Author's note: So, here we stand: Christine and Erik are off to Perros-Guirrec, and we all know what happens there. (Another Erik-gets-a-tad-violent scene – wheeee!)
Disclaimer: Can anybody recommend me a good disclaimer muse? Mine's gone somewhat AWOL at the moment, and my other disclaimer/claimer muse from my Beauty and the Beast story can't work for this one, so right now I'm left with nothing to work with. Okeeee…I don't own Phantom, I just write about it for phun.
Chapter Eighteen –
L'Ange et la belle
Christine resumes the narrative…
Taking a quick glance behind myself to make sure that my exit was unnoticed, I stepped through the massive front doorway of the Opéra Populaire and into the biting, ice-cold air of mid-winter Paris. Then, as I stood there, my cloak blowing about me as the wind tore at my voluminous, white skirts, I listened to the silence. In the give-nothing, frozen atmosphere that surrounded the exterior of the opera house, I was finally able to think again.
If I didn't come up with a way to both do as Erik wished and somehow save him from the managers' plot, all would be lost – literally. I couldn't betray Erik, I knew that. I couldn't, wouldn't, do such a thing to him. I had made that choice, but now I had to escape, to make my plans. I had left a letter inside the mirror, informing him that I needed to desperately needed to tell him something and of where I wanted him to meet me.
I fully intended to tell him of the plot.
If I couldn't find a way to rescue him, to keep him from danger, I would at least give him a way to escape this dire fate.
So then I closed my eyes, gathering my cloak about my body for warmth, and prayed.
"Help me."
The wind carried away my whispered words as soon as I had spoken them. I went on, knowing that circumstances were completely out of my hands now.
"Please. I can't do this alone – I never could."
I opened my eyes, slowly allowing myself to see my surroundings again, knowing what I had to do. The Opéra Populaire held nothing but indecision, hopeless frustration, grief-filled tears, and black, horrible betrayal for me…for anyone really. So I gathered my cumbrous skirts into my hands and ran down the icy steps of the Opéra Populaire's grand façade. I lost a slipper in the process and had to go back for it, but I waved to a passing carriage, flagging the driver down.
As he pulled over to the side of the street and waited for my bidding, I gritted my teeth and berated myself impatiently: You know, there is a reason why ladies wear such tiny little shoes and abstain from dashing down large staircases, Christine Daae! Why do you have to be such a blockhead? What if Erik saw you acting like this?
I stood from the steps as soon as I had finished pulling my slipper back onto my foot and brushed restlessly at the errant strands of my hair that the cold January wind had whisked across my forehead. Then, composing myself and attempting to look as if I knew what I was doing, I crossed to the carriage and spoke to the driver, tipping my head back to look up at him.
"Excuse me, sir," I said, raising my voice so that he could hear me, "Could you please take me to Perros-Guirrec in Brittany? I can fully compensate you for your troubles."
The driver turned back to his four sturdy, smoke-coloured stallions and flicked his whip nonchalantly, delicately, over their shoulder blades as they tossed their heads, eager to be on their way once more.
"But of course, mademoiselle. Please, we are your servants."
He jumped down off of his seat and opened the carriage door for me; I gave him a sincere smile and thanked him, saying that I would pay him the total price of my passage when we arrived in the town that I had named. The driver nodded and shut the door behind me. The carriage shifted slightly as he climbed back up into his seat and I glanced out the window as I settled into my seat.
And then I began my journey to Perros-Guirrec in Brittany – the village that held the final resting-place of my father, Charles Daae, little knowing what I would face there.
* * * * * *
Very many summers of my childhood had been spent in Brittany.
My father had had a summerhouse there, where we had stayed when I was only a very little girl. I can still remember the taste of sweet, saltwater air on my lips…the feel of the teasing, gentle breezes that blew off of the ocean as they tangled their light, deft fingers in my long, dark hair…the smell of pine trees curling around me…the sound of seaside grasses as they rustled in the wind.
