Author's Note: Well, as you can tell, I didn't get to post last week on Sunday or Wednesday. Sunday we were in Skagway, but we were SO busy there was no way I could post, and it probably would have cost a fortune anyway. I returnd to 100 some-odd emails, most of which were just junk mail. When it came down to it, ultimately, there was nothing important in my inbox, so apparently I'm not all that necessary in the grand scheme of the world or anything. I previously supposed that something really important was going to happen while I was away and I'd have to hurry up and deal with it when I returned. Instead, no one really noticed I was gone (except you guys... yes... I know. You're sweet!). I'm not sure if that makes me sad or relieved. I guess I'll go with relieved. Being important is probably a lot of work.
Humor Warning: This chapter isn't roaringly funny or anything (in fact, I fear the best of those is already past and it may be a while before we get to another) but we apparently had another food and drink mishap last chapter. Please continue to exercise caution should you choose to eat or drink.
Daring and depraved lack of a disclaimer: I own it! I own it! I own it ALL! ::maniacal laughter::
The girl took an immediate distaste to the fact that Erik kept a coffin in his room, and Erik took the opportunity to be completely and totally exotically morbid. "I sleep in that," he told her. I smacked myself in the forehead so hard that surely the girl heard the sound through the wall panel, if only she had been paying attention!
It wasn't entirely a lie, though. I never asked Erik where he sleeps when he does not come home. It isn't my business whether he holes himself up in a coffin at the Opera or remains carefully entwined in his lover's limbs until morning, but I do recall his sleeping in the coffin for a fortnight on a bet with Charles DeLattre. He was grouchy for at least another week afterward. Said the coffin hurt his back. "I'm going to make a mattress to fit it, though," he insisted rubbing his protruding spine with a cautious hand, "when I get the time. If it weren't so rough on the back it would be a magnificent bed. It's so peaceful in there—so quiet with the lid closed." I made a mental note to peek into the coffin next chance I got and see if he had indeed made such a mattress, just to satisfy my insatiable curiosity. Meanwhile, I find myself struggling to remember the details as to how that ridiculous bet started, but as Erik will bet on nearly anything, there have been so many over the years that they all run together in my mind except where I was directly involved, as I was this time.
Erik and I had done a bit of research on the Daaé girl and concluded she was more than a bit obsessed with death. Having lost her mother at a very young age and her father a bit more recently, she was inclined to excessive sadness and thoughts of the possibility of communicating with the dead. She had lived a childhood filled with magical tales which she had believed entirely and continued to believe, at least somewhat. She was absolutely convinced that she had seen numerous goblins on the moors in her youth. She was religious, but in an almost superstitious fashion that lent itself easily to Erik's Angel of Music ruse, and of course, to believing that the angel played her father's violin that night in the cemetery.
Even so, today Erik went overboard. He went on and on about eternity and dying and death, speaking of death even when she attempted to change the subject to music, stating he intended to die when he completed his masterpiece (which, anyone who knows Erik well knows is already complete and has been used successfully on numerous occasions to accomplish exactly what its title implies). He turned the subject so heavily upon eternity that I thought that it may have been too much, even though all our research indicated that the girl herself was rather enamored with the concept as well, having been orphaned by both parents and a benefactor and having apparently spoken of wishing to die herself so as to be with her departed loved ones.
When Erik pointed to the coffin and said in a tone as flat and lifeless as his face, "I sleep in that," I thought the poor wretch would wither and die if she didn't forget her chaste nonsense and throw herself at him instead. But she did neither. I suppose she was playing a role too. She played innocent just as surely as he played mysterious and tragic.
Before I knew it, they were back in the parlor and I was scrambling like mad through the wall to get to a place where I could hear the conversation. I don't even pretend to know what Erik's tactic was when he used a tone that sounded offended to the point of anger with her, but I do know a moment later they were singing some operatic nonsense in what might have been Italian but was most assuredly a language I did not recognize. Everything progressed musically enough until at once there was a terrifying shriek of two voices, perfectly paired in unison. My skin turned to gooseflesh and my heart pounded wildly at the sound. But it was so perfectly timed, my mind rationalized. It must have been scripted. (I was unfamiliar with the piece they were singing; how could I know otherwise?) But the uproar continued. Through the soprano's high screams I made out a couple of dark words from Erik. I turned cold once again. It seemed something had gone dreadfully wrong.
I left my hiding place and pushed the nearest hidden door open in haste. Erik's tall dark form towered over the girl who appeared to be sitting on the floor. Both had their hands over their faces. What nonsense was this? Ah, opera, I thought.
Then I noticed it. Between his skinny fingers, I noticed.... Erik was bare-faced. I glanced at the girl again and, now that I was looking for it, easily discerned a piece of black silk clutched in the fingers of one hand. My eyes were surely as wide open as my mouth now; I must have looked absolutely ridiculous standing there. I backed away lest I be seen.
Meanwhile, Erik fell to the floor and cried weakly. "Why did you want to see me?" he sniveled, "when my own father never saw me, and my mother so as to see me no longer, gave to me a mask as my first present?"
The girl sobbed harder. If Erik noticed her tears he gave no indication, writhing about on the floor.
I reminded myself why Erik used the line about his mother—it worked. Slowly, sympathy overtook terror as through her tears Christine Daaé watched Erik skulk away on his belly.
He crawled miserably away from her toward his room, and as he did so, he suddenly noticed my presence. He looked up, caught my eye, and winked at me, mid-slither.
The girl by this time was so engrossed in her own excessive pity of the poor man that she did not notice me. I pulled the door almost closed and waited, watching through the crack. Erik pushed the door to his room closed with a foot as he slithered in.
Shameless Begging: I believe it's been about 10 days since we've conversed. Surely it is not to much to ask that you drop a line?