Author's Note: Sorry for the delay, I'm rather busy with work for university currently, and besides there's Valley of the Night to work at as well now (though the Les Mis fans among you might not find that so bad maybe, lol). But I'll do my best to keep the chapters coming.

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VIII. A Dream and nothing more

Valencienne rubbed her eyes and blinked into the morning light. For a moment she did not know where she was, then she realized that she was at her own home, the little room she had rented, in her own bed.

And she had just had a most inappropriate dream. In fact, it was so delightfully inappropriate that it made her want to giggle. If her landlady knew, she would turn her out for daring to dream such things under her roof.

Well, as long as she only just dreamed of such… situations… There could hardly be anything wrong with just dreaming, or could there?

Erik, his name had been. Why Erik, of all names? Why not Alexandre? When she had been younger, she had once made up an imaginary fiancé called Alexandre, a pretty lad with slightly curled blond hair and blue eyes, and still she fantasized about him sometimes, so she reasoned that she was bound to dream about a man called Alexandre. Well, maybe not. But then again, yes. She ought to have a bad conscience about deceiving Alexandre with another man, especially one with such an unusual name. But then again, Alexandre had never precisely made a call, so she might as well. If he was not going to turn up at her doorstep, she might consider Erik instead.

This was completely silly, of course, but a girl ought to be allowed some fantasies.

Lying back and tugging the woollen blanket around her comfortably, she tried to recall the details of her dreams. Soon she found that some made the blood pulse hotly in her cheeks.

The Maxim was totally spoiling her.

Her Erik had been a sweetheart. And he had had half a scarred face, poor dear. She seriously wondered where that idea might have come from – Alexandre certainly had not had scars of any kind – but then again, in her dreams there were some things for which she found no explanation rather often.

And he had claimed he was a ghost, the silly man.

Would she have preferred to wake up and really find herself in somebody else's bed, whatever his name might be? It was an intriguing thought, in a way, and a very embarrassing one at the same time. She was a decent girl, after all. She had always tried to be. Even Alexandre had not succeeded in doing anything improper in her presence. No, not with her. Not if all the Eriks in the world came running. They would have to marry her first.

Sitting up in bed, she threw back her blanket. Time to get up, or else the landlady would once again throw a couple of scathing remarks at her about laziness in young ladies. No matter how late at night she got back home, to her landlady everybody who did not get up early in the morning was a horrible slack.

With a sigh, she climbed out of bed and shook her long, tangled mane of dark hair out of her face. She caught her own eye in the round mirror she had put up over the little chest of drawers that had been here already when she had moved in, just like the hard, narrow bed and the old cupboard that always smelled of dust no matter how hard she scrubbed it. Heavens, did she look sleepy! She blinked a few times, hoping this would help her manage to keep her eyes a bit wider open, but was not quite convinced of her success.

And then she noticed something that made her blink yet again: There, over the collar of her nighshirt, was a pale red mark at the side of her neck, and another one beneath her throat…

Shame on you, Erik.

No. The hint of laughter beginning to appear on her features was suddenly wiped away, to be replaced by an expression of shock. She watched her own face in the mirror, but hardly realized it was her own. No dream could be as intense as that. Never.

Had she hurt her neck perhaps? But if so, she could not remember how.

There was a cold feeling seeping out from the pit of her stomach, through her whole body.

Could it have happened earlier on? That man Erik… or whatever his name truly was… he did exist after all, she was more or less certain. She had seen him. He had come to her, before she had had that dream about him. He had spoken to her… and kissed her without asking for her permission.

He had not been partially masked, though, like this one had been.

Strange, she could not remember going back home last night at all… With this thought came a new wave of cold, capturing her senses and paralyzing them…

Turning away decidedly, she shut her eyes tightly, then opened them again, facing the bed. On the night cabinet was a glass someone had apparently turned into a vase, for there was a red rose in it now, with a black ribbon around its stem. Leaning against it was an envelope, and it even had her name on it in black ink, in a flowing handwriting.

Lord in Heaven, whatever had happened to her?

Could it be that the landlady had brought her the letter and the flower while she had been asleep? No, she never did that, she always gave her the occasional letter down at the breakfast table. And she would never give her a flower, prudish creature that she was, especially not a red rose. And she would consider a black ribbon around the stem a sure sign of morbidity.

Well, in a way it was.

