Chapter Two

It took me two weeks to fully recover from my heart attack. The mansion, which I had now resigned to call the Rose, was as disturbingly quiet as ever. It began to drive me insane. My organ was suddenly of curious interest.

The keys were hard and unworn. It would take years to fully make them feel like my other fingers. I had to retune the organ and dust it thoroughly; it had been so lonely since coming into that room. Slowly, I played a song, note by note. I had never played the song before, never wrote it down. I simply played whatever came to mind. My best music came from that.

Words began to form in my head. They always did, but these words were different. As if they told the story of my soul. Shamed into solitude, shunned by the multitude. I thought back on everything I had done to the world, and everything the world had done so cruelly to me. I learned to listen, in my dark, my heart heard music.

I opened my mouth and the words slipped out as if I were in a trance. "I longed to teach the world, rise up and reach the world." I paused and whispered, "No one would listen, I alone could hear the music." Oh, to die, to sleep, perchance to dream! "Then at last, a voice in the gloom, seemed to cry, 'I hear you'." I became stronger, my voice soaring louder, "I hear your fears, your torment and your tears!"

I held back my tears unsuccessfully. How long it had been since I had played music. How long it had been since I had sang. The last words to come out of my mouth were, it's over now, the music of the night. But they were wrong. "She saw my loneliness," Oh Christine. "Shared in my emptiness, no one would listen, no one but her, heard as the outcast hears."

I shook my head, crying, "No one but her. . . heard as the outcast hears. . ." The song was over and the disturbing silence fell back into place. But it was interrupted by a new sound. A sniffle.

Spinning around sharply, I came face-to-face with two large green eyes; tears spilling from them. "Oh Master," she cried with a tiny squeaky voice. "Oh why, why must you be so sad?"

At first, I knew not what to do. How had she gotten in here without me noticing? Was I actually fully recovered from my heart attack? How much had she heard? But I had to do something fast, for the little girl was literally sobbing. "Now, now," I told her with a silky voice. "Do not cry, little poppet. There is no reason to cry."

She looked up at me, into my eyes. She was one of the only people who had ever looked into my eyes without first looking at my mask. The only other person who had done so was Christine. She hiccupped a sob, "But Master, you are crying!"

I stared at her for a moment, and then threw my arms around her, encouraged when she wrapped her little arms around my neck. I picked her up as I stood. "You are a little angel," I whispered to her, and she hiccupped again. "You are too innocent to cry for yourself, you only cry for others. Now, now, little angel. Blow your nose."

She blew, obediently. I had never been good with children, but there was something about her that was so curiously strange. She was not like Christine, when Christine was so little. "Now you must run back to your mother," I set her down at the door. "Be a good girl, alright? No more tears."

She smiled like a true little angel, and pitter-pattered away with dainty little feet. She was about to turn a corner, when suddenly she turned back around, "Oh, I forgot! Bye bye!"

I smiled back at her, and whispered, "Bye bye." She disappeared around the corner. I closed the door and sat back down upon the organ bench. Such a sweet little girl she was. She and her family lived in the mansion, along with the other family of servants. She was not a servant herself, she was too young. I cannot remember how old she was back then.

I turned to my organ and began to play a sonatina.

The weeks went by quickly, and I soon found myself looking at a great many of gray hairs. Of course my wig covered them, but they were still disturbing. Another reminder of my coming age. Nadir had ordered there be a servant right next door to my room in case of another heart attack. How annoying. But I could do nothing about it.

The Rose became older, just as I did. People were beginning to notice it. They were wondering who the master of such a ridiculously huge mansion in the middle of nowhere would be. Anybody would wonder. Especially the press.

"Oh please, just a few minutes with the old man!" a very young man called.

Rubius, the steward, merely stated in his monotone voice, which drove me completely insane, "The Master will not see anyone."

"Ah, guess he's all tuckered out in his bed, eh?" the crowd laughed. "Who does he think he is? We're freezing our bums out here, just to have a look at him. Doesn't he want his name in the paper?"

"The Master," Rubius repeated. "Will not see anyone."

The excitement died down with the excuse that I was a retired old architect stuck in bed. Which was almost true, except I wasn't quite as old as I appeared to be and I was only in bed until I was quite sure I was recovered from my heart attack. Every once in a while, I would see the little angel playing in the garden or eating sweets behind her mother's back. Of course, I was the one who put the sweets there for her to find.

And every day I wrote more and more music. I refused to write an actual opera, but all of the songs I wrote somehow went together. It was hard to resist not coming up with a story. A very familiar story.

"Angel of music, you denied me, turning from true beauty," I sang, looking out the window. She belonged with the viscount. She belonged to the viscount. "Angel of music, do not shun me, come to me strange angel." No matter what I did, the song played over and over again in my head.

And one day, I heard the little angel humming it. She was tiptoeing her silly little dance around the ballroom floor, humming the tune with her squeaky voice. I watched her, silently, vowing never again to sing the song. Such a mistake did not need to be done twice.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Phantom of the Opera. But Gerry? . . . now that's a different story.

Author's Notes: Yeah, uh, it was short, but that's okay. I hope this chapter was a bit more clear than the last one. Also, did anybody notice that I rhymed in my last author's notes? Wow, ain't that spiffy!. . . .Okay, I'm going now. Please review, I mean, PLEASE review. I don't care about numbers, I just want some feedback people, lemme know how I'm doin'. Cuz if I don't have feedback, I won't get any better. Thank you.