Christine woke to the smell of hot chicory coffee and fresh croissants. But that was not possible. Americans couldn't make croissants. Not properly, anyway. She must be dreaming. She lingered there, in the soft, warm dream.
Sleep had found her quickly last night. The sweet look of amusement she pictured on Erik's face whisked her away to a timeless Sunday afternoon, lost in the manicured rows of the l'Orangerie.
Under the orange-scented sun he was gentle and close – stealing touches of her skin as they walked, his unmarked and perfect face devastatingly handsome when he smiled. The small lines that appeared around his eyes made her fall unquestionably in love with him all over again.
"You should enjoy the pastry while they're warm, my dear." His voice sounded too far away for how close he was against her ear. Christine fought to linger in the dream.
"I did slave away on them this morning." She cracked her eyes to the daylight. Mr. Y, for his demeanor in her velvet armchair effused that moniker, looked over his steepled fingers at her, a soft smile touching his cheek. His mask was firmly in place, yet the lines at his eyes were there.
She clutched at her hair, taming the while mess into a low bun and thanking God she'd fallen to sleep again in his overcoat. Modesty was one of the only virtues she had left.
"If I didn't know you better, I would say you are up to one of your old tricks, Monsieur." Her feet were cold on the floor, but he'd been right about the warm, buttery pastry. On the second bite, she moaned. They tasted like home. It would have taken him all night to make them. He would not have slept at all.
"You know me better, Mademoiselle?"
For the first time in a very long time, a wild, genuine smile filled her features, the tenuous thoughts of last night escaping her. "Yes. I believe I do. What adventure do you have for me today?" Whatever his plan had been, it mattered little, for while he was enchanted with her smile, he asked what her preference would be. Christine bit her lip, turning it wet rosy red. Remembering the serenity of her dream she answered, "I would like you to surprise me. Perhaps it can include a walk in the sun?"
"Bundle up warm then, and we'll depart."
"So this early arrival wasn't for an extended music lesson?"
"Just because you've requested an adventure, doesn't mean there can't also be a music lesson."
She laughed, her good mood building upon itself, "So easily swayed from your plans, Mr. Y. What am I to think?"
He smiled up at her from his chair, the skin at his eyes crinkling deeply, "You should think that I would give up anything to have you wake up in my presence this happy every day. Even music lessons."
How badly she wished to kiss him then. What would he do if she fell into his lap and pressed her smiling face to his own? Would he kiss her back with the abandon locked safely in her memory? Would he slow her and tease her lips instead? She shook her head to clear the wild notions.
To wake with him, bringing breakfast and companionship, was an unexpected delight that left Christine light. It further dissolved the melancholy from the night before.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt – content, excited. She abruptly turned to him from the bathroom door, "To wake to warm pastry and your voice makes a bleak morning seem bright. Even if all we had planned were music lessons." She did not stay to see his reaction.
They walked to Phantasma. It was an adventure enough for her: flowing the slow, winding trail with fresh snow upon it. Icy snow, which slid under Christine's boots and gave her good excuse to cling tightly to her companion's arm. It was an entwinement that surprisingly generated little physical warmth between them, though the walk was long.
Christine found she did not mind the chill, for the cold loosened whatever remoteness held her Phantom's tongue. They began speaking about music and ventured windingly into all manner of other topics. And the more he spoke, the more she saw his creative mind – how passionate he was about art and architecture, science and music; how charming he could be, even playful.
"How does the mermaid float?" She asked him after he told her many of the 'workers' at Phantasma were automatons, subsequently swearing her to secrecy after the confession.
"There are special pockets for air under her skin." He paused a moment at her quizzical look. "You've seen how oil and water sit separate in a vial, yes?" She nodded. "It is much the same of the mermaid. It's a matter of balance. Too much air and she would float on the surface, not enough and she would sink. With just the right amount in the right places, she floats like a dream underwater."
"And her features. Where did you dream them up?"
"I never needed to dream to see your face before my eyes." So he did not deny the machine looked eerily like her.
"I have aged greatly since you last saw me. I daresay you made the young me far more beautiful with her glass bones."
"And yet, I believe I captured your lovely brown eyes perfectly in her. They have never changed."
The exchange should have made her uneasy. Yet, seeing this bit of madness still in him, however carefully controlled, was comfortable somehow. She could not place within her why, and, though she knew she should be concerned with her own reaction, she found she could not muster up the fear to care.
He continued, "You should know," he stopped on the path, "I never intentionally crafted her to look like you. It just. I just. I close my eyes and see your face, Christine. Some features are bound to seep through no matter my intention."
"Do all the automatons have brown eyes?" She asked, remembering Sam's statement from that first night in Phantasma.
What could only be considered a bashful smile transformed his features. "Yes."
She changed the subject then, back to the mechanical feats he'd crafted from his imagination that did not resemble humans.
In turn, he baited her often, attempting a rise out of her or a smile, maybe a laugh. His own demeanor confident and unworried, as though he had no other cares or thoughts outside of her.
What a tragedy their history was, when the present could be so wonderful like this.
Eventually, when Christine could just make out the spires of Phantasma through the trees, their conversation turned toward Paris. "Do you long for Paris, Christine?"
She did not wish to ruin her sweet mood, and instead answered in generalities, "I miss parts of Paris. I miss the access of the city, I suppose. The places. Do you? Do you long for Paris?"
He shook his head at her teasing inflection, and though it took some time for him to find the word, he eventually simply answered, "No."
"Surely there must be more. You must miss something."
"My answer is too simple for you Mademoiselle?"
