I. Hide no longer
In no time at all, they had reached the Phantom's lair. To Christine, everything looked just as she had last seen it, two days ago, though darker, because many of the candles illuminating the grotto had burned down in the meantime, leaving it in a dim twilight. Only when she regarded her surroundings closer, she realized that instead of being more or less neatly arranged, everything looked somewhat jumbled, just as if somebody had been searching through it without taking too much care to hide his presence. Had those searching for her on that night found the lair, or had they been there, those mysterious villains she and her friends had just encountered? And there was something else, too: All the tall mirrors lining the wall were cracked.
Firmly pushing back all the memories, happy as well as sad, that came to her mind in here, she turned to face the Phantom. The light was too weak to see him clearly, but even in semi-darkness, he did not look too good to her, with sagging shoulders despite all his efforts to keep himself upright, several cuts, welts and bruises visible where the cloak did not cover him, and that haunted look in his eyes, magnified by her sharpened awareness of him, that look of pain and dire, merciless hatred… It was hard not to shiver when looking at him. "Get all the things you need for a few days out", she told him hurriedly, avoiding his eyes. "Your home is no longer safe."
"Where do you want me to go?" There was suspicion in his voice, which did not surprise her. After that experience down in the underground hall, all the trust he had had, very little from the beginning, would be gone completely.
She smiled up at him, hoping to soothe his concerns. "Wait and see."
His expression did not change as he turned and disappeared past a curtain into what probably was a niche in the rock wall, throwing his cloak down over a chair a bit more violently than necessary as he passed it, but at least he went. Christine had been worrying about what they would do should he refuse, or should he inquire any closer about what she had in store for him. For her part, she would have preferred to give him a truthful answer straight away, yet she feared that if he found out too soon, he might well go back to his captors, all because of his crazy pride.
At least Raoul had agreed to let her take charge after the actual rescue was finished, or else there probably would be even more trouble than she could possibly imagine.
Meg winked at her, then pulled a tattered handkerchief that had definitely seen better times from her pocket and started to clean the blood off the sabre with it, grinning like a pirate. So adventurous her friend was, and so bold! Christine admired her for her spirit. She would never be as brave as Meg, she thought, or as Raoul.
Her fiancé was sauntering around the grotto in the meantime, having a closer look at everything. When he reached the organ, he whistled through his teeth in surprise. "I wonder how he got that thing? Well, probably filched it from somewhere."
Christine could only shrug. Most of the furniture down here clearly came from one or the other stage production, but she had no idea how the Phantom had acquired the organ.
"He'll be needing someone to clean all his cuts", Meg remarked slyly, rubbing the handkerchief over the blade furiously.
Smiling, Christine shook her head. How naughty. What would Madame Giry have to say to this? "Knowing him as I do, I'm afraid he'll prefer to do that for himself, Meg."
"I might persuade him, then." Meg gave the sabre one last violent scrub, then crumpled up the handkerchief and, to Christine's horror, simply stuffed it back into her pocket. Lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, she added, "Well, if he absolutely refuses to let me, I won't force him, but he could at least let me watch."
"Honestly, Meg", Christine sighed. "You really should stop ogling him like that."
"But you see my point, don't you?"
Christine cleared her throat, hoping that she was just imagining the heat in her cheeks. "Really, I think it's those clothes", she said, adopting a mockingly stern tone and raising a threatening finger at her friend, waggling it under her nose. "They make you behave most indecently. I'm just waiting for you to start swaggering next, or grunt and belch and say rude things in a rude voice, things like Wouldn't push that out of bed, hur hur hur."
Promptly Meg jerked her chin towards the curtained niche the Phantom had disappeared to. "Wouldn't push that out of bed, hur hur hur!" she proclaimed in a gruff voice, then broke into giggles.
"Meg!" But it was impossible for Christine not to giggle along. After all the worry and tension of the past few hours, it just felt so good to laugh and be silly again.
"Hey! You're having fun without me?" Raoul came trotting over, grinning at them. "I want to have something to laugh about, too."
Just then, the Phantom returned, with a leather scrip thrown over one shoulder, and Raoul immediately resumed his stance of wariness from before. The Phantom ignored him completely, though. Passing him just as if he were air, he knelt down at the water's edge and hurriedly splashed himself a little, rubbing off the worst of dirt and sweat. Christine thought to catch a brief glimmer of scarlet above his waistband before he straightened again, and remembering what Meg had told her about her adventure the day before almost made her start giggling once again, and she mentally reproached herself for her sudden fit of silliness.
Yet a second glance immediately sobered her up. What was it on his back, those pale lines, barely visible, but clear enough to still be seen? Were those scars? And if so, where had he gotten them? Or was she just imagining things, as her eyes slowly got accustomed to the gloom?
Once more passing Raoul without paying the slightest heed to him, the Phantom disappeared into what Christine knew to be his bedchamber, only to reappear a moment later, stuffing something into his scrip, this time wearing a shirt, dark blue linen embroidered with silver and green. Meg looked a little disappointed, and Christine made a mental note of having a quiet and serious word with her friend sometime soon.
In the meantime, Meg was trying to sheathe the sabre again, but without much success, muttering to herself angrily. After throwing ink bottle and quill and a wad of writing paper into his bag and pulling it closed, the Phantom quietly stepped in to interfere, catching the blade between his fingers and guiding its way.
Meg beamed at him. "Be mindful of your fingers", she teased him.
"Be mindful of your tongue", he replied coolly, then went to present himself before Christine. "Done", he reported.
She was just undoing the two dagger belts she had buckled on earlier, and he took them back from her, and they wandered into his scrip as well. For a moment his eyes flickered to his sabre, but Meg made no move to unbuckle the belt and hand it over, and he let her keep it for now. "What do you want me to do next?" he asked, his voice tinged with irony.
