I awoke wrapped in cold. A chilled caress was brushing my cheek and lingered into my hair.
I cried out and snatched the hellish hand in my own to distance it from my face.
A heavy exhale made me snap my head to look in its direction despite that I could not see yet. I squinted then saw the outline of a lightly colored horse.
I looked back toward the figure holding me in its lap. I could see the outlines of the mask. I had been caressed by a ghost. That was why the touch had been so cool. I wondered if my hand would pass right through the man. I let go of the hand and reached forward. My hand cam in contact with a firm chest of a man! The chest rose slowly but highly as if catching breath. I snatched my hand away not knowing what effect I had placed on the man and not wanted to encourage any more.
"Where are we?"
There was no answer on another exhale from the horse. I was helped to my feet only to be picked up again and placed onto the horse. I wondered how strong the man was to pick me up so easily and move me about without any exertion. He did not groan as I had seen the ballet dancers do with the ballerinas in practice, whom were much tinier than my matured body.
I touched the head of the horse and instantly recognized the white mane.
"Ceaser…" I whispered. The horse had gone missing only a few days. I had been most upset by this as I would often go and feed the horse sweets and salt in between practices when I wasn't supposed to. He had become a true companion in replacement to the cat, Ayesha, that I would feed outside the opera house. She had disappeared only a month before.
The man swung himself onto Ceaser just behind myself. I hadn't realized I was shaking from the cold until he wrapped his cloak around myself as well. I still shivered in the safety of the warmth as Ceaser began to walk. The tales that people spoke of the opera ghost always mentioned his swishing cloak that he would use to distract people so that he could disappear. I wondered if he would lead me farther into the labyrinth and abandon me as another cruel joke: a true poltergeist to torture my existence.
I held onto the hand that was wrapped around my abdomen to keep me steady, afraid that if I should let go he would run off and abandon me alone in the darkness with whatever demons lay in the blackness.
We descended down so many stairs I was shocked to find that one could be so far away from the surface of earth, from daylight.
What had I done?
Ceaser walked in a spiral downwards for what felt like an even longer amount of time than the time that I had spent inside the carriage.
I felt the dampness of the air penetrate me through the thick cloak that was warming me. It reminded me of my trip to the beach. Raoul. I had left him in such a state and now who knew what would come of me? I hoped he would not blame himself for anything that came to happen.
Ceaser stopped. The man disguised as the opera ghost swung himself swiftly from the horse, abruptly throwing me back into the cold air. I instinctively clutched my arms to myself. I was gently hoisted by my waist down to the ground, or what I thought was the ground until I felt the wobble and heard the gently sputter of water. We were on water. My eyes widened as I imagined myself a passenger to Charon.
I was guided to sit on a bench inside the small boat. My eyes still could not adjust. I was blind and floating.
Another agonizingly long journey took us through the damp air until the boat lightly bumped into a hard surface. I was picked up again and carried this time for a period. When I wasn't set down immediately I let my arm wrap around the shoulders of the man so that I was not tucked like a baby into his arms. I heard a mechanical type of movement when he came to a stop. A dimly lit room was a thankful sight.
He took another step in and set me down. I looked around the room first, it was finely decorated, flowers upon flowers lined the room and a gorgeous newly lined couch rested against a wall with a painting of a sultan or some sort of royal man hung above it. The mechanical sound sounded again cutting off the sound of the caverns we had just been in. I stiffened and turned slowly to find the eyes of the man. I could SEE him.
A black mask covering a face that peered at me with golden eyes. Dark hair almost blended into the mask and into his long coat. His cloak was resting on a coat rack just next to the door along with a top hat. I had an odd thought about the manners of a ghost owning a coat rack. He took a step forward and I stumbled backwards. My legs hit the couch and I collapsed down onto it. Gripping the arm of it as if bracing to fall.
He took another step forward and I noted the disproportion of his height to his weight. He was taller than any man I had crossed paths with yet his fingers resembled bone more than a skeleton.
