Homecoming
Jennifer Hinds and Heather Sullivan
Chapter 7
Erik's sketchbook lay open on his lap and his hand scurried over its surface, deftly capturing the image of the sleeping Elaine; but a sudden sound intruded upon his concentration. It was the alarm which guarded the nearby lakeshore – how small his domain had become over the years! Only a few of his alarms still functioned now, but these he maintained with dedication; his reach was close these days, but he would not allow it to be encroached upon any further.
"That will be Nadir," he thought with some measure of joy, and packing away his sketches he left Elaine peacefully sleeping in the music room. Proceeding to the Louis-Phillipe room, Erik placed his sketchbook in a cupboard amongst many pieces of entablature and manuscript paper and turned to the door, making ready to greet his guest.
The sound of someone fumbling for the front doorknob brought a smile to his face; Nadir had always disliked Erik's complicated contraptions, and he could picture him now, standing in the dimness, searching the rock's face for its hidden trigger and swearing softly to himself in Persian.
When the door finally swung inward, he called out jovially, "Welcome back, Nadir. I do hope you've come prepared for a defeat at chess; it's been so long since I had a proper game …"
The Persian had wandered through the Opera's basements in mingled joy and trepidation, but to hear Erik's voice take on so welcoming a tone banished anxiety from his mind. "Is that why you've asked me here?" he countered as he stepped across the threshold. "You are hungry for someone to beat at chess?"
Erik caught the joke in Nadir's words and laughed heartily; then, relieving him of some of the books he carried, ushered him inside.
Not many minutes later, Nadir clung tightly to his tumbler; Erik's sudden revelation had made him nearly drop it on the floor.
"Don't look so daft, Daroga," said he; "I know it may seem a surprise, but …"
"But what, Erik?" demanded Nadir. "A surprise? Is that all you can think to call it? When you have prevented even me from keeping company with you all these years …!"
Erik waved aside these histrionics. "You are overreacting," he said calmly; "it was neither personal, nor intentional."
"You simply found her lying in the cellars?"
"Nadir! Your incredulity is extremely disconcerting."
The Daroga looked properly abashed by Erik's softly spoken rebuke. "I apologize, Erik. You know I do not doubt you; but you must at least try to see this from my point of view …"
Nodding, Erik took another sip of sherry. "I do. Had I been told, even that morning, what would happen and how I would act … I myself would not have believed it." He leaned forward in his chair. "But you must believe me, Nadir; for it happened just as I said. I found her lying unconscious in the fourth cellar; she must have taken a tumble down the stairs. And she was injured; so I brought her here, and here she has been for nearly two weeks now."
"Two weeks," Nadir replied. "And has no one come in search of her?"
"Not as far as I can tell," Erik said, grimly flexing his fingers about the delicate glass; "I must say, Nadir, I think very little of her mother … Elaine speaks of her so lovingly, but that she would be so absent as not to miss her child!"
"Perhaps she has," the Daroga ventured, "and has simply not yet found her way down."
"My alarms in the higher regions of the cellars have been in disrepair for some time," Erik admitted with a note of – what was it? – sorrow or shame? "But surely the stagehands – the firemen – any member of the cast might have shown her the way!"
"I had thought," Nadir said gently, "that there was only one member of the cast who knew the way to your door."
"Hmm," Erik responded, somewhat ruffled. He had known that the ever-curious Daroga would want to discuss Christine, but he had no intentions of doing so at the moment. There were more important matters at hand …
When his taciturn companion made no further reply, Nadir thought it best not to pry any farther on the subject of Mademoiselle Daae. "I must admit it is a problematic situation," he said. "What do you intend to do?"
"I don't know," Erik replied slowly. "There must be someone charged with her care in her mother's absence, but if they are looking for her, I have had no sign of it; and I can do nothing to discover it without being discovered myself." He sighed heavily. "And I cannot simply drop her at the base of the Grand Escalier for the same reason."
"Discovered?" Nadir queried, eyebrow raised.
"Daroga." Erik sighed again. "Do you think I am so foolish? Everyone above –" here he jerked his chin upwards to indicate all those who trod the boards five levels over their heads – "think me dead, or disappeared. I have been careful these seven years to hide myself. If I were to give any clue, even the slightest hint, that I remain … can you imagine? Firmin and Andre were very stubborn in their persistence; they rooted through these cellars for nearly a year looking for me. Without my hidden compartments I should surely have been murdered; and now, their hatred of me is cold … but not gone, Nadir, I assure you …"
The Persian pressed his fingertips together to form a steeple, and rested his chin against them. "I understand," he muttered. "But this further complicates the matter … there must be some other option!"
Erik regarded him for a moment. "I had hoped you might see it that way," he finally ventured.
