Miss, he could be much worse. Really. People will just think he took a tumble.
Christine carefully wiped the remnants of Erik's blood from his forehead.
His hip is swollen, but it's not out of place.
It was the last thing they'd thought to care for in accessing his injures.
We have to pop his shoulder back in though. It's only in by half. Probably a good thing we don't use the salts until after we've done that. He might try to kill us otherwise.
She winced as she remembered the sound.
He's not going to want to scream in front of her.
His right eye was bloody inside. Christine had no idea how to help that.
If the doctor doesn't get here soon to set his elbow, he might lose feeling in his fingers.
At least his breathing was even, though it wasn't deep. He was so pale.
His ribs will heal on their own. If Cummings had hit a lung, we'd know by now.
But his entire stomach was bruised black.
"And his face?" Christine asked.
"He was never a great beauty, Miss."
"The nose might be broke, but I've never seen him without his mask to know. We best wait for the doctor so we do less harm." Fleck answered her.
"He took some bad blows to the head. The worst of it now is if he'll wake up."
"If?"
"He's a strong one, Miss. I'm sure he'll wake up. We just have to wait."
"Why weren't you there?"
"Oh, Miss. If he looks like this, he wanted them to hurt him."
They'd brought her ice for his head and left her with him upstairs. The gray pallor washed over Erik's skin deeper as the day progressed, until the evening light skewed his body into something skeletal and otherworldly. If her hand was not pressed to his chest, feeling the beat of his heart, she would swear he was long dead.
He had always been a lean man, with a graceful strength and speed that had made him lethal. But without his sharp eyes and honeyed voice, he did indeed look like death itself. Christine's fingers skimmed lightly over his chest in small movements. It comforted her to feel him.
It also kept her hand away from his face, which only continued to swell more as the hours went by. Her mind was dizzy with worry and could not cope with the thoughts running through her head.
As the sun sunk lower, his mouth parted and he began to breathe through his lips.
Porter and his men had done this – planned this. Her Phantom was forever conspiring about something, and for once it seemed he was not the one to fear. One thing was clear, whatever past she and Meg had, it was lost to the politics of today. The damage was irreparable. She'd stood by and let them hurt Erik. She hadn't protested once.
As the minutes ticked on and there was no sign of the doctor, Christine could not keep herself still and began to pace about his bedroom. The room was luscious in fabrics and furs. It was as though Erik could never keep himself warm and so tried to fill his spaces with as much warmth as possible. The deep reds and velvets reminded her of his underground home, so dark and mysterious once.
His desk provided her with at least some distraction. It was overflowing in sheet music: bits and pieces of melodies and lyrics not yet complete. All in red. All covered in ink droplets and smudges. More piles of images with staging upon them. Not of the miniature Opera Populaire, but of a round stage, larger and more open.
It was one piece, lower on the pile, that captured her curiosity most. The barest hint of a melody noted the page, but the lyrics were written in hard, sloping cursive.
I met a ghost of a king on a road
When I first felt fire burning in
To my knees I fell
He said you are a lonely soul
With a heart of stone that rakes against your thirsty bones
Such a lonely soul
He said I can show you what can save you
"I must be dead. I hear angels singing," Erik rasped, immobile as he was on the bed. Christine rushed his side, allowing her hands to finally trail lightly over his face.
"Thank God you're awake."
"You were a little dramatic, thinking I would die."
"The last time I saw your unmasked faced you claimed you were dying."
"My heart was breaking. It did feel like death."
"And now?" A wistful smile stole across her face and Christine's thumb gently traced the edge of his swollen lip. She wondered if he'd heard the confession that had followed her demand, but he said nothing.
His eyes were full, valiantly trying to mask his sincere unease, a glassy sheen noting just how much pain he was in. "What do you need? Your people did not have any laudanum or morphine."
"Good. I would not have wanted it. Water, my dear. Please." He shifted to sit up on the bed and cursed. Christine rushed back to his side.