He seemed to be at a loss for words just as I was.
"Do not be afraid. I am not a ghost. I am not a phantom," his eyes almost showed me sadness before he continued, "and I am not an angel… I am Erik."
"Erik," I repeated the word as if it was only sound and had no meaning. The pain of the betrayal must have crossed my face as he threw himself backwards. His hand covering the shame that lie behind the mask
"Why did you lie to me… trick me?" I was fearful at the madness of the man who was before me.
"Erik pretended to be Christine's angel… because he loves her." The chill broke into the warm room and ran up my body. I had no words.
"Erik had heard Christine praying in her room one day and knew her lonliness." I closed my eyes as my own tears started to flow down my face once more. I knew the day he spoke of, the day just after Mama Valerius passing. I had no where else to stay that night and took Madam Giry's offer to sleep on a cot in my dressing room until I could establish a modest flat for myself. I prayed for hours to my father, to god, to my mother, to my mama, and to the angel. I had heard him for the first time that night. I had thought it was just one of the other singers with the company but it had been him. He sang me a sweet lullaby and I cried into her pillow. "Erik wanted to be her friend but did not want to scare her."
I looked at him. He almost looked childlike as he sulked in his despair against the wall. I thought back to the long discussions in my dressing rooms as if we had always been lifetime friends. I had previously thought that he had perhaps always been with me as my guardian angel, then thought that when Mama Valerius passed that God had granted him the rite to speak to me. He was my friend.
I could hear it in his voice as he talked to me. I could feel the same presence I always had through my fear. I felt that I was once again with my angel, and not in the presence of the ghost that terrified the dreams of the ballet girls.
"I will continue to be your friend, Erik."
He lifted his eyes to me which I could barely see through the dim lighting of the room. "But there will be no more lies!" I demanded, remembering the courage that had taken me over earlier.
"Oh, Christine." He bowed his head once more.
"Promise me, Erik. No more lying."
"Erik promises, he promises to never lie to his Christine again."
We stared at each other for so long, inspecting each other, his eyes burning yellow in the dark. The rumors of his hair were false. His hair was thick and soft looking, not at all whispy as Meg Giry had excitedly told the girls in the halls to frighten them. He was ghastly thin. That I could understand the comparison of the skeleton to. But his eyes were hard to place. Earlier I had seen how they could appear as the stones of death that I had heard so many people describe them as, however in the light the warmth of his eyes was gentle and almost adoring.
I wondered if the rumors of what was underneath his mask were true. She wanted to see what Erik looked like. See who he was.
"Erik…" I blushed, wondering the propriety of the question.
I stopped speaking when he closed his eyes, reveling in something.
"Could I see your face. So that we may truly meet each other," his gaze shifted into a cooler tone and distant from the emotional wreck he had just rescued himself from. "Properly," I added.
He would not speak for several moments.
"Christine may not ever see what lay behind this mask."
"Is a mask nothing more than a lie to what lay beneath?"
"A mask is nothing more than a piece of clothing and one would not ask another to remove their stockings so to see the skin beneath."
I blushed at the comparison, from shame and the crudeness of his words.
Erik noticed.
"Why did you bring me down here to reveal yourself to me?"
Erik stood to his feet and crossed the room to one of the bouquets of flowers. He twiddled with a flower before speaking. "Erik was afraid of Christine's reaction and did not want others in the Opera House to make the situation worse than it would have been." He plucked one of the roses from the bouquet and began to pull the thorns off one by one. "He planned on making his home better suited for Christine before she came, he has not had the chance to buy her her things."
Christine looked around and wondered what the other doors in the room led to. Was this Erik's home? Did he live here, so far from the sun? That must have been why his skin seemed so white yet dull.
"My things?"
"So that she may stay here comfortably." At that I snapped my head back to his to find him holding a dethorned rose out to me. It was beautiful and brightly red, but it was only a mask to what he had just insinuated.
