Author's Notes: This chapter is much, much longer than I really meant it to be, but I can't think of where to split it. There are also some potentially squicky mental health issues and hurt/comfort-ish themes; consider yourselves warned (though, what the heck are you finding to read in this fandom if that kind of thing bothers you?)
A few things re: the canon on which this is based – as previously stated, this is a movie-based fic.
Re: Erik's past - in the movie, Madame Giry rescued Erik from the traveling carnival somewhere around 20-25 years ago, and he's been living under the Opera ever since. Thus, he's never been to Persia, and he did not assist in the construction of the Opera. I plan on expanding on that a bit, but for now, that's it. This makes the assortment of underground structures all a little inexplicable – I'm going on the theory that the Opera sits over a system of caves, and that he's added to them and adapted them to his purposes. Yes, this would have made rather a lot of noise and required rather a lot of work – but, he's had nothing else to do for 20-25 years, and hey, the place is supposedly "haunted", right?
This also makes Buquet only the 2nd person he's ever killed, which I think marks the occasion as somewhat more life-altering and traumatic than if Buquet were, say, the 243rd person he'd killed, and he'd spent years as a professional assassin (I'm unsure if that's Leroux or Kay, but I know I've seen it in several fics.) So, I hope y'all won't mind that my vision of Erik here is more 'unhinged and having a serious episode of PTSD' than 'debonair and sexy'.
Re: Erik's face – do me a favor, and go to www (dot) mcheathers (dot) com (slash) gbMakingPOTO(underscore)2 (dot) htm. (Sorry for the atrociously mangled web address, but the site would just eat a link .. .) Check out the 7th picture down. Then check out the 8th picture down. Note how in picture 8, he's considerably less deformed than in picture 7, particularly about the nose, mouth, and eye. I'm not sure if it's a different prosthetic entirely (I think the nose must be, at least) or what, or why they decided to back off on his appearance – maybe the scarier looking pieces inhibited speech too much or gave the actor a rash or something, I dunno – but I think his picture-7 appearance (well, plus hair) would have fit a great deal better with the story. I know this has been criticized before, I'm saying nothing new, but seriously, I've seen someone with a 3rd degree sunburn who looked scarier than he did in the final version of the movie. So, for purposes of this fic . . keep picture 7 there in mind. That's how I'm imagining him.
Re: names for OCs/characters without canon names – I have no idea if there is or ever was a Baron de Laurent; if so, I apologize profusely to him / his ancestors. I just picked a random French-sounding name. And I think I mentioned randomly deciding to go with the fanon-ish "Antoinette" for Madame Giry's first name, in last chapter.
Anyway, on to the fic . . .
"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" someone yelped as Meg slipped into the dormitory after the final performance of Il Muto. The girl's impatient squeaking was shrill enough to cut through the babble of general excitement, which was only slight less deafening inside the dorm as compared to out. Meg glanced over at the source of this exclamation, and saw Colleen - a pretty blonde dancer, a year younger than Meg - in her under-things, bracing herself on the end of the bed opposite Meg's while another girl tugged her corset tight enough to make breathing rather improbable. The girl with that unenviable task – Colleen tended towards curvaceous – was Claudette, younger still and pathetically eager to please anyone who would pay her the slightest attention.
Meg slipped past them as unobtrusively as possible; Colleen was the girl she's thoughtlessly scolded, some months back, about her wealthy lover.
"Mustn't keep the illustrious Baron de Laurent waiting," Regine teased, lounging on the next bed and still in her costume. A red-haired girl flew past them with her arms full of mismatched bottles, and Regine gave a delighted cry, snatching one. The redhead allowed it, giggling, then whirled around to face Meg; she was new, and Meg couldn't remember her name. Brigit, maybe?
"You want?" she asked in a heavy accent, grinning and offering Meg a bottle. Meg shook her head; the girl shrugged, and moved on.
"You see, the hell with your Baron," Regine opined. "Find me a man with keys to the kitchens, and I'll be a happy woman."
"Where are my stockings?" Colleen demanded in a shrill, panicked whine.
"You're wearing stockings," Claudette pointed out, sitting on the end of the bed and tucking her own bare feet up under her shift. She'd shed her costume, but her face was still painted, and she watched her friend's antics with wide, worshipful eyes.
Meg untied her shoes and stowed them under her bed, idly massaging her stiff toes as her gaze drifted over the room, searching.
"Not these," Colleen wailed. "My good ones!" The redhaired girl with her bottles had reached the other end of the dormitory; a cheer went up. Meg craned her neck, looking past dozens of bodies in various states of undress, hoping to find a particular familiar head amidst the rest. Christine's bed was near to Meg's, but in the aftermath of a show, she often found herself shuffled elsewhere to make room for some other girl's tipsy, giggling cadre of friends. Seeing as there were several such companies already forming around the red-head's purloined bottles, Meg figured Christine had probably ensconced herself in some quiet corner, if she hadn't fled the dorm entirely.
"Where did I put them?" Colleen was whimpering. "They were here this afternoon, I'm sure they were!"
"I don't see how it really matters," Regine suggested. "Unless he likes you to leave them on? Oh, does he?"
"Did you tuck them under the mattress?" Claudette suggested, while Colleen turned scarlet, pointedly ignored Regine's impertinent questions, and crawled halfway under her bed in search of her missing stockings. Meg got to her feet, standing on the bed, to take a better survey of the room.
"Oh, he does, doesn't he?" Regine pressed, grinning, before taking another long swallow from her bottle.
"Don't you need to go change?" Claudette sniped, though her voice wavered uncertainly.
"To the end," called out a voice – Meg thought it might be Colette – from the far corner that had just acquired libation, "of that unnatural disaster!" A giggling cacophony of voices joined in the toast, and a scattering of bottles were raised overhead.
"This is much more interesting," Regine brushed Claudette's timorous objections aside, apparently unoffended. She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and gave Colleen – or rather, Colleen's backside, where it protruded from under the cot – her rapt attention. "Justine – you won't know her, she left before you came, married a fishmonger of all things – she said that noblemen are all perverted, and she would have known. She said that having to be so polite all the time in public turns their brains, and once you have them alone -"
"Jaques is not perverted," Colleen's muffled voice objected. "He's taking me to supper, somewhere very nice, he said, and I just want to look – ah!" she concluded, in a triumphant tone, and began to wriggle back out from under the bed.
"To no more powdered wigs!" someone shouted from the back of the room; more cheering, and the clinking of bottles. "To no more rehearsals of Act 5!" someone else suggested; this met with even more heart-felt approval. Meg added her own silent agreement – the dance from Act 5 was dreadful, a technical nightmare and completely uninspired – and then frowned; she didn't see Christine anywhere.
"Oh!" Colleen suddenly cried out, sounding rather as if she'd been stabbed; Meg dropped down to sit on her bed and glanced sideways at the other girl. Colleen's her thumb was protruding through the end of a very fine, lacey stocking. Regine snorted in amusement.
"It's just the toe," Claudette rushed to placate her friend. She was up on her knees on the end of the bed, hovering over Colleen's shoulder and clasping her hands. "It's not so bad. He'll never notice, and we really should get you into your dress."
"Of course he'll notice!" Colleen wailed. "It's no good at all now, they'll look like someone's cast-offs, and I saved for these -"
"He didn't give them to you?" Regine asked, tipped her bottle back, and then frowned at it in disappointment. Meg could only guess that it had run dry; she bent over the end of her own bed to pull a simple day-dress in blue out of her trunk. It smelled rather dusty; most of her days were spent dancing and it was too plain for church, so it saw little use. It seemed rather a waste to don it now, but Meg didn't want to slip past Colleen's Baron de Laurent – who would no doubt be waiting at the door – in either her costume's undergarments or her nightgown, and she did very much want to seek out Christine, who had been missing too much in recent days.
