Author's note: Greetings, one and all! I am back with another update – all of the chapters until the end of the first act this time, since I wish to move on while I can. This stems from the fact that I am going to be having a rather lovely dental procedure (wisdom teeth removal, anyone?) done tomorrow, and so I need to update now while I can.
Cat: Thanks so much for your other comments on this story. I would have replied to your e-mail, but under parental jurisdiction, I'm not allowed to write "anyone I don't know" anymore. I'll still review your stories though, and will try to answer whatever questions you have regarding this, etc. Also, your idea about the Christmas phic was totally wonderful – I will most definitely try it, as I've re-thought the ending of Phantom Retold as it is. More on that later… As for the link to my Phantom artwork gallery, I haven't gotten it yet, but hopefully soon I will. And when I do, I'll post it on one of the chapters here, or in my profile.
Disclaimer: *rrrr* I don't own them. There!
Chapter Six –
The Unmasking
The Phantom's lair, the next morning…
Where am I? I thought, and then my eyes had flickered open. I stared numbly at my dim surroundings for a moment. I was on a bed of some sort, and it was large and soft. The four outlines of what appeared to be posts of some sort loomed in the darkness. I dug my fingers into the coverlet that was spread over me, wondering if I was at home or in the Opéra Populaire – but there was no goose-down pillows at home, and certainly no velvet, brocade, or satin. My bed in the boarding house had never been this soft…or had it? I then remembered my gala performance, the Phantom, our strange journey to his lair, and everything within it.
Had it all been a dream?
Then I let my eyes focus on the room around me. The warm and somehow cheering light of a fire that blazed in the fireplace nearby lit the room and I stared around myself in complete and undisguised awe.
Oh wonders.
Instantly, I sat up in bed and gazed at my surroundings.
The room that I was in was large and really quite spacious, in concordance with the rest of my Angel's home beneath the opera house. Even the bed upon which I lay was gigantic. It had a high, arching canopy of satin – the colour of which was somewhere between that of dried leaves, the finest Chardonnay wine, and liquid gold – that hung over the entire bed itself. The counterpane was worked with scrawling, complex designs of flowers, scrolls, and flourishes of gold and ivory, backed with the smoothest, most divinely fine satin that I had ever felt. And I could only assume that the gold and ivory coverlet, pillows, and sheets that covered me were made of either my own delirious fantasies or real, insanely select linen, satin, and velvet!
I fell back against the mountain of cushioning pillows.
How on earth could someone afford such luxuries? How could someone keep such wealth a secret? And what am I doing here? How did I, a small, orphan child, fit into this most elegant and glorious picture? How could I be in this room? I felt like a scrubby maid who had been caught in her mistress's boudoir rather than the exalted lady herself. However, although I was shocked by all of the wealth that surrounded me, and even more shocked by the fact that I had been placed in the midst of it, I really couldn't help letting my gaze travel around the rest of the room.
On either side of my bed were two tables. Both had cut-crystal vases that had been filled with the largest, most snowy white roses that I had ever seen. Their fragrance burst through the air like the scent of a bottle of perfume that had just been spilled on the carpet. When I looked down, nevertheless, I decided instantly that I would try to avoid spilling anything on the carpet that I saw beneath my bed. It was visibly thick and well crafted, with rich, Oriental-type designs, in the vibrant hues of wine-red mahogany, smoky green, glimpsing ivory and wondrously pure blue.
I barely kept my mouth from falling open.
The floor beneath the carpet was glossy, warm cherrywood, without a scar or blemish to betray that it had been used at all over the years that the Phantom had told me he had inhabited the place. A little way off from my bed and the table beside it was the wall with its door. On the wall opposite the bed was a dressing table. The light from the fireplace lit the room up enough for me to tell that it was equipped with a mirror and that two large, dark objects stood on either side of it.
Seized with a sudden urge to examine them more closely, I laid aside the covers and slipped out of the bed, reluctantly leaving its warmth behind me. The carpet was just as thick and rich as it had looked, and the soles of my bare feet welcomed its softness. I crossed the room to the dressing table, and, to my surprise, found a candelabrum sitting on its top. I managed to light the trio of candles with the aid of the obliging fire and placed the candelabrum back in its respective position on the dressing table. Thus enabled, I leaned over to examine the tabletop more closely.