Brittany had always been a place of happiness for me. But it was not happiness that I now sought.
In Brittany, there was a small hamlet known as Perros-Guirrec. It was a tiny, quaint, out-of-the-way province: a friendly seaside town where everyone seemed to know each other by name. My father's wish had been to be buried in Perros-Guirrec, and I, as a miserable, lonely child, had watched a group of four grim pallbearers lower his coffin into a grave there. I hadn't visited the summertime home of my childhood since his death, but now: as I found myself once more gazing at its surroundings, I realized that nothing at all had changed.
Nothing had been altered. The town square with its hitching post, fountain, and spray of ever-cheerful red geraniums, temporarily wilted by the winter's snow and ice and cold, were still there; a mother and daughter duo still ran their millinery shop next to the warmhearted, hearty baker and his family of ten. I will never forget my first sight of that town: I can recall – with perfect detail, to this day – the flood of emotions that had almost overwhelmed me when I stepped out of the carriage that had borne me from Paris to Brittany's tiny Perros-Guirrec.
I deviate from my story, however.
After I paid the obliging driver of my carriage, I turned and gazed at my surroundings: remembering…knowing. Then, I shook myself out of my reverie and began my trek down the road that led towards Perros-Guirrec's sole church. It was a beautiful, fairy-tale chapel with a bell-tower and a combination of forest and garden that surrounded it. And it was in that church's graveyard that my father was buried.
Moments later – Perros-Guirrec was a small town and it didn't take long to get to any place there – I had found my way to the church and stood at its gate, gazing upwards at it. I heard the soft chiming of the mid-afternoon bells and, instantly, an old, memory-filled poem came to my lips along with the sound of those bells. I stepped inside of the gate and began to walk towards the solemn, quiet cemetery.
Little Lotte
Thought of everything and nothing…
Her father promised her
That he would send her the Angel of
Music…
Her father promised her…
Her father promised her…
And then I had reached my final destination.
Feeling as if I was entering the undisturbed, majestic tomb of some ancient pharaoh, I slipped silently across the broad, snow-covered yard, the iced-over surface crunching ever so slightly beneath my slippers with each step I took. I drew my hood off of my head as I reached the centre of the lawn and looked with longing, searching eyes.
Far back within the cemetery was my father's grave: a large, stone mausoleum with a canopy-like shade of ivy growing over its length. So many years had passed since the monument's placement that the plant life had been allowed to run wild around, above, and in it, casting a sort of rustic, untended aura about its stones.
It was a truly beautiful place – the type of place that induced all sorts of memories.
I stopped before the mausoleum and stared at it, unable to move. The wind whispered enticing secrets around me, inviting me to forget everything in my life and merely enjoy the day, but I found that I couldn't do anything of the sort. I couldn't abandon the tangle of lies, broken hopes, and desperate passions that composed my life: not now…not ever. I took a seat a little way off from the grave and spoke to the air, which seemed to listen attentively.
"You were once my one companion…"
I murmured those words, speaking to no one in particular. If anyone had walked past and heard me, I doubt that I would have cared.
"You were all that ever mattered to me – my friend, my father. Everything was perfect with you and me, Father, and then my dreams, my world…they were shattered."
I then changed my tone, speaking now in almost barely a whisper.
"Why did God give me Erik? I believed that you would send me the Angel of Music when I was a child, Father – you remember! L'Ange de Musique? I thought that he was an angel at first, mon père, because he is. No one else sees it…even he doesn't see it, I think. But he is. He has always been with me."
I shook my head, trailing off at that sentence.
"He never left…and he never will. He said it himself. I don't want him to leave, Father…and yet it seems as if there isn't any way for me to keep him with me. Unless I find some way to save him, I will lose him…whether we wish for such a thing to happen or not."
There wasn't any way to go on then.