"What's the point of a rich lover if he doesn't pay for your stockings?" Regine sighed, setting the bottle on the floor and flopping back onto her bed. Colleen looked to be in danger of crying.
"You'll just have to borrow someone else's," Claudette ventured, rather desperately. "I'm sure someone else -"
"You can't have mine, you'll stretch them," Regine was quick to interject.
"That's because you're scrawny as a twig," Colleen retorted nastily, in a tearful voice, as Meg pulled her dress over her head. She heard Regine sigh, and then a bed creaking; when she wriggled the garment into place and could once more see, Regine's bed was empty.
"Don't mind her," Claudette tried to reassure Colleen.
"I can't get upset," whimpered a very upset-sounding Colleen. "I'll be blotchy."
Meg resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and instead twisted her arms around herself, contorting to try to reach the buttons that ran up the back of her dress. The skirt was going to look rather ridiculous over the abbreviated petticoat she'd worn for Il Muto, but she would at least be decently covered and plain, unlikely to attract attention.
"Meg!" Claudette suddenly cried out; Meg's head shot up warily. "You're of a size," she pronounced hopefully, glancing between Meg and Colleen, who was scowling. "You must have a pair of good stockings."
"Don't ask her," Colleen snapped. "Meg doesn't approve."
Claudette looked equal parts confused and desperate, giving Meg a terribly pleading stare.
"Of course you can borrow my stockings," Meg replied, with a twinge of regret; she'd likely never see them again, and would then have to explain to Mama where they'd gone, but that all seemed a small price for a little peace. "They're not as fine as yours, but -" she leaned forward to rummage through her trunk, and then produced the garments in question. " – will they do?"
"They're lovely!" Claudette exclaimed instantly. "Aren't they lovely, Colleen?"
"Thank you," Colleen said simply, still eyeing Meg with suspicion.
"I hope you have a good time at dinner," Meg ventured; it sounded terribly stilted and insincere to her ears, but Colleen gave her a tentative grin in response. Meg returned her smile, though she was afraid it looked tight and forced, and fled the room.
Antoinette Giry almost did not hear the soft knock on her door over the noise of the celebration outside; when she did discern it, she was tempted to ignore it. It was late, she'd taken her hair down, and the majority of the revelers still awake had reached a state of sufficient inebriation that they'd never remember if she was rude to them or not.
The knock came again, quick and a little louder, and she sighed. It would not be the one person she wished to see, the one person who had occupied her troubled thoughts for days, because Erik would not knock. It could, however, be one of her girls.
If one of her girls had gotten herself so sick on drink that they had to come running for help, there would be dire consequences – in the morning, though, not now. Antoinette demanded their absolute respect unflinchingly, but she never wanted them to fear her more than they trusted her, and that meant there could be no harsh words now. She pushed herself to her feet, squared her shoulders, and cracked open her door.
When she saw the face on the other side, she swung the door wide in frank shock. Christine Daae lowered a small, white fist quickly to her side; she'd been poised to knock again. Christine did not drink – truth be told, the girl did not celebrate in any fashion – and was not well tolerated by those girls who did. Her face looked a little red from scrubbing, free of stage make-up, but pale about the mouth and dark at the eyes.
"Child, what is it?" Antoinette asked in genuine concern, ushering the young girl inside. Christine complied with an unaccustomed hesitancy to her steps, moving to the middle of the small room and twisting her hands fretfully while Antoinette shut the door.
"There was no rose," Christine blurted out instantly, as though she'd been struggling to keep the words in. "Not last night or the night before either, and I'm afraid -"
"No, no, no," Antoinette murmured soothing, taking hold of the young girl's trembling shoulders and guiding her to sit on the bed. "You mustn't think you've done anything wrong, child. You sang beautifully. He cannot be displeased."
"I'm not worried that he's displeased," Christine insisted, her voice a soft wail. "It's just – he hasn't – I haven't heard him at all, not since -" She stopped, looking very caught, and Antoinette sighed wearily.
"Since Buquet," Antoinette supplied for her, forcing her face into an expression of unflappable calm despite the churning of her insides. "Of course I know he was responsible, dear."
"Oh," Christine said in a small voice, and seemed to shrink into herself, shoulders rounding. "Have you -" Christine stopped, her eyes flitting from Antoinette's face to the floor. She was still shaking. Antoinette turned away in search of her shawl.
"Have you always known what he was?"
Antoinette stopped with her back still to Christine, her hands clenching in the fabric of the shawl. So many possible answers to that question – yes, of course I have; truth, in a way. And also, no, not until Buquet did I realize what he could do. But then, if she said, I have worried, I have feared, for a very long time, that would not be a lie either, and those were only the answers to one interpretation of the question, the one that had haunted Antoinette's thoughts since the opening night of Il Muto.
Did you know he was capable of murder?Yes, yes I did. I knew that when I brought him here. I knew that when I taught my girls to mind their tongues; I told myself I just didn't like to hear those macabre stories, that it couldn't be good for him to hear them whispering of him as a monster, but I knew.
I knew when I gave you into his care.
Antoinette turned back with the shawl tangled about her hands, and met Christine's wide, pleading eyes unflinchingly. I knew when I heard you speak of your angel. "And what is that?" Antoinette forced herself to ask calmly; it would be unwise to presume that Christine's thoughts had tread the same path her own guilty conscience had taken. She'd learned long ago that the girl's view of things could be unpredictable, and her peace of mind fragile; it was better to understand precisely what she was asking before venturing an answer that might do more harm than good.
"I know that he's . . he's the ghost," Christine offered, cringing all the while. "And y-you – you know the ghost," she pressed on, still meeting Antoinette's gaze unblinkingly; she made Antoinette think of a cornered cat, all round eyes, too afraid to look away. "He leaves you notes, for the managers, and – and the sketches for the set designers and the costumers, and his criticisms of the orchestra, and – and all those horrid things he's always saying of Carlotta and the suggestions that Piangi always rips up and –" her voice was rising in both pitch and volume, the words coming faster and faster. Antoinette slung the shawl over her elbow and hurried to her, crouching down on the floor in front of the nigh-hysterical girl and cupping her chin in both hands.
"- and you know him, you'd know if -" Christine babbled frantically.
"Hush," Antoinette ordered, in the tone of inarguable authority that all of her girls recognized; Christine hushed, instantly, blinking. "Shh now," Antoinette repeated more softly, and stroked Christine's hair back from her face. It was greasy and brittle with the pomade they'd used to dress it for the stage, and a spattering of white powder remained around her ears. "Yes, I knew your angel was my ghost," she confessed quietly. "Christine, I swear to you, our deceptions were kindly meant. I am sorry if I've hurt you, dearest, I truly am."
Christine made no acknowledgement of the apology, pressing on as if she'd not even heard it. "But he's not a ghost," she insisted, voice still tight with fear, "any more than he is an angel. He's just a human man, a mortal man."
A horrible shiver of a thought slid into Antoinette's mind – just how much humanity had Erik shown this child? What had he demanded of her? "If you wish him to trouble you no more, I will see to it," Antoinette told her, in a tone of quiet steel. How exactly she would manage that, she had no idea, but it was her burden and she would find a way.
"No!" Christine exclaimed, looking stricken. "No, please, I do – I want very much to see him again!"
