Hey, a chapter! No warnings for this one. I can't say the same for the next...
Chapter 13: push
Christine sat in front of the fire in her room, a blanket across her legs, her hair down in loose golden coils around her shoulders, a stark comparison with the mourning black of her nightdress. The novel she had been reading lay forgotten on her lap. Her mind had been too distracted to follow the plot anyway. She gazed into the flames and tried to let her thoughts quiet enough to allow her to finally sleep. Somewhere in the estate, a grandfather clock chimed one o'clock.
Erik had said he would see her the evening following Nadir Khan's arrival. However, that had not happened. She had woken to a short letter from him stating that he had business to attend to, which would render him unable to visit with her for days, perhaps weeks.
She had fisted the letter and thrown it into the fire. Any ground she had gained with Erik seemed to evaporate like puddles after a storm.
Even Meg had said goodbye yesterday, the Girys officially off to Italy to begin their new lives. Meg would be getting married early next spring, and their last conversation had involved wedding plans. It had been fun to look toward the future with a friend, even though Christine wondered if Erik would even agree to let her attend the wedding.
Perhaps that was why she could not sleep tonight. She knew tomorrow would only bring more loneliness. Without Meg, who would she go shopping with or stroll in the sunshine on the way to grab breakfast? Not her husband, certainly.
Why had he married her only to abandon her?
No, there was something else going on. There must be. It was Erik who had pursued this marriage, Erik who had first approached her that night on the street, Erik who had inserted himself into her life in every way possible. He would only be distancing himself from her if he believed he was doing right by her.
No. Something else was going on.
Christine stood, letting the novel and blanket upon her lap both fall to the floor. Her ebony nightdress covered her throat to wrist, but she knew the corridors would be chilly. She swung a pale pink wrapper around her shoulders, though she did not bother to button it, and slid her stockinged feet into a pair of slippers.
She took up the lantern at her bedside and opened her bedroom door. The hallway beyond was dark, and her lantern cast long shadows down the empty corridor. She was the only inhabitant on this wing of the estate. Staring down the quiet hall, she wished not for the first time that her room stood closer to the others. Even if they did not deign to keep her company, she could still at least hear them stirring in the walls beyond hers, and that might bring her a little comfort.
No such luck tonight. Even in the hallway, she could not hear that anyone else was awake. She made her way to the foyer that connected her annex to the rest. It was eerie to walk this massive house in the middle of the night, the darkness far-reaching to the recesses of the high ceilings and casting the white stone walls into dark gray solitude. Her slippers made soft little sounds on the intricate carpets.
She paused here in the foyer, straining her ears. The flame of her lantern flickered.
There. In the direction of Erik's chambers – notes. Christine turned, the advantage confirming that she could hear the thrashing melody of a piano.
"He has been playing since the sun went down."
Startled, Christine swung around. Nadir Khan stood in the doorway of the adjacent parlor. He raised both hands in a placating gesture.
"My apologies if I frightened you, madame."
She stuck out her chin. "Do you always wander the homes of others in the middle of the night, Monsieur Khan?"
To her surprise, he let out a laugh. "I suppose I do, especially when that home is Erik's. It is an old habit of mine that no doubt annoys him greatly."
Christine relaxed at that. She could not help it – Nadir's easy demeanor was difficult to dislike.
"Can I get you something?" he asked. "Tea to help you sleep, perhaps?"
"Actually, that would be nice." She walked to the parlor and took a seat to one side of the sofa there, placing the lantern on the small table beside her. While she waited, she strained to hear more of the piano, catching a phrase of music now and then. Evidence of Erik's presence in the house should have comforted her, but the sounds he was creating were far from peaceful.
It did not take long for Nadir to return with a small tray in hand. "May I propose a truce, madame?" he asked as he poured her a cup of tea.
She took the cup from him and set to making it the way she liked. "A truce?"
He sat in an armchair opposite her and leaned back, steepling his fingers. "There is no reason for us to quarrel. I have no disagreement with you."
"Even about my marriage?"
He sighed. "My dear, if Erik is content, I am content. I have spent many decades chasing after his happiness. If you can be the one to give it to him, then I will support you in every way."
Christine muddled over this. She took a sip of her tea, noticing Nadir had not joined her in the refreshment. "I appreciate that, monsieur."
