Breaking the Curse

Chapter 2: The Explanation

Without knowing what she did, Christine ran after him. She found her voice and called, "Stop! Wait! Please!" She pushed her way through the crowds, heedless of the others, shoving them aside ruthlessly until finally she reached a clear spot and saw him.

"Wait!" she cried.

He did not slow down.

"Wait, please!" Christine cried, nearly sobbing. "Erik!"

The sound of his name made him stop and turn. He gave her a quizzical look as she ran up to him, a lovely, breathless girl with a glossy fringe of hair shadowing her wide, panicked eyes.

He took off his hat. "Good evening, miss," he said finally, in that low, smooth voice that she still heard in her dreams every night. Or were they nightmares?

"Erik," was all she could say.

"How do you know my name?"

Christine stared at him, dumfounded. "Erik. Erik Destler."

He bowed again, another natural and well-practiced one. "At your service, miss, but you have the advantage of me. Have we met?"

"I'm Christine," she blurted, as if that would explain everything. "Christine Day."

Erik shrugged and said, "It's nice to meet you, Christine Day. I'm Erik—but then, you already knew that. How you knew it is evidently going to remain a mystery." He smiled.

"How—how did you know that music?" Christine asked wildly.

"I wrote it."

"But you played it… for me."

He nodded. "You stopped and listened to me. I just felt—I don't know. I felt some sort of kinship with you right then, and I thought all of a sudden that here was someone who would be able to appreciate something of mine. I wanted to… give you something."

"So, are you him, or not?"

"Depends on who you think I am."

"The devil!" Christine retorted.

She was taken aback by his burst of merry laughter. "If you're trying to compliment my work, Christine, I'm flattered. But no, I have no supernatural abilities to play or compose. I'm just me."

"But—that piece. Don Juan Triumphant. I destroyed it. I know I did!"

He jerked his head in surprise. "How did you know the name of it?" He shook his head. "I don't care how badly you play, you couldn't have destroyed it; I'm the only one who has ever performed it. Just now, when you walked away. I just finished it."

Christine blinked in confusion, so troubled that her eyes shone with tears. It was he—she knew it was he—but why didn't he recognize her? Why didn't he remember?

Despite his obvious bewilderment, he saw her distress and took pity on her. "It looks as if we have some things to talk about, huh? Come on, Christine. We'll go grab a coffee or something, and see if we can solve some of these little mysteries."

Christine bit her lip and gave him a shaky nod. He offered his arm—again with a flash of that old-world elegance—and gingerly she tucked her hand beneath his elbow.

The café he brought her to was a little out-of-the-way, not so brightly-lit as some of the more well-known places. They selected a table in the far corner, and Christine took off her coat and looked around. "Nice little place," she commented.

He nodded, pulling out her chair for her and taking her coat. "Coffee's not bad either." He hung up her coat and sat down. "Are you hungry?"

She nodded, a little reluctantly. This was surreal. She had stabbed this man and torn off his face only days before, shot him and set him on fire shortly before that. It was therefore more than a little bit odd, now, to be sitting down to coffee with him as if they were on a date.

The waitress came by and Erik ordered for them both, two vanilla cappuccinos and two slices of carrot cake. "Is that all right?"

"Sounds good," Christine replied.

The waitress left, and Erik smiled across the table at her. "Now, then. Tell me how you know my name and my music."

Christine took a deep breath. On one of his fingers sparkled a plain black and silverring that she recognized. She reached out and took his hand, turning it so she could see the ring more clearly. He looked surprised, but let her.

Lightly tracing the ring with one finger, she met his gaze evenly. "Do you swear to me that you don't know who I am?"

He curled his fingers around hers, and nodded. "I've never seen you in my life before tonight. And when I saw you, I felt… oh, but that's stupid. Never mind."

"No, tell me," Christine urged.

"I felt like we had some connection, as if you and I…" He faltered and looked away.

"What? As if we what?"she asked.

"As if we… belonged together," he finished, obviously uncomfortable. "I know that sounds scary and stalkerish, and I swear I'm not scary and stalkerish. But that's what made me start playing my own composition for you. And then I got scared by the feeling, so Ipacked up and left. But you followed me, and you called out for me." He swallowed nervously. "How'd you know my name, Christine?"

"I've met you before," she told him. "I don't know whether I travelled in time, or whether I got reincarnated and remembered a past life, or what… but I've already known you a long time."

Erik's forehead wrinkled. "Wow. That's… stranger than I was expecting." He studied her with his pale, grey-green eyes.

She nodded.

He waited until the waitress had come, delivered their food, and gone again before asking, "So you've known me in other… 'incarnations,' then? Was I a decent fellow?"

Slowly Christine shook her head.

Erik raised his eyebrows. "Well, that's honest anyway. So what happened? What did I do?"

Christine picked up her coffee in a shaking hand and took a sip. She tried to call to mind all she had heard from Richard about the "phantom." She took a deep breath. "You sold your soul to the devil for the sake of your music, and in return he ruined your face. You hid out under the London Opera House, haunting it like a ghost and occasionally killing people and skinning them so you could sew up masks for yourself. And then I came, and you became obsessed with me."

"Lucky you," Erik replied lightly, putting a forkful of carrot cake into his mouth. "I sound like quite the charmer. Then what happened?"