Antoinette sat back on her heels, surprised both by the girl's unexpected reaction and by the vehemence of it. "Child," she began carefully, "Dearest – you understand, don't you, that he's -" she searched for the right word, mindful of the frailty of this girl who believed in angels sent to Earth. "- troubled?" she finally concluded. Though she felt vaguely traitorous for the comparison, she gave silent thanks that her Meg was made of sterner stuff.
"I'm – I'm afraid -" Christine began, but couldn't seem to finish the thought.
"You're perfectly safe now," Antoinette reassured her.
"No, that's not it!" Christine retorted, with a note of frustrated impatience that made Antoinette's brows climb towards her hair. "I'm afraid that – he's never failed to answer me before, not for so long. Madame, he – he wouldn't do himself any harm, would he?"
Antoinette Giry blinked; if the girl had slapped her, she didn't think she could have been more astonished. It was a thought that had entered her own mind more than once in the past three days, but she had never expected Christine to think such a thing. After the sudden revelation of her 'angel's humanity, and then of his capacity for violence, Antoinette had feared she might find the girl sitting in some corner, chatting pleasantly to creatures who were not there – angels and goblins and elves. It had happened, before, when Christine first came to the Opera.
This frantic concern for him, Antoinette thought, was still madness, but of a new and unexpected sort.
"You must take me to him," Christine suddenly blurted out, snatching the older woman's hands up so quickly and with such unexpected strength that Antoinette flinched. Christine didn't seem to notice. "Please – I tried to go myself but the mirror wouldn't open." Antoinette said a silent prayer of thanks to almighty God for that small favor. "I know he's not the angel he pretended to be -" This was said in a tone of such determined acceptance that it made her wonder whether Christine really believed her own words. "- and I know that ought to make me want no more to do with him, but it just doesn't, I can't tell you why but it doesn't, and I can't bear to be so suddenly, completely without him," Christine concluded pitifully. "I need to speak to him, at least once more - I must speak to him - please - I can't bear for him to be just – just gone."
She sounded more like a drunkard missing his bottle than anything else.
"Do you need him anymore, child?" Antoinette asked carefully. "No, listen to me," she commanded, when Christine began shaking her head in instant protest of this line of thought. "He is a troubled man. A dangerous man. He's taught you well, yes, and you owe him your gratitude for that, but now the world has heard your voice, and I think you will have no trouble finding future roles. It has changed everything – much more, I think, than either of you wished."
"But -"
"He has become intemperate where you are concerned," Antoinette said bluntly. "He wished to give you the world, but not to share you with it. It is not your fault – never think it your fault – but perhaps it is good if he stays away, good for both of you. I will visit him and tell you how he fares, if you wish. I would have sought him out soon enough anyhow." She tried to sound completely confident that she would find him healthy and whole, while at the back of her mind she began to consider what she would tell Christine if she found his corpse.
"I must speak to him," Christine insisted in a defeated whisper. "He has been my friend -"
"Am I not your friend?" Antoinette interrupted gently, and settled her shawl about Christine's hunched and shivering shoulders. "And Meg? You are not alone without him, child."
"Yes," Christine agreed, rather miserably. "Yes, of course you are my friends." She went silent, pulling the corners of the shawl into her lap and twisting them about her fingers, eyes downcast. She remained quiet and seemed resigned. Antoinette gave a small, relieved sigh and moved to stand, but before she could Christine looked up.
"It doesn't matter, though," Christine said softly. "Oh, that sounds terrible, I'm sorry - I am so very grateful for your friendship - and I know what you're telling me is very sensible, but - my angel -" she stopped herself and winced, but then raised her chin in tremulous defiance. "I am alone without him," she pronounced shakily. "I've been so alone without him, these last three days, it's seemed like so much longer, and -" She stopped, swallowing and visibly steeling herself. " – and the last time I spoke to him was just after . . . after Buquet, and he was so broken, and I can't stop thinking that if something happened to him now, when he's killed a man, and he hasn't – well, he confessed to me, I suppose -" Her words were beginning to run together again. "- but I don't know if that's good enough! If something happened to him now I wouldn't know -"
"Hush, child. That is enough of that," Antoinette interrupted, gently but sternly. "It is not your place to judge his soul." Though it is doubtful he would find more mercy anywhere.
"He killed a man," Christine repeated, voice wavering and lost.
"And yet you wish to be taken to him," Antoinette reminded her in a weary, dubious tone.
"Yes," Christine said, almost inaudibly. "Please."
"Mademoiselle -"
The man's hand stopped just short of taking Meg's, and retreated hastily as soon as he had her attention. He was young and finely dressed; with a generous mouth and rather too much nose, he hovered somewhere between handsome and absurd. His mannerisms did nothing to help him in this regard; he was twitchy, shrinking away from the raucous crowd and licking his lips as if he was either very nervous or a little nauseous.
"Monsieur?" Meg replied politely, and then had to duck out of the way of a carpenter and a kitchen maid dancing drunkenly down the hallway. Applause and cheers followed them, feet stomping and hands clapping. The nervous gentleman – almost certainly Colleen's Baron – followed her into the meager shelter of the dormitory doorway. The space they vacated was immediately taken by other bodies; performers in and out of costume bumped elbows with seamstresses, and carpenters shared bottles with painters. All stood with their backs to the walls, shelves, doors, and Meg; what little open space there was in the center had turn quickly into a gaudy, garish caricature of a ballroom, full of whirling forms more exuberant than graceful. The laughter that echoed up through the scaffolding toward the roof was genuine enough, though; liqueur in abundant supply, Meg thought, tended to bring good cheer even to such an enclave of artistic temperaments.
Interspersed here and there through the crowd was a fine suit-jacket, much too tidy to belong to any member of the orchestra or set designer; the arms of those fine coats were invariably twined with the arms of young and pretty dancers. Like flowers pinned to their lapels, Meg thought sourly, and fought not to scowl at her twitchy companion. They were well and truly trapped there, for the moment, the crowd in front of them making an exit completely impossible.
"I w-was wondering," began the man Meg presumed was the Baron de Laurent, though he had yet to introduce himself, "I'm w-waiting for someone -"
"She should be out presently," Meg answered him.
"W-what?" It was difficult to be heard through the general chaos.
"She will be out in a moment! She's changing!" Meg shouted back. Someone a few stories up began to play a violin, the music drifting down from over their heads, sharp and pure. It was a folk song of some sort, the melody uncomplicated and the lyrics the crowd began to sing rather ribald, but the sound of the violin itself was still quite beautiful. Meg wondered if that might be Colette's beau playing; she always claimed he was truly gifted, but then, her judgment was not unbiased.
The Baron shook his head in persistent confusion, opened his mouth to repeat his question, and then paused, listening. Meg watched and tried not to be maliciously amused as the lyrics being sung around them registered in his mind, and he flushed deeply red.
But here he is to collect pretty Colleen, who expects him to be in a position to notice a hole in the toe of her stocking, at some point this night.
To the right of them, Meg heard the singing interrupted here and there by annoyed utterances, some of them none too polite. She had to press tighter in against the door to avoid having her feet trampled by the shifting of the crowd. The violinist apparently noted the disorder in his chorus and ceased with that tune; for a moment there was only grumbling and laughter, and amidst this, Meg heard a familiar, genteel voice repeatedly begging pardon as the owner of that voice pushed his way through the crowd. The violin began again, joined this time by a clarinet and what she thought might be a viola. It was a faster tune this time, and apparently wordless. She heard the rapid stomp of drunken dancing resume, and then the Vicomte de Chagny staggered his way into view between a stagehand and a wig-maker.
