Disclaimer:

1. I will perhaps use characters and aspects from stories by Leroux, Kay, Wilson, Meyer, Lloyd Webber, Hill . . . nevertheless, I do not own a character invented by one of them . . .

2. English is not my native language, so please help me improve my English when you review - and I hope you will.

3. Though I beg for reviews and hope you all will review, I beg you not to flame because of the religious aspect in this story. I will have a lot of religion in this Phic, since I am a religious person and I want to include some of my ambience, because the story does depend on it. I respect that you may not share my religious beliefs. I do respect that you may not want to read about something including religious thoughts. Leave then, please. Or write a Phic including your religious imprint. But please respect mine, as I am willing to respect yours. Thank you.

4. But for all that: I hope you will enjoy the story, it is the first for me to write . . .

Author's note:

I am so grateful for all your reviews. Special thanks to those who found and announced mistakes. Thank you again and do not stop to review, please! Besides: I am still in need of a beta-reader or two. . .

And last: Do not worry, it will not take long for Erik to enter!

What a way to live!

Chapter 1

"What a way to live"

That is what most of my friends said when I decided to join the protestant lutheran nunnery. For me, it was only the last step on the long way that I had gone since I was fourteen. Now I was thirty-one, a teacher for comprehensive secondary school, with a special graduation on rehabilitation and education for people with blindness and visual impairment; I had no husband or significant other, and I had always found myself at home in that special monastery. It was like finally coming home.

The convent had allowed me to hold my profession as supervision teacher for integrated children, but had not freed me from most of the normal duties of a canoness. One of them we fulfilled in turn was to keep the church open for tourists and people looking for a confessor on Saturday afternoons. I loved that duty dearly - I had brought my harp into the church long ago, and practising there was one of my favourite pastimes whenever I could.

One summer morning I came into the church through the cloister before dawn. It was going to be a very hot day, and so I opened the main door to let some air sweep through before the sun would warm it up too much.

I left the doors open - the town was small and hardly anyone would break into the empty church at such a time (and everybody here knew we were blank and there was nothing to steal here - who needed money would get more if he simply asked!) - when I decided to fetch some buns from the nearby bakery.

At my return I immediately noticed there was something wrong. The can for the alms (which was kept filled with little coins so it would feel as if there was money in it) was missing, and the box for the money from the postcard sale had been opened - not broken - and left empty. Silently I retreated the few steps to the door and . . . stopped abruptly when I heard the sound of my harp being randomly touched. As she was placed in a little chapel, I knew whoever tried to play on her could not see me or even hear me straightforwardly. The person would be completely trapped if she or he only stayed there long enough - the chapel had only one door that could be blocked by one person easily, and no windows that could be opened - and it was no more than three meters wide and six meters long! Smiling, I closed and locked the main entrance and silently made my way through the nave to the chapel.

Of course I never meant to harm whomever I would meet. The sounds coming from my harp were shy and sweet, like a child silently weeping, not as if the one who played could be dangerous or do any harm. I had found thieves in the church before, poor fellows who needed a meal, a bath, clothes and a bed - things we, that is the canonesses, willingly provided, or naughty children who needed a rebuke and a challenge, which we offered as well.

Nevertheless I was not prepared for the pitiable sight I was offered when I entered through the narrow door.

A small, childish figure, clad in dirty black rugs, let go of my harp (that fortunately did not overbalance) and frantically tried to hide behind or under one of the pews. What appalled me most was not the fact that he or she was a child, nor the alarm that was shown, but the wretched condition the person was obviously in. It let out a small whimper while rolling together into a tiny ball behind the pew, and though it tried to hide, I could see it tremble and the body jerk with every desperate gasp for breath. Why such a reaction? Was the child, and it obviously was a child, on drugs? Was it ill?

"Hey" I murmured softly, without leaving my position in the door frame. There was no reaction at all - except perhaps a try to curl up even tighter. "Now, what is wrong?" I went on as careful and soft as I could. "Why are you afraid? Come out there, child. You have done nothing wrong" (The money could wait!), "and nobody wants to do you harm!" No reaction. I thought a second about retreating into the nave, but that was no adequate option. The child looked like a trapped mouse, full in panic and not master of its senses. In its blind fear it would perhaps not work if I simply gave free its way, and to shoo it out could cause damage on my harp, on the interior of the church - and worst of all on the child. (I did not believe that this small child could cause damage on me - I was three times as wide at last, it would have been like a grasshopper causing damage to an elephant!)

Slowly I took a step into the direction of the child - what meant to corner it in even more, I knew, but I had no other idea. There was no possibility to slip through . . .

But I had overlooked another forceful possibility the child had.

The boyish figure jumped up, fast as lightning, and ducked behind my harp, clasping at the wooden column and resonancecorpus. The harp waggled. I took in a deep breath, made a small step forward and raised my hands in a gesture I meant to be pacifying. "It is OK, I do not mean to harm you" I said, but gesture and words only made the child grasp the harp more desperate - and the big instrument reel even more!

So I took two steps back to the door and lowered my hands again, taking an effort to calm down - not only from my worry about my beloved harp, but also from the astonishment I felt about the fact that the child wore a filthy white mask that covered the face from the hair line to the lower lip.

What could I do? I thought of saying: "There is no need to worry. Listen. I will leave now, go to the main door, unlock it, open it and then leave the church. I will not try to catch you or trap you somehow, and you may take the money you took with you."

Instead, I slowly moved into the next pew, sat down and said, giving my countenance and my voice a demonstrative relaxed style: "Now, as I said before, I will not harm you, there is no need to be frightened. I only wanted to see who made such beautiful music on my harp so early in the morning. I enjoyed once listening to her sound without producing it myself. Don't you want to play on a while?" That was, of course, very sheepish, but for some odd reason I did not want the boy to flee without knowing anything about him.

And against all my hopes, my words showed a positive effect, for though he did not let go my baby, he shifted a little, glared at me defiantly and demanded: "Let me go!"