Standard Disclaimer: No, of course I don't own Phantom of the Opera. It was written and copyrighted by Gaston Leroux but now it owns me. All my Eriks are Leroux-based both in appearance and temperament.

Author's Note: Greetings, dear friends! I missed you so much I couldn't help but post a little Thanksgiving gift for all of you. I admit this bit is rather strange-ish and I readily accept that it is not likely to be nearly as well-liked as some of my other stuff because it's... well... I guess it leaves you hanging. Of course, that's because it's an excerpt.

Erik entered the girl's tent, his head bent low so that the hood of his cloak concealed even his mask. The tent was dark, but his eyes adjusted quickly. The smell of incense was pungent he noticed, even to him. He idly wondered how a person with a fully formed nose could bear even a whiff if with his own empty hole directly into his sinuses he felt overwhelmed by the odor.

He paused just inside the tent flaps and glanced back to ensure they had fallen properly closed behind him. A man entered a gypsy girl's tent for only one of two reasons, surely. One of these was utterly forbidden to such as him, while the other he would never admit. Mindless superstition he told himself. And yet, here he was. He took two shuffling steps forward, his eyes still upon the ground, then he stopped and dared to glance up as the girl rose. She sauntered toward him—or perhaps she merely walked, but he could not help but notice the sway of her hips as she came forth from behind her little red-draped table, could not resist glancing at the length of her legs and the curve of her hips as she came nearer.

So rare it was to have any woman come so close, he gave himself over to the temptation to look upon what he could see of her. He did not raise his eyes to look above her waist, however, at the turquoise colored blouse slung low over her breasts, at the silver necklaces that that hung just above them or the amber charm which slipped inside the blouse and nestled between. He did not raise his eyes to meet hers, to see whether her scarves fully covered her face or merely her hair. He kept his eyes averted and his hands close to his sides. He greeted her with a bow, the only formal gesture he found appropriate, for to take her hand would be scandalous, to kiss her, suicide.

She spread her skirts wide and curtsied back at him. He lost himself in the patterns of the fabric of her skirts for a moment.

"Come," she uttered, returning to the rickety little chair behind her table. He noticed she left empty a sturdier more comfortable wooden chair with arms for him across the table from her. He eased himself into it slowly, wary for tricks. He glanced left and right. What reason had she to invite him here? What reason had she to abandon her fear? And yet, perhaps it was true that the gypsies feared none, had no reason to fear, for their power was so great.

Nonsense! He shook his head. He knew it was utter foolishness, as were his own acts of ledgerdemain, his own ventriloquism. He could predict the future as well as she could, surely, if only he knew the trick involved. He smiled beneath his mask. She knew he was a magician, and she brought him into her tent nevertheless. She was so confident he could not steal her tricks, was she? Ah, but she was too trusting. He would take anything and everything he could from her, for it was a matter of survival.

Her bracelets clinked as the gestured over the table. "Look at me," she said softly in a tone that was almost a chant.

"I am," he said, his eyes boring up at her seemingly through the top of his head while he kept his face inclined.

"Ah," she breathed softly. "Lift your head," she said. "Raise your eyes." She peered into his eyes carefully but glanced away quickly as though aware it would disturb him. He glanced down at the red silk table cover and that is when he saw the crystal ball. He stared into its depths but saw nothing but an inverted reflection of the face of the young girl across from him—the partially covered face, for she had tossed the loose ends of her turquoise and gold scarves over one shoulder, and they obscured her mouth and chin. With the crystal ball between them, gazing into it rather than directly upon her features, he could look upon her without discomfort and he admitted to himself that what he could see was pleasing and the fact that he could not see all was more pleasing still, for it left his imagination to run wild. He closed his eyes a moment. He was cursed with such an imagination! He wondered if those with fully formed faces had imaginations such as his or whether such a thing was merely another part of his curse. He sighed and opened his eyes, still focused where the crystal ball sat. The golden scarf had been rearranged so that he could see the lovely curve of her lips as well. Such a delicate creature she seemed, and yet she feared him not.

Then her image shimmered and disappeared. "We'll not be using that," she said of the crystal ball she had removed from the surface of the table. "For you, I am certain I can tell far more with these." In her hand, which an instant before had been empty, she held something small and rectangular and wrapped in multicolored silk.

Erik marveled that he not seen from where she had pulled that, for it was too large to have been concealed within her palm or inside her sleeve. He smiled again. A magician used whatever he—or she—could to distract the observer, and in this case, she had used her beauty rather than downplaying it or pretending it was not a factor. "You're quite talented," he admitted, indicating the silken bundle with a nod.