His easy manner comforted Christine a little, and she took a bite of her own cake before continuing. "You started tutoring me withmy singing. I was in a depression after my father died, and you helped me come out of it. But I still never saw you. Then you killed one of the stagehands and put him in the diva's closet—she was so hysterical she couldn't go on. I sang instead, and did pretty well, except one of the critics didn't like me. You killed the critic and kidnapped me from my father's grave. Then you put a ring on my finger—this ring," she tapped it with her forefinger, "---and told me I was married to the music, and not to see anyone else."

"A reasonable expectation for a married woman," he remarked, hiding his smile behind his coffee cup. "Then what?"

He's humouring me, Christine realized, mortified. Have I really met him before? Maybe I just heard him playing in the street once before, and just dreamed up all the rest of it.

Nevertheless, she'd come too far not to continue with the story. "Then, when I went to the Masquerade Ball and spoke with Richard, my fiancé, you kidnapped me and dragged me back down to your house beneath the sewers." She paused, remembering. "You also killed the diva that night, and stuffed her head into the soup pot."

Erik couldn't control himself any longer, and let out a shout of laughter. "I did what?"

"You did! It was awful. And—and revolting," Christine said weakly. Erik's laughter was contagious; she felt the most damnable urge to chuckle herself. Carlotta had been rather horrible to her, she recalled. Unbidden, a smile curled one corner of her mouth. "The footman was just stirring the soup, and suddenly there was her head, floating to the top like a bit of crap in a toilet."

Erik had taken a sip of his coffee, and nearly sprayed it. He gulped hastily, and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "You have quite a descriptive way with words, you know," he told her with a broad grin. "So what other atrocities did I commit? I sound imaginative, if nothing else."

"You killed all the policemen that came down after you, and you stabbed Richard and set him on fire."

"Perhaps I was jealous," he suggested impishly.

"Duh. You think?" Christine asked. She took another bite of cake, chewed it carefully and swallowed it, washing it down with her coffee.

"So there we were, in my house beneath the sewers, and I've just offed your fiancé and all the cops who were chasing me. What happened next?"

"Then you came after me, and I shot you with the Inspector's gun and set you on fire."

Erik nodded decisively, shovelling the last forkful of cake into his mouth. "Don't blame you a bit. I'd have done the same thing in your shoes. Then what?"

"Then the episode ended, and I woke up here again right after my audition, when I sang a piece from Don Juan Triumphant. You were there, too, looking all rich and modern, and offered me the part. You took me back to your place, and while you were changing to take me out for the evening I found Don Juan Triumphant on your computer and realized the producer of the play was really you. You came back into the room, and told me that love and music were forever."

"Hm, that's a good line. Did I have any more of those?"

Christine smiled then, in spite of her discomfort. There had been a few. "When I asked if you were going to kill me, you told me that everyone dies; you only chose the time and place for a few. And earlier, you had told me that desire is only a demon, and that hell is getting what you desire."

"Ooo!" Erik said, clearly impressed. "I'll have to write that one down. Perhaps it will make it into the Don Juan libretto. So what did you do when you realized it was me?"

"I tore off your fake face, and you were all disgusting and maggoty underneath. Then I stabbed you," she said baldly. "I stole your music, tore it up, and dumped it into the sewer. That was about a week ago. Then, tonight I was walking down the street, and there you were playing that same song."

"And the rest, as they say, is history," Erik quoted. He finished his coffee and motioned to the waitress for another. "Refill?"

"Yes, thanks."

"So the question is, what do we do with this rather… sordid and terrifying tale?" He tried not to smile, but Christine could see his mouth twitch.

She sighed. "I don't know. I still don't fully believe you when you say you don't remember all this."

"As I don't fully believe you when you tell me all this," he replied evenly. "I'm considering calling the men in the white coats to come and get you."

She did laugh then. "I wouldn't blame you. But how do you explain the fact that I auditioned with your piece?"

He paused and put his cup down. "Wait a minute. You said you sang it?"

She nodded.

He frowned, crumpling up his napkin. "I haven't written any words for it yet."

"I know them, though. I could sing them for you."

His pale green eyes alight with interest, he nodded eagerly. "Let's get out of here; there's a little park a couple blocks away." He grinned. "Don't worry, it's fairly well-lighted. And considering the story you told me, you probably won't believe me when I tell you I'm not a serial killer."

"Not in the least," Christine told him firmly. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, and why put off the inevitable? "Let's go." Erik dropped a ten-dollar note on the table and went and got her coat.

The park was little more than a half a block of green lawn, with a couple of benches and (Christine was glad to see) three streetlights illuminating the majority of it. There was a gazebo, and they both headed towards it in one accord. Erik put his violin case down on the bench inside, tossed his hat down next to it, and took out the violin.

"Now, then," he said, and began playing. The high, soaring introduction bridged smoothly into the opening bars of the melody.

Heart pounding, Christine took a deep breath and began singing.

"Your eyes see but my shadow,

My heart is overflowing.

There's so much you could come to love,

You're not content knowing,

Tenderly,

You could see

My soul!"

She opened her eyes to see Erik staring at her, open-mouthed, every line of his body tensed with shock. He did not speak for several minutes, and when he did his voice sounded strained as he spoke her name. "Christine."

He remembered.