Erik's shoulders stiffened at her words. His birthday?
He didn't know when his birthday was, for no one had ever told him.
He had broached the subject just once with his mother when he was little, but of course he received no real answer from her. Why would she want to mark the day her life was ruined?
The conversation had a been a result of a desperate bargain his mother made with him - if he promised to not try any more "science experiments" (the speed with which his last project had caught flames had surprised even him) for the rest of the month (an eternity without science!), and he promised to be very good, then she would take him into town where he could see the church with the organ like the one in his book about music.
She had only made the bargain because she thought he surely couldn't hold to it, but to her dismay he had been extra good and sure enough, he had not come close to setting any fires or causing any harsh vapors or any other kind of mischief, accidental or otherwise. She dearly wished to go back on her word so she wouldn't have to take him, but she knew with a certainty that if she didn't stick to what she had told him then he would never listen to her again.
The month ended and she felt a sinking dread as little Erik practically bounced to the door, his horrible eyes shining with excitement. It had been ages since he was allowed to go outside where other people might see him.
Her dread only grew as they approached the town and people paused as they walked by. She could feel the weight of their stares, their judgements. Their eyes turned from the little boy in the mask to her, narrowing in suspicion.
They passed a few mothers who were also out on walks with their children, and to Erik they all looked quite happy - he hadn't seen anyone his age in so long, but these children paid him no mind, each too busy with their own little world, each holding their mother's hand as they walked and smiled.
Erik glanced up at his mother. He wished she'd let him hold her hand. As much as it was exciting to be out in the town, it was all a little overwhelming, too, and he wished he had a comforting hand to hold to remind him that it was okay and he was not there all alone.
But he soon forgot all about that as they entered the hushed solitude of the church. Erik had never been in a church before, although the town priest often visited their home and brought books for Erik to read and talked to him, and Erik was quite diligent about keeping up with his prayers.
His mother breathed a sigh of relief as they entered the church, safe at last from prying eyes. She dipped her fingers in the front of holy water by the door and made the sign of the cross over herself, her eyes closing as she whispered a small prayer - a prayer that, like all the others she'd prayed since Erik was born, she was afraid was being ignored.
A sudden blast of noise from the organ caused her eyes to fly open - in her moment of distraction, Erik had run up to the front of the church and pressed his little fingers to the keys of the organ just like the illustration in his book at home had showed him.
"Erik!" she screamed, horrified.
The magic spell the organ had cast over him as soon as he'd laid eyes it was shattered with her echoing scream. He flinched. He had forgotten himself. He shouldn't have been running in church!
He scurried back to his mother as respectfully as he could, head hanging down and shoulders hunched.
She marched forward till she met him in the middle of the aisle and grabbed his hand and dragged him back towards the door.
Their visit was over.
"What if someone heard you playing?" she whispered harshly, tears stinging at her eyes. What if someone had heard her scream?
The church was her one last sanctuary in the little town - what if the commotion had brought someone to see what was going on? What if someone saw Erik there in the church, and knew she had been the one to bring him there? The priest was kind towards the boy, but she knew others would be of the opinion that one such as him had no place on holy ground...
Erik wiggled his hand and squirmed - her grip on his little hand was so tight - that wasn't how the other mothers had been their children's hands - he had wanted this but not like this - he could feel her nails digging into what flesh there was in his hands. He made a little noise.
"Stop it right now!" she hissed as she stalked forward into the sunlight, dragging him along.
Erik was silent. He let his hand in her grasp go limp. It still hurt, but struggling only made her squeeze tighter.
They walked in silence for a while, and he could feel the anger radiating off of her. He had been bad, again. She wouldn't be angry with him if he could just stop being bad. He sniffled a little. It was all his fault, he knew. But the organ had been calling to him! How could he not do as it bid him? His hands were made for such an instrument, he had realized it as soon as he saw it there in all its spectacular glory! But still - he had been bad. Why would his mother be upset if he had not been bad? Was it because he had run? Was it because the organ did not belong him, and he had touched it without asking? Was it something else? He didn't know, not exactly - but the fact remained, she was angry so he must have been bad, somehow.
"I'm sorry, Maman," he finally whimpered.
She glared down at him, frustrated.
"Don't you dare start crying," she warned him. "If you cry, your mask will get uncomfortable and you simply cannot remove it until you are in your room, do you understand me?"
He nodded miserably. Her eyes landed on their hands, and she suddenly realized that she had grabbed his hand without even knowing. She let go quickly as though she had been burned, the force of the action as strong as if she had found herself holding on to something disgusting.
