It's good to see that you found this story especially my most vocal reviewers Brambled13, MarilynKC, and of course my beta judybear236. Starting over is a challenge. For the others who favorited this story Rupert Bear and Sheholmes thank you as well. I hope that you enjoy it.
Chapter 2
Meg Giry's point of view
I ran ahead of the mob to help my best friend Christine escape from the Phantom's rage. When I reached the edge of his lair I could not believe what I saw; my best friend Christine helping Raoul to commit a murder. She distracted the Phantom, while the Vicomte plunged a knife in his back. I gasped at the sight. Even though the Phantom was a wanted criminal, this was cold blooded murder. The man was on his hands and knees sobbing his love for Christine and like Brutus at the Senate in Rome, she betrayed him.
After the deed was done, I watched them go. I think that they believed that no one saw what they had done, but then Christine looked up and for a moment our eyes met. So now she knew that I saw everything. I was torn by what I had seen and my friendship with Christine. I went over to the Phantom and expected to find him cold and dead, but I could see his chest rising and falling. He was breathing shallowly. The mob was approaching clamoring for his blood, and so I tore off part of my chemise and covered the deformed part of his face, and called for some help for my wounded 'friend.' When the mob arrived I told them that the Phantom had stabbed the man before me and ran off. I begged two strong men to help me carry him upstairs to my mother's quarters, and asked another to fetch a doctor. They all did as they were told never knowing that they were unwittingly helping the prey that they had come for. The rest of the mob continued in the direction that I told them that the 'Phantom' had gone. They were like a pack of rabid hounds baying for his blood. I could have told them that they were standing in his blood but I didn't. For unlike Christine I would never betray him. He had saved both my life, and that of my mother, and for that I was forever beholden to him.
Six months earlier Meg Giry's point of view
I sensed him just before he attacked me. He had been stalking me like a lion stalked his prey and he had me cornered. I screamed as loud as I could but it seemed that no one could hear. He tackled me and held me down ripping off my clothing and loosening his pants. I could feel my attacker starting to penetrate me when suddenly I caught a flash of a white mask and a black cape reach over and pull the man off of me. He slammed him against the wall but for a moment was hurtled back. I could see a knife glimmering in my attackers hand covered in blood, but my masked rescuer got up and faced him once more. He once more threw himself at him, my attacker dropped his knife. Just then my mother came into view and grabbed the fallen knife and plunged it deeply into my attacker's heart. He fell to the floor and was dead.
My mother came over to me; we were both shaking as she took me into her arms. "Are you alright?" she asked gently.
"I nodded my head and told her "Yes, thanks to this man. He saved me."
My rescuer moved closer to us, and I realized that he, my savior, was none other than the notorious Phantom of the Opera. He put his hand on my mother's shoulder to comfort her and for a moment I winced in pain. He looked as if he thought that I was in fear of him. He backed away as if to spare me.
"No." I whispered "You don't have to do that. You saved me Monsieur le Fantome. If you had not come he would have raped me."
To my surprise my normally stoic mother looked over to the Phantom and told him "It's alright Erik, Meg is not afraid of you, she was wincing in pain. Thank you for helping my Meg." She looked over to my attacker and asked the Phantom "Is he dead?"
"I am afraid so, Antoinette. Your knife pierced his heart. He is gone." The Phantom told her.
My mother replied "Good, then he will never hurt anyone else again. It was that stagehand Joseph Buquet; he has been stalking my girls for months. He caught my Meg, and would have done who knows what to her if you hadn't come. As it is, if anyone sees what he did to her she will be ruined and they might accuse us of murdering him. What should we do Erik?"
The Phantom looked at my mother and at me and spoke firmly "'We' shall do nothing at all. I will take care of it. I will make it look like I did it; no one will ever know that you were involved at all."
My mother shook her head "No Erik, I cannot ask you to do that, to lie for me. You were the hero here today not the villain."
The Phantom smiled at my mother and told her gently "You saved my life many years ago, now we are even. The world believes me to be a monster anyhow, capable of anything. It will take no convincing to make them believe that I killed him. I promised the managers a 'disaster' this will certainly convince them that I am serious. They will not cross me after this, they will be too afraid of my 'wrath'. Don't you see this will benefit me? There is no reason for anyone to ever know what really went on here."
My mother still protested "But they will call you a murderer, and hunt you down like a rabid dog."