"Mademoiselle Giry," he greeted her cheerfully, stumbling to an awkward halt rather closer to her person that decorum would have dictated, but the crowd would give him no more space. His eyes fell on her companion, and he nodded in recognition. "Laurent," he greeted the man, confirming Meg's guess as to his identity.
"Chagny," Laurent greeted the Vicomte, swallowing and obviously trying to control his stuttering. His shoulders straightened, though his cheeks remained red, and he made an attempt to wriggle a hand up between them to shake. Raoul made a similar effort, both of them contorting ridiculously in the effort not to jostle Meg with their elbows. Meg, for her part, just pressed as tightly to the door as she could whilst this bit of masculine ritual played out.
"It's a da – er," Raoul began, then glanced sideways at Meg. "That is, it's – quite something in here, eh?" he enquired loudly of Laurent, giving the fellow nobleman a conspiratorial grin. "And I've misplaced my dinner companion!" He sounded almost cheerful about it, as though braving these back-stage environs were quite the adventure; Meg felt her opinion of the Vicomte de Chagny slipping.
The Baron de Laurent, for his part, stammered unintelligibly, and at Meg's back, the door opened. There was no time and no room to get out of its way; the door smacked into the right side of her, from skull to hip, and sent her stumbling straight into Raoul. He caught her with as much propriety as was possible, she had to concede; his hands landed on her shoulders, and stayed there just long enough to see that she'd regained her feet. Meg felt her face going scarlet, and tried to back away, but ran into another body. A wordless exclamation of irritation in a feminine voice followed this collision; Meg turned to find Colleen standing where she had so recently been, wearing a dress of peacock green that looked to be the very height of fashion, though it fit a little awkwardly, and Meg could see that its stitching was uneven in places.
The Baron de Laurent hurriedly shuffled half a pace to her side, and Colleen beamed up at him. Her lips were painted very red, nearly as bright as the Baron's cheeks as his left hand found her waist and his right brought her fingers to his lips. She giggled delightedly; Meg fought the urge to scowl, and couldn't help by remember Regine's assertions about gentlemen. The Baron smiled, despite the redness of his face; he looked rather as if he had some sort of virulent fever, in Meg's opinion. Then he glanced up at Raoul.
"W-would you c-c-are to j-join us?" he ventured, shouting.
Colleen stiffened, shooting Meg a venomous glare, and then turning her gaze speculatively on Meg's male companion; her expression changed completely, going from shocked to confused to reluctantly calculating in the space of two breaths. Her eyes darted back to Meg, and she looked momentarily like she'd bitten something sour, but then she smiled up at Raoul. "Yes, please," she added; Meg knew she was trying to be simultaneously demure and also loud enough to be heard, but it didn't work very well at all, and she just sounded rather squeaky and strange.
Raoul, thankfully, shook his head. Meg had been nearly certain he would decline, as it would have been simply too much of a farce for the pair of them – a Vicomte, and her in her dusty day-dress with a tutu underneath – to accompany this gaudy pair to dinner. There had been just a sliver, just a moment, though, of fear that he might find it funny.
"I'm still seeking -" The crowd suddenly cheered, drowning out the rest of his words. Raoul gave a rueful grin and shrugged, then made a shooing motion at the pair of them. "Enjoy yourselves!" he shouted; Colleen smiled widely, looking distinctly relieved, and darted instantly into the crowd; she had no problem whatsoever slipping her way between closely pressed bodies. The Baron de Laurent made a stilted attempt to nod at the Vicomte before he was dragged along, his hand in Colleen's, still looking the very picture of mortification.
"I'm looking for Christine," Raoul shouted. "She wasn't in her dressing room. Is she - ?" He gestured at the dorm.
If Christine had plans to sup with the Vicomte, Meg knew nothing of them – but, she considered, he was Christine's childhood friend, and Christine had never spoken ill of him.
Meg glanced briefly into the crowd in the direction that Colleen and her Baron had gone, feeling torn – surely it was not like that, between Christine and Raoul? She couldn't imagine it; Christine hardly seemed to live in the world at all, some days, and she was so devout. Still – her eyes went back to the Vicomte's guileless, hopeful face – how else could it be, between a nobleman and a dancer? Christine was so very naïve – Meg considered that perhaps it fell to her, the more worldly of the two, to guard Christine from dangers she likely did not understand. The Vicomte was charming and handsome, but that didn't make his intentions honorable.
Yet, she could hardly hope to ascertain the nature of his intentions standing pressed to a doorway in the middle of what was rapidly becoming a drunken bacchanal, and she had even less hope of getting rid of him. The crowd would part for a Vicomte much more readily than it would for herself; also, he had done her the unintentional favor of letting her know Christine was not at her dressing room, saving Meg a fruitless struggle there and back again. She could think of only one other place Christine was likely to be – only one other place known to man, above the ground, but she pushed that thought quickly away – and anyway, Meg reasoned, she would be there herself as chaperone. She could see Christine and her Vicomte together, and make a better judgment as to whether it was her sisterly duty to discourage the attachment.
"She is likely in the chapel," Meg replied; someone out on the dance floor gave a shrill scream, half scandalized and half delighted. Meg flushed.
Raoul shook his head and gestured at the crowd, indicating he'd not heard.
"She's likely -" Meg began again, only to be cut off by a building crescendo of stomping feet and more ear-piercing shrieks. Exasperated, she gave up and grabbed his hand, tugging him in the direction that the tiny church lay. He looked momentarily surprised at this boldness, but then grinned, winked, and insinuated himself in front of her. "Excuse me!" he called out, in the most haughtily aristocratic tone Meg had ever heard him use, and began to push his way forward. The people they passed scowled, and Meg caught a few rude gestures at their backs, but they were given room to pass.
"It was not like this," Christine murmured.
"Hrmm?" Madame Giry cast a questioning look back over her shoulder, still walking.
"It – it wasn't -" Christine stepped over a patch of something damp and foul-smelling, trying not to breath too deeply. She could hear things scurrying in the walls.
"This will not be the same path you took. He will not have left the boat for our use, so we must skirt the lake," Madame Giry returned in a clipped done, and then stopped and flung out a restraining arm, so abruptly that Christine stumbled into her. "Do not move." Christine froze obediently. "I believe . . ." The older woman shifted a fraction of a step forward, one foot seeking along the ground. Christine remained where she was with some difficulty, wanting to press close to the other woman's side, to stay within the meager circle of light afforded by her candle. Madame Giry's boot found an edge, and she jerked back from it, colliding again with Christine. She did not seem to mind, but rather reached out for her. "Yes, I thought so. Here, give me your hand, and step to your left – carefully, carefully -" Christine clutched Madame Giry's fingers and pressed herself tight to the wall, her skin crawling. "- two more steps, small steps, carefully – you may walk normally now," she pronounced briskly, and pulled Christine along.
"What was that?" Christine asked, her voice shaking.
"Trap door," Madame Giry responded. "He is not fond of uninvited guests."
"There were no trap doors, the way I came before," Christine murmured.
"Of course there were," Madame Giry snapped. "We are turning here, mind your head – he led you around them."
"It was not like this," Christine repeated, frightened and bewildered. "There were lights – candles – it did not smell this way."
Madame Giry stopped once more, turning to glance back at Christine with eyes that glittered in the dark. "Candles," she repeated. "When he took you from the dressing room."
"Yes," Christine said softly. "It – it was – everything glowed," she concluded quietly.
