Julia4

I had told Erik the night before that if he found it more convenient he could walk through the back door, as his garden connected to my modest plot of grass. He seemed to like this idea, as it was more private than walking around the block. Therefore, it should not have come as a surprise that I found him standing in the middle of my kitchen with his cape over one arm and his hat tightly grasped in his hand. He was wearing a mask that covered his upper face down to his lips. I'd never seen him wear it before.

"How far do you walk each evening?" I asked Erik. He was late yet again.

"Very far," he answered.

"I see."

"Three hours. I've never taken the distance into consideration."

My eyes widened. No wonder he was so thin. "You walk for three hours a night?"

"Sometimes," he replied. He seemed distracted.

I don't know what possessed me to ask him if he would like to come upstairs. It was not a rational question, I knew, and the moment the words left my mouth I stood paralyzed. I hadn't known Louis the first time we were intimate. Suddenly I didn't want another stranger in my bed.

"The parlor is suitable," Erik muttered.

"Of course."

I wasn't sure if he was being polite or if he didn't comprehend what I was asking. I didn't understand what I was asking.

"I made pear tarts," I said. "Would you like some?"

"No, I'm not hungry. I'm afraid I shall never eat again."

This was the man who had consumed four crumpets. How could he possibly refuse a pear tart or two?

"Is something wrong?" I questioned.

"Yes," he said. He didn't look at me when he spoke. His mouth twisted, the only part of his face I could see thanks to his mask.

"Then by all means let's sit in the parlor."

We talked until dawn, the silent man who had come into my home several times before suddenly replaced by an agonized, gregarious man. He sat his chair close to mine, his eyes flickering up to meet my gaze as he spoke. I'd never seen such melancholy before, such utter loss of hope. Yet still I had no idea who he was speaking of, as he only said Suzette. At first I suspected he was mourning the death of his wife.

I barely said a word for the first hour as he rambled—sometimes incoherently—until I asked whom he had lost.

"A neighbor?" I asked, having no idea what child he was so concerned about, as I had seen his son that afternoon and suspected Madame Giry would have come to my door if something had happened to Alex.

"My son's half-sister," he said at last. "Suzette. She passed away in Africa."

"I'm so sorry," I said.

"It is Christine's loss, not mine," he said blankly. "And yet I feel as though I have lost something precious."

"Christine? Your wife?"

She was alive? I wondered. Perhaps they had divorced or she left him after he received his facial injuries. Instantly I didn't care for her.

"We were never married," he said under his breath. "She has a husband now, though I cannot recall his name."

"This is terrible news," I said, reaching out to him, feeling his devastation. I placed my hand over his and squeezed gently. His flesh was cold, his hand balled so tightly into a fist that there was no blood circulating through his fingers.

He inhaled sharply when I touched him, his gaze fixed on my hand. At first he tensed, but I felt him slowly settle, his breaths even once more, his lips becoming fuller, his jaw no longer clamped shut. If I hadn't known of his son, I would have assumed he'd never touched a woman, as his reaction was one of sheer astonishment. It must have been a long time since he and his son's mother, Christine, had been together.

"I have written her a requiem," he said at last as he pulled his hand free of mine and sat back in his chair. He closed his eyes. "I cannot imagine what I would do if Alex passed away. I could not live."

"I understand. I feel the same way about Lisette."

"He is all that I have," Erik continued.

I nodded even though he didn't look at me. "You are a very loving father, Erik," I said gently. "Your own father must have treated you well."

His eyes opened and stared at me, briefly, but cold and hard nonetheless. He didn't say a word, but I sensed that I was mistaken. His right hand rose and gently touched his mask.

It was almost dawn when Erik looked at me suddenly and realized the hour.

"I've disrupted far too much of your time," he said as he climbed to his feet.

"There was no disruption," I blurted out as I led him to the back door.

He said nothing, the pensive man once again returning.

Erik left through the back door without another word. I watched him pass through the gate and disappear just as the sun began to rise in a fiery dawn.

Fire.

I held my breath, the exhaustion of staying up all night bringing clarity. A composer. Christine. There had once been a young soprano named Christine. I remembered the article in the paper. If I was correct, it was with Louis' books and old papers.

After locking the back door, I found myself digging into the guestroom closet until I found the old papers, edges wrinkled, the text smeared in several places from water damage and time.

But it was still there, the strange, glorified affair of The Phantom of the Opera Populaire. A masked man escaped, thought to be dead, the paper explained. The young soprano missing. She was to marry a Vicomte, a man I'd vaguely remembered hearing of before.

The gruesome details were there before my eyes of a man with a skeletal face, with decaying arms and hands. No flesh, the writer claims, merely bone. A corpse, a living corpse. Heartless. Calculating. A terror that should not be allowed to live—a phantom who lived and breathed blood and cared nothing for others.

The article angered me and it had nothing to do with the tragedy surrounding the soprano. This man was not a living corpse. He was living, breathing…feeling. He was very much real, very much affected by tragedy. Not a heartless ghost.

Surely, these were not the same people. If so, surely something had changed. This was a tragedy, I said to myself, not a horror, and I had willingly placed myself in the middle.