The Phantom sneered "They will never find me, and I am a murderer. I killed Javert, and many others when I lived in Persia. I no longer care what people think of me that is why I live where I do so that people do not have to look at me, or me at them."
My mother looked at him sadly "I wish that you did not feel that way. What about Christine? You love her, do you want to hide from her too."
The Phantom replied "Of course not, but she has seen my face and is afraid of me. She will never love me and so what does it matter? She loves that boy that she is seeing, not me. She cannot stand the sight of me."
My mother looked at him sadly "Christine is a beautiful girl, but in many ways she is still just a child. She was obviously not the one for you if she could not see you for who you truly are. I wish that you felt different about things Erik. Someday someone will see beyond what you look like on the outside and see the man within. There must be someone who could love you in that way, but you will never give them the chance to see and find you. You hide away in your dark, cold cellar and deprive the world of your genius and talents."
The Phantom replied bitterly "I tried to take your advice before, and wandered the world for a while. I hoped to find my place somewhere; but it was the same everywhere as it is here. No matter where I went I met with hatred. You and Meg have a life, and people that respect and care about you. They could blame Meg for what happened and accuse you of murder. I will take the blame for this. You must promise me never to tell anyone, not even Christine, what really happened here. The important thing is that Meg and the other girls are safe from him now."
He looked over to me "Little Meg Giry, I know that you have always feared me like the other girls, because I never chose to reveal myself to you, only your mother and Christine. I have known you since you were born and looked out for you. I am doing that now so that you can find a man, to love and protect you. I owe your mother that much. If anyone finds out what happened you will not find a husband. You deserve to have a good and happy life. That is what your mother wants, what I want for you too."
I looked at him and no longer saw the fearsome ghost that I had occasionally glanced in the past. I was ashamed of every story that I told of him just to scare the new girls for fun. I saw a lonely man, who had been betrayed too many times by others to trust that he could ever find happiness, yet he still wanted to bestow it on me and my mother. I felt sorry for this man and longed to know him better. I did not see him again until that night of the masquerade ball when he scared everyone but me and my mom. I saw him one more time when Christine betrayed him by tearing his mask off of his face. I saw the hurt and betrayal in his eyes and knew that I had to find him and help him before the mob came.
Sadly, I was almost too late. His wound was quite deep and he was losing blood. I am no doctor, and did not know what to do. Fortunately my mother came in and came upon us. She looked at Erik with concern.
"What is going on here Meg?" She asked "Who did this to Erik?"
Meg looked at her mother and told her "It was Raoul and Christine, I saw the whole thing. The Phantom was on his knees, unarmed weeping, when Christine came up to him to distract him. Raoul crept up behind him and stabbed him. I heard Raoul tell Christine that he couldn't have done it without her help. I cannot believe that they would have done that to him especially not Christine if I did not see and hear it with my own eyes. I loved Christine as my best friend and sister."
Antoinette Giry looked at Erik and saw his life's blood continue to ebb away. "This is my fault and Nadir's, we trusted the boy. I did not think that Erik should take Christine against her will, to force her to love him when she could not. We told him how to find them. I thought that Erik would see the futility of holding Christine captive, when she so clearly despised him and would hand her back to the boy. I didn't think that Raoul would hurt Erik."
"Oh maman it was worse, than that they were gloating over what they had done. Raoul was boasting to her how he had slain the dragon, as if Erik were something less than human." She looked at Erik's unconscious form "No wonder he went crazy tonight. To have the woman that you love as much as he loved her think of you as nothing more than a savage beast not worthy of life." She wiped a tear from her face "It is heartbreaking. I will never forgive Christine for what she did to him."
Just then a door opened and a doctor came in. He looked at maman and then at Erik. "I was told that this man has a stab wound and is bleeding out."
Maman looked at him "Please help him doctor, I do not want to see him die. He is a good man."
The doctor came up to Erik and examined him "I don't know. The wound is very deep; he has lost a lot of blood. Fortunately it did not puncture anything vital. If I can stop the bleeding he might still make it."
The doctor worked on him for quite a while and then left. He had managed to stop the bleeding and told us. He is not out of the woods yet. He lost a lot of blood and might not recover. "You will need to change his bandages and keep the wound clean. You could bring him to a hospital where they could take care of him. Maman shook her head "Thank you docteur but he will stay here. My brother does not care for hospitals."