He relaxed further, his bearded face brightening with a half-smile. "Besides, Darius is very fond of you, and he is an excellent judge of character."
"I am quite fond of him as well. He helped my father often and made certain that Dr. Martin always saw to his needs."
"I am sorry to hear about your father's passing. Erik tells me he was a good man and an accomplished violinist."
"Yes, he was," she said, lips thinning at the mention. "He was the best father I could have asked for in so many ways. He… didn't have an easy life, but you wouldn't have known by the way he acted."
"And you, as well, madame," Nadir said softly. "Your father's difficult life was your own, was it not?"
Christine took another sip of tea, mulling. "No. Papa did his best to hide how little we had from me, and his music kept our spirits up in rougher times. It was not until he grew ill that I saw how much he had given up to keep me more comfortable."
"The love of a parent is a grand thing, is it not?"
"Yes, it is."
They sat in companionable silence for a while. Christine took the time to examine the man sitting before her, who did not seem to mind her open study. He was as well dressed as the first time she had seen him, his gray-dusted hair as neatly combed as his thick beard, his green eyes framed by the beginning shapes of wrinkles. A ring on his right hand glinted in the lamp light.
"Are you married, Monsieur Khan?" she asked.
He looked at the ring as though he had forgotten he wore the thin piece of gold. His face darkened. "I was married once." He paused, then punched a sigh as though deciding something. "I had a wife and a young son."
"Had?" she asked as delicately as she could.
"They passed away."
"I'm so sorry."
He shrugged. "It was a long time ago, and I have come to terms with my grief. If I can offer you any comfort in separation through death, madame, it is that the sharpest of the pain eventually fades."
"And the rest of the pain?" she asked, thinking of Papa. Sometimes she hurt so much inside that she thought she might split apart from the pressure of remembrance.
"It never truly goes away," he admitted. "It remains deep inside you, like an itch you can't scratch or a thought you can't brush aside. You might learn to ignore it, but you will always know it is there."
"I am not sure your words are comforting or not, Monsieur Khan."
He gave a dark chuckle. "Neither am I."
"Would you tell me about your wife? If you don't mind."
"Perhaps a story for another time, hmm? I will tell you this, however. She was the love of my life, as was her son, and when they died, I thought I wanted to perish along with them."
Christine looked down at the teacup she held steady upon her lap. "I understand the feeling. I think… I think if I had been alone, I might have. I know that from the outside, it seems as though Erik cornered me into marrying him. Me, a poor girl with a d-dying father who had few other options."
"I admit that I thought the same, at first," Nadir said, stroking his thick beard pensively.
"Admittedly, I did too! But Erik took me in, he took care of me, and in doing so, I saw beyond what the public might see. I saw a man who wanted me – me – as his wife."
They lapsed into silence again. An angry sound met Christine's ears, and she held her breath to strain to hear it. The pounding notes had made their way once more to the parlor, and they made her heart ache all the more.
"Erik is my family now," Christine whispered. "I wish I could show him that, but he keeps pushing me away."
"A family can take many forms, can it not?" Nadir said wistfully. "Sometimes the fear holds us back."
Christine listened more closely to the melody that Erik pummeled from his piano beneath the ground. Perhaps his motions were not as full of rage as she had first thought. Perhaps she was not the only one who was lonely.
She set her cup on the tray and stood, grasping the lamp. "Thank you for the tea, Monsieur Khan."
He looked up at her, green eyes more hazel in the lamplight. "Have you seen him without his mask, Christine?"
The direct question along with the use of her given name made her draw up short. She kept her spine straight, one arm loosely tucked around her middle, the other hand white-knuckled upon the handle of the lamp.
"Good night, Nadir," she replied without turning back around.
She kept walking.
Alone once again, she let her feet take her where she yearned to go the most. She walked, more quickly now, toward Erik's section of the house. In the rotunda just beyond the stairwell that led to both his bedroom and Darius's, the music flowed more freely here. She could feel the chords within the soles of her thin slippers, the rhythm seeming to pound in echo with her heartbeat. Each step she took brought her closer to that relentless cacophony of music as she spiraled down the staircase until the light of her lamp fell across the locked door of Erik's bedroom.
