This is shockingly against my better judgment, as I currently have another story, Even Though It's Breaking, still unfortunately unfinished, and I haven't updated it in about two years (I can't believe I let that happen) but somehow this story crept up on me and it's calling to me more than the other one is. I somehow took a break from Phantom but last week I was privileged to see Phantom Las Vegas (which was so beautiful, it brought me to tears in the first five minutes, never mind the storyline… I mean the sets and the stage and just… everything) and now my obsession is back in very, very full force. I hope, as always that this story pleases and even (fingers crossed!) elicits reviews from my dear readers!
PLEASE READ: So I guess a few things need to be cleared up: This story is slightly AU, as you will notice. The story opens on the retirement of Poligny and Debienne, but Erik has not been asking them for money or put any clauses in the lease of the opera up to this point. I take the character of Charles Garnier from Susan Kay's phantom, except in this story he never saw Erik's face, as he did in the book. As far as this Erik's past goes, he spent time in all the same places all Eriks spend time (Rouen, Javert's cage, Italy, Russia, Persia) except that he never met Nadir Khan, and thus made no friends while in Persia, and escaped by his own means. As for Christine's history… well, you'll see.
This story takes place a month or so before the gala night which begins the original book, however I've had to change some historical dates to make things work they way I want them to… but usually people don't pay attention to the history anyway, so let's ignore all of that. If you are curious, my timeline makes the work on the Opera finished in 1861, and this current chapter is taking place in 1881.
Please enjoy!
"All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors."
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Haunted Houses
Erik
He wondered if Poligny and Debienne would consider it worthwhile to inform their successors of his presence in the Opera House. After all, he hadn't made such a horrible fuss, except when he heard a truly appalling affront to music and saw fit to inform M. Gabriel or M. Mercier, both of whom he found generally willing to bend to his criticism. It was a mild irritation to him that they had decided to sell the Opera at all, but he figured in the end nothing much would changed. He hoped nothing would change. He had been in these walls so long that he couldn't countenance even the slightest change in the way things worked.
Twilight fell over Apollo's Lyre and Erik pulled his gaze from the incredible growth of the Paris skyline. He hadn't been outside the walls of his beloved cage in so many years; each newer and bigger building on the horizon never failed to amaze him. He slipped through the floor and down across hallways towards the catwalks above the stage, where the company was making beginning preparations for the farewell gala performance in honor of the managers' retirement. Erik closed his eyes and felt himself drift into oblivion, listening to the music beneath him.
Oh, how strange!
Erik thought, unbidden, of Emily.
Like a spell does the evening bind me!
The memory was so old, so brittle, as she rose up in front of his eyes, her painfully skinny form bent over in the hacking coughs that ended her young life, her blond hair falling confusedly over her face.
And a deep languid charm
He had watched her die in the Opera infirmary, whose services she had been entitled to, watched her new husband and her little children gathered around her bed as she spoke quietly, lovingly, to each of them. He hung in the shadows, the last pain of her existence slowly being expunged from his heart at each of her shallow breaths.
I feel without alarm
He wondered if she had thought of him, in the last moments of her life.
With its melody enwind me
He cursed himself, as he had a thousand times, cursed himself for loving her, cursed himself for wanting her, cursed himself for ever, ever deluding himself into thinking that someone could be different.
And all my heart subdue.
Some people like Charles had at least tried to show him some pity. The truth was that Charles had never seen his face anyway. They had spent years together building the National Academy of Music, and had even developed a tenuous friendship—the first in his life- but Garnier had never seen behind the mask, and Erik could only assume that this was what had led him to offer his sister's hand in marriage. Emily had been—beautiful. Lyrical, like a poem.
There was no use thinking of her now, now that she was long dead and buried. When their marriage fell apart, Erik's correspondence with Charles broke down as well, leaving him quite alone in a world which hated him more than anything, driving him down into the cellars of the Opera, where he had begun to construct his palace, his mausoleum. He wished he had thought of this while they were still building the structure, but he had been too focused on Emily, too focused on affairs above ground, affairs of men. Once he had renounced all that lived above, he saw that the subterranean lake in all of its glory was the perfect setting for him to build his future—alone.
