New hats and seashore holidays to my reviewers!

L.G./Christine Daae: I've missed you, too. I'm still here. I was only working on my other projects for a while.

Zen: I'm so glad you kept reading it over and over! Thank you so much!

Fop Hunter: I'm so happy you like it! Wait no longer, my friend, here's more.

Psycogirl234: Updating.

Passedover: Erik is a mix of Eriks. He is Kay, Leroux, movies, and musical. He's just a composite of all the Phantoms I've seen. (And I've seen a lot…) We'll learn more about Lise in this chapter. Keep reading, please!

Spruce Goose Mach 2: I know. I cried while writing it. I'm glad you like it.

AngelUndertheOpera: Beautiful and tears were what I was going for. I cried while I was writing it and thinking it up.

Wiseupjanetweiss: I'm glad Lise lived, too. It would have been too unfair to Erik to have her die! Thank you very much!

Chapter 7

Docteur Massenet suggested that I take Lise to the seashore for her convalescence. Remembering that the seashore is usually packed with people, I prevaricated and stammered, but he understood.

"I have a very good travel agent," he told me. "Catherine and I often take sabbaticals together, and we prefer to be alone much of the time. I'll have him try to find you a private place near the sea that you and Lise can enjoy without having countless people about you."

I told Cecile of our intentions, and she offered to come with us. She had no other engagements in town, and she confessed that she had always wanted to see the ocean. Seeing her eager face, I couldn't say no and asked the travel agent to book a private compartment on our train. There would be room for all three of us, and there would be no gawkers to make any of us uncomfortable.

Lise was elated when I told her what we were going to do. She tired easily, and she felt that plenty of sun and surf was what she needed.

"Sun and surf?" I said, surprised at the child's phrasing. "Where did you hear that?"

"In a book," she said, holding it up. It was a book of stories for children, and the story she was reading at the moment described a family who lived by the sea and enjoyed "sun and surf" every day.

A letter from the agent arrived after a week and a half, describing three cottages that were free at the moment. One, however, sounded ideal. It rested on a small bluff above a private beach, and sturdy stone stairs led down the water and sand. A private garden stood behind it, and meadows surrounded it on three sides, with the tip of a forest meeting us at the north. Only a cart track led to it, and the nearest town was over five miles away. Wonderfully private and roomy! I wrote back, naming that cottage as the one we wanted, and said that we would like to move in as soon as possible and spend the summer and the beginning of autumn there.

Under my instructions, Cecile carried out the necessary shopping since I didn't want to leave Lise. I gave her a checkbook full of checks with my signature and empty amount spaces on them, so she could write whatever amount she bought. Also, I told her to do whatever shopping she needed for herself and asked her to spend whatever she needed. She came back with beach wardrobes for Lise and I, and for herself she had bought a bathing costume, a beach outfit, new summer shoes, cold cream for any sunburn, and a large, floppy straw hat with a white lace ribbon. Whenever I needed to find her that summer, I looked for that hat first.

We left one Friday after bidding the doctor and Madame farewell. Pierre, our gardener, was asked to watch after our home for us, and I increased his wages so he would be inclined to do so. After seeing us off at the station, he promptly lavished such care on the garden that he won an award from the Paris Gardener's Society. We learned this when we returned home, and every time I thought of it, I had to smile.

Our cottage was perfect, and Lise fell in love with it. Some enterprising soul had planted wildflowers in the front garden, so every day we found crocuses, lavender, asters, gentians, poppies, and edelweiss blooming outside our door. The meadows beyond were filled with even more flowers, and every day Lise would bring some bouquets into the house to decorate the rooms with.

Lise adored swimming. I could swim (living by the lake under the Opera required me to know how), and so I began teaching Lise. She looked so beautiful in her blue sailor bathing costume! I, however, looked morbid in my black one. Nonetheless, we went swimming every day it did not storm. Cecile went with us, and she swam, but nothing could induce her to go out where she could not touch the bottom. Lise and I splashed about in the shallows and chased waves, and we raced one another (Lise always won), and I taught Lise how to float on her back.

When we did not swim, we explored the forest or built creations in the sand. I made a castle for Lise very early one morning, and she cried when she saw the tide coming in to wash it away! I resolved to make any castles far from the high-tide mark from then on.

Some nights, we slept out in the garden under a tent made of mosquito netting when it was too warm in the house. Stretched out on blankets, Lise, Cecile, and I would stare up at the stars above, trying to make out constellations through the mesh that kept hungry little insects at bay. Nothing was more relaxing than hearing crickets at night and birds in the morning.

Lise and I would take walks together, talking about things. I learned more about Lise. She was a little scrap of a girl, about two inches shorter than other little girls her age, but she was much more intelligent a six-year-old than those I had seen. Music, architecture, and animals all figured in conversations, until Lise read of angels. After that, she asked me all sorts of questions about angels, and there were times when I could not get her to switch to another topic. She began to draw angels, learn songs about angels, and she read everything she could find about angels. One rainy day, she curled up with a Bible until she found every possible passage about angels that she could locate. I began to wonder why she was so interested.

One afternoon, we were out in the meadow. I was sitting on a bank, taking every little nosegay that Lise handed me, and she was busy picking flowers and humming.

"Lise," I said, interrupting her. "Why do you want to know so much about angels?"

She stopped what she was doing and looked thoughtful. "I guess it's because of my angel."

"What angel?" I asked, surprised.

"Well, when I was sick, I saw an angel. He told me not to be afraid, and that I would be well soon. He also said that my papa would always watch over me. That's why I want to know so much about angels. I want to know if they're all as wonderful as he was."

"Oh, I think they are," I said, feeling very surprised. "What did your angel look like?"

She smiled, looking as beatific as the angels themselves. "He was beautiful! Just beautiful! And he sang!"

"Sang? Sang what?" I was thinking of a rex gloriae or something similar, but she said that it was something that couldn't have a name we could understand.

This surprised me. She had been visited by an angel? Could it be? Lise ran off to the other side of the meadow after handing me her doll, asking me to watch her for her. I stood and wandered about the meadow for a little, thinking about what Lise had told me. It was then I heard it:

Sur le pont d'Avignon,
L'on y danse, l'on y danse,
Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse tout en rond.
Les beaux messieurs font comme ça
Et puis encore comme ça.
Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse tout en rond.

I held a bouquet of flowers, a child's doll, there was the roaring of the sea behind me, I was in a meadow wearing a summer suit and straw boater, and I was hearing Lise sing about the bridge in Avignon! It was my dream all over again!

Suddenly, I felt very odd. It was as if God had been planning for that moment for a long time. Feeling as if everything was right with the world, I went to catch up with Lise.