The End of the Beginning

It was cruel of me, I suppose, to return to the Persian and instruct him so carefully in what he must do, upon receiving the box of Christine's effects. I played the part of the love-struck, star-eyed puppy well, though; within only a few days of shipping her things to him, the damning sentence was in the 'Epoque':

"Erik is dead."

He had not given me as much time as I had expected; I had not a moment to spare, dressing and posing the corpse of a stagehand beside the little well where first my angel was clutched in my arms. I knew that, should Christine choose to fulfill her promise to me, it would take her a substantial amount of time to reach the Opéra Populaire, and that the corpse would be decomposed enough to be nearly unrecognizable by then. I left a mask, a second one I had fashioned specifically for this purpose, pressed against his face. The skin, I burned, just before placing the mask against the man's right half; even if Christine had desired to remove the mask, which I was sure she would not, the skin would come off with it, and leave her with no decisive conclusions as to whether the corpse had belonged to her Erik or not.

I waited for some time after that, lingering in the shadows of shadows, watching from the deepest of the deep corners, listening from the smallest of the small hideaways. She would come. I held it close to my heart that she would come. She had promised to bury my body, she had promised to ensure I was not left to rot in the open. It was with all my strength that I hung to this belief, for what else could I do? Allow myself to tumble into the pits of despair, and wallow within it like a pig in the muck?

Time passed slowly, in that period of waiting. My things had all been neatly packed away into trunks and locked securely; I wished nothing removed. To her own eyes, it would appear that I merely wanted my things left in that which had been my home, and my prison, and my final destruction. On the less romantic, but more honest, side of things, I wished them untouched because I intended to remove them myself soon after she had buried "my" corpse.

O.G.

He leaned against the dank wall of the tiny alcove, the back of his head pressing against the rough stone as his eyes shut. Just a brief moment of ecstasy, just a slight whisper of release, was all he asked for. Thirty minutes—no, twenty—no, ten! Ten minutes of sleep, and he would beg no more. He had not slept in nearly two weeks; he had not dared. For the first week, he had expected Christine to appear at any moment, and so had forced himself to remain awake—he did not want to miss a single moment of her presence at the opera house. For the first half of the second week, he had been in denial. She had just been held up. She had had to find a way around the viscount. She had a long ways to travel. She had children to—No. He did not want to ponder those possibilities.

After finally admitting to himself that she probably would not come, that she probably would break her promise—that perhaps she did not even remember the promise at all—he had been too miserable to do anything at all. No food, no water, no sleep. He would have done nothing but sit and wait, had there not been two factors rousing him into action. The first was his body's demand that its basic needs be met, and as much as Erik may have wished he could, that particular demand was near impossible to ignore. The second was the ever-prying eyes of gawking young men and women, come to see the infamous lair of the Opera Ghost. They never found it, of course, but they came too close for comfort, and he was often forced to result to foolish parlor tricks to frighten them away.

The quiet scuffle of rat's feet on stone met his ears; he ignored it. The Trap-Door Lover was more than accustomed to rodents; the prospect of having a rodent skitter near him, or even across him, did not disturb him. Maybe I should just end it now, he thought. After all, if Christine had forsaken him, what hope did he have in the rest of the world? The rats could eat me...

A gentle tickle caught his attention, on his right hand. What was th—

He let out a snarl, and jerked his hand away. The rat dashed back into whatever hole it had come out of, leaving Erik with a bloody finger. "Not yet, you filthy vermin!" he hissed. It was uncanny, how the rat's actions had corresponded with his own thoughts, and left him feeling uncomfortable.

He was beginning to rise to his feet, when the sweet, intoxicating voice of his angel came whispering through the sewers.

"Hello?"