Erik leaned over the catwalk and cast his eyes over his Opera Company as Sorelli lead the corps de ballet in a rather fumbling rendition of Polyeucte. Half way through they were stopped and told to start again, and Erik's eye was caught by a girl who stood awkwardly in the chorus, a second or two off each beat, and mouthing the words more than singing them. He frowned, and descended into the orchestra pit, melting into the shadows, watching this girl as the chorus moved across the stage. G-d! She had no sense of movement at all, and not a sound came from her lips. How had such a girl come to be in his company? Surely there must have been a mistake, or she was someone's daughter, or niece, or some patron's plaything—she was very pretty, at that. He leaned in closer, trying to get a good look at her, but all he saw was a flash of her bright blue eyes before little Jammes stepped out of her line and pointed directly at him.
"The Opera Ghost!"
Dammit. Erik quickly slipped into the shadows, far enough away so that no one would see him, and in the ensuing commotion Meg Giry screeched and pulled Jammes away, tripping on a small girl tying her ballet slipper and knocking the lot of them down onto that poor girl upon whom Erik's eyes had rested. G-d, could Giry scream. Erik rubbed his ears absentmindedly. She could give Carlotta a run for her money, any day. There were echoing cries of 'Opera Ghost! Opera Ghost!' before Sorelli impatiently stamped her foot and the ballerinas all struggled to get up as quickly as possible.
All but one.
That girl—she was blond, he could see, and skinny and sickly looking—remained crumpled on the floor, her small chest heaving.
"Christine?" One of the other chorus girls tugged on her arm, but she pulled it away, fastening her arms around her knees and she pulled them to her chest. Sorelli watched from afar, irritated at the holdup but unsure what to do.
"What's wrong with her?" She asked uncertainly. There was a responding titter from the corps de ballet, and Erik immediately felt for the young blond. The poor girl… humiliated in front of everyone.
Christine raised her head, and he saw her eyes dart quickly between each of the girls, looking for a friend, a support, and finding none.
"Hjälp mig, snälla," she whispered, only receiving more laughs muffled behind palms from the group. Erik sighed, and turned away, fading into the blackness as he had so many times before, thinking of that small, fragile voice. He hadn't heard Swedish in quite some time, hadn't needed to make use of it in even longer, but even he could translate a cry for help. Poor girl, he thought. Poor Christine.
Erik watched from the window, staring out longingly onto the streets of Paris, wishing to feel the fresh cold air upon his face, wishing to feel real snow fall upon his hands just one more time. He sighed, resigning himself to counting a flock of chickens who had escaped from their owner, watching as each one flapped its wings hysterically and drove the poor man quite crazy. He would have thought such a show was amusing, in the past, but now he would give all he had to be that very man. Everything is monotony, he thought. Everything is futile. He fell away from the window, wondering if it was worth it to try to convince the outgoing managers that La Carlotta was indeed the worst thing to come upon Paris. He thought, at least, that he could write a new letter to them, suggesting a few changes to the staging of the gala.
Slipping through the corridors, he thought of that poor young blond—Christine, the Swede—and thought maybe he could put in a good word for her, as well. But what would he say? That she danced like a frog, but they should let her stay anyway? He risked offending whoever had put her in the chorus anyway, and honestly he just wasn't up to it. If that new patron—what was his name? Damn—that one, with the young brother with the stupid moustache… Erik couldn't remember their name for the life of him, and it only served to irritate him further. He remembered it was a very powerful French family, one he had come across once, once long ago, with his wife on his arm…
Damn you, Emily. The thought passed through his mind only briefly, along with the memory of the perfume she had been wearing that night, and the family crest on the brougham that had picked up the young nobles—ah yes, Chagny! Of course, that count and his three siblings… Erik remembered the old Count, the one who had since died, the Count Philibert de Chagny and his sickly wife, the Countess de Chagny-née de Moerogis de la Martynière. Yes, he remembered them, remembered when the news of her death in childbirth shook Paris, and when Count Philippe had taken control of the family. He wondered if the Count was supporting the young dancer, or if he was completely off on his estimation of her. In any case it didn't matter… all he was going to say to Poligny was that the staging for the finale, Faust, should be much more elaborate, and that they should make very certain that Carlotta can actually sing the Opera. From what he had heard the other day, there was no hope.
