Chapter Thirty Six: Live Dog
Maggie fell asleep in the armchair in her brother's room sometime after dawn with music echoing through her tiny house; while she slept, nothing physical changed, but when she awoke it was to a brave new world.
It wasn't more than a few hours into the morning, when she rose and stretched and smiled fondly at her still-sleeping brother (Bram slept on his back, his chest rising and falling evenly, producing a steady snore) but when she emerged from her toilette a bit later, she found Erik waiting for her in the tiny kitchen. He was inspecting cupboards without a hint of shame.
"Are you hungry?" she said, perfectly failing to startle him.
He turned to her and issued a short, formal bow. "Good morning, my dear."
"Good morning, Erik. Let me see what's in the larder." She turned to the pantry and called over her shoulder a moment later, "Cold ham alright? I can put together tea— or coffee, if you wish."
Erik stood in a corner and made not a sound. Maggie busied herself with kettles and plates and knives and bread and butter, then glanced keenly at him.
"Did you sleep at all?"
"One can only expect a certain difficulty finding rest in a strange place," said Erik.
"Not quite the cellars of the Opera Populaire, I take it." He didn't respond. "What is it you're used to, Erik? If I can make you more at home, I'll try."
He paused a moment, and held still; then he looked at her and shook his head. "You've been there, Margaret. You saw what it was like."
"I saw some of it. I should hope that it was more than that: a dungeon. A cell." She smiled at him hopefully, trying to draw a bit of warmth back into him, oxygen to a spark. "You can't have lived like a prisoner all the time."
"I had the run of the entire opera house," said Erik. "There were secret panels, and trapdoors, and swiveling mirrors, and attics, and the hidden places in the wings where no one dared to go because of the legend of the Opera Ghost."
"You. The Opera Ghost."
He shrugged slightly. "I'm not the only, nor am I the first."
"Erik— " She put the carving knife carefully down on the table and spoke slowly. "Are you trying to tell me there's more than one Opera Ghost?"
"I never saw the others," said Erik. He spoke like a man in a dream, eyes behind the mask staring into the middle distance. "I don't know if they were real, just as everyone else didn't know that I was real— and if I never gave them cause to believe in my existence till it hit them like a saber, perhaps the ones who came before me were content to leave me obscure clues, content to watch me as I discovered the hints and possibilities." He shook himself out of his reverie to find Maggie watching him, eyebrows raised. "I don't know anything for certain, Maggie. Except that not all of the passageways were created by me. Some were merely discovered. There are all sorts of legends surrounding theatre life, at any rate," he added. "I am merely one of the most dramatic."
"You sound very pleased with yourself."
"I built my own reputation."
"For mischief—" said Maggie, and caught herself abruptly. "Yes, Erik, you did. You certainly did. And you followed it to an infernal end, bravo, good for you, and I doubt that you'll ever be forgotten. Are you content to be a man, now?"
Erik smiled like a wolf. "It is better to be a live dog than a dead lion. I believe I can— adapt."
Maggie watched him for a moment.
"Now, you're not to go getting any ideas about haunting our cellars. The landlord won't stand for it."
And Erik laughed. Maggie nearly fell out of her chair; but, wisely, she curbed her surprise and laughed along with him. It was a beginning, she felt, perhaps to nothing but normalcy; but after recent events, normalcy was a blessing that she had feared would never be bestowed.
He came to her in the drowsy afternoon, as she sat repairing one of Bram's shirts. Without a word, he seated himself next to her and fixed her with his gaze.
She did her best to ignore him, and focused on the needle.
"I can't imagine how that boy manages to rip things the way he does," she complained. "You'd think he was gnawing on these buttons, look— its as though he keeps mice in his bed. And he doesn't, before you ask. I know, I'm the one who changes the sheets."
"Maggie," said Erik.
She bit her tongue and looked up at him.
"Will you tell me— where you lived before—"
"Ireland."
"Ireland. Did you live like this? In a flat, with only a few rooms at your disposal?"
