Sorry, my Phantom fans, for the long wait. I've had school and several other projects eating my time, and I have only just gotten inspired to write on this because I bought the movie soundtrack. So, enjoy.
Chapter Six: Giving Account
Five evenings later, when another performance had come and gone, the three sat in the silence of the front room, Celeste replacing a broken string, Erik going over the next performance's score, and Pierre fiddling with one of his drum sticks. As the rain fell down heavily outside, Pierre had a thought. "Celeste," he said, "I recall that you once said we needed to start our friendships with the tellings of our pasts, yes?"
Celeste looked at him from her work. Erik's back stiffened. "Yes," Celeste said. "I did."
"Then perhaps our friendship hasn't truly began, since I still know nothing of the two of you, and you nothing of me?" Pierre suggested.
"You're right," Celeste said, forming her own idea. Maybe this was a way of getting the truth form Erik. She set her violin on the table and turned to Erik. "Maybe you could go first, Master Erik? Perhaps you can begin our night of stories?"
Erik put the sheet music down a moment to answer, "There is nothing to tell. I was born, hated, given away to Gypsies, and treated like a dog until by good fortune I came here."
Celeste was disappointed, but Pierre picked up the slack, saying, "Then I shall go next. Well, in all honesty my life was quite dull. I lived in the French countryside with my mother until I began writing songs and short stories when I was ten years old. My mother was convinced that I was destined to be the next Amadeus Mozart, so she put back enough money to send me here when I turned fifteen. The theatre was not in need of a composer, but I didn't want to dissappoint Mother… Now I play percussion."
"Hardly page turning suspense," Erik muttered.
"Well, I think you told it beautifully," Celeste said to her young friend.
"What about you, Miss Celeste?" Pierre asked eagerly. Celeste's eyes went a little wide. She hadn't thought about telling her life's story. She would have kept silent, too, but Erik had other plans.
"Indeed, what about you?" Erik asked. "You seem so eager for stories, let's have yours."
Celeste gulped nervously, and looked around to her companions' faces. "Very well. But…" she dreaded this, but knew no way to explain her life without it, "But in order to fully understand, I need to begin with another tale."
"Really?" Erik asked skepticly.
"Is it about your parents?" Pierre asked excitedly.
"Yes," Celeste said slowly. "Yes it is."
Celeste's Narration
The truth is I've never been entirely sure of the truth. My father used to put me to sleep with his version, for he made it sound like a fairy tale, but my stepmother told me another version after father's death. I suppose both may have a part of the truth. Tonight, however, I will tell what I believe happened.
Nearly twenty four years ago, a young man named Darwin Coupette sailed from his lavish estate in France to the island of Japan. He had a great talent for painting, and he yearned for new subjects. A friends of his was planning on going to the foreign land on business, so Darwinasked to join him. When he arrived he was captivated by the exotic beauty of the people…the women most of all. His friend, a man called Mister Sharp, purposed that the young man go to one of the geisha houses, take one of their women, and use her as subject and… companion. The poor boy, he did as Sharp suggested, but when he went to the house of ill repute, he found something quite extraordinary. One of the girls had come to them that very morning, and was still- according to the man running the brothel- a virgin. Darwin took one look at the girl and loved her. He took girl, Kiku- whom he called Chrysanthemum- with him to a house that overlooked the port of Nagasaki, and there she became his lover and his model.
Allow me to pause, and tell you that Darwin, though a man of great passion when he chose, was also very fickle. After four months, he grew bored with Japan, and young Kiku. In fact, upon receiving a letter from Odelle, his fiance in France, he set sail immediately to marry her, leaving Kiku the house, the servants, and all his debts. One year after Darwin left, the manager of the brother came to Kiku's door, demanding she return. For her former lover's many debts were piling ever still. Kiku refused, and said that before he had left, she and Darwin had wed. She told him that now she was a Catholic, and if she were to return to the brothel, her soul would go to hell. Her old employer was furious, and demanded proof. So he contacted Sharp, and the two planned to prove Kiku a liar by having Sharp speak with her. To their dismay, she only swore more to being Darwin's Christian wife, and showed them the child that she had born- Darwin's child- as final proof.
Sharp immediately contacted Darwin. He denied everything, and said the girl must have been so innocent that she believed being with one man would be considered a marriage. The young man and his wife both knew that if any one else were to discover this mistake, their reputations would be ruined. So in order to uncover Kiku'sdeciet, they both sailed back to Japan. When Kiku saw Darwin coming up the path to the house with his flaxen haired wife, she knew she was trapped. And so she put her child on the bed, then she took her own life. When Darwin, his wife, and Sharp entered, Darwin cried out in horror, and fell to the ground, clutching the dead woman. He might have been fickle, but a part of him had loved her once. Not long after, the baby started to cry. Darwin released Kiku's cold body, and picked up the child. It was a girl, with eyes as green as his own, but with wisps of black hair on her head. The young man vowed that moment to raise the baby he had created, and thus honor the memory of the girl he had wronged.
