The Beauty Underneath ● The Phantom of the Opera

Chapter 4

◌The Twin◌

We had searched through the night. Asked neighbors and random folk walking the streets if they had seen her. We had even searched Phantasma, even though I knew that was the last place she would have gone. Everyone responded the same. Everyplace we looked turned up the same result. She was nowhere to be found.

I had wanted to keep going. Maybe even leave Coney Island and search elsewhere. Gustave had ended the search. I wanted to argue. To tell him she had never been that--angry. But Gustave was right. It was late and we couldn't search properly in this state.

So, with a worry heavy heart, I followed Gustave back to the house. As we passed Phantasma, the trio--made up of Dr. Gangle, Miss. Fleck, and Squelch--lingered outside, looking like they were up to no good. "Any luck finding the young mistress?" Gangle asked, leaning against the building-like Squelch. Gustave shook his head. 

"Unfortunately not. But if you wouldn't mind, keep an eye out for her."

"Anything for the young master."

"Wouldn't want the Demon Twins separated for too long," Fleck spoke from where she sat on the iron fence, her long, fishnetted legs crossed. Demon Twins. It had been years since I heard that title. Melodie might hate Phantasma and all it's oddities now, but back in the day, she loved it more than anything.

She and I had a natural talent for acrobatics. Miss. Fleck had seen this and took us under her sparrow's wing. She taught us everything she knew. We had excelled and earned the name 'Demon Twins'. Mother didn't like it one bit, but Melodie and I hadn't cared because we were the Demon Twins. It was in our blood. But that had all changed when Melodie and father started fighting more and more. She turned her back on our act and I was left in the dust of their carnage. I gave the bird-like woman a small smile. 

"Yes...wouldn't want that." And off Gustave and I went, the trio watching us go. 

"Those three have always...unsettled me." I shrugged.

"I've never minded them that much." The door flung open as soon as we were a foot away from home. Father's masked, stress lined face scanned over us and then the spot where Melodie should have been. His face crumbled into sorrow. Now this unsettled me. Father never let us see him like this. See him vulnerable.

"What have I done?" He cried, falling to his knees. Gustave was instantly at his side, helping our father back into the house. "My little girl...what have I done?" I scanned the dark streets, hoping she would appear. When only the sound of crickets and my father's broken voice meet my ears, I shut the door.