I told myself not to do it. My index finger had found a stray thread on the hem of my night gown. I had nervously twisted it around the tip of my finger several times; my mind ordered me to stop. To calm down. Yet I pulled and twisted even further, waiting in dreaded anticipation as I heard Erik's footsteps outside the door.
The thread unraveled even more as I pulled it along, in sync with the motion of the door opening and Erik appearing before me. He held a candelabra with several candles casting their glow under his face. He had already removed his coat and stood in his shirtsleeves. His tall frame filled the doorway and with the light playing off his face, even with his mask, he appeared rather handsome. Our eyes meet, and he smiled at me.
That smile. That beautiful and terrible smile. How many times had I been deceived by him again and again with that cunning smile? With his pleasantness and affections, he had sought to conceal each and every terrible lie. He had promised so many times from those same lips that he would be truthfully to me and I had blindly believe him. I was such a fool. Had it not been for his passionate declarations of love for me, I would not believe that he had any reason to keep me safe. Safe from him and his lies. But it was exactly that love, that madness...that drove him to do these things. To mislead me once again.
I pulled on the thread and it snapped. The blood rushed back into my finger which had stared to turn purple with my compulsive distraction.
"Are you feeling well?" he asked. Even across the room he could sense my discomfort. On reflex, I stretched out my hands over the bed spread and made a great fuss about smoothing the fabric.
"Of course." I spat out. I had tried to keep my voice quiet.
"You seamed very sluggish this evening at dinner." He shifted in place and I scrambled for something else to talk about.
"Do you know if they have started the opera season yet?" I prodded.
He moved over to one of the room's many end tables and set down the candelabra. He reached up to his throat and loosened his cravat before reaching down to undo a few buttons of his shirt.
"Why such a renewed interest in the stage?"
"It would be nice to go see a performance." I offered.
"Ah but Christine, I could perform any opera you would like to hear...whenever you wanted to." he exclaimed, moving his arms for emphasize. I tried not to stare at his bare chest peeking from underneath his shirt and kept my face passive. "Provided you deem me a worthy performer."
"Of course I do! I understand it's just..." I chuckled. "I've actually never seen an opera performed before. As an audience member. I've always watched from the wings."
He sighed, "I think I heard talk of Rigeletto as the season opener. Would you like to attend?"
"It would be nice." I nodded in reply.
Erik sat on the edge of the bed and grasped my hand. He pulled my fingers to his lips and slowly kissed the tips one by one. My pulse quickened and my face grew flush. Once he was finished with my fingers, he moved to lavish his affections on my palm moving up to my wrist, kissing the top while caressing the underside with his hands. His touch caused goose pimples to erupt on my skin. A reaction that was not entirely caused by my nervousness. I silently cursed him for making me feel this way and myself for enjoying it.
I made a weak effort to pull my hand away which brought us face to face. He release my hand only to pull me close to him and press a kiss against my cheek. I brought my hand up to his lips as he pulled away and again kissed my fingers.
"Why so affectionate tonight?" I asked.
"Don't I have the right to be?" he murmured. Then brushing hair away from my ear, he pressed his lips against the skin right underneath. "I love you Christine Daae." His breath flew into my ear, carrying his words like the tide. It surrounded me making my flush skin grow even hotter.
"Erik..." I whispered his name lacking the words to speak of anything else. Part of me wanted to scream and push him away, shouting every curse I could think of. The rest of me wanted to pull him closer, to let him touch and kiss every aching part of me. I had given myself to him. I had pledged myself to him in marriage and he had sworn that Raoul would be safe, that his life would be spared. Even Erik, who had exclaimed to the Persian in the torture chamber that promises were for idiots, surely he would not break this vow to me.
But I flashed back to the look on M. Girard's face when he told me the fate of the Comte de Changy. The jovial man that had welcomed me, a nobody, to dine with his aristocratic family. Who had been so friendly. I recalled his face and then that vision was replace by one of Erik, unmasked, dripping wet and cold eyes.
My body gave a quick shiver. Erik rested a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Christine, do you not want me here with..."
"No." I cut him off. "I'm sorry Erik, I..." I took a deep breath. I didn't want to send him away. That would only make him suspicious. "It's me, my... monthly courses." I explained. I felt wretched and prideful at the same time for making up such a clever excuse. Thankfully there was no award look of disgust. He simply nodded and placed his hand on top of my head stroking his fingers downward into my hair.
"Should I stay with you then?" he asked timidly
"Of course." With my response, he wrapped his arm around my waist and lowered us both down into the bed. He maintain his caressing motion down the length of my hair and softly hummed. I was warm, comfortable and in the arms of my husband who was giving his best effort to help me go to sleep.