The voice trembled with fear, but Erik knew it nonetheless. Silently, he crept through the darkness, in a passageway that ran parallel to the underground river. He could hear the quiet slosh of the water, as she rowed herself uneasily. He could imagine her, in his head. Wide-eyed, glowing with uncertainty, trembling perhaps, and trying to row while holding a torch at the same time. She had never been comfortable, leaving the torch in its holder on the gondola, had always wanted to hold it in her sweet little hands. He pushed a panel aside, and pressed his face against the wall to allow one eye to peer through. The dim halo of light grew closer, and in such impossible darkness, she appeared all the more angelic for it. She was, indeed, attempting to row and hold the torch at the same time, and she continued to have to pause in order to rearrange one or the other. She floated slowly by, brow furrowed and lips pursed in concentration. When she was well out of sight, he turned and continued to his lair, taking up at a spot near the lake house and settling in to watch her.

She was already out of the boat, when he arrived, and was looking unsteadily at that fateful well. He could still feel her trembling form wrapped in his arms, could still smell her, could still catch the hint of her taste in his mouth, just as he had then. She was standing several yards away, hands clutched in front of her, just.. staring. A few tremulous steps forwards, and she saw the corpse, where he had placed it sagged against the well. Her first reaction was to press her hands to her mouth and nose. He understood; "he" must have truly stunk, at that point. She stood looking at the corpse for another moment, before running to the edge of the lake and retching into the water. His hands reached towards her, as if to hold her hair back for her—but, of course, he was too far away.

When she had recovered herself considerably, she returned to the corpse and crouched down beside it. "Oh, Erik," she whispered softly. Fingertips brushed against the white mask. She looked as if she were considering removing it, but the disgusting state of the corpse stilled her fingers. After a long moment, she straightened and went inside the lake house. She fetched a shovel, returned to the well, and slowly began digging "his" grave.

He had every intention of excavating the corpse soon after it had been buried, taking Christine's ring—HIS ring—and then disposing of the corpse. He truly did wish to be buried by that tiny well one day, and he did not want to share that hallowed ground with a filthy stagehand's bones.

It took Christine three days to dig the grave to a suitable size and length. She dug almost all day, pausing only to eat and rest. She slept in fits and spurts, in the Louis-Phillipe room, which he had left furnished for her sake. He had also left plenty of food there in the cupboards, which she took great advantage of—and he did not mind, not one tiny bit.

On the third day, she sat back on her heels, and gave one slow nod to the grave. With a green-tinged face, she began working at carefully moving the body the short way to the grave, and laying it out within. She slipped the ring onto his finger, and the last thing she did nearly broke Erik's heart.

She kissed the forehead of that repulsive body, decayed and stinking and nearly unrecognizable as human. She kissed it with such tenderness that he nearly ran to her then and there.

She murmured words over the grave, and then began shoveling dirt over the body. When "Erik" had been buried, she sat cross-legged beside the mound of earth, and wept silent tears. Just before she stood up, one note so faint that it could barely be heard echoed out across the lake.

"Christine..."

The girl shivered, packed her things away into the boat, and fled from the opera house.

Erik brushed his hands free of dirt, then moved on to brush off his pants and the arms of his shirt. It had not been a pleasant job, taking the ring from the accursed body, and had been an even less pleasant job dragging him to a dry spot and setting fire to him. Erik turned away from the fire and removed that beautiful ring from his pocket, rolling it across his fingers. It was a long moment of consideration, before he placed it on his left ring finger. It felt right there, like it belonged, and it fit perfectly.

He entered the lake house, and began packing what he would carry into a single trunk and sack. The trunk would hold larger things; he would store it somewhere easily accessible. The sack, he would carry with him: clothes, money, and other such things he would require to be at hand often.

He dragged his things up to the surface, in the depth of the night, and placed them in a carriage he had brought around. César was harnessed to it, and stomping his foot impatiently. Erik waved one hand at him. "I know, I know," he said between pants. "I'll try to hurry." His stamina had worn thin, in the past weeks. He did not feel as if he could go on forever, as he had when Christine had been his. He wondered if it was because he was aging, or merely from sleep deprivation.