It was made out of cherrywood – the same colour of the floor – and had delicate designs of hammered gold pressed into its surface here and there. A mirror, which had three segments to it and the same gold around its edges, composed its back. On the tabletop was a large, gem-studded jewelry box. I didn't touch it, being too interested in the other occupants of the table. Perfumes, all in cut-glass bottles of crystal and sapphire shades, stood in beguiling temptation to one side of the jewelry box. Of course, there were more jewelry boxes that I hadn't noticed before – the one that I had seen was the largest, thus I noticed it most easily – and they were filled, as I found later, with enough fabulously jeweled necklaces, earrings, combs, rings, and bracelets for a dozen vain princesses to gawk over. The jewels in the pieces alone were enough to make a seasoned collector's eyes pop out.
Another crystal vase stood to one side of the table. It too held a number of large, beautiful roses. These were red: deep, deep red that reminded me of the scarlet hues of lip colour that Meg had helped me apply to my lips the night before, for the gala performance of 'Hannibal'. I gazed up, dreamily, at the ceiling for a moment: not noticing the beautifully painted fresco of rosy, plump cherubs that danced, carefree and insouciant, blissful in their infant happiness, among the dawn-tinted clouds.
Had it really been only the night before that I had made my gala appearance on the stage of the Opéra Populaire? It seemed a lifetime away.
Finally, I continued my examination of the room.
The two large objects that I had seen on either side of the dressing table were a pair of gigantic, towering cherrywood armoires. They were of equal height and both were easily taller than I was, as was everything else in this subterranean, shadowy, yet somehow incredibly, unexplainably magnificent palace of my Angel. I was beginning to see him as more and more of a Pluto of sorts: a paragon of the beautiful, yet somehow drastically unintelligible master of the underground world, who, because of a mysterious disability to belong in the world of men, had created a realm of his own: a world where he could be complete master.
The thought intoxicated me.
Shaking all of that off, I left the dressing table and its pair of formidable, wooden bodyguards and crossed the room to the fireplace. On either side of it was two chairs, both high-backed, well upholstered, and deep cushioned. They were covered in a mesh of shimmering gold and cream-coloured brocade and both had two large pillows stuffed in their corners. I didn't care to disturb their tassels. The fireplace was easily big enough for me to fit my entire body inside, if I had wished to do so. However, I did not, as the fire was roaring quite warmly. A long, thick slab of engraved marble stretched over the fireplace's heat; books, their pair of carved jade bookends, shaped like Athenian-style horses, with glaring eyes, arching necks, and flaring nostrils, and yet another two vases of roses. They were champagne-coloured this time, with delicate veins of peach networking through them, lay on top of the marble.
I brushed my fingertips over the books, feeling their cool leather texture with a bit of awed reverence. I read Sophocles, Plato, Shakespeare, Aristotle, Dante – one of my personal favorites – and many other famous others among their titles.
La Belle et le Bete was there, as well.
Seeing that, I remembered my conversation with the Phantom from the night before and was suddenly shot with a reminder that I needed to find him, somehow, and ask what had happened the night before.
I had a really very dim recollection of it.
Leaving the books undisturbed and glancing at the bright, emerald green and sapphire blue-toned landscape painting that was above them in its guild gold frame, I turned towards the other part of the room that I hadn't already looked at. From where I stood, the wall with the door was to my back; the bed and its tables to my left; the dressing table, wardrobes, and small door, which I had guessed led into a dressing room of some sort, presumably, to my right; and the fireplace was directly in front of me.
A little distance to the left of the fireplace was a small alcove.
I went into it and found a tiny loveseat and window, complete with even more pillows, which looked inviting but went untouched, and a elbow-height shelf with still more roses – these were red and white. The curtained, diamond-paned window had a view that gave out on the lake and its shore. These were partially illuminated by the lights from the house, but the blackness beyond soon took over, banishing anything but the shadows and mist. I left that alcove and went across the space in front of the fireplace, finding another alcove. This one also had a window with a view of the lake, and it held more books, all placed in towering, stately shelves, and a writing desk. Pens, paper, and all sorts of writing instruments were there, just waiting for me to reach out and take them into my hands to waste away the hours.
