Chapter Six –

An Unexpected Engagement

-Christina-

"You're not honestly going to still let her go, after all the trouble she's caused!"

Carlotta's usually low contralto voice rose from a deadly even note to a shrill and high-pitched shriek that easily carried up the stairway, through the thin wood-and-plaster wall, and into our bedroom. I awoke with a start, hearing her, and instantly knew what was going on downstairs.

They were talking about me.

I remained still and listened, curled up in my bed underneath the warm covers. "Carlotta, you will remember that you are a daughter, and not a queen, in this house," my father replied to her, calm but authoritative. "And you will also remember that you are never to speak to any of your elders, especially your parents, in such a manner. Do I make myself clear?"

There was no answer to that.

I shivered at the silence that came over the house. It was too quiet.

Finally, my father continued.

"I don't know the reason behind anything that happened to Christina at the picnic," he said. "The Comte de Chagny informed me that he chanced upon her out in the forest one night quite a long while back, and that he had told her to stay away from it…and now that word of this…incident…has spread around the village, he seems to believe that her venture into those woods is tied to yesterday afternoon."

A pause.

"Why he thinks this is so, he will not tell me, nor will he reveal the reason behind his law against anyone's going into the forest, but he is set on believing, like the old gypsy woman, that Christina has now done some sort of irreparable damage to the village by her misadventure. We do not need you, Carlotta, or anyone else of this family furthering laying fault to her. It was a simple mistake."

I turned over, onto my back, and gazed up at the stark white ceiling of the room, letting my father's words sink in.

It was a simple mistake.

A mistake.

I hadn't known to stay out of the forest, just as no one likewise knew the true story behind the Comte's rule. But now would my error bring trouble to my family?

It seems, Christina, my mind's voice said, squarely, that it already has.

That thought made me want to cry, as did the memory of my sister's voice, from just a few moments before. If the Comte had demanded that I be cast into the forest with nothing in my possession but the clothes on my back, I was certain that my two older sisters would have enthusiastically applauded his decision.

They really, truly hated me.

Strange, that I hadn't seen it before.

"Everyone is saying that we've been hexed."

That was Portia's voice now. She was speaking in a considerably more quiet tone—I supposed that after Carlotta's initial outburst, the two of them had been quelled by my father. I felt guilty and ill-at-ease, knowing that—in all likeliness—my entire family was sitting down there, directly below me, in the cottage parlor, discussing the events of the afternoon before...

The picnic had been put to an abrupt end after the incident with the mirror. The gypsies had departed into the village along with all of our guests, and my father and stepmother had promptly bundled me off to my room. Then a messenger from the Comte had arrived at our door, and informed Richard—who had answered his knock—that the steward wanted to see Monsieur Daae at the manor, directly. Obviously, news of the episode had already traveled through much of the town.

But I had been too troubled and distracted to brood on this fully.

Antoinette had gotten me to put on my nightgown and stayed with me while I sat in bed and sipped a cup of her chamomile tea; then, when I had finished it, she took the teacup and saucer and left the room. I fell asleep so quickly that it would have seemed, to anyone else, that I might have just come back from a month long, sleepless journey. I awoke late that evening and learned from Meg, who brought me a tray of what had been left over from dinner, that Father had gone into town and stayed there for a long while. He had only just returned.

Something told me that going downstairs then would have been a bad idea, and so I ate my dinner, thanked Meg, and tried to go back to sleep. I had pulled off an exceptionally believable performance, I thought, of pretending to be fast asleep and dreaming when Carlotta and Portia came upstairs to bed.

But make-believing that I was asleep could hardly prevent me from hearing the horrid things that they whispered to one another about me, thinking that I couldn't hear them. I hadn't cried, though. I had rarely cried, even as a child, and I wasn't about to start now that I was a full eighteen years of age.

My older sisters had often been unkind to me, I remembered, but I had always thought that that was simply the way that all sisters behaved towards one another. Their cruel and cold words had cut at my heart, but I still did not cry. I had only snuggled down deeper into my covers, as soon as I was certain that they were themselves asleep, and gazed at the streaks of moonlight that had found their way in through the white eyelet-lace curtains that hung at the windows.