Not that Christine had truly expected him to show more gratefulness than necessary, especially in Raoul's company, but he could have been just a little more polite. "The stables", she replied curtly.
Without any further comment, he turned and headed over to one of the mirrors, picking up his cloak as he went, and worked what probably was a hidden catch in the frame, for suddenly it sprang open, revealing the dark entrance to a hidden tunnel. "If you please", he said with a mock little bow.
Raoul cast Christine an uncertain glance, and when she nodded, he stepped into the darkness first. The Phantom wrinkled his nose at him, but otherwise showed no reaction. Meg followed, and then Christine, squinting into the gloom. It was a low, narrow tunnel, she saw, barely allowing the Phantom to walk upright in it. Then he pulled the glass closed behind him, and the light of the few candles outside, though still visible through the glass, grew dimmed. It was impossible to see where they were heading.
"Come on", the Phantom growled. "Move."
There came a muttered curse from Raoul in the gloom, and then he and Meg carefully advanced. Christine made to follow them, hoping there would be no hidden obstacles in the darkness before her, when she suddenly felt the Phantom's fingers closing around hers. "Don't be afraid of the dark", he whispered, gently squeezing her hand.
At first Christine wanted to protest that she wasn't, but to be honest, she did feel a little uncomfortable in the dark. More than a little, actually, as far as dark passages and tunnels were concerned. So she left her hand in his. Moreover, he would not have liked it if she had pulled away, and she wanted him to be as cooperative as possible, or else he would get troublesome when he found out where they were going. And since it was quite impossible to just pick him up by the scruff of his neck and put him into a coach, she had better keep him as pleased as possible.
And it did help against her uncomfortable feeling, knowing that he was very close.
She still trusted him, she realized, even after all he had done.
Yes, because before he had done all that, he had been her Angel, and she had trusted him with everything. Some habits were hard to break.
Soon the passage turned into a steep spiral staircase, a narrow, lightless staircase which never seemed to end. The Phantom now rather chose to guide her by a hand on her shoulder, following close behind her. Ahead, there was the occasional mutter as Meg and Raoul stubbed their toes.
How could one choose to live in this eternal night, abjuring the sunlight and the sight of the sky? She knew that she herself would never have been able to. If the Phantom could… But she wondered if he truly could, if he really was content to be part of the darkness, as he had once mentioned, or if he did not secretly hunger for the touch of light upon his face.
After what must have been only minutes, but felt like an eternity, the endless stairwell finally came to an end, and there was a dim light ahead, and warmth, and the smell of hay. Raoul and Meg came to a stop, and the Phantom squeezed forward past her towards what seemed to be a dead end, and judging from Raoul's grunt, he brushed him aside a lot more roughly than necessary. What exactly he did Christine could not see, but soon a low, narrow hatch sprang open, allowing them access to what she recognized as the hayloft of the Opera House's stables.
Outside waited their coach, Christine knew, and inside, just in front of the door, she saw that Madame Giry was waiting. "So there you are", the mistress of ballet stated, managing a stern tone despite her obvious relief at seeing them.
"Yes, there we are." Raoul beamed at her. "The only real problem we had to face was how to open that trapdoor into the underground hall. But once we had it all figured out, it was easy enough." He patted the revolver he had tucked into his belt, then added, thoughtfully, "In fact, it rather was too easy than anything. I mean, there were forty or something of them, and only the three of us."
"Not quite as stupid as you look, then", the Phantom muttered. Raoul glared at him furiously, but said nothing; after all, Christine had made him promise to be nice to the Phantom. Making the Phantom promise the same thing would be absolutely necessary, yet certainly a lot more difficult.
"Oh, Erik, where are your manners?" Madame Giry exclaimed. "Oh well, you never had any to start with, except when you wanted to. But all the same, you silly boy, I'm so glad to have you back." Completely ignoring his threatening growl, she pulled him into a rib-cracking hug, letting him go only to start smoothing his hair.
Erik. This was the second time in a very short period Christine heard that name, and from two very different persons. Did the Phantom have a name, then? He had claimed to have none, but it seemed that he had one after all. That eerie one-eyed man down in the cellars, the one who had apparently tormented him so, had used that name, too. How came he knew it, and she did not? That Madame Giry would know was not surprising, but that this villain would… Was there any connection between him and the Phantom, any link to his mysterious past? It was not a pleasant thought, Christine realized.
The Phantom tried to withdraw, but Madame Giry insisted on bringing some order into his dishevelled hair, whatever his opinion. Just like with one of her charges from the ballet, Christine thought. Maybe it made dealing with the Phantom easier, regarding him as such. She assumed it did. The only difficulty about it was that the Phantom did not approve in the least. His growl was repeated, and more threatening than before.
Obviously Madame Giry thought just the same, because she desisted from him at last and took to smoothing her skirts instead. "Anyway", she said, "I've never been happier to see you."
"When have you ever been happy to see me?" It would have sounded like a bitter reproach, except for the small grin playing around his lips.
"Oh, you scoundrel!" She playfully swatted his unmasked cheek, just like she did with Meg sometimes. "It's high time we get you out of here."
"Where?" he demanded, at once tense like a drawn bowstring. Indeed, he did not trust anybody, it seemed.
"I'd like to keep you with me", Christine said. "I know just the perfect place for you." If he put some thought to this, it would be easy enough to know where she wanted him to go, but this way it possibly sounded as tempting to him as it could get.
"Me too", he stated, leering at her, and she would have liked to slap him for the indecency of his gaze. Tempting indeed! "I'll never leave your side."
"Good", she said, ignoring Raoul's glare. "What are we waiting for, then?"