"I don't think I understand." I took the rose, but did not bring it to my nose to smell its sweetness.
"Christine will stay for only a short time so that she may get to know Erik." I shook my head.
"I cannot stay here Erik." There was a slight panic in my voice. He put his hands in his pockets like a grumpy child.
"Five days. That is all." There was finality in his voice that I couldn't understand. I was a prisoner, not a guest.
"People will be worried."
"You are suspected to be on vacation at the moment." His voice was stern. He fiddled with his fingers by his side. I was surprised to hear myself spoken of directly opposed to in the third person.
It seemed more threatening. I wouldn't speak. The ball in my throat had risen and forced tears to blur my vision. To distract myself I brought the rose up to inhale a small pleasure. I exhaled my worry.
"Lovely," I sighed.
"Quite." Erik was staring at me and not the rose. "Is Christine tired?"
I nodded my head. There had been so much emotional excitement that I felt as though I had never slept before in my life.
"Erik will show Christine to her room." He acknowledged to a door in the room. I stood and brought the flower with me.
When he opened the door the gaslight in the hall lit on its own. I ceased walking.
"It is a simple mechanic that I installed, do not be afraid. There is no such thing as ghosts." He knew exactly where my mind had gone before I did. I let out a nervous laugh at his statement.
He cocked his head to the side, waiting for me to continue walking.
"Until ten minutes ago to me you were either the Opera Ghost or an angel."
"Ah."
Ah, indeed.
He unlocked a door with a single key which was separate from the chain of keys he used to unlock the hallway door.
He held the door open for me but would not step inside. I walked into a beautifully decorated room. There were deep blues accented by bright but pretty yellows. Blue was my favorite color. I commonly used blue ribbons in my hair.
"This room is yours and therefore you have power over it." He held the key out to me. "There is only one key I made, you may use it as you wish. The door locks from both sides so when you leave you may lock it behind you and I will not be able to enter." I doubted that a locked door would stop him after he invented a self-lighting gas lamp! "I will leave you to nap for a bit while I pick up the luxuries I had hoped to already have set up for you. I will be back at 6pm with a meal prepared and clothing for you to sort through and put away."
"Thank you, this is all so generous." I remembered that the Phantom of the Opera had been stealing a monthly stipend from the managers for many years, so I supposed that money was not an obstacle for him at the moment.
"It is nothing of concern, sleep well Christine." I almost closed my eyes when he said my name. It was like a lullaby.
He shut the door behind him allowing me to take in everything. There was a fireplace that already had wood set up in it, ready to be lit and a few gas lamps as well as several candles. He knew my fear of the dark, this room had been the most illuminated by far.
There was a silver hair brush with my name engraved in pretty letters on the back. A sweetly scented perfume was already filled on the vanity as well. There was no mirror in the room except for a small hand held one that I found in the drawer of the vanity. It was plain, unlike anything else in the room. He did not spend much time picking out my mirror as he had everything else. I looked around more and found gorgeous ribbons for my hair, all the undergarments I could ever ask for, and enough socks to last me a lifetime. There were a few books that I had loved my entire life and a few that I knew I would happily read during my stay here.
I inspected another door in the room and found it to be a prettily decorated bathroom. The tub had bath salts and various flower petals inside jars that all smelled heavenly. This man whose face I had never seen knew everything about me. What smells I enjoyed, what colors I favored, what texture of socks I found most comfortable, and even what books I favored. He knew all this from only three months of speaking with me through a wall. I thought back to his words earlier. 'because he loves her.'
Could this man actually love me? Was it the love that young men proclaim to young women as means to woo them into their beds but not to their marital bed, was it the love that one feels for just their friend, or was it the love that one might feel for their pupil?
It was too much for me to think about at the moment. I removed the top layer of my dress and loosened my corset just enough for me to breath comfortably. I locked the door before I removed my shoes and lay down on the plush, large mattress.
Sleep came too swiftly for me to notice I had even shut my eyes.
