(A/N)
AHUGE THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO COMMENTED!! I took the criticism and the praise instride, than you SO much!!!! As for the asterisks they are in the original copy of the phic but they did not show up on the projected file! Sorry for the confusion I tried to fix it this time around...
Now on with the story...(/A/N)
Chapter 2
Breakfast was a quiet affair at a small café down the street. The apartment had no kitchen and so dining was impressed upon the Giry's pocketbooks. They made mediocre conversation over strong coffee and bland croissants. Meg and Madam Giry explained that they had been hired at an up-and-coming opera house in Paris, and were to depart in a week. There was no mention of the dream the night before, or of Raoul.
"You should come with us, my dear," Madam Giry offered, "It would be foolish to let your training go to waste."
Christine's chest tightened. "I'm afraid I have lost my teacher," Madam Giry and Meg exchanged glances.
"He's still alive, isn't he?" Christine asked abruptly. There was a pause.
"Yes," Madam Giry said finally.
"Where is he?"
The older woman's eyes were sharp. "It does not concern you."
"Does he still stay beneath the old Opera House?"
Madam Giry's impeccable posture improved by the slightest motion. "Occasionally, but he has found residence elsewhere."
"Have you seen him?"
"Not unless he wishes to be seen." Christine's brow furrowed, not in temper but in thought. It looked for a moment as though she was trying to stare the answers out of Madam Giry.
"You are the mistress of indirect answers," She sighed, her frustration apparent. "I had forgotten."
Madam Giry said nothing and took a sip of her coffee. Meg glanced out the window, clicking her nails upon the tabletop. A tall, brown haired man passed, and her breath caught. He stopped and looked in at her and smiled, the corners of his dark eyes crinkling; a movement that lit his whole face. Meg found her heart pounding irresistibly as she smiled back, her face flushing and giving him a little wave. They both stood motionless for a moment, staring at each other as though at a loss of what to do. Then the man tugged his forelock and hurried away.
Christine watched her friend with wide eyes. Madam Giry, however, appeared to take no notice.
"Who was that?" Christine asked. Meg blushed a deeper crimson.
"Jacques."
"Jacques who?"
"Jacques Nothing," Madam Giry said abruptly, patting the corners of her mouth with her napkin. Meg brushed a strand of her flaxen hair behind her ears and sent a furtive glance back toward the window. Christine's eyebrows raised.
"Quite a handsome nothing," She said carelessly.
"But a nothing nonetheless," Madam Giry responded coldly and Christine fell silent. For a while there was no sound but the occasional footsteps or horse hooves against the cobbled streets.
"Christine" Meg said suddenly. "Are you… are you coming with us?"
Christine stared at her. To return to Paris? To the life she once knew? Begin dancing again and singing for dazzling crowds of the beautifully dressed twinkles of the wealthy and noble? Did she want to feel the openness of the stage beneath her feet and the dizzying expanse of the audience who would expect nothing but her best? She looked at Madam Giry whose eyes remained carefully expressionless beneath arched brows. Christine bit her lip.
"I will go with you to Paris I have enough money of my own to pay my way for a few months… but as for the stage…" She trailed off.
Madam Giry covered Christine's hand with her own. "I understand, my dear. But do not let the darkness of the past throw shadows over what you love,"
Christine sighed. "I know,"
Maurice Talley was nervous.
"Robert if these scheme of yours…." His associate Robert Rand put a thick hand on Maurice's shoulder.
"It's not a scheme, my friend. It is simply a meeting with this writer of yours."
"Mine?" Talley said frantically, running his fingers through dark blonde hair. "Mine?! I've been corresponding with him, certainly, but he is no writer of mine!" He threw a glance over his shoulder, nervously scanning the dimly lit tavern. "I don't know why he asked us to meet him in this sort of place." He brushed a group of dry bread crumbs off the table with a sweep of his hand. "This can't be healthy,"
Rand shrugged, the only movement besides the endless scanning of his beetle- black eyes. He took a swig of ale from a large pewter tankard. Talley fingered his brandy nervously.
The door to the tavern opened, and a tall figure in a cloak entered. He stopped at the bar, placing a leather-clad hand upon it as he spoke to the man behind it. The bald bartender jerked his head in the direction of Rand and Talley. Talley immediately straightened up and bent his head, adopting the position of one in deep conversation. Rand, however, stared blatantly back at the stranger.
"This is our man," Talley said nervously. Robert remained motionless.
The man ordered a drink and with barely half a glance at the two men behind the table, he walked through a door behind the bar. Rand regarded the closed door and slowly got to his feet.
"What?!" Talley asked instantly. "Where are you going? Are you leaving me??"
Rand held up a hand.
"He wants us to follow him."