"I? Erik – did you think I would cavalierly choose your destruction? Am I such a poor friend?"
"No," he smiled, "you are a great one. And I know you will be pleased with the solution I propose."
Nadir felt suddenly compelled to go on his guard. "What is this solution?"
"Why, that you shall take her," Erik replied simply.
Springing from his chair, Nadir looked down at his friend with disbelief. "I take her? I?"
"It is only logical," said Erik, who was regarding the Daroga with a measure of quiet concern. "You are overreacting again, Nadir; pray seat yourself, and I will explain."
Nadir grudgingly obliged him, but did not speak until he had poured himself another glass of brandy – a double. "Go on then," he prompted Erik gruffly.
"I need your help, Nadir," he began slowly, his voice fluid and full of all its old persuasive power. "I need your ears and eyes out in the city, to discover if Elaine's guardians have been as sick with worry over her disappearance as they ought. If there has been an effort to find her, I am sure you will discover it. But if there has not …" His words trailed off, as if he were about to say something he knew the Daroga would object to.
Shooting him a severe look – for he had not yet overcome his shock – Nadir urged him onward. "If there has not …"
Erik straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin proudly. "Is it so inconceivable, Nadir? I have come to care for the child – and if her mother has abandoned her, and her guardians lost her, why should I not take her in?"
Nadir did drop the glass this time, spilling liquor all over Erik's fine oriental carpet. "Take her in? Erik, what are you saying?"
"Oh, come off it," he retorted, stooping to mop up the mess. "I have been alone in the world long enough, Nadir; and Elaine has become dear to me. We should not stay here, of course; this small house was built for a solitary soul, and children need the light of day. I will adopt her, as my own daughter, and I shall spin for her a life that only ill-gotten riches can purchase!"
With eyes as wide as saucers, the Daroga shook his head. "I cannot say whether this plan is wise, Erik …"
"I did not consult you on its wisdom," retorted he. "I ask only if you will help me."
Soberly, Nadir regarded his friend; it was so strange to be speaking with him so easily, as though years had not passed since the last time they did so. And even more unsettling for Nadir, Erik spoke as he had in Persia, with as much will and purpose as …
… as if he had never laid eyes on Christine Daae.
Far be it from me to deny him a life, Nadir's conscience conceded. For he knew that, despite his mottled past, Erik had it in his heart to be kind to a child. Fighting back the tears that rose at the years-old memory of his son, Nadir sighed and clapped a hand on Erik's shoulder.
"I will," he pledged.
Erik moved about Elaine's room with such expert silence that the child never stirred as he gathered together a small valise for her. Finally all was set in order; he handed the bag to Nadir, and knelt at the child's bedside.
"Elaine," he called to her; and the little girl's eyes fluttered open as if his voice controlled their movement.
"Erik," she smiled, hugging him impetuously about the neck. "What have you brought me for supper?"
"Nothing just now, mon cheri," he said; "but I have brought another surprise." He beckoned to the Persian, who emerged quietly from the shadows. "This is my friend Nadir."
Nadir stared at the child who regarded him with liquid eyes; he knew her. She had captured so many hearts at the gala that night …
Erik was too preoccupied with his foundling, and Elaine seemed not to notice Nadir's mildly stricken expression. "Monsieur," she greeted him in a polite little voice, "are you … a moor?"
Erik threw his head back and laughed riotously at this. "You must excuse her, Nadir; she is quite a pert little miss, always saying things she oughtn't …" Then, explaining to Elaine that she would be going to stay with Nadir for a while, he bundled her up into his arms and carried her through the cellars to the door at the Rue Scribe. Nadir lagged behind with the suitcase, scowling.
Presently they had secured a hansom, and Erik had ventured out into the dimly-lit nighttime Rue to tuck Elaine into its plush cushions. But as he held the door aside for Nadir to ascend, the Daroga pressed it quietly closed. "I know you did not ask me, Erik; but I do not think this is wise. The child …"
"I will be along soon," Erik interrupted him, "perhaps tomorrow evening; I will close my house and join you as soon as I can. Come now, Nadir," he chided his friend with a smile. "She will be no trouble. Fill her with cake and milk, and she will love you."
For a moment, Nadir toyed with the idea of telling Erik about the gala; but recalling that even L'Epoque had been ignorant of Elaine's true identity, he decided it would serve no present purpose. Nodding silently, he quickly ascended into the cab.
As he began to assemble his more valuable and necessary belongings, Erik could not help but notice how quiet his house had become in the short time Elaine had been gone from it. She had not been with him long, but she had wound herself very tightly around his heart; and he found he was not altogether sorry to be leaving this lonely place for another, where he might enjoy the music of her childish laughter and the comfort of Nadir's friendship.
