Author's Note: If you've been following the Erik Plush Project, you'll really enjoy this. Go to www . sixpoint . us / production . html (and take out the extra spaces) to see pictures of the Eriks being produced. The first picture really is the best one. It just blows my mind.

Humor Warning: I found this one slightly more than moderately funny. No eating or drinking, please.

Disclaimer: Does anyone really own anything in this world? We enter it with nothing and we leave it with nothing. Doesn't it seem meaningless to sue over the stuff that comes between?


I leapt through the third floor entrance ready for the treed hell that had previously been our innocent foyer. The house on the lake was full of music--a strange piece with an upbeat tempo and melody line filled with staccato notes. "Erik?" I called. No answer.

I did my best to ignore the trees and mirrors. I visualized our hexagonal foyer as it had previously appeared, turned slightly to the left, pushed the panel I suspected led to Erik's music room and sighed with relief. It was the correct panel, and there was my friend, his hands upon his precious organ, playing happily.

"Erik!"

The music stopped abruptly. Erik pivoted on his bench to face me. He smiled.

I leaned in the doorway. "What was that piece you were playing just now?" I said to delay telling him of my failure to apprehend Raoul and encourage his immediate departure with his betrothed, as well as to distract myself from my own unhappy news.

He beamed. "Something new I've just now composed. Don Juan's Escape."

I tried to laugh. "After all these years, Erik, you're still emulating that ridiculous literary character? I should say you've far surpassed him by now."

"Indeed, he was just a literary character, Daroga. But I am the real thing. I am the real Don Juan."

I couldn't help but crack a smile despite the intense feeling of dread that filled me. "Erik, you are even better than the real thing." I waited a moment while the praise sank in. In only a moment, I would have to tell him the terrible truth about myself, my failure, my rapidly dissipating future....

Erik beamed at me proudly for a moment. Then his face fell slowly. "You were not successful," he said at last, tentatively, almost questioningly.

I shook my head. "I'm sorry."

Silence. He nodded gravely. I could sense his fighting to keep his disappointment from his face.

"I'll go back and try again, Erik. I haven't given up. It is just..." My voice quavered, so I paused to recover. Erik narrowed his eyes to look at me more carefully. "I couldn't find him...." I said hesitantly. "They've gone home, I suppose." I felt my very soul descend to the depths of my being. I felt very heavy. To speak was a supreme effort, and the words came out slowly, and deeper than usual. "I meant to follow them... But something happened... so I returned to you..." I heaved a heavy breath and struggled to find the words to convey my situation to Erik. I managed to mumble, "I need your help," with my head bowed.

He rose slowly and came to stand before me. "My help?"

I nodded and dared to peek up at him.

He looked surprised and retrospectively, I daresay even somehow pleased. "Of course," he answered, a fresh grin spreading across his face. He reached around to pull the organ bench forward and sat. "What can I do for you?" He leaned toward me, his hands upon his knees, his eyes urgently searching mine, eyebrows arcing in a mixture of interest and worry. "Anything you need." One would have thought I'd offered him silver and gold to see the way his eyes sparkled.

I swallowed. "I have a problem," I struggled. "With Sorelli."

He nodded encouragingly so I told him all about Sorelli and Philippe. He urged the rest out of me--Sorelli and me, and that stupid figurine Darius has introduced to our lives. I felt on the verge of tears, but if Erik noticed, he did not make it known.

Instead, his eyes lit up as he understood the issue at hand and got to his feet. He gave my shoulder a quick pat and offered me a half-hearted smile. "What can I do?" he said at last, twining his fingers together.

I laughed nervously. It was too easy to cast all my cares on Erik. Why was he such a good friend to me? What had I ever done for him? I took a deep breath. "The easiest solution is for Philippe to marry Sorelli," I choked. "I... sort of get the idea that such a thing would please Philippe, but he clings to noble ideals and family honor." Erik continued to nod, but it was here I realized that I had no idea what I expected Erik to do.

I turned away and put my hands over my face. "I'm a fool, Erik. I'm such a complete fool. I don't know why I've come to you now. I guess with your Opera ghost routine, I've come to think of you as all-powerful." I laughed bitterly. "I don't suppose there's anything the Opera ghost could do in such a situation. Even if there were, Philippe doesn't believe in the ghost anyway. Or... in ghosts in general, it would seem. Damn, I am such a fool." I turned and headed toward the parlor, my mind on getting out of the cellar without letting Erik see the humiliation on my face.

"So Philippe doesn't believe in the Opera ghost, eh?" Erik said behind me. His voice revealed he was both amazed and insulted.

I turned around at that. "No," I said. I tried unsuccessfully to laugh. "He thought me nothing more than a superstitious Oriental." How shameful the word Oriental suddenly felt. How stupid I was, indulging in my brief Persian fantasy. I was nothing more than a fool.

Erik laughed. "All the better. Good. I'm not sure the Opera ghost could be of much help to Philippe in the matter of marrying an Opera wench anyway," he said.

I nodded and slunk from the room. "I know," I said. "Sorry, Erik."