Talley hesitated, and then sat up with such speed and force that the table nearly toppled over. "If you say so,"
Both men approached the door and looked at the bartender who pretended not to notice. Talley pushed the door open slowly and stepped inside. They had entered a long corridor full of doors. Exchanging glances, the two stopped and waited. And listened.
"He doesn't seem to be here," Talley said in a loud whisper but Rand held up a hand for silence.
"Listen,"
Talley obeyed. He listened so hard he could feel his neck beginning to strain. And his efforts did not go un-rewarded. He heard music. A piano. And it was not the usual banging of keys to a rhythm according to notes that seemed so popular in upper social circles. No, this was something else besides music; this was a speech, this was a story.
Every note came through true and clear to their ears on a curve of heaven and sorrow. The song portrayed a rounded emptiness, a gaping hole in the soul that could never be filled after a life of so much wanting. The player transitioned from octave to octave, note to note so smoothly it was as if he had a finger for every key.
Talley's jaw dropped and he looked at Rand, who's usually aggressive expression bared a burning curiosity. The two men began to follow the call of music that led them down the hallway to a door like all the rest. Slowly, Rand turned the knob and pushed it open, as if afraid to disturb the flow of the piece and its unending treble tears and bass groans.
There was a small piano n the right hand corner of the room that sat upon a threadbare carpet, and two cracked leather chairs behind the stool. The cloaked man sat at the piano, moving with his playing, thrusting his whole body into the keys as he played with more ferocity and passion and then soothed the notes with gentle swaying.
The two others sat in the chairs, watching long fingers trace each key lovingly only to leave for another and take it into his tender care. Neither man moved as he watched this musician at his instrument, this artist in his element. Neither wished to break the spell and lose sight of this haunting melody.
But gradually, the notes faded away into the cold fog of the evening, leaving nothing but a ringing echo in their wake. The man seemed to come out of a trance and his back straightened. He turned to face his new partners.
"My," Talley said with difficulty, his voice cracking. "Oh my,"
"He had a child, Meg," Christine repeated, on her back looking at the ceiling of Meg's room. Both women were dressed for bed.
"Oh Christine," Meg said, reaching for her friend's hand.
"I left him because he was unfaithful… but also because he… I don't know,"
"You couldn't trust him?"
Christine shifted her weight onto her elbow, wiping a wet cheek on her hand. "Yes…" she remembered that night on the roof. "It's just..." she shook her head against the pillow and Meg patiently waited for her to continue. "He spoke so beautifully to me. He told me he loved me every waking moment. He told me it was only me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with…"
Meg lay on her belly with her chin in her hand. "Just because he has a child doesn't mean he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life with you," She reasoned. Christine shut her eyes against a wave of pain.
Meg brought her friend's head into her lap and stroked her hair as if she were a small child, as fresh waves of Christine's sorrow brought more tears. It was a while before she quieted.
"And soon," Meg whispered into the darkness, lit by a single candle. "We shall be back in Paris and you can forget all of this."
"Forget," Christine moaned. "Forget…"
"Yes," Meg said firmly. She looked dreamily out her window and into the night. "We'll go to all the places we went when we girls. The fair will be starting again. It's fall and the trees in the park will be amber and gold and brown and red." She smiled. "And the candied almonds will be sold hot in the streets…"
Christine smiled. "Does Pierre still sell them?" She referred to an ageless, whithered man who rested his great cart upon the cobbles near the old Opera House until the winter snows drove him away.
"Oh, I expect so," Meg said cheerfully, glad of her friend's distraction. "And the wind will smell of bonfires,"
"And the children will be looking forward to the first snow,"
"The dorms would be heated by the great fireplace, and Maman would read stories to the little ones," Meg said reminiscently. "And then bedtime prayers…"
To Meg's disturbance, Christine's smile faltered. "And I would go down the chapel and light a candle for my father,"
"Christine--"
"And I'd sit for hours at a time, shivering and silent waiting for the voice…" Christine's eyes became shadowed. Meg chewed her bottom lip and watched her friend's thoughts cross her face.
"D'you still think of him?" The question was direct. Christine's sharp, sudden glance at Meg was quickly muted and softened into a blank stare. Her dream of the night before suddenly invaded her imagination. Echoes of Erik burst into her senses suddenly, like a hard gust of wind on a blustery day. She could feel him, smell him, taste him, each sensation pushing itself onto her until her heart ached as if it would burst'. Flashes of scenes half-filled and sharply remembered flashed through her brain. His mouth as it sang for her, his hands as he cursed her and his eyes as they pleaded with her, trying to find words to tell her…
"Not often," She said softly.
But as soon as she said it, both knew it was a lie.
(A/N)
Yes, yes I know not too much happened in this chapter and it's not me at my best perhaps,but PLEASEstick with me I needed to introduce more characters and try to explain points of view.
The next chapter will be up VERY soon!
