Ok, on it goes:)
-Chapter Thirteen – Reaching Out -
"Something really scared her today and I don't know what it was." he mumbles, sitting leaned against the wall beside Christine's grave. "I was so certain that she is as brave as you were, when she didn't leave... The fifteen days are over soon... I don't want to be forced to keep her here against her will."
'You didn't respect her will in the first place.' is Christine's wordless answer.
"I will not use this argument."
'I know. But you will keep her nontheless.'
"I love her, Christine."
'Then trust her.'
Sadly he shakes his head.
"I can't."
"Carla, what is wrong with you today? You seem totally distracted."
She shrinks away from his friendly concern.
"It's nothing, really, just the aftermath of the fit yesterday... I am tired. I didn't sleep all night."
Erik frowns.
"Why didn't you come to me, child? I could have helped you."
"I... I didn't want to disturb you..."
He sighs and picks the blanket up from the floor.
"Then let me comfort you now. Come."
In his room, he drapes the blanket over his piano.
"Lie down there... Wait, I help you up..."and before Carla knows what happens, she sits on the instrument. "Now, stay where you are, I'll fetch your bed-cover..."
Five minutes later, she lies there, wrapped up comfortably in the warm fabrics, while Erik's music flows through her body. Soft, deep tones that realx her muscles and send her mind onto a peaceful journey. All the cramped fears and doubts stop circling around her head, until she finally falls into a deep, dreamless slumber.
When he is sure that she is unconscious, Erik leaves his seat and moves to her side. Hesitantly his thin fingers reach out. But just before they touch Carla's softly blushed cheek, he withdraws again and sighs.
"You are the true Angel." he whispers into the direction of the ebony cabinet in whose upper drawer he keeps his morphine.
When Carla wakes again several hours later, Erik is totally absorbed by sketching. To avoid disturbing him, she doesn't move, just blinks a few times to focus on his straight back.
'Why are you so wonderful, Erik?' she asks him silently 'And why so frightful? Why can't you just be plain and simple?'
"So you're awake." Erik suddenly greets her without turning around. "Do you feel well again?" he puts his pencil aside and gets to his feet to walk over to the piano.
Carla yawns.
"Much better than before, but still not good."
"Are you falling ill?" his yellow eyes search her face with an intensity that causes her to feel slightly uncomfortable.
"No, I guess not." she mumbles, struggling into an upright position to escape Erik's gaze. "When I fall ill I stop eating, but I'd love to eat something now."
"Shall I prepare you a meal?"
"Oh yes, that would be great. Some cereals with milk and fruits. I feel like healthy food today."
When he is gone, she lets herself fall onto the blankets again.
"Two and a half days, two and a half days, two and a half days..." she repeats like a mantra "Today, tomorrow and the day after. Two and a half days, two and a half days, two and a half days..." She must hang on to reason. She mustn't panic. She and her sanity will survive this rollercoaster ride. Only two and a half days, then she will be going home, home to where she's save from everything.
The evening passes. With gentle force, Erik urges Carla to stay on the piano and allow him to read every wish from her eyes. For a while she lets him have his way, but when he offers to carry her to the bathroom, she finally reacts angry.
"Darn, Erik, I am no child! And I am not ill, just a little tired! I can walk alone and I will not die on the way to the toilet."
"I'm sorry Carla. I didn't mean to unnerve you."
"You're not unnerving me, Erik. It's only... I'm twenty, I left my parent's house, I'm grown up and already a tiny little bit independent - I want to be treated like that... Although I feel too feeble to jump down this thing gracefully... Would you help me?"
When he has heaved her up on the piano again, there is an odd, unexpected moment of silence between them.
'Reason!' Carla thinks 'I must cling to reason!' while her toes move forward, until they brace against Erik's stomach, a little bit above from where his belly button must be. Her eyes are locked to her blue anklets, while Erik's breathing lets the pressure against her foot in- and decrease. Then his hands creep into her field of view, get a gentle hold of her foot, cause it to look tiny and vulnerable... and suddenly, Carla is terribly afraid, that he will not let go of her again; but when she withdraws, as calm as possible to avoid hurting him, he doesn't hinder her.
A little too loud and accentuated, Carla clears her throat.
"What did you do the last onehundred years?" she asks, trying hard to keep her voice from quivering.
"Mostly I was down here." He turns around and walks over to an ebony cabinet with a strange air of haste. "I talked to Christine, read to her, read to myself... I composed and did a lot of experiments concerning synthetics and as a result own several patents for highly specialized materials." he talks without looking at Carla, fumbling around in the upper drawer of the cabinet "Some of these materials are used in computers, others in plastical surgery."
"Why..." Carla hesitates "Why didn't you go to a..."
"Plastical surgeon? I will not lie helplessly on a table in front of some greedy, untrustworthy human. I will not be the headline of a medical newspaper. I will not find my way into the yellow press. I will not be a curiosity once more. I'd rather spend eternity in this body under the Opera than bear humiliation once more."
His voice sounds calm, but behind this facade Carla can sense the murdrous energy, the fuel for all his immoral, inethical deeds. He would do anything, anything, to protect his dignity, to defend at least his most fundamental right as a human being.
She swallows.
"When did you realize that you can't die?"
"It was the night I buried Christine. I overdosed my morphine and cut my wrists but it had no effect. The next day I stabbed myself, I tried to drown, to break my neck, to dehydrate, to starve to death... I thought I'd lose my mind together with Christine... but I didn't. I cried, I was depressed, I resigned, I cried again... But through all the pain I felt... I felt that her spirit still lives here... And now I know that I live, too, Carla. I live..."
'If there ever was a moment to say "I love you"...' Carla thinks sadly.
"Would you make me sleep again, Erik?" she asks instead "I'd like to sleep now..."
Still a little dreamstricken Carla buries her face in the soft, comforting fragrance of her pillow. It takes a while for her to figure out that the music she hears isn't played by her memory and that the bed in which she lies, the pillow under her head, isn't her own; but when she does, she sits up with a start and grabs the fabric of the dark curtains to find a way out. Immediately the music stops and a moment later an opening appears in the blackness.
"Good morning." Erik greets her.
"I... I need to go to the bathroom..." she blurts, shoves Erik aside and hurries out of the room.
On the corridor, she leans against the wall and takes a deep breath.
'You slept in his bed. You actually slept in his bed and liked it!'
"Now... why does that shock you so much...?" she whispers after a while. "He din't sleep there, too... did he...?"
"Do you feel better than yesterday?" Erik asks, when she returns into his room.
"Uhm... actually... actually I feel very good..." she realizes with a slight trace of surprise.
"I played on the piano for you all night. Perhaps that had some influence on the quality of your sleep. That's why I carried you into my bed and not into your own. I'm sorry that it starteled you when you woke up. Perhaps I shouldn't have closed the curtains..."
"No... It was just... Don't worry, Erik. And you... you played all night? You didn't rest yourself?"
"I never needed much sleep."
"Oh... But thank you. Your therapy worked really good." Her smile barely hides her insecurity and she avoids direct eye-contact with Erik, while she states: "For the sake of a bearable jetlag I would like to leave early tomorrow. That means that today is practically the last day of my sojourn and wh should use it well. Any ideas?"
"There are over two hours left for a walk in the park." he answers, his voice revealing nothing about his feelings.
"Ok, let's stroll around the Bois; but later today, it feels so odd to go out into the night when you've just had your breakfast. What could we do before the walk?"
"I could show you, how beautiful chemicals can be when you know how to mix them together."
"Oh yes, that's good!" this time her smile is nearly stable "But you'll have to explain to me how it all works."