"Oh? Ho, dear what's this now?" Erik's hand upon my shoulder spun me around as I stepped into the corridor outside the music room. "What's the matter with you?" Erik fairly shook me. "Disappointed? Unhappy? Stop that!" He reached forward and grabbed my face by the cheeks in one bony hand and forced me to look him in the eye.

"Did I say I wouldn't help you? Didn't I say anything you need? Rasheed thinks Erik would go back on his word?" He shook my head left to right for me. "Absolutely not! What kind of a friend would Erik be to say no to his friend the one time he is asked for help? Nonsense!" He released me suddenly, threw my face back to me, really, and turned to pace back and forth the length of his room. "Doesn't believe in ghosts," he muttered. "We'll see about that!" He continued to mutter and pace another moment.

Suddenly he stopped and smacked his hands together with such force that I jumped.

While I stared at him in confusion, he slipped off his jacket and cast it to the organ bench. He resumed his pacing as he unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it. After he threw the shirt on top of the jacket he turned and stood before me stripped to the waist in half-naked glory. He seemed to be waiting for a reaction, so I half-heartedly clapped my hands together.

"Very amusing, Daroga," he said dryly and folded his bony arms across his protruding ribcage. I couldn't help but gawk. My dear friend surely needed to eat more. I felt a twinge of guilt for my own self pity a moment earlier, and I resolved to take better care of Erik in the future. In the present, however, he glared playfully at me. "Enough. How is staring at me going to help your situation?"

I shrugged. "How is taking your clothes off supposed to help my situation?" It occurred to me, as a matter of fact, that keeping my own clothes on might have prevented this whole mess in the first place. I felt like crying.

But Erik's smile threatened to split his face.

"What?" I said. The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach lessened slightly looking at Erik's ridiculous grin. He really was very proud of whatever he'd thought up. I felt a smile creep to my lips. "What?" I repeated when he didn't answer.

He tore off his false eyebrows and moustache with a painful ripping sound, then wrapped his fist around his nose and pulled steadily until the thing came off so abruptly that it seemed unusual to have done so without the pop that accompanies the opening of champagne.

I laughed aloud, my troubles almost forgotten.

Erik danced up to me. "The Opera ghost can't help you, no. But perhaps another ghost can." He whirled away and trotted to the wardrobe where he opened a drawer and began to paw through a selection false noses, eyebrows, moustaches and beards. "But how did he look, I wonder...."

"Who's that?"

"The late Comte Philibert de Chagny," he responded without looking up.

"Why--" I stuttered. "I have--well, I have absolutely no idea."

"Damn," he muttered. "One should suppose his sons resemble him...." He withdrew a blond hairpiece and frowned at it. "Yet one could be wrong." He looked thoughtful, placed the wig aside and fingered the noses carefully.

"What are you thinking, Erik?" Already my worry had faded to a faint memory; it was mere curiosity that drove me to ask.

Erik shrugged as he withdrew an aristocratic-looking nose. "I shall merely visit Philippe de Chagny and give him his father's blessing to marry the girl," he said simply. He replaced the nose and leaned close to inspect the others.

"It might work," I conceded. It was far better than anything I could have come up with alone. I edged toward the door, eager to put Erik's plan to the test.

"Of course it will, Daroga," he agreed, selecting another nose. He screwed up his eyes and inspected it carefully.

I began to pace.

Erik turned the prosthetic upside down and peered into the nostrils ridiculously. I felt something inside me becoming wildly impatient. It was a fine nose, wide and strong and turned up slightly at the end. He would look quite proper in it with the blond wig. He might easily pass for a member of the de Chagny household.

But back it went, and his dexterous fingers seized upon yet another. This one, he held to the light and turned left and right. Imagine a jeweler inspecting a precious stone. It was long and straight and certainly noble with delicate nostrils and a slight crevice between them, but back into the drawer it went nevertheless.

Erik hummed faintly as he fingered each of the remaining pieces in turn, lingering many moments over each.

I tapped my foot. I withdrew and replaced my watch twice. I cleared my throat. Coughed. Paced a bit more. At last I could take no more. "Erik," I cried, exasperated, "Just pick your damn nose and let's go!"

Erik turned to me, a large bulbous nose in his hand and his mouth open in an expression of utmost indignance. "The word is choose, Daroga. Choose. Or select. Decide upon, perhaps." He shook his head decidedly. "But not pick."

"Then choose already!" I fairly screamed at him.

He replaced the nose carefully in the velvet lined drawer. "How long has the old fellow been dead? Since Raoul was a child, yes?" He frowned and put the blond wig and its matching eyebrows and moustache away as well. "That's at least twenty years...." He stood and pushed the drawer closed soundlessly. "I suppose those are the first things to go, aren't they?" He scratched his forehead and peeled a bit of spirit gum from the place where his left eyebrow had been. "I suppose this is the better look after all," he decided at last.

Bare-faced and bare-chested, he whipped a cloak about his shoulders, and started for the door.


Shameless Begging: As we near the end of my retelling of Leroux's novel, I find myself craving your comments more and more, as I know that when it is over, there will be no more feedback until the next story. Please leave me your thoughts on this chapter, which, while not my absolute favorite, is certainly in my top five in this particular story. Thanks so much in advance, and please also check out the Erik plush production photos when you get time.