There were a blissful few days of silence for Christine in the beginning.
She wasn't sure where he had gone, but he certainly wasn't home. There was an odd silence in the echoing caverns, an empty and cold darkness. Once this may have frightened her - she had never truly enjoyed being in his home without him. Even she would regretfully admit that there was something calming about his presence, a sense of safety and security. When he was there the dark did not seem so oppressive, so frightening.
For the few days that he was gone, though, she promised herself that she would savor the solitude. So long as he wasn't there she didn't have to think so much, she didn't have to worry so terribly about words like marriage and husband, wife. She didn't have to dread that he would demand his husbandly rights in the night.
He left a note but it wasn't of much help. His notes usually weren't very helpful in explaining himself, though he himself didn't do a much better job.
Darling Christine,
Breakfast is prepared and waiting for you in the kitchen. I must be away for a bit to see to some important duties. Do not neglect your appetite.
Erik
How thoughtful he was. She had almost laughed the first time she read his childishly scribbled note, so simple in its composition. Even with his succinct writing he had not forgotten her threats and it seemed that he had taken them to heart. She found herself wondering if he would ever allow her to forget her own childish threats.
There was one benefit to living five stories below the crust of the earth - one that had never really crossed her mind before. It was not so terribly difficult to keep food. The thought came to her as she stood in his disturbingly drab kitchen, eating an apple as she rooted through the cupboards, finding them surprisingly empty.
Perhaps that was why he had gone above, she thought. To get groceries.
After the second day she began to wonder if something had happened to him. Surely no grocery trip lasted two whole days.
She pushed the concern from her mind with books, pulling her selections carefully from the bookshelves in his library and shutting herself away with them. She had always enjoyed reading - it had always been an escape for her. In her books she could be somewhere else, someone else. The concept had always been a welcome one and now she only found it more important to keep her simple escapes.
It wasn't until the third day of his absence that she began to truly worry that something was amiss.
The intention of lighting herself a fire was what led her into the front room. It was not a room that she frequented, more of an antechamber than anything. There were only two doors in the room - one that led further into his home and one that would lead to the shores of his lake.
If he had been there he would have scolded her for considering to light a fire.
'You will burn yourself,' he would say, taking the matches and lighting it for her.
Perhaps he wasn't always so terrible. He could be thoughtful at times, in moments such as those. Those memories were the ones that caused her to miss him, to wonder how long he would leave her in his dull, damp home alone. It all seemed so terribly morbid without him, being encased in this living tomb. He at least brought some life to the home, some mystery and warmth.
Regardless, she had gone into the front room to light a fire for herself and found herself confronted with an open front door.
She stood frozen, staring at it for a long moment.
"Hello?" she said nervously, wrapping her arms around herself. "Erik?"
No answer was given to her except for the steady echoing 'drip, drip, drip' of the ceiling over the lake.
She took one step and then two, then another until she stood before the door, boldly daring to allow her fingers to slip into the small gap between the door and the wall.
When she pulled it open she had fully expected to find him standing on the other side, she expected to be greeted by his unnatural yellow eyes and the betrayal and hurt that they conveyed so remarkably easily.
Instead she faced nothing but the blackness and chill of the air around his lake.
It wasn't until that moment that escape actually crossed her mind. It would be so easy to simply slip out, to leave and never come back. She could go to the gendarmes, lead a group of armed men down. It would all be over so easily, so quickly. She knew the way up just as well as she knew the way down; a path that he had insisted she learn. How easily she could undo him with his own thoughtlessness.
Instead she pulled herself back into his front room, pulling the door closed quickly before she could give it another thought.
She would kill him if she left. She knew that full well. Hadn't she betrayed him enough already?
How ridiculous she was, considering his feelings when he clearly hadn't give a second thought to hers. Yet there was something that compelled her to stay, something that ran deeper than her desperate attempt to save her former fiancé and childhood friend. Something that she dare not think too terribly hard about.
To think was only to feel and to feel was only to drive her further into his madness. That was something that she couldn't afford.