But I knew that I could not rest properly until I discovered the truth about Raoul's whereabouts.
Even after a fitful night's sleep, I gave my best effort to appear pleasant and cheerful to Erik the next morning. I packed a bag of food items and bubbly discussed my plans for a full day of shopping. When I asked if Erik wanted to join me, he replied in the negative saying he had to attend to some "chores" around the opera. It was the answer I was hoping for. After presenting me with a generous amount of money for my spending pleasure, I made my way towards the door. Erik let me go without so much as a good bye kiss.
I lit one of the lanterns that has been placed outside the secret doorway to his home and proceeded to the passage of stairs that lead upwards toward the Rue Scribe. I only ascended to the second step, before dropping my belonging on the floor, turning around and having a seat. My vantage point was just such that I could see the entrance to the house if I peeked my head around the corner of the wall that partially hide the stairs from view.
Between bouts of half wakefulness at night, I had tried to think of how I would discover the whereabouts of my friends. In my brief conversation with M. Girard yesterday, he was as clueless as I was about the matter. The police has no leads on why Philippe de Changy was in the cellars of the opera that night or what would have lead him to the lake. His death had been classified as an accident. No other family members had been able to contact Raoul or his sister and the funeral was held without them. I knew of only two people who had seen Raoul and Genny after they left the house on the lake; Erik and the Persian. I had no clue on how I could contact the Persian, and I was certain if we happen to meet each other in public by chance, he would no doubt persuaded me to leave Erik and summon the authorities.
That option unavailable to me caused me to turn my attention to Erik's daily absences from our home and his refusal to let me accompany him on any of these trips. When he had first abducted me, he remained in the house with me at all times. When I had returned and agreed to stay with him, he stayed with me at almost every moment. Now he had suddenly taken to leaving the house every day with his bundle and bucket, almost like clockwork and returning with them empty. It could very well have been his provision for his work, but I knew Erik better. He could days without eating so he would not become famished after such a short time away. There was the possibility that he really was attending to maintenance matters around the cellars but with Erik I had learned nothing is what it seems. So I waited on the steps, hoping to follow him to where ever he always went.
I reached into my bag and retrieved a box of matches, a candle and a small metal box that had once held some sort of food. Inside I had packed several bits of used firewood; branches that had been burned black in our stove. I picked up one and used it to draw a mark on the stone wall before me. I traced over the mark with my fingers, feeling its chalky texture and seeing it stain my fingertips as I pulled away. I was not foolish enough to think I could follow Erik through the maze underneath the opera house without losing my way so I had decided to mark my path in the most inconspicuous manner I could think of. White chalk or breadcrumbs would be a dead giveaway, but it was easy enough to see the black mark on the wall if one looked close enough. I blew out the flame on my lantern and waited.
The consuming silence made the minutes stretch into hours, or so it seemed. My only companionship to my troubled mind was the obnoxious drip of water into the lake. Finally, I heard the door to the house open and I peered around the corner, just letting my eyes be seen from the other side of the wall. Erik stepped out, his bundle under one arm and bucket hanging from the other. He took a deliberate stride in the opposite direction. I let out a long breath, lit my candle and eased myself away from my hiding place. I had one of my charcoal stick held out to my right side, ready to mark my path. I waited until I could just see the light of his lantern start to fade before I trailed behind him.
I moved as quickly as I could, very aware of each step to let my shoe fall softly. Erik made his way through several turns down corridors filled with cobwebs and reeking of damp and decay. I remained out of sight, not daring to enter the same passage way as him before I saw him leave to take another turn. I left small marks along the wall which transformed into arrows when I reached the end of a corridor and followed him into the next one.
His trail lead us to a spiral staircase entombed by a wall of stone. It resembled that belong in a medieval dungeon. With a fright I recalled Erik's words to me about the use of the opera's cellar as dungeons for prisoners. My body gave a shiver that was not caused by the cold. I waited at the top of the steps, almost too afraid to move, until I saw Erik's lantern light disappeared which spurred me to quickly descend the steps. We repeated the same pattern in another set of corridors before again reaching another set of stairs. I was frighten to discover that there were still more levels in the cellar, even beneath Erik's home in the fifth level. When I had first discovered where Erik had brought me, I could not think of a more horrible place to have to spend one life in. Now, I discovered I was wrong. There where places in the opera more dark and secret than Erik's hidden lair.
At the end of these stairs stretched out a long passage of small rooms, each one with either a door or a set of iron bars. I saw to my horror that Erik was standing just a few yards before me when I had reached the last step. I stopped breathing for a moment while I back pedaled up the stairs, trying not to pant, gasp or scream.