The silvery, pale moon wasn't angry with me.

After that, I had spent most of the night between an uneasy sleep, and an even less peaceful wakefulness.

When unconsciousness claimed me, I saw snatches of the dream—again and again, until I thought I would go mad with it—and then visions in which the gypsy woman stood before me, and held out the mirror, telling me to look into it again. I tried to shy away, but then she caught hold of my wrist and forced the mirror into my hand. Then it had seemed if she had diminished in age somehow, and became a tall, dark sorceress, who loomed over me, and mocked me, in her cold magnificence. When I was awake, my mind played an endless loop of memories: the night I had walked through the woods, the storm, the wind in the trees, calling my name, and the picnic.

Now it was morning again, and I still did not get out of bed.

I felt strangely wide-awake, but detached from all of reality. I felt as if the bedroom I was in, the graceful golden gleams of sunlight that were falling in a glorious profusion through the window, and myself were the only things that existed in the entire world.

Yet I knew that this was hardly true.

In the end, I also knew that I could hardly stay here, in my bedroom, hiding away from the truth and reality—however fear-inspiring they could be at times—for the rest of my human life.

I got out of bed, making certain that my weight did not make the floorboards creak, and went over to the narrow closet I shared with my sisters. I pulled out my favorite gown: a comfortable, simply made item of a dusky mauve shade, and dressed silently. Then I drew a brush through my limp and lifeless hair, and tied its long, slippery curls back with a ribbon. There were shadows under my eyes, and my skin was pale.

This will never do, I thought.

I tried to put some colour back into my face by pinching the skin over my cheekbones and moistening my lips. This helped a little, but not much. There wasn't much, though, that I could do about anything right now—no matter how much I wished that this were otherwise.

I opened the door of the bedroom and stepped out into the small hallway beyond it, closing the door silently on its latch behind me. I paused a moment, listening. I could still hear the quiet murmuring tones of my family's voices from the parlor room down below me, but now I could not quite tell what they were saying.

"Best to go face facts, Christina," I told myself softly, out loud. "You got yourself into this—you know that."

Never once in my life had I run away from anything, no matter how unpleasant…but now, at the moment, there wasn't anything else I would rather do than run far away. I came down off of the last step and moved to stand by the side of the doorway into the parlor.

There I saw my family, seated in a circle around the room.

My father occupied the armchair beside the fireplace, and Antoinette stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder. Carlotta, Portia, and Giles sat on the couch together, and both of my sisters wore distinctly displeased expressions on their faces.

I winced.

Richard stood at the other end of the fireplace, leaning one shoulder against the mantelpiece. He and Giles looked pensive, and serious. I didn't see Meg anywhere about.

"Good morning," I said, softly.

They all instantly looked up and saw me, and I somehow managed to stand still, and refrain from running away. The tender-hearted, accepting light in Antoinette's eyes nearly made my heart bleed, even as I felt my sisters' glaring slice into my profile.

"Ah! Here's our little flower!" Carlotta spat.

Portia said nothing, but the look in her eyes was enough to tell me that her greeting for me would have been the same, had she spoken.

"Good morning, Christina," my father said, wearily.

The event that Carlotta had been so opposed to my attending that night was the spring gala that was the crowning glory of the festivities that month in Sumer's Flax. Everyone attended it regardless of their level of participation or rank. I hadn't really expected that I would be allowed to go, after what had happened at the picnic. My sisters had also anticipated such a judgment to fall on my head, as they made plain to me.

My father and Antoinette, however, overruled their opinions.

It was not my fault that I had broken the Comte's rule by entering the forest, they said, because I had not been told of the rule, and anyone new to the village could have made such a mistake, when no one had bothered to inform them of it. The scene with the gypsy woman was an unusual circumstance, they concluded. What it meant, they couldn't decide—and as long as nothing dire immediately rose from it to threaten our family or anyone else, we could put it aside. We would not forget it, of course, but there was no need to dwell on such a thing.

There was no hex on our family, my father firmly declared, putting an end to Carlotta and Portia's arguments. I had not done anything wrong, I had not brought a curse down upon our heads; it would be all right.

So to the party we would go.

