November 6th 1895: Erik
Pity welled up inside me as I looked at the girl. During all the planning I had done ever since I had decided to take her with me and teach her at the opera, it had never occurred to me that she wouldn't sleep alone in a room. So many questions I had considered, so many problems foreseen, but not this one.
Sure, I had known that she had shared a room with her sisters. She had told me so herself. Yet I had thought of it as something that had annoyed her, rather like it would have annoyed me. I had been certain that she'd be delighted at the prospect of having a room that she could call her own, a place where she'd be able to do what she wanted.
Well, it seemed that I had interpreted too much of myself into Marcella. She was not like me. She seemed to have enjoyed her sisters' company, and finding herself alone all of a sudden made her frightened. I should have thought about it before, but I hadn't. And there wasn't much I could do now. I could hardly conjure her sisters out of thin air, and there was no other girl I could ask to sleep in her room. Perhaps I'd be able to find her one of the chorus girls as companion in a few weeks' time, once they knew each other, but not now.
I knew what she wanted, of course. She had said so herself, and I could see it in her pleading gaze, could feel it in the way she was clutching my hand. She wanted to come with me, to spend the night in my house. I couldn't blame her for harbouring that wish. After all, I was the only one in this country she knew. I was the one who had brought her here. It was only natural that she wanted to stay with me.
Yet it was impossible. I couldn't take her with me. It was… well, impossible. I hadn't even told her that I lived underground. She knew I lived here in the building, but she probably thought I had a room or a flat somewhere, not a house in the cellars. If I had told her about it now, I'd have to reveal a lot of other things, among them my position as the Opera Ghost. It would be a long, unpleasant explanation, and I had no desire to give it now.
Besides, I simply couldn't imagine having her in my house, allowing her to sleep there. It would have been like letting her take over Christine's place, and I couldn't do that. It was one thing to pretend to other people that she was the new woman at my side, but I wouldn't go as far as to pretend it to myself.
All I had to do was persuade Marcella to stay here without revealing any of those things. Somehow, it didn't sound very easy. Still, I'd do my best. And what would have been a better point to start than a subject that I knew a lot about?
"There are no ghosts here, Marcella," I assured her. "I've lived here for a long time, and I've never seen one."
"There are ghosts one can't see," she told me, throwing me an almost pitying glance. "You can just feel their presence. They make the hairs on one's arms stand up, and one feels as if someone was there all the time." She looked over her shoulder, as if she had indeed just felt someone watching her.
If it hadn't been for the anxious expression on her face, I'd have burst into laughter. The things she described were exactly what people felt when I was around, heard but unseen, or sensed but unheard. It was exactly those superstitions I had been playing with in order to create my own myth. In general, I thought the belief in ghosts was rather amusing. I had rarely met someone who took it that seriously.
But then, that was hardly surprising, considering Marcella's upbringing. I didn't have a very profound knowledge of the area in which she had lived, but I had learned that religion and the belief in the supernatural went hand in hand there. The existance of ghosts, spirits and other phenomena was almost something like common knowledge there.
Yet even with all that at the back of my head, I'd have never thought it would have such a strong influence on Marcella. My whole arm was vibrating because the girl was shaking so badly. She was convinced that there were ghosts, and I realised that I wouldn't be able to talk her out of it, not now that she was in such a state. She wouldn't believe me anyway.
Maybe I could at least try to appeal to her common sense, making her see that there was no danger in sleeping alone. The rest could wait.
"What difference does it make whether there is just one person in a room or more?" I asked, in the same voice I had used when trying to make Philippe realise an error he had made. "I've often been in this room, and I've never seen or felt anything extraordinary."
Now the glance she threw me was definitely pitying.
"You're a man," she stated flatly. "There are spirits that don't affect men, not matter whether they're alone or in a group. For women, however, especially for girls, they're very dangerous. Have you never heard of… Incubi? My mother warned me never to sleep alone in a room, because Incubi prey on girls, and the consequences are terrible…"
I groaned. I hadn't expected our conversation to take that turn. I had thought that we were talking about ghosts which came out and frightened people with their sudden appearance or strange sounds, and not about Incubi. Of course I knew what they were, even though I didn't believe in such things. I could see that the idea of demons which adopted the rough shape of men and approached women at night-time in order to sire children frightened a girl like Marcella, and also her mother. Not only in rural Italy, many marriages still depended on whether the future bride was untouched. The fear of Incubi often represented nothing but the fear of infidelity. Mothers planted the idea in their daughters' minds in order to scare them away from giving themselves to men before their wedding.
"There are neither Incubi nor Succubi here," I said, mentioning the demons' female counterparts as well in order to prove my expertise on the subject. "Believe me, Marcella, You have nothing to fear. You'll wake up just as… erm…" I couldn't bring myself to uttering the word ´virginial´. It would have made the already difficult topic downright indecent. So I simply finished: "You'll wake up just like you were when you went to bed. Nothing bad will happen to you.". I underlined my words by patting her head in a fatherly way with my free hand.
Her reaction took my by surprise. She let go of my hand, only to fling her arms around me and hold me tight.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice muffled as she pressed her face against my chest. "But I'm so scared. Even if there are no ghosts… I've never been alone for such a long time. I don't know what to do…"
She was not the only one who didn't know what to do. I barely heard what she was saying. I was too busy dealing with the fact that there was a warm, distinctly female body pressed against me. It had been so long since the last time this had happened… so long… I couldn't even recall whether it had been before or after the fire. All I knew was that Christine and I had not embraced when I had bid her farewell.
I had known that I had missed physical contact, but until this very moment, I had not known how much I had missed it. My breath quickened, I felt my face flush, and… oh. Something else was stirring.
As gently as I could, I disentangled myself from her and took a step backwards – anything to get her away from my inappropriate physical reaction.
"It's all right to be afraid," I told her, willing my body to return to its normal state. "But I can't take you with me. What if you sleep here and I stay with you till you're asleep? I'm sure you'll slumber peacefully all night, after the exhaustion of the day. And if a ghost does turn up, I'll chase it away."
She nodded slowly, and I suppressed a sigh of relief. Finally I had found a solution we could both live with.
I kept my eyes averted while Marcella changed into her nightclothes and slipped into bed. I dragged the stool over from the dressing table and sat down next to the bed.
"Good night," I whispered. I leaned down to kiss her, but thought better of it and merely stroked her hair.
"Good night, Signor Erik," she breathed. "And thank you…" She closed her eyes, and within moments, all that could be heard was her deep, slow breathing.
I sat at her bed for a long time, watching her sleep. She was very pretty, with her hair streaming over the pillow. If there had been such beings as Incubi, they wouldn't have been able to resist her for as long as a second. But then, was I so much better than them? I was nothing but a lecherous old man, lusting after a pretty young girl who would make me forget my worries. It had been quite a while since the last time I had despised myself. Now the feeling was back.