But no – there was something that I had to do first.
I went to the door, which swung easily, invitingly open at my touch. I stood there for a moment, hesitating, and then I boldly stepped forward and crossed the threshold.
I walked down the hallway, not quite knowing where I was going, only sure of the fact that I had to find the Phantom.
Thus, it was completely unawares that I came upon the huge, tall room in which I had first seen him, the room with the portcullis, the candelabras, and the massive pipe organ and found him…my Angel of Music, the Phantom of the Opera.
* * * * * *
Narrative goes to the Phantom…
After Christine had fainted in startled, absolute fright the night before, I had carried her to the one of the only two bedrooms in my lair – her bedroom. She was as light as a feather, slender and tiny and delicate. I was afraid that I would hurt her if I didn't take the proper care in handling her.
Once I had carried her into the room, I laid her on the bed, gently easing her out of my arms, and covered her with the blankets there. Then I stood there by the bed, watching her, and had found myself wondering if she could ever know me for what I truly was. Most people hadn't ever cared to.
But I had hope: a small, faint, glimmering hope, like the star in the deepest crevice of Pandora's box, that maybe, perhaps, someday, that the young girl, the child, that I saw before me would be the cause of my salvation. Then I had closed my eyes, not wanting to see how beautiful she was, lying there, asleep. I hadn't wanted to think about what I could make her into, about how I could change her…about what she could do to me. I hadn't wanted to think about what could happen, if she ever saw me.
If she ever knew of the monster that lay behind the mask that I wore.
Pushing that thought out of my mind, I had lowered myself onto the edge of the bed and had sat there, gazing at her. She was so beautiful – but could a Beauty truly love a Beast, or was that only something that could come true in fairy tales?
I was certain that it was.
So, as tears had come and coursed down my face in an unmerciful, unrequited torrent, I had held her in my arms. I had held her: trying to know the touch of her small, soft body against mine, inhaling the sweet, rose-scent of her hair. I had held her: hearing – feeling – her even, measured breath against my wrists and neck, and recognizing the beautiful mounds of thick, silky dark curls that filled my hands, overflowing the expanse of my palms.
And then I had known that I could never let this angel go.
In the dim moments before dawn, in which she had drifted back to consciousness, I had lowered her out of my arms yet once again, and had left the room, leaving not a trace of the fact that I had been there during the night hours in which she had slept. I went into the room in which I kept my organ and, as was my habit, begun to once more work on the libretto that she had seen the night before.
Christine wouldn't awake for several hours.
She would be exhausted from the late hours that she had spent awake the last night and I had no desire to awaken her from her blissful sleep. The poor child was obviously never able to rest, as she needed to; that, I knew. She was almost eternally at the opera house, singing with the chorus, dancing with the ballet corps, repairing costumes, running errands for the superior performers, and trying to stay out of Carlotta's way. It angered me to see her pale and wan at the end of a hard, long day.
So I let her dream on.
I was in the midst of a tender, dream-like ballad that I intended to add somewhere into my libretto when I became distinctly aware of a presence behind me. I stood up and whirled around. Christine stood behind me.
My sense of apprehension abruptly released its hold on me and left a feeling somewhere between shaky uneasiness and awkward embarrassment behind itself. I stood there, stared at her for a moment, and then I looked down. She didn't make a sound. Finally, I lifted my head and broke the silence, knowing fully well that I had to.
"Good morning, mon petite." I said.
"Good morning, mon ange," she replied, in her sweet voice.
I, as my gaze held itself firmly riveted on her, noticed that the flickers of an uncertain, hesitant smile had come to the edges of her full, rosebud lips.
"Forgive me – did I interrupt you?"
Her words took a moment to register in my mind, which was stubbornly refusing the work after the last few hours of complete incertitude that I had experienced and I stared at her, unsure of what to say. Finally, the words clicked in my mind and I started a little, then shook my head, slowly. "No!" I replied, trying to reassure her. Then, I realized that I had spoken in a tone that had been rather abrupt, betraying my distracted frame of mind, and I attempted what might have been a called a smile. Even then, in spite of all my effort, the expression came out looking somewhat as if it had been painted onto my face. Ashamed, I looked away from her, unable to bear the awesome, dazzling light of her exquisite beauty.