But in the face of joy, he had not forgotten his old caution; he tensed instinctively as the sound of an alarm rang through the cavernous house.
"Nadir would have no need to return," he whispered to the silence.
But the intruder seemed to know the cellars nearly as well as the Daroga; for the alarm was placed at the edge of the lake, and before long Erik could hear the sounds of someone scrabbling at the front door, seeking out the hidden catch. His mind clamored with two distinctly different sensations: curiosity and the realization that there is no way of escaping now …
Grimly he acknowledged it: he had failed to keep safe any of the formerly well-maintained hidden exits from his home, preferring in his hermitage to simply secure them against intrusion. Not even he could break through one now without noise, certainly sufficient to inform his visitor where he had gone, and perhaps even enough to bring down more invaders from above. He might very well be trapped … but steeling himself to that fact, he hurried to the panel which concealed Christine's old bedroom. He had evaded capture so long – perhaps one more reprieve might yet be gained …
The latch had barely clicked home before he heard the front door swing open, and the intruder step inside. The sound of unwelcome shoes upon the carpet pounded like an alarum in Erik's sensitive ears. He pressed his face to the wall and his eye to a pinhole he had placed there. He could not yet see the uninvited guest; perhaps they paused at the doorstep and the stillness, convinced that no one was at home …
Inwardly, he knew he grasped at straws. The house did not look like one uninhabited, and he had left candles burning. Anyone could see this place was anything but abandoned …
But not even he could have expected what happened next.
"Erik?" called a voice – the voice of a woman that he would know anywhere, no matter how much time or space or grief separated them. "Erik, are you here?"
If he breathed he did not know it, for every fiber of his concentration was bent on willing her to step into the room, to move to where he could see her. Slowly, still calling out, she did … "I know there's someone here!"
It isn't her, raged one small portion of his mind, refusing to surrender as did the rest of his senses to drown in all the sounds and images that equaled her. It couldn't be … she can't have … returned to me …
But it was Christine, and she was walking this way – of course – her old room!
It was all he could do to shy away from the hidden door, even as she touched the secret switch on the other side and admitted herself into his hiding place. The door swung back, the light from the Louis-Phillipe room spilled into the dimmed bedchamber, and though it tried to draw her eye to the whiteness of his mask, she directed her gaze straight into his mismatched eyes.
"Erik," she whispered. "They told me you had gone …"
"They said the same of you," he said simply, surprised to hear how calm and neutral his voice seemed, when in truth his heart was being torn in a thousand different directions by the sudden convergence of every hope and horror. She was here – and though he had nearly died of grief when she had gone, he was not entirely sure now that he would wish her back again. Everything had suddenly turned for the better …
Christine felt as though she were choking; breath and words were hard to come by. She had rushed into the cellars hoping to disprove Belinda and Yvonne's fears, and thereby prove to herself that what Meg had told her was truth – that Erik was indeed and inexorably gone. But now that they stood, staring at each other in disbelief, it was more than him she faced; she was overpowered by waves of emotion, of years spent trying to push both her fear and her fond memories of him from her mind, of shock and confusion and a thousand questions she wanted to ask.
He was looking at her, waiting for her to speak and fearing she would not – for the Christine he had known had been all sorrowful, confused silence, and he felt the old responses reawakening in him. The urge to reach for her was tangible …
But she spoke. Summoning composure in the form of her remembered aims, she forced herself to think of her daughter; and if Yvonne and Belinda had spoken true, Erik's presence here could not be for the purpose of reunion alone. At this thought the darker memories came swirling back into her mind like storm clouds, and she remembered the near madness gleaming in his eyes the night he had pulled her from the stage. Her chest grew tight, and a new horror knifed her heart: long had she struggled to reconcile the fearsome Phantom with her gentle and beloved maestro; but now the signs could not be ignored. He had snatched her away from the stage that night like a monster in a fairy tale; and now her darling child was missing, last seen in the cellars …
"Where is Elaine, Erik?" she asked suddenly, panic honing the words to a sharper edge than she had truly intended.
For a moment he barely took meaning from the words, for the sound of her voice was as affective as it had always been. Perhaps she would never know that her voice had controlled him as well … and now it was truly something to behold. Even the brief syllables she had uttered had shown him that time had changed her, aged her – not in body, for she was still as lovely – but in soul. Her voice was no longer the fragile strain it had once been; it seemed to have been tempered by some great force, rendering it as strong and yet flexible as a Toledo blade. His inward ear applauded the change … but then, suddenly, he registered what she had said.