Erik took his hand back and rubbed at it. There were little marks where her nails had pressed in, purple and red half moons. He tried to distract himself from the terrible situation he had gotten himself into by taking in as much of his surroundings as he could - he didn't know when he'd be allowed out again.
There was a group of children, all older than him but still quite young, and they had a cake on a little bench. The children all had funny hats made out of colorful paper and one child in particular seemed to be receiving gifts from all the others.
"Maman, what's that? What are they doing?"
She glanced nervously to where he was pointing, trying to avoid the stares of an old farmer's wife.
"It's a birthday party."
"What's a birthday?"
The farmer's wife scowled at her, as though she could see right though the boy's mask, could see right through her - as though she could take one look at her and knew immediately of the secret sin that surely must have been the cause of such a curse, that sin that even she couldn't suss out (though she had tried - oh, how she had tried), that ever-hidden moral failing that had caused her womb to bear such grotesque fruit.
"Maman, what's a birthday?" Erik asked again, hoping she would hear him over whatever was distracting her.
"It's the day a person was born," she snapped, irritated. "Every year on the same day a person was born is their birthday."
She cast a wary glance back at the old woman, who had stopped her work to come out in the street and gawk.
Erik was surprised at this new information.
"Do I have a birthday?" he asked, wonderingly.
She turned her gaze to him and leveled a searching stare at that awful masked face looking back up at her.
"No," she said evenly. "You don't."
His shoulders slumped. He turned her words over and over in his head.
She looked behind, her heart stuttering when she saw the old woman had gone to her neighbor's door and now the two of them were standing in the road and staring.
Tears welled in her eyes even as her heart began to race. She could still remember all too well when Erik had been terribly ill several years ago, necessitating a visit to a doctor. She had taken him to one several towns over - an expensive trip, but in the end she was glad she hadn't seen her own town's doctor, because little Erik had been fussing and accidentally pulled his mask off. She managed to quickly put it back on him, but people had seen - a woman on the street had screamed, a man had swiftly turned around and went back the way he had come in an attempt to avoid having to come near the woman with the hideous baby, and a group of older children had thrown rocks at her, shouting names.
She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand, hoping desperately that no one would throw rocks again, that she wouldn't be called the devil's whore again. She had committed no mortal sin, she had gone to confession every week since she was a young girl, she had been as good as she knew how. What had she done to deserve a fate like this? A dead husband and a deformed child? She was only twenty-four and already knew all the bitterness life could offer.
"How old am I?" Erik piped up.
She sighed, exasperated.
"You're six," she grit out.
Erik narrowed his eyes. If he didn't have a birthday, then how could she know he was six? Surely she had to have been counting from something, and if so, didn't that make that his birthday? Perhaps he really did have a birthday, after all.
"How am I six if I don't have a birthday?"
She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. Why was he always asking so many questions? So many questions about everything, and even when she did know the answers to them, her explanations always led to even more questions!
"Erik, please! Enough!"
He looked longingly at the little party one last time. Ah, surely he did have a birthday - but he must not be a good enough boy to be able to celebrate it. He wasn't even good enough to know when his birthday was! He frowned. He was a very bad boy, he supposed. Maybe if he could be good, he could earn a birthday party - or at the very least, a birthday.
But his mother had never told him when it was, and it was something that also came up during his time in the Romani camp.
There were some in the camp that were not cruel, some who went out of their way to disobey the orders from the little circus's leader when he wasn't looking, some who dared to face whatever wrath might be bestowed upon them for talking to the boy in the cage (but none who dared face the consequences of actually freeing the boy in the cage). Erik did not grudge them terribly - he saw how they too suffered at the hands of the man in charge - and besides, who could blame a person for not helping a monster? No, it was that man that Erik hated, the first person he had ever hated with a cold, hard passion. Erik knew that without the secret kindness of the old women slipping him little jars of ointment for his cuts or extra scraps of food, and the teenagers who would stop to talk to him every now and then so he could feel like something other than a locked up beast, he knew that he would have died in that cage.
He had been with them over a year at that point, when one of the older girls, Fifika, had stopped to chat while the fearsome ringleader was asleep.
"Do I look very different today, Erik?" Fifika asked as she stopped in front of his cage. She spun in a little circle.
She looked just the same as always, but Erik didn't answer, afraid of a trick question.
"It was my birthday yesterday," she went on. "I feel so much older!"
"Oh," Erik said. "I would have gotten you a present, but-" he gestured at the bars all around him.
Fifika giggled.
"When is your birthday, Erik?"