It was a room full of cells...cages. As I had done before I peered around the corner so I could just make out the movements of Erik as he withdrew a set of keys from his cloak and opened the door before him. He disappeared inside and the door slammed shut with a noise loud enough to make me jump. I moved back down the stairs, pinched out the flame on my candle and used the light from inside the cell to guide me towards the door. I crouched low against it, bracing myself.
My feet twitched as if desperately trying to send me a signal to run away. I could feel the muscles in my back tense from the effort of trying to hold myself completely still. I did not want to look inside that cell, but I had to. My head rose centimeters at a time as I once again slowed my breathing to almost nothing and peered inside the tiny opening at the top of the door.
A scream rose up from the pit of my stomach, traveling to the surface with the speed of a steam train. A quick reaction of my hand over my mouth was the only thing that stopped me from letting it escape my body and echo out. Erik stood with his back towards the door and beyond the fold of his cape that billowed about the room I saw two bodies. Two bodies with legs shackled, and seated against the wall of the disgusting cell. They moved slightly but appeared drained as if any motion caused them great difficulty. I ducked back towards the floor in horror, my hands shaking so much that I dropped my candle, matches and my metal box. Thankfully I was so close to the floor that they did not make much of a sound. The noises from inside the cell were far more distracting.
"Where's Christine?"
The voice that issued from the door was horse and weak, but still with an undertone of menace. I bit my lips to keep a startling gasp from giving away my position.
It was Raoul's voice.
The tears leaking from my eyes were the substitutes of the cries of rage I desperately wanted to release. I didn't dare take another look through the window, fearful that Raoul would see me and cry out. Gentle whimpering reached my ears, a distinct sound from a female voice. Genny. My teeth came down upon my lip in rage and terror.
"Please... I just want to see her...one last time..." It was Raoul once again, his voice weaker than before. There was a rattle of metal, no doubt chains scraping against the floor before a crash of something toppling over. The whimpers became wails.
"Let us out!" The commotion continued for a few seconds before another voice silenced all the prisoners' protests.
"You'll never see Christine again." Erik hissed.
The door pressed forward slightly and I barely made it away from being knocked over by the furious force Erik used to open it the rest of the way. I scampered down the corridor and without access to a quick hiding place, I simply shrank into a ball against the floor. I prayed in vain that Erik would not see my form in the darkness but waited there like the condemned before the blow of the executioner's axe, waiting for him to see me.
To my amazement, Erik stormed out of the cell and up the stairs without glancing back. I stayed in my position for several long moments, paralyzed with fear and at the thought of my sheer luck. Only when I could no longer hear the sound of the retreating footsteps did I dare rise up. I re-lit my candle and still keeping my body close to the floor made my way back to the cell that contained my friends. I dared one more glance inside.
Raoul was clutching his sister in his arms, their backs turned to me. Genny was shaking with sobs and Raoul leaned his chin down into her shoulder. Holding her as tight as possible as his only method of comforting her. Their almost white blond hair appeared grey from dirt and neglect. Genny still wore her Marguerite costume from months earlier. It was so frayed and tattered that the bottom hem barley brushed her ankles and the shoulder seams had split long ago. I noticed off in the corner a crude platter which had a loaf of bread and a tin of assorted food placed on it. There was a pitcher made of the same basic metal that had fallen on its side, spilling its precious water onto the floor.
I was useless. Without the keys I could not reach them. I was responsible for their imprisonment and the shame I felt about it welled up in my mouth, leaving me speechless. I turned away, wiping the tears away from my face. I had accomplished my goal. I knew that Genny and Raoul were alive, if one could call this living. Fury caused my face to grow red with heat. I had given my very soul to Erik. I had pledged my body and soul to him in marriage in return for the simple request they he did not harm my friends. That we would live separate lives from them. I had agree to cut Raoul out of my life even though it nearly destroyed me to do so. Raoul had sacrificed so much and this is how I repaid him.
No. Erik did this. He claimed to love me but he couldn't even grant me this simple favor. I cursed myself for my blind ignorance to their plight. While I had been showered with gifts and affections, my friends had been starving in a dungeon cell that wouldn't be fit to cage an animal in. Erik, who knew the horrors of being caged, thought it a fit punishment for my friends who had done nothing to harm him. Their only crime is that they had made the mistake of caring for me.
I had crouched against the door for so long, boiling in my anger that I failed to notice the candle withering away in my hand. A splash of hat wax scattered across my hand. Even my muffled cry of pain barely registered over the sound of Genny's sobs. I pressed my hands hard against the door and swore under my breath. I swore I would free them just has Raoul had tried so hard to free me.