Suddenly, it all seemed too overwhelming to face. He did not want to leave; he had become comfortable here. Did he truly have to leave? His weight dropped into his shoes; it felt as if gravity were focusing all its attentions on him. He sank down into an armchair, and released a heavy sigh. They all thought him dead. He could stay on and taunt them. They would be quick to declare him a true ghost, and would fear him more than ever they had before.

But, truly, what held him here? The music usually trapped within his mind had all but fallen silent. The beauty of the opera house was little more than a constant reminder of the ugliness of his face, and of his soul. He did not want to leave the culture of Paris, and yet could hardly wait to escape from the gaudy Parisians and their foolish games of love and politics. Hearing the second-rate music of the opera, now, was merely a reminder of the beauty he himself could no longer create. Nights in front of the organ were spent fruitlessly; only a few disjointed notes would come to him before being reduced to the sour notes that resulted from his mindless banging on the unyielding keys.

He feared this absence of music, this betrayal of the art that had always come so innately. Always he had heard music, in every action, every color, every texture. Music to describe sight, to describe emotions, to give voice to thoughts that no language held the words for. He feared the moment that the music would abandon him totally, to leave him wallowing in the true silence of the world. He had dreamt, once, of the music leaving him, and the silence had been unbearable, even in that surreal world. How could he bear that happening in truth, in reality, irrevocably?

The prospect of death did not frighten him, but giving up on life offended his pride. His moment of weakness, just before the rat bite, still left him writhing uncomfortably in shame. No, he would leave the opera house, and he would find another purpose to which he would devote his life. He would leave the opera house behind.

César popped to mind, and Erik forced himself to his feet. Candles were extinguished, except for one, which he used to guide himself to the organ room. No light was needed to find his way, but it was needed for locating the object he sought. He bent over the desk nearby the organ, and began rifling through drawers, trying his best to leave the papers in his wake in some sort of semblance of order. Finally, a single piece of paper was discovered; he withdrew it reverently, and held it before the candle.

It still smelled like her, still released soft waves of perfume whenever an air current swept over it. He inhaled deeply, and forced his eyes to focus in on the almost childlike script of his beloved.

Erik,

I have not left you, my Angel. I have only gone out for a moment, and will surely return before you've even had time to miss me.

Regards,

Your Christine.

With trembling hands he read it, again and again. She had written it while she was staying with him, once, and had chosen to go up to the streets to fetch a meal. She had cooked him supper, that nighthis angel had cooked him supper! Oh, what bliss had he shared in, and lost? He carefully folded the paper in such a way that the writing was left unharmed, and tucked it into the inside chest pocket of his jacket. His hand patted the spot, lips turning into the slightest of smiles when it was considered that his heart lay just beneath that letter.

Funny, what a different meaning the letter could take on, now that she had truly abandoned him. Was this what people felt, upon reading the letters of a dead loved one? He decided it must have been, for truly, was Christine not dead to him now?

He extinguished the candle, and left the house on the lake behind, with every intention of never again gazing upon it with living eyes. A part of his past, left behind forever. He carried only small memories with him, and unfortunately there were few happy ones to be taken from that era spent beneath the Opera Populaire.

As he clucked César into a trot, the moon shone down on his cowled figure. The big white stallion moved down the cobblestone streets, hoofbeats echoing loudly as their sound bounced from building wall to building wall. No music came to Erik's mind as he listened; the only sound was that of the carriage, coupled with the steady dong of cathedral bells announcing midnight. Perfectly dramatic, flawlessly executed. He could not have asked for a better performance on stagethe great white horse, the black carriage and its grim driver, the light of the full moon that caused both equine and porcelain mask to glow faintly, and the solemn ringing of the bells.

After much arguing with himself, he turned to look one last time upon the Opera Populaire. Apollo and his lyre glowed on the rooftop, though Erik could not decide whether Apollo shone with mirth, or with benevolence; whether he added one last insult to the tragedies Erik had found at the opera house, or sent Erik a final fleeting apology for all that he had seen and been unable to alter.