Chapter Thirty Four: (Home)
"A kiss, maman, that's all I want for my birthday, just a kiss…Why do you always make me wear this mask, maman? …Why don't you love me? …Why?" little Erik pleaded and asked so desperately.
"I will show you why!" Madeleine screamed in rage and despair, as she dragged little Erik behind her up to her room, the only place in the house that had a mirror.
Little Erik looked at his reflection for the first time in his life, in shock and terror. Impulsively, he attacked the mirror, shattering it into a thousand pieces as he screamed in agony, and sobbing and crying hysterically.
"Monsters can never be loved."
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"Run away, Erik, run away…Find a place where no one can find you… Run away Erik, hide your hideous face…Monsters can never be loved," his heart painfully ordered.
Little Erik ran away from his mother's house…away from the torment…in a desperate attempt to find home.
"After all, even monsters have homes, don't they?"
His aching heart trembled with a glimpse of hope.
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"Come inside…come and see the devil's child…the devil's child…" Javert's voice echoed, with amused cruelty.
Loud laughter - there was always loud, cruel, mocking laughter, as his master beat him ruthlessly, for the crime of having a deformed face…cutting pain surged through his body… blood seeped from the deep gashes that the whipping caused… his skin was red and swollen and cut everywhere…the pain…Erik could feel the bitter pain… not just the physical pain…the voices of that audience tormented him endlessly…Only one girl did not laugh…a girl that seemed different from the rest… To Erik's shock, she watched with pity and sadness in her eyes…
The show… the humiliation… the beatings… and then a rope tied around his master's neck, as Erik tightened the noose, more and more, strangling the life out of the man that tortured him for money…it was Erik's first kill… all he felt was deep hate, pain, and emptiness…
Erik stirred a little in bed, burning up with fever, as the Persian was applying a herbal medication, an old Eastern remedy, to Erik's deep, infected wound. Although the doctor had said there was no hope, Nadir refused to stand by and watch his best friend die.
True, they had had their differences but Nadir valued Erik's friendship very dearly. As Erik stirred, Nadir paused for a moment, keenly observing, hoping against hope that perhaps a miracle would happen, and his friend would come back from where ever he was.
"The devil's child," Erik murmured softly and faintly, over and over again.
After a moment, the Persian realized with a sinking feeling that Erik was starting to hallucinate. He continued to gently apply the herbal mixture to Erik's wound.
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The doctor had given Christine something to help her to sleep and to calm her nerves.
When he was done, he turned around to the anxiously waiting Madame Giry and Meg, as he said warily, "She should be fine. I have given her something to help her relax and sleep. The baby is fine."
Madame and Meg both breathed out a sigh of relief.
"She should rest, and rest a lot. I am afraid that another emotional outburst like the one she just had outside, and she might lose the baby," the doctor warned.
Madame nodded, as she replied reassuringly, "We will take good care of her, doctor."
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"I'm leaving, Erik," Antoinette said as gently as possible.
Erik's blazing, emotionless eyes, were locked to her stern blue ones.
"You said that you would never leave me," Erik replied coldly, as he continued sarcastically, "but I guess I was wrong."
"Erik," Madame said softly, "I will always be there for you. I value our friendship very much. But I love Jules - you know that. I love him, and we're going to be married. It won't affect our friendship."
"Friends, Antoinette, don't abandon each other," Erik replied fiercely.
"Erik, I'm not abandoning you!" Madame exclaimed.
"Go, Antoinette…Just go," Erik coldly ordered, leaving no room for argument or compromise.
He stood there, watching her as she slowly turned around and walked away, up the stairs back to the light, to the world where she belonged, leaving him all alone …alone …utterly alone…always alone…alone, as silent tears streamed down his masked face. Seventeen year old Erik had lost his one and only friend.
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"Run away, Erik, run away…Find home…A place where no one can hurt you…Even monsters have homes, don't they?" his aching heart silently questioned, as a small glimmer of hope still burned inside his being.
He packed the few items that he had. A few days after Antoinette had left, Erik left the Opera House as well. He was going to find home, even if he had to travel to the ends of the earth in his quest.
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Rome… India…Russia…
Erik was in Russia …he made his living, just as he had in all the other countries he had traveled to… he played magic tricks, tricks he had learned from the gypsies… people paid to see the magic… only no one ever saw the face of the magician, and so they called him the ghost…he always wore a long black cloak with a hood…and soon the Ghost became a legend, his fame and reputation spreading to the ends of the earth.
The sultan of Persia heard about this exceptional man, and sent his trusted Daroga, Nadir Khan, who workd in the palace, to fetch the Ghost…And thus came the rosy hours of Mazenderan…or perhaps, the horrible hours of Mazenderan…
Erik agreed to return with Nadir, back to Persia…Power…Erik wanted the power, if only for a short time.
Later, Erik was forced to stay in the palace, and to entertain the khanum, the sultan's mother, who seemed to enjoy tormenting him.