"No, not at all, mon petite. I was only toying with that piece just now – your being here is much more important."
She nodded, and I looked away again, as an awkward, brassy silence stepped into the expanse between us. Mentally calling myself every insulting name that I knew of, I glared at the floor beneath our feet, as if it would somehow tell me what to do next.
The events of the night before were undoubtedly questionable, and Christine would have to know all of the answers to the mysteries of my being, my dwelling…my life. She had no idea who I was, while I knew almost everything about her. She didn't know where I came from, who I had known, why I had chosen her to be the one to enter the chaotic and frightening realm that I inhabited.
Perhaps I had caused her life to be somehow more confusing. Perhaps I had somehow put her in an uncomfortable, maybe even dangerous situation, by entering her life. Perhaps she didn't want to be what I had dreamed of her as being. Perhaps she didn't even want to know me, after what had happened the night before – after I had taken her away from the world that she had known, into a terrifying, labyrinthine maze of darkness, mist, and shadows, and left her in a room that she didn't know.
But I would have to risk that.
So, with a heave of air into my chest, I straightened up, turned around, and faced her once more. I watched her for a reaction for a moment – nothing. Her beautiful face betrayed no fear, her frame showed no indication of tense apprehension. We stared at each other for one long moment, the blue brilliance of her eyes gazing into mine.
"That song – the one that you were just playing…what is it?"
I glanced at her, questioningly.
"Oh – it's just a piece that I made up in my spare time here. I've had quite a lot of it," I confessed. Christine bit her full, almost square-shaped bottom lip and I knew that she had been reminded of the number of years that I had told her I had spent in the Opéra Populaire. She shook her head back over her shoulders and leaned forward a bit, cocking her head so that she could see me easier. I attempted to look away.
"What is its name?" she asked.
I squirmed a bit, uncomfortable; then, as if she was an innocent trying to coax a blessing from me: a black sorcerer, I made my reluctant reply.
"I call it 'All I Ask Of You'."
Her eyebrows raised and one corner of her beguiling, small mouth lifted a little.
"It's beautiful."
I shrugged, trying to seem unconcerned, as it felt the black silk of my jacket roll and ride up over my shoulders.
"Somewhat. Would you like to sing it with me, my dear?"
She truly smiled then.
"Yes – I would love to!"
I reached out with one hand and brought my fingertips so close to her cheekbone that they nearly touched it: so close that I could feel the warmth of her skin, and she turned her head towards me, slowly. I gazed deeply into her eyes, searching them for the truths that I knew were her soul, somewhere.
"Then sing with me…again."
Then, I began to play. The music of the piece filled the room, surrounding us and whisking away all other cares and worlds, until nothing remained but we two –Christine and the Phantom of the Opera – and the music that dreams alone can write.
* * * * * *
Christine resumes narrative…
Even today, I can still remember every single thing of the moments after the Phantom, my Angel, began to play his song to me.
When I close my eyes, I can see his hands as they moved across the immaculate keys of the organ, drawing the music from the depths of the instrument, breathing incredible grace and rhythm into the notes, and making them live. I can still smell the scent of paper, ink, and his cologne on the air, mingling and joining to create a fragrance like none other. I can see his beautiful, mysterious, and yet untouchably sad profile as he played the music for me. It seemed as if he was in an entirely different world.
And I will never, could never, forget what happened as soon as the last wonderful, sweeping notes of the piece died off, into the air.
Gone…but not forgotten.
Slowly, hesitantly, I reached up with my hand towards the back of his head, where the ties of his white porcelain mask wove into the shadow of his thick, wavy hair. As soon as my fingertips had made contact with his head, I felt a strange, awful, and yet thrilling feeling come over me. I felt as if I had just touched a part of the sun itself; warmth and cold raced through my being all at once and I closed my eyes, trying to regain what was left of my composure. He was still unaware of my hand… until I untied the fastenings of the mask.
With a gasp that sounded as if it was something in between a cry and a sob, he left off playing the music and turned towards me, the grace of his movements utterly vanished. But I kept my hand where it was and didn't let go. His hair was soft, yet slightly coarse, and when I looked at it closely, in the light, I could see the vague hints of gold against the greater expanse of warm, hazel brown. His eyes captured mine the instant that I turned my head a fraction of an inch to look into his face. I couldn't move my hand away from him, even though it seemed in the darkest recesses of my soul that I should…and I didn't want to. I felt his arm moving beneath mine and knew that his fingers would, in the next moment, close around my wrist.