My breaking heart commanded me to stay but I knew it would take carefully planning to release them from the cell. Right now, cunning and rationale were the further things from my mind which raged with fury and betrayal. I left my candle stub and struck a match, using its light to guide me up the stairs. I moved fast, brushing my fingers against the wall as the light faded and ran out. They encountered a texture that differ from the coarse girt of brick. I lit another match and breathed a sigh of relief as I saw my charcoal mark just visible against the wall. Letting the match's small light guide me until I found another of my marks and continued in this fashion until I climbed up to the fifth cellar.
I sprinted pass the entrance to the house, terrified that Erik would emerge from the entrance at any moment. Or worst, he could have already deduced that I had followed him and was now behind me, reversing our roles. Nothing happened as I returned to my original post as the steps to the Rue Scribe. My knees fell to the floor, weak with exhaustion as I could feel myself on the verge of hyper ventilating. Within moments I could be up those steps and making my way to the nearest police station. I could summon officers down into the cellar to help recuse Raoul and Genny. However there was no guarantee that they could enter the cellars of the opera without being detected. I was not certain if Erik had returned home or if he was prowling in the corridors, just waiting for any intruders. Erik had managed to find me in the cemetery, on the roof of the opera. I had of yet been able to elude his detection. It was very possible that he had been tracking me every time I left the opera and had already seen my frequent trips to the post office.
I would be a fool to believe once again that Erik was ignorant to my whereabouts. While rushing to the police seemed like the reasonable thing to do right now, I could not in good conscious lead innocent men down into the cellars where a labyrinth of traps and snares awaited them.
I had gathered enough strength to pull myself up and make the climb to the street level. I needed to see a clock to know how much time had passed. If I returned to the house too soon, I would arose Erik's suspicions. I opened the door only to be blasted by a torrent of rain. It fell so rapidly from the sky that it soaked the lower half of my dress almost instantly. I peered through the thick sheets of rain. There was no one on the street so no curious onlookers to gawk at the girl standing in a doorway that had just seem to appear out of nowhere. No one to watch what I did next.
The rain provided a perfect alibi for me. I lifted my skirt over a gathering puddle and stepped out, letting the cold water beat against my face and body. A few seconds was all it took to cover me from head to foot, yet I could have stayed longer if I wanted too. I had complained about missing the sunlight. I had forgotten how much I had missed the rain.
My lips quivered from cold and anticipation, calculating my next move. It pained me, but I pushed away the image of Raoul and Genny clutching each other in that cell. I had to concentrate on my plan to free them. I returned to the house and stepped inside once more. It was an actual surprise and a relief to find that Erik had returned to his home and he greeted my reappearance with a surprised expression of his own.
"Christine!" he exclaimed, his eyes ranking up and down my body.
"I got caught in the rain." I replied.
He laughed. "Obviously!" he rushed forward, clutching my hands in his. His hands, usually so cold now felt almost blazing hot when the touch my cool wet flesh. His hands then went upwards, pressing themselves against my cheeks before he leaned in to kiss me longingly on the lips. I returned his kiss in kind.
"Well you are in luck. I just decided to make some tea." he informed me. "Come in to the kitchen" Once there, Erik slipped my sopping wet cloak from my shoulder and draped it over a chair. He rubbed one of my hands, between his trying to warm it.
My stomach twisted in disgust. He was making tea. He had just finished returning from his duties as jailer and he had decided to make tea. He was trying to warm me while he had willingly left my friends shivering in a horrible place with no light. It wasn't enough that he kept me a prisoner to his will, but he had inflicted this cruel torment on others. At least my cell was decorated with comfort in mind. A hard lump rose in my throat and threaten to spill out along with every hateful word and curse I could think to call him. I bid them to be silent. I had played a part before, so I directed myself to be calm as I assumed a "role" once more.
I gave his hand a playful squeeze while flashing a smile. "Have you heard more about the opera? When is it going to open?" I asked.
"Still determined to attend?" he inquired as he turned to pour hot water from the kettle into two awaiting cups.
"You seem determined not to attend? May I pry into what is causing your reluctance?"
He kept his attention on preparing the tea and in a moment I was worried that this line of questioning was tipping him off to my intent. "It will come as no surprise that the opera is again under new management. I would have to make the necessarily arrangements to procure my private box." He took a sip. "It would be a simple matter if I reverted to my usually methods but I gather that my wife is not fond of my old unscrupulous ways."
I looked down at my cup and nodded. "I see."
"We will have to hope that old superstitions don't die off." he suggested. "Unless you would rather attend alone."
"No." I cut him off a little too enthusiastically. "I've never seen this opera before. I think I would appreciate it more with the assistance of my Maestro by my side." I explained hoping my simpering affections did not appear too fake.
Erik had to come with me to the opera.