Carlotta and Portia did not speak to me all that afternoon, which hurt even though I knew that I could expect nothing more than coldness and hostility from them anyway. Antoinette kept me with her all day, and her company helped to cheer me. I felt at times that I could almost forget the awful dream and the picture I had seen in the mirror, and everything else that was so darkly frightening in my life…

But still the whispering voices of the trees called to me, and every time I looked towards the Forbidden Forest, every time I even so much as caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye, however unintentionally, I saw their branches stir in the breeze.

Beckoning to me.

The gala had the theme of a costume-party. My father and Antoinette would be going as Snow White and her prince, from the fairy tale of that name. Meg was Goldilocks; Richard was to be a dashing outlaw, and Giles a bearded wizard with a tall pointed hat and a staff. Carlotta had elected to be a dryad, and Portia a queen.

And I?

I went as an angel.

To tell the truth, I was rather impressed with the costume I had managed to come up with. It had taken me no small amount of time and effort in order to procure the look I was searching for, but my exertions had finally paid off. I found a gorgeous white satin gown in the milliner's store: an old piece that a lady-client had given to her for repair, only to later decide she no longer desired to have it in her possession.

I knew it suited my criteria for my costume perfectly.

It had a full cut skirt that fell to calf-length, allowing some of my lower leg and feet to be seen, and its neckline was gracefully scooped. Originally, the sleeves had been long, but I had trimmed them to elbow-length and added lace to the edges. Underneath the skirt I would wear a fluffy white crinoline, which caused the skirt to poof out nicely. It moved divinely when I twirled around.

For the final touches, I found a white-and-silver silk flower, which I attached several white ribbons to and fastened about the waist, pinning a section of the skirt's hem up to it in order to reveal some of the petticoat. Then I made a corsage out of a few more silk flowers, as embellishments to my décolletage.

Antoinette let me borrow her pearl necklace and earrings, and I curled my hair, piling most of it up on the top of my head while I let a few stray tendrils hang down about my temples, ears, and neck. Since a tiara or halo were hardly things I would find anywhere in Sumer's Flax, I improvised with the most pale and delicate flowers I could find in our gardens. I already had dance-slippers, and as soon as these were on my feet, I was ready to leave.

As a family, we walked down the worn path through the trees to the village. The festivities were already underway when we came to the gates, and then our group quickly dissipated as Meg ran off with some of her little friends to play games and run wild, Richard and Giles sought out the two maidens that they had come to admire during our three years in the city, and Carlotta and Portia went to find their favorites.

Father and Antoinette looked at me, as they stood arm-in-arm.

"Christina," said my father, smiling. "Aren't you going to join the dance?"

And he made a motion with his head that directed my attention to the lively jig that was being danced by about thirty people of my age nearby.

But I shook my head, returning the smile.

"I don't think so, Father," I replied. "I have no one to dance with."

"Ah, but Milady would not presume to so quickly forget her oldest and dearest friend, would she?" came a voice from behind me, and I whirled around in confounded delight.

"Raoul!"

My friend came up and caught me as I threw my arms happily around his neck.

"Christina Daae," he said in mock-reproach, when we had pulled away from one another slightly. "You didn't honestly think I'd knock around with all those stiff adults that my brother seems so fond of rallying around him, and never once come to enjoy the evening with you? Shame, child!"

I stood back, scanning over his costume with impressed eyes.

He was dressed as a toy soldier, complete with a glittering gold-and-navy blue uniform, epaulets, a sword, and cape. His hair was the only thing that threw off the grandeur of the look: his ever-present fall of locks over his right eye testified to the mischievous and adventurous boy that he really was.

"You look beautiful, Christina," he told me, and I became keenly aware of my father and stepmother's smiles, as they looked on at my friend and I from behind us.

My cheekbones began to burn with a fiery blush.

"Yes, and you look like a monkey on a wind-up barrel-organ," I told him, promptly, as I grabbed his arm, wound it around mine, and propelled him towards the circle of dancers: moving out of the shadows and into the firelight. "But a rather handsome monkey, at that."

