Echoes of a Song: Legacy of the Mask, #1

By A L Butcher

A dozen tumultuous years after the dramatic events at the Paris Opera House Raoul, Comte de Chagny is still haunted by the mysterious Opera Ghost – the creature of legend who held staff at the Opera House under his thrall, kidnapped Raoul's lover and murdered his brother. In Raoul's troubled imagination the ghosts of the past are everywhere, and a strange and powerful music still calls in his dreams.

Madness, obsession and the legacy of the past weave their spell in this short, tragic tale based on the Phantom of the Opera.

Winner of the 2019 NN Light reviewer award for Fantasy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A L Butcher
• Release date: Feb 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386978312

A L Butcher

British-born Alexandra Butcher (a/k/a  A. L. Butcher) is an avid reader and creator of worlds, a poet, and a dreamer, a lover of science, natural history, history, and monkeys. Her prose has been described as ‘dark and gritty’ and her poetry as evocative.  She writes with a sure and sometimes erotic sensibility of things that might have been, never were, but could be.

Book preview

Echoes of a Song

A short tale of the Phantom of the Opera

by A. L. Butcher

A Legacy of the Mask Tale

Copyright

©A. L. Butcher 2016 , 2017, 2018

Print Edition 2018.

An original short story based on characters and events from The Phantom of the Opera created by Gaston Leroux 1910

Original cover art by

©[e-mail]

All rights reserved.

Other images via Creative Commons

The right of A. L. Butcher to be identified as the author of this particular work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Contents

Echoes of a Song

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Epilogue

Author Bio

Also by this author

Chapter 1

He who has never hoped can never despair.

- G. B Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra, Act 4

GASLIGHT GUTTERED IN the chill springtime wind coming through a loose lattice frame. The glass moved slightly, dancing the flame and causing a slight whistle, just at the edge of hearing. Most people would have found it audible enough to be irritating, but the solitary figure in the library barely noticed - for he yearned for a different song. It was a maddening song, a captivating song; he could not quite hear the refrain – and yet knew he was not worthy of it. This was a song which had haunted him for more than a dozen years and haunted him still.

A small gilt-edged book fell from his fingers and thudded to the floor, rousing the man abruptly from his reverie. Desperately he scrabbled for it, as though it were a precious jewel, as it slid beneath his chair. Of all the books in the large library of the Chateau Marguerite this small, thin, faded book was his favourite, and the only one he read. Of little material worth it was, to the reader, a jewel beyond comparison and he cradled it to him. Raoul wept. So absorbed was he that he did not even hear the sound of his children singing in another part of the house. Startling as the door opened Raoul almost dropped the book once again and turned