He frowned, wrapping his arms around his knees and pulling them closer to his chest.
"I don't know," he said.
Fifika frowned at that as well.
"You mean you don't know what day you were born?"
"No."
"Well, you came to us in midwinter, so maybe that can be your birthday!"
He hadn't said anything to that - surely she had meant well, but he didn't want his birthday to be midwinter, didn't want to have a reminder of the day his life had taken such an awful turn, didn't want to remember the day that a Romani woman had tried to help the poor little boy she had found on the side of the road, didn't want to remember how she tried so hard to give him food and drink and warm clothing and send him on his way before the leader of their caravan found him - how, despite her best efforts, he had found him anyway and declared him a freak, a monster, and had locked him in a cage where people would pay money to be disgusted by him.
Erik did not want a yearly reminder of that day. It would be a cold day in hell, he had thought, before he recognized that day as his birthday.
But here was dear little Christine before him, asking him that very same question.
Erik, when is your birthday?
He stared off at the wall, looking vaguely uncomfortable.
"Midwinter," he told her.
Every day was a cold day in his cellar that he called a home, after all, and for her to know that his mother had never told him would only break her beloved heart.
Christine nodded, not pressing him for the exact day. If he had known it, if he had kept track of such a thing, he surely would have told her. She realized the dangerousness of her question too late - he likely hadn't had reason to celebrate the day for many, many years, and she was possibly bringing up some memories he'd rather not think on.
She took a sip of her tea and looked down at her feet. It had felt a little odd to remove her shoes, something she'd never done in his house before, but she had to admit it was much more comfortable. Now that the rush of singing together was fading, she was starting to notice little aches and pains. She glanced at Erik as he sat in an odd little reverie, and she briefly wondered if perhaps his lanky hands were paining him after having played so long. The unbidden thought arose of her massaging the aches out of those joints, and she quickly looked away from him again, hiding her face in her teacup.
Presently he returned from whatever thoughts were plaguing him, and he stirred a little.
"I must apologize for being such a terrible host, my dear, but I'm afraid something requires my attention elsewhere," he told her. "Will you be alright by yourself until dinner?"
"I think I shall manage," she smiled. "Is there anything I can help you with?"
"No, no - that's quite alright. I will fetch you when it's dinner time, how does that sound?"
He stood to attend to whatever business was pulling him away, but she stopped him before he was gone entirely.
"Erik?"
"Hmm?"
She warred with herself over how to say it, whether or not to say it, but-
"I think you're a perfectly lovely host. Please don't apologize."
He nodded, an odd smile on his face as he looked down, and for a moment it almost looked to her like he was going to cry. He left then, leaving her to herself once more.
Her feet too tired to carry her back to his work room (and not wanting to get in his way, if he were actually there working), she opted to continue reading the book she had picked out earlier. Or at least, she tried to read in between daydreaming.
She kept thinking of all the buildings he designed, and especially the houses. She loved houses. She had so rarely had opportunities to live in a house - she had when she was so small she couldn't even remember, and then they had been traveling when she was old enough to walk on her own, and then briefly they had a little cottage when the Comte had been funding her father's career in exchange for violin performances at his weekly parties (but during that time they often traveled as well), and then for a while with Mamma and the Professor (though once she started her serious training at the conservatoire, she had moved into the dormitories). She thought all the houses Erik had designed looked quite nice.
It was when she was finally absorbed in the story she was reading that a delicious scent began to fill the air, and she realized that Erik must have left to start cooking.
It wasn't long before he called out to her, and she arrived in the dining room with a gasp. He had cooked a three course meal, and it looked better than most food she had ever eaten.
"Oh, Erik," she breathed, at a loss for words.
She sat at the table as Erik served her, taking some of the prawns and chicken wings from the platters and placing them on her plate before setting it in front of her.
Erik sat across from her as she ate, telling her the story of how he had come across the recipe for the chicken wings when he was traveling in the East, of how the chef who cooked them at the restaurant refused to tell him the spices and method of cooking, so Erik had spent an entire month trying to recreate the recipe, an entire month of mixing different spices in different ratios, a month of trying different ways of cooking them, until at last he had found the perfect intersection of spicy and sweet and crispy and juicy.
"I'm sure the shopkeeper thought I was mad, I must have bought a chicken every day, if not twice a day. I don't think I've ever eaten so much chicken," he groaned, and Christine giggled.
"Well I must say, I think it was quite worth it - this is delicious!"
