MADAME O.G.

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Chapter 1: Any Way But One

It was surely night, night according to Christine's internal clock and according to the great grandfather-chime that ruled Erik's underground home. Nine o'clock, ten o'clock it chimed, but he did not come to the swan-shaped bed provided for her. But then, he had wanted a wedding mass, had he not? A wedding mass; and that meant a proper bride.

The anxiety stayed, chewing at her stomach, but her mind was settled and she dropped off to sleep, untroubled by the events that had taken place far above earlier that day – untroubled even by the swan-white mask, by M. le Vicomte de Chagny's sudden appearance in her dressing-room, by the mirror's turn. She was tired: this was fact. Her young body needed its rest, after performance, after stretching her voice to the limit and two hysterics-fits and the delirious attentions of the Phantom and the Vicomte. So rest it did, without asking leave of any one.

She woke in the morning to the soft, persistent sound of a pocket-watch ticking by her ear on the pillow. As the world swam into existence, she read it – nine o'clock in the morning. Then she saw the note beneath it, a note written in red scratchings, half childishly. It read:

My dear Christine, you need have no concern as to your fate. You have no better or more respectful friend in the world than myself. You are alone, at present, in this home which is yours. I am going out shopping to fetch you all the things you can need. The pocket-watch is yours, if you like, as a gift.

A glance revealed that the boat was gone. She might easily wade her way out, but she had no way of knowing when Erik had left, or when he would return; and at the same time, a curiosity had seized her in the night. Her dreams had been filled with people at a masquerade ball, using half-masks similar to the Phantom's to cover their faces and great costumes like La Carlotta's, like hers now, to cover their bodies.

"Why doesn't he simply live in the world, if he can go shopping for me and not be thought at all strange?" she wondered aloud, and felt that she had put her finger on something. It was simple; it was intuitive. If he had not taken that obvious step to relieve the loneliness she felt in every word he spoke there must be a reason for it, something she could not comprehend.

Then there was her prison to consider and distract her from that question. But no, it was not a prison. He had left her unaccompanied, with all the wide ways of the underground to explore if she wished. It was a home of a sort, for it was in the opera house, and she had considered the girls' dormitories in the opera house her home for many years. Indeed it was not much different from the great prop-storing rooms, piled with opulent oddities, errant sheet music, draperies that were long ago too moth-eaten to use in the theater proper. There was a bust of a disfigured man that caught her eye, obviously a morbid fancy of Erik's, sitting atop a grand organ she didn't dare to play. A paper mockery of the opera-house's main stage was free of scenery, but laying next to it were dolls obviously representing various singers: La Carlotta was easy to pick out, and Piangi, and after a moment she identified herself. They had been repainted quite painstakingly to represent their most recent parts. There were mirrors, she realized, nearly everywhere - whether so that the Phantom could contemplate his horror of a face or whether so that he could contemplate his well-formed and well-outfitted person, she could not tell. They had draperies as well, swagged back from their surfaces in thick, sensuous folds.

So she pried at the drapes left hanging, realizing that Erik might well have a pattern of hiding things: some, that seemed to have paintings or playbills hung from them, covered only solid wall with a nail driven right through to hold the decoration. Others hid cupboards housing a great variety of items: glass-and-paste jewelry used for queens in the opera proper, two very fine and very real brooches set with rubies that looked like drops of blood, a set of champagne flutes, mismatched plates of the finest china. On a low shelf there was bread and one bottle of an expensive red wine, nothing more.

He dines at acquaintances' houses too often to keep a full larder! she thought, then sensed the giggling hysteria's return. A set of breathing exercises calmed it, and she moved on, pulling back the next heavy swatch of velvet to reveal whiteness of stunning purity.

She looked again, and realized what it was - a dress on a mannequin in a mirrored alcove, a wedding-dress of such splendor and opulence it seemed almost to belong on-stage in the opera. Perhaps it had been on-stage once, in some long-forgotten production, salvaged only by this ghost for his bride!

And at a glance she could see that it would fit. The mannequin was just of the sort that the costume-makers used; the dress fit the form just as Carlotta's costume had, when it had been so quickly basted to match her slimmer measurements. Around the mannequin's neck hung a chain with a ring laced onto it, a simple gold band. On its head a garland of silk flowers lay, holding a lace veil in place.

Horror seized her, and wonder at the same time, and neither would let go. She dropped the velvet, watched it sway from side to side and then turned to go back to her bed, back to where she had found such peace only a few moments before. She found Erik's face swimming before her eyes, a face half belonging to a prince and half to a grotesque.

The latter half found ascendancy, as it always would.

Christine cried, but could not sleep. She laid on Erik's swan-shaped bed and imagined herself a mermaid, swimming away from the island-home he had made for her. Her legs, however, refused to carry her into the water. She wanted to leave, and could not bring herself to. Poor unfortunate Christine, trapped by a madman! she thought, but no one was there to see her suffering.

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When Erik returned, poling the boat silently through the waters that surrounded his home, Christine was sitting calmly on the bench before his organ, reading a lovely gilt-edged edition of St. Augustine. She had resisted the temptation to put on the wedding dress and give him a surprise – a temptation she hardly knew she had until, rising from the bed, she found herself standing before it once more.

He unloaded his parcels from the boat with studied carelessness, tossing them to the shore with force enough that they skittered along the smoothed-rock floor but did not jounce and break their twine. They were soft parcels, large, wrapped in cloth, and even before he said "I bring you gifts, Christine," she had guessed that they were dresses for her. He would not intend her to wear that wedding gown quite yet: he would want a courtship, a ceremony long-planned.

Looking up, she saw the hideous half of his face covered once more with a mask as white as the wedding gown. "You wear your mask," she said. Then, hesitating a little, "Remove it – please, monsieur. How else shall I grow to love all your face, and you for your own self?"

Standing stock still, he made no move to do so. She had no desire to do it for him, truly, no desire to reach up her hands again in Mme. Giry's swan-shape and uncover his half-monstrosity. But all the same she descended carefully from the high organ's perch, keeping her feet out in the way she had always been instructed in the corps de ballet, toes touching the ground before heels to walk mincingly along. He still did not move as she approached him, stepping around the packages he had strewn about, feeling an encroaching fear: before he had not lashed out at her hysteria, and yet he might some time in future reach the limits of his patience.

Her arm curved gently and she unconsciously stood on tiptoe, miming the true dance's actions, as she reached up to remove Erik's mask. Quick as gunfire his hand shot up to arrest her; then, just as quickly, he let go with a cry.

"Christine – Christine! Have I hurt you?"

"No," she said, ignoring the redness blooming at her wrist. For she had seen what he was trying to hide, even more than his hideous face: tears.

"I did –"

Her words were wildly reckless, spoken out of instinct. "Only by your abridgment of my freedom! That –" referring to his iron grip "was nothing. Promise me I may come and go at will. I cannot live with you without that, Erik. I spent the day not knowing what I was permitted to do. Very soon the Opera shall be frantic."

He looked stricken. "If you come back to me I will promise you that. I would make you happy in any way I can, in any way at all!"

Of course, he did not mean it; he would not give her up, she knew. Perhaps when she had removed his mask for the first time, his hasty words of eternal binding had seemed to spring from the spur of the moment. The wedding dress, however, bespoke much longer planning. No. He would make her happy in any way he could, save one.

His trust in her promises was, in its own way, a noble sentiment, but she was not inclined to see it as such.

End Chapter 1.