"Elaine?" he whispered, his eyes narrowing. "How …"
He did not need to finish his question, for her name conjured the memory of her face, and suddenly he knew. Of course she had effortlessly captured his heart! She had her father's golden curls, but her eyes were possessed of her mother's charm. And who, he thought – yes, who else in all the world could be so careless with a beloved one than this woman, who had been both his redemption and his destruction? "So you've come for her at last, have you?"
His question puzzled her; it seemed suspicious, even angry. "Where is she?" she demanded again, growing frightened – she would never forget his anger.
"She is not here," he answered coolly.
Those few syllables ignited in Christine's mind with blinding panic. "But she was!" she cried, clenching her hands into fists lest she lose her senses and pummel him. "Oh, I might have known – what have you done with my child?"
For the first time in his life, Erik was glad of the mask; its coldness, its inertia lent to him a sense of power in the face of such a painful accusation. "How dare you?" he said, his words like daggers of ice. "Am I still such a monster in your eyes, Christine? Do you actually thing I would hurt a child?"
But nothing could quash Christine's maternal fury. "Tell me where she is!" she shrieked, flying at him.
He caught her before she ever touched him, and not gently; seizing her wrists and pinning them to her sides, he stared down at her with barely concealed rage. His eyes were like whirlpools of hatred. "She is safe," he hissed, "safer than she ever was with you, or whatever fool to whom you trusted her care. Do you know how I found her, Christine? Crumpled at the bottom of a stone staircase, senseless, hurt, and abandoned! Left to lie in the damp and dark of the fourth cellar, to die of shock or hunger!"
These words seemed to pierce through the veil of Christine's fury; her eyes still raged and her lips trembled, but he felt some of the tension leave her limbs. He threw her roughly from him.
"What have I done with her? Only saved her from your neglect – only carried her to a place that was comfortable, only nursed her hurts, only fed her, kept her warm and safe! Only resolved to find her family and return her to them!"
"She has been missing for two weeks," Christine seethed, what remained of her anger struggling to overpower the guilt that was rising like a gorge in her throat. If what he was saying was true … "Two weeks you kept her – just when were you going to return her?"
He turned from her in disgust. "As soon as she was well enough to be moved," he retorted; "her leg was broken, and in several places! No, don't ask how hurt she was, nor how her health is now – I'll tell you. She'll walk again, in time; she was lucky I found her in time to set the bones. Lucky that I found her before you did – she'd never have survived this long without care." He regarded her with pure contempt. "What an attentive mother you are, Christine. Look to your own conduct before you question mine. Where were you all this time your child was missing?"
Tears were rising now in Christine's eyes; there was no doubting what he said. For now that the waves of her anger had receded she could not but confess – whatever else he was, Erik was not a liar. "I've been in England, working to support her," she replied as evenly as she could; but something petulant and defensive crept into her tone. "I have nothing, I could not take her with me – and Meg …"
He gave a derisive laugh. "Is that who you left to care for her? I wouldn't trust a cat to Meg Giry, if she hasn't the sense not to allow it to run about the Opera unchecked. Yet it is I, who cared for Elaine in her injury, who has earned your censure."
Christine's throat constricted, and again the guilt rose. "Erik ... I'm sorry," she croaked, the words scratching her ears like sandpaper.
Pretending to be lost in contemplation of the darkened room behind him, he made an offhand reply. "Sorry for what, Christine? Suspecting me of a crime unspeakable in its cruelty – of harming an innocent child? No apologies necessary – I understand completely, of course. With my brutal nature … with all the horrors I inflicted on others …" He whirled on her suddenly. "On you …"
She flinched and turned her face away. "Please don't ..."
"Don't what?" he prompted angrily. "Don't defend myself against a baseless charge, when it's you who are the criminal? Yes, you," he insisted to her reaction of indignation, "you who alone know my capacity for love, for kindness, could accuse me in this way? I might have steeled myself to your tears, never lifted you to fame and glory; I might never have released you to follow your own heart, while I rotted in a basement. I might never have carried Elaine here to heal in warmth and comfort, or sent her above ground again to a friend whose house admits the sunshine! But I have done all of this, and still you treat me as a thing, worthy only of your revulsion."
For a moment he was silent, and Christine felt as though she were drowning in a churning sea. "Erik," she managed to choke out, but her weak protest only gained another icy blast of his anger.
"Or is it 'please don't show you the door'? You couldn't wait to leave the last time you were here, Christine; and now the way out is just behind you. I suggest that you use it."
"No!" she cried, even as he stepped toward her, took her by the elbow and guided her through to the Louis-Phillipe room. "Elaine …"
"I will return her to you," he snapped, "and perhaps if God is merciful, you will find her safe. One can never be certain with the likes of me." At the doorstep he released her. "Go," he said, simple and cold. "I have no further use for you."
