Chapter Seven
"Oh may I join the choir invisible. Of those immortal dead who live again."- George Eliot
Night. It had seemed she had been in an eternity of night. She couldn't open her eyes; all she could sense was darkness. But then something started to come into focus. Sculptured rocks and mist, Dessy could almost stretch out her arms to feel the mist around her. Suddenly is felt like a cold wet rag had been thrown into her face and she snap to the presence.
She looked around. She was in a graveyard covered in a dull fog. She could feel take her feet were wet and she stared down to see that she was barefoot. She was also in a long flowing nightgown of cream-colored silk. What am I doing here, she wondered. Dessy heard footsteps behind her and was surprise to see a little girl, in a similar dress as her own, running pass her in the fog.
"Hey, wait! Where are you going?" she called. The girl didn't answer, just kept running. Dessy pulled up her long gown and went after her, trying not to trip on the grass or over the tombstones. The little girl ran towards a stone building with a winding staircase of granite leading to an open facade. Then Desiree noticed the music that seemed to surround the graveyard. A solo violinist playing a haunting yet beautiful melody that sounded very familiar. The little girl reached the stairs and stopped. She laid her head down and started to cry. Dessy rushed up to the weeping child and put a hand on her shoulder. The girl looked up at her tears dripping down her checks and her heart skipped a beat.
The girl looked just like her. Her features were the same as Desiree's when she was a child. The liquid brown eyes, the baby fat cheeks, and straw like hair. They were all the same. The girl wiped her hand over her eyes.
"I miss my papa." She sniffed.
Dessy knelt beside her. "Are you looking for your father? Is he missing?"
The girl nodded.
Dessy understood. "Yeah I know. I'm missing my father too."
The girl looked up the stairs. "But he's right up there. Playing the music." Then she turned to look at Desiree. "I just can't get to him." The she flew in to Dessy's arms and sobbed against her chest. "Papa misses me. Can you go find him."? She pointed her small chubby figures up towards the facade where the music seemed to be coming from.
"He's up there. Is he the one playing the music?" Desiree let go of the little girl's hand and started to walk up the stairs. The music seemed almost to be calling to her. The girl cried up to her. "Papa misses me! Tell him I'm here! I'm down here! I'm alive down here." Her pitiful wailing made Desiree shuddered underneath her gown as she turned to look down on her.
The little girl had vanished into the fog. Dessy continued up the stairs draw by the melody. God, who was the musician behind this beautiful artwork displayed for her ears. She reached the facade, which was the base of a long corridor. Unlike the graveyard it was filled with a brilliant white light. Small snowflakes flew in by the wind and rested on her lips and eyelids. She saw a cloaked figure of a man at the end of the corridor. He was the playing the violin and swaying with the music. He sensed her watching him and stopped. He reached out a hand to beckon her.
"Desiree, come to me." he called
His voice! It was like an angel's, rich and dramatic as well as powerful and demanding. Desiree was almost frighten of it and she took a step backwards
"Don't be afraid, Desiree. I won't harm you. I could never harm you." He said. Then he started to sing, the same melody so beautiful. The music acted like some sort of powerful magnetic force and she was the opposite end being pulled towards it. She walked until she was only a few feet in front of him. Even then she still could not see his face. His shadowy arm pulled her against a warm shoulder. She felt safe here, in his embrace. It was calm and comforting, but not like a lover's more like...a father's. He's song continued and Dessy could feel herself starting to cry.
"Don't stop singing." She whispered. "Please, never stop." Suddenly after all these years, this was the place she thought she belonged. Like it was a whole other life she had missed before, it had been hidden in the shadow. She is where she was meant to be.
It was here that she wanted to stay, forever.
Erik returned the washcloth to the warm basin of water, wrung it in between his hands and placed it on Desiree's forehead. She still lay unconscious. Again they were in his home under the cellars of the opera. The smell of beeswax candles surrounded him and the scent of wine from his personal collection clung is dark suit. Christine was behind him tearing cloth to make bandages. The fall backwards in time had affected Desiree. Shards of glass stuck themselves into her forearms and around her collarbone. She had once started the shiver violently when Erik had brought her down to his lair that she had to be tightly wrapped so she wouldn't fall off the bed he laid her in. Now she was in a sort of coma, trapped in a dream like state for which she couldn't free herself.
