The Phantom's Daughter

Chapter Ten

A succession of my traps went off.

I strode out of my little house on the lake (if you can really call it a house it acted more like a fort as I decided to work with the stone walls around me, but hey, it was a warm enclosure and I was able to eat, sleep and cook a little here) and stood outside my doorway listening to them.

Several of them where going off one after the other, like someone was just trespassing through with ease. The bells that I had attacked to them to notify me rang like the loud church bells calling everyone of the faith.

Who or what was out there???

I leaned on my doorway and nonchalantly picked at my nails waiting for them to be done. When I was a little boy and had first come down here at the age of 12, I was terrified of monsters and demons and creatures of the night. But I soon grew out of that fear…when I was 14 after scaring my first victim (by accident at the time) who had seen my face when I went looking for Madeleine, I cried myself to sleep that night and dreamed of being in the presence of all those hideous, scary, mean demons and creatures, but they did not mind me as an adversary…they saw me as one of them. A freak of nature who cannot help how they were brought into this world and they didn’t touch me.

So I learned to no longer fear the night and shadows that moved because I was one of them, and they were my comrades and we lived in peace with each other not bothering each other.

I hadn’t thought about those creatures since I was a young man….I had decided to keep a diary and wrote about them soon after that incident and discovering myself then. Now that was the only explanation I had for who could have been firing off those bells like that, one after another. I pictured it as a pale demon, with a long thick head and tiny eyes that had no use for it, but a large mouth full of teeth. Naked as a mole rate, it crawled on long forearms that had four long phalanges ending in sharp white claws. Little back legs tucked crudely in gave it a false impression that it couldn’t move very well, but yes it could.

I chuckled to myself and went to my little entrance table to write this all down.

The bells rang and rang. I had set them on a timer so they would continue for a few minutes before silencing. When they had quieted I waited a few more minutes and then went to go find my demon.

No one was there.

Confused, I carefully picked through the trail…many of these I had built so they could be set off twice before needing to be reset to ensure the trespasser could not escape.

I walked to the gate that had been set to fall in the victim in the large well. I rolled it up to see if there was a body in the water drowned and unalived.

No one.

“Well there sure is some demon about.” I said to myself, continuing to walk. If the victim was lucky, there was actually a tunnel that would open to the unground lake and eventually lead through yet another gate where my home was. But I made sure my little abode was safely tucked away in a corner so that even the demons would have a hard time to search for it.

Still no one.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked frustrated, but still not scared. It would be the funniest thing if there was an actual ghost that came to haunt this Opera House…what an economical benefit that would be for me, as of course, I was paid for my endeavors.

I went all around the lake, searching through the waters until I circled back to my home.

There, just after the large gate (that I had forgotten to close due to the lack of worry of guests) half up on the shore, was a small child.

I paused for a moment, looking back to where the entrance of my house was. How had I missed her? Was my vision going out now as well? I knew that happened when one was kept in constant darkness but I had always prided myself on adapting to seeing in the dark like a cat. Of course, looking at the small notes of sheet music all day didn’t help, and I guess I wasn’t as in my prime before as I used to be.

I hurried to the entrance of my house to look at the spot where the child lay.

By fire and brimstone, the way she was tucked in the corner she gave the appearance of a rock in the shadows that I had completely ignored. I was growing lazy and failing to be on constant alert, ignoring those tiny little details. I would have to do better so that I was always on my toes and one step ahead. I had grown complacent in my quiet, unbothered life.

I stood over the child and sighed, unsure of what to make of this situation. I vaguely remember her arriving at the Opera House, but she was supposed to be just a scullery maid. She was in black breeches and a simple red shirt, her hair was a beautiful auburn hair that had come loose. I picked her up; she was light as a feather and so still and unresponsive I almost thought her dead. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old; a tiny little thing scrawny and beat up all over, one of her legs severely injured from my bear trap I had set out—truly a lucky little bugger to have gotten away with an injury, that thing could have snapped her leg in half.

That would also explain the messenger bag I found caught on the water trap—it must be hers. I had it out drying, and she needed some fresh clothes and her wounds taken care of.

“You’re an amazing little thing for surviving all my traps.” I told the sleeping child, taking her inside to clean her up. “And for that I’ll reward you with a warm bed and some food when you wake up.”