Chapter two
In Between
"The Lord works in mysterious ways…" Unknown
She watched him leave, watched her girlhood prince walk away after striking her so cruelly for calling a man what he was. That's all Erik was, a man just like Raoul…with flesh and blood and warmth. Well perhaps not warmth, but she supposed he could be warm if he did not live in that hole. But nevertheless what her suitor did was uncalled for. How would he like to be dehumanized like this?
It was several moments before Christine was able to struggle into a sitting position, her wrist had a few drops of blood on it from her fall. She lifted her injured wrist to her lips and nursed it like a baby sucking on her mother's breast. The taste of it was coppery and bitter on her tongue and she hated it. She spit it on the floor, gagging from the taste and then gave into the urge and threw up again. Blood had always disgusted and frightened her, much like Erik's violence. Her life had been so sheltered growing up that she had not possessed the mind of a woman and even now she felt like a child. There right now in the chapel she wanted to drift back in time, back to Sweden to those carefree days on her father's boat.
Christine sighed and leaned against the wall allowing herself to blank her mind and drift back. Back to that place where the sea was her world and her and the sky, blue or grey went on and on forever. She wanted to be there again on the S.S. Storyteller where she and he had known no boundaries or sorrows. If she closed her eyes she could almost see herself and Papa standing on the deck of his small sailboat, her straw sunhat in danger of blowing clear off her head. Her father removed the hat and loosed her pigtail braids untangling her wavy curls with his knurled musician's fingers.
She could see him with his long shaggy beard, unkempt and wild like him. She knew that daddy's long stays in Scottish lands he had picked up the accent of the highlands, something her mama had found charming. Christine had to admit she found it cute too; it made her think of big fluffy sheep and soft thick grass.
"Hurry along there lassie, the sea's-a dangerous mistress," she heard him call.
"Aye-Aye Papa sir!" she shouted and ran to the wheel of the helm.
"Careful lass, there's a storm brewing off starboard!"
She saluted him and yanked at the helm having papa come up behind her and wrap his big paws over wind rocked the ship back and forth and so did he as he did a seaman's waltz as the songs had often told. Her father had laughed in his gruff rough-and-tumble voice and ruffled her strawberry blonde curls, and little Christine laughed joyously as her fingers were engulfed in his. He spun the wheel hard and fast, causing the boat to twirl like a spinning top and the salty water to spray them in the face. Christine made a face and spat twice, crossing her eyes and wrinkling her little nose.
"Ewwww… gross!" she said, her father laughed.
"Tis only water lass." He chuckled.
"Still yucky
"How about a song for yer old papa lass..." her daddy whispered, winking "make the mermaids cry!"
The little girl nodded and opened her mouth:
Upon one summer's morning, I carefully did stray,
Down by the Walls of Wapping, where I met a sailor gay,
Conversing with a young lass, who seemed to be in pain,
Saying, William, when you go, I fear you will ne'er return again.
His hair hangs in ringlets, his eyes as black as soles,
My happiness attend him wherever he may go,
From Tower Hill, to Blackwall, I'll wander, weep and moan,
All for my jolly sailor bold, until he does return.
My father is a merchant — the truth I will now tell,
And in great London City in opulence doth dwell,
His fortune doth exceed 300,000 gold,
And he frowns upon his daughter, 'cause she loves a sailor bold.
A fig for his riches, his merchandise, and gold,
True love has grafted my heart; give me my sailor bold:
Should he return in poverty, from o'er the ocean far,
To my tender bosom, I'll fondly press my jolly tar.
My sailor is as smiling as the pleasant month of May,
And oft we have wandered through Ratcliffe Highway,
Where many a pretty blooming girl we did behold,
Reclining on the bosom of her jolly sailor bold.
My name it is Maria, a merchant's daughter fair,
And I have left my parents and three thousand pounds a year,
Come all you pretty fair maids, whoever you may be
Who love a jolly sailor bold that ploughs the raging sea,
While up aloft, in storm, from me his absence mourn,
And firmly pray, arrive the day, he home will safe return.
My heart is pierced by Cupid, I disdain all glittering gold,
There is nothing can console me but my jolly sailor bold.
Just like that her vision dissipated and the room returned to normal, they were itchy and burning and soon drooping. Her eyes became half-closed and the refrain escaped her mouth and when she opened them her a little she knew that staying there was a mistake, she knew that she must get up and get ready for the performance but as she tried to rise to her feet she winced and thought better of it. Moving was not a good idea at the moment.
Christine sat still in the chapel nursing her bleeding lip, it stung and burned and to top it off ached from being swollen. She sat there and cried for several moments, till her eyes were chafe and itchy and quite honestly she looked awful. There was nothing for it, she had to do it as much as she hated herself for it she picked herself up and walked shakily down the stairs, her tears making the stones slippery and unsafe. Christine was never graceful- that's why she never made it in ballet- and so she (being the clumsy girl she was) tripped over her own feet stumbling in an unladylike way that would have made her friends call her "Grace" in a sarcastic tone.
