For the second time, Meg slowly awoke to the world, trying to get her bearings. She was warm and comfortable, tucked neatly into a clean feather bed and propped up on proper goose feather pillows. The distant hum and clatter of life drifted in, it was comforting to be back with the world, to know that life was continuing and going on about its day.
"Meg?" a sweet voice, thick with worry, rippled through her growing awareness. The bedside figure was not the dark and lean opera ghost this time, but the lovely, diminutive soprano of his heart.
"Meg?" she asked again, leaning closer to her friend, squinting into the shadow over the bed.
Meg swatted weakly at her friend and tried to object to the disturbance. Sleep beckoned to her and from within the haze of her dreams, the phantom called to her: Hide your face so the world will never find you. She longed to obey. Christine held a glass of water to Meg's dry, cracking lips.
"I must get your mother, she will be so pleased you're awake." Christine tried to leave, to take the glass with her but Meg tightened her grip, giving the singer a hard look. "Or..I can stay here." she refilled the glass and resumed her seat. They remained in uncomfortable silence while Meg emptied the glass several times. Christine diligently refilled the water as required, but sat quietly, looking everywhere but at Meg. Shadows clung beneath her now-dull dark eyes and she seemed paler and nervous. Had the events in the underground lair shaken her so much?
Meg nibbled on the rim of the glass, contemplating that night, realizing that she knew very little of the details. Christine had rejected Erik but that said nothing about how she really felt about him and of her choice. Meg leaned over and set the glass down with a bang, smirking to herself when Christine jumped in her seat a little. Now was definitely not the time to ask her.
"Now may I get your mother?" Christine tried again, apparently quite eager to be away from her now that Meg was awake.
"No. Not yet. I'm not exactly ready for my scolding." Meg pretended to study the beautiful molding, painted white, that ran around the pleasant room. Everything in the room seemed simple but the fabrics were rich, the furniture well-made. "Christine? Where are we?"
"At the Chagy mansion. Raoul's home."
Meg struggled not to make a face at the mention of the Vicomte, congratulating herself when she succeeded.
"Do you not remember coming here?"
"No, should I?" she blinked, taking in the fine cut of Christine's dress, the gems that shone dully at her throat. The trappings of a future Vicomtess. A good marriage, every girl's dream at the Populaire. Meg should have been jealous, but she wasn't. "I wouldn't even know how to find the Chagny home on my own."
"The servants found you asleep just inside the garden gate last night."
Meg absently traced the pattern of the coverlet. She had no answer. Christine had never told her where Raoul resided and Meg had never cared to ask. She knew how she had come there, of course. Erik had left her there, that was obvious, but she wasn't about to admit that. Did he also creep around to take a desperate, silent farewell of his leading lady?
"Where were you, Meg? You've been missing for days."
"Yes, ma chère fille, where have you been?" Madame Giry, black as a shadow, sinister as a spider and infinitely more terrifying than the Phantom, stood in the doorway, leaning on her cane. Christine scrambled to the door and with a hurried curtsy, departed from the room. The door shut with a click. They were alone.
Meg warily watched her mother's slow progress around the. It was a tactic her mother had employed often in Meg's childhood and one Meg knew well. She eased herself into the chair that Christine had vacated and waited, her black eyes trained on her daughter.
"Marguerite." she began in a soft voice and then stopped, as if she were gathering her rage for the impending storm.
"Maman?"
"I recall -" she started again and then bit her lip in frustration. "No. I forbid you to follow me into the cellars. You may be too old to be whipped but I expect obedience."
"How do you even know that I did follow you?"
Madame Giry jumped across the bed, slapping Meg's face. "Do you take your old Maman for a fool?" she hissed, her eyes flashing with barely concealed rage. She grabbed Meg's cheeks and pinched them hard with taloned fingers. "People saw you, you idiot. You've been missing for days."
"But -"
"Found asleep in a garden and dressed in a nightgown? Any decent person would have sent word when they treated your foot." Madame Giry shoved her daughter's face away roughly and fell back into the chair.
"None of that proves anything-"
"You reek of him, child." her mother barked. "I have spent years doing his bidding. Did you not think I would know?"
Meg held her mother's angry gaze, silently battling her mother's rage with her own stubborn will.
"Do you have any idea of what he is capable of, ma chere? Piangi..Buquet.. have you not looked closely at Christine?"
She knew perfectly well what Erik was capable of and he had not let her forget it for a minute. It's not as though she had gone for a stroll along the Seine with him. But knowing it had not exactly guided her behavior.
"Why did you go to him in the first place, you fool?" the inner voice nagged.
"You seem no worse for wear." Madame Giry conceded, laying a gentle hand on her daughter's bandaged foot. "The Vicomte was kind enough to send for his physician - ah, no refusal." she admonished before Meg could protest. "But I expect you are mending if he returned you."
"Raoul and Christine-"
"Do not know where you were or with whom. Though I daresay Christine suspects. Raoul doesn't want to know and would not listen even if we were to tell him."
"Why does Raoul hate him so?" Meg wondered softly, more to herself than to her mother.
"Love does dangerous things, Meg." they shared a look, both thinking of Erik. "If he was satisfied that you were well enough to return to me.." Madame Giry's eyes clouded with anxiety. The outcome could have been so much worse. "Then the physician is for appearances."
Meg sighed. "Yes, maman."
Her mother sighed and sat next to her on the bed, sinking into the covers. She suddenly looked older, her shoulders slumping slightly in defeat.
"Are you all right, maman?" Meg leaned forward, touching her mother gently.
"You have a good heart, my Marguerite. But he is a man, not an injured bird for you to nurse." Madame Giry gently squeezed her daughter's hand. "The Opera Ghost is not for you."
A deep ache bloomed in her chest. Everyone deserved someone to love them and she had love to spare. "Dangerous or not, I could have learned to love him." she thought stubbornly. But he had been besotted with Christine, could she convince him to love her instead?
"Promise me, mon petit, that you will not seek him out again."
"Maman, I - AH! Mon Dieu!" Meg's complaint cut off as her mother's gentle hand tightened, crushing Meg's fingers together.
"Promise me." she repeated, anger and fear heavy in every line of her face.
"I promise! I promise!" Meg whimpered, falling back into the pillows, cradling her crushed fingers to her chest. Madame Giry gave Meg one last, assessing look and, seeming satisfied that she could take Meg's word, swept silently from the room.