"You shouldn't move. The doctor is coming to set your leg."
Erik's body became rigid again, and not with pain. "Which doctor?"
"I don't know. Sam went for him." He relaxed, yet only slightly. Christine waited for his next request, rocking on her feet.
"Did you like the song?"
"The song?"
"Yes," Erik pointed toward the desk, "The one an angel was singing."
The fear and frustration of the day bubbled over in her chest, "Are you really asking me if I like your music? Now? When you've been badly beaten? When they could have killed you?" The smile from his face fell. "How dare you make light of this! What were you thinking entering anywhere with that many stupid men? Why didn't you defend yourself? How could you possibly allow them to hurt you?"
Fleck opened Erik's bedroom door and peered in, "Good to see you up, Mr. Y. Is there anything I can get you?" The scene before her had to be the worst type of pantomime – the hysterical woman admonishing the sickly man. Fleck did not look amused.
"Yes. Would you please bring up some tea for Miss Daaé and myself?"
Christine's attention did not wavier from Erik. Her fingers trembled at her sides.
"What would you like me to tell you, Christine?"
"The truth. I would like you to tell me the truth." He looked to the chair she'd been sitting in before he'd woke, a gesture requesting she return to it now.
"What is Phantasma?"
Christine huffed an exasperated breath. She never did get simple answers from her Phantom. "An amusement park."
"Yes. And who do I amuse?"
"Today? Not me." Erik pinned her with his poignant gaze. She returned it defiantly. The two sat in silence for a time, arguing with wills as through the fate of the world's revolution depended upon one winning and one loosing. Unlike all other things before her time in America, Christine did not yield.
"I amuse those who should not dwell on the meagerness of life. I entertain those who see little wonder and beauty in the world around them. Tell me, sweet woman, do those in fine clothes and rich jewels tend to be the ones without beauty?"
Porter's words replayed themselves in her head, We told you to keep them happy. Keep them quiet. "You told me this last night, Erik. You're to distract the workers and stop the strike." Christine could not hide the hollow disappointment in her voice.
"Phantasma is a distraction all on its own. I do not stop those who wish to dissent, I merely delay it for a time."
And now was the time. Whatever delay he'd caused had run its course. And the company was warning him to work harder in the only way it knew how – with brute force and ungodly words.
Something in Christine shifted. A knowing perhaps, but something she could not pinpoint. It was as though she could see the world all at once as a coin: both the power and desires of the modern age and the hope and pain of those it consumed, and she could not reconcile one within the other and could not bear for both to live together at the same time.
The world had been so much more manageable when it seemed a man controlled it entirely. The young girl in her – whose hopes and dreams Christine kept locked away tightly in the bottom of her heart – longed for those old, easy days. The woman now wondered if she would ever rest from callousness again.
"I allowed them their show today because it suited me better than any alternative. You and I both perform better when underestimated."
"Is that why you brought me here?"
His gruesome face held her, and she could not look away from the burning in his eyes, "I brought you here because I wanted you. The ache in my chest had become unbearable. I would live a half-life again, I thought, if only I knew you were close, if only I could hear your voice."
She'd stopped breathing as his words that weaved their own type of magic and when breath returned to her it made her whole being fissure within her skin. So he did still love her. "But what is coming…What is coming is not safe for you. And I would rather see you safe and far away from here than in the needless danger I have placed you in."
He loved her, but would send her away, demand she leave his side once more. Another rejection because he could not believe loving him was what she wanted. Because he thought his love was selfish.
"Please, tell me what you're thinking."
Christine heard footsteps on the stairs and rose, "I think the doctor is here."
Erik pulled a dull black mask from his bedside table, wincing. It seemed neither of them wanted to go where inevitably this conversation would lead.
.