"Ow," she mumbled as she scraped her knee on the stone, "Damn it!" she cursed under her breath.
She slipped down the steps and landing hard on the back of her head. She reached back and felt her head, feeling something warm and wet smear across her fingers. Christine groaned and gazed at her reddened fingers for a moment before a wave of dizziness began to overtake her senses. Christine tried to stand up but she was becoming too weak to see straight, her senses were slowing and she felt drugged. Still she stumbled clumsily to her feet running her hand along the cold stone wall to get her bearings. Christine felt herself collapsing to her knees and she blinked trying to focus but the more she tried the worse it got. Her head now ached abominably with the beginnings of a migraine.
Her body seemed to want nothing more than to lie down and be still, she was worn out from her body and the shock of her fiancé's actions. But her eyes were too blurry to focus on anything, she moaned as the room swam in a dizzy circle and her world went black. She lay down on the stone floor with her coat pillowing her head and drifted off to another world. When she opened her eyes, she was in a warm white room, wrapped in the warmest blanket she had ever been in. Her body felt like it was wrapped in a tight but gentle hug. She closed her eyes wanting to go back to sleep but was too fascinated by her surroundings to even think of rest right now. Everything except for the furniture was made of what appeared to be the purest gold Christine had ever lay eyes on.
"Where am I?" she asked.
Her voice echoed around the room but no reply came, in fact the silence was almost like the kind of silence where one is waiting for a monster to strike them dead. Christine felt a sudden shiver down her spine as it always did when she was in a strange new place. She had not felt like this since her stay in Erik's home but that was for an entirely different reason. Christine shook her head as she tried to shrug off the memory and went exploring about the place trying to find her bearings and then she heard something soft from behind a white gilded door with the words Enter ye who love yet are confused. That seemed to fit her just fine, in fact it fit her perfectly and so she opened the door and stepped into the entrance.
The room was so quiet that her footsteps seemed to clatter like an earthquake as though she were some large giantess from Jack and the Beanstalk. So she stopped to look around the room at the intricacy of the place. The gothic yet simple beauty of it impressed her in ways that no words could ever express. It was clearly a music room, either that or some kind of mansion; in fact it had to be a mansion because no normal house would be so massive or expensive. Christine swept as silently as she could along the room, running her fingers along the perfectly-tuned piano and a string on a violin as deep and mellow as her father's voice.
The beauty found her eyes glued to it, its glimmering memorizing her into some kind of hypnotic trance. She hung onto every note that the lady strummed out, every cord fitting her ears like a glove on her hands. Those gloves were made of silk, soft and cool and soothing, the music a whisper as soft as the rustle. Christine noticed her ears automatically tuning into these peculiar sounds as though she were hearing and imagining them for the first time. Each one more clear and vivid than the next, more potent and clearer than the last, she then heard soft music wafting from to her ears from the side of the room and she turned her head to see the source as the music swelled to a crescendo.
Her eyes fell on the player and widened at what she saw. In the corner sat a woman playing a handsome gilded harp with strings that looked to be made of gossamer and silk, tight for fortitude and beautiful in its art. She seemed lost in her music, as gentle as a lullaby and as soft as a church-hymn. Christine thought that tune sounded familiar; as though she had heard it a long time ago. Her voice rose softly and for some reason she began to hum along with the music. This was not unusual as she had always been apt at hearing things like pitch and melodies. She was also very good at making up lyrics and so on and so forth, depending on the feeling of the tune. The tune of this one was somber and almost wondering over an unanswered question. The quarry was simple enough…it was a question told in one word: why?
The song was so soft and tortured much like something Erik would write…Christine found her lips forming the pained words, much like Erik again. The words asking the one question she had been wondering since Raoul had struck her. The questions that lead to the other questions plaguing her mind in infinite quantities. She had so many questions, so many that her head hurt from the strain of it all. She wonder why it was that she did not try harder to find the answers to the thoughts that she had left unvoiced for far too long, about what she wanted out of life and why she did not know what she wanted. Her legs were going numb from standing so she sat down next to the woman on the bench, trying to smile at the harpist but she paid no attention. She closed her eyes and let her thoughts come out of her lips in a sad, confused melody.
"I look for sympathy, he gives me sorrow… I ask for honesty, he's none to borrow…
I need his tender kiss, I beg it of him…he gives me ugliness…why do I love him?"
As she finished the questioning line her throat closed with tears and her voice cut itself short. The woman turned her head and smiled softly stopping her song mid-stroke and cupped her cheeks in her cool hands. She pulled Christine into her arms and stayed silent for several moments running her luc-warm fingers through her curls and when she looked at her and froze, strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes…
"Mother?"
