Chapter Text
Raoul wasn’t one of those people who believed in the saying “we don’t make deals with terrorists” because in his mind he would do anything if it kept people alive. Which meant sadly that he would have to deal with the opera ghost. The man started sending him personal letters after he became a patron of the opera house. Bypassing the two managers, to their outward delight. And Raoul would have probably done the sensible thing and just paid the mad man if it wasn’t for the terrible penmanship that the letters were in. The letters were in red chicken scratch. Raoul could barely read any of it and had to ask quite a few people, ending with Christine, if they could help him translate it.
This Raoul decided would not do. If they were supposed to have a partnership then they would have to understand each other and Raoul refused to have to try finding someone that could read the letters each time the ghost decided to grace them with one. Which is why on a very sunny day Raoul decided to hunt through the dark corners of the old opera house and find the opera ghost.
When he told this to the two managers they almost fainted, fearful for what would happen to their illustrious patron. Christine also tried to distract him from his goal, terrified that the ghost would hang him like he did to the stage hand, but Raoul wasn’t one to be easily swayed. If he was he would have listened to his brother about not joining the army or becoming a patron for a dying opera house.
With a map of the opera and a lamp, Raoul started scouring through the opera house. He started in the middle going downward, sure that the ghost probably used the extensive Paris catacombs rather than the wooden roofs of the theater. He wasn’t very successful and he quickly learned how useless the map was. The opera house seemed to be a living beast with rooms appearing and disappearing and ever so often he would hear a murmur as if the house itself was breathing or mocking him. Raoul cannot count the number of times he accidentally walked into someone's dressing room and if his brother heard of his excursion he would surely laugh himself sick. But Raoul was determined to find the ghost and to fix their communication problem.
It was midafternoon when Raoul was forced to take a break from his searching.
He climbed up to the roof of the opera, tired of being under the darkness of the building. His mother, while she was alive, would call him her sunshine child as he often cried if not allowed to run around in the sun. Of course this was before she found him with the stable boy. The house got very quiet after that.
Raoul distracted himself with thoughts of his mother and the opera ghost as he ate his lunch on the edge of the roof when he heard a soft click and a swing behind him.
It was a small door made out of the same stone as the gargoyles and edgings of the roof. When looking at the door closed it would be completely camouflage between the filigree of the parapets.
Raoul waited for a few seconds, wondering if someone would come out of the door, but when no one did he stood up.
Raoul knew from the anecdotes told to him by the inhabitants of the opera house that the opera ghost seemed to have a relationship with the building. The house seemed to bend to his will, from hiding him to creating places that weren’t there before to distract the ones looking for him. The door was small and Raoul would have to bend down if he wanted to fit, but he wasn't going to leave the ghost waiting.
Raoul had heard many stories of the ghost. Many he didn't believe, but they all created an aura around him. Some mentioned the deaths around the opera house that sounded too bewildering to be true. About the hanging of the stage hand and the sickness that plagued Charlotta so that she was bound to her bed, unable to sing. Other stories talked about the seductiveness of the ghost. The ballerinas would gossip about how they were often seduced by a masculine voice leading them from one room to the next in a daze, feeling like forever and no time has passed. Raoul didn’t know what stories were true or what version of the ghost he would be meeting today.
The murderer or the seducer.
Raoul wasn’t sure which one he feared the most.
Taking a few more deep breaths, Raoul steadied himself, he couldn’t help the theater if he couldn’t communicate with the ghost and in the direction they were currently heading he would have to hire a scribe to just read the opera ghost’s letter.
Raoul stood in front of the small stone door and stepped into the cramped hallway. The door swung closed behind him and he was suddenly engulfed in complete darkness. That is when Raoul started hearing masculine voice singing, enticing him to follow into the deep.