A/N: Nothing but my own explanation for the candle in the new movie, and my theories on what happened to the characters. Done, more than anything, to give me some closure. Enjoy!
EDIT: Turns out I got the year wrong. Thanks to Kayklee for pointing that out. :)
Erika sighed unhappily. It wasn't fair! Her normal, boring, down-to-earth mother had no time for her rebellious gothic daughter, and was abandoning her at her grandmother's house. She hated it there. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go, and it was so boring. This explained the young girl's stormy attitude as she set her bag down on the front porch.
"Just be good for Grandma, and I'll be back for you in a few weeks," her mother said, hurriedly kissing her. Erika's scowl intensified. She was fifteen, so why was her mom treating her like a little kid? And for that matter, why was her mom dumping her in Nowhere, Virginia while she ran off to a huge conference in New York? And why did her dad leave when she was three? And why…
Erika stopped that train of thought. She knew that if she started, she would burst out crying. As it was, she only shrugged on her backpack and knocked on the door to her Grandma's house.
The door flew open at once. A little white haired woman, only an inch taller than the 5' 2" teen herself, appeared in the doorway, smiling happily. "Hello Erika! How wonderful to see you again!"
"Yeah, you too," Erika replied unenthusiastically as she stepped over the threshold. She did not spare a glance for her mother driving away.
Once inside, Erika looked around. The house was the same as she had seen it last, three years ago, and it still wasn't the sort of place a girl with dyed black hair, short skirts, and a nose piercing was likely to be found. Nonetheless, the girl in question was certainly here, probably to stay.
"Come in, make yourself at home!' her grandma called, bustling into the kitchen. Erika followed her grandma Juliet a little more slowly, taking in the lace curtains, knickknacks, and black and white photographs. The whole house was a huge, sunny, cheerful place, the sort of place you expected to find in stories about farms and orchards and families, but that did little to lighten Erika's black mood. Sauntering slowly into the kitchen, she allowed her grandma to fix her some blackberry tea. As her grandmother bustled around, boiling water and chatting happily, Erika sighed inwardly. Nope, nothing had changed, and it was going to be a very long few weeks.
Over the next few days, Erika, deprived of anything else to do, began to explore the house. On the fourth day, she decided to explore the attic. It was one place she had never seen, and it was one more thing to do instead of sitting around listening to her grandma's stories.
Carefully climbing the fold-down stairs, Erika shined her flashlight around the dusty trunks tightly packed into the space. Cautiously stepping out into the attic, Erika's flashlight fell on one particular trunk. For no apparent reason, she suddenly felt the need to open it, see what was in it. It was as if someone else entirely had taken control of her. Intrigued and interested in spite of herself, Erika slowly crossed the floor and knelt by the trunk. It was a rather beautiful trunk, she noticed, made out of deep red, tooled leather. A name was engraved on a brass plate in front, but the dust obscured it. Carefully wiping the plaque free of its grime, Erika squinted, trying to make out the name. In fine, fancy, flowing script it read, Christine Daae. Christine Daae? Who was that? Puzzled, Erika nonetheless opened the trunk.
Inside were a few items that seemed as if they had been thrown together by chance. A white half-mask, a silver ring, a dried red rose, a photo album, and a music box with a monkey on it lay in the trunk. Puzzled, Erika picked them up and examined them. After deeming that they had no hidden qualities, Erika studied two items in particular, the photo album and the music box. Carefully opening the cracked leather covers of the album, Erika flipped through a few pages. Just black and white blurry photos, nothing very interesting. She moved her attention to the music box. After carefully wiping the dust off the little monkey, she cautiously turned the knob to make it play. It emitted a soft, tinkling tune that Erika felt sure she had heard somewhere before, although just where she had no idea. Thoroughly spooked, Erika carefully replaced the items and tiptoed down the stairs.
Walking into the kitchen, Erika cautiously asked her grandma, "You know that trunk in the attic? The one with the mask in it, and the rose and the photo album?" Her grandmother nodded. "Where is that from?"