Oh Erik.
He had fixed the door, and now the many bolts again lay between her and her husband. Christine breathed a frustrated sigh and laid the palm of her free hand against the door. For a moment, she felt the pulsing of the wood in time with the piano keys.
And then the bolts unlocked.
Gasping, she snatched her hand back. The door did not open, but the handle called to her to grasp it. The door gave way easily beneath her fingertips, and she stepped through, closing it behind her. The staircase continued to spiral downward, and she carefully stepped until she had reached the bottom.
Erik sat with his back to the entrance of his bedroom upon the bench in front of his grand piano. He still wore his full black suit, and the coat stretched over his broad shoulders as he swayed and jerked in time with the furious music he played. His long arms stretched to either side of him to strike keys, and she could feel the numbing vibrations in her feet, in her very bones. Music seems to pulse from him like an aura. Thick white mist seeped about his legs, reminding her of when he had appeared upon the stage of the Palais Garnier in a fit of rage.
He did not seem to notice her, his attention so rapt upon the piano. He spun from one melody to the next, splicing bits of sonatas together in nonsensical order. Sometimes he growled and pounded fists instead, and Christine winced to hear him so distraught. She wanted so badly to comfort him, and she stepped closer, the mist parting around her ankles. Perhaps she should have called his name. Perhaps she should have done a lot of things rather than what she did.
As she grew closer, she noticed that his head lacked its usual slick black hair. Instead, his skull was covered in thin patches of blonde almost white strands. The mist wafted upward, ghosting along her fingertips, and a shiver ran up her spine. The music throbbed in the very air. He seemed as foreign to her as a stranger.
Erik's mask lay next to him on the bench, the eye holes empty and black. Christine reached out and grasped it. The light of her lantern fell across the keys. This happened within the moment of one breath.
The next breath Christine took was to scream.
Erik raged, his mind swirling with too many emotions, too much anguish. He had been so relieved to see the Daroga alive, but his fellow vampyre's return had signaled a new worry. Daroga's presence had brought more questions than answers. Erik had spent so long trying to run away from his past, and if they all were not careful, everything he had built up could be undone with one single slip.
He had waited too long. He should send Christine away this very night. He could pay someone to pack up her wardrobe and have her on the first train out of the city in the morning. If he moved quickly, he could purchase a home in the country, move money around so it was difficult to trace back to his own hands. She could live out the rest of her life there. She could void this sham of a marriage, meet someone new and alive, and be safe. Be safe.
He fisted his gnarled fingers and slammed them into the keys. Then he blazed his way into another sonata.
He needed her, he needed her here, he needed her like he had never needed anything alive or undead. If he sent her away, if he lost her forever, then what would even be the point of it all? Erik could not go through another conflict with the Mistress while knowing he would never see Christine's sky-blue eyes turned toward him again. He would not have the strength in him to put up that kind of fight.
His muscles strained and pulled beneath his black jacket. He barely had the strength to continue to play, his veins dry, his fangs distended and aching to drink. He did not notice the woman behind him until the light of a lantern fell across his shoulder.
His first scrambling thought was that his defenses had not alerted him to an intruder within his lair. How could he have become to untangled in his music that he had not noticed he was no longer alone? He reacted upon instinct, swinging his arm around to lash out against the trespasser. His arm crashed against the hard angles of the lantern, sending it clattering to the stone floor. The glass did not shatter, but the lantern's light went out, casting the room back into the dim glow of candles upon the walls. A woman's pale pink robes entangled around her slim form.
Christine?
Erik blinked, lurched back from the piano so he could rise to his feet. Christine had fallen to the floor, and she pushed upright upon shaking arms. The stench of fear rose up within her, but he did not understand. She had come to his room, she had sought him out, and yet she was afraid?
He glanced at the wall, and the candles burned a little brighter. Maybe if she could see him, he could assuage her trembling.
Large blue eyes turned up to him, whites showing around the irises. Christine pressed the back of one hand to her mouth… in horror.
And around her knuckles, she screamed.
Erik clamped his palms to his ears. He felt a desperate need to block out her cry. His fingertips brushed against the sparse strands of his hair, and that was when he remembered. He had abandoned his mask hours ago, sick of the constant chafing upon the tender skin of his prominent cheek bones.