He didn't want me to see what was behind the mask.
I had known that ever since I had first seen him face-to-face: or rather, face-to-mask. But somehow, I knew that I had to see him, had to know him, as he truly was, or something in our destinies would be strangely altered. If I didn't come to know him as he truly was, if he wouldn't let me into his heart, if he wouldn't open his soul to me, I felt as if the way that I saw him would be exactly the same as the way that I now saw him. Through the rosily tinted glass of a window, from behind the enclosing, blank, harsh whiteness of the façade that he wore…from behind a mask.
I had to see him. That was all. Doing so – seeing him and allowing him to see me in the light of who we were, what we were, how we had gotten here together, and where we were going – was the most important, all-determining thing that I knew of. There was no way around it. I had made my decision, and I would abide by it, even if it killed me. And so, I moved my fingers to the side of the mask.
"Christine, please," he said, pleadingly. I looked down for a moment, gathering my strengths and knowing that, if I didn't carry out the action that I was about to do, I would forever regret it.
I have to be strong.
"Christine," he said again, "You don't know…you don't want to…don't do this…please."
I sat back, the ties of his mask undone by my trembling fingers, my other hand resting on the edges of its whiteness, almost curving around his cheekbone. I could feel the warmth of his skin beneath the mask and knew…
How could he be subhuman if his skin was just as warm and alive as mine was?
As anyone's?
We then faced each other and I gazed at him, ignoring the hot tears that slipped down my cheeks, flowing steadily from my eyes. He lifted his head, bringing it so close to me that our faces were just inches apart, and looked deeply into my eyes, and I could tell, in the deepest places of my heart, that he was trying to reach out and grasp the last, faint traces of reason within me.
I wouldn't be reasonable. Things had gone too far between us for reason to be relevant any longer. I wouldn't succumb to the order of the world's ways – not now. I wanted to see things, everything, the way that he did.
I wanted to live as he did.
That meant that I couldn't go back.
Not now.
As I edged my fingertips beneath the mask, he caught my hand and looked once more into my eyes. Somewhere deep inside of our souls, we locked together: our emotions, our thoughts, our fears, hopes, and aspirations, became as one, traveling together at perfect timing. "Christine," he said, his voice no longer broken by tears or strained by emotions far too raging to control, but low and even, as his eyes read me, read my heart and mind, "Are you sure that you want this?"
I looked into his eyes, gathering strength from him, from everything around us: past and present. And, hoping for the future, I made my reply.
"Yes."
And as I whispered that single word, I lifted the mask off of his face…and there he was before me: the Angel of Music, the Phantom of the Opera. A man. The left side of his face was just as beautiful, fine-featured, and handsome as it had been before.
But the right side was deeply and utterly disfigured.
I had seen great ugliness before: the masks that the actors sometimes wore in the more grotesque, macabre versions of the performances that the Opéra Populaire put on, the gargoyles that sat atop the spires and towers of the cathedral of Notre Dame. But never before had I seen anything as horrible as my Angel's face. It was hard for me to not be tempted to look closer, just to ascertain that I wasn't looking at yet another mask, or some sort of horrible makeup.
No: this was his face, as clear as day.
Stretching from the top corner of his face, where the darkness of his hairline met his high, perfect forehead, was a horrendous indenture that looked as if part of his head had been hit by a large piece of shrapnel and scarred, its sharp fingers etching themselves into the top half of his forehead. Just below them, where the exact copy of his arching, dark left eyebrow should have been was nothing: only a slight line that spoke of the space that another eyebrow had vacated. Next to the bridge of his nose were two hideous splits, which were joined by several more at the end of his nose, beside his cheekbone. Slashing into the bone that crossed his face were two deep gashes that made his face resemble that of a skeleton. His lips seemed as if they had been stretched out of proportion and were roughened by a number of rude slashes.
It was a very ugly face.
Yet, as I looked at him, my mind whirling, I suddenly found that – when I stared into his eyes, past the outer horror of his face – it didn't matter.