"Oh, you are such an angel!" he came back at me, feigning a fluttering heart with his hand over his chest. I laughed, twirling around and reveling in the feel of my luscious tulle skirts as they whirled with me.

I wasn't really an angel.

But I felt like a princess tonight.

It didn't seem odd at all: me, dancing the night away with my best friend, even though I took note of how many village maidens bent a furious and resentful glare on Raoul and me as we went spinning through the crowd together.

Everything was all light, colour, and sound; I inhaled a million fragrances and tasted a hundred different new and familiar flavors. Sumer's Flax was ablaze with firelight from the scores of torches, bonfires, and candles that had been lit everywhere. The ruddy glow reached up into the sky, shining in the night, but even through the haze, I could still see the distantly gleaming stars.

I imagined for a moment that one of them had winked at me, and that made me smile, for some odd reason.

When the merrymaking was over, I stayed for an hour to help clean up the village square, with Raoul and my brothers working alongside me, and then Raoul walked me home. Richard and Giles had gone off with their respective sweethearts, to escort them to their doorsteps. I planned on inquiring as to whether they had earned their first kisses as soon as we were all awake and up for the day, the next morning.

Raoul and I paused at the bridge over Rowanberry Brook, and spent a long while in silence, looking over the rail at the silky black waters as they ran on their way: steady and never-ceasing. The moonlight fell through the trees and danced on the surface, causing shards of sparkling white light to quiver in the shallow ripples. He spoke, suddenly, surprising me.

"It's beautiful."

I stood back, away from the rail, and walked to the other end of the bridge, running my fingertips lightly along the smooth whitewashed wood.

"Strange, isn't it? Night seems to transform everything."

"I meant the forest."

I halted. The cold, uneasy feeling that I had come to know in my dreams, and every time I recalled them, settled into my stomach again, and I felt icy-hot chills run through me. I felt as if someone—an invisible but very much alive someone who knew precisely what he was doing—was running deft fingers up and down the back of my neck. I repressed an urge to shudder, and instead concentrated on staring at a clump of night-blooming irises at the foot of the bridge.

"It…it's very beautiful, but dark."

"Christina."

I turned around, and looked at him.

He stood there, several feet away from me on the bridge, with one hand halfway stretched out to me. His expression was sorrowful, and full of compassion, and it burned me.

"There's a lot to fear in this world…" he said, softly. "But…don't ever let them make you fear it, Christina."

I shook my head; then the night sky caught my attention, and I looked up at it. Again, I thought that I saw a star twinkle at me, and my heart fluttered slightly.

What…?

"No." I said.

I looked down again.

"No."

He left me at the gate to the cottage, and I stood there, watching until his figure faded away into the shadows beneath the trees.

And I was alone.

I didn't feel like going inside yet; my family was not yet home, and the moonlit yard was so inviting that I couldn't resist. I took off my slippers and went out to the swing beneath the willow tree that was on one side of the yard, and took a seat on it, curling my bare legs up underneath myself. The breeze was quiet tonight, and the air was filled with the scent of lilacs, and the evergreen woods, and earth.

Everything was still.

In a little while, I heard noise coming from down the pathway, and the dim forms of my family came into view. Father had discarded his tri-cornered costume hat, and was carrying a sleeping Meg in his arms, as Antoinette walked beside him, carrying Queen Esmerelda and a new clown-marionette. I'd be helping to find a name and title for that one as well, come morning. Carlotta and Portia walked behind them, and seemed to be arguing about something—as usual, I noted with an almost cynical twist of my lips. Richard and Giles brought up the rear, but I couldn't see how they looked or anything else because it was so dark.

A cloud had drifted over the moon.

I stood up and went over to meet them at the gate. Father and Antoinette smiled at me and inquired after my evening as we walked up to the house—all eight of us—and I told them how much I had enjoyed everything. Father unlocked the door and we went inside. Antoinette disappeared into the kitchen to find something suitable for a light, late-night repast for us, and the boys immediately went upstairs, closely followed by my sisters and me. Father came up as well, to put the slumbering Margot to bed.

The quiet of the house was broken by a loud bout of knocking at the front door.