When he was gone, I asked maman about Erik's scars. They were everywhere.
Maman told me "Poor Erik has been subjected to many cruelties in his life. His body bears the scars of them. It is a miracle that he still lives."
I looked at my maman "Poor man. How can people be so horrible?"
She met my gaze mournfully "He was only a child when he received most of these. He is a very strong man, with a good heart. You know what he did for us. People hurt him because they are like Christine and Raoul, they see only what their eyes see, nothing more. Because he has such a horrible face they stop at that."
I looked at his face- he was not wearing his mask- and his sparse almost non -existent hair that he usually covered with a wig. The left side was pleasant to look at, handsome. The right side was something different. It looked bloated and decaying like a corpse.
I turned away from him feeling nauseous, but I was not afraid. My mother knew this man as a friend, and he had risked his own life to save me from Buquet, and shouldered the blame for it. Christine had spent a lot of time talking with her angel, and even she spoke of how kindly and warmly he had always treated her.
I turned to my mother and asked her "How did it happen did he ever tell you? Was he born that way?"
My mother replied "Yes, he was, and his mother treated him quite cruelly. She locked him away from the world with nothing but a dog and books to keep him company. She made him his first mask so that she could at least occasionally tolerate his presence."
"What about his father?" I asked.
"He died before Erik was born. He never knew his father, perhaps if he had lived Erik might have had a better life, perhaps one of his parents would have taken care of him." Maman told me. She had a disdainful edge to her voice. I could tell that she held Erik's mother's actions in contempt. As if she could read my thoughts she added "How such a mother could treat her child like that for something that was no fault of his own, I will never understand that woman."
I looked at her fearfully "Was she the one who beat him and gave him all of those scars?"
"Non, mon Cherie, it was the gypsies. When Erik was seven years old he ran away from home, and was captured by them, and they put him on display as The Devil's Child. They kept him, like an animal in a dirty cage. That is where I first saw him, I was a twenty year old woman and he was an eleven year old boy. His master would whip him if he did not obey him, until he was bleeding everywhere. I saw his act and felt very sorry for him. I slipped back in to bring him some food and saw him kill his master. I helped him escape and hid him from the gendarmes by bringing him here. I helped him until he was fifteen and left Paris to travel the world."
"Why did you never tell me any of this until now? He has been your friend and you have never said a word about it." I asked her.
"He has survived by avoiding contact with people. After all that he has survived, he trusts no one except me, and his friend from Persia, Nadir. I could not violate his trust by telling anyone about him, even you. I never did so until tonight, when I showed the Vicomte where to go. I should not have betrayed him in that fashion. I should have gone down there myself and reasoned with him. He might have listened to me." Antoinette told her in a regretful tone.
Meg looked at her mother's worried face. "You did what you thought was the right thing. The Phantom should not have kidnapped Christine and tried to force him to marry her. If she did not love him, he should have let her be. I spoke to her about her choice and she told me that while she had loved and admired her tutor, as a father figure, she only loved Raoul in a romantic way. Why couldn't he have just accepted that?"
Antoinette looked at her daughter sadly "When it comes to Architecture, music, magic and composing Erik is a genius, but when it comes to matters of the heart, Erik lacks the experience to understand love and attraction. Because Christine showed him love and acceptance as her friend and teacher, he mistook it for something else. He thought that he could make her love him. I tried to tell him that it doesn't work that way, as did his friend Nadir but he would not hear of it. Eventually he shut us out, and did exactly what we told him not to. I don't blame Christine for being afraid of him."
Meg looked at her mother with concern "But Maman she and Raoul tried to kill him, I saw it with my own eyes. He was unarmed and on his knees, he was no threat to them at that time, it was cold blooded murder."
Antoinette shook her head "I cannot forgive Christine for going that far or the Vicomte either. Erik would not have harmed Christine, she knew that. I can't believe that she would let Raoul kill him."
Meg replied "Well she tried to help Raoul trap and kill him before on stage. She tore his mask off to expose him to the gendarmes, to everyone. How could she betray him like that after all that he did for her?"
Antoinette replied "In the end she saw him, just like the rest of the world did, just another circus freak, not worthy of love or even life. I am disappointed in her and the Vicomte. I thought that they both had more kindness in their hearts. Christine was like a daughter to me but I must cut her from my heart."
"I will as well maman." Meg told her. "I will never speak to Christine again."
