Phantom's Legacy
by
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Life can turn on a kiss. One kiss. One kiss that burned into every fiber of my miserable body. One kiss and she tore me to pieces. Th at kiss ended everything. It seared my soul. Somewhere in the dungeon of my being feelings long thought buried crashed against years of carefully constructed walls, and tore them down. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t force her. I would not break the only person to have ever shown me a measure of trust. So I let her go, let her go with him, her young Vicomte. It was over, the game we had played; the play that made fools of all of us. It had to end somehow. There was no choice. There was no choice for me. I had to leave. The police would be hunting me. I could hear the mob’s bloodlust in the drumbeat of their boots as it echoed in the tunnels. There would be no sympathy at their hands, and I was loath to become their plaything. Once had been enough for a dozen lifetimes. I looked around at the grotto where I had dreamed a fantasy, where, for many years, music had been my only companion. Now, like the mirrors around me, that dream lay shattered in a thousand pieces, the music torn, shredded, as was my heart. There was nothing left. Only one thing remained of her. In the clutched fist of my right hand I felt the weight of the ring, the ring her small fingers had put there. She had gone, but she had given me that, a token of trust, a token of affection. I closed my eyes and breathed. Th ey were coming. No more time for thoughts that led nowhere. The play was done. With one last look at what had been home, I walked through the mirror that had brought me to Christine time and time again. In all my years of living within the bowels of the Opera house I had prepared many routes of escape, in case I ever had to leave in a hurry. Even if the police and the mob searched the tunnels beyond the grotto, they would soon become lost in the labyrinth of darkness. I walked through the shadows with confi dence, broken, shattered, but living. No matter how wretched, lonely, or desperate my life had been, and would be, it was still a life, and I wanted to live. I would not let them find me. My days in a cage were done. As I walked through the passageways toward the river, I heard the scuttling of rats. A sardonic smile twisted my mouth. All my years of living beneath the theater had not inured me to the dislike of these creatures, yet tonight I joined their ranks. I was a rat leaving his home that was being consumed by fire. Where life would take me from here only God knew, and I never believed in Him.
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About the Book
1919. A single red rose, a black ribbon, and a ring left beside a cold, lonely grave. A bereaved husband recognizes these tokens left by his wife’s ghostly suitor of long ago, and shows neither surprise nor anger, only profound sadness.
Now the entire story of the long years between madness and mourning is revealed. Drawing on period detail, Lucilla Epps has woven the lives of the Opera Ghost, Christine, Raoul, Meg, Carlotta, and other beloved characters of ‘Phantom of the Opera’ into a rich, complex tale of tumultuous times, creating a tapestry of fear, love, war, and ultimately, hope.
About the Author
Lucilla (Lucy) was born in the beautiful city of
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