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-Chapter Twelve – Voice and Heartbeat-

In the middle of the night, Carla wakes up, stirred by some words that loudly echoed through her dreams: Christine... forgive me. I will not let you go again...

She tries to fall asleep again for some time, but it doesn't work. So she gets up and shuffles over to the library to fetch her book.

When she crosses the threshold, she sees Erik who is sitting in his armchair by the fire.

"Back again?" she asks softly.

"I wasn't at her grave yet." he answers.

Slightly irritated, Carla sits down on her stool.

"Are you feeling alright again?"

"I think so... I didn't expect that either..." He looks at Carla's folded hands for a moment. "I guess, I've finally accepted it..." his eyes show a faint smile "Look what you did to me in eleven days..."

He's healing... Carla bites her lip.

"I was just sitting around and listening. Erik."

"You bravely beared my madness."

She shrugs and gives him a wry-mouthed smile.

"Will you sing with me once more?"

Caught off guard by this question, her eyes reveal a trace of fear.

"You'd rather not, I guess..."

"No, I... I..." Carla stammers "I'll have to think this over... Will you tell me about your time before the Opera?"

"I'll have to think this over as well." he answers with an elegant tilting of his head. "And you should go back into your bed and sleep now."

"I know." Slackly she gets up. "Good night again."

"Good night."

When she is gone, Erik takes Christine's picture out of his pocket to look at it for a while.

"You knew I could not help loving her, didn't you?" he whispers.

'Don't you know... ' she thinks the next morning, still half asleep 'This singing with him was the most sexual moment of your entire life...' With a frown she struggles up. "Man... yes... He wanted you... all of you... like you wanted him... for a moment..." she shivers involountarily "I wish I had only one clear feeling about this..."

When she wipes her eyes, an eye-lash sticks to her hand. Carfully she picks it up.

'Superficiality. Darn!' she then wishes and sends it flying to... wherever.

After having taken a shower, she shuffles into the library.

"Could we go for a walk in the Bois?"

"Of course."

Slowly, the full moon creeps up over the treetops and sends it's silvery light to dance on the lake.

Carla closes her eyes for a moment, then she takes a deep breath.

"Man, this is so beautiful!" she sighs softly "I could stand here forever, just watching the light playing on the water..."

"Sights like that are worth living for." Erik agrees, his voice nearly inaudible.

Carla tilts her head to look at him. The moonlight glows on his mask, frames the shape of his cloaked figure and by that gives him a majestic, utterly unreal appearance.

'If this all were just a dream...' she thinks by herself 'If this all were just one big dream, there would be no consequences...' Slowly she turns towards Erik and reaches hesitantly for his hand, but before she can touch him, he rips lose from the scenery and starts to stroll along the bank of the lake.

"Have you come to a conclusion concerning the singing?"

Carla sighs and catches up with him.

"Have you come to a conclusion concerning your past?" she then retorts.

"So you want to play a little quid pro quo?"

"No, Mr. Lecter. And I'm still not sure if I want to sing with you again... Why do you want it?"

"I don't know if I wont it, either. I'm only interested in what you want."

"Now that's..." she falls silent. "What about your past?"

"Well, including today we have only four days left, so even if I wanted to burden you with every detail, I won't be able to do it. But if you have some concrete questions, I will see if I can answer them."

"I have some questions that would be... important to me, but... I guess you will not like them..."

"Try it."

Carla hesitates.

"I want to know what your mother looked like." she eventually mumbles "I want to know, how she died and if you loved someone before you loved Christine..."

Erik remains silent for a moment, then he speaks with a strangely expressionless voice: "My mother was a strong woman, but not strong enough... She survived my father's parting three months before I was born; but I was... not what you would call an easy child. I did all I could to keep her more afraid of me than I was of her... And having given birth to a... distorted monster made her an outcast, deprived of all friends. My father left her as a wealthy woman, but that didn't last forever. So... on my ninth birthday, I found her... she had hanged herself from the garderobe... I cut her off, I buried her, I left... If I had a normal face..." his voice trails off.

"Did you mourn for her?" Carla asks softly.

"Oh, I... I sang a Requiem. But I miss nothing about her... She wasn't even especially beautiful..."

"And the early love?"

"Hah." Erik sneers. "I, too, was young and stupid once. She was eighteen, two years older than me, and when she was bored of detesting me and playing around with my feelings, she saw to it that I had to flee the gypsies. Popular women and outcasts simply don't fit together."

"So you were not kept prisoner there?"

"I was at first. But I gained a considerable degree of freedom, much like Kay envisioned it. He had to make my life worth living, at least a little."

"And where did you go after that?"

"I had nowhere to go to. So I went on travelling from fair to fair, seeing the world and still using my fantasy, voice and face to make ends meet. The only time worse than that was Persia and I often thought about ending it all - a well placed knife, a fast poison... but then again... I have this certain contrariness in me and the world isn't made of hating humans alone. There are so many places loaded with beauty where one can hide, create and study... If I hadn't had this affinity to human culture I surely would have stayed in a wood, somwhere in Asia. Plants and animals are not interested in faces..."

Carla smiles and shakes her head.

"Erik goes Tarzan. But sure that would be paradise, to live in the wilderness, far away from all humans, independent of all artificial systems, no problems but the next meal and wood for a fire... with your knowledge of herbs and medicine..." she sighs. "Uhm, did you ever have a master?"

"A master mason. It was a really expensive education but all bribing wasn't good enough to keep the situation calm. I was too good and my master feared and hated me... I was kind of getting used to it by that time."