I came out into the hallway, with Carlotta and Portia close on my heels, and there we met Father. Puzzled, I exchanged glances with him; then he gestured that we should remain where we were, and descended the stairs himself. I stepped back into my bedroom and went to the window, pulling aside the curtain.

Whoever our visitor was, he or she had not arrived here in a carriage, or by horseback, or any other mode of transportation.

Was it a villager, then?

"Christina."

My father's voice traveled up the stairway to me, and I jumped, not expecting to hear that. Carlotta and Portia stared at me, clearly as perplexed as I. Then, again, and more insistently—

"Christina. Please join us."

My heart was pounding wildly in my chest: so violently that I was sure anyone would be able to hear it, and I swallowed the raging cloud of butterflies that had come up into my throat the instant I had heard my father calling me.

What had I done now?

My bare feet made no noise as I came down off of the last wooden step; I swallowed again, inching towards the doorway to the parlor with extreme reluctance—fear what might meet me inside. Slowly the portal loomed up before me, like impending doom, and I felt my skin begin to crawl, as if a million icy spiders were scurrying over every inch of my skin. I stopped, unable to go any further—

Unable to walk through that door.

"Christina, please come here."

There it was: my father's summons, again. I had been commanded to enter my parent's presence, and the presence of the other with him. There was someone else in that room; I knew it. But I felt as if I had been turned into a statue of concrete. My feet were rooted to the floor.

What now what now what now?

I took a step forward, and went into the parlor.

There was my father, standing by the fireplace, looking at me with serious, somehow disbelieving eyes. I kept my gaze fixed on him for a long, long moment, wondering why he was staring at me that way—as if he had just been told something that had so shocked him that he could no longer bring himself to recognize me, his own youngest daughter. Then I turned my head, and sought out our visitor with my eyes.

He stood across the room from my father, just a few feet away from me.

I had never in my life seen such a person.

It wasn't that he was extraordinarily tall or massive of build; he was rather more average in size, if anything…it was his features and garb.

He had the olive-toned, deeply tanned skin of someone who originally hailed from a land much further south than any of the countries that surrounded temperate Kryslora, and his hair was a sleek jet black, with a few streaks of silvery-gray in it here and there. His eyes were an amazing shade of jade-green: surprisingly light in his bronzed face. I decided that his age was somewhere around sixty or so, if I didn't totally miss my guess; and he was rather good-looking for an older man. His garb was certainly outlandish, with silken robes, an elaborate cloak, and a sheathed scimitar—its hilt encrusted with enormous gems—hanging at his left side.

I could hardly refrain from staring.

"Christina," my father said, and his voice was uneven.

He cleared his throat, and I remembered my manners, and gently inclined my head to our guest. The man met my gaze with his and bowed a bit at the waist, placing one hand on his chest—the other to his forehead—in a salute of some sort.

"This is Monsieur Khan. He is an…an emissary who hails from a country far from here. He…he has come here to propose something to us…to you."

I couldn't help the startled frown that formed between my eyebrows.

What on earth could this man possibly have to 'propose' to me, of all people? I was only the youngest of my family; we had hardly any money, and almost no property or wealth, and I wasn't exactly the most accomplished or stellar of any person within the environs of Sumer's Flax…

"Mademoiselle Daae."

His voice was tenor and gravelly, with an intriguing accent, and I would have found it both interesting and comforting to listen to such a voice if I hadn't been so unnerved and shaken.

"I understand that this is an incredible surprise, to say the least, for you—to have someone such as myself show up, uninvited, on your doorstep, and at such an hour of the night—for which I apologize," he added, with sincerity. "But please understand that it is a matter of great importance that I have come to discuss with you."

"Then, please…tell me, Monsieur," I said, finding my voice.

I paused.

"What is it?"

He looked at my father, then, instead; Father looked at me, and seemed to be struggling to find the will to speak. I stared hard at him, demanding with my eyes that he—that one of them—should speak.

Let the suspense end, I wanted the truth!

"Christina…Monsieur Khan comes on an errand from a friend of his: a great prince whose castle is to be found not far from here. The Prince…"

Out with it!

"The Prince desires your hand in marriage."

And the world started swirling around me, like water in a glass…

Here ends Part One of Le Fantôme et la Belle.