Dear Readers,

Thank you for continuing with this story. The next chapter is ready to go and will be released tomorrow in honor of Labor Day. Wishing you all the best. Please leave a review, like, and or follow this story if you have been reading it and would like to receive alerts when the next chapters are released. Since this is my first story I am not sure I categorized it best. What would you search to find a story like this? Currently it is in the categories of romance and angst. How did you find this story?

Chapter 23: I Gave My Love Blindly

In the morning, I awoke, or at least I treated it as the morning. I dressed and made my way into the main part of the house. My stomach grumbled, so I took a detour to the kitchen and carved off a slice of bread before following the sound of the piano. I stood in the doorway taking in his form as he stroked the keys. Beethoven's sonata Pathetique. The melody was haunting, yet frenetic. Music had been his only companion for so long. He could control his music while I fought his control. I hoped I could reason with him today. The song transitioned from its allegro state into adagio, then sharply accelerated and I relieved the frantic feelings I had felt on the shore when I had taken flight and run from him. I promised myself I would not let him manipulate and control me. I would only be with him as his equal. Abruptly the first movement ended and I felt him pull sadness from the keys. I have always liked the second movement but never had I felt the emotional state of the artist so. Each press of the key pulled at my intangible heart strings as I felt his conflict. That was the crux of Erik. He craved and created beauty but had a twisted view of the world and mankind. I felt my eyes water and then my face was wet. The melancholy aching feeling within my heart intensified. Oh how was I to ask a man that had been abused and raised in a society where women were second class citizens to treat me as an equal? The melody shifted and Erik was meandering, reaching toward the light from his darkness. The last note resonated and he stared into the distance seeing something. Did he see me as his guide to the light as he had with Christine. I could never be his savior. I reached up to wipe my tears and my movement betrayed my presence.

When his eyes landed on me his whole countenance changed. "You are awake," he exclaimed and rushed to me, stopping short of touching me. "How is your throat? Oh my Angel, does it hurt much?" and he reached up with a handkerchief to gather my tears. Here was the compassionate side to him. I closed my eyes and he gently held the cloth to my face. He understood physical care but I wanted more.

"Would you like some tea to soothe your throat?" I nodded. "Of course my dear." Why don't you rest while I put the kettle on. I wandered to the bookshelf and my eye caught the familiar title of my childhood friend. I touched the spine and I felt a sense of calm settle over me as I pulled it from its nestled space. I opened it and settled onto the settee.

Erik had been reading the book to me in the mornings. We had left off with Jane still sorting out her feelings for Rochester, during one of the dinner parties with Ms. Blanche Ingrim. I had fallen in love with Jane Eyre as a child. I had wanted to be Jane. I loved that Jane was opinionated, plain and passionate. Here was a girl becoming a woman and creating her own happiness. However in true gothic romance fashion she had had to suffer. How alike I was to Jane at the moment.

Erik walked into the room, tea tray in hand. "Here my Angel."

I secured a marker in my book so I could resume it at another point in time. I drank the tea, seemingly compliant. I was still upset with him for drugging me but I was pondering how to make him understand that he was in the wrong. He was his own barrier to the happiness he was seeking.

He briefly left the room and returned with a throw in hand. "I am sorry the house is so drafty. I could not bear it if you caught a cold with your throat as it is."

Erik tenderly placed the blanket on me. Then he deftly stirred up the fire, adding a log. Then he rocked back into his heels accessing the fire's needs. He truly was a caring man, wanting only to be loved. Could he love me the way I wanted to be loved? Can I trust him after the Carlotta incident? How did I proceed? He interrupted my thoughts.

"Is there anything I can get you my dear?" I mimed paper. "Oh, of course." He left the room. What should I write? Erik, knelt beside the couch making his tall frame less imposing and making us eye level. "Here my dear." he spoke as he handed me the paper and pen.

Would you read to me? I wrote, I wasn't ready to argue my needs at the moment.

"Anything for you, my love."

I wrote, If you really mean anything then I would like to be able to leave Erik.

"You are mine, you choose me over the Vicomte. We can be happy again if you would let yourself be as you were. You are home." he said with finality in his tone and his face took on a firm expression. My heart constricted. I was trapped in this Victorian world with its draconian thoughts on women. His ring had caught the light of the fire as he moved his fingers in agitation. I self conscientiously rubbed my finger where it had graced my hand. A ring that had brought me such jubilation now stared back at me, a symbol that he thought of me as his property.

