#( erik's like okay how to i maintain peak ghost )

[delanuit]

The little Jammes girl was quite the accomplished ghost hunter, Erik had to admit. While the other ballet rats cowered in fear at his little tricks, she would be the one leaping to action, dogging his trail like a determined bloodhound. The little terrors he offered to the jeunne filles in the corps de ballet were mostly for his own amusement as well as theirs . . . there were none better than the gossip-hungry dancers or chorus girls to help his legend grow. They could always be counted on to stretch their tales, to embellish his small acts into larger than life horrors. The fear his presence inspired was entertaining of course, but also necessary to protect himself and the living he’d come to expect from the managers. They paid very well to keep a ghost.

This young girl was not a threat, not really — at least not one he was prepared to take very seriously. It amused him to drop little clues, to linger longer than was necessary to provide more information to her growing dossier on his movements. She could always be seen jotting little notes, compiling evidence against him. The Lord knew what she intended to do with this information; perhaps it was simply a hobby to keep her mind occupied during tedious rehearsals. Still, Erik took great care to never lead her anywhere dangerous, anywhere that would give away more information than he cared for any outsider to have. The last thing he needed was some accident and her tragic death to lure swarms of policemen and curious reporters into his domain.

This time, however, it seemed he had not been careful enough. It was not his lack of speed nor skill which allowed her to slip behind him into the hidden corridor, but rather a failure in the mechanism which concealed and locked the passage door. Erik mentally cursed himself, and resolved to make more regular checks on all of his trapdoors in future. For now, at least, he was safely out of sight. But it would be no small feat to lead her from these tunnels unscathed and without revealing himself to her.

“ Well? I’m here, little one, ” he affected his best ghostly tone and threw his voice so it seemed to come from the tunnel branching left, which would lead her safely back towards the lower level beneath the main stage. “ Aren’t you trying to catch a phantom? ”

for @delanuit

So many had asked why Little Jammes was the way she was, so foolhardy, so impulsive, a daredevil with such a loud call of the void. Perhaps she was as mad as her mother, or this relentless ghost hunt of hers served as some escape from a grim reality, taking care of her dying mother and barely making enough to scrape by. But to a mind as young as the dancer's the answer was simple: This opera house was now a home to her, and the Phantom was causing trouble within it.

Another day, another chase, and to make up for Cecile's lack in elegance and poise was an abundance of energy, and the ability to take giant leaps without hesitation. Sprinting forward as her friends would scream in fright as another haunting concluded. Flying down stairs, sprinting through backstage halls before once again, damn! He vanished again, slinking into the shadows, seemingly passing through the wall.

However, the secret door she theorized hid within stalled when closing, giving her just enough time to slink in. "Ha!" She laughed to herself, finally, she always knew it to be true, that within the map of the Palais Garnier hid a myriad of hidden tunnels and entrances, short-cuts, but why?

She took out a scrap of paper and charcoal from her pocket, and scribbled down. Hollow wall, back end of storage room. Now she knew that this was there, there was little else to do but continue to follow the shadow until she caught him, or he caught her.