of them would be missing a leg or an armrest and when the stage hands went over to the room where they stored extra chairs the key would be missing
and they would hear the very faint giggling of a child, sometimes it would sound like a little girl other times it would sound like a little boy and sometimes it was both. Madam Giry then started telling a rumor based on a story about a fire that started fifty years ago and how two children of a stagehand had perished in the fire he had taken his children with him cause their mother was too sick to watch over them and he couldn't afford losing his job to stay home and watch over the kids so he had taken them with him the night the opera house caught fire and now their ghosts haunted the opera house thus this started the story of the opera ghost.
Erik is shaken out of his thoughts when he heard the most horrible sound. "Dear God in heaven what in the world is that awful sound?" He turned to see his seven year old sister coming out of her bedroom where she had been reading holding her hands to her ears and yelling at him.
"Erik are you torturing a cat?"
the nine year old boy replied back, "A cat would sound better than that come on, let's see what is making that horrible sound" the two kids went through a secret door that leads to the hidden hallways many twist and turns are made until they stop in front of a small secret door that leads into Box Five the two children look through the bars of the balcony where they see a woman on the stage, she was wearing a pink dress that horribly clashed with her red curly hair and her pale skin. Erik heard Stella whisper "Who's the hag and how dare she call that singing" Erik snickered, his sister never quite lost her street wise tongue but she only used it when someone just couldn't sing. that much. Madam Giry had taught her after all "She's awful " "Indeed, she is dear sister, but let us see who she is." And then they went back to being silent and observed.
The two managers stood up to applaud the woman.
"Brava! Oh Dear lady, the job is yours! Do tell us your name." The red- haired woman stuck up her nose and in a snobbish voice replied. "Carlotta LA Carlotta" On their way back to the secret cellar Erik heard his sister complain about the new Prima Donna "And that dress! UGH! it looked awful with her hair!" Stella looked like she was going to pull out her hair. "I'm telling you Erik, that woman means trouble! That snobbish dragon." Erik can't help nodding his head at his sister's words.
"And so the Dragon enters the scene." He said with a sly smile.