For the better part of Erik's life, the dark had simply been the absence of light, the state of things when the sun set for the evening.
For others, perhaps, it was when students and young professionals flocked to the clubs and the bars, and when impossibly attractive couples overdressed for dinner and drinks, hands linked and heels clicking against city sidewalks. He had often seen the steady flow of pedestrians as he walked home from his office late at night, but rarely had he been among them. There had always been courses to plan, papers to grade, music to absorb and to write.
Not that he would have been invited out anyway. Even as a student, long ago, he certainly hadn't been.
"Lighten up, pal!"—how often those words had been thrown at him with a good-natured jostle, as though he could simply have flipped a switch to activate his interest in subpar humor and inane small talk. He did not have that kind of time or energy, not when there was still so much to read and study and compose.
There had come a point, though, when daylight was no longer a comfort. It had only served to underscore the cruelty and chaos that was humanity, to prove that wickedness did not lie only in shadow.
Then there had been the unrelenting light of the burn unit, where there was no night or day, only nurses whose faces changed yet blurred together, monitors that chimed incessantly, shoes that squeaked against tile and wheels that clattered down the hall. It was under that light—with pain hot and searing, throbbing deep down into the muscle—that he had writhed in agony and wished for death.
He had not fared much better in prison. The light had plagued him there, too: dimmer for sleep but always present, always illuminating the repulsive aberration that his face had become. He had not been allowed a mask there. He had spent every day of his five-year sentence stripped of privacy, placed under the scrutiny of fellow inmates who had stared and leered to no end. Eventually, events would occur to mark him a "suck-ass" and a "snitch," and the harassment would become more pronounced. More physical.
It stood to reason, then, that once set loose, he had clawed and scrabbled his way into the deepest, farthest corners of darkness that he could find. That inky blackness had been almost maternal in its embrace, and he so rarely strayed from its shelter now.
Music was best in the dark, it turned out. It was pure, nothing but sound, and one could produce it with undivided attention.
In Christine Daaé's case, it would keep his masked visage out of her sight so she could sing. And so, mid-lesson, he shut off the lights as a comfort to them both.
He felt so much lighter in the darkness. His eyes adjusted quickly as his muscles became looser, his movements more supple. While she felt her way over to the piano, he prowled the room as if it were his den, the thick blackness rippling around him like quicksilver.
It was when she drew a trembling breath that he faltered. Perhaps he'd been too hostile just now, projecting frustration with his own teaching ability onto her. Long gone were the days when floundering students were the norm, and even then he had not weathered them well. But with the dark behind him, empowering him, he found it in himself to offer her encouragement.
"Trust the darkness," he said to her. "No illusions, no distractions—only music. Fall into it, Christine."
Her name slid off his tongue, crisp and silvery, before he could snatch it back.
It was some time before the first chords rang out from the piano, slow and sweet and melancholy. Her voice cut in with a gentle ballad. Her delivery was simple and straightforward, stripped down to the marrow, and in that return to the basics she seemed to find herself again.
In the arms of the angel
Fly away from here
He was not surprised when she located her voice in the darkness. No, what stunned him—utterly stole the breath from his lungs—was how well she seemed to fit into it, his world of night. In a world so harsh and unyielding, she was pure softness, moving about in unspoken shadows of her own. She filled an icy void whose existence he had refused to acknowledge until now, when the truth reached out to stifle his beating heart.
He was alone.
He was lonely.
And in that moment, she sounded, to him, like an angel. An angel of music.
Darkness curled like a wide satin ribbon around the pair of them, he and Charles Daaé's daughter, and drew them together. She would be too absorbed in the music to notice, but he could feel the pull growing stronger with every note that she sang and every breath that he drew. Every muscle in his body slackened in response to her voice, her earnestness, her intensity. He moved in closer, until the duo of piano and soprano thrummed in his veins.
She played the final chord, a C: that most basic of chords and keys, from which so many compositions took root. It rang out clean and pure, an echo of her voice.
Her breath hitched, and he knew without knowing that if he reached out to touch those pink cheeks—she flushed so easily, didn't she?—they would be wet. She had made herself vulnerable, at his insistence, and now he hated himself for it.
It would almost be an insult to continue the lesson after this. He wasn't sure he could even face her, or allow her to face him. Still, he ought to say something—but the words stuck in his throat, an he found himself backing up toward the door.
"I think…" he began, his voice thin and crackling. He cleared his throat. "Yes. I think that will be all for today, Miss Daaé." He slipped out of the room as he turned on the lights, so that she would not have to look at him, and then he bolted for the nearby stairwell.
