Chapter Five - Why Is She Here?

Christine hurried along familiar hallways. Here, less attention had been given during the restoration. Traces of the fire damage were still visible on the walls.

The skirt of Christine's dress whispered against the dingy plaster. And, for a time, it seemed a another sound answered it, a heavy rustle beyond the partitions.

Christine did not hear the sound as she turned down the steps towards the chapel.

Pausing at the chapel door, Christine saw that it had not been repaired at all. Closing her eyes, she remembered a lonely little girl who'd knelt there, praying by the light of a single candle, waiting for the Angel promised by her father.

She turned and saw the door Monsieur Reyer has spoken of. It was indeed small, a low and narrow entrance into an equally low and narrow passage. A long-forgotten service corridor, no doubt. The old theatre was full of them. No one knew them all. No one except, perhaps the Opera Ghost.

The first cramped tunnel was short, the one beyond the locked door seemed to descend forever. Holding her candle, Christine felt as almost if Hell itself must lie at the far end. Assuming there was an end.

And what lay at the end of this descent? Something in Monsieur Reyer's voice had unnerved her.

As well as can be expected...

Finally, she found herself facing a thick curtain. She cautiously raised it. She stepped through a large gilt frame and found herself in the strange grottos beside the lake.

She felt as if she had come home.

Little had changed. The pipe organ, the black swan bed with its crimson velvet covers, the candelabra, the endless piles of books and musical scores were still there.

Gone, however, were the delicate miniatures of opera sets, gone were the dozens of sketches of herself.

Only one picture remained. A small watercolor of a young girl in white, an innocent asleep in a sea of crimson velvet.

"Angel?"

Christine heard her own voice echo back across the lake. There was no answer, no sign of the man she sought.

She made her way up the steps to the organ. A half-finished composition lay open on the music rack. An uncapped bottle of red ink stood next to it. On a small table near the organ, she saw a cloud of sheer white material. Her wedding veil...

In the bedroom, she saw the music box on a low stand near the bed.

That was her last memory of him...he had been holding that music box...looking up at her. She could still see the tears on his face, the hope in his eyes when she came back to give him the ring...something to remember her by.

She pressed her hands to her face, fighting back her own tears.

"I should have stayed. I should never have left him."

She sat down on the edge of the bed. She would wait for her Angel's return.

-

He stared with disbelief at the woman asleep in his bed. A single lock of her dark hair lay across the curve of her cheek. Her lips were slightly parted, her body enveloped in black.

Christine...

He reached down to pull the covers over her, but then he drew back.

What does she want with me? Why has she returned? She in mourning...is her precious Vicomte dead?

No. He thought calmly, even he would have heard if some tragedy had befallen Raoul de Chagny.

He wanted to reach out to her, to wake her and take her in his arms.

Why is she here? What does she want from this Angel in Hell?

He turned away, lowering the lace curtain as he left. He did not want to see her.