Angel of Music

Chapter Eighteen: Years Ago

The only thing he came close to striking was the hangman's noose that had appeared suddenly. He knew that rope from anywhere.

Madam Terpsichore came forward, grabbing a hold of him. She guided him out and did not forget to notice the hangman's noose that hung. She was glad she had arrived when she had.

"Madam Terpsichore, Madam Terpsichore," Hans called after her.

"Monsieur, don't ask me -I know no more than anyone else," Terpsichore lied as she continued to walk to her room. She hoped the young fool would leave her alone but he seemed persistent on following her and getting his answers.

"That's not true!" Hans yelled at the top of his voice. It forced all of Terpsichore effort not to be afraid of the youngster due to his outburst.

"Monsieur, don't ask," Terpsichore warned him yet again. He did not heed her warning.

"Please, Madam Terpsichore, for all our sakes," Hans begged as he grasped her arm before she entered her room. Looking at him closely she did not trust him, but if her star student, Elsa, trusted him then how unreliable could he be?

"Very well," she said in a soft tone as she glanced around the hallway. She entered her room and gestured for Hans to follow, he soon did.

"It was years ago. There was a travelling fair in the city. Gipsies," She remembered herself as a child entering the circus ground with her friends, "I was very young, studying to be a ballerina, one of many. Living in the dormitory of the opera house."

She then remembered an Asian man who repeated from the children to enter his tent saying 'come and see the devil's child'. She remembered a whole crowd gathering around a small cage. Terpsichore remembered pushing forward to see what was held within the cage. What she saw shocked her.

A child, a lot younger than herself, with a bag over his face. Two holes were pierced into the bag so he may see. In his hands he held a little straw monkey that Terpsichore presumed he had made himself.

The Asian man entered the cage and kicked the toy from the boy's hands. He beat the boy with the stick he held and everyone laughed. Terpsichore was sickened, but then the bag was taken off and his face was seen. Still, she felt bad for the boy. No one, no matter what scars, should have been treated like that. No one.

Having stayed long enough, just as she was to leave she witness the boy hit the man with a rock. He hit him twice on his head before he grasped his monkey and stood. Terpsichore stood at the gate. Within a second Terpsichore opened the gate with a small smile.

Soon the cries of people began to erupt.

She remembered running for their lives. How she hid him in the chapel and how she snuck him in throw a small window which he managed to slip through.

"I hid him from the world and all its cruelties. He has known nothing else of life since then," a tear dropped onto her cheek as she remembered the cruel past of the Phantom, "except this opera house. It was his playground and now his artistic domain. He's a genius, he's an architect and designer. He's a composure and magician. A genius!" Terpsichore was now on the brink of crying. She refused to believe that he would do this. He was not capable. Not since she took him as her son.

"But, clearly, Madam Terpsichore, genius has turned to madness," Hans explained to her.

Terpsichore did not like that comment. She did not like him being called 'mad' as he was not 'mad' he was a genius in her eyes and always would be. He was her genius adopted son.