I stood, tears streaking down my face and dropping onto the curved neckline of my flowing white gown. Then, I took one last glance at the mausoleum, knowing that answers wouldn't come from it…ever.
Silence. And then…
Music.
"Christine…"
"Angel, are you really here?"
And then, without a single moment of warning, he emerged from behind the sculpted, Gothic cross that crowned the top of the mausoleum.
He was there: really there…he had come, at my call.
The Angel of Music, the Phantom of the Opera.
Erik.
A full distance of more than twenty feet separated us: he, on top of the statue, and me, on the ground, incapable of any action but staring at him. I stared at him, paralyzed by his dark beauty, wondering if what I was seeing could possibly be reality.
He didn't move: gazing back at me with his strange, beautiful, entrancing eyes – the eyes that seemed to pierce straight through me and see everything inside of my soul. He was wearing his usual, dramatic, impossibly elegant opera garb, I noticed: complete with the diabolically-shaped, black velvet fedora hat crowned his high brow, cutting low over his forehead and nearly hiding his right eye. His cape moved gently in the wind, like the resting wings of a giant bat, but Erik himself made no movement.
It seemed as if we were both too spellbound by the sight of each other to react…even though words – actions – seemed to be called for. Finally, I found my voice and spoke to him, although it seemed as if I was dreaming the whole entire scene.
"Erik…"
And, although I heard the soft crunch of booted feet on the gravel and ice in the gardens behind us, I paid the sound no heed as Erik spoke, his beautiful voice soft and tender, enticing me to come to him. Had he been any nearer to me…
"We have no hope in this world, mon amour…" he said. I took a step towards him, never once taking my gaze from his. I was too afraid that he would disappear, evaporating into thin air, and leave me once again.
"But now I have this chance to take you with me, to make you mine, and leave this world – this world that is so unkind, so cold and mindless…"
"Will you take me with you?" I asked, my voice a murmur.
He held out his hand to me and I looked into his face. The expression upon his handsome features seemed desperate, broken, sad, and yet desiring…loving and passionate. I wanted to bring him into my arms, take off his mask, and cover his hands and face with kisses, to hold him and never let go.
I kept walking towards him.
"Angel, beautiful child – do not shun me!" he said, softly. "Come to me, my love…come and be mine."
A voice broke into the silence between Erik and me and I whirled around, the moment broken, as someone shouted angrily, "Angel of Darkness, cease this torment! Let her go, for goodness' sake! Let her go!"
I looked back to Erik. The expression on his face had altered and it instantly terrified me. Raoul had somehow found his way to me and now he was here, keeping Erik from luring me back to himself…something that Erik didn't remotely appreciate.
A mocking, icy, and utterly dangerous gleam coming into his eyes, Erik turned towards Raoul, facing him with murder in his countenance.
NO! I mentally screamed at them, NO! This can't happen – you can't do this again! Don't do this to me again!
Knowing that I would be unable to bear the possibility that Erik could fall once more: when I could stop it, I made a futile attempt to keep them apart.
"Raoul, no…!" I began, but Erik's voice drowned out my words.
"Bravo, monsieur – such spirited words!" he cried.
In the next instant, a pole that appeared to be some sort of pike materialized in his hands. As I stared on in horror, I realized that it had a sculpted, silver skull impaled on its top end: its eyes were made of faceted, blood red rubies. Erik's long, slender hand momentarily tightened on the pike and I was unable to understand what he had just done until a ball of fire – hot, devouring, white fire – spewed from the skull's gaping mouth. It fell, burning, to the ground and exploded, with mind-shattering noise, directly at Raoul's feet as he began to walk, slowly and deliberately, towards Erik.
I felt as if I was an invisible, unheeded, small, and overall helpless component of some sort of stygian nightmare. I couldn't move as the two men in my life faced each other: both seeming to burn with indescribable, unthinkable fury.
