The Phantom's Savior

Chapter One

Marie's POV:

        The day my father told me we were going into the city, I was very confused. What was my father, a businessman, doing in the city. He had a great job working with small shops that I had been to almost every day since I was a young child. I knew them like the back of my hand, I felt comfortable with them. So when he said we were to pack up and go, you can imagine my utter disbelief when a few hours later we actually left. 

        It was only my father and I. My mother had abandoned us when I was a child. Not that I really cared. I could not even remember her face. But I heard the talk around the town, after all it was very small. They talked all about my mother, wanting to make it big in the central city. Not wanting to live with her husband and care for her young child. Whenever father heard anyone talking about it around me, he would shame them away. He was very protective, my father. 

        As the carriage bumped up and down along the road, my stomach flew with it. Every bump and turn, made me feel even more nervous. I could not even fathom what would happen when we got there. As I got up the courage to interrupt my father from something he was writing, he spoke up first. 

        "I assume you are wondering why we are leaving the house and going to the city." As he finished what he was saying, I looked up right into his eyes. As we started to laugh, I spoke up.

        "Me? Curious? Not in the slightest." My voice caught as I regained me breath. "Oh course I am! I want to know where we are going and why and what it will be like and-"

        "All in good time Marie." My father patted my head as he spoke down to me. Even though I was old enough to marry and go look down on children of my own, father insisted I stay with him. "When the time is right, my flower", he would always say. 

        What feels like an eternity passes as we sit in silence, him working on something and me looking out the windows trying to suppress the need to throw up. As the night grows near, and I start to drift off, I subconsciously begin to hum a melody. 

        In my mind I play out the scene that I get from it in my head. It first starts out with someone who is very angry, yelling at someone who is very sad. As the angry person leaves, the sad person starts to cry. I picture this sad person's tears watering the ground below creating fields of flowers. Kind of weird, but I like it. That's like everything about me, I am a bit different. 

        What only feels like minutes turns to hours until my father suddenly jerks me awake. He starts to smile and say something I cannot hear because I am yawning so broadly. Rubbing my eyes, I turn to look out the window. What stands before me is something so run down I almost ask my father if the driver took us to the wrong spot. 

        The structure itself it enormous. Six or seven of the house we used to live in could easily fit in here with extra room to spare. No. Make it fifteen houses. This building is so big. But it's burned. The building is so burned, I am afraid to even step in it. All the windows have long since been destroyed, leaving burned frames waiting to be filled.

        Not even realizing what I am doing, my hand starts to run along the front. If only I had seen what this place had looked like before something destroyed it. It probably had beautiful gold statues at the top and people streaming in and out every few minutes. Men with sleeked back hair and beautiful women on their arms were the people who probably came here. I cannot even imagine how beautiful the women probably looked, with their long, shiny dresses and their matching pearls. Oh my, I am working myself into a sweat just thinking about it!

        "Father what are we exactly doing here?" My voice slightly drops. A pit in my stomach begins to form and I begin to feel the need to sit down. My vision begins to cloud and a wave of vertigo flows over me. Suddenly I find myself falling onto the ground and sadly my father cannot move fast enough to catch me. 

        A few days pass by, (at least I think so), and I find myself in a strange bed. In a strange bed, surrounded by people who I have never seen before. They offer me medicine and more blankets but will not answer my questions I have. 

        "Where is my father?" I demand to know, asking every person I see that walks by. Only a few hours pass by until he runs into my room, smothering me in a hug. For a few minutes we just sit there in each others arms. I do not know why he is being like this though. As he clears his throat, beginning to speak, I cut him off.

        "How long was I out? What happened to me? Why are we here? When can we go back home?" My eyes lock with my fathers, waiting for an answer.

        "You were in and out for a day or so. The doctors think that your blood pressure got very high, we will have to keep an eye on that. And we are here to rebuild that building you saw, which could earn us a lot of money," before he answers my last question, he stares at my looking ashamed, "We are not going back to the country side. This is our new home now." At this last part he turns away from me saying something about needing to get me some water. 

        My throat starts to feel tight as I try not to cry. I hate to cry in front of anyone. My father used to say that when I was a baby, I would never cry until only him or my mother were the only people there. When I was younger, I never wanted to believe that. But now I would not believe that that might be mostly true. I can not stop the tears from falling, so I just pull up the sheet around me and quietly cry. Someone enters my room and I quickly wipe my eyes and crawl up to the surface. I am grateful it is not my father who has come back but a nurse. She has kind eyes and she tries to talk to me as she takes my blood pressure. I ask the nurse if she can tell my father I would like to see him and all she does is nod and walk away. I hear him coming before I see him. As he comes over to me I look at him with anger.

        "Why did you not tell me we were never going back?" 

        All he does is continue to stare at me, not even blinking. Finally though, he takes a deep breath and silently asks to sit on my bed. I reluctantly agree and he begins to talk.

        "Ever since your mother left us, we could never escape the talk. It killed me whenever I knew you could hear them. So when I found out about this opportunity, I had to take it. And just not telling you was just so you would come with me easier."

        Doctors and nurses come and go through out the next few days leaving me plenty of time to think. To think about what this building will be used for and what happened to it. But more importantly to think about the situation with my father. I knew he had my best interests in mind, but that place was my home. Even if he did not think it like that, I did. I realized that if we were both going to be together even more now, I had better forgive him. So that's what I did. 

        When I was finally released, we went straight to the building, which I started referring to as 'Our New Beginning'. I was excited. As we climbed the steps, I asked the question I had needing to hear the answer to for days. 

        "Father, what is this building?" I blurt out looking excitedly at him.

        He laughed. "I knew you had been eager to ask. It is an old opera house that we are going to fix and reopen."