A/N:
Thanks for the reviews! They keep me going!
Also- I typed up this chapter on my tablet, so please pay no mind to any spelling or grammatical errors. :)
A Phantom's Beginning
Chapter Two
Call him deranged, but he just could not stop thinking of her.
He had spied her through the fissures in the banister, her inquisitive eyes alight with consternation; he had studied her, scrutinized her. And his interest had only piqued at the revelation that it was not that screeching girl, Meg- who he had come in contact with five years prior- but an entirely foreign specimen. Had his hostess taken note on the girl's presence, he was bereft of a whim; Antoinette had made not notification of it. Not even the slightest, audible gasp.
Ergo, with the girl's haunted eyes tunneling through his every fluctuation of thought, he had a most challenging time focusing on the old friend across the table.
"The least you could offer is to inform me as to why you're here," Madame Giry hissed across the expanse of silence . "The last time I saw you, you were roaming the hovels of Paris..."
The man leveled a hand; Antoinette ceased prattling. Through the gloom of the room- which was illuminated by a sole lantern- he assessed her with narrowed eyes. "I can assure you, Madame, that I intend no harm to you or your daughter."
Madame Giry drew her robe about her. "Is that so? Because I'm dangerously cognizant of your...ill reputation."
He couldn't suppress the irked growl that reverberated across his chest. The pressure of the pallid mask upon his face increased tenfold; he found himself suffocating from the mere notion of it. "Dammit, woman- I'm not some serial fiend. My blows are calculated and intentional-" a grin slit across his face- "for the majority of instances, anyhow."
The weathered woman fixated him with her pweter glower. "If you are to stay here, I am going to propose a number of conditions to which you must comply."
He gave a noncommittal shrug. He splayed his hands outward, gloved palms facing his hostess. "As you wish..."
"I'm not toying with you, monsieur. My conditions are utterly valid."
"Then please, go on," he persisted, amusement slithering across his words.
"Very well," she proceeded. She tilted her chin up, studying him beneath the half-drawn, twin curtains of her eyelids. Her mouth puckered. "No interaction is to come between you and my Meg."
The vagrant snorted. "Easily done."
Madame Giry hesitated at his comment, then said, "You are not to leave the cellar unless I permit your exit."
At this, he gave a pause.
"Mounsier...?" Antoinette pressed.
"Agreed," he grumbled. He laced his arms about his chest. "Is there anything else you implore of me, Madame?"
"As a matter of fact...yes. Tell me why you're here."
The man's face slacked, deadpan.
"Tell me, or this house is no longer your haven," Antoinette threatened. Her eyes glittered malice.
The table swayed-as it was always want to do those days-and with it the lantern. The peculiar, amber flames and aphotic creases of shadows shifted across his face as a sneer materialized. "...I may have run into an otherwise...unfortunate debacle with an idiot man."
Madame Giry froze. "What...what do you mean?"
The man's hands coiled. "The bastard came at me in the dead of night with a knife. I had no other option!"
Madame Giry hovered a quavering hand above her heart. "Were there witnesses?"
"Of course not," the man snapped. "Do you take me as an imbecile, Madame?" He stopped, then continued, "I desposed of the body. It is unlikely that it will be located."
Madame Giry's hand snaked from her breast to her brow. She bemoaned, "I'm housing a fugitive..."
"It's not as if I desired to kill the man!" He roared, tossing his hands into the air as he rose.
"With you, I never know," she said, clipped.
He lowered himself into his wooden seat and inquired, "Who was that I heard on the stairs?"
"I haven't a clue what you're referring to, mounsier," Antoinette said, her gaze plummeting to her fists, which then perched atop the table.
"It couldn't of been a mouse, could it...?" His ire escalated as the woman before him remained mute. "Tell me, Madame, or I can promise you that our conditions are void."
Her stare traversed his smug countenance. "Christine Daaé is a sort of ward of mine. I took her in when her father passed on years ago."
A sort of delirious interest ignited in his gaze. "How...exceptionally interesting."
"Don't you go getting any of your schemes into your head," she rasped.
"Oh, Madame...," he chuckled. "Never underestimate the mind of a ghost."
"I'm being candid, Erik," Antoinette insisted. The sinewy cords about her throat constricted. "That young woman is like a daughter to me, and-"
"I was only speaking in jest." His voice was laced with coy deviousness.
His hostess quirked a brow.
Indeed, he thought as he leaned back into his chair, steepling his elongated fingers. I may have some fun with this Christine Daaé yet.
A/N-
Sorry that it's brief! I'm sick right now, so I'm running on fumes.