"More tricks, monsieur?" Raoul inquired, calmly, coldly and Erik beckoned to him: inviting him to come forward and receive his just reward, as his now dark eyes sparked an inferno that was even more infinitely dangerous than the dazzling balls of fire that issued forth from the skull in his hands.
"Let's see, monsieur," he said, mockingly echoing Raoul, "How far you dare go!"
Another fireball smashed into the ground only a few inches in front of Raoul.
"More deception? More violence?" Raoul asked.
Erik's expression became black as the most ominous of thunderclouds on a stormy night as yellow lightning flashed through his eyes, and his face twisted in a show of complete and utter contempt.
"Raoul, please, no!" I tried again, but he kept on walking, closer and closer, towards Erik. The fireballs that the skull shot landed, relentlessly and calculatedly, just ahead of him but never once touched the young Vicomte.
"That's right, that's right, monsieur!" Erik said, an edge of sarcasm in his voice, "Just keep walking this way!"
Two more fireballs.
"You can't win her love by making her your prisoner!"
I stiffened at Raoul's statement and wondered, staring at his back, How can you condemn Erik for doing the same things that you did? How can you have the gall to even approach him? Do you even have any idea of whom you're dealing with, Raoul?
He was an idiot, but I couldn't let him be killed.
"Raoul, don't!"
Without even glancing my way, he ordered, "Stay back!"
Erik obviously wished to take Raoul's attention off of me, however, and he called, still taunting, "I'm here, I'm here, monsieur: the Angel of Death! Come on, come on, monsieur – don't stop, don't stop!" The seemingly singsong, light cadence of his words held a transparent, black satin veneer of playfulness and teasing over his true intentions.
Three more fireballs hit the ground at Raoul's feet.
More and more intense, more and more terrible, the tension in the air mounted, as Raoul came to stand almost directly below Erik, in the perfect range of whatever weapon Erik could choose to deploy in order to dispatch his young archenemy, and I felt my whole body trembling.
I had to stop this!
Blindly, madly, I rushed across the graveyard, shrieking, "Raoul, stop!" and lunged in front of him, putting myself between the two of them. Both Erik and Raoul froze within an instant. Erik looked terrified. I couldn't believe it. I had never seen him look so utterly frightened in all of the time that I had known him.
Suddenly, Raoul gave a growl of anger, and before I knew what was happening, he had shoved me roughly to the ground and was running forward again, towards Erik.
But Erik had jumped down from the mausoleum, rising slowly from the perfect crouch that he had landed in, indescribable grace and ominous coolness in his demeanor, as his black velvet cloak swirled about him. I scrambled to my hands and knees, shouting out Raoul's name with an anger that was more passionate than I had ever before known—
But it was already too late.
Raoul threw himself at Erik, and they both went down into the snow, thrashing about as they each tried to defeat one another.
Then Raoul cried out and Erik rose, struggling up onto his feet: his hat knocked off of his head onto the snow, leaving his golden-brown hair free to fall free out of its combed-back position. His features wore a feral snarl as his mismatched eyes snapped with fury. Raoul came up after him, holding his wrist painfully for a moment, and then he began to swing wildly with his fist at Erik, who – strangely enough – barely avoided him. Both were breathing hard and were coated with the powdery white snow.
"Erik, please!" I cried to him, but it seemed as if he hadn't heard me. He grabbed one of Raoul's arms and twisted it around, then threw him backwards.
Raoul was stunned momentarily by this, but then he gave his own snarl of anger and lunged at Erik, catching him off-balance. They fell backwards onto the stone steps of the mausoleum, Raoul landing on top. I saw him pull back his arm and ran forward, shrieking his name once more, and then I heard two things at the exact same time: a sickening thud and a sharp, cruel splintering of porcelain as Raoul's fist punched through Erik's mask – and came into contact with his face!
Erik screamed in pain and threw Raoul off like a ragdoll. Raoul was stunned for a moment and remained motionless. Then, he scrambled to his feet and stood back, his face white and contorted with horror, as he gaped at the Phantom.