"And he is the one who makes those dreadful sounds that come from the trapdoors above the balcony, and he moans, I tell you—no, don't laugh, I've heard it!—he moans through the corridors and haunts the Opera, wearing nothing but evening dress!"
"Come Jammes," came a voice from below. Erik glanced down at the voices beneath him, wanting to be amused at her truly creative imagination, but having no strength, no desire to feel. "Why would the ghost wear evening dress?"
"So as not to be out of place at the Opera."
All of the girls laughed and began to pass by her, but she called after them indignantly. "I've seen him, I tell you. He wears the finest evening dress and his face is black like the night, atop a skeleton as thin as that new chorus girl, that Daaé girl—oh—"
Christine stood behind Jammes, staring straight ahead of her, blushing. Did the girl have no sense of self at all? No will to live? No fighting spirit? Is she as dead as I?
Jammes dug her toes into the ground, wiping her hands on her skirts. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean…"
Christine merely blinked at Jammes. "Tell me more of this Opera Ghost," she said. Erik strained to hear her. She talked more quietly than a sleeping man's contented breaths, and her accent slurred her French around the edges. Jammes lit up.
"He's been at the Opera House as long as anyone can remember." Jammes slipped an arm around Christine, more than happy to have found someone to listen to her tales. Forgetting his quest to find the managers for a moment, Erik followed them, half a floor up, trying to stay well hidden within the shadows. Why did he care? He didn't know… if he truly admitted it to himself, it was because he finally had something interesting to do. And… because she reminded him of himself, this girl.
"Why is he here?" asked the young Swede.
"Nobody knows," Jammes said, smirking. He could see the evil machinations of her mind working quickly. "Legend has it that he was a great singer here, when the Palais Garnier opened, but a terrible, terrible tragedy befell him on the first opening night."
Christine's blue eyes widened and she stopped in her tracks to look at Jammes. "What happened?"
Jammes took a quick glance around her. "He—they say—he fell. He fell from a stage piece and onto the knife of a fellow actor. Yes, they were playing Romeo and Juliet, you see, and back then they still used a real sword, because the Opera was so new and they hadn't procured a false one…"
"That's terrible." Her face paled considerably. She glanced in all the shadows around her and drew closer to Jammes. Erik sighed. What a horrible thing to do to a new girl, to make her afraid of the building, when she was already afraid of the people…
"Yes," Jammes smiled. "Isn't it? They say that he cursed the Opera after that night, and vowed to haunt every performance, forever."
He could see Christine shiver. "Has he ever hurt anyone?" she whispered.
"No, not yet, anyway."
Erik frowned. He had never touched a hair upon a single worker's head.
"But what if we anger him?" Christine tore at the lace on her long sleeves.
Jammes considered her for a long while, and then said, in a similar hushed tone, "I don't know, Christine. I've heard that he has terrible, awful ways of punishing people who anger him."
"But—" the girl's voice broke, and Erik really felt bad for her. Jammes had always been a little mischievous, but he had never really thought she was this evil. "—but what angers him? Do we know?"
Jammes leaned in close. "They say that he does not like those who walk alone in his house at night. Take care, Christine!" And she ran off, giggling, leaving the young blond standing in the middle of the darkened hallway, shivering. Erik saw a mouse run past her feet and she nearly screeched, pulling her arms in on herself and beginning a mad dash through the hallways, tripping here and there as he followed her, silently, from above. She took turns at an alarming pace, sliding through doorways on her fragile ballet slippers, eventually colliding head to chest—she cut a tiny figure—with a young trap-door shutter with brown hair, one whose name he could not recall at all, but who caught her flailing form in his strong arms and held her steady.
