FIFTY WHOLE CHAPTERS! OH YEAH, BABY! PARTY TIME!

…God bless the cozy cage we share.
You kill me,
You thrill me,
Threatening my dreams, girl

There's something wonderful about love,
There's something wonderful about love,
There's something liberating death alone brings
There's something funny bout' a lot of sad things
There's something wonderful about love,

-'About Love', by The Choir

Chapter Fifty: About Love

Eric

She had not returned!

"What have I done?" I lamented with a sob. "Eric has frightened her, and our beloved has fled from us!"

I had spent a third day searching for the angelic creature with out success. The dull thud of my boots upon the steps of the fourth cellar sounded as hollow and lifeless as the heart within my accursed chest.

Had I somehow miscalculated my approach? We had planned every last detail of that day down to a perfect science! How could it have failed so badly that she fled my opera house altogether? How had everything gone so wrong?

She had been terrified when I began to sing to her despite my best attempts at subconscious suggestion, racing from room to room around the little rotunda attic, frantic to find the source of my gentle music. Then she had run from the upper levels of the Garnier to the refuge of her friends' dormitory. There had been too many little rats scuttling about for me to make my presence known to her there, and I was forced to watch helplessly as the dear creature attempted to convince herself that she was not mad.

I had not even had the chance to remind her of the angel of music.

"Yes, you would make a splendid angel, Eric." The voices taunted me, as I released the mechanism to open the one way door. "A murderous criminal with a face from the very pits of hell. Of course you are an angel!"

Perhaps if I had not been paying so much attention to the irritating presences in my head, I would have become aware of the soft voices on the other side of the wall.

By the time I noticed the two figures on the shores of my lake, it was too late to go back the way that I came.

"Merde!" I cursed loudly inside my skull. "What are those chits doing down here in the first place? Damn them both!"

The passage I had just left was designed to open only from one side, and I was neatly trapped in a recess in the rocky walls by the bright light of their lantern. If I moved more than a few inches from my hiding place, the two young women would see me instantaneously.

I paid no mind to their inconsequential faces or conversation, too consumed by anger to care about who they were.

"How dare they intrude upon my domain? How dare they trