Between Mirrors and Roses (A Phantom of the Opera Fanfiction) ✓

17: More Confrontations

When Raoul woke up, his head ached, and he was lying on a hard floor. He scrambled to his feet and ran his fingers through his hair, fixing it as best as he could. What had happened? He remembered trying to share an intimate moment with Christine, then being pulled away by someone in a dark cloak. Then nothing.

Who was this man who had interfered on Christine's behalf? Raoul thought hard. She had shouted a name. What was it? Erik—that was it. Raoul would find this man and learn his connection with Christine. Raoul was supposed to be the one she called for help, not a shadowy stranger emerging like some phantom from the darkness.

This man could be the reason that Christine was refusing Raoul. If he had brainwashed her into trusting him, he was clearly dangerous, and Christine needed saving.

Raoul straightened his clothes and headed down some nearby steps back to the central part of the theater.

The previous evening, if one looked carefully, Raoul could be found among the catwalks and ropes that hung in the upper levels of the theater—somewhere he had no place being. He wore much less flamboyant clothing than usual so that he might be overlooked at first glance.

A stagehand, a large, rather crude man, was tying off a rope on one of the lighter sections of scaffolding that a wiser man might have exercised more caution on. As it was, Joseph Buquet barely even looked where he was stepping as he dismounted to a more stable section of walkway. He knew these platforms and gangways like the back of his hand.

He dusted his hands off on his tunic, doing little to dispel the grime that had accumulated there. "What can I do for you, sir?" he said to the pretty-boy patron in front of him.

Raoul looked disgruntled and angry. "You told me yesterday after you found me outside Christine's dressing room that I should meet you here. You had something to tell me?"

"Yes," Buquet chuckled, reaching to take a swig out of the bottle he'd set on a handrail. "I'm guessing you don't want rumors spreading about you and a singing girl?" He pointed at Raoul with its bottom. "I see why you like her, though. She paid me a visit yesterday. Right pretty little thing, ain't she?"

Raoul waved his hand nonchalantly. "There is talk already."

Buquet wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "But what would the managers think if a long time employee such as myself were to tell them you've been following girls around late at night? In the shadows, almost...ghostlike." He wiggled his eyebrows.

Raoul glared at the stagehand. "Me, the Phantom of the Opera? Preposterous!"

"Is it?" Buquet asked. "It makes sense. If that singer were farther up in society, it would make her more accessible to you, wouldn't it? It would benefit you to help her out?"

"Possibly," Raoul agreed, watching him take another swig from the bottle and set it back on the handrail. "But not by much. Certainly not incentive enough to create a ridiculous fabrication."

"Ah, but I have letters, see?" he grinned, moving toward Raoul eagerly. Raoul took a step back. "Letters a friend forged for me confessing to all of it. You made up the Phantom, started scaring a few ballet rats and all, to get yourself the patron (no one else wanted to be with a ghost hanging around). Then you use the "Phantom" to further Mlle Daae's career." He ticked the points off on his fingers as he said them. "It's all there. And my friend is a right swell hand with a pen, you know. Looks just like your handwriting."

Through this monologue, Raoul's face got slowly redder. He straightened his jacket, trying to maintain an image of control. "No one in their right mind would believe that story."

"You willing to take that chance?" posed Buquet. "I wonder how your folks would think of you tainting the family name and all. Bet they're already upset that you want to marry a lowly singer."