I, of course, was that baby. And my years with father were, I believe, the happiest I had ever had. He loved me, encouraged my budding interest in music, taught me to ride a horse, even gave me lessons in fencing. I loved my father, and I know he loved me. However…Odelle, my stepmother, was jealous. She put up with my presence at first because she believed that father pitied me, and she had hope that when she gave him children, I would be forgotten. She tried many times to have children, but no matter what, while their friends in high society were planning marvelous parties to celebrate the births of their children, and other women's bellies ballooned out, hers was ever flat. The fualt ould not be my father's, obviously, so it meant one thing. She was barren. That made her hate me even more, for now she had hatred for my dead mother, who had given Father his only child.
After my eighth birthday, my father started growing sick. It began as a tightness inhis chest, but it soon became a cough. That cough grew worse with each passing day, and he grew weaker as well. One day he could not leave his bed, and had his meals brought to him. In little more than a month, he was no longer eating or sleeping, and delusions every moment. I don't know the precise moment he died. I was kept away when he became bedridden. I only know that one afternoon, Odelle came to my room, and said with far too much satisfaction in her voice, that my father was dead, and that until I came of age, she was in charge of all my father's estate.
Less than a day after he was in the ground, Odelle had my things carted away or destroyed. She took my finer dresses and had them burned, she took my toys and ripped them to shreds. Then she grabbed my hand and dragged me up to the attic- a horrid place with one window and the roof slanting so I could barely stand- and she told me I would sleep there from now on.
Now, for all she hated me, she was not without some human decency. She gave me some clothes- but never any as fine as hers- and food. She even allowed me to have my violin, father's last birthday gift to me. However, any simblance of kindness was not without it's purpose for her. She would throw lavish parties and have me come down and play for her guests, like a wind up toy, then she would send me away again to my dark prison.
I lived under her tyranny for six years. I suppose she wanted to crush my spirit, and in truth she had succeeded, but still I kept living. I went along every day, every year, for no other reason than this: I wanted to honor Father. Deep down, my heart was convinced that he would want me to live, to find a way out. For the longest, I couldn't think of a way. I at least still lived in my own home, and that was good enough. But then… One night I was entertaining my step-mother's guests with some music, as usual, when I happned to notice a man speaking with Odelle. He kept glancing at me, and smiling in such a way that my blood ran cold in my veins. When I finished playing, I tried to return to my room, but Odelle stopped me, and pulled me aside. She informed me, her overly painted smile venomous, that Father's old associate, Sharp, wanted me as his mistress.
The very thought of that disgusting man, touching me and looking at me that way, made me want to retch. I refused to go, but Odelle laughed and said I had no choice. I was still two years from being old enough to called an adult, she was still my guardian, and she had already given Sharp her consent. I would be taken the next morning to be his personal whore, she said. She told me I was exactly like my mother… and with any luck I would end up like her, too.
That final insult is what drove me to action. After she, and all the servants, were asleep, I gathered up one change of clothes and my violin, then I escaped the attic, and ran away.
You must be thinking, 'If it was soeasy, why didn't you do it before?'. I didn't do it because, as I said, I was still living in my home- Father's home. I couldn't abandon it. But when Odelle made her deal with Sharp, I knew I would never have my home. My only options were to go with him and become his harlotte, kill myself, or run. The first choice was worse than death, and the second would only give Odelle what she wanted more than anything. That is why I finally chose to escape.
After that, ther isn't much. I taveled to Paris, and played my violin on the street, using what little money I had or made to rent the room where… Where Eric discovered me.
That, gentlemen, is my story.
End Narration
Pierre looked at her like a child whose's just had the most fantastic and magic filled bedtime story told to them. Erik, however, looked at is young pupil without any expression. Infact his gaze was a little too intense for her. She got up and covered her mouth, giving a fake yawn.
"Oh, excuse me, gentlemen," she said. "I think I'll retire. Goodnight." and she went to her rooms.
After her door closed, Pierre leaped up on his feet, and said, "I think I'll go home and rest, too. Good night, Master Erik."
As Pierre reached the main door, his hand just about to grasp the handle, Erik called, "Boy."
Pierrer paused. He asked over his shoulder, "Yes, Sir?"
"Do you believe her story?" the older man asked.
Pierre thought a moment. Then he said, "Why shouldn't I? It's Celeste's." Then he also left.
Transition
Celeste brushed her hair absentmindedly as she sat on the edge of her bed. But soon she grew tired of it, and set her brush down, then opened the drawer of her bedside table, pulling out the miniature painting. She looked at the face that resembled her own. Then put her fingertip on the signature on the bottom.
"Wishing he were somehow here again,
Wishing he were somehow near…?"
Celeste jumped and held her treasure to her chest as she looked up at Erik. He just seemed to appear to like magic, leaning on the wall, half his face in shadow.
"You know this is indecent?" she snapped. She shoved her painting under a pillow, and grabbed her robe from the floor.
"He was once your one companion
He was all that mattered," Erik stepped from the shadows and walked over to stand across from her.
"He was once a friend and father,
Then your world was shattered."
"How dare you mock me?" she yelled.
"I do not mock you," Erik said. "I just find it hard that to accept that two of my students should have such similar pasts."