"You never had a friend?"

Erik shrugs.

"Beside you, the closest thing to a human friend that I ever had was the Daroga. He didn't leave me to the Shah's revenge - he had his visionary period again and saw me as a great artist. Had he had one of his overly righteous or depressed days I wouldn't be here now."

"Was he really that unstable?" Carla asks, unbelieving wrinkles on her forehead.

"After eleven months with me, yes..." he sounds ashamed.

"How did it come that you settled down under the Opera?"

"I was in Paris when they hit water and anonymously sent a suggestion for a solving of the problem to Garnier. And because I was fed up with travelling I decided to stay and see if he would accept it and if I could be of further use. In the course of time I sent many solutions for many problems, ideas as well as money; I interfered with all important decisions so that I finally reigned over a great part of the building process. And after having done so many vital things for it's development, it was a syllogism to me to claim the Opera my rightful property and use it as my habitat. And this I did."

"Garnier never talked to you personally?"

"I forbade him to ever search for me. I guess he kind of feared me, but was wise enough to realize a good idea when it fluttered on his desk."

Carla utters an acknowledgeing sound and for a while they just walk in silence side by side.

"Are you afraid of my face?" Erik suddenly asks.

Slightly irritated Carla looks at him.

"Do I make the impression?"

"No..."

"Then why do you ask?"

Erik shrugs.

"Perhaps I want to hear it from you."

She stops and sternly looks into his eyes.

"I am not afraid of your face, Erik. Take off your mask whenever you feel like it."

He examines her expression for a moment, as if he were considering to bare his face now, but then he seems to decide against it and walks on without saying a word.

Carla gives a wry-mouthed smile.

'Once a coward walked the Bois...'

For an instant she beholds the elegance of his movements. He steps like a dancer, light and with a strange... musicality, and yet there is something grave and powerful to him. He definitely is not the type of killer who practices martial arts to defend himself in unfortunate situations, but the one who uses only the speed of his perceiption and reaction to strike first and leathal with his one chosen weapon.

Grinning she runs a few steps to catch up with him.

"By the way, do you carry your punjab lass...?" Before she can end the sentence, a sharp, whistling sound cuts the air. She feels a soft jerk around her head, then there is another whistling and Erik moves on as if nothing happened.

"You are a poser!" she scolds him "And why did you kill my head?"

"Catching your neck would have been too dangerous. I didn't want to hurt you."

"Why, thank you." She hooks her hand to his elbow. "Did you ever have a pet?" she then blurts out "Kay says, you had a cat named Ayesha, and she and Christine were constantly having little psycho fights. Is that another good guess?"

"Well..." He is obviously surprised that she touches him without special reason; but soon he bends his arm, welcoming the slightly new dimension of their relationship. "I love animals. They judge a creature just by it's behaviour and not by it's outlooks. I always had at least one that trusted me, a bird, a squirrel, a wolf, a horse... But I never had a pet. Animals belong into the wilderness and not into a house. I would feel like taking a prisoner."

"Really? Hm, I guess, Canary would starve to death or be hit by a car if I let him out of the house."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that. Some instincts never die."

There is a strange pronounciation to this last sentence, that gives Carla an odd feeling, and suddenly she wishes, she hadn't taken his arm. Being so close to Erik, remembering the sensations that rolled through her when she sang with him, she begins to understand that loving the dark creature beside her means damnation. Surrender to him, to his passion, his will, dissolve and die in his voice, be reborn in his heartbeat, bloom under his touch; and Angel, Demon, whatever he is, whatever he wishes to be, you will be it, too, and belong to Earth no longer.

Struggling for breath, Carla stops.

Immediately, Erik turns towards her, deep concern in his look.

"What is wrong with you?"

But her wide eyes just stare to the ground, while she pants as if there wasn't enough air.

"Carla." he firmly grips her upper arms "Nod or shake your head: is there a physical cause for your state?"

When she shakes her head, he relaxes a bit.

"Alright, Carla. You are panicking, but that is no catastrophe. I will help you to calm down again. Just listen to my voice, child. Listen..."

And suddenly, she finds herself wrapped in sound, in a rhythm that seems to take a hold of her body, to soothe the feeling of sheer terror that has her chest in it's iron grip. Little by little, her breathing grows slower, the frequency somehow staggering downward to meet with the music, the safe ground that Erik's voice created for her.

When she finds back into reality, she is still in the park and Erik is still holding her arms.

"Carla..."

Putting up her head is a little difficult, but she manages to look into his eyes.

"Erik..." she mumbles "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"No, don't apologize. Are you alright again?"

"I guess..." supporting herself at his hand she wipes some tangeled wisps of hair from her forehead. "Man, this was scary..."

"A stress reaction, I assume. The last twelve days weren't easy for you. I'm sorry that it had such a severe effect on you."

'Gosh, don't be so sweet and caring!' she inwardly pleads him 'Be the dark possessive demon again, I know you control it by your will! Give me a reason to run! Make this the hell easy for me!'

"I... I have such fits sometimes." she lies "Like the claustrophobia, you know? I have a hand full of decent psycho days every year and this was the third for 2004. Don't blame yourself. You helped me better than any other before."

He utters no word of protest, although he obviously doesn't believe her.

"Shall we return to the Opera?"

"Yes, please."

While they slowly walk back to the gate and the carriage, Carla looks east.

"How long is it till dawn?"

"Approximately two and a half hours." Erik answers "Time enough for another walk. Hopefully a pleasent one..."