"No," she shouted. "No, let go! Let go." She sobbed, breaking free of him and falling backwards into a wall. She stared at the man, who had put his hands up in a sort of retreating gesture, and slowly realized that he was not, in fact, the Opera Ghost.
He approached her slowly. "Are you all right?"
She didn't seem to know what to say, and instead simply stood there, back against the wall.
Erik couldn't believe how weak-willed she was. Wasn't there anything to her? Any substance at all?
The boy offered his hand. "My name is Alain. I shut trap doors."
"I am terribly frightened," she said.
He smiled only briefly. "What is your name?"
"Christine." Her voice shook and she glanced about her, looking, no doubt, for Erik's evening jacket.
"You're the new girl, aren't you? The one from the orphanage."
Christine merely blinked at him, but this piqued Erik's interest. Had the orphanage broken her, turned her into this timid little field mouse? And how had a Swedish orphan made her way into the Opera?
"Come with me. I'll show you the Opera."
Christine eyed his hand with trepidation, but after a second placed her thin hand in his and he squeezed it gently and led her through a trap-door that Erik knew would lead to more of the residential corridors. Glad to see the girl had finally made a friend, Erik dropped down from the uncomfortable position he had been in and made his way quickly through the corridor Christine had just been standing in, towards the grand staircase and the managers' main offices. He felt his existence stretch before him as a long, endless parade of unwanted memories and pain. He wanted nothing more than to sleep a peaceful, eternal sleep, but he knew that could never be granted him. Nothing had interested him, it seemed, in years. He yearned for something to catch his eye, something to make him understand why he was still here, why he was cursed, why the universe reserved him for such special, horrid torture…
"You are not supposed to be here."
Erik stopped dead in his tracks. Two things he processed in quick succession. One, a person had spoken to him. A real, living person had spoken to him, addressed him, something that had not happened to him in so many, many years. Two, the accent was one he recognized immediately. Persia. Although the memory was distant, it was not one he could easily forget. He lifted his eyes to look at his opponent.
Why didn't he flee? It would have been so easy for him to slip under the floor, through the walls, up into the ceiling… why did he stay? He looked into the dark man's green eyes, shaded by a lock of black hair that fell from under his red fez, and he knew exactly why. No matter what kind of interaction it was, he needed it. He craved it.
"You are not supposed to be here," the man said again.
Erik narrowed his eyes, cautiously clearing his throat before he spoke, acknowledging that it had been a torturously long time since he had communicated with other human being.
"And who are you to tell me this?" he asked.
"I am Nadir Khan. I am a seer."
Erik's heart skipped a beat. A seer! A seer! This man… this man could be his salvation. Erik was suddenly standing much closer to the man than he had intended, but the Persian did not seem fazed.
"I am here to see that you cross over."
Cross over? The words sounded glorious in Erik's ears, more wonderful than any Opera he had written while alive. For how many years had he haunted this palace, watched people die and wither away, watched new people take their places, chained unalterably to the place of his death, not able to leave the confines of the Opera House, wondering, hoping, yearning for the day to come when he could finally, finally move on?
"Please," Erik asked. "Tell me everything."
And yes, so there it is! I do hope you enjoyed this first chapter. I realize it is short… It seems that the story is going to be remarkably darker than I had originally anticipated, but I blame it on the Christine that came to my fingers, one who is much more helpless than I realized.
Anyway as I said, the dates are kind of all fudged, so please don't go and try to make sense of them, especially in context of any French history because then it'll be completely wrong. Let's just assume that Erik has been haunting the Opera house for about twenty years.
And yes, about the haunting business! Truly, I hope you liked it… Erik, a real ghost! This is way more AU than I thought it would be! I came up with this about a week ago and I've been really interested to see where it leads me. Obviously his past is somewhat altered, as is Christine's, but I do hope you guys enjoyed this first chapter, as I hope to have several new ones up as soon as possible. In the interest of that.., please REVIEW!
Please? Review? Please? Make Erik happy! :P
~Ice Cliff