"That remains to be seen," she returned, unfolding the silk to reveal a large deck of cards. Erik settled back into the chair offering the appearance of being relaxed. He would watch her very carefully. He himself performed tricks with cards. There was no reason to think there was a not a trick here as well. She spread the cards into an enormous fan and gazed at them, then stole a glance at his masked face. Her eyes turned, frustrated, back to the cards. She frowned heavily then with drew a card, placed it facedown in front of her and held the remainder of the deck out to him. He peered curiously at the card before her.

"Take them," she said, shaking the deck a little. "You must." Ah yes. The magician's offer: inspect her tools and verify that they are, in fact, ordinary. They would then be switched with another set that were anything but. Surely she knew that he knew this, but she must perform her demonstration in its entirety. He must not begrudge her that. Furthermore, he tried to rationalize, regardless of what trick she might be planning, he rather enjoyed the fact that the willingly sat across from her and spoke to him. It was true she spoke very little, kept her distance, but he suspected she treated all visitors to her tent this way; it would not do so much harm would it, he considered, if he allowed himself the fantasy of pretending he was one of those others, someone normal? What harm could come of that?

He reached for the cards carefully, took them gingerly between a thumb and forefinger exposing his fingers from the depth of his sleeve for only an instant, careful to avoid touching her hand as he did so. With a bony thumb he riffled through the cards by their edges.

The corners of the gypsy girl's mouth turned up and the edges of her eyes crinkled. "Do you find them satisfactory?"

He did. He nodded and held them out to return them, but she did not reach out again. Instead she cocked her head to one side, adjusted her scarf and smiled again. "Shuffle them," she said.

He smiled beneath his mask and she nodded at him. He wondered how she could tell he was smiling as he turned his eyes downward to the cards. The backs of the cards were brilliantly patterned and appeared to have been hand painted. He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement of both the artistry of the cards and her potential abilities if she were to change out this deck of cards for another. This deck was certainly one-of-a-kind.

He withdrew a single card and held upon his left palm, carefully gauging the thickness of the paper, the paint of the artwork, the total weight of the card. He replaced the card in the same place from which he had removed it. He shifted the deck to his left hand and tested the weight against that of the single card. There were far more than fifty-two cards here. He narrowed his eyes. Surely she did not think him that foolish. He felt anger and embarrassment at once and dared to glance up. She was watching his hands carefully. "Go on," she encouraged softly. "Turn them any way you wish."

He turned them over. Certainly not ordinary playing cards, he observed. The suits were entirely different: swords, pentacles, wands and cups, and there were others as well, strange cards with images such as an empress and a hanged man. He shivered involuntarily. He had heard gypsies used such cards; he had heard they bore the mark of the devil. No matter, he told himself. So did he.

He broke the deck into two and stole another glance at her. Her eyes were bright, her lips still. She nodded at him without looking away from the cards. He held the cards before him, allowed his sleeves to slip back to reveal his hands only slightly. She did not shudder, and she did not look away; she must keep her eyes on her cards, after all. She was certainly professional, if nothing more. He shuffled quickly, then repeated the process, counting. If his calculations were correct, the cards would be in the exact order in which she had presented them to him. She would not have anticipated that. He glanced up at her feeling the left side of his mouth twist into a sarcastic grin. Oh, had only he been given a face! How he longed to let her see his expression as he returned the cards to her. He glanced up. Motionless, she continued to watch his hands.

Perhaps she would have expected it of him. She had seen his act, had she not? She knew what he could do with cards. He withdrew two cards, glanced at them, exchanged them in a rapid motion she surely did not notice and replaced them. He repeated this process four more times. Now if she had planned anything specific it would be completely distorted. He held his palms together as though praying, the deck stacked between them. His eyes met the girl's. She seemed unfazed by his unusual shuffling, and it occurred to him to wonder if he had already fallen for her trick. The shuffling was meaningless, perhaps. The shuffling was the distraction. He consoled himself with the idea that he had brought no valuables with him and therefore could have had nothing stolen from him, but in the same moment he chided himself for having missed something important detail. He must never underestimate a woman's ability to distract him using her appearance again, he thought, and he noted that while an attractive appearance was one way to distract an audience, perhaps so was a loathsome appearance. He smiled inwardly. He had learned something from her, at least. He might make some minor adjustments....