"He carried a light," Madame Giry offered. "It would have reflected strangely, where the rock is smooth, and there is water dripping. That is what you saw."
"I saw candles," Christine insisted. "On the walls – in golden sconces like arms, like the statues in the grand foyer, hundreds and hundreds of candles, it was so beautiful -" she stopped at the look on Madame Giry's face. "There aren't any candles, are there?" Christine asked in a small, frightened voice. "I – I saw them rising out of the lake. So much light . . it was so beautiful, but – but then it was also dark. How can that be?" she asked, trembling, shaking her head in denial. "I told Raoul – I told him it was dark, all dark, and . . . I think it was? I think I remember darkness -"
There were suddenly strong fingers clasping her jaw. Christine met Madame Giry's gaze with wide, wild eyes.
"You cannot do this now," Madame Giry said sternly. "Not now, not here. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Madame," Christine whispered, though she understood nothing. A stray fragment of memory unfolded in her brain; a flock of crows, hundreds of them, lifting from crowded rooftops and spiraling into the sky. She could assign neither time nor place to the memory, and knew only that her thoughts felt just like that, a mad whirl of black wings, beating inside her head. It was beautiful – wasn't it? But then why was I afraid?
Madame Giry sighed, and the hand that clutched Christine's chin released her and turned to cup her cheek. The older woman's face was just painted shadows and gleaming eyes, robbed of expression by the dark, but it still made Christine whisper, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'll try. I want to try."
"I know you do, dear," Madame Giry said gently.
"There can't have been lights coming up from the water," Christine said, almost inaudibly. "There can't have been. An – an angel could do something like that - a miracle. But if he is only a man -" Her voice caught. If he is only a man, then what did I see? What was real?
We are all mad here –
"He is a man who knows many clever tricks," Madame Giry suggested placatingly. She let her hand drop away from Christine's face, sighing in resignation. She took up Christine's hand and tugged her forward. "Perhaps this is one of them. He wanted badly to impress you," she said, facing away from Christine now, into the impenetrable dark of the tunnel ahead. "To give you wonders." The flame of her candle flickered, momentarily turning a sickly blue. "Come. It is not wise to tarry here."
"You don't like him," Raoul observed as they ducked into the quiet hall that approached the chapel; the chaos outside was reduced to a dim, distant roar. He sounded puzzled, and intrigued.
"Who is that?" Meg feigned polite confusion.
"Laurent," Raoul replied. "You could scarcely look at him. Has he been unpleasant to you?" He sounded as though he could not believe such a thing; it was, Meg admitted, rather unlikely. She doubted the Baron de Laurent had the nerve to kill an insect, much less raise voice or hand to a woman.
"I have only met him this once, but he was unfailingly polite," Meg replied honestly, hurrying her steps towards the chapel; with any luck, they would find Christine. Then Meg could cease worrying, Raoul would be distracted, and this conversation would be over.
"And yet you dislike him," Raoul pressed. "You don't deny it – and yet I can't picture you as a cross sort of person." He paused. "Of course, you are an actress."
Meg turned and bristled at this, unable to help her reaction, though she knew instantly it had been unwise. He was grinning quite unabashedly. "Perhaps you are in fact quite foul-tempered and unpleasant," he suggested teasingly, brow furrowing excessively, "and only present a façade of good nature. Laurent, by being so very harmless and affable, therefore galls you to no end, and is thus your undoing. You cannot hide your spite." This shocking denouncement of her character was delivered in a stern tone, whilst he advanced on her with measured steps. He stopped just far enough away to be polite, and raised one quizzical brow. "Well, Mademoiselle? What say you?"
Meg stammered, well aware he'd not been serious at all, but still without any idea how to respond. A nervous giggle bubbled up out of her throat entirely without her consent, and he smiled broadly. "There, you are laughing," he pronounced triumphantly, and then frowned with mock severity. "Of course, I must now concede my error. A person of mean and spiteful nature could not possibly laugh so sweetly."
"You are being ridiculous, Sir," Meg objected, caught between exasperation and amusement.
"Ah, good, now you feel at liberty to criticize me," he observed; Meg's eyes rounded, her mouth opening on a hasty apology, but he waved a dismissive hand. "That, of course, was precisely my intention. As you are a friend to Christine, I would have you be at ease with me."
Meg felt privately certain that she would grow wings before she would feel at ease in the company of a Vicomte – especially this one. What she said aloud, however, was, "I think she must not be here," and she turned to frown in the direction of the chapel door. "She would have heard us if she were, and come to greet us."
"It would be like her not to hear us at all," Raoul ventured, following behind as Meg took the remaining few steps into the stone vestibule. "As I remember her, she was often lost in dreams."
"Then she is unchanged," Meg agreed, but the chapel was indeed empty. Raoul stepped inside after her, then stopped and scowled.
"Where else could she have gone?" he asked aloud, clearly frustrated. "It will be too late for supper soon."
Into the underworld, like Persephone, though Meg; she had heard that myth from Christine's lips. Into the dark where my mother keeps her secrets.
"You are frowning again," Raoul observed, and matched her expression. "You are worried for her, aren't you? Why were you seeking her, what is it you fear?" There was a sharp edge to his tone now.
"May I not simply miss her company?" Meg retorted, perhaps a little too swiftly; he was wrong, she was no actress at all in matters like these.
"Of course you may," he responded impatiently, "but I can see you are troubled, more than is reasonable if that is all -" he took a step towards her, reaching a hand out in a beseeching gesture; Meg stepped away, her back going straight. He stopped instantly.
"My apologies, Mademoiselle," he said, sounding quite sincere, "I'm upsetting you – please know that was not my intention. I've known Christine since we were both children, and I worry for her. She is so -" He paused, searching for the proper word.
"I know her as well," Meg offered in tentative truce. "I worry for her as well."
"But you will not tell me why," Raoul said, an edge creeping back into his voice, though he kept himself to a carefully decorous distance, his hands at his sides. He grimaced sourly. "I've spent the past three days all but living in this place; I've learned the operation of the mechanisms that raise and lower backdrops, how to properly mix plaster, and the terms to describe several steps of dance, but I'm no closer to understanding the workings of this – this place -" Meg had the distinct impression that he'd had another term first in mind. "- than I was a week ago! Ask any question of interest – ask about this 'ghost', particularly – and you all go mute!"
Meg simply stood where she was, silent, though his words echoed unpleasantly in her head. She realized with a pang of sympathy that his feelings nearly echoed her own; it was abruptly tempting to tell him all that she knew and suspected, to pour out her frustrations at her mother's secret comings and goings, the willful blindness of the managers, the very nature of this 'ghost' who could be both benign and vengeful. She bit her tongue and silently railed against her mother, whom she must protect. Within the small world of the theatre, Antoinette Giry was a force of nature, a person to be reckoned with; outside of that, she was merely woman in a dubious profession. Buquet's death sat heavily in Meg's thoughts, making all possibility of confiding in this unexpected compatriot, the Vicomte, entirely unthinkable. However furiously frustrated she was at being excluded from her mother's confidence, Meg understood that to speak of what little she knew was to risk her mother's very life.
It was so horridly, awfully unfair, to be forced to keep secrets she did not even understand, for a person who would not explain.
Raoul sighed, shoulders slumping. "I'm being rude. Again," he admitted, rather bitterly. "I daresay if you were not so polite, you'd like to flee this room."