"Why make it simple when it can be complicated." A deep laugh echoed around them from his lips. It was the most warm, wondrous sound she had ever heard. How could she bid that sound from him again?
"Truer words of the French have rarely been spoken." She tightened her hold on his arm.
"I do miss visiting my father. I worry he is lonely there. Though I know that's foolishness."
"You know he is with you, Christine."
There were more words she wished to speak, but too much fear of what those words would bring held her back. The last time she had been in that cemetery, it had been to lay him to rest. Christine only nodded in reply.
"And how did you come to leave Paris?"
"It was time. I had no one and Raoul," his body tensed at the name, but he had asked, "Well, Raoul was never really used to staying in once place. He was ready to move on."
"And New York. Why did you leave New York for lonely Appalachia?"
"I'm sure you know already." Her gaze darkened at the memory. Alone in a hospital bed. No friends, no family. Only flowers. Lilies of the Valley. "You are always very well-informed."
He did not deny her words, "I would like to hear it from you. How did you come to love and lose the ever-magnanimous Vicomte?" To be fair, he did try to hide his distain in his tone. "Or did he lose you?"
"I believe it is my turn for a story. How did you arrive in America?" Erik's eyes shifted to her face, though he kept his firmly forward.
He was careful with his words, "I should think that is a story rather boring for you."
"How so? You have always been the most inventive of tricksters. Surely making your way and building Phantasma is a wonderful story."
"It's rather boring, my dear. The attractions and inventions are the most interesting part. And you know that once I begin speaking on those subjects, I am lost in the maze of my own mind."
"But how did you come to begin? Surely the Cummings had to approve your building out here."
"That is true. I," he paused and upon short reflection decided to share with her, "I provided something useful to the Cummings and in return they allowed the idea of the amusement park."
"And the Girys. They also joined you here." It was an unfair fishing for information. Rather transparent, Christine knew.
"They have always fancied themselves my protectors. I'm afraid my tolerance for them evaporated with the poor madam's death."
"Poor Meg."
"I wouldn't be too sorry for her. Phantasma has given her more than enough fame and admirers. She wants for nothing in town. The Bathing Beauty they call her. Her mermaid act was one of my better ideas, though lacking in refinement."
Christine thought back to that first night we she'd realized her Phantom was alive. Porter had been so adamant that Erik listen to Meg. Surely he'd not gotten that idea on his own. "She wants for your approval. Your praise."
He sighed and they walked in silence for a time.
"Tell me what New York is like. When I arrived, I did not stay there long. Is it much like Paris?"
"No. I found it nothing like Paris, though the city has it charms. It was rather boring for me. Opera in the morning, opera and dinner parties in the evening. Much the same every night."
"Except for the music."
"Yes. The music often changed." Erik's steps slowed again to a halt and Christine naturally turned to face him.
"What is that in your voice? I can't place it. Distain, annoyance? Disappointment."
"The music changed, yes. But it was no longer magical. I found that without – without you there was little to make the opera magical."
He released her hands and his eyes turned cold. He did not believe her.
"But you had your magic. Your voice, your beauty. You even had your white knight to keep you company."
Her biting response came quickly and unbidden, "Why do you insist on reminding me of him? What benefit does it serve? I am here with you now."
"Perhaps I am reminding myself that your attention, though utter beguiling, is not the same as your affection."
"Do you think I would do that to you? Play with your emotions in that way? You think that little of me?"
"Past experience has taught me well." Christine's mouth drew into a hard line and she released his arm. At her action, he took both her hands in his and rested them on his chest. Their boots slipped against each other on the icy snow. "It is a protection of myself Christine, not a remark upon your nature. You are kind. I am the lonely fool that mistook your natural kindness for love before."
She glared hard at him, the easy joy of the morning evaporating.
So he spoke spiteful words to remind himself that she did not love him, could never love him. That she was naturally this kind to everyone. How little did he know of the Christine now. How little did he understand that life had tempered her soft heart with indifference. That is what loneliness and disappointment can do: eat away at you until you've either locked all the softness away in an unreachable place or irradiated it from you completely.
"There is no other company I would rather be around in all America than you."
"That speaks very poorly of company in America."
"You must learn to think better of yourself. A cannot abide this in you, Erik." The moment yawned between them, Erik's eyes searching for something in her own. What did he want to see? Truth? Trust? He could not see the love there, chained though it was by her sheer force of will.
She could give him none of it until he was willing to accept it. If she spoke now, he would not believe her, and his heart would break again.
"I have done horrible things."
"As I have. We atone."
"I cannot think of a single possible act you would commit that would be horrible. It is not in you. And I regret nothing I've done which brings me to closer you." Christine lost her words and found none would be helpful to her. She selfishly hoped he loved her still. She wanted that. Yet he was, after all, a man. A species whose own nature was capricious and limited in attention.
Unable to say what she wanted, she repeated her statement, "There is no other company I would rather have than yours."
The winding trail ended at the Phantasma station, the events of last night returning to her mind at the sight of it. He'd enchanted her in again to a world that was not real. It was a world where every goal was to make one forget the world. Was he really doing anything differently than before? Had he really changed at all in the ways that mattered?
Had she?
Sensing she was far away from him, Erik ventured a small white flag, "Mademoiselle, one day I hope you will tell me the story as to how you came to me utterly alone."
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Forgive me, wonderful readers, if you find some grammar issues in this chapter (or in others!). I didn't have my usual time to edit through this chapter my customary three times. As the chapter says, this is a prelude for some real action next week!
I sincerely want to thank you all for the reads, the comments, and the favorites. I'm so glad you're enjoying it as much as I've loved writing it. 3