Author's note: Please make sure to pay attention to the change both in time and in point of view. Otherwise, you'll get all confused.

Chapter Thirty-Six

December 10th 1895: Christine

I woke up, and for a moment, I thought everything was fine. I felt that there was someone sitting next to me, and I smelled the sweet scent of fresh tea. Wasn't it nice of Raoul to have made me breakfast? Or was it Erik who had done it? I had no idea, and it was that confusion that woke me up properly. I opened my eyes.

Larisse was standing next to my bedside table, smiling down at me. What I had taken to be someone sitting at the foot of my bed turned out to be a pile of sheets.

"I'm sorry, Madame," she said. "I didn't mean to disturb you. But you have to get up. I've brought you breakfast."

She pointed at the bedside table. I straightened up a little and turned my head slowly. At least I hadn't imagined the scent. It came from a cup of tea that stood on a tray, next to a plate with rolls and butter and two jars with honey and jam.

"Thank you, Larisse," I mumbled, pulling myself into a sitting position. "It's just what I need."

There was no irony in my words. A decent breakfast was always a good incentive to get me out of bed these days. I seemed to have regained a lot of my old appetite in the last month. Minutes after I had reached for the first roll, my plate and cup were empty.

Larisse beamed at me. She looked delighted, as if I had mastered a very difficult task – much more difficult than eating breakfast. I had noticed that she often looked at me that way, whenever I remembered an important date or helped the children get dressed in time to send them to their teachers, for instance.

I knew she hadn't been sure whether I'd get by on my own, and I didn't blame her for it. I hadn't been sure myself. Yet it was a fact that I did get by. I had even started developing a new routine for how I spent my days, though it was not as rigid as the one I had had at Meg's home. I didn't feel that I needed it anymore. My little family was happy, and that made me happy.

My fear of being alone had been the worst fear I had had when I had left my friend's house. I had dreaded the long hours in which Antoinette and Philippe would be gone and I'd be alone with Clarille. Yet it had turned out that it wasn't that bad after all. For once, I was not alone all the time. Even when Jacqueline had left with the children, there was still Larisse to keep me company. And if she wasn't around either, I could always go to Mme.Marandette.

I smiled to myself as I thought of her kind face, the rosy cheeks, the pale blue eyes and the long grey hair tied back in a bun. It was impossible to think of her without smiling. She was one of the nicest people I had ever met.

I had liked her from the first moment I had seen her. Fortunately, the feeling had been mutual. Any other elderly woman would have shaken her head about the very idea of renting the first floor of her house to a woman with three children and two servants, but no husband. Yet she had actually preferred me to all the other people she could have had, claiming that she liked a little noise in the house. Her life seemed to have become very quiet since her husband had died half a year ago.

I loved sitting downstairs in the cosy living room, listening to Mme.Marandette's stories about the old times while I played with Clarille. The good thing about the woman was that she never asked prying questions about me. She hadn't even wanted to know why I was living alone with my children. She left me my privacy, and that was something I enjoyed very much. While I was with her, I could forget my old life. Yes, that was what I called it, even though it had only ended a month ago. It felt like so much longer…

"Madame? You really shouldn't fall asleep again."

Larisse's voice seemed to come from very far away. Startled, I realised that I had indeed nodded off, losing myself in the world of my own thoughts.

"I'm sorry," I murmured, stifling a yawn with my hand.

"No, I'm sorry," Larisse stressed. "Another day, I'd gladly let you go back to sleep, but not today. Antoinette has been awake for two hours already. She claims that she couldn't possibly sleep any longer because she's so excited and there are so many things to do. If you don't get up soon, I'm afraid she'll come here herself, and she won't be pleased to see you still in bed on her big day."

It took my sleepy mind a few moments to figure out what she was talking about. Of course. Tonight, Antoinette would dance in a performance of the chorus girls. It would be a little performance, for the patrons and parents of the younger girls only, but it would take place on the real stage, with the real orchestra, and that alone was enough to excite my daughter to no end. It was a rare privilege that she, who was no member of the chorus, was allowed to take part. She had been talking of little else in the last weeks.

"I know, I know," I said, trying my best to appear awake. "I'm getting up." I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, which seemed enough to convince Larisse that I was serious. She seized the breakfast tray, announced that she's be back later to change the sheets and left the room.

All the time while I stood up and pulled my dressing gown over my nightdress, there was this strange nagging sensation in the pit of my stomach. It was only when I closed the dressing gown that I could identify the feeling as anxiety. Today would also be the day when I'd meet both Erik and Raoul. As Antoinette's father, Raoul would attend the performance, of course, and Erik would surely be there as well. I let out a sigh. It seemed that my old life wasn't that far away after all.

Erik

I woke up, and for a moment, my foolish mind was convinced that everything was just fine. My back was aching, and I realised that I had fallen asleep not in bed, but in a chair next to a bed. The sweet pain made me smile. This had happened countless times already while I had been watching over Christine's sleep. The mere sight of her beautiful face would make it all better.

Yet even without opening my eyes, I knew that something was wrong. The light filtering through my closed eyelids was coming from the wrong direction. I turned my head slowly, blinking. The light came from the window, just like I had thought… but the window was at the wrong side of the room. Turning my head into the other direction, I saw that the rest of the room was wrong as well. This was not Christine's dressing room.

Feeling vaguely uneasy, I looked down at the girl in the bed. My suspicion was confirmed: Just like the room wasn't the one I had expected to wake up in, the girl wasn't who I had thought she was. For once, her hair was too dark. So was the colour of the arm lying upon the blanket. Christine had never had such a tan. Her skin had always remained pale, like porcelain.

There was no denying that I was fully awake now, but I'd have preferred it to be different. It had been such a good dream, and so vivid. A brief glance down at myself told me that in fact, it had been a little too vivid. Fortunately, the girl in the bed was still slumbering soundly and would remain asleep for quite a while. Judging by the intensity of the light (or rather, the lack thereof), it couldn't be much later that seven in the morning.

I tried to focus on something that would change my embarrassing physical state. Finally, I settled for the performance that would take place tonight. Since Marcella wasn't a dancer, she wouldn't participate, but she and I would sit together in Box Five. It would be the closest thing to a real opera she'd see before taking part in one herself.

Marcella was very excited. So was I, though for a different reason. Tonight would be the first time in more than a month that I'd see Christine. I had invited her to come and talk to me several times, but the letters had been returned unopened. I didn't even have the chance to see her when she brought Philippe to the opera or picked him up, for she always sent Jacqueline to do it.

I stretched my arms, feeling stiff from sitting on a hard-backed chair all night. I would have never dared bring up the subject, but I did wish Marcella would lose her fear of sleeping alone. It was not as if I didn't want to help her. My bones just weren't as young as they had once been. But then, at least I made her happy. It was more than I managed to do for most people these days.

Raoul

I woke up, and for a moment, I thought everything was as it had once been: a comfortable bed and a warm body next to me. Surely Christine would wake up as well any moment. She'd smile at me and wish me a good morning, and I'd be happy to see her.

Yet as I groped for the sleeping form next to me, I noticed that something was different. The smell coming from the sleeping woman was too flowery, not at all like Christine's rose-scented soap and the perfume she used. Then I saw that her hair wasn't dark, but red. The woman mumbled something I couldn't understand and turned over to face me.

"Good morning, darling," Cecile said, her green eyes shining. "Did you sleep well?"

I woke up with a start, groaning as I hit my head on the bedpost. Since this evidently was reality, everything that had happened before had been a dream. The space next to me was empty. So was my life. I was alone.