"No," Meg insisted, and was surprised to find it an honest response; she felt a sudden kinship for this man in front of her. That, she knew, was very good reason indeed to flee immediately. He was Christine's, and a nobleman besides. "I did not care for the Baron de Laurent because of his association with Colleen," she blurted out, confessing the one secret that was hers to tell.
Raoul frowned. "The young woman he was with tonight?" Meg nodded. "He treats her badly?" Raoul asked, sounding disbelieving. "She seemed to dote on him."
"She does," Meg agreed. "And, he doesn't, no."
"Then what is your objection?" he asked, honestly perplexed. Some of the fellow feeling that had blossomed so suddenly between them dissipated at his naïve bewilderment, for which Meg was grateful. It was better, all around, if her feelings toward him remained cool.
"He does not intend to marry her," Meg said bluntly. Raoul frowned, and looked even more puzzled; Meg cringed, and cursed her wayward tongue. "I'm sorry, that was a dreadfully inappropriate -"
"No, I am not offended," Raoul interrupted, "but – forgive me, if I may speak plainly in return, but – she cannot expect that he will, can she?"
"No," Meg retorted, meeting his gaze in sudden anger. "But why shouldn't she? Oh, I understand that she would make a very poor Baroness, but then what right has he to enjoy -" Meg stopped herself, seeing the scandalized expression taking shape on the Vicomte's face. "- her company?" she finished rather lamely, flushing. "A young woman of the Baron's own station would expect that if he took her out and bought her gifts and praised her beauty, that he must intend marriage," Meg pressed on doggedly. "But Colleen is not to expect such a thing, while the Baron may expect her to come out with him, to accept his gifts and his compliments – and how is that fair?"
The Vicomte de Chagny resembled nothing so much as a landed fish, his mouth hanging open in frank astonishment and his brows furrowed.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Meg rushed to say, "I don't know what I'm thinking, speaking this way."
"I -" he stopped and swallowed. "I don't mind."
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that he was a very poor liar, but she managed to reign herself in. Her face was still red; what would her mother think? That most of the opinions she'd just voiced had been her mother's first, and related to a young Meg is far more explicit and unforgiving terms, was immaterial – one did not speak that way to a Vicomte, most especially not the Opera's patron.
Her mother, Meg thought, face going even more deeply red, would no doubt have a few choice words to say about her daughter being alone with a Vicomte, even in the chapel.
"You are a philosopher," the Vicomte offered, and smiled; it was stilted and strained, but not condemning.
"Hardly that," Meg demurred, studying her feet and calling herself every possible sort of fool for not minding her tongue.
"What else shall I call a person with such passionate thoughts on the rights of men? Or women," he amended hastily. "I am embarrassed that I cannot answer you; it is a subject I've never truly considered."
You should have, Meg thought uncharitably, if you counted yourself a friend to Christine. These are not idle questions of philosophy for her.
"Have you read any of the great philosophers?" he asked; the question was put forth in a tone of speculative awe, as if she had so unsettled his expectations of her that anything was now possible. A hurried glance up at his face showed that she had his rapt, delighted attention. I amuse him – like an oddity at a fair. "Plato, Aristotle?" he suggested.
"No," Meg replied. "I've read very little – Christine has a few books, and she reads aloud sometimes, but those are mostly fiction. I have no books of my own."
"Oh," the Vicomte responded, frowning a little. There was a pause, and then, "But – you can read?"
"Yes, I know how to read," Meg responded, rather more sharply than she intended, marshalling all her wounded dignity to give her the courage to look him in the eye. "My mother taught me; she insists that all we dancers learn." The look on his face confused her; it was faintly abashed, as it rightly should be, but there was also a touch of mischief there. He looked very much like a troublesome little boy who was plotting a prank.
"That is very wise of your mother," Raoul acknowledged politely, confusing her even further, "And speaking of your mother, perhaps I had best return you to her care; it is far too late for supper, and you've made me newly mindful of the impropriety of the two of us alone in this room." There was a definite twinkle to his eye, though also a rueful, apologetic twist to his lips.
It was entirely too endearing. He is nothing of yours, and never can be, Meg scolded herself.
"I trust you to remain a gentleman," Meg responded primly, offered him her arm, and let herself be escorted out of the chapel.
The first thing Christine noticed was the smell; unwashed bodies were nothing new to her, but this was overlain with something sickly, like rotting meat, a cloying odor that clung to the back of her throat and made her gag. Next came sound – a furious, manic scratching. Muttering. Paper tearing – a figure stood, the back of a white shirt stained with sweat, and walked to the wall. It was only then that Christine really registered the walls.
"Oh, Erik," Madame Giry murmured, sounding equal parts exasperated and heartbroken.
In the antechamber that faced the lake, there were no walls anymore.
Where the walls had been, there were faces – horrible, jeering, demonically laughing faces, hundreds of them rendered in pencil and charcoal upon sheet after sheet of paper. Bits and pieces of them stood out in perfect clarity, real enough to reach out from the page – here an eye, there a gaping mouth, a pointing finger – while the rest was just wild lines. In some places the paper was ripped, or the charcoal smeared, sweaty fingerprints streaking across the images. There were splotches of red mingled with the black, dabs and splatters. Half of Christine's mind processed these details with cool, hollow detachment, while in the rest of her a scream began to build. The unevenness of the technique did nothing to mute the overwhelming realism of the ash-and-paper mob. Every line held a horrible perfection, a spark of diabolical life. Joseph Buquet's face stared out from the crowd more than once, both living and dead, features twisted with predatory malice in one image, then with a rope twisted about his neck in another – the figure in the middle of the room stumbled to the wall, pressing a new Buquet in amongst the rest – his charcoal eyes were bulging, just impatient spirals of ash - face dark, red thumbprint in the corner of the page –
Christine stumbled to the edge of the water, choking and clutching her stomach.
She heard the figure in the center of that hand-drawn hell whirl around as she plunged her hands into the lake and, not caring for its filth or cleanliness, brought her dripping hands up to her face. The water was shockingly cold, and helped to push back the bile that rose in her throat.
"Christine," he whispered; his voice sounded raw. "How – how can you be -" Footsteps started towards her, then stopped; his breath was ragged. "You brought her here." He was addressing Madame Giry now. "How could you bring her here?" It was a wounded-animal wail.
Madame Giry gave a beleaguered sigh. "You brought her here, Erik," she pointed out, "And she was quite determined to come back. Should I have let her try to make her own way?"
"Not – not now!" he exclaimed, panicked; he lurched a few steps closer, then backed away again. Christine stayed huddled at the edge of the lake, hands over her face, water dripping down her wrists and her throat. It was becoming easier to breathe; the smell was becoming less overwhelming. "She can't – she can't be here now -" He was pacing. She heard the papers on the walls rustle with his passing. "I can't – can't -"
All those horrible faces –"When did you last eat?" Madame Giry asked in a low, soothing tone.
"Eat?" he parroted, as if the entire concept were foreign. The footsteps and the rustling papers paused. Madame Giry sighed again.
"You've left the mask on all this time," she observed flatly. "Days. Haven't you?"
"I -" He stopped, swallowing audibly. Christine took a deep and unsteady breath, and let her hands fall from her eyes. He stood perhaps a dozen paces away, shaking violently. His hair stood out from his head, filthy and wild. He must have worn a wig before, she thought inanely. His hair is lighter than I remember it. It was streaked with charcoal. For a moment their eyes met, but he looked away instantly, hands going up to his head. His fingers were almost entirely black, except where the oozing of ruptured blisters left trails of blood and clear fluid. There were smears of ash and blood across the mask. Behind him, the faces mocked and leered. Christine felt herself beginning to tremble, as if a chord ran between their bodies, his shudders vibrating into her gut. "I had to – they wouldn't stop -"
He turned around to face his handiwork, fingers still tangled in his hair.