Valencienne picked up the letter, biting her tongue. How did it come to be here? Turning it around, a skull of red wax leered up at her, the most unusual seal that she had ever seen. Morbidity, indeed.

A memory stirred, a memory from last night's dream, of a silver-gleaming pendant on a man's bare chest, a pendant in the shape of a skull…

She broke the seal and tore the envelope open, shaking out a card with a black line around the edges, as if containing condolences. My dear little one, she read, I have taken you back home so you can avoid awkward questions. My thanks for last night, I am deeply indebted to you. Expect me to call again later on, though I cannot make any promises as for tonight. There is some pressing business I have to attend to, but once I'm done with it I will readily discuss your future career chances with you, especially as far as the Opéra Populaire is concerned. Until then, farewell. I will miss you on my little journey. Your obedient servant, O.G.

Valencienne closed her eyes and opened them again, but the letter's contents still had not changed. So it was true after all. It had not been a dream.

The complete, utter, total bastard!

And she herself, she was a fool, an idiotic, gullible, immature fool. How could she ever have allowed him to… to do what he had done? How could she? Had she fallen in love head over heels and melted away under the gaze of those strange turquoise eyes?

Did she love him? Did she love this man at all? She did not know. He had intrigued her, fascinated her, stunned her even… but love? At the moment, there was nothing but anger boiling inside her.

And there would be no Alexandre for her now. Not anymore. Not after what she had done with this Erik who called himself Opera Ghost.

And she had let him. Lord, she had really let him!

There was a sharp knock on the door, and Valencienne froze, the letter still in her hand. It must be her landlady! But why now, what did she want of her?

Before she could say anything, she door was opened, and Valencienne took a step backwards, clutching the letter to her convulsively. God! Hadn't she locked the door?

Her landlady mustered her sternly. She was a stern woman altogether, from her tight grey hair bun to her starched grey skirts. Her lips were thin, and the corners of her mouth, surrounded by a few wrinkles, always pointed slightly downwards. There she stood, gazing at Valencienne like at a convicted miscreant, her sharp gaze mustering her from her mussed hair to her bare toes, and Valencienne tried hard not to shiver, her nightshirt seeming thinner than ever suddenly. For a moment the landlady's eyes rested on the letter, then she raised her curved eyebrows knowingly. "So," she said.

"Y-yes?" Valencienne ventured. This one syllable had filled the room with threateningly hovering icicles. Lowering her head hastily, she hoped that the older woman had not seen those treacherous red marks on her neck.

"Who was he?" the landlady asked coldly.

Terror gripped Valencienne with iron clutches, rendering her helpless. "Who… who… who is he?" she stuttered, her head spinning, her vision spiralling around a pair of strangely turquoise eyes that stared at her from everywhere… It must be written on her face. It must be obvious. Lord, his eyes might well be shining out of her own, betraying her!

"He was here." The landlady's lips had gone very thin now.

"Nobody was here." How could there have been anyone? Dream or not, she had visited this Erik at his own home… at the Opéra Populaire? The cellars of the Opéra Populaire? Suddenly she was quite certain that she had gone there, sitting before him on a black horse, but her recollection was strangely hazy, just like a dream after waking…

"Don't lie to me," the landlady snapped. "I saw you, both of you, down on the street. He brought you here on a black horse, around four or five in the morning when decent people are asleep in their beds." She clicked her tongue in irritation, and in any other situation Valencienne might have found the sound comical. "Then you disappeared from view, and the staircase was empty and dark and I could hear no sound, but when I looked out of the window again, he was riding away. He wore a black cloak and had horrible long hair."

God, it was true. It all was true. It had not been a dream…

"You know precisely what I told you about men," the landlady continued, her voice very low and dangerous, the corners of her mouth twitching. "There were to be no men brought here, no men at all. I made it quite clear to you, my dear." In her scathing tone, it became an insult. "That you work at that place of sin is bad enough already, but I would have expected you to at least keep your decency."

Valencienne wanted to protest, but there was nothing she could say. Struck dumb with shock and terror at what had really occurred, she did not find the words. She was to be turned out, she knew it, and thrown out on the street, but there was nothing left for her defence. Even Alexandre had dimmed to a mere wisp of smoke, and all that was left were Erik's smouldering eyes.

My God, he is real. He is real, and he is very far from the dream I had about him, back when I still was a romantic little girl…