His face was the most horrendously disfigured that I had ever seen and it was certainly very frightening. But it was him. It was his face. A simple face: part of him. If his face was disfigured, it was only something about him that wasn't necessarily attractive. He was no less of a man now, unmasked and vulnerable to my searching eyes, than he had been the night before, aloof and shielded by anonymity and disguise. It was a face, just like mine. It was true: both of our faces were different, but they were also same in many, many ways.
It was nothing to be afraid of.
Meeting his gaze with my own, I faced him, knowing that this, his disfigurement, was the terrible secret that he had kept from me. It was the reason why he had come to the Opéra Populaire, in all essence: to build a world of his own, a realm where no one could find him, where no one could reach him. Here, in the safety of the hidden passageways and trapdoors of the Opéra, he could hide away from mankind and become a figure – the Phantom – that so many people feared and respected with awe.
His face was the reason why he had hidden himself from me for so long.
A sudden chill went through me and I tore my gaze away from him, abruptly, as I realized just what that meant.
He thought that I would repulse him because of his face.
I heard his voice then, and it drew me out of my shock and brought me back into the living world. However, even as a strange, newfound hope and understanding flooded my mind, I could distinctly detect the echoes of grim, expectant sadness in his voice as he spoke. I looked up and saw that his face was just as pale as I knew mine had to be. We were both crying. He looked long and hard into my eyes and spoke, his voice low.
"Now you see me, Christine," he said. "Now you know. I'm not an angel, and I never was. I'm not the fulfillment of your father's promise, and I'm not a spirit sent from Heaven. I…I'm just another man."
So saying, he looked down at his hands, seeming as if he wanted to somehow use them to harm himself somehow and I saw that they trembled.
He was afraid – just as afraid as I was.
Afraid of what would happen, now that I knew him as himself; afraid of the world of possibilities that were assailing us; afraid of the past fears, lies, and hurt that could very probably come back to haunt him; afraid of the future. Not knowing how he would react, I reached out and took his hands into mine, covering them with my palms and twining my fingertips with his. He flinched.
At the exact same moment, we both jerked our heads up and our eyes met, once again. This time, I knew exactly what I was going to do, what I was going to say. And so, attempting a somewhat weak, hesitant little smile, I spoke, ignoring the way that my voice dipped unsteadily over the words.
"It's your face." I told him.
The Phantom looked at me for one long, seemingly eternal moment, his beautiful eyes incredulous and dark in his disbelief, as if he didn't know whether he wanted to believe me or not. All at once, just when I was least expecting it, he withdrew inwards, seeming to mentally and almost physically collapse. Without a second thought, I reached forwards and took him in my arms.
And then I held him.
My grasp on him was hesitant and somewhat unsure at first, and I could feel his frame shaking. I closed my eyes and drew him closer, clasping my hands around him, feeling his warmth against me: his form holding close to mine as our grasp on each other tightened, his head resting against my shoulder, a firm and yet uncertain pressure against my skin. I held him for as he wept, his tears dampening the lacy, white silk of my gown, until he was quiet.
The entire lair, became silent and still as a peaceful crypt at rest.
I let my eyelids slide open, until I could see the quivering, dark slashes that my eyelashes made against the greater pearl-like grayness of light in the room. At the corner of my eye, almost out of the range of my vision, I could see the Phantom's shoulders, black and impassive as ever, yet bowed by the final ability to let go. His thick, longish hair was incredibly soft, yet slightly coarse against my cheekbone as I rested my head against his. He was breathing. I could feel the warmness of it against my neck and collarbones, under my wrists, against my elbows as his chest moved in perfect, relentless rhythm to his intake of air. We were quiet a few moments longer.
Finally, then, he raised his head.
His mismatched eyes were still shining from the tears that had haunted them and I could see perfectly every one of the shimmering flecks of colour that were in them. Brushing his hair off of his forehead, he sat up a little. Then, he heaved a sigh and spoke.
"Incredible."
He paused.
"No one has ever…held me – like that…ever before."
He had been looking down at our hands, still firmly clasped, as he said that. Then he looked up and gazed into my eyes as he continued, looking away at something that I couldn't see, and his grasp on my hand tightened.
