A/N I am an awful person, I have not updated recently, I am SO sorry. End of term, writer's block...I have many excuses, but I won't use them, and I'll just say sorry. Nice, dramatic chapter here. Thanks to the guests who have reviewed, everyone who has favourite, followed, read and enjoyed. Here we go. I might finish it before Christmas, in breaks from revision.


Part Nine


The next thing she remembered was her hair falling around her, and a queer sense of being tugged, pulled upwards, away from a bizarre coldness. Then her eyes fluttered open, and Erik's masked face was inches from hers, his breath fluttering against her cheek.

"Christine," he breathed. "Christine."

"What…what happened?" she tried to sit up, but her head began to spin and he gently pushed her back to the floor.

"Don't try and get up." Something flickered in his eyes, and she frowned.

"What happened, Erik?"

"You fainted, again." He looked away from her, and she groaned.

"Oh, not again. It's getting silly now. But you really must let me up, I've got something in the oven."

"I got it out."

"Oh, thank you," she raised her head again, blinking much like a doe in the sunlight.

He helped her rise to her feet, solicitously hovering around her as she stumbled the few steps into the kitchen. Her pot of stew that she had been slow-cooking all day was sitting on the blacktop, and she hissed as the heat of it burned her fingers.

Her stomach grumbled, complaining of the lack of food, and she laughed shakily. "I know why I must have fainted. I haven't eaten since breakfast. Silly me."

Some of the dark worry disappeared from Erik's eyes. It was strange, how she didn't even remember the comb that had been in her hair, the comb that had killed her for the second time, much like the girdle had the first.

His heart had almost stopped again when he found her lying crumpled against the doorjamb.

But no matter, the lie had come out of his mouth before he could stop it, and now, as she swept around the kitchen, setting the table and serving dinner, the sunset beaming rays of light into the window, he found he couldn't regret protecting her from the painful truth.


After they had eaten, they retired to the main room, Erik making a beeline for his piano and Christine curling up on the divan with a blanket across her legs and a book in her hands like the wings of a butterfly. She tried to read, in all honesty she did, but with the sight of Erik, those dastardly questions were whirling around and around in her head, driving her utterly mad until she blurted out, "Why did you never tell me you were a prince?"

The sound of the piano stopped, and the air was filled with empty, freezing silence. Her heart pounded in her chest and guilt clawed at her heart. Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid, why hadn't she kept it to herself?

"How did you find out?" he said awfully. She trembled.

"I…I…found the trapdoor…in the ceiling of my room, and I was curious…"

"Luciana's diaries."

"Yes," she began to cry. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to pry, to find them, but…"

He rose, crossed the room in two long strides to loom over her, a great black crow with furiousness etched in every line of his being. "I told you there was nothing up there for a reason," he growled.

"But…"

"But nothing. It was not your place to pry."

All of a sudden, the anger seemed to leave him in a huff of air, and he sank down onto the divan beside her. "But now you know, you might as well have the whole story."

She wiped the tears from her face as he turned away, to the wall. It seemed that he could not bear to look upon her; she deserved that punishment, she deserved it, deserved it, deserved it.

"My father was weak, and my mother was a witch," he began brusquely. "I was to be their youngest son, their joy and pride, their heir for whom they had longed for so dearly after the birth of five girls. Then I was born."

He glanced at Christine's pale trembling form, a mocking sneer curling up the corners of his mouth. "Have you ever wondered why I wear the mask?"

"No," she said, but even to her ears it sounded like a falsehood. He laughed, humourlessly.

"You don't have to lie, Christine, everyone who I've met wondered why I wore this thing."

"Why do you wear it?" she asked the question he seemed to want, her voice shaking. Oh why did she have to be so stupid? "Luciana…"

"Luciana was a fool," he growled, but she could see his shoulders caving in, crumbling. "I'm not handsome under this."

A new bravery surging through her veins, Christine inched forward, towards him. "Let me see."

"What?" The anger in his voice had been replaced with a bitterly defeated air, and it tore at her very soul to her strong protector brought so low by her own wicked actions.

"Let me see you."

Her hands slowly moved up to touch the corners of his mask, to loop around the wires holding it there. His long fingers wrapped around her wrists, tightly.

"If you scream, you'll never see me again," he warned, his amber eyes boring into hers with an intensity that made her heart beat faster against the cage of her ribs.

She pulled away the mask.

And before she knew her mistake, a soft cry escaped her lips.

He bolted up, grabbing the mask from her shocked fingers, the back-door slamming behind him. Guilt tore through her and she ran after him, her hair blowing behind her in her wake. "Erik!" she shouted. "Erik, come back, please come back, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…I love you…"

But it was too late.

He had disappeared into the dark embrace of the forest.

She would never see him again.