Helene looked up, her surprise giving way to fear as she realized who…no…what had called to her.
The voice came from slack mouth of a corpse hanging on the wall to the left of her husband's casket.
She didn't not scream, only made a sort of gasping cry as she heard her name repeated by a skeleton in a dress of rotten rose-colored silk.
Then a skull, its spectacles oddly intact though the rest of its body had long ago turned to dust, whispered to her.
"Helene, Helene!"
Her horror grew as her name echoed through the vault, leaping from one corpse to another until it was Theo himself who called to her.
Even as she gripped at the armrest of the kneeler, fighting against the sickening panic, she remembered a night in Erik's arms…after they made love, he'd held her as a little bronze grasshopper sang an old Latin hymn.
Erik was, among other things, a ventriloquist.
She was not certain if the thought was comforting or terrifying. She had broken her promise to him…she had run from him…if he found her now, he would despise her.
"Helene."
Her name was repeated one final time. Not by one of the ghastly mummies that surrounded her, but by the man who stood in the arch between vaults.
Erik…
He wore a black cape that hung like a shadow around his body, undisturbed by the still, dry air. A soft black hat was pulled low over his face, half-concealing the black mask he wore.
She rose from the kneeler.
"Erik…how did you…how did you find me here?"
She wanted to run to him, to fall to her knees before him and beg him to take her home.
But, as he came down the steps toward her, she took a involuntary step back.
"Your servants here are most indiscreet. And most receptive to bribes."
He glanced around idly as he approached her.
"How appropriate, Comtessa, that you would feel from the arms of one corpse and into the arms of another."
He leaned over the silver-trimmed casket, examining the wasted features of the man who lay beneath the glass.
"Your husband, Madame," he asked, his voice softening for only a moment as he saw the salty streaks of tears of her cheeks.
"Yes, this is…this was Theo," she said as she felt coldness and bitterness of his demeanor wrap itself around her like a cloak of lead.
"Erik, forgive me."
"Forgive you, Madame? You showed me compassion and then you left me! You claimed that you loved me…and you left me. Even Christine said goodbye in her own confused way…but, from you, nothing! Do you even realize just how cruel you are?"
----------------
She had expected him to be angry, but she was still unprepared for the venom in his voice.
She held out her hands to him, a pleading and helpless gesture.
He grasped her wrists, pinning her arms at her sides as he pulled her against him.
"Why, Helene," he hissed, "why?"
There was no tenderness in him now and she forced herself not think of those too few nights they had shared.
"You were cruel, too, Erik. You took everything…"
"I took only what you offered so willingly, Comtessa!"
"Yes, willingly, Erik! I wanted you and I love you. And you were the one who betrayed me."
He let her go and began to pace back and forth among the mummies.
"Betrayed you? I assure you, Madame that I…"
"You did, Erik," she said, not certain whether it was anger or pain that choked her words as she caught edge of his cloak, "you told me you loved me. Then, while I was still in your arms, you called out for her."
"For her," Erik repeated, tugging his cape from her.
"You called for Christine. After you made love to me, after you told me the one thing I wanted to hear…the one thing I wanted…oh, Erik…it was too much…"
She turned from him, sinking back down onto the kneeler and hiding her face against the casket.
Erik stared up at the corpses on the wall above him. Here he felt anonymous, his own hideousness was lost amid the twisting, leering faces of the dead. Helene was the outsider here, her pretty face was out of place here.
Directly opposite him, the skeleton of a bride dangled loosely against the wires that held it its niche. The woman's skin had shriveled over fine bones and she seemed to laugh at him beneath her stiff, dusty veil.
He wondered who she was…who she had been…why she had been laid to rest in her virginal white. Had she died on her wedding day? Had her mourning groom carefully placed her in that alcove?
He shook his head against the curiosity. He was tired of Death. His entire life had been defined by it…Death had been his means of survival…
The dream!
Christine had come to him as a bride and he had turned her away.
Did I say it aloud? Is that what Helene heard? Is that why she left me?
He felt the hate receding from his body, the hate and rage that had driven him out of the opera house, had driven him from Paris to Palermo to find her.
He laid his hand on her shoulder, feeling the silent sobs that shook her.
"Helene, forgive me."
She did not move or look up at him.
"Erik, I cannot."