She found her way slowly back to her bedroom, all thoughts of a fire long gone by now. Instead she slipped between the far-too-silky sheets with a sigh, wondering if he would ever come home again as she drifted off to sleep.
"Christine?"
His voice was timid and nervous, so unlike him and she shifted in her sleep, wondering if it really was him or some strange half-dream.
"Christine."
It was firmer this time, beckoning her into consciousness. She sighed again, rolling onto her side and squinting in the direction of his voice.
"Erik?" Her voice was muddled and thick with her confused sleepiness.
He sighed in relief and she could hear his footfalls as he drew nearer to the edge of her bed. It was intentional - if she heard his approach it was completely intentional. Erik was more than capable of silent movement. Sometimes she wondered if he allowed his footfalls to be heavier in an attempt to keep from startling her.
"Erik is home," he said, his voice so near to her ear. "His many errands are finally completed. Did Christine - did she miss her Erik?"
There was hopefulness in his voice, something that she didn't hear often, and she couldn't find it in her to tear it away from him.
"Of course I did, Erik. It is terribly quiet and lonely here without you." It wasn't a lie at least. She comforted herself with that. Did she miss him? That she couldn't answer with certainty but she couldn't deny the slightest bit of relief that she felt at his return.
"Go back to sleep, Christine," his words were so sudden and abrupt but she found himself following his command, her eyelids growing heavy under the smooth lilt of his voice.
Quietly, gently, he sang her to sleep on a melody weaved of silk and gold.
It wasn't until the next evening that she realized what his errand had been for.
He summoned her from her bedroom with a firm knock and an announcement that it was time for supper, drawing her nervously into his presence.
He sat silently at the kitchen table, a glass of red wine sitting directly in the middle the table between them.
She sat nervously across from him, worrying her lip as she took in his stiff and serious demeanor.
"I've missed our dinners," she offered, trying to break the awkward silence that settled around them so often. "It's been so very quiet here."
"You've missed… me," he said as though he were attempting to string together some bit of information that made no sense.
"I have," she said, forcing herself to smile at him. She wondered if he could tell when her smiles were forced or not - surely she had given him a true smile at least once in the vast amount of time they had known one another.
If he realized it he gave no sign, simply reaching his hand across the table and laying it palm-up before her. "Give me your hand, Christine," his voice was so soft and gentle.
Surely she couldn't deny his request. She was to be a wife to him and to allow him to touch her hand was the least of what she could do. Still, she hesitated for reasons she couldn't quite pin down herself.
It wasn't until he sighed and began to pull his hand away that she relented, sliding her palm over his quickly. His breath caught and he let his fingers close around her wrist. Not too tightly, not too loosely, simply holding her hand in place.
His other hand reached into his breast pocket and next thing she knew he was sliding a ring onto her third finger.
So this was why he was gone so long, she thought as she looked at the new ring. It was certainly one of his own design, a ruby surrounded by a small smattering of diamonds. Simple, mostly. Expensive surely, but not nearly as ornate as she had expected from the man.
"If you are my wife then you will have a proper ring," he said, lifting his eyes from her finger to meet hers. "There was another design but it was too - you will like this one more."
"Thank you, Erik," she said, slowly pulling her hand away from his and examining the ring. "It's very pretty."
"You deserve only beautiful things, Christine," he said, suddenly slipping into a pensive quietness. He pulled his hand quickly away from her, smoothing his lapels nervously as he avoided her eye.
There was something almost charming about his nervousness sometimes. Perhaps that was a cruel thought to have as it was obvious that it tortured him but she couldn't help it. He did have some level of empathy, some understanding of what he was doing to her. She could see it in his eyes sometimes, a deep regret and self loathing that he couldn't quite hide from her.
He cleared his throat, pulling at his cravat. "I also have a paper for you to sign, after you've supped."
She ate slowly that night, dreading what was to come. And sure enough after he had cleared the dishes he was presenting her with two papers, each one a notarized certificate of marriage.
