He usually did not care for colder climates but New York City suited him fine. It was a busy place with hundreds of thousands of people crammed into Manhattan with more people pouring in from all corners of the world every day. Many people stared but few cared enough to bother the odd old man wearing a mask. He was foreign, an eccentric, he'd heard some murmur and Erik was content to let them think that.
Weak spring sunlight squeezed through the heavy black drapes over a drafty window. Erik shuddered, turning the gas lantern higher and lighting extra candles around his workspace. A decade above ground had not been enough to accustom him to the harsh natural light. He lightly caressed the piano keys; the pen in his left hand was still.
Erik missed the opera house and its opulence, ostentatious but beautiful, filled to bursting with the Parisian elite in their rustling silks and brightly coloured plumage. Oh, and the sound! If he closed his eyes he could still hear the humming strings and thundering drums, perfectly ornamented by the pure and clear song of Christine Daae soaring through the auditorium. Theatres in New York were small and none as large and grand as the Populaire and certainly none so deep that he could live beneath them. Vaudeville was the flavor of the day but he did not care for it; it reminded him too much of those years he spent travelling in the gypsy freak show. Still, the performers paid him well for personal compositions and others sought him out for lessons. If the mask he wore ever bothered them, they never let on. Life was busy but Erik still longed for the underground, the damp darkness, nestled in the womb of a temple of art and sound.
"A fantasy." He snorted, the vision of Christine alone on the stage vanishing. The fop would've stolen her away soon enough, luring her away from Erik's sphere of influence. Her angelic voice, surely a gift from Heaven, silenced forever. Erik grimaced and tossed the pen aside. He had been determined to forget Christine the day he sailed from France, to forget the whole sorry lot of them. He had stood on deck and mentally carved her from his heart but he had not cut deeply enough.
"How can one forget an angel?" Erik murmured to the tiny gilt frame atop the piano, a newspaper clipping announcing Christine's marriage to the vicomte, accompanied by a fuzzy photograph. Madame Giry had sent it to him years ago. Erik sighed, he never wanted her to know he still lived but she was the only one he trusted to retrieve the valuables he'd left behind.
"In spite of her betrayal."
Madame Giry leading the fop to him and Christine had hurt almost as much as losing Christine. But the hurt did not ache as it once had or could have if not tempered by the kindness that little Meg had shown him. He emptied the contents of Madame Giry's latest envelope onto the keys, two clippings of Meg and a small spidery note about her daughter's new position. Meg looked radiant in her regalia, graceful and fluid; no longer 'little Meg' but a mature woman who had, hopefully, shed girlhood fancies of lonely ghosts.
"Hopefully I am long forgotten."
The huddled whispers of curious chorus girls still followed him around only this time they knew him to be a man and not a haunt or cautionary tale to scare the little ones with. Erik took pains to avoid their attentions but his aloofness only fueled the interest further. It was the mask that lent the mystery but if they knew what lay beneath..
"But Meg did see Erik and she did not scream."
The bell hung on the front door clanged wildly and Erik jumped, loud stomping in the hallway announced the arrival of his Tuesday morning pupil.
"Monsieur Raquet?" a female voice drawled and a shapely blonde appeared in the doorway, not having bothered to be received properly.
"Miss Hayes." Erik smiled thinly and motioned her over. His least favourite time of the week but he poured his annoyance onto the piano, warming up his fingers. The woman had little stage appeal and no ear for music at all but her family had a lot of money and no propriety; other ladies of Miss Hayes' social standing would not be seen near a stage.
"I trust you are in good health?" he asked noncommittally. "Good, let us begin." Erik led her through a series of very basic warm ups and then arpeggios and though he couldn't deny that Miss Hayes could carry a tune, it wasn't a very pleasing tune. There was a shrill, nasal quality to her tone that needled its way under his skin. If he dallied and drew out the warm up long enough there wouldn't be time to rehearse any actual music, which would please him; Miss Hayes had chosen enjoyable songs and Erik had every intention of continuing to enjoy them by not marring the tunes with her voice.
"Oh who is that?" Miss Hayes had moved too closely, standing just behind his shoulder as he shuffled sheet music. She was pointing to the framed clipping of Christine.
"Just a former student." Erik said flatly, giving her a firm push. "Please, Miss Hayes, you are crowding me."
"Your former student was Christine Daae?" she reached over and snatched the frame from the piano. "How fascinating! It's so sad, you know, what happened to her."
Erik stiffened, his topaz eyes narrowed to slits behind the mask. "What happened to her?" She couldn't possibly think that trifling with him was a good idea. Not that she had any clue about what happened between him and Christine, nor would she ever.
"You hadn't heard?"
"I've not instructed Miss Daae in many years."
"Oh." Miss Hayes reluctantly gave up her prize as Erik pried the photograph from her fingers. "She died in childbirth, nothing exceptionally tragic you know, but still so sad for her children."
"You lie. Where did you hear such nonsense?"
"In the society papers of course, don't you read?"
"Then your papers lie." He hissed. Her lips kept moving but Erik could no longer hear her. The world was as upside down as his insides. Christine, dead? It was impossible!..wasn't it? Erik's fingers itched for his lasso, even a rag and a bottle of ether would do. Anything to silence her lies.
"Oh, dear, would you look at the time." Erik slumped, a little disappointed to choose the civil option of being rid of his student. "I fear our lesson is over for this week."
"I hope I haven't dampened your spirits, Monsieur Raquet." She paused at the door and for a moment looked beautiful in her complete sincerity.
"No, of course not. People die every day." Erik muttered at her retreating form. The door slammed and the bell clanged in protest.
He left the piano, stretching his long legs cramped from sitting too long. Peering through the slit in the drapes, Erik squinted into the sunshine and watched the neighbourhood children thundering past followed by the booming, accented voices of their immigrant parents. The sky had not darkened, it remained impertinently clear. The earth had not been ripped asunder nor did flames dance from the cracks. The world had not ended; it was another ordinary Tuesday and Christine was dead.
"Erik does not love Christine. He dropped his heart into the ocean."
Erik flung himself onto the creaky couch, staring at the ceiling, his eyes burning with tears he could not muster.
"Erik does not love Christine." He whispered, conjuring memories of beautiful, soft and warm Christine, now cold and hard and lifeless; his heart ached but still he could not cry. "Erik does not love Christine." He choked back a dry eyed sob.
Hours passed, his old bones ached too, he had not moved, could still not cry. Madame Giry had not sent him notice of her death, unless it was still making its way through the post.
"Unless she decided not to tell Erik, too afraid that scary old Erik will come back to punish her." He paused, eyes opening wide. "Maybe Erik should go back. He wants to ask the black spider why she did not write to him. Erik needs to say goodbye to his Christine."
He sprung to his feet, rejuvenated. A single trunk held all the clothing he required, some books and his music. Erik scrawled a note for the landlady, for surely it was too late to call upon her, and tucked away the cash to cover the rent in his absence. Feeling very much like the Opera Ghost again, he donned the long black cloak and swept from the building.
Erik felt positively giddy as he rode to the waterfront, chuckling quietly as he imagined Madame Giry's reaction when he materialized before her, cape outstretched like a vampire coming to drain her blood. Perhaps her heart would give out from the surprise. He laughed aloud at the thought.
"By dawn, Erik will be at sea, like a black carrion crow waiting for the dead, Erik is ready to play the funeral march!"