"Erik, you know better," Madame Giry admonished quietly, then strode purposefully across the room and vanished into an adjoining passageway. Christine gave a startled little jerk at the older woman's abrupt departure. Don't leave me here! She must have made some small sound, because Erik spun back around to face her, staring pleadingly. They were momentarily alone.
Christine wobbled to her feet; Erik swallowed over and over, as if he were trying not to be sick. The silence was complete and horrible, punctuated by the mute laughter of their paper audience.
Madame Giry reappeared with a pitcher and a handful of rags. "I should have brought ointment," she muttered impatiently. "I'll have to go back for it, but we can begin, at least. Really, Erik, I thought you'd learned from the last time."
Erik looked wildly back and forth between the two women; Madame Giry set the sloshing pitcher down on the floor. "Sit down," she ordered, "before you faint with hunger, and crack your empty head. Christine, would you see if you can find anything edible in this pit?" She resolutely ignored the drawings on the walls, dipping a rag into the pitcher and then giving Erik an impatient look.
He shied away, his eyes locked on Christine's face and his features contorting in a desperate sort of horror. Madame Giry turned to look at her, then back at Erik, then let her hand drop to her side and sighed in clear exasperation. "Christine?" she enquired again. "Never mind about the food. There is a large library, through the passage just to your right, along the upper ledge there. Perhaps you'd like to go find something to read, and wait there for me?"
Christine just blinked at her in utter incomprehension, while Erik continued to watch them with all the apparent sanity of a cornered rat.
"Now, perhaps?" Madame Giry suggested, with a sharp, familiar edge to her tone.
Christine obeyed out of sheer habit, scurrying past them and up the ledge without thinking, the prospect of escape entirely too appealing. Her path took her past the darkened alcove that held the mannequin in her likeness; it brought her to a stumbling halt. It had been turned to face the wall.
"Christine!" Madame Giry snapped impatiently from behind her. "Now, if you please!" Despite the polite words, it was not a request. Christine did not respond, staring hard at a very fine wig; the mannequin's hair curled just a little more tightly than her own. Perhaps it was due to being kept down here in the damp; her hair would be a mass of frizzing ringlets if she spent so much time in this place of mist and shadows. Her heart thumped in her hollow chest, fear and revulsion warring with a painful tug of longing. You imagined me, and I imagined you – oh God, I want to dream again. I want to forget about all of this and just have my angel back.
The mannequin remained still and silent, giving her its back. You imagined me – and I imagined you – we're all mad here –
Christine spun and walked with careful, unsteady steps back down to the lakeside chamber. Madame Giry opened her mouth to protest; Christine held her hand out, gesturing at the rags the other woman held. Madame Giry's mouth shut with a snap, her expression going sharp and assessing. "Please," Christine asked. Erik had backed away to the very farthest point he could; if he retreated any further, he'd be standing in the lake.
"He will never let you," Madame Giry answered. "I know you mean well, child, but it hurts him just to have you here, now, when he is like this." There was a thread of pity to her tone that seemed to weave its way directly into Christine's spine, where it turned to steel.
"Then he will need to develop calluses," Christine retorted, in a high and tremulous voice; Madame Giry's own words, her customary response to complaints of sore and blistered feet. Christine's hands shook, but she reached out and took the rags anyway; the older woman did not resist. Pitcher in hand, Christine crossed the room; discarded stubs of charcoal crunched under her shoes. Up close, he really did smell wretched, but she resolutely ignored it.
"Will you let me help you?" she asked, her voice wobbling and childish, but determined.
"Why did you have to come?" he asked plaintively, eyes darting between her face and the multitude of charcoal faces around them. Christine looked back over her shoulder and shuddered; the likeness of a young boy jabbed a pudgy finger at her, laughing nastily. The hand was rendered in such perfect detail that it seemed to reach out into the room; she had the sudden, skin-crawling feeling that it might grab her hair. She made herself turn her back to it, facing him, and very deliberately positioning herself between him and the wall. A shiver ran over her skin as her hair brushed against the papers.
"I went to the chapel," Christine said; somewhere behind her Madame Giry's footsteps were retreating. "Every day. I – I wanted to see you again. I missed you. You didn't answer."
"I was -" he tried to look around her; she stepped to the side, keeping herself in front of him, between him and all those cruel faces and pointing hands. His eyes settled back on her face. "My apologies," he said finally, "I lost track of the time."
"I can see that," she responded carefully.
"You weren't meant to!" he wailed, squeezing his eyes shut and bringing his hands up to his face. "I meant only to give you music – beauty -"
"You are a talented artist," she offered. "Though I'm afraid I do not care for your subjects."
He gave a strangled laugh that was half a sob.
"Madame Giry is right, you should sit," she suggested.
"Leave the rags and the wash-water," he said from behind his hands, still standing. "Go, find the library as she said, or go explore whatever you wish, what is mine is yours, but just go, and let me compose myself. You needn't see this."
"You're wrong," Christine said softly. Erik's hands lowered from his face; his stare was incredulous and abruptly wary. "I did need to see this," she went on, though his tense, watchful stillness frightened her. She remembered his mercurial change of temper up on the roof, and was very aware of how close they now stood.
"Why?" he demanded, in the dark tone Christine remembered as prelude to his last angry outburst. "Why should you need to see this?" His voice rose and he gestured in disgust at himself and the room around him, his movement sharp and violent. It was an effort of extreme will to stay where she was, when every trembling muscle in her body spurred her to flight. "So that you might bury your last shred of hope?" he suggested bitterly, taking half a step towards her. "To kill the last remnant of affection you might have felt for your angel?" He loomed over her, charcoal-streaked, wild-eyed and mad. Christine heard other footsteps re-entering the room and then stopping abruptly, some distance away, but Erik seemed to be aware only of her.
"Forget your angel, foolish child," he sneered, and Christine flinched and closed her eyes at the cruelty of his tone. The hundreds of taunting, tormenting faces behind her flashed through her mind. Of course he can be cruel, she told herself sternly. He has had so very many teachers. "Your angel is dead," he spat, "and this is his hell. You'd best flee while you can."
She opened her eyes, making herself meet his gaze. "No," she said simply, though she shook.
"You think to defy me?" he snarled. "What a brave little mouse -"
"Stop this!" she snapped, louder than she'd intended; her voice echoed about the cavern, and they both winced. "Stop this," she repeated, more quietly and with deliberate calm. "I won't be frightened away, so you may as well cease trying. Yes, I needed to see this, to see that -" She swallowed hard and her guts twisted themselves into knots, but she forced herself to continue. "– that what happened to Buquet - "
He flinched and lurched half a step back from her, as though she'd struck him.
" – I needed to see that it troubled you, that it wasn't – that you couldn't just - you've created this terrible penance for yourself," she pressed on, though the words came out jumbled, her calm slipping and her voice cracking as she followed him, half a step, and his back was to the water, nowhere left to go. "How can you tell me this is your hell, and then ask me to leave you here? I know you're not the angel I imagined you to be, but – but you were, for so long," she pleaded, reaching for his hands but stopping just short of touching. "I missed you terribly, these past days. I don't care anymore what you are, I just miss you. I miss my friend," she confessed, blinking furiously at the tears that wanted to come. "I miss him and it pains me to know he is suffering."