She was half tempted to ask him where he had managed to get such documentation - it was no use though. Erik was a resourceful man and she had no doubt of his abilities.
His signature was already marring each paper in that childish script that she had come to know so well.
"It's simply a reassurance," he said to her as she nervously held his quill between her trembling fingers. "You've already agreed to be my wife with words - surely a document is not asking so very much."
She did not have much of a choice; she realized that much. Even if she refused to sign them she was sure that her signature would somehow find it's way on to the page. So she took a deep breath and scribbled her own name onto the line beside his, wondering if this was what it felt like to sell one's soul. Just as Faust had, she made a deal with the devil.
The only difference was that her devil was a living man and try as she may she couldn't manage to forget it.
How strange - for so long he had been inhumane to her; untouchable, unreachable. But now, even hidden by the blank white of his mask, she could not manage to make herself see him as anything less than the man that he was. There was no angel, no demon, simply a very sad misguided, ugly man.
He smiled beneath his mask as he took the pages from her, she was almost sure of it. She could see it in his eyes, try as he may to hide it.
Finally he was lifting the long forgotten wine glass into his hand, cradling it between his strangely elongated fingers.
"I suppose this is our wedding night," his voice was so nervous, even as he tried to keep it smooth.
"I suppose it is," she said, dread sinking into the pit of her stomach.
He sighed, looking down into the red of the wine as he avoided her eye. "I offer you a choice."
Her stomach churned at that. A choice. He had offered her so many useless choices. What was the point in offering a choice if he knew what the outcome would be? They were not choices, they were simply an illusion, an attempt to keep her blind to how very powerless she truly was beside him.
"What is my choice?" she asked, not bothering to even attempt to hide the tremble in her voice.
He held the wineglass out as though it were an offering. "If you drink it," he said, "it will put you into a deep sleep. You will not have to endure your wedding night. You will wake with no recollection."
Her laugh was a dry and choking thing, more of a sob than a laugh but she nodded slowly. "May I have some time to think about it?"
His posture straightened at that. "Of course," he said softly. "Come, come, I will play for you. I have a new composition, just for you."
She sighed but when he offered her his free hand her fingers slipped between his, allowing him to whisk her away once more into the music room.
As he played she thought, his music lulling her into a strange calmness. His music was one thing she would never tire of - the way that it pulled her under, the way that it soothed her as easily as a drug. The way that she allowed it to slip inside of her and take her apart until even she could not define her own thoughts, her own feelings.
When the piece was over he hesitated for a long moment. Then, slowly, he stood and took the glass between his fingers again as he made his way to where she sat on the couch, kneeling on the floor before her as he looked into her eyes.
"It is your decision, Christine," he said again, holding the glass out to her.
She nodded, then she was taking the glass from him with trembling fingers.
He watched her so carefully, so closely as she brought the glass to her lips and drank deeply.
When the glass was empty he sighed, daring to let his cold fingers brush against her cheek.
"You are loveliness itself, Christine."
He breathed the words so reverently, speaking them as though they were a prayer. She could feel her limbs growing heavy as she stared back at him, trying so hard to focus on his eyes. Those two terribly glowing eyes, if only she could focus on those then perhaps…
Her eyelids were growing heavy, her thoughts slow and muddy as whatever drug he had offered her began to take hold. There was no use in fighting it. She knew that, yet still.
"Erik," his name felt so strange on her lips, so foreign and difficult.
His thumb brushed her cheek gently, offering her reassurance in the only way he seemed to know. "It's for the best," he said, his words sounding so terribly far away.
She blinked slowly, trying, trying so hard to keep herself afloat. "Erik," she wanted to say something, she knew that. She could hear the thought deep in her mind but she couldn't find it, couldn't quite grasp it; the two syllables of his name took far too much effort.
She felt his cold lips as he pressed them to her forehead, spreading a strange warmth. There was a lovingness there, a gentleness.
When she finally surrendered to the drug she felt herself slump forward. The last thing she could remember feeling was his arms encircling her tightly as she fell.