"It's – it's not even human!" he gasped. "It's a monster!"
I stared at the awful scene in absolute shock for a split second, and then I turned on Raoul, staring at him as if he was the Grim Reaper. Then I ran to Erik's side. He was still lying there on the steps, writhing in pain and humiliation, arms thrown about his face and head. I went down beside him, reaching for his shoulders, still staring at Raoul in grief-filled anger. Erik's entire body was stiffened, like granite, and he hardly responded to my touch.
"How could you?" I breathed, looking at Raoul and shaking my head – unable to believe what he had just done. "My poor Erik!" I whispered, bending over my fallen Angel, my hair coming loose and showering over us like a dark curtain. He was still writhing back and forth, moaning in pain, and he wouldn't look at me.
"Christine!" Raoul's voice was filled with absolute revulsion. "Don't touch that thing! It's a monster! Come away from it!"
"Christine, it's no use. It's the beginning of the end now – we can't stop it."
Erik's voice was suddenly very calm, very steady, and so dangerous that I moved away from him involuntarily. He stood, slowly, keeping one hand on the right side of his face, holding the shattered remains of his mask in place. I gazed at him, unable to take my eyes away, seeing that blood seeped through the cracks in the white porcelain. Erik's eyes were burning with bitter rage as he faced Raoul.
"A monster, Monsieur le Vicomte? Perhaps. We shall see. But know," he said, as he moved away from us, back into the shadows beneath the ivy-covered mausoleum, becoming a mere shadow himself, "Know that this monster – this Angel of Darkness, of Doom – has fallen in love with your fair maiden…"
He disappeared then, and his final words drifted to us out of the darkness.
"And when a monster loves a maiden, the end will not come…"
* * * * * *
The nightmare came to me again that night.
This time, it was a thousand times worse than ever, for I knew exactly whom I was searching for and why I was searching for him. In the end of the dream, I ran into the lit room, through its Gothic-shaped doorway, and Erik was there, collapsed on the floor and seeming as if the very life in his veins was being slowly drained from him. His mask lay on the floor beside him, like a pitiful, dying soul. I ran to him and gathered his slight, almost weightless form into my arms.
"Christine…why didn't you come back?" he asked, his voice almost less than a whisper, and I sobbed, my tears falling onto his face, as I begged him, "Please, Erik – don't die! Don't leave me!"
But his head dropped back in my arms and I wept as my heart felt as if it was being torn out of my chest by a burning knife.
"No! No, please! Please, don't leave me! Erik!"
And then I heard the laughter again.
The laughter of the cruel world that had destroyed an angel.
I awoke, screaming, and tore at the blankets that surrounded me, as if they were serpents that were trying to slither around my body and choke me. Then, as I realized that I was awake and that this was reality – that the world would really destroy Erik with its hate, and that, if I didn't somehow find out a way to save him, the one I loved most, with my every thought, breath, and movement, would die as I looked on.
I would lose him.
And this time, it would be forever.
* * * * * *
Erik resumes the narrative…
As soon as I had somehow made my way back to Paris and the lair, I had dissolved my mind into an unspeakable ether of blackness. I don't know how long I stalked and rampaged in the halls of my shadowy underground realm. All I know is that not a single human or inhuman thought entered my head during that whole entire time.
Eventually, however, I broke down.
I couldn't go on forever, running like a wind-up toy. So, without even realizing it, I left the main room of the lair, completing my fifty-thousandth and last circuit around the silent space, and stumbled blindly down the corridors, through the rooms of the lair, to the door of one certain room.
Christine's room.
I scarcely dared to open the door; I had never entered that room except when she was within it. After that moment, I had never again ventured into her room. Somehow, it seemed as if it was some sort of sacred grounds, a Mount Olympus for Venus – my Christine. I was Vulcan: the dark, crippled lord of the subterranean realm, a creature not worthy to set foot within her quarters.
