"Fred!" Clara called banging on the door, "Fred open the door!"

The noise of unlocking brought relief so strong in Clara's heart that she consider falling to her knees right then and there.

"Ilios?!" the drowsy looming figure at the door asked slowly. "Is that you?!"

Clara shook her head frantically and pushed herself through the door, forcing it closed behind her and locking it.

"I'm not Ilios." She stated firmly, "I'm Clara. I need your help." 

"Clara who?" Fred baffled. 

"Chloe Claraice Dechangy."

Fred stepped backward, "You died." 

"I clearly didn't."

"But-" Fred gaped, "You did!"

"I was in a school in London. I know everything." 

She pushed her way past him and peered out the windows shutting then after her. 

"Last I saw you-you were newly born, barely a speck of a human in Aunt Chloes arms," Fred exclaimed, "You shouldn't be here! Why are you here?"

"I didn't have a choice," Clara mumbled, shutting all the blinds in the next room as well and once again checking the streets through the windows.

"Fred what's going on?" A tender voice said from the stairwell.

"My-my-Cousin? is here," Fred said slowly, his voice filled of wonder and maravelment. "My cousin of all people!"

"Listen I know...things between us aren't great, but I need to stay here awhile, there's some people after me and..." She collapsed in his chair from the exhaustion of the night.

"Clara," Fred said sternly "tell me who's after you."

She thought that over.

"My Father," Clara said with a sigh. "Plus one Opera Ghost."

Fred let out a loud and hearty laugh.

Clara's face turned to stone and stared blankly at her cousin, exhausted by her plight.

Fred put a hand down on the table, "You're...not...joking?"

Clara threw her hands up, helplessly shrugging off his cousin's disbelief.

"Claraice im near positive that this man whoever he is that follows you is not your Father!"  Fred said with the highest level of concern, "No matter what you've done, where you've been you owe it to the honor of the family to set this matter straight. I'm sure we can sort it all out with my Father."

"You trust your Father?" Anabel said suddenly emerging from the stairs. 

She had grown older in the past few years, her eyes losing a bit of light but maintaining their fierce countenance. 

"Anabel," Fred said shaking his head, "Let's not speak of those times it is different now."

"Think of what he did with that poor child-" Anabel started, Fred sent her a glance. 

"I know about Winnie," Clara said firmly. "And Eli does too." 

Fred took the small girl by the shoulders, "You told him?! How did you find him?! It can't be true! All is ruined." 

"I know she's my sister!" Clara shouted, "I know your Father hid her away down there so she'd be out of the way of inheritance for good!"

"Your sister?" Fred scoffed. 

Poor delusional child. 

"Winnie isn't your sister," Anabel stated resolutely. "Raoul is her Father." 

"As he is mine!" Chloe exclaimed, "I've seen my tuition papers, I know who put me into the school. My Father! The Comte Dechangy! " 

Fred looked at her in heartbreak, slowly he led her to a chair, "Sit child," He said firmly. 

"Raoul Vicomte Dechangy is not your father." 

"Then who is?" She laughed. 

"The question is dearest one," Anabel sighed with a sad smile, placing her hand gently on hers, "Who is your Mother?"

Clara frowned, "My Mother?"

"What was her name, Chloe?" Fred asked after a moment's hesitation. "What was your Mothers name?" 

"I-I don't recall."

Fred gave a moan of pain and looked his cousin in the eyes when he had collected himself he began his narrative. 

"Her name was Chloe." 

The narrative went as follows:

Raoul had spent all his life running to his sister when in trouble. But for once she had ran to him. Her husband had spent all his money on a roulette table in monte carlo, the scandal of the century. they had traveled so much and among so many of the low scum that surrounded London in the musky hotels of summer. 

 Raoul had received the letter early one August morning. 

Come quick, your sister has fallen ill. 

When he arrived at her side, after kissing his wife goodbye, what he saw made him chilled to the bone. 

Such a chill he had never felt since seeing Erik. 

He had always known she had married a jerk, convinced there was no such thing as ugly, that in the darkness she could find light and fix him. But he was a rotten man, absorbed in his own finances and pride. No amount of love could change his core.

"Raoul," She had whispered hoarsely with a haunting smile, "Come brother and sit beside me."

He had removed his overcoat, just as he used to do when they were children and knelt at her side. "Hello, Chloe."

"Have you seen the new baby yet?" She said weakly with a proud smile. "She's beautiful. Not as beautiful as my Clariece, but she will do." 

Raoul looked to the empty crib across the room, clearly, his sister was hallucinating. She was worse than he had thought. 

"Has a Doctor come?" he asked gravely. 

She ignored his comment, "Do you remember that day at the Opera house as children?"

Raoul frowned and shook his head. 

"You were young," She laughed delusionally, "Poor poor man. A poor man in that poor box." 

Raoul frowned, had she lost her senses? He didn't recall ever going to the opera with his sister, in fact, he remembered her avoiding it all costs.

"How sad," She said slowly with tears filling her eyes, "I would rather had liked to love him instead." 

Her voice choked and coughs crackled and richoched through her lungs. 

Raoul let steady streams of tears cascade down his cheeks, "Stay with me. Please."

She looked at him with wide, hazy eyes, she stared deeply, emotionlessly, but her smile, the soft upturnings of her lips assured him she felt no pain. 

"I only wish-" She laughed thinking of the Opera Ghost, "I could have said goodbye."

With that, the color faded from her rosy cheeks, and the poor girl who had once emanated so much life fell asleep evermore.

Raoul stood up in a broken rage. 

"Chloe." He moaned kicking the wall angrily and putting a hand to his head. He could barley contain his sobs. "Sister-"

Her husband peered in through the doorway, "Has she gone at last?"

Raoul felt a proper rage, one he had never even felt towards Erik. 

"You Monster," He screamed charging the man and pinning him to the floor.

------

Here Fred shook his head and gave a small laugh, "It took five men to pry Raoul off him. And god knows your Father deserved everything he got. He got two broken ribs a black eye, and later the same illness that took your Mother. He never saw a penny of the money he married her for."

Fred continued his story:

 "Of course, Your Father didn't have the money to continue paying tuition for you. He had spent so much time making sure you wouldn't be in the will that he forgot to take you out of it. 

Your Mothers will stated that her living children would receive the money first, before him, on their sixteenth birthday should they live that long.

On his death bed, he eventually revealed to Raoul your existence and Raoul took it as his responsibility to pay your schooling and lodging. 

Raoul returned home, a broken but wiser man to his wife and to his horror found she had died soon after the birth of his child. 

It was his greatest pain, missing seeing her born. He had waited so long, and the devastation of seeing anything wrong with her was more than he could bear. 

He loved Winnie desperately.

We're it not for her I don't think he would have had any reason left to stick around this lousy planet.

It had been his hope, so he often told me, that he would one day retrieve you to live with him. 

However, when he finally saved enough up and went to fetch you and inform the world you were Clara's daughter, that dreadful car accident happened. 

He died and my father did what he felt was best."

Anabel looked up with wide eyes, "We went to look for you the week after he died, at the school but you were gone. They found a body in the well the next day, some poor child fell in while walking in the night. We thought it was you, who else could it be?" 

Clara let a few tears roll down her cheeks. "She loved me? My Mother."

"Adored you."

Clara frowned, "Then I do have a sibling after all?! Where is she?!"

Fred glanced at Anabel nervously, "We don't know." 

His eyes looked to the window, a nervous knot tying in his stomach as a sillioutte of a man passed. 

"But I have a feeling we're about to find out."