I found myself for the first time struggling to find the pleasure that his reading normally brought me. I needed to be away from him. What more could he really do to me? He stopped reading the passage when he heard me stir. Music, I needed music too, to find my joy. Could I find joy in music without him? Upon entering the music room I sat at the piano, to find that our song sat foremost on top. I could only read treble clef so I played the right hand, the melody. How could such love become so twisted? My tears fell, hitting the keys and my hand.

He began to sing our song behind me. I stopped playing, more tears pelted down, I wanted to leave the room, but he was at the door. Suddenly he was beside me, his presence felt invasive. He took me in his arms, "Why do you have to keep crying? Why can't you be happy?" he asked. "We were so happy." I pushed away at his arms and tried to stand up from the piano bench. "You love me, you said you love me. Why do you want to leave?" I struggled against him. "Calm down my pet, my love." He held me against his lean frame. I gave up, my emotional and physical energy spent. My heart still beat frantically while he tried to sooth me to no avail, though my tears ran out and my crying ceased. "I love you so much it hurts." he said taking my hand in his and placing it on his heart. "I think you are hurting too."

He eased his embrace after a time. "Come back to the parlor, my Angel. There is tea and you can rest while I read." I gave up and meekly followed him. I was tired of crying too.

He opened the book and resumed his narration. I succumbed to his voice once more as he brought a vitality to Jane as she struggled to find her voice. The remainder of the day was quiet at the house on the lake.

The next few days passed much the same. I drank tea and the medication he gave me did much to ease the pain in my throat. I never experienced a drug induced sleep again. I remained sorrowful as Jane's furtive romance with Rochester progressed.

Erik put the book down and turned his half-masked face to me. I wish he hadn't returned to wearing the mask again when we were alone, for it only served to intensify my feelings of a barrier between us. Why was he wearing it if he wished us to be friends as before? I couldn't read his emotions as well. We had both become more closed off. It was hard to write down all that I wanted to say.

"Why does Rochester play these games with Jane?" He asked in reference to the house party Rochester had thrown with Ms. Blanch Ingrim. "Why does he toy with her by playing at courting another?"

Erik had given me a journal with a pencil that I kept with me. I wrote, He is unsure of her love. He is scared to reveal his love and not have her reciprocate it. We see the world through Jane's eyes and know she loves him. Fear and love can make people behave irrational toward those they love.

He slammed the book closed making his exasperation tangible. "Why do you want to leave? Do you not have everything you need to live? Do you not love me?" He ran his hand over his head. Then he stood up and began pacing in front of the mantle. "Is my love not enough? What do you need?"

I want to choose to stay, I wrote. You have taken my choice from me. You have taken my freedom which is not right.

"You are safer with me. I can take care of you." I grimaced at his words. Nothing was changing. He knew I was unhappy but did not want to accept that he was the reason.

The week progressed into the next, my voice returned gradually, though it felt very graveling. "Do not rush to use your voice for you will strain it my dear." Much as I hated to have him be right I knew I needed to heed his counsel in this matter.

The fire was lively, snapping and shooting a spark here and there, while I was sitting on the couch crocheting a scarf or throw depending upon how long I stayed here. Erik's approached me and unease emanated from his form. "My angel, I need to leave to get supplies so I will be gone most of the day. Will you promise to stay? I can give you a potion to calm you."

I seethe. "How dare you even think of drugging me again?"

"I feared you would be angry," he replied.

"You were correct in your forecast of my response. I will stay because I want you to decide to let me go because it is the right thing to do."

"I cannot lose you," he said. "You are my only taste of happiness in this world."

"How unfortunate for you that you must hurt me to make yourself happy. Erik, this, " I said gesturing between us "is not right. I will stay, go do your errands," I said and turned my back to him, ending our conversation.

"Can I bring you anything?" he asked.

"You know what I want." I replied to the wall.

He left me for a time. I was restless and all this down time did not sit well with me. How different I felt now that the house on the lake was a prison and not a choice. I wandered the house, stood on the lake shore. He had taken the boat and there wasn't really another way to leave. I couldn't recall how to get to the Rue Scribe exit, having only used it once. I had been so distraught back then, upon discovering it was 1879 and I had chosen Erik's comfort. One did not wander the tunnels with the traps Erik had been known to set in all the versions of The Phantom of the Opera I knew. I had promised him I would stay and I would not go back on my word. He trusted so little as it was. Now that I had seen his obsessive controlling side, a part of me feared the angry man that had surfaced, whom I had met when I had removed his mask. I was unable to penetrate the darkness above the lake. I needed light to see my way and so did Erik.