But now…now I knew, somehow, without a thought to guide me, that the only place that I could find solace was that room. And why, someone may ask? Why? Because the place had seen her moments, she had breathed its air, lived in it…
Because it was hers.
Hesitantly, I pushed open the door and stood there for a moment, on its threshold, as I stared blankly, uncertainly, into its shadows. The room was just as she had left it only a short time ago.
Suddenly overcome by my fatigue and raging emotions, I staggered across the room, groped around at the ornate dressing table, my hands shunning the touch of her belongings there: a necklace, a hair-ribbon, and tiny music box, and finally managed to find the candelabra that stood on the table-top. I lit the thing, very clumsily, and promptly fell to my knees beside the bed, burying my head in the coverlet as it swathed around my face. Eventually, I pulled myself, painfully, to my feet and, after a moment on indecision, collapsed face-first onto the bed itself.
It goes without saying now that I then sobbed uselessly into the pillows where Christine's head had rested for so many nights.
This is useless – why do you torture yourself, Erik? I asked myself as I lifted my head from the pillows, the stinging skin of my face making full contact with the cold air around me. I stared dismally at the gold-worked counterpane as it glowed, riddled with a marriage of sparkles and shadows, in the light of the candelabra's fire. The voice in my head went on, none-too-gently.
What were you thinking, Erik? Did you actually think that there was ever any possibility that you would hold her in your arms every night as your wife – a young child like her, an angel, wedded to a mangled freak like you? She's so innocent, and yet you would ruin that by keeping her in shackles with you…?
"It's hopeless."
My words vibrated into the silence, then disappeared, as I turned to gaze, surrendering, at the one candle that remained to light the room. As I watched, its glow sank from a sparkling yellow into a golden orange, then a rich blood red, then a soft, hesitant blue…and then it went out.
And from there on, someone may ask? What happened from there on? This will be my answer, and make full use of it…
Nothing.
Nothing but silence.
* * * * * *
I dreamt of her that night.
We were standing in a garden somewhere – the golden, fairy-tale towers of a far-off, picturesque castle glimpsing through the emerald green treetops in the sky above us – and Christine was gilded in the most indescribably beautiful gown that I had ever seen. She looked lovely. And I – I was somehow whole in a way that I had never been in my entire life. My dream self put up a hand to my face, and felt that I wore no mask, and the rough, disfigured, and uneven, ultimate deformity that I had worn for so many years was no longer there.
I was a normal, perfect human being.
As I watched, Christine smiled at me and then turned around, glancing coyly over her shoulder as she called to me, "Come along, Erik!" Her voice seemed to echo in the wonderful air, and her laughter pealed like a bell, rippling and crystalline.
"Come and find me!"
And then she glided through the dense, leafy foliage and disappeared. I ran after her, pushing aside the brush and peering to see her as she ran, just ahead of me but never seeming to get any closer, and we darted further and further into the forest.
Suddenly, I came to an abrupt halt, seeing – for the first time, as I looked around myself in apprehension – how the forest had changed. No longer was it bright and colorful in jeweled loveliness: no, now it was dark, threatening, and maze-like.
I turned round and round, searching for a sign of her and called out, fearfully.
"Christine!"
Then, from far off: "Erik!"
"Christine!" I cried again, breaking into a run, "Come back!"
There was no reply.
"Christine!"
Suddenly, I was no longer in the midst of a forest, but at the gates of a walled garden. I looked around myself, wondering how to get in, and then I saw Christine again. She was standing before a doorway that was entirely covered in ivy – thick, black ivy – and she was smiling again, beckoning to me even as I watched.
"Come to me, Erik," she said. "Come to me."
I stepped forward, towards her, and once I was within her reach, standing in front of her and waiting, I stared down into her eyes, as the warm, teasing breezes of the fairy-tale landscape whisked playfully around us. I gazed at her, every part of my being melting into helpless, joyful surrender. Her expression shifted to one of understanding: she knew how I felt.
