Late season snows gave away to seasonal spring mud, which spread like spilled chocolate on the hems of her skirts and stained almost as stubbornly. The cemetery gate shrieked in protest at Meg's intrusion but she persisted and shoved her way inside. Cold rain misted down soaking her bonnet, clinging to her clothes, her face shone wet with moisture. Water dripped from the petals of the soggy flowers she carried.
"Oh to be a sponge and wring myself out." She muttered, tucking a wet strand of hair behind her ear. The Chagny mausoleum beckoned from the end of the puddle strewn path and Meg hopped nimbly over them, keys jangling in her skirt pocket, to Christine's tomb and its promise of shelter.
She rushed up the steps, slipping the key into the lock. "Come on," Meg told the door, anticipating a struggle, but the key turned easily and the door swung open. "Raoul must have had that repaired." Meg stepped into the chilly peace of the mausoleum and shut the door, letting the darkness envelope her. She fumbled with matches until one finally ignited and lit the lamps left there for her use. They cast long shadows across the room, Meg hesitated; she was not alone.
"Of course you're not alone. You're in a room full of dead people." She took a deep breath and crossed over to the newest tomb, setting her lamp on the stone lid. The soggy wildflowers made a poor addition to the beautiful hot house flowers that adorned the base of Christine's grave, even those blooms beginning to wilt. But her friend had been simple at heart and with the arrival of spring, Meg brought wildflowers each visit.
Meg had come to the cemetery every chance she had to slip away, several times a week, each time tracing the letters etched into the stone, whispering the letters like a secret incantation; the flowers, the lamp light and Christine's name stirring an ancient magic that would bring the singer back to her. But the room was silent save for Meg's breath and the rainfall outside, the grave undisturbed, the bad dream she could not wake from continued on.
"Raoul wants to sell the ballet." She started, absently cleaning the older flowers away as she filled Christine in on all that had been going on. "I thought he might keep it, out of respect for you. Maybe it's just too hard." Meg picked dried leaves from the stones, placing them in a pile. "Your comte never did like ballet - But..Your angel would have never let it go." She sighed as she climbed to her feet. Erik was never far from her mind and Meg often wondered how he would have done things had it been he in Raoul's place. "Lose his mind with grief, no doubt." Meg reached for the lamp; a rose she had missed in her first pass caught her eye. Meg gasped and held the lamp closer, illuminating the dark corner of the lid were two roses lay, one red, the other white, in full bloom and tied together with a silk red ribbon.
"It's him, I know it's him!" she whispered, rubbing the silk ribbon between her fingers. Christine's angel had been to her final resting place. Meg slipped the white rose from its companion and wandered to a corner wall vault, where Christine's baby girl rested. The offerings there were fewer, the sad afterlife of a much anticipated child. Delicate Helene de Chagny, aged two days, much longer than anyone had imagined she would live, had been interred quietly after her mother. Her father had barely been able to look at the baby; no one in the household could. Meg took charge, wheedling the priest to baptize the baby right away. Madame Giry had come at Meg's invitation and together, with the nurse, they watched over Helene until the end. She had been buried without ceremony.
"I wonder if your father even told your brothers and sisters about you." Meg murmured, tucking the rose in the crack between the vault and the wall. Mothers sometimes gave birth and died, many along with their infants. She knew Raoul had told them that much anyway. Meg caressed the plaque that bore the baby's name and prayed that mother and child were at peace in heaven. "This wasn't supposed to happen." She told Christine's resting place, her voice cracked. "Why'd you leave us?"
Christine's demise in childbirth was a grim reminder to Meg that marriage and children could bring disaster. She felt like a fool to have ever been jealous of her friend. "I will dance until I die."
"Until you die from what, petite Marguerite?"
Meg whirled around to see Raoul ducking through the door and removing his hat to shake the water from it. She leaned against Christine's stone, trying to knock the remaining rose off with her elbow.
"It's nothing. I'm only realizing that perhaps motherhood is not all it is made out to be." She heard the flower hit the floor and when Raoul turned away to peel off his drenched great coat, she pushed it into the shadows with her foot. "I think I would prefer to dance, until someone forces me off the stage."
"It doesn't always end this way, Meg." He had moved in too close and she could feel his hot breath on the side of her head.
"More often than anyone cares to discuss though." Meg frowned and sidled away unnoticed. Raoul sat quietly before the stone, like he was communing with it. Meg studied the Comte from a more comfortable distance, noticing thin silver streaks in his blond hair. His shoulders stooped ever so slightly as they had since Christine's death, the strain of family and grief crushing down, trying to break him. Meg did wish to help him and the children however she could, she wasn't heartless. But he'd been acting more familiar with her since the night they lost Christine and it just wasn't right.
The white rose taunted her from Helene's vault. She could not shake the sensation that the phantom had returned to pay his respects. "Don't be absurd, Meg. He died, maman said so. Why would she lie to you?". Madame Giry had plenty of reason to lie to her and Meg knew it. She glanced around the dim room, wondering if she would catch a glimpse of the shade, somewhere inside and hiding.