The Book Thief and the Phantom

A Single Shadow

It was only a dream.

But it was a magnificent, lengthy dream at that, and repeated itself in so many different patterns, that Liesel was convinced it had all been real, somehow stretched out across time.

The Book Thief had found herself in a strange place, with strange people and strange voices. Of course, this was France! Germans spoke very different from the French. But through words lined with and caked in another country, she could still understand them.

**A Small Fact About Liesel Meminger**
She started having these dreams at the age of seventeen; long after the bombings of Himmel Street. She, Alex Steiner, and Max Vandenberg decided that a dream that vivid had to have been a real experience. Their theory would soon be proven correct.

Liesel wandered among the incoherently sounding people and towards a large building.

**The Words Attached to the Large Building**
OPERA POPULAIRE

Liesel was very confused indeed. Why did it say populaire? Was that even a word? Liesel had never been to an opera before.

And yet she would soon meet the genius who created the operas that went on inside.

The girl quickly slipped in among the rest of the crowd.

This was a opera house?

Nonsense! It looked more like a castle than a place to sing endlessly about the petty things in life.

She saw people make their way up the huge staircase at the front. Slowly, uneasily, Liesel also walked up the stairs, as if they might vanish right under her feet.

She touched the railing. Amazing. Such beauty at her fingertips, it couldn't possibly exist, could it?

It could, and it did. I made several trips to the Opera House, and I knew for a fact that it was a solid, rock-hard stubborn building that would burn as she visited it for the third to last time. Many would die. And three would escape from their past.

Liesel soon found herself in a theater. It was filling up with all the funny-talking people the world could afford at the moment. But something urged her to move on from them to the stage beyond.

She dodged everyone who came her way, ducking behind boxes and poles and curtains.

And soon enough, Liesel found herself on the catwalk.

**An Interesting Tidbit You Should Probably Know About Liesel Meminger**
She was not afraid of heights.

No matter how many times she tested it, the nauseating feeling one would get of looking down from some incredible distance away from the ground would never appear in her stomach.

The catwalk was probably the safest place to watch the opera, since most certainly a girl with no ticket would be thrown out of the opera house, and the idea of watching her first opera from above was intriguing.

It was an hour until the opera officially began.

The people sang so strong and so strangely Liesel couldn't understand a word that was said. But she watched it anyway.

It was the most confusing, odd music she had ever heard.

It made her long for her Papa Hans' accordion. She wanted him to still be alive, so when she awoke, she could hear his heartaching music.

Then a shadow passed her.

It was too quick to make out, but Liesel stood on impulse and followed it.

*****

**The Shadow's First Thoughts of the Encounter With Liesel**
Who is she?
Why is she here?
How did she get here?

Aside from all those questions, he knew one thing; get away.

"Wait!" called the girl. "Why are you running?"

((Cue dramatic Phantom of the Opera music))

The shadow continued to run across the catwalk.

Only when he heard a crash and a soft scream did he turn to find the small, blonde-haired girl hanging off the edge.

While Liesel did not fear heights, she still feared me.

The shadow stared into the eyes of the Book Thief. He could see so many sad stories she had, so many people she had lost. Maybe it would be better for her to fall.

But then he saw more. There were people in her life she wanted to keep living for, including a certain Jewish fist-fighter, who had hair like feathers and deep, swampy eyes.

Liesel stared back. The shadow's face was less than half concealed by a white mask. It both frightened her and interested her.

The shadow made his decision. He leaned forward and helped her up onto slightly more stable ground.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Liesel paused. With a slight reluctance, she repeated the nickname Rudy Steiner had given her after a certain trip to the Hermann's. "The Book Thief."

"Well, Book Thief," he bowed, "I am the Phantom of the Opera." then turned and walked away.

Liesel watched as he left, knowing only one thing for certain;

The Phantom of the Opera was there, inside her mind.