Then, she reached up, slowly, as she smiled into my eyes with a bright, power-giving sparkle in her blue eyes, and her fingertips closed around the lapels of my jacket. Still smiling, she gently pulled me to her, guiding us both into the curtain of ivy, and I felt her warmth near to me as we stepped through the tangle of undergrowth.
"Erik," she breathed, her whisper pulsating into my head…
And then I came out of the ivy and found myself on the edge of a precipice in a dark, wasted land where thunder crashed and lightning burned in the air with the smell of sulfur. It was as if I had just stepped into Hades itself.
I looked around, as the rank wind whipped around me, its smell burning at my eyes as if it was composed of an invisible legion of daggers. "Christine!" I cried in anguish. The wind instantly carried my words away and I fell to my knees at the edge of the precipice, weeping as my heart was shredded in two.
Then, something landed across my shoulder blades, knocking me off balance, and I only escaped falling into the black, bottomless abyss below me by grabbing onto the ledge of stone with one hand. I heard laughter and a blinding whirlwind of dismal, biting sand appeared above me: the laughter emanating from it.
"And you will…DIE!" A screaming, ragged voice seethed the savage, visceral words, from within the whirlwind; it moved and surrounded me. I raised my free hand to cover my face, but the cloud instantly ripped it away. And then I lost my grip on the ledge and fell into the never-ending depths of the pit that yawned below me.
No!
I awoke from the nightmare and jerked myself up in the bed, gasping for air and forgetting where I was. Something was wrapped around my throat. I reached up with a feral snarl to rip it away from me, but it gave no resistance as I did so, and when I peered at it closely, I realized that I held nothing but a limp white pillowcase in my hand. I must have wrenched it off of its pillow in the midst of my nightmare, I realized, as I threw it away from me in irritation.
Suddenly very drained of energy, I fell back against the pillows and closed my eyes, trying to calm myself. After a moment, I reached up with my right hand and drew it across my face, scrubbing my skin tiredly. Then, I turned my head, slowly, and my gaze happened to center on the ornate clock that stood across the room from me. As soon as my mind had registered what time it was, something very much like panic rushed through my veins.
It was almost four-thirty in the afternoon – and tonight was the performance of my opera! I would be late!
I tore myself off of the bed, ran across the room, growling something not too kind to myself in Persian, fell out the door, and stumbled – in a frenzy – into my own room. There, I furiously changed my wrinkled slacks, dress shirt, and jacket for a fresh set. I had left my mask in my room previously: it was lying on the table beside my bed. I placed it on over my face first. That taken care of, I ran an unsteady, trembling hand through my hair, trying to smooth it into some semblance of order, and then I placed my hat on my head, drawing it down low over my right eye so that it partially hid the mask. I threw open the doors of my wardrobe, found my opera cape, and whisked it promptly over my shoulders.
Finished with that, I left my room, closing the door behind myself, and left the lair to its usual contemplative, brooding silence, beginning my journey to the surface and the evening ahead of me.
* * * * * *
As soon as I had reached Box Five, I knew that something was wrong.
Rehearsals were clearly over for the afternoon: the chorus, ballet corps, and principal actors having gone home to ready for the evening's performance. They would return shortly, however, at around five o'clock to begin their three-hour time of preparation for the opera. The audience would arrive at exactly five minutes after eight and the premier of 'Don Juan Triumphant' would begin at nine o'clock sharp.
But, as I have already stated, something was wrong in the auditorium.
Normally, stagehands and their like would be arranging the scenery for the gala – this afternoon, no such thing was happening. Before I could become angry at Firmin and André for so blatantly ignoring my explicit orders for perfection, however, there was sudden movement on the stage and I learned that I was not alone in the room.
The young Vicomte de Chagny stood on the stage, surrounded by a few of the local Paris fire officers – or gendarmes, whichever you prefer. There was also someone down in the orchestra pit, among the members of the orchestra: who were tuning their instruments, but I couldn't quite make out who or what it was.