A sudden unexplained urge drove him to rotate his hands in opposite directions creating a double-sided fan with the cards. In his own deck, such a move would be meaningless as the cards were all mirror images, but in her deck the cards had tops and bottoms. She smiled as he did so and he narrowed his eyes at her. He didn't know what her trick was, but he pretended confidence. Perhaps she did not know that he did not know. He drew six cards from the deck, reversed them yet again and returned them to the deck randomly. It was enough. If she fooled him, he would learn from the experience.

He held the cards out towards her, offering to return them.

She shook her head. "Set them down," she told him, then "Cut them to left." He reached forward but she raised a hand to stop him. "With your left hand." He changed hands and she laughed. "I didn't believe you when you said you hadn't done this before," she said. It was neither an accusation nor a chastisement; it was a simple statement of fact.

"Believe me," he responded. "I do not need to resort to deceit."

"Twice," she told him as he cut the cards, pointing.

Her bracelets clinked as she reached forward with her left hand and picked up the three piles of cards beginning with the one he had lain down first. She transferred them to her right hand and brought forth the card she had selected earlier. She placed it on the table face up so that Erik could see its face—a man holding a wand high in the air. On a table in front of him a cup, a sword and a pentacle. The man was dressed in robes and the symbol for infinity was above his head.

"Hardly a fair likeness, but forgive me. I have only seventy-eight to choose from," she said. Erik frowned through his mask and said nothing.

"The atmosphere of your question" she began, taking with her left hand a card from the pile in her right. "It is the six of cups which signifies happiness, enjoyment, and pleasant memories, people who care for you. It's obvious from its position as the first card it is the topic in the forefront of your mind. Is there happiness for you? I hope to answer your query." He voice dropped into a pattern he expected she had practiced over the years, or perhaps developed naturally listening to her mother or grandmother do the same job. "Now for the past—which you may verify against your memories if you wish to assure yourself I do not deceive you. We begin with distant past. It is the three of swords. This signifies difficulties, emotions like stormy weather. She waved her hands over the cards in what he was certain was a practiced effect, and yet the look upon her face seemed utterly sincere. "Tears," she said in a voice that sounded strained. "Separation. Strife. We move forward to the recent past." She turned a card and sighed heavily. "The five of pentacles signifies loss of home, destitution and unemployment." Her voice wavered. "Loneliness," she intoned. "The dark night of the soul. Affinities discovered through similar troubles."

He leaned an elbow on the arm of the chair and his elbow upon his hand. He had to admit that thus far she was correct, though she could be making up any meaning at all to go with the cards. She new he was new to the show from the advertisement, so it stood to reason before that he had been without work. If one used one's imagination, perhaps one could apply these words to anyone's life.

"Near future," she continued, turning another card. It was a dark haired man on a throne holding a coin with a pentacle upon it. It came off the top of the deck upside down. "Stupidity," she said and her eyes flashed up at his in a moment of sudden fear. "Perverse use of talents. Thriftlessness. Someone who is easy to bribe. Caution should be exercised. This is a dangerous man."

Erik held his breath a moment. He wanted to ask her whether the man was himself or someone he would encounter, but to do so was to admit that she had caught him off guard, had frightened him with her prophesies. Instead he continued to lean upon his hand moving not even his eyes, grateful for mask's disguising any emotion that might betray itself.

"Distant future," she continued without waiting for his reaction. "It is the five of swords." she sighed again. "My sympathies to you for what you have endured, and what you will continue to endure," she said. "The five of swords signifies failure, defeat, and degradation as well as the conquest of others, unfairness, slander, cruelty, and cowardliness."

Erik shrugged his shoulders in what he hoped was a gesture of nonchalance or disbelief. It didn't require any real skill on her part. The future would mirror the past. It didn't take second sight to see that; it didn't even take a deck of cards. One knew from simple logic.

"There is more," she continued. "Your fears. The nine of swords; suffering, loss, misery burden, oppression, doubt and desolation, illness."

"The opinion of those around you." She took a deep breath and turned the next card. It was not until some years later that Erik learned that typically this card represented the feelings of friends and family, but she had already sensed that in his case the terms did not apply. "Seven of Swords: A plan that will fail. An unwise attempt to take what is not yours. Unstable effort. Arguments over plans. Spying on another. Partial success.

"Your desires," she said. Erik stole a glance at her eyes. They were half closed as turned then card over, but then they widened. "The Tower," she said, seemingly in awe. "Your desires," she repeated and frowned. "The tower: change, conflict, catstrophe." She stole a glance at him, and he was certain she was considering what type of man would desire catastrophe. "Overthrow of existing ways of life," she continued. "Old notions upset. Disruption, which may bring enlightenment in its wake." She took a shuddering breath and then continued, "I must warn you: selfish ambition comes to naught."