"Compassion is something that I've…" he trailed off, shaking his head, not quite meeting my eyes. "It's something that I've never really known. No one has ever really cared to look at me – I doubt that they would have wanted to. One look at my mask," he gestured brusquely at the porcelain mask, which was lying on the bench next to me, abandoned and gaping in its skeletal whiteness, "And people decided that I was a freak, a specter, a monster, a creature not worth thinking on."
"They hated you…because of your face." I said, my voice low and barely a whisper. I was angry. Without looking up, he nodded.
"Absolutely. Then again," he did look up then, and his usual, wry, somewhat bitter smile crossed his face, on both the handsome and ugly side, as his left eyebrow quirked acerbically, "It wasn't exactly surprising for me to know that."
He shook his head, as the light from above and around us, edged into his eyes and made them seem to glow somehow. His gaze centered on the metallic surface of the organ in front of us. Its surface was so mirror-like that we could almost see our reflections in it. He was staring at himself, at his face, looking into the eyes of what most people would name a monster, in bitter resignation. Then, he looked back to me, and this time, his expression was unpalatable.
"I would have been a greater fool, long ago, when people first started hating me because of my face, than I am now if I hadn't come to grips with the fact that I was exactly what they called me."
He sighed, a long, deep sigh that seemed to emanate from the most shadowy reaches of his soul.
"A freak – God's punishment to whomever my parents might have been for some past misdeed, a monster spawned by heaven-knows-what sorcery. Any name you can think of, I've been called it."
Suddenly, he moved quickly and was looking into my eyes again, his hands reaching to take mine again. I cocked my head and let my eyelids drop a little, scrutinizing him and wondering why everything and nothing in the way that I looked at him had changed. Somehow, his touch seemed a world less cold.
I drew a shaky breath and stared down at our hands, clasped together above my lap: his, long, pale, and slim, and mine, small and diminutive, not fitting into the backdrop of finery around them, that backdrop that they, that I, had been so strangely and suddenly dropped into. After a moment of thought, I raised my head and met his eyes. He was scrutinizing me once more. I ran my tongue briefly over my abruptly and very rudely dry lips and gathered my words carefully.
"You are not a monster, mon ange," I told him. He turned his head away as I continued, "You are not God's punishment on your family, either. God doesn't punish people that way. He doesn't hurt His creation, His children – infants just starting their life in the world – in the way that people assume He occasionally does. It's your face, just like my face is mine. It's nothing to be afraid of."
My voice went softer as I added, "And it's nothing to hate. People who hate you are ignorant – they're afraid of the task of looking beyond the things that they see on the outside. And they shouldn't be."
He laughed a little, but the sound was hollow and bitter: dry as leaves in the autumn and dust that swirled on the wind in miniscule cyclones on a windy day, and then he asked, "You're saying that this isn't anyone's fault, in some way, then?"
There was more than a slight undertone of doubt in his voice.
"Are you telling me that this is something that shouldn't be hated?" He raised his hand and gestured to his face, as his beautiful, mismatched eyes became hard and pierced through me. I felt a surge of adrenaline rush through my veins, as I replied, "Yes – that is what I am telling you, mon ange."
There was a pause; he stood, then, and held out a hand to me.
Wondering what was going to happen next, I stood and, hesitating for only a moment, put my hand in his. He then stared at it for a moment, as if he was memorizing the veins and pores in the skin. Finally, he looked at me and spoke, slowly, each word defined and deliberate. "I'm not so certain that others will agree with you, mon petite," he said; then, he added, "But I am completely certain now that I can tell you one thing."
I smiled.
"And what would that one thing be?"
He looked down. After a moment, he held out his hand, silently asking me to give him his mask back. I returned it to him, and he replaced it over his face, tying its laces, and once more hiding within it all of the secrets that lay behind its porcelain whiteness. He paused then.
"You've made my life worth living," he replied. "That's what it is."
We smiled into each other's eyes.
* * * * * *
Author's note: Here's to Christine having a backbone! I liked Kay's version a lot better than ALW's, no offense – I found Kay's version to be more compassionate and more understanding while still, at the same time, maintaining her original Christine-ness. But this is, I shall tell you right now, going to be an essentially all E/C phic, so I had to keep with the romance idea. R&r, please!