She laughed softly. "Hardly. My family is an old one, and we had an inheritance in property more than we did in money. It was a bit of a castle, actually— rambling and old, stonework and moss, we had our very own ruins and that's where my brother slept, actually— and the moors, oh, the moors." She smiled reminiscently. "Stretching endless land to every side. I could hear the wind howling outside my window all day long; I thought it was a wolf, and we wanted to go catch it— no, Erik. We didn't live like this. We had— space."
Erik nodded thoughtfully. "I, too, am used to space," he said. "My lair beneath the opera house, Margaret— its true, you only saw a part of it. There was much more. It was dark, and often cold there beneath the earth, but I could breathe. And here—" He gestured wordlessly at the miniscule sitting room. "Well, that's hardly the case, is it."
She shifted, and stabbed herself with the needle. Erik's eyes riveted to the blood, and from his sleeve he withdrew a handkerchief, which he offered her. She took it, and watched it begin to turn crimson.
"What are you suggesting we do about it?" she asked him quietly. "Or are you just being discontent, after all the discussion about better to be a live man than a dead legend?"
"I'm not," said Erik, and he took her hand and closed his palm over her finger, holding the handkerchief over the bloodflow. "I believe there is something I can do about it. If you'll let me."
She looked into his face, and studied the narrow line of shadow that fell beneath the mask's edge, bridging his face into two sections: eyes, and lips. "What is it?"
Erik took a deep breath, and his hand tightened involuntarily till her own hand twitched from the pressure. "I would like to buy you a house. I would like to buy— us a house."
"Space," said Maggie. "He's requested space, and space he shall get. He's buying us a home, Bram."
"I understand that," said Bram, folding his arms over the edge of the coverlet. "The question is, what do you expect me to do? Is he also going to hire a manservant to cart me up and down the stairs for meals three times a day?"
She grinned at him. "I already feed you in your bed. Why should that change?"
Bram huffed. "Its a bit different when we don't even possess a dining table. What's brought this on, then?"
"He feels confined. He can't sleep here, he can't get comfortable."
Bram shook his head at her. "Notice that you refer to him for everything? What's it got to do with you?"
"Well, its hardly a hardship to be offered an estate, Bram! And— besides—" she looked down at her own hands, clasped with the handkerchief between them, her blood spotting the pristine whiteness, one bloody fingerprint making a rose on the upturned fold. "He is my husband, and it is right that I think of him."
"An estate. An estate!" Bram shook his head. "Who knew that he had all this money tucked away— travelin's not enough, is it, now there's got to be an estate. The mansion of the Opera Ghost."
"Control your wit, please."
"And what's the price of it?" asked Bram, reasonably if nosily. "Is he a good husband to you, Maggie? Is he worth— everything?"
She stared at him in slightly amused disbelief. "What are you asking me, Bram?"
"Merely about your sleeping arrangements, nothing more." Bram looked pious.
His sister laughed. "Don't you try the innocent act with me, Abraham Blessing. I know you far too well, and for your information, its never worked. Don't you worry about me. I won't be hurt."
"Its a possibility, you know," said Bram, turning suddenly serious, and she could see that he truly was worried about her, though she couldn't pinpoint why. "Its— well. For the uninitiated. For someone like you, Maggie— if you're— Maggie, I can see you biting your tongue. What is it you're trying not to tell me? Don't get so embarrassed."
Bram was a good brother, extremely protective of his sister. He wouldn't like to hear of Erik's behavior towards her, nor of his steady obsession with another woman. And this was not the time to tell him that, husband or no, she was hardly uninitiated. And though it hadn't been her choice at the time, she could at least rest in the presumption that nothing could be more painful than—
She stopped herself there, before the truth could show on her face.
"You needn't worry," she said breezily to Bram, rose, and kissed him on the forehead. "I'm going out. To find an estate."
"What about me?" he called after her, but her voice floated back, punctuated by the slam of the door.
"Erik will keep an eye on—"
"Wonderful," said Bram, rather sourly. "How's he going to do that, then? I haven't got a mirror."