"Oh please," Celeste said, sitting on her bed again, holding her robe ight around her. "Did your precious Christine live with a cruel spiteful witch? Was her childhood ripped away like mine was? She was lucky- I didn't have an Opera house for a playground! I on a rotting mattress with rats while she probably shared that ridiculous feather monstrosity with you under the Popular!"
He seethed and grabbed a vase, then smashed it in the ground in front of her feet. "Do not dare speak of what you do not know- or even want to accept!" he shouted at her.
"Don't accuse me of lying!" she countered. "At least I gave an account of myself! You don't have even the courtesy to say where you were born!"
As Celeste drew her legs up and put her arms around her knees, Erik grabbed the false hair on his head and sighed, turning away from the infuriating woman. He took a few deep breaths, then dropped his hands. "I was born in Germany." he mumbled.
Celeste looked up, her hair falling in her face, like a veil. "What?"
Erik whirled around, stepped over the broken pottery, and sat on the edge of her bed. "I was born in Germany. It was so long ago, I can't even remember the town I came from."
Celeste leaned in, "What about your parents?"
"My father was mason," he said. His face went blank, as usual, but his eyes became very pained. "My mother was a shrew. My first emeories are of her screaming whenever I came near her. She would throw a sack cloth mask at me, and order me out."
"That's terrible," Celeste said.
"My Father was worse," Erik replied. "Everything I did resulted in a beating form him. If I cried, if I spoke, if I asked for food, he would hit me. He called me demon, monster, and beast. Other children would throw rocks at me, and thei parents' said my mother must have committed a great sin to be cursed with me."
"My God," Celeste whispered. "How cruel."
Erik looked down, "My mother's one prayer was to be rid of me. It was answered when a troop of Gypsies came, looking for work. The day before they left, my father tied a rope around my neck, and led me to them, saying I was 'the Devil's Child', and he pulled my mask off to show them my face…" his voice faltered a bit, then he continued. "Without a second thought, he handed them the rope, took the money they offered him, and he left me with those vile vermin! Like you, my life was hell on earth, after that. I was paraded and whipped in front of strangers as the pig who was my 'handler' collected coins. I wanted to die, but I couldn't. My body refused to…" his hands clentched into fists, the knuckled turning white.
A tear crept from Celeste's eye, as she her mind conjured up a sad, poor boy, underfed pocked with scars. "How did you escape?"
Erik was quiet. She thought he wouldn't answer her, until he said what she least suspected. "I murdered my guard."
She gasped, then bit it back.
"The night we stopped in Paris, after the crowd had gone, he was gathering the coins the people had dropped. He did not have the rope in his hands… It was so easy to wrap it around his neck…" he whispered. "I knew he was dead when I heard a snap in the back. I let him go… but a girl had seen everything. When she cried out, the other men were coming. That girl opened my cage and pulled me out, taking me to the Opera house. She hid me in the chaple first, to escape the men chasing us. Then she led me to the nether regions of the Popular."
Celeste waited two minutes for him to start talking again. Then she asked, "Then what? Why have you stopped?"
Erik stood up and leaned down, looming over her. "I told you that already. I became the Phantom. But you do not believe me..." With his white mask and the shadows of the lamp flickering, he seemed a different man from the one who taught her everyday. He leaned in closer, one hand braced on the wall behind her head, the other just inches from her thigh. Her heart started beating faster, and she had to force herself not to shiver.
His smile made it more difficult, though. He asked, his voice deep, and cold as death, "Do you now?"
Part of her said yes. It wanted to cry and scream- yes! Yes I believe it!- but something in her told her not to. That part told her that if she were to do that, then the man who was her teacher would be gone. She couldn't lose that man.
"I believe…" she said as she used every bit of her strength to rid her heart of fear, "That your parents ignorant… I believe that Gypsies can be cruel enough beat child- deformed or not…I even believe that you did what seemed the only thing you could do to survive, like me… But Erik," her hand shot out and grabbed his. He flinched, and tried to pull it away, but for once, she seemed the stronger of them. She took his large hand in both ofher smaller ones, and squeezed it hard as she looked into his blue eyes with her green ones.
"Erik,"she said, strongly, "I cannot believe the rest. I cannot believe because the Phantom would have died when his Opera house burned. You lived."
His eyes seemed empty as she continue to hold his gaze, along with his hand. Finally, he closed his lids, and his hand slid out of her relaxed grip. When he stood up, her teacher had returned. Somewhere in her heart she felt as if she had pulled him back from death.
"True," Erik said at last. "I lived. And this life is not that life."
"Perhaps now that you've told someone the rest," Celeste said, "You can move on?"
Erik considered this. "Yes, I… I think I can." he turned around then, and walked to the door that separated their bedrooms. "Goodnight, Celeste," he said, as he left.
"Good night," Celeste whispered to the empty air
Authoress' Note:
If any of you classical music fans think Celeste's story sounds familiar, it is. It's based off 'Madam Butterfly', which I also don't own! I simply changed the events and circumstances a bit. Aren't I sneaky? Plus, 'Butterfly' was itself based on a novel about a Frenchman's marriage to a Japanese girl, so "Butterfly" is itself an early form of fan fiction! Ain't that neat? Anyway, please review.
