Erik closed his eyes. Voices swirled about his subconscious, clamoring to be awoken.
"No," Erik whispered. "No…"
But the voices persisted, and gradually, oh so slowly, the image formed, out of smoke and water in his mind, and he drifted and sank into a memory-trance.
"Mother, let me kiss you. Let me kiss you, Mother!"
Small, thin hands reached out for her skirts, her apron covered in flour from baking bread. The boy-Erik liked how she smelled. Sometimes he sneaked into her bedroom and put his face against the downy comforter, trying to get a whiff of her scent. She had never caught him doing this. It was a secret.
She certainly would never have let him put his face up to her apron, even though he wanted to, wanted to smell the flour and the dough and the cloth. She backed away, her eyes red around the edges. Why was she always so miserable? Was it all his fault, really, or was it something else?
"Erik…get away, get away, now! Don't come near Mother! And take this, you dreadful sprite…take it, put it on...! Oh, child, demonic child, what in hell's name possessed you? Your father…your father might see! Put it on, put it on, quickly!"
He could not understand it.
"Mother…Mother…"
"No!" she groaned. "Oh, God, no!"
The mask lay on the floor where she had thrown it. The child did not like it. It was uncomfortable, and it itched. Why did his Mother insist that he wear it?
"Mother…Mother…why?"
And his mother wept and fled, leaving the child alone.
And the child noticed something he had never seen before. It was lying on the nightstand, shiny and beckoning.
The child saw that it was made of metal and glass, but he had never seen this sort of glass before. It seemed to reflect the things around it, the ceiling and the walls.
The child stiffened, painfully thin, a quiver running through his body. He had never seen himself! Perhaps—
Slow, halting steps. He felt dizzy, a little wicked. At length he reached the hand-held looking-glass, and then…reaching out his white little fingers… he picked it up.
And looked.
"NO! Oh no, no, no! DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN!"
Erik wept upon the cushions. The image faded, to his humiliated relief. He had fallen into a dream, fallen into a memory that made him revert back over forty years. He wasn't certain of his own age; the years had so often blurred into a confusing procession of whirlwind torment and depression. There were times—more often than not, of late—when he thought himself vaguely content, times when he sat in his Box, closing his eyes and letting the sounds of Carmen or Faust drift over his ears, or when he composed a particularly satisfying aria of his own at the great pipe organ and let it thunder as loudly as it pleased.
Times like this, however, horrific reversions, were rare these days—he wondered what on earth had brought it all back.
The cushions comforted his tear-streaked visage, soft and yielding against his tightly stretched skin. He reminded himself coldly that he did not believe in God. He also realized that he could smell Tora on the cushions.
How interesting.
He remembered, as though it were burned into him with a hot knife, the expression upon her face as she touched his mask, sitting where he was lying prostrate now.
"Please, Erik…if we're friends now, I have a right…"
He shook his head to clear it.
"It is no monster I see…"
She would learn, he reflected darkly. Oh, she would learn…
He wondered vaguely if she would actually wish to see him again. What about that blow he had given her? He had never, he reflected uncomfortably, hit a woman before, much less a slip of a girl like Tora.
Shame was not a word used often in his vocabulary. All the same, he felt a confusing twinge of what he recognized (becoming quite startled) as…guilt? "Guilt!" he spat suddenly. "For striking someone!"
Guilty! He, Erik? He who had murdered slaves and warriors for the entertainment of the little sultana and laughed along?
Bon dieu, he must be going mad.
The dancer was a confusing little fool, but perhaps she might prove an inexplicable comfort, after all. But, oh! If she ever saw his face…she was so young, so painfully young. He hardly knew what he might do if he could not abide her reaction to such a thing.
He stared at the ceiling and gave a long, terrible sigh. I do not want to know, he thought. I do not want to think. Could he possibly abide her chatter if he brought her down here again? He was not in the mood for it. The thought of girlish prattle agonized him.
And then Erik remembered the sweeping, smoky trance-memory, and flinched violently, throwing one bony hand out as if to block the image. It disquieted him, this stiff fear, this unusual superstition. It was not like him to be jumping at shadows.
He was fearless (he told himself)! He had hardly any qualms. For his own horrific visage, however, he had nothing but indescribable loathing.
He needed her chatter, he reflected bitterly. He needed to connect with the human race, somehow. The image burned, and burned, and burned. His face inside his mother's mirror.
Erik's eyes squeezed shut, and he lithely rolled from the divan into a crouch, swiftly getting to his feet.
The cloak swished, and was gone from the hanging-hook to be placed on protruding shoulders. The mask was snatched from a corner and jammed rather unceremoniously onto the grimacing face. Had anyone peered inside his domain at that particular moment, they would have spied a panther of a man creeping from the secret place and hiding among the shadows, waiting for a glimpse of the one who refused to leave his mind. He had not long to wait.
He saw her run from a crowd of clamoring little rats and fling herself behind the subsequently locked door of one of the more unoccupied dressing-rooms.
Erik waited.
And waited.
The troupe of girls clamored at the door, then slunk away one by one in defeat.
The last one, Sophie, ran after her fellow ballet rats, not wanting to be left behind. Erik chuckled horribly, remembering her outcry when she'd seen him last. Careful, now, or she might catch a glimpse of him again. Although, he thought privately, it would be fiendishly amusing, to be sure. To tell the truth, he was beginning to tire of all this. The idea that someone—namely, Tora—knew him for a man, really knew that he was nothing but an ordinary person in spite of extraordinary traits, was dreadfully exciting. It was an experience he'd not had in some time.
When little Sophie had gone, Erik heard a strange sigh. There was a long silence. And then, with a shiver of he knew not what—hope? Agony?—he heard his name being called, being summoned as if he were a genie.
It echoed inside the tiny dressing-room, reverberating through the walls. He felt it like the scraping of a string on a wound, raw and shocking. For a moment, he could scarcely move.
"Erik…Erik…Erik…"