"Monsters can never be loved, Erik," she said seductively. "However, you are so very ugly, to the extent that you are almost attractive. Tell me, Erik, have you ever been with a woman?"
Erik grabbed the edges of his black cloak so hard that it almost tore in his hands, his knuckles turning white, as his hands almost bled from the pressure, but he didn't care for the pain.
He wanted to kill her…to strangle the life out of her…Erik hated the khanum.
Then came the torture chambers…all part of entertaining the khanum…By now, Erik had become a heartless man…a being without a soul…he tortured people for the sake of entertaining…he became an assassin as well…he killed for money.
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"There is no home for monsters, Erik…There is no home…There is only torment, hate, and bloodshed…That's what monsters do, that's what monsters are," his mind told him, as a surge of pain, a deep, excruciating pain was born inside the universe of his tortured being. A pain like none he had ever felt before…the pain of hopelessness…as he sank deeper into the welcoming darkness of his soul…
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"Home," Erik muttered over and over again.
Nadir was still at Erik's side. He had tried to stay awake, but had eventually fallen asleep on the chair where he was sitting, exhaustion overtaking him.
Meg slept on the couch that was present inside Christine's room, as Madame dozed off on her chair, by Christine's bedside.
Father Thomas stayed awake, praying and praying, all through that long, silent, dreary night.
All were trapped inside the tormenting unknown, waiting…waiting for life…waiting for death…waiting for the verdict.
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Erik was sentenced to death, because he knew too much…Nadir saved his life, he helped him escape, risking his own life… And Erik left the horror that was Persia, the horror that was the world…For ten long years, Erik had traveled from place to place…but there was no home…there were only torture chambers…prisons… murder… and hate.
Erik returned to Paris, only to find that the Opera House was under renovation, and that a new manager, Monsieur Levefre, had bought it. Antoinette had returned as well, only she was Madame Giry now, a widow, and the mother of a little girl, whose name was Marguerite.
Erik claimed the cellars, and the darkness once again. They were his only home…down in the darkness he would be safe from the world, at last.
Erik was older, and wiser, and his travels had taught him so many things, and had changed him in so many ways. He had become heartless, ruthless, and cruel.
And now in the Opera House that he had returned to claim as his home, he would be the ghost…an invisible creature…the being that he so longed to be.
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"Papa, you promised me that you would send me the angel of music. You promised! Where is he…Where? Oh, Papa, how I miss you," a little innocent girl knelt in the chapel praying, her voice filled with grief and longing and pain, as tears streamed down her pale cheeks.
Erik had watched her come to that chapel daily, praying and begging her father, and God, to send her the angel of music.
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"I am your angel of music…Come to me, angel of music."
The little girl had grown into a beautiful woman. And, for the first time in his life, Erik was in love. Hope blossomed inside his soul once more.
Now, he was more than just a solely spiritual presence in her life.
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"I gave you my music, made your song take wing, and now how you've repaid me, denied me and betrayed me."
"Monsters can never be loved," the voices from his past told him again, torturing him.
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"Past the point of no return."
Christine had broken what was left of Erik's exhausted heart…she removed the mask in front of all the audience… the final betrayal…
"It's over now, the music of the night."
And he watched her sail away with another man, leaving him alone…so utterly alone…always alone…alone.
"There is no home for monsters, Erik…There is no home," his heart whispered in agony.
"There is no home," Erik painfully whispered in his sleep.
"When I removed your mask that day, I condemned myself to wear one for the rest of my life…Oh, Erik, forgive me," Christine whispered through her tears, as Erik listened to her from behind the mirror.
She had returned to him, after two long, agonizing years.
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"Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love and to honor for as long as you both shall live?"
"I do," Christine answered, with the utmost love and care, that Erik could hardly believe it.
"You alone can make my song take flight, help me make the music of the night."
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Pierre…the shadows of the past…guilt…a fair fight to the death…
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"Don't leave me, please don't leave me. I can't survive without you…you promised!" Christine's pleading voice rang inside the recesses of his being. Erik could still hear her calling.
He was lost inside his soul, inside the world of his mind and subconscious, but he could still hear her voice…she was calling to him… pleading with him…begging him…she needed him so desperately.
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A bright, beautiful light, as enchanted voices softly called out to him, beckoning him to go to them, "Come home, angel of music…We have been waiting for you…Come home."
Erik turned toward the light, with a deep yearning, so completely taken by its mesmerizing beauty. Peace…wonderful peace…overwhelming peace, flooded his tired soul…. a peace that he had never felt before in his life, but a peace that he had always dreamed of.
"Home," he whispered with the utmost longing, as he started walking toward the light.
"Home."
But Christine's voice caused him to look back, and there he saw her helplessly falling into a deep, dark pit. She was calling out to him so desperately, so frantically, that it crippled his soul with grief.
And turning back to the light, he whispered, "I can't…I must go back…She is my home."
Erik opened his eyes with the first rays of light…A new day had come.
There can be miracles, when you believe. And the greatest miracle of them all, is the miracle of love.
Erik had found his home, at last.