He knew he should have gone to his medicine cabinet and made an elixir for her when she awakened, but he didn't want to leave her side. For once, he wanted to be there when his only child awaked form this terrible nightmare, to be for once the pair of caring arms she could be held in, a shoulder for her to cry on. To give her the things that he never had when he was young. Christine knelt beside him and began to wrap her wounds. She timidly glanced up at him.
"Erik, what are you going to tell her when she wakes up?" she asked
"You mean if she wakes up." He replied dryly.
Christine put a hand on her daughter's forehead. "Oh God, Desiree. How did this happen?" then she turned to address him. "Why did she come back too?"
Erik had wondered this too. He being an immortal could also carry Christine back to her past life. He could travel through time at his own leisure and by his own power. But Desiree must have travel back herself by her own accord, being partly immortal. Half his immortal damned blood flowed through her veins. She like Erik and Christine was dressed in the fashion of the Victorian Era. Could it be that Desiree also had a past life in England that he was no aware of?
Desiree stirred in her sleep. Erik cradled her head in his hands, but she instantly became motionless again. "When she comes to, I'm going to tell her the truth." He said.
Christine stopped her work. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean everything, the whole truth."
"Erik you can't." He fixed a look of pure anger on her.
"Yes I can. She has the right to know. Don't tell me what I can and cannot do! Like you are my God or something!" he snapped. Christine lowered her head and let her arms drop to the floor.
"Please, don't yell at me. If you loved me as you say you do, you would not be so cruel towards me." She sighed. Erik turned his attention back towards Desiree, trying to block out the painful effects of Christine's words. He placed a hand on his daughter's check. He could feel warmth coming back into her body. "But Erik, what about your face?" Christine asked.
On impulse, Erik flung his hand away from Desiree and brought it back to his own face, as if his very touch would taint her. He pressed his figures hard and deep into his mask of flesh, feeling the real ravage texture of skin below. Desiree again stirred and started to moan. Her breathing became heavy and her arms jerked back in forth. Erik put his hand back around her face. "She's fighting it. She's trying to come out of the coma." Christine held Dessy's hands and shook them. "I must call her from her dream." He announced. "I must call her out." He leaned closer to her face, lightly patting her cheeks. "Desiree…come back to us. Come back to me. Desiree you must come back." Suddenly Desiree screamed and sat bolt upright into Erik's arms.
Desiree found herself in another set of powerful arms. But now the air was warm around her, not cold. She looked up, where was her magical violinist. She turned to she a woman beside her, and was shocked to she it was her mother. She turned out the strong arms, not even brothering to see to whom they belonged to, and reached fro her mother.
"Mom, is that you?" she asked
Christine flung her arms around Dessy's neck. "Yes, Dessy it's me! Oh thank God you're all right!" she cried.
"Yeah, but I don't know what happened to me. I had-this dream." Christine turned her eyes upwards and Dessy followed her gaze, to the being who had held her only a moment ago. Barely two feet in the front of her and almost a foot higher than her stood a man in a black suit. His shoulders were broad, his presences powerful. But it was his face that surprised her.
"Mr. Foster? What are you doing here?" she asked
He smiled and shook his head. "It's a long story."
Dessy started to look around the room where she was. It was such a strange place. Thousand of candles stuck in the walls bathed the room in an orange light. The walls had holes scattered around them, like those of a catacombs. One corner of the room was full of selves, brimming with sheets of music. There was a cupboard of wine and bread. Up on a large podium that seemed to be formed out of the catacomb rock sat a large organ, which pipes seem to spread like tentacles of some mythical beast.
"Where I am?" she inquired her mouth wide open in wonder.
Mr. Foster and her mom looked at each other for a long moment, like they where trying to read each others mind on what to say. Slowly Mr. Foster lowered his head and nodded. Christine's eyes widen as a plead and shook her head rapidly. Mr. Foster ignored her and turned to Dessy.
"I'll tell you, but there is something you won't believe. They sound ridiculous, but they are all real. First, from what we can tell, what the accident cause. Desiree, you are in the turn-of-the-century London. Right now as we speak."
Dessy looked at him like he was a madman. He put both of his hands over her shaking ones. "And there is more, a please forgive me for not telling you this sooner."
"Forgive me too." Christine added softly.
"Forgive you for not telling me what?" Dessy asked, still thinking this whole thing was a joke.
Foster took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Desiree, my real name isn't Foster. It's Destler, Erik Destler." He paused and looked straight into her eyes. "I'm your father." He confessed.