"It was my mother's," her grandma replied, smiling sadly.
"Christine Daae?" Erika asked.
"Yes, a beautiful actress. My father brought those with him when he came here, sixty years ago."
"What happened to her?"
"Has your mother never told you the story?"
"No."
"Very well. Tonight, when it's dark out, I'll tell you the whole sorry tale."
As soon as night had fallen, Grandmother Juliet beckoned a very curious Erika into the kitchen. At her grandmother's bidding, Erika had hauled the trunk down from the attic, and it now sat on the kitchen table, leather gleaming softly. Grandmother motioned to her granddaughter to be seated.
Flipping the light switch, Juliet plunged the room into darkness. A moment later, a match flared, and she lit a candle on the table. It cast flickering shadows around the room, lending it a mysterious and elegant feel. Erika felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
Carefully removing the five objects from their leather tomb, Juliet began. "The story starts with an opera house, the Paris Opera House. This is a picture of it," she said, indicating the photo in the album. It showed a large, elegant building, clearly impressive but now derelict. A large banner hung in front, and from little French she knew, Erika managed to decipher the words to be an announcement of a public auction. The photo was dated to be the late 1800s. Her grandmother went on.
"My mother, Christine Daae, lived and worked there. She was a rising star, a young soprano with a wonderful voice. Her story takes place before this picture was taken, in the 1870s. It all began when she met her strange admirer, a man who called himself the Phantom…"
As her grandmother spoke, Erika listened, enraptured, hanging onto every word. The tale of love, mystery, murder, and betrayal made her gasp, riveting her in place. For three hours her grandmother talked, telling her the whole thing: how the Phantom taught Christine to sing and kidnapped her, how her father, Raoul, fell in love with her, the Don Juan Triumphant fiasco, and the monkey in Persian robes that her father left on her mother's grave, only to find the red rose. When she finished, the final page of the photo album turned and the light turned back on, her granddaughter's eyes were sparkling. "That's so sad," Erika breathed. "So sad, but beautiful too." Her grandmother merely smiled. She had known perfectly well that Erika would love the story. The teen tried to be tough, but it was all she could do to save herself from reality. A little romance and intrigue was exactly what she needed.
"Grandma?" Erika asked, bringing Juliet's thoughts out of the past.
"Yes love?"
"Why did Raoul come to America?"
"France held too many memories for him. He packed up everything that reminded him of his wife, from the rose left on her grave to her wedding dress, and then used the last of his family's fortune to bring me and my brothers and my sister here."
"What happened to them?"
"My father died just a few months after we arrived. He was very old. I was the second youngest of my siblings then, but about a year after we bought this farm, my little brother, Henry, died. My two older brothers and my sister eventually moved away, and I was left alone here."
"How old were you when you came to America?"
"I was seventeen."
"Did you ever find out what happened to the Phantom?"
"No. I never saw him, but I heard the story often enough from my parents to imagine what he looked like."
"Did the Phantom ever tell Christine what his name was?"
"Yes, he did. It was Erik."
Erika stared at her grandmother in wonder. "Was I…" she began, but her voice trailed off. Her grandma just smiled. "Yes, you were. I was the one who convinced your mother to name you that. I thought the story should be remembered."
"Why hasn't my mom told me before?" Erika asked, hurt registering in her voice.
"Your mother used to love the story just as much as you do, but when she grew up, she dismissed it as a fairy tale, forgot that I ever told it to her."
Erika nodded sadly. That sounded like her mom all right. But she still had a few more questions.
"If Meg picked up the Phantom's mask, how did Raoul get it?"
"She gave it to Christine, along with a silver ring she found. My mother was able to identify it as the one the Phantom had given her. She kept it, along with the ring Raoul gave her."
"Do you still have the rings?"