The winding staircase darkened and narrowed as he climbed. A rush of cold air signified his entry into the belfry, and he strode across the observation deck, past some of the largest and lowest bronze bells of the carillon, which loomed tall and imposing with its framework of latticed steel. Finally, the whole of the city stretched out before him through a perimeter of grated open-air windows.
This late, only a safety light glowed on the deck. He took off the stifling mask and pressed his forehead to the cold black grating, his fingertips curling through the holes on either side of his head, as he waited for the darkness to absorb him again. The night air was clean and crisp. Lights flickered in his periphery, and the sounds of distant traffic and revelry drifted up from the streets.
What was he doing? He wasn't sure anymore.
This was supposed to be about her voice, and about a window to past events, but she was her voice and her voice was her; there would be no separating the two. He thought he'd recognized in her the same pervasive loneliness that hollowed his insides, and he was torn between wanting to save her and wanting to be saved.
At length, he peered through the grate at the wide, tree-lined mall outside the tower, and there she was, ten stories below: meeting up with who he could only assume was the same friend from the funeral, based on the beach-blonde hair. He watched them stroll past a fountain—where a bronze cast of Triton and sons sprayed arcs of water, soon to be shut down for the winter—and shrink from his view until they were little more than pinpricks among the distant city nightlife.
The familiar ache of envy set in. He clenched his teeth against the bitterness that flooded the back of his tongue.
No, she lived quite the normal existence, and he would not pull her into his cursed one. Though she was like a sky-siren, luring him above rather than below, she could no longer enchant him if he did not hear her voice. And so, he would instruct her no longer.
"So what's the deal with the mask?"
Meg voiced the question into her empty glass, preoccupied as she was by her attempt to fish out a maraschino cherry with a flimsy cocktail straw. Finally, she jammed the straw through the center of the cherry and brought the skewer to her mouth.
"I wish I knew," replied Christine, "though he did say it was necessary. A medical condition is the only thing I can think of."
"Why wouldn't he just say that?"
"He struck me as really private."
They were seated at a small two-top near the fireplace, where a pile of logs crackled with flame. Between the heat of the fire and the pleasant buzz from her wine, Christine was more content and relaxed than she'd been in a long time. She missed this: being at ease among friends, enveloped by the warmth of the hearth and the dark walnut tables and wainscoting. Everything was chipped and worn, but under the low amber lighting, it was cozy.
"Well, he strikes me as really creepy," said Meg. "You're not going to see him again, are you?"
"I don't know. I don't think he's as much creepy as he is...misunderstood, maybe?" Christine downed the last of her wine and then craned her neck to survey the perimeter. "Did our server die or something? I haven't seen her in forever."
"You're actually defending the guy? You just told me he was terrifying!"
"I mean, yeah, he is. But...in more of a crazy genius sort of way, I think? He did get me to sing again. And oh, God, I wish you could have heard him play the piano."
Meg tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. "Please be careful, okay? I still have a weird feeling about him."
"Sure. Of course." Naturally, that all depended on Erik ever contacting her again. With the way he had left things, Christine wasn't certain he would. "I'm going to the restroom," she said. "Order me another glass if the server comes back, will you?"
She wound her way to the facilities at the back of the room. The space was just as cramped and run-down as she remembered. She locked herself in a stall to find that unchanged as well: wooden door carved with graffiti, near-broken lock, the thinnest and scratchiest of toilet paper. She smiled.
Her smile faltered, however, when she recalled why she was hiding there in the first place. Now free of Meg's watchful eye, she pulled out her phone and checked for messages.
There were none from him. She hadn't really expected any, she supposed, but it was disappointing all the same. All evidence pointed to the conclusion that he no longer wanted anything to do with her, and she would never even know why.
She tried not to appear morose when she sank back into her seat. "Did the server come back yet?"
Meg looked up from her phone and shook her head. "Maybe I'll just go up to the bar."
As if on cue, the waitress appeared tableside with the drinks they'd ordered previously. "An amaretto sour and a glass of rosé," she announced as she set them down. "From the gentleman over there." She pointed toward the back of the room, and Christine turned to see whose attention Meg had managed to attract this time.
Staring back was a man with a crop of sandy hair, a boyish face, and a high-collared navy sweater: decidedly not Meg's type, if her history of lanky, brooding artist types was any indication. It seemed, though, that he was looking at her, and he offered an awkward half-smile and a small wave from where he sat with a handful of male friends.
Christine let out a short gasp of recognition. "Raoul!" she said, though he wouldn't be able to hear her over the din of the bar. She waved him over.
Upon arrival, he gave her a sheepish grin. "I was afraid you wouldn't recognize me," he said, and he reached out to grab the back of an empty chair nearby. "May I?"
Christine nodded encouragingly. "Please."