"Christine," he whispered hoarsely, his anger fled. He looked down at his hands, clenched into fists, hovering just a breath away from her own entreating fingers. "Don't you see? Can't you see why you must go now? I never meant – never – I thought I could give you my music, but not this. Only music, not ever this -"
"I don't want only your music," Christine insisted; she thought of the mannequin in its wedding dress, but did not question the sincerity of his words. It seemed all too heartbreakingly possible, suddenly, that he could have imagined a marriage of voices and nothing more. She remembered turning in his arms, that first night here, seeking a kiss – she remembered him pulling away. "It is wonderful, beautiful music, but it is tatters, crumbs of what you have been to me."
"Your friend," he repeated, sounding utterly lost and bewildered.
"More than that," she admitted. "It frightens me, but I think I could forgive you anything. Please, please don't send me away."
He looked as frightened as she felt.
"Please?" Christine asked again, hands still outstretched. Fear can turn to love, you said, you'll learn to see – please, please see me, real and here in front of you – let me be more than your untouchable muse.
Slowly, as if it required great effort, he unclenched his fists and placed his hands tentatively in hers. Christine smiled brilliantly, wanting to laugh at the rush of relief and hope that poured through her, making her knees weak. His hands tightened convulsively, suddenly clinging, almost to the point of pain. She pulled him back from the water's edge and sat beside the pitcher, tugging him down with her; she was careful to be sure that his back was to the wall. There was a shaking, relieved sigh from behind her, and Erik's eyes fixed in surprise on a point just over her shoulder. It was obvious he'd forgotten there was anyone else in the cellar with them – perhaps that there was anyone else in the world.
"I found bread," Madame Giry announced, setting a plate with a torn half-loaf on the ground beside them. Her hand settled briefly on Christine's shoulder, squeezing. "It is stale and hard as rocks, but not moldy. I will return with better fare." Then she left them.
Christine waited for the span of two breaths, steeling herself, then reached for his mask. He was still, allowing it, but she found to her frustration that it was too far away to be reached while sitting. Their legs bumped, and she teetered, almost falling into his lap. Her hands flailed for some appropriate part of his person to use to steady herself; her left hand ended up on his thigh, just above the knee, for a scalding moment. Heat rushed into her face and she drew back instantly, gathering herself into a crouch. She was too flustered to look him in the eye for several seconds, but then her gaze fell again on the jeering, charcoal-sketched crowd behind him, and she felt pitifully childish and ashamed.
He remained silent and unmoving, unprotesting, when she rose up on her knees and, this time, found the mask's edge with her fingertips. She pried gently, but it would not peel away; the skin of his forehead came with it, tenting away from his face, and something beneath it made a sickly squelching sound.
"You affix it with glue," Christine realized aloud, letting it settle back into place; Madame Giry's consternation at the idea that he'd left it on for days suddenly made far more horrifying sense. "Paste – like for false beards."
"Ties are too unreliable," he explained tonelessly, then paused. "Though I have other masks that tie. I may have to make do with one of those, until I can acquire more glue - I believe all my sticking paste is on the walls."
Christine felt very much in danger of crying again. "I'm going to have to hurt you, to pull this free."
"I will do it," he offered, and began to reach for it, but she batted his hands away.
"No, let me," she insisted, though her voice wobbled and her stomach felt quite unsteady. "I can do it. I just hate to hurt you." She pressed her right hand flat against his forehead, holding the skin down, while the fingertips of her left hand curled around the upper edge of the mask. The flesh beneath it felt unnaturally hot. "Are you prepared?"
He gave a small, humorless laugh; she could feel the vibration of it through her hands, and it made her queasy stomach jump. "I have endured far worse; you trouble yourself needlessly."
Christine had no idea what to say to that, and so instead she clenched her jaw and pulled. The mask came away from his face with a wet ripping sound and a burst of the sickly smell she'd been trying so hard to ignore. She couldn't help gagging. There were things stuck to the back of the mask that she could not identify as glue or skin; it was an effort not to throw it across the room, but she doubted he'd thank her for breaking it. Instead she set it on the ground behind her, out of her sight, grabbed up a handful of rags and dipped them in the pitcher. She turned back to face him, and the only thing she saw was the line of oozing red that ran from the center of his forehead all along his hairline, almost to his ear.
"Oh God, you're bleeding," she yelped, and leapt forward to press the damp rags to his forehead. Her other hand cupped the back of his head. The wad of cloth fell down to obscure most of the right side of his face, though not the twisted, flattened half of his nose. His left eye – the only one visible – was closed.
"I am sorry you have to see -" he gestured defeatedly up at his face, "- this."
"You should be!" Christine snapped unthinkingly, lifting the rags and peering under them to see if the bleeding had stopped; it had, but the flesh looked like raw meat. "Don't you ever, ever do this again!"
His eyes blinked open, looking startled, as she moved the rags away and surveyed the whole of his face, looking everywhere but in his eyes. She had no idea how it looked normally – she'd gotten only the briefest of glimpses, the first time she'd taken his mask, before he'd flown into a rage and covered his face with his hands – but surely his skin should not be such an unnatural color, and chafed and peeling in places. The whole of his face still looked like a harlequin mask, one side angry red, the other smudged in black. Finally, she met his stunned gaze, cringing as her exclamation replayed itself in her head. "You know I meant this -" she gestured helplessly with the bloody rags, "- injury." It was such an inadequate word.
"You did," he agreed softly. "I know you did." She had to turn away from the amazement in his voice, pulling bloodstained rags apart from those that remained clean and wetting those again. The dripping of the water back into the pitcher echoed with crystalline clarity in the silence. She brought the clean rags back to his face, steadying herself with one hand on his shoulder and dabbing carefully at the places that looked most raw. He sucked in a hissing breath at the touch of the cloth, and she drew back instantly.
"Am I hurting you?" she exclaimed, wincing. "Perhaps it would be better to wait for Madame Giry; she would certainly be a more competent nurse than I."
"Are you real?" he asked, hushed and awed.
"What?" Christine stammered.
"I think I've dreamed this," Erik responded.
Christine found herself speechless for a long moment. "Then you are in dire need of better dreams," she finally retorted, in a tone of quiet determination.
"Mama?" Meg called out softly, slipping into her mother's suite of rooms. She slipped her key back into her pocket and tip-toed into the bedroom. "Are you asleep?"
The bed was empty, and undisturbed. "Mama?" Meg called a little more loudly, turning slowly and frowning. She checked the little wash-room and then ventured back into the small space that served for a sitting room, just to be sure she had not walked right past a figure asleep in a chair. She had not; the tiny apartment was empty.
It was very late, and Meg knew her mother would not have been out taking part in the last dregs of celebration still winding down in the hallways. She is with him. Her 'ghost'. Erik, who smells of damp and stone, who wears very fine shoes and uses a great deal of paper.
Then, a thought that came like a blow to the stomach – and Christine is gone as well.
Meg had suspected the instant Christine spoke of him that her 'angel' and Meg's mother's 'ghost' must be one in the same, but she'd never considered that anyone but the man who was both knew it. Christine had not, Meg was certain of that, remembering her friend weeping inconsolably the night of Buquet's death. But her mother – could her mother have known? Could her mother have allowed it?
Could she have taken Christine to him – trusted Christine with her secrets – all the things she would never tell me, places she would never take me – she never trusted me enough – but she'll trust Christine –
Meg sat down heavily on the chaise, staring blankly at the opposite wall; there was the distinct temptation to sob. She did not, however; instead she folded her hands in her lap, squared her shoulders in grim determination, and set her mind to staying awake until her mother returned.