As I observed them, the chief fire marshal blew his whistle. "You understand your instructions?" the marshal barked. Severally, the firemen replied, "Sir!"
Then, the chief said, "When you hear the whistle, take up your positions. I shall then instruct you to secure the doors."
I made a face, wondering, 'Secure the doors'? Why?
"It is essential that all doors are properly secured."
Again, I ask you: why?
Firmin, who was standing on the stage, almost out of sight, with André, turned to his co-manager and asked, as if he was nervous, "André, are we doing the right thing?"
André seemed annoyed, as well as slightly uneasy. "Have you got a better idea?" he snapped. The fire chief turned to Raoul, who was standing nearby in silence, watching the proceedings. Ah, I thought, smiling coolly, Here is where I make the discovery of what on earth is going on!
"Monsieur le Vicomte," he asked, "Am I to give the order?"
Raoul nodded, curtly. "Give the order."
Several things happened after that: the chief blew his whistle and the firemen fanned out into the seating area: leaving Raoul and the two managers standing alone on the stage. It was a perfect time for me to play some sort of nasty trick on them, but I let the moment go, overseeing their actions with marked interest. Suddenly, Raoul leaned over and called to the person who stood in the shadows of the orchestra pit.
"You in the pit – do you have a clear view of this box?"
He gestured to Box Five and I was glad that I had obscured myself in the shadows. I was shocked into immobility when a marksman stepped into the light and replied to Raoul, "Yes, sir." I almost choked as the realization of what was going on began to dawn on me with awful limpidity. "Remember," Raoul continued, as I grappled with my emotions, "When the time comes, shoot. Only if you have to – but shoot. To kill."
The icy way that he said those last two words reminded me of my own tone at times; I smiled, in spite of the awful situation.
The conversation went on, with the marksman asking how he would know when 'the time' was, and Raoul replying that he would simply know, without any question, and the managers inquiring to Raoul if Christine Daae would sing. I almost choked for the second time.
She was a part of this?
It couldn't be!
Raoul then told them not to worry as the fire chief approached and announced that his men were in position. Raoul gave him the go-ahead and the chief sounded his whistle. Suddenly, doors were slammed all over the building, the sounds echoing in the open air, and the firemen answered, one by one, "Secure!" I then decided that the Phantom of the Opera would have a field day with this plan of the Vicomte and the managers. Very softly, I projected my voice and called to them, making it seem as if I was standing somewhere far up in the back circle of seats in the auditorium, "I'm here: the Phantom of the Opera…" I then made my voice dart from place to place, and the firemen began to run in the direction of the words.
Finally, I called to them from Box Five itself, stepping into the light so that they could see my waist, chest, and shoulders – but not my head.
"I'm here: the Phantom of the Opera!"
The marksman then abruptly fired a shot from his revolver. Fortunately for me, he was an awful shot and I stepped back into the shadows, unhurt and cool. Raoul rounded on the marksman, furious, and screamed at him, like a little boy who had just seen one of his toys being broken, "Idiot! You'll kill someone!" Pleading feebly, the marksman said, "But, Monsieur le Vicomte…"
I had had enough of this. "No 'buts'!" I cut in sternly, throwing my voice into the air above their heads, "For once, Monsieur le Vicomte is right. Seal my fate tonight! I hate to cut the fun short, but the joke's wearing thin. Let the audience in – let my opera begin!"
And then I turned around, leaving them to their confused and terrified silence, and made my exeunt from the box.
Tonight, the actors of the Opéra Populaire weren't going to be the only ones to play a part. Somehow, destiny would be spelled for every living, breathing soul on the stage, and things would be drastically changed.
Forever.
* * * * * *
Author's note: Oh dear, he's mad again… (R&r and I will love you forever!) @à--- for those of you who have commented so far!