Hoping to be more successful in his secret portrayal as Nicole's angel of music, he set out to give her the guidance she needed to become a truly great violinist. Over the next four months, she came to the church at least five days a week, sometimes six. She was faithful in her at-home practice, and she always came prepared.
Erik was impressed with how much she had improved in such a short time. He was finally getting her to put some of her own soul into her playing, and the music she was able to produce was sometimes enough to give Erik pleasant chills. During lessons, they not only discussed the technical aspects of music, but also the heart and soul required to play the music as it was intended to be played.
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Nicole found that she enjoyed the talks they had, knowing that her angel was correct about giving a part of herself to the music to give it the true emotions required to make each piece complete to the listener's ear.
She looked forward to the lessons and was thoroughly convinced of the authenticity of her angel, for though she would occasionally look, she could never find the source of the booming but beautiful voice, yet her angel knew her every movement and how to correct anything that was amiss.
However, the magic and confidence of authenticity that she felt where her angel's voice was concerned was soon to change.
On the day Nicole's musical world turned upside-down, things seemed out of place almost from the very beginning. Since she had first heard her angel's voice, the voice was always there whenever she called to it. It had never failed to greet her upon her calling.
On this day, however, the voice was nowhere to be heard when she arrived at the church and called for her angel. Though she thought it odd, she continued her ritual of unpacking her instrument, arranging her music out in front of her, and making sure her violin was in tune.
She called again to her angel, and again, there was no reply. With this, she wondered if perhaps she had done something wrong, thereby causing the heavens to recall her angel of music. This thought distracted her, but she decided that perhaps if she played beautifully and showed how well she was doing, that maybe her angel might be sent back to her.
While she was playing, she heard a shuffling noise coming from the back of the church. She stopped playing and tried to listen, wondering if it might be some small animal scurrying around on the second floor amongst the fallen timber and other debris. She then called to her angel once more, but to no avail. When she heard nothing more, she returned to her playing, but it was obvious she was distracted and her heart wasn't in it.
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Erik had been out getting provisions when he realized time had accidentally slipped away from him. He rushed back to the church only to find she had already arrived for her lesson. He heard her calling out for him, but he couldn't respond until he had found a spot in the shadows where he could hide but still see her every movement.
He was thankful when she started to play because it gave a little more sound cover to hide his attempt to find a place on which to perch himself; however, he was forced to find a location different from his accustomed hiding spot in order to avoid being seen. In an effort to move silently over the debris that lay all around, Erik nearly lost his balance when he underestimated the distance from one clear patch to the next.
He froze when he accidentally moved some debris with his feet in order to maintain his balance, making a shuffling sound that caused Nicole to stop playing. When he heard her calling out for her angel once again, he forced himself to stay put, hoping that all was not lost, but knowing he must remain absolutely silent in order to keep whatever chance might still remain to preserve his secret.
In his haste to silence his movements, he was unaware that he had balanced himself precariously on a particularly weak area of the second-floor landing. When Nicole resumed her playing, Erik tried to continue making his way to a safer hiding place when the flooring beneath him gave way, and he came crashing down to the first floor. He landed in a debris-filled area in the back of the church with a loud thud, and he found that he couldn't move without extreme pain in his head, right shoulder, and right leg.
His last conscious thoughts were to curse himself for being so careless and wishing he could make an attempt to escape before Nicole made her way to where he was. Shortly after those thoughts completed their course through his mind, a grayish cloud came over his vision, and he found himself floating in and out of consciousness.
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The loud thud was enough to cause Nicole to nearly drop her violin as she jumped and let out a surprised yell. When her yell stopped echoing through the church, she let out a deep breath and calmly returned her violin to its case so that she could go investigate the noise. As she made her way to the back of the church, she heard a soft moaning sound coming from the general area of the crash.
When she got there, she was surprised to see the dark shape of a man on the ground. He was lying unevenly over a large field of debris, and he appeared to be drifting in and out of consciousness. As she got closer, she discovered that he was indeed the source of the soft moaning she heard.
She took a closer look and noticed that his leg had been injured in the fall and that he must have hit his head on the solid piece of wood his head was now resting on. She gathered up all her courage and walked over to him to get a closer look; however, the shadows were too numerous to be able to tell much more about his appearance or condition.
She called out to him, "Monsieur, are you all right?" Silly question, she thought to herself, since it was obvious he wasn't all right.
He moaned again and tried to move. As he lifted his head towards the sound of her voice, she noticed he was wearing a mask on the right side of his face. When she moved closer and touched his hand, he focused all of his efforts on trying to pull back as he muttered, "Please…don't… Leave me…alone."
Too stunned to realize he was actually conscious enough to notice her presence and make an effort to pull away from her, she found all she could do was just stand there and survey the damage the fall had caused the man lying on the ground before her. She shook herself out of her reverie, knowing it was up to her to help this wounded stranger out. When she tried to touch him again, and he repeated his request to be left alone, something occurred to her. She knew this voice so well from four months of lessons that it didn't take but those few repeated words to confirm her newest fear: this injured man lying on the ground before her was her angel of music.