Me: Ok, I think this might be one of my best stories yet!

Erik: You're full of yourself. It's just another story of a phangirl ending up in my world.

Me: True, but this one is actually well written, if I do say so myself.

Zenn: I like it.

Aemilia: Go away, dragon boy, you're not even in this story.

Zenn: Well neither are you!

Erik: Both of you leave before I Punjab you!

Aemilia: You know that never works.

Me: Hey!

Zenn, Aemilia, and Erik: -silence-

Me: Now, are we going to do this or not?

Erik: Fine.

Aemilia: Can I watch?

Me: No! Now both you and Zenn leave. Now.

Aemilia: But I don't want to!

Me: Go! Before I set Mary Erika on you!

Aemilia: -grumbles-

Zenn: -walks away disappointed-

Me: Now, Erik, would you care to do the honors?

Erik: No.

Me: Please?

Erik: No!

Me: -whispers- Do the disclaimer or I take your mask.

Erik: Fine! No one owns anything Phantom of the Opera related! There! Happy?

Me: Very. I hope you readers have enjoyed this little bout of Muses! Now, on with the story!

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A girl sat cross-legged on her bed in silent anticipation. Squares of paper surrounded her, along with hundreds of tiny, paper birds. Cranes. She had folded over nine hundred, at least. Soon, very soon, she would finish.

Nine hundred and ninty-five…

She brushed an auburn strand of hair out of her eyes, only to have it fall back into her line of vision. Out of frustration, she took hold of the single, annoying piece of hair and yanked it straight out of her scalp. It hurt, but she ignored the stinging.

Nine hundred and ninety-six…

Her watch beeped to tell her it was five o’clock. Her parents would be home soon. She was supposed to have been doing her homework for the past hour and a half, but she wanted to finish the last hundred or so cranes.

Nine hundred and ninety-seven…

Her unopened AP Language book sat on her pillow. She should have been reading about rhetoric and ethos, logos, and pathos, as well as the use of the rhetorical triangle in literature, but stuff like that bored her almost to tears. She already understood it, anyway.

Nine hundred and ninety-eight…

She was almost there. Two more and she would find out if the ancient Japanese legend was true. If it wasn’t, then she’d have to explain why she’d been stealing paper from her mother’s wide variety of office supplies. Usually, the paper would have gone unnoticed, but she had gone through almost two reams of her mother’s best quality printer paper. If it was true, then she knew exactly what to wish for.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine…

She pulled her ear buds out of her ears, cutting off Sharon den Adel’s voice right in the middle of the second chorus of ‘It’s the Fear’, and shut off her iPod. The last crane, the thousandth, had to be perfect, down to last crease. There couldn’t be any distractions.

One thousand!

She was done, but nothing happened. Wasn’t something supposed to happen? She sighed, mildly annoyed with herself. Why had she believed that old story? It was a weakness of hers: she always thought myths were true, no matter how outlandish.

“Does this mean Phantom of the Opera is fake, too?” she asked to no one in particular. She picked up her worn copy of Kay’s Phantom and held it close. It was her favorite story, and she had always wanted nothing more than to enter its pages and meet its characters. That was her wish.

I wish I had a way to go into the story of Phantom of the Opera. She closed her eyes tight and wished hard. Whether or not the cranes worked, she would make the wish anyway. I wish I had a way to go into the story of Phantom of the Opera.

“I wish I had a way to go into the story of Phantom of the Opera,” she said it out loud, almost like a prayer. She repeated it over and over, louder each time, as if the more she said it, the greater the chance it had of coming true. In a fit of inspiration, she started to flip through the pages of the book in her hands, in a vain hope that a door had opened somewhere inside it. Nothing. She slammed the book down in frustration. She sighed, and wiped away the tears that were beginning to collect in her eyes. She had truly believed it. Why couldn’t it be true?

Oh well, she thought. Might as well get started on that homework. Her parents were going to be mad once they found she hadn’t even started it. She turned back to her bed and started to push the thousand cranes into a box. She froze. Her fingers had raked up against something hard and cold.

“That wasn’t there before,” she whispered to herself. Slowly, she pushed the rest of the paper birds into the box. Lying facedown on her bed was a silver hand mirror, the kind with a handle that was used in the 1800’s. Very gently, she picked it up and looked at it closely. The back was either silver of pewter; she could never tell which was which. There was a design on it, too: a rose, molded out of the shimmering metal, and the handle had a vine etched into it. It was a pretty little thing, and was no doubt worth a good amount of money. Maybe she could take it to the antiques shop down the road and get it appraised.

She turned the mirror over and nearly dropped it in surprise. Instead of the shiny, reflective surface she was expecting, was a window. At least, that was the best way she could describe it. It was like she was peering into another world. It was a detailed image of the inside of an opera house. It looked so real that it was almost as if she could go right through the mirror and into the scene.

She reached out a finger. She wanted to touch it, just to see if it was real, or just a picture. The tip of her finger made contact with the picture. It was smooth and cool like glass. Nothing happened.

Suddenly, she felt a tingling sensation run down her finger, through her hand, and up her arm. It was almost as if her hand had fallen asleep. She wanted to shake her hand and get the circulation moving again, but she couldn’t move. She could barely breathe. It felt as if something was squeezing her ribcage. The tingling feeling spread throughout the rest of her body; her vision went dark as her face went numb.

Falling, she was falling, but she couldn’t move, she couldn’t draw breath to scream.

She landed on something soft. The feeling had returned to her limbs, and she opened her eyes. She felt dizzy and nearly fainted when she started hyperventilating. She was in the picture! Only everything was moving!

Then she realized she was sitting in a chair near the back of the opera house. She tried to sit up straighter, but found it very difficult, as she was wearing a rather tight corset. She pulled herself up, and found that, along with the corset, she was wearing a dress out of the 1800’s. It was plain brown, partially covered by a white apron, and the poufy skirt went all the way to the floor.

“Noëlle!” a curt voice shouted. “What are you doing over there?” The girl looked around to see who the voice was shouting at. “Noëlle, look at me!” The girl looked up when a thin, stern woman appeared in front of her.

“Me?” the girl asked, pointing to herself.

“Yes, you! Honestly, girl, you need to get your head out of the clouds and back on Earth where it belongs. Now, Boxes One through Seven need to be swept and all the costumes have to be pressed before the performance tonight, and I expect it to all be done before La Carlotta gets here at three for the dress rehearsal this afternoon. You know she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

The girl didn’t move. She was confused. Who was Noëlle, and why did this woman think she was Noëlle?

“Get to work!” the woman shouted. “Noëlle, I know you’ve only just started here four days ago, but you need to get moving. If you don’t understand anything, find Adeline. She’ll set you straight.” The girl still didn’t move.

“Move, Noëlle!” The woman stormed off.

“My name is Natalie,” the girl muttered before grabbing the broom next to her. She stood and started to look around for some stairs that might lead her to the boxes. Might as well play along…

This was going to be quite the adventure.

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Me: Now, how did you like that?

Erik: Please don't tell me you're going to have that girl fall in love with me.

Me: Now, Erik, we can't go giving away the story! That's something for the readers to find out!

Aemilia: Can I come back in now?

Me: No!

Aemilia: Please?

Me: That's it! -opens Mary Erika cage- Get her my cross-dressing fop!

Aemilia: Meep!

Mary Erika: -yells incoherently and charges-

Aemilia: -runs away-

Mary Erika: -swipes at Aemilia, misses, trips on a bug, and does a faceplant-

Me: -giggles- That's always funny! Now be good readers and review for me!