The Quest - *Phantom of the Opera* (a fantasy romance)

Chapter XIV

The Battle Begins

XIV

Meg lit the lone candle beside her bed to dispel the darkness of her windowless room. Her restless gaze roamed over the faded pattern of the wallpaper, as it did whenever she grew bored. By now she must know every leaf there, every rose petal and stem. Confined to her bed, she felt as if she was perishing for lack of purpose. What was there for her to do? For what reason did she continue to exist?

Mère was the accomplished seamstress, not Meg, and dedicated to her task though Meg knew she would have preferred to teach dance again. Even now, though she'd toiled all night until the candles burned low, her mother sat in the parlor with the basting she'd brought home. Meg could see the dim glow of candles on the wall outside her door and knew her mother had never retired to bed last night. Meg herself had been unable to sleep and had heard the soft clearing of her mother's throat from time to time or the material rustle as she shifted in her chair.

Yet Meg's inability to sleep differed from any physical need that involved obligation. Her restlessness stemmed from a spiritual want for satisfaction. In the empty hours before dawn, disquiet whispered malicious tidings to her spirit, though she did not understand the voice, or whether it came from the light or the darkness. Lately she discerned little, except for the bitter hatred that burned like acid in her heart toward the Vicomte. Her prayers had ceased, and she wondered if they were all for nothing. Were a mortal's petitions even regarded? Or did they hit a wall of bronze in the sky, only to fall heedless to the earth?

Wishing to drown gloomy thoughts of the night in the activity of day, and frustrated she could not do so, Meg sank her head back into the pillow and sighed. She hated self pity, detested it when La Carlotta had fallen into one of her woeful moods at the opera house, bemoaning her lack of continual attention. Meg certainly had no wish to be thought of as a burden to anyone.

But the pain in her leg gave her constant distress, even with the laudanum the physician left and the herbs her mother steeped into a bitter tea. During his last visit, he seemed satisfied with her progress, but when Meg pressed him to know if she would walk again, he had been equivocal in his reply, annoying her to no end.

Determined to force happier thoughts, she remembered her childhood with Christine and the friendship they shared at the opera house. Often in the ballet dormitories, one or the other had tiptoed across the icy-cold planking in the chill hours of night to slip beneath the blanket of the other's cot for a few stolen moments. They would quietly giggle and share stories, or reminisce about their day, keeping their voices at a whisper lest Mère who slept on the other side of the thin wall, hear and scold them for being naughty.

Weeks after Christine's father died, her friend shared with her about hearing a beautiful voice sing from beyond the chapel wall. An angel, she'd said. Yet as the days passed and another childhood fantasy took hold, Meg forgot the incident. Until the evening of Christine's magnificent debut, when Meg found her friend alone in the chapel. Her face glowing with an ethereal light, she spoke in vague riddles difficult to understand and Meg sensed that Christine still believed the fairy tale of her youth, which gave her cause for concern. Only later, at the masquerade ball, did she realize that the Maestro was the Angel of whom Christine spoke. She missed her dear companion and would give anything for a bedside chat right now.

An idea struck and Meg reached for the stationery box in the shallow drawer of the bedside table. If she could not speak to her friend, she would write a letter sharing all that had happened in the city that was once her home. She would compose thoughts on paper, and dispatch it once she learned of Christine's location. Doing this would surely ease her mind. Even better, it would equip her hands with a task, no longer leaving them idle.