I hope you're all enjoying the holidays! Your reviews are truly a gift! Quite a small chapter ahead, but there's more to come soon!
"Why do I have to keep my eyes closed, Erik?"she moaned, extending her arms in front of her, trying not to trip on the cobblestone sidewalk.
"Do you not trust me, my dear?"he mused, gently guiding her through the cold, enjoying her elated cries of joy and laughter. "You can open your eyes now."
Christine was waiting for an awesome sight and Erik's uncontained excitement had raised her hopes too high. However, her face fell once she realised she was standing in front of none other than the same opera house she's worked in ever since she came to Paris.
"The Garnier?" she frowned, her thin nose crinkling. She did not want to disappoint Erik, though, who, for some unknown reason, seemed extatic, so she forced a disheartened half-smile.
"No, my sweet," he replied, his voice coming to its full grandeur, "not simply the Garnier."
She tucked her hands into her coat, realising the exposure to the cold had left them red and dried. "Erik, I'm certain this is the Garnier. I come here everyday. We live here."
He huffed in exasperation, his shoulders dropping dramatically as he rolled his golden eyes. "You women have no patience, do you? Now, quit prying and come along!"
He didn't lead her to their usual entrance at the side of rue Scribe. Instead, he walked confidently the main staircase, along with the rest of the crowd, before turning back and extending his hand to her. She didn't question him anymore. Let the poor man have some fun, she thought to herself and promised to be as cheerful as possible.
"Sir?" a serious voice interupted their pantomime, demanding the tickets for tonight's performance. Romeo and Juliet, Christine realised.
Regaining his terrifying regal composure, Erik wordlessly handed them over, barely looking at the vallet by the door.
"Enjoy the show, Monsieur," the young man said, now with less authority than before.
They easily mingled with the crowds, people that did not scare him out of his wits, for he knew them well. Better than they knew themselves, to be exact. His eyes darted about the room as the advanced deeper towards the grand staircase that had taken him five years to perfect.
The Countess de Bergard, middle aged woman who attended only to meet with a young ballet dancer afterwards. Monsieur and Madame de Villeford, nouveaux riches trying desperately to fit in. Monsieur Leroux, journalist for Le Matin and amateur writer. Ha, Erik thought bitterly, the man couldn't know litterature if it was stuck up his backside. He laughed to himself, earning the raised eyebrow of the fair lady beside him.
He cleared his throat. "The performance doesn't start for another hour, my love. Care to join me on a little tour?"
Christine, who, until then, was not thrilled at the prospect of attending a mere ballet, perked up, her awesome blue eyes sparkling in excitement.
"About?" she teased him, smiling.
"The secrets of this place only the man who build it with his hands could know," her expression twisted in confusion, "I did, sweet."
She nodded in understanding. "Of course."
Slipping into the shadows, Erik tinkered with a microscopic switch. An instant later, the solid marble wall in front of her opened wide, revealing a passage parallel to the main hallway.
"Quickly!"he whispered, pushing her inside the passage.
Once the wall was sealed, a string of gaslamps sparked alive on the stone walls of the corridor.
Erik cleared his throat. For the next hour, Christine learned the twisted and genious functions of the opera house, which now resembled a proper magic box, working at the whim of its magician. An inner clockwork, complex and vast. He told her of the Commune, of the years he spent hanging upside down from the ceiling with Garnier, long after the workers had left, trying to work through every detail.
"It was then that I thought of the ghost,"he confessed. "Poor Charles, his health was declining day by day. Of course it was nothing but a joke at first, intended to ease a sick man from any worries. It was only later that I began to see how it might gain me more than a good laugh."
Christine cherished every tiny artifact, every intrecate jewel of plaster seemed mesmerising, as he weaved the tale of the grandest building in all of Europe.
"This opera house," he finished, "is my most exquisite work, built on my litteral sweat and tears. My magnum opus."
She leaned against him. "I thought Don Juan occupied the title," she rubbed her eyes in pleased exhaustion.
"No,"he protested, "Don Juan is a swan song, my love."
The first bell was heard arouond the corner, signaling the beginning of the performance.
"Shall we?" he extended his elbow galantly and they made their way to the auditorium, taking their seats inside the infamous box five.
Christine was moved by the tragedy of the lovers of fair Verona. She wept with Romeo and felt the exhilarating heat of first love with Juliet. Her heart flustered through the Gardens of Italy and was stabbed along with Juliet's. And as the curtain fell in font of La Sorelli's lifeless body, she applauded until her palms were stinging.
Ballet was never something of interest to Erik. He judged the music and appreciated the immense talent and effort of the artists. But it never spoke to his soul. Not like pure music could. It infiltrated his very core, beat with his heartbeat, ran through his veins. Music and song had been his oxygen, his breath of life, when he could swear he'd died. And after eons of his ceaseless quest, he found it all concentrated in one creature balancing between heaven and earth. Her.