Free A Phantom Enchantment by Eve Marie Mont

meet them.
    â€œNot a chance,” I said.
    â€œI know that kiss we shared last year still haunts you. The memory is starting to fade, and you’re beginning to wonder if it was as scorching as you remember.”
    I shook my head and laughed. Tonight Flynn looked like a handsome street urchin wearing the throwaways from some misbegotten marching band. He’d found this crazy tuxedo at a thrift shop, with toreador pants and a cropped jacket with silver embroidery and epaulettes. The weird thing was, he pulled it off.
    Owen and Elise were still fighting over the padlocks, and I didn’t want it to ruin the evening. Or Owen’s birthday. “Guys, we should get to the theater,” I said, my lame version of an intervention. “I want to take some pictures before the opera begins.”
    They reluctantly agreed, but despite the delicious meal we’d eaten, we all left with a sour taste in our mouths.
    The Palais Garnier was even more magnificent than I had imagined. Its façade looked like an ornate Greek temple, topped with that famous green dome and a frieze flanked by two golden angels on either end.
    But it was the interior that swept me away, taking me back to turn-of-the-century Paris. We walked past the buxom Greek goddesses holding the weight of this golden world on their heads and floated up the Grand Staircase in a daze, taking in the grandeur of our surroundings—the marble columns and arches, the ivory cherubs, the baroque intricacy of the ceiling, and the warm glow of a dozen candelabras.
    Once on the second floor, we watched the parade of beautiful people below us strolling down corridors, kissing in alcoves, perching on gilded landings. I took a number of photos and texted them to Gray, Michelle and Jess, my dad, and Grandma.
    The theater itself was immense, round, and sumptuous—like a decadent red velvet layer cake. The domed ceiling was awash with the vibrant colors of a Chagall painting, from which hung the famous chandelier, said to weigh six tons. No wonder Gaston Leroux had woven this into his Phantom story. Even with our modern knowledge of engineering, I still marveled at how it hung there, seemingly suspended in midair.
    Finding our seats was an adventure, as we were on the third loge sandwiched tightly between dozens of seated guests. Elise squeezed into her seat first, followed by Owen, then me, then Flynn. Our seats were so close together I could smell Owen’s and Flynn’s colognes competing.
    The opera was Orphée et Eurydice, a tragic myth about a man who descends into the depths of hell to retrieve the woman he loves. Of course it doesn’t end well. Orpheus sings his emotional plea to the gods, begging them to bring Eurydice back to life. The gods agree given one condition: He must leave the underworld without looking back at Eurydice.
    He agrees, and Eurydice is resurrected. But she doubts Orpheus’s love and refuses to follow him unless he looks at her. Orpheus finally relents and turns to embrace her, but her body falls limp in his arms. A grief-stricken Orpheus sings his final lament: “What shall I do without Eurydice? Where shall I go without my love?”
    At the height of this drama and passion, Flynn flopped onto my shoulder, sound asleep. “Are you for real?” I said, waking him up.
    He startled, then laughed at himself. “Sorry. Too much wine.”
    As the curtains closed, the audience applauded, but there was an undercurrent of discontent. How could the story end this way? In general, people didn’t like sad endings, even in France, a country that elevated the cruel ironies of life into an art form.
    The four of us gathered our jackets and stumbled out of the Opera House onto Rue Scribe, the street made famous by Gaston Leroux as the source of the hidden entrance to the Phantom’s underground lair.
    â€œSo what did you think?” Elise asked, pulling out a cigarette.
    â€œFlynn fell asleep,” I