Erik did not allow her to watch as the doctor set his leg. She was instead relegated to the lower level sitting room which had little character and a cold fire. It was Herbert of all people, who finally found her: sitting bolt upright in her chair, her hands nervously twisting and untwisting a large chuck of her skirt. She was so lost in her own thoughts she did not hear him enter.
Christine lamented her own foolishness. To think, she'd been the crafter of her destiny, that she'd been the one to choose Erik's contract and leave New York. He'd planned it all. And like a cork figurine in one of his dioramas, she'd easily complied with all his maneuvering. How stupid she'd been! She should have known her freedom had come too easily. She should have known better when dealing with men. She should have known.
But she had wanted him and to believe the best in him and to believe that if she could change, so could he. Now she wondered, had she changed at all? And if she could not change, there was no hope for him.
"It would be best if you return to Paris, Miss," Herbert's voice was kind and soft. It reminded Christine of her father's voice; the sweet familiarity called to her.
"What?"
"It would be best if you return to the hotel, Miss."
"I won't leave him."
"Mr. Y will be fine, but there are already rumors about where you've been all day and the last few days and the days before that. It is in your best interest that I take you home or you won't be able to leave the Phantasma grounds."
The Carbon County Gazette headlines from recent days bubbled up in her memory. There was talk in town of Christine entertaining the illusive Mr. Y of the Phantasma. Rumors and gossip with truth to them to be sure. Yet such things were dangerous for female reputations. Her social engagements with Mary Cummings had stopped altogether already. She couldn't say she really felt bad about that.
Christine's heart burned in her chest. She'd left Erik before – a different kind of broken, but broken nonetheless, and she had never forgiven herself. How could she do so again when he was all she had in the world? Even if she was deeply disappointed in herself and furious at him. No. She did not want to leave, even if staying meant she could not leave again.
But she did want to go home. Home to Paris just before summer. Home to the Opera Populaire with its grand halls and maze-like wings. Home to a time and place where everything could be different and wonderful again.
"Herbert is right, you need to return to town." Erik leaned heavily on a black lacquered cane, its gold head completely encased by his hand. He'd replaced his dull black mask with one of creamy porcelain. It made him even paler in the parlor light. Her mind spun in memories. It fit poorly and the swollen skin underneath irritated as he talked.
"You shouldn't be out of bed."
"And you can't be here, Christine."
"We've not finished our conversation."
Ignoring her reply, he continued, "I would like you to sing again tomorrow night. Arias of Wagner, Verdi, and Bizet. The ones you know intimately."
"Erik, I –" The façade of Mr. Y rose tall and cold before her.
"Miss Daaé what I have just said is what I expect of you." Her voice strangled in her throat. "You will sing as outlined in your contract and we will speak nothing of what happened here today." Erik's eyes only softened for a moment, when he saw her own glassy with unshed, angry tears. She could not find her will to leave. He came closer, careful to stand over her, but not touch her, "Please don't make me make you."
She couldn't look at him. And in that moment, she hated him. "It would be the last time I ever sang for you." He nodded. Whatever strange version of truth they'd built laid fragile in the balance. He demanded she leave him, again. He refused to listen to what she wanted, again.
She was at the door when he spoke, "These are tense times, Miss Daaé. I think we all would understand if you wished to return to New York. Please consider your contract with us at an end."
Her heart shattered and the pieces lodged in the soft tissue under her skin. Darkness threaten her vision. Erik turned from her and she moved to follow him, ready to argue again, but Herbert held her elbow and directed her from the room.
Christine left with Herbert in tow, heedless of the dark night before her, unable to feel or see anything but the painful ache pulsing throughout her body. Damn him. Damn her.
Had Sisyphus ever been able to escape his fate? Or did his bolder roll back over him every time?
It was late and the next train would not leave the station until the Spectacular was over. She did not wish to see anyone. It was a long, cold walk along the railroad tracks to the hotel.
.
I know. Erik is an idiot.
The lyrics used in this chapter are from "Ghost of a King" by The Gray Havens.