Haunted

Chapter 8:

Ashley

I was crazy.

Coping with Zach's adultery, dealing with the divorce that followed, disappointment stemming from my dead-end job, and stress from my recent transatlantic travel had all apparently coalesced to push me past the tipping point of my sanity, and now, as a result, I was completely, one-hundred-percent, batshit crazy. How else would I explain what I was seeing now?

No. There was no other explanation. Because, here, in the real world nothing else but being one-hundred-percent batshit crazy made any sort of sense.

The Phantom of the Opera was a book. It wasn't real! Some guy made it all up. Well, okay, there was the part at the very beginning where the author claimed that the Opera Ghost had really existed, but I'd always figured it was there as some sort of a plot device, not something to be actually be believed!

And even if I did decide to suspend reality and pretend that such things could actually happen, the question still remained: why? What did the Opera Ghost have to do with the ring? From the information I'd gathered from the episode with the candle, he wasn't condemned to wander the spirit realm because he had lost it and had been searching for it, nor did it have anything to do with how he actually died. At this point I wasn't sure if it was even his. Every time I tried to ask if it belonged to someone else, he would cause a disturbance and the conversation would come to a screeching halt.

I needed something to calm me down, something to take the edge of my mounting panic and help me sort everything out. I pushed off my bed and went downstairs to the kitchen, where I rummaged through all the clutter on my kitchen table until I found a half-consumed bottle of merlot. Yanking out the cork, I skipped the glass and took a long pull straight from the neck of the bottle. Eventually I needed to find a healthier coping mechanism before I became a full-blown alcoholic, but at that moment I couldn't care less.

I chugged the rest of the wine and set the bottle down on the table with a heavy clunk. Then I ran my hands through my hair and took a deep, cleansing breath. I could already feel the effects of the liquor warming my veins as it slithered its way through my bloodstream.

All right, what did I know? I knew that I was being haunted by someone who bore a striking resemblance to the Phantom of the Opera. I also knew that I was currently wearing a ring that held significant value to him, whether it was his or it belonged to someone he knew. So, if it wasn't his, then who would have been special enough to him that removing said ring from the cellars would have thrust his spirit into this day and age?

A thought tickled the far reaches of my mind, just beyond my grasp. It seemed like I should know the answer to this, almost like I had seen it before....

Oh, shit.

I raced back upstairs, taking the steps two at a time until I reached the landing. Sprinting into my bedroom, I snatched my e-reader off the nightstand and switched it on, scanning back and forth through the electronic pages of The Phantom of the Opera until I found the passage I was looking for. There, located at the very end of the last chapter, was the part about the Phantom giving Christine a plain gold wedding ring in exchange for her freedom, along with his blessing for her to marry the Vicomte de Chagny. All that he asked in return was that she come back after receiving notice of his death and bury him with it.

All the blood drained from my face, and suddenly, despite the lingering heat of the day, I was cold all over. A sharp twinge in my stomach was all the warning I received before its contents, now swimming in half a bottle of wine, flip-flopped. Scrambling off the bed like my life depended on it, I raced into the bathroom, fell to my knees on the soft, cushy bathmat in front of the toilet, and heaved up everything I had ate and drank earlier that evening.