"Yes. That one there is the one given to Christine by the Phantom, and the one I'm wearing is the one her husband gave her," her grandma said, indicating the gold ring on her third finger. The centerpiece on it was a large, extravagant diamond cut into a fanciful shape.
As if afraid that the relic would crumble to dust in her hands, Erika carefully examined the silver ring. It was simple but graceful, an elegantly cut sapphire surmounted on a whimsical silver band. Seeing how much she loved it, her grandmother smiled. "If you like, you can keep it," she offered. Erika's eyes grew wide. "Are-are you sure?" she asked. Her grandma nodded. "Thank you," Erica whispered, slipping the ring onto her third finger. She knew how much this ring must mean to her grandma.
"It's so sad, the part about the Phantom," she commented, eyes lingering on the beautiful ring.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, he grew up with no one to care about him, just because of his face, and he died alone, with no one to miss him. And he really did love Christine, enough to let her go."
"I agree that it is sad," her grandmother said. "But maybe his spirit will take comfort in the fact that Christine mourned his fate until she died."
As her grandmother spoke, Erika felt a light chill run down her spine, and a breath of wind whisper in her ear. All of the sudden the music box started playing, though no one had touched it.
Erika and her grandmother stared. Then, suddenly, Juliet smiled. With a surprisingly high, clear voice she sang out,
"Masquerade!
Paper faces on parade!
Masquerade!
Hide your face so the world will never find you."
As her grandmother finished singing, Erika once more felt a cold breath of air rush over her. She remembered the urgent feeling she'd had in the attic to open the chest, and smiled. Erik was making sure that his beloved's descendants knew of their history. "Thank you," she whispered, gazing at the porcelain half-mask. When she looked up, she saw her grandma staring at her.
"You know, if you hadn't dyed your hair, you would look very much like Christine," Juliet mused, gazing at her granddaughter. Erika looked slightly surprised.
"It's true, look, here's a picture of her," Juliet said, turning to a page in the photo album. As she ran her eyes over the old photo, Erika noticed that she did indeed have the same dark brown eyes as her great-grandmother, and the same features, and she probably would have had the same wavy brown hair, had she not dyed it black. I wonder if I could sing like her too, Erika wondered.
She was interrupted from her musings by her grandmother. Yawning widely, she rose from her chair and said, "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm ready to go to sleep." Erika quietly agreed, and they headed upstairs. At the landing the two separate bedroom doors led off of, the teen turned to her grandmother one last time. "Grandma," Erika said. Her grandmother turned to her. "What is it dear?"
"Thanks for telling me the story."
Juliet smiled. "It was my pleasure."
Five and a half weeks later, Erika's mother did return for her daughter, only to find a much changed girl in her place. They returned to their home in Chicago, and everything returned to normal, at least for a little while. Erika had changed. She was much happier now, for one thing. For another, she decided to grow her hair out without dying it, so she claimed to, 'see what it looked like.' She also enlisted in singing and dancing lessons, and decided to learn to play the piano and speak French. The next time she and her mother took a vacation, she convinced her mom to go to Paris, and even to see the opera house there. For some strange reason she disappeared during the tour, and came back smiling happily. Her mother never figured out just why her daughter was so changed from a month and a half at her grandmother's, but she did figure it had something to do with the will her mother left behind.
When Erika was twenty and at college, learning to act, her grandmother passed away. She and her mom went to Virginia for the funeral and to hear her will read, since they were her last surviving relatives. Most of what the old woman had she had divided between her daughter and her granddaughter, and most of it was pretty ordinary, but one item was left to her granddaughter that puzzled Erika's mother. It was a large trunk made of tooled red leather, and when Erika had opened it, it had contained a beautiful wedding dress, a mask, a dried flower, an album, a gold ring, and a strange music box. Erika had seemed more pleased with this than with anything else, but when her mom asked her what it was, the girl had only replied, "You know what it is, or you did, anyway." Her mother never figured out what she meant, but Erika never forgot the story of her namesake and her great-grandparents.