He smiled as propped his elbow on the table and rested his head on his hand. At some point she had abandoned her knife and fork and began picking the chicken apart with her fingers, biting it off of the bone. She had sauce on her fingers, and there was a spot of sauce on her nose. It was undignified and ungraceful, and Erik thought it was the cutest thing he had ever seen.
"Oh, but aren't you going to have any?" she asked suddenly.
"No, sweet, I'm not hungry. It's alright."
She became quite a moment.
"But you didn't eat any breakfast or any lunch."
His face went blank. He hadn't eaten at all that day, or the previous day, for that matter - but that was not information he was about to offer up.
"It's not good to go so long without eating, Erik," she frowned a little. "Besides, you went to such trouble to prepare it, you should have some - please?"
He shifted a little in his chair - how could he refuse her when she looked at him like that? He picked up one of the prawns and took a bite of it. She smiled at him, and he almost choked as he swallowed - he would do anything to see that smile.
She ate a few more of the chicken wings, finding that when she was through her fingers were stickier than she anticipated. She attempted to wipe them on her napkin, which only helped so much. He was about to offer to bring her a little bowl of water she could dip her napkin into when she gave a nervous little chuckle and tried to turn away from as best she could before raising her fingers and placing them in her mouth. She removed them quickly, a little embarrassed, but repeated the motion with her other hand as well before drying them on the napkin and smiling sheepishly. Erik's mind raced with the urgent thought of what other foods he could possibly make for her so that he might see such a sight again. Perhaps if he simply neglected to give her any silverware at all...
She took some of the large custard into a little dish and spooned some of the caramel sauce over it. She knew her previous actions were rather impolite, but she hoped he would be gracious enough to overlook it. She fidgeted a little under his intense gaze, however.
"What? Do I have something on my face?" her cheeks were starting to turn red.
He smiled fondly.
"As a matter of fact, you do," he chuckled.
Her hands flew up, napkin in place, and patted over her lips and cheeks and chin.
"No, no - not there-"
"Where?" her brow crinkled.
"Your nose, my dear. Here-"
He lifted his napkin to hand to her, but to his utter surprise she leaned forward, seemingly for him to wipe it away. He sucked in a breath as she held her face toward him, letting his hand carefully reach up to her. She didn't draw back, and with one finger wrapped in the cloth he swiped at the tip of her perfect little nose.
Time seemed to stand still for him as she bit her lip to keep from giggling, her nose wrinkling, her eyes pressed shut. He hadn't touched her, not really, not with the napkin between his finger and her skin, but he could have sworn his entire hand was tingling afterwards, a sensation that slowly creeped up his arm and made him shiver.
She opened those sparkling eyes and raised one eyebrow.
"Is it gone?" she asked mirthfully.
He nodded, not trusting his voice in that moment.
"Good," she gave a little nod of her own. "Thank you."
"Of course," he managed.
"Now, is there a story behind the caramel custard, too?" she asked.
"There actually is, you know."
"Oh?"
"Yes, would you like to hear it?"
She nodded eagerly, leaning forward a little.
"The market was having a sale on eggs."
She burst out laughing, and his heart twisted just a little at that glorious sound.
He ended up eating one more prawn and a few spoonfuls of the custard, and they lingered long after they had finished eating. Christine could see how he could easily lose track of time so far underground - she was unsure of the hour, herself, but she felt a ferocious yawn coming on.
"Oh, excuse me! It must be quite late, I suppose."
"Are you ready for bed, dear? You may go anytime you wish, you know - or you may sit by the fire again. It is up to you."
He was hesitant to have her go off to bed already - he would have spent the rest of eternity there with her at the table if he could have, but he also knew the poor girl needed her rest. Was that not the entire reason he had offered his guest room in the first place? For her to be able to rest peacefully?
Well, perhaps not the entire reason.
She gave him a look of tired, but thankful, regret.
"I think I will be retiring now, actually. Everything was so wonderful, thank you so much Erik."
"Any time, my dear," he rose from the table and pulled out his pocket watch. "Would you like this in your room? To know what time it is when you awaken? I'm afraid I don't keep clocks in the house."
She took the watch from him, and he was careful to not let their hands touch.
"Oh, thank you. This will be helpful," she said appreciatively.
"Do you remember how to lock your door?"
She looked up from the watch, surprised. For a moment her mind completely forgot the precariousness of their arrangement, and she failed to grasp the intent behind the concept of his reminder.
"You really think I should lock it? Isn't the house already locked? Surely we're safe enough down here..."
He stared at her a moment in confusion before looking away, his face warm.
"It's not threats from outside the house that I am worried about, Christine."