While he moved the chair to their table and sat, Meg wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. Christine realized how broadly she'd been smiling, and she flushed. "Meg, this is Raoul," she said. "Raoul, Meg." The pair shook hands, and she pinched the stem of her wine glass, adding, "Thank you so much for the drinks." She lifted the glass in a brief toast and took a sip of the rosé.
Meg followed suit, but she was all business once she set down her cocktail. "So who's going to fill me in on the backstory, hmm?"
Raoul had just flagged down the server and was ordering a beer, forcing Christine to explain. "Remember how Professor and Mama Valerius had a lake house?" she asked. "Raoul's family owned the next property over, and they were all friends." She refrained from noting that the de Chagnys' beach house had been three times the size of the professor's. "Dad and I got to meet them when the professor invited us to spend the summer there. That was, what, seven years ago? Eight?"
Raoul nodded. "My sisters didn't come with us that year, and my older brother was, uh—" He looked to Christine for input.
"A bit self-absorbed?" she supplied.
"I was thinking more like...insufferable. Anyway, Christine basically rescued me from three months of agony. We hung out almost every day."
"Then what happened?" asked Meg.
"School," said Christine. "Mr. Ivy League here had to go back to his fancy business classes at Dartmouth." She smiled, the banter coming back easily now.
He ignored the jab, his face eager. "But do you remember when we all met up at the lake for Thanksgiving that year?"
"Like I could forget!" Christine knew that she was grinning like an idiot by now, but the second glass of wine had begun to erode her inhibitions such that she didn't care. She looked to Meg. "Okay, so it's Thanksgiving day. Raoul and I go down to the beach after dinner, to walk off all the food. We've had...some wine."
"A lot of wine," Raoul corrected. "By our standards, anyway, because we were underage and only allowed a glass on special occasions. But my sister kept refilling our glasses when our parents weren't looking."
"So we're on the beach around the end of November, all bundled up because it's windy and freezing by the water, and I'm trying to retie my scarf."
"Her favorite red scarf," he emphasized. "You made such a big deal about it being your favorite! It was irreplaceable, you said."
Christine laughed. "I was inebriated, okay? And so were you, clearly, because that's the only way I can explain what you did next."
He touched his fingertips to his chest in mock offense. "You doubt I'm that chivalrous otherwise? I'm offended."
Meg's mouth quirked back as her gaze flitted between the pair of them, an observation that slightly mortified Christine. She hurried to finish the tale. "So anyway, I take off my scarf to tie it higher around my face, and this huge gust of wind comes through and blows it right out of my hands and into the water."
Meg cringed and looked to Raoul. "You didn't!" she moaned.
Christine nodded solemnly. "He shouted, 'Fear not, my fair damsel!' and threw himself almost headfirst into the waters of Lake Michigan."
Elbows on the table, he buried his face in his hands, but his chest shook with laughter. "Oh, God, it was so cold," came his muffled response. "I thought I was going to die. But I got the scarf!"
"He got the scarf," Christine repeated warmly, and she reached for her jacket where it hung on the back of her chair.
Raoul lifted his head just as she held out the length of red wool. His eyes went wide, his lips parted, and he reached out with curling fingers to run the pad of his thumb along the fabric. "And you still have it," he murmured. "Amazing."
The waitress set down his beer, causing him to start and snatch his hand back, as though he'd snapped out of a reverie. Hastily, he took a drink.
"So wait, you guys haven't seen each other since then?" asked Meg, and they shook their heads. "What happened?"
There was a noticeable shift in the energy at the table. Raoul glanced to Christine, in what she assumed was deference, before he took a sudden interest in a loose thread on his sweater cuff.
"The car accident," she said. "Mama Valerius sold the beach house after. It was too much to deal with alone." Meg's face had fallen so somber that Christine grasped for anything that would lighten the mood. "Our dads stayed in touch, though, and they became pretty good friends!"
"A fact that astounds me to this day," said Raoul. "You'd probably never have met two people so seemingly ill-suited for friendship. But they could both be so unpredictable at times—I guess they had that in common." He took another sip of his beer. When he next addressed Christine, he avoided her gaze, staring instead at the fingers that she had curled around the stem of the wine glass. His voice was so low that she could barely make it out over the bar noises. "I'm sorry I didn't make it to your dad's funeral."
There was a twinge low in her abdomen. "It's fine," she assured him. "Your dad said that you were swamped at school."
"I was, yeah, but...I wish I'd been there."
"Well, I appreciate it. What brings you back here now?" She kept her tone light, hoping to change the subject.
"Ah, well, it took getting my MBA and starting in the family business to realize that I didn't actually want to go into the family business." When Christine gaped at him, he nodded fervently. "Oh, yes! I was very nearly disowned, as you might expect, and then I decided to torture myself further by going back for a law degree. And here I am." He gestured broadly.
