The girl had a way of shattering all my hopeless expectations. At the moment the words had sputtered from my twisted lips, I'd thought Christine to berate me, to verbally bludgeon and let loose the details of my confessed failings. Instead, her inherent light eclipsed the blackness of my demeanor, her little palm splayed flat and open before my face.

"You aren't leaving Paris, Erik? You're not going away, are you?" Her open hand no longer waited to join my own, instead she grabbed at me with a bewildering desperation that challenged my tenuous composure

"No," I responded gently, "I have no plans to leave the city. Nor any desire to do so." As I spoke, her relief revealed itself in the slight easing of her grip.

And yet, it would have been a far less complicated existence for the both of us had I never journeyed to Paris. Oh, but I had a habit of allowing my emotions and my reason to contradict one another. For, if I had never settled here, never sketched the blueprints for the Opera Populaire, I would never have even caught the faint shimmer of that elusive feeling known as happiness. And, as we sat on the unyielding and hard steps of Sainte Chappelle, the bearer of that rare joy was touching me. It was a wonder to learn that her anxiety stemmed from the fear - though it was all together impossible- that I would abandon her! If this revelation had not struck me to my very core, coupling with the vulnerable honesty painted across her beautiful face, I could almost have laughed at the absurdity of such a notion.

I could no longer feed our mutual agony with my hesitation- every word must be spoken. The truth. My history, baptized in the blood of the nameless and adorned with a pain of such intensity I feared it would break her spirit, must be revealed. "There are so many secrets, Christine. So very many things I should have told you." The girl remained silent, transfixed as she waited for the brutal knowledge I would offer. "I'm not quite sure where I should begin. I suppose it would be a wise decision to confess the worst of it all first."

Christine made a sudden attempt to speak, and I pressed the air above her lips with my free hand as a simple request to let me continue before I lost my poise. Despite her physical protests, I released her fingers and rose, unable to look at her. The contrast between us was too immense to fathom any longer. "You would not want to touch these bloodstained hands, my dear. I daresay they have conversed with more death than your own have with the living!"

I chose to continue staring into the spires of the church rather than meet the inevitable horror and shock that would manifest on her sweet features. "I- Erik, I don't understand. Whatever has happened, whatever you've done, it doesn't mat-"

"You endure my horrid face and my bleak company, allowing it to fade at the sound of my voice, but, the sins of my past can never be rendered forgivable by a pretty tone or soaring melody." Every muscle and tendon of my body grew taut and stiff with the weight of my shame. What had possessed me to unveil those truths which noone should have to revisit! "Christine, you are already aware that I am a mortal man and not a ethereal tutor sent by your dear Papa. But, I am an angel, child. My voice is simply one of a pair of skills I have spent a lifetime mastering. I made the taking of life an art, and it would be far too modest to say that I could mold torture as well as your lips and tongue shape words."

Silence still. And all the better. What could she possibly say in response? What could any man or woman, no matter how boundless the reaches of compassion?

"Yes, I am an angel. An angel of death. A career suited to my visage, no?"

A slight whimper escaped from behind me. I must be losing my sanity, for it seemed from the carriage of her voice, that she had come to stand very near me. How? "Yes, Christine, that is the worst of it, and now you know. There is more if you can imagine it!"

Another whimper, I swear I could hear my name in her shaky tones. "I asked for you to listen to all of it. But, I will not force you. It is your choice, Christine."