A/N: Sorry it took so long to update! We've just started school again after half term and it has been snowing on and off for the last three days! Anyway, just a few responses to my reviewers;

CoolGirlEmily: Oh, so that's what the Phantom says at the start… bravissimo. I always wondered… Thanks!

Softiful: Yeah… I didn't want to get too distracted at that point of the story… I'm told I'm too 'long-winded' in my writing!

Ridel: Oh, trust me, there's more heartache to come, I'm afraid...

This chapter is where things start to heat up a bit, and Erik really does start to lose his mind even more… I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: I own nothing, apart from Ellisa and the plot and all the other original characters

Chapter Eight

It took several months, but soon enough the cruel whisperings that had been batting between the elder residents of the Opera House reached the ears of young Ellisa.

The whispers spoke of her time spent, as a young child, out of the eyes of all of them – of the time she had spent with the Phantom, known more dearly to her as 'Erik'.

She had thought she had forgotten. She had returned to Erik only in her dreams, not her waking thoughts, but now the cruel mumurings of people she had once thought to be perfect, kind creatures awoke in her the feelingsof that time, with him.

It had been like being overtaken by some strange sort of magic, to spend but a week in the company of that man in the mask. He had been so kind, so gentle with her, as though she had been made of porcelain… no one had ever treated her like that before, not even her father who she knew loved her so much… and he had been so patient a tutor.

Yes, of all the things she remembered of her time with Erik, it was that; his acts of tender patience whilst teaching her to play the piano, that she cherished so.She still played, sometimes, but her father refused to get her a tutor when she had told him the reason for her interest in music was because of the 'man in the mask'.

And, slowly, her hunger for music – and for answers to the questions she had once been too scared to ask – began to overwhelm any fear she had for the darkness, or for theterrible consequences spoken of among the corps de ballet of the 'magical lasso', and the 'Phantom's' skill with it.

She wanted answers…. She wanted to return to her friend. Whatever the consequences.

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And so that was how she came to be, still dressed in her ballet costume, clambering about among the set-pieces – still just as tall and overwhelming to her as they had been eight years ago – carefully testing each and every brick along the wall where she had first fallen into the huge cavern, with the lake, and the boat… and the man.

But, though she tested every brick, every imperfection in the face of the wall, she did not find the entrance into that dark room. It was as though it had simply disappeared… or as though the place had sealed itself against her.

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In truth, that particular entrance into the kingdom below the opera had been sealed up. Erik, not wishing to risk having another child such as Ellisa stumble into his lair, had altered the form of the mechanism in the secret entrance. Whereas before it had simply been a matter of pushing against the stone with a little pressure, it was now a case of pressing the exact spot, with the exact amount of pressure – two secrets thatErik alone coveted. No one would ever come by his home by accident again!

But when he saw Ellisa's tearful face as she went over and over the wall, desperate to find her way in, he realised that he may have made a terrible mistake.

It had never occurred to him that Ellisa would actually want to return to him of her own volition. He had assumed that her father had whispered poison in her ears, had turned her childish heart against him.

But the man had not… and Ellisa wanted to return to him! Erik went back into his apartment that night smiling broadly despite himself, and when he turned to the organ his Don Juan Triumphant score reached new levels of beauty, of awe and joy. The next day, he would begin to lead her back to him… he would have his Ellisa with him once more.

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Ellisa's room was small, but private; as she was, in the eyes of the ballet mistress, 'a young woman', she was accorded the privileges of such a person – and that meant, to her great surprise and pleasure, privacy.

The room was nothing special, a small, somewhat ricketyvanity in one corner, no windows, and no carpet on the oak wood floor. It was simple, primitive – but it was hers.

But a day later, something happened that caused her to look upon the room with fear rather than fondness. It had been a day after her fruitless search for the secret entrance to the cellars…

It had been an ordinary enough day, rehearsing with the corps de ballet, finding that she was for the most part able to ignore the snide whisperings of the older girls, though they still at times stung.

When she returned to he room that night, however, she found something rather curious onhervanity… a single red rose, with a black satin bow tied around the stem. At first, her heart had skipped a beat, thinking foolishly that perhaps she had a secret admirer, a dashing young man who had watched her dancing and had fallen in love with her…

But then the music had started, and she realised instinctively that it was much, much more than that.

A violin was playing, somewhere beyond the walls of her room… a simple, childish melody… the one she had picked out on the piano all those years ago.

It was him. He was here… and gods, she had left him. She realised now that her father had been right to take her away from the Opera… she had heard the stories of the bodies found among the set pieces, strangled and shoeless. Her Erik was a murderer…

And he was in the room with her.

Not waiting for a moment, she turned from the room, and fled.

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Erik cursed silently as he watched the girl flee from her room. So, perhaps she did not wish to return to him, after all…

Beneath the mask, his lips twisted into an ugly look of fury and determination. Damn her wishes… she would be his once again…

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A/N: So, there you are… things are hotting up from here on in! Please review!