Meg leaned forward. "Wait, so you're going to law school here?"
"Yup. I graduate in the spring." He tilted his head toward Christine. "I should have thought to look you up, but...I don't know, I assumed you hadn't stuck around. I'm sorry."
She shook her head as if to shake off his concerns, but the words stung. She had never planned to stick around, after all. She'd been aiming for bigger things.
"Hey," he said, "why don't you come to the game with me this Saturday?"
She blinked. "The football game?"
"Yeah, my family has a suite in the stadium. It's a pretty nice setup, even if you don't like the sport. And I'm sure Phil would be happy to see you again." Raoul turned to Meg. "You're invited too, of course."
Meg declined, having already made plans out of town, but not without blatant emphasis—aimed at Christine—on how much fun it would have been to attend. "You should still go, Chris," she said, with an innocent flutter of eyelash that made Christine want to pinch her.
She hesitated and chewed at her bottom lip. She'd never had an interest in the sport, but she had a rare Saturday off this weekend, and she liked being around Raoul again. He had always been an antidote to the melancholy moods that she would sometimes slip into. "Yeah, okay," she said. "I'll go." She was rewarded with the same boyish enthusiasm that had first endeared him to her.
He finally left them to rejoin his party, but not before exchanging details and phone numbers and informing Christine and Meg that he'd taken care of the tab.
"He's cute," said Meg once he'd gone. "And he's totally into you."
Christine shook her head. "No, that's how he is with everybody. Honest." She was met with a skeptical glare, and she added, "It was never like that with us."
"Eh, well, people change. Or, at the very least, they make concessions when they've been out of the game too long and need an attractive entry point. Hint hint."
"Meg!" Christine chastised, but she was smiling. "You have no shame."
As if on cue, Meg sucked the last of her drink through a cocktail straw until it made a hollow slurping noise. "Less shame means more fun, and I refuse to let you convince me otherwise. Drink, woman!"
It was shortly after midnight when Meg insisted on driving Christine home. They parted with plans to meet up again soon, and Christine was smiling as she walked up to the house. Still, with distractions now out of the picture, she felt that familiar, hollow ache returning to the pit of her stomach. She rummaged through her jacket pockets for her keys.
Her fingers closed on a bit of cardstock, and she knew what it was even before she pulled it out. Under the porch light, the spidery handwriting taunted her now. Erik. She ran a thumb over the letters and, with a shudder, recalled the viscous murmur that was his voice, behind her, in the dark.
The sounds of an engine and a car door close by pulled her from her thoughts, and she quickly located her keys as she listened nervously to the approaching, crunchy scrape of shoes against leaf-ridden pavement.
"Evening."
She whirled around, her heart pounding even as her brain identified the source of the voice: Darius, in sharply pressed clothing to indicate that he'd just come from a late night at work. She forced a smile and tried to still her trembling hand as she forced the house key into the lock. "Hey there. Everything going okay?"
"If you mean the apartment, then yeah." He gave her a crooked grin. "It almost makes up for my abysmal social life."
"I know the feeling." She pushed open her door and was about to cross the threshold when something compelled her to stop. "I was just about to open a bottle of wine and watch some terrible TV," she told him. "You could always join me, if you want." He hesitated just long enough for her cheeks to go hot, and she added, "Or not. Whatever. I'm sure you're tired."
"No," he said. "I'd like that. It's just...do you mind if I shower really quick and then come down? I've spent way too long in these clothes. There's an extortion case that's killing me at work."
She waved him off, secretly glad for the opportunity to tidy up and light a scented candle that she hoped would mask the stale air. She buzzed around the living room as though her life depended on it, all the while recounting the day's developments. Three friends in one night! She could scarcely recognize this socialite version of herself.
Three friends and one strange acquaintance, she reminded herself, because her time with him had been the most surprising of all. On impulse, she pulled out her phone and started drafting a message.
Hi, it's Christine. I apologize if I was difficult this evening, but I'm unused to your teaching style.
Nope. Start over.
I know we got off to a rocky start, and I'm not sure where we stand at this point.
No. Delete.
I'm sorry to bother you, but I was confused by your reaction to my singing and had hoped you could provide more specific feedback.
She resisted the urge the chuck her phone across the room. What was it that she wanted from him, besides his unmitigated approval of everything she did? (She was not so naive as to believe she could earn that, but the desire to be liked and accepted still ran strong after all these years.) She frowned at the little screen.
I would like to see you again, if you are still willing to work with me.
There was a knock at the door. "Come in!" she called out, and with Darius making his way into her living room, she quickly deleted the text and shoved the phone back into her pocket.
Perhaps she had not changed so much after all: Christine Daaé was, and had always been, a coward.