His mask lay upturned near Christine's knee. The bone white shape glared up at him. He was bare-faced before her.
No. He brought his hands around to cup his ruin of a face. He felt the jut of his cheekbones, the thin flesh of his lips pulled back in a grimace from his fangs, the dark hole of his missing nose. Between his fingers, he saw Christine's bright blue eyes fill with tears.
He did the only thing he had ever done when faced with a decision such as this one. He fled.
His face!
Christine felt bile rise within her. She had stared upon the bare face of her husband and found the face of a monster.
He had startled her, spinning around like he had done, lashing out with his arm and knocking her to the floor. She had looked up at him and been confronted with the sight he had so desperately tried to keep from her. Now she understood so very much why.
She had been unable to keep from screaming from the shock of it all, and his golden eyes had shown the hurt her reaction had brought him. Shame welled up within her, flying hotly to her eyes with a rush of tears. How could she have reacted like that! She had wanted so desperately to see him, truly see him, and now she had, and she had betrayed him.
Her throat closed with choking tears. One moment he was crouched over her, his face frozen in an expression of overwhelming panic. The next, he was gone, the displaced wind left from his sudden departure whipping at her hair.
No, Erik!
Christine pushed herself to rise upon shaky legs, still clutching his mask in one hand. He had not gone up the stairs at her back, so where had he fled? She needed to find him, to explain that she had merely been startled. If only he would let her see him again, she thought she could look at him the way she should have the first time.
She swallowed, trying to clear her throat. "Erik!" she cried, but the chamber was empty.
Where had he gone? She made her way around the piano and moved to the back of the expansive room. She had not ventured over here before, where the shadows bled into darkness. This cellar was far larger than she had thought previously. A short, narrow corridor at the back opened into another chamber, but she could not see far into it.
Christine took up one of the candles from a wall sconce, ignoring the sting of the hot wax dripping down the base. The glow did not reach far into the next room, but at least she could see where to place her feet.
This chamber seemed more unfinished, the way she would expect an old cellar to look. The walls were mere concrete in some places, the floor uneven stones. Her footsteps echoed more in this empty, yawning space.
"E-Erik?" she called, her voice bouncing off the barren walls and sounding far too frightened to her own ears.
A hiss replied. "Stay away!"
"Oh, my husband," she breathed with relief. "Please, do not run from me." His voice had reflected in so many directions, she could not tell from where it had come. She stepped further into the room, swinging the candle to peer around. "Erik, I am sorry for the way I reacted. Please come here?"
A cold wind rushed at her, nearly knocking her to her feet again. Her candle was blown out, tossing her into darkness, and some force tried to tug the mask from her hands. She dropped the extinguished candle and gripped harder at the cool material of the mask. She would not let him put it on again – not until she had shown him that she could look at him without fear.
Rage and frustration whipped around her. She could feel the white mist seeping about her ankles once again as though he held so much emotion within himself that it leaked out like water through a sieve.
His voice boomed around her. "I said stay away!"
Was he trying to frighten her? Trying to drive her away?
"No, Erik," she whispered. "I will not leave."
He howled like a wounded animal. The stone floor quivered beneath her thin soles, and she felt the hairs on her arms stand on end. Her equilibrium suffered with her eyesight cut off, so she sank to her knees to keep herself steady, the stone cold through her thin layers. She could feel him prowling around the room upon silent feet, the air shifting from the weight of his movement. She had never felt anyone command attention as much as he did.
This is my husband, she thought, heart racing. He was hers, and she had injured him, had not taken the care she should have taken. She felt like it was her responsibility to soothe the distress she had wrought. His soul was so entangled in music, perhaps this was what she could use.
She wet her lips and parted them. Her voice rose up, rusty and unused, so quiet at first that she could feel the vibrations in her throat more than she could hear the sound.
His feet skidded along the stone as he came to a sudden halt.
I have a song inside of me, Mama. Can I not share it?
When she had been a little girl, she had been so moved by her father's violin that she had begun to sing. She had been sitting on her mother's lap, bouncing in time with the music, and her voice had simply poured out. The tavern had gone still, and she had come back to herself to see a dozen pairs of eyes staring at her. It was then that she realized there was something different, perhaps something wrong, about her voice, but it was not until later, as she grew older, that she saw how much her song could affect others.