Erik frowned at the card. The tower was a simple piece of architecture, but it was crumbling, flames leapt from the windows, and two people, perhaps having leapt from the flames, were falling to their death.

"The outcome."

She turned the card.

Death. It was a skeletal man upon the back of a horse, and the man carried a banner with a rose upon it. The horse was trampling a fallen king, and a woman and child nearly turned their faces away in horror. Erik's eyes seized upon the face of the skeleton for a moment and he felt rage; then his eyes traveled to the face of the woman who averted her eyes, and he felt a despair so deep it defied description.

"How dare you show me that," he muttered to the girl in the turquoise and gold scarves, gesturing at the hideous reflection of himself on the card. When she did not answer, he stood so abruptly the chair in which he had been sitting toppled over backwards to the soft ground beneath her tent without a sound. He brought his hands down on her table with a force he did not intend and the poor rickety table shuddered.

She looked up at him.

You shuffled the cards yourself, he expected her to say, and was all the excuse he would need to turn the table over into her lap scattering her sinful cards.

"There is more," she said simply.

The table clattered to the ground, the cards cascading across it in a shimmering flurry of painted art. She hadn't said it and yet he had done it anyway. She ignored his outburst, ignored that her pretty cards had fallen into the dirt.

"The death card does not mean what one might expect," her voice lilted. "The outcome is transformation, change, destruction followed by renewal. As regards your query—" She let out as a slight gasp as he displaced her from the chair. She would scream now, and the others would come running. He didn't care. Didn't fate have nothing in store for him but failure and death anyway? What did anything matter if she was correct?

The young gypsy girl ignored her scattered cards. They could be collected again, and they had already been read, but the ones in her hand had not. A reading, once begun, must be finished, and this was no simply ten-card reading she had initiated.

"The page of wands," she continued, though she was certain the man who stood before her in fury heard nothing. "It is a youth, fair and honest. Her hair is blond and her eyes are blue. She beautiful and innocent but her nature is sudden in both love and anger." The presence over her paused temporarily and she wondered if he might, indeed be listening. A reading, once begun, must always be completed. This was the way of the universe, and perhaps all beings bowed to it.

It heartened her and she threw out the next card. "Oh, no," she murmured. "The eight of swords. Narrow or restricted surroundings. Bondage. Imprisonment through indecision. Betrayal. Fear. Temporary sickness." Her pretty features twisted into terribly as a vision swam before her eyes of the page of wands bound as the woman in the swords card was. Please, she thought helplessly, do not let him do this, though she knew it was of no use. One did not fight fate.

Her querent had peered at the art upon the swords card as well, and perhaps he had seen what she had seen. He turned away.

She threw out the next two cards wordlessly, for she was certain no one listened with human ears. The Empress for an unrevealed future, hidden influences at work and which was of special value for artists, poets, composers, and mystics; The Queen of Pentacles, a woman dark haired woman who is rich but charitable. She sensed impending danger as she turned the last card and she sighed with what might have been relief at this last. The Sun, for material happiness, success, attainment and a good marriage. Happy reunions. Achievements in the arts. Liberation. Pleasure in the simple life." She said as much aloud, rapidly. "It is a good end," she said reassuringly, and her tone conveyed some joy on behalf of the other.

"A good marriage?" her querent asked her in a tone like acid. "Liberation? Happiness?" His voice was incredulous. "Have you any idea to whom you speak?" He bent over her and she looked up at him with eyes that were unafraid. His eyes met hers and they glittered darkly. Suddenly, he tore loose his mask from his face. She stared, unable to turn her eyes away.

She was still sitting, staring into the space where the thing he called a face had been ages later when her mother entered the tent, noticed the mess and asked her what had happened.

"I have seen the face of death, Dieya," she said staring vacantly, "but I finished the reading. Do you hear that, Dieya? I finished the reading, and Death spared me."

End note: Yes, this is a one-shot. No, this is NOT an E/OW pairing. This is a very young just-left-home-not-too-long-ago Erik still figuring out what his place in the world will be. He is, therefore, a pre-Christine Erik, obviously. But no, he doesn't have designs on the girl. He's really just beginning to be aware of those types of feelings and he'll probably never see her again anyway... No, really... it's a one-shot. No follow-up. Sorry.

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