And that had caused her parents to fear for her safety.
She had been forbidden to sing, forbidden to share with others the gift she had. But her parents were both dead now, and she wanted more than anything to calm the man standing before her.
Christine cleared her throat and began again, louder now, her vocal cords clearing as she pushed air through them. Her song had no words, the notes themselves all she could call forth from her rusty instrument. She rose on her heels, holding Erik's mask to her chest, and sang and sang, her eyes sliding closed, her chin lifting to call forth whatever comfort she could provide.
Her last note ended on a cough. There was too much dust in this chamber, and she had not immitted more than a note or two above a quiet undertone in years. She blinked open her eyes and felt Erik's cold presence directly before her.
Icy fingers lightly touched her throat. "You have an angel's voice," he murmured in awe. "Why have you kept such a gift from me?"
She flushed. "My parents were afraid someone might try to exploit it. They decided to hide it away instead. I-I guess I was afraid too."
His fingertips stroked the column of her neck, his touch igniting something deep inside her. She held still lest he stop.
"Fear can be such a dangerous motivator," he said.
"Yes." She gripped the mask she still held. "Would you let me see you? Please?"
"Would you sing like that again?"
For him, she would. "With some practice, I believe I could."
He did not respond for so long, she might have thought he had left if not for his fingers curled around her throat. "Do not scream," he said at last.
Shame again made her brows draw together. "I will not," she promised.
The candle she had dropped on the floor sputtered back to life, creating enough of a glow that she could see Erik bent to one knee before her, his other knee an angular jut to one side of her skirts. He sat back and released his hand from her neck.
Yes, his appearance was the most shocking, most horrendous, thing she had ever seen, but now that she was prepared for it, Christine could find pieces of him that had become familiar to her on which to focus. His golden eyes stared at her, sweeping over her face for any sign of her intentions, but they seemed brighter now without the hood of the mask's eye holes shadowing them. His thin lips were pursed with displeasure, but they were lips that she had kissed. His broad jaw tightened as he clenched his teeth, but she had seen the shape of him there before.
How he must have suffered in life! Christine put aside her pity, knowing it would not be welcome here.
"Thank you for trusting me again," she whispered. She reached out a hand. "May I?"
"No," he said, the sallow skin tightening around his fierce eyes.
She let her hand fall back down, swallowing her own disappointment. She could not push him any further tonight. Instead, she lifted his mask in offering, no longer wanting to hold him captive.
He took it at once, turning away from her to sweep it back onto his face. His hands smoothed over the scant strands of his real hair, and she wondered if those blonde locks were as soft as they looked. Then he stood with a snap of long limbs, and she relaxed when he held out a hand to help her to her feet. He was once more in control.
Christine grasped those long fingers and gave them a squeeze. "Would you walk me back to my bedroom?"
He nodded. The candlelight winked out behind them as they left the unfinished cellar, headed down the corridor, and emerged back in Erik's bedroom. How he managed to turn lights on and off was really the least of her concern at this point.
They said nothing to each other as they made their way across the manor, but Erik did not tug his hand from hers the entire way. At her own bedroom door, he paused. Slowly, with deliberate caution, he raised her hand and brushed his cool lips to her knuckles. From this angle, she could see the black tie that held his mask to his face and the ridges of skin that marked the beginnings of his deformation.
He straightened and at last let go of her hand. "Goodnight, Christine."
She could not tolerate the distance between them anymore. She stepped up to him and wound her arms around his narrow middle, tucking herself against him. He stiffened against her embrace but did not pull away.
"Ah, Christine!"
The longing in his voice nearly broke her. She held him as tightly as she dared, and she pressed her face against his chest, just to the side of the bottom fold of his cravat, her cheek to the soft silk of his waistcoat next to his jacket. She felt his hands come up and lay, trembling, upon the ends of her hair.
And she heard, ear pressed to his chest, the steady thump of his heartbeat.
I really hope I did this unmasking justice. I have never done Christine accidentally seeing him without his mask, and I tried to stay true to her character in her reaction. The next chapter is THE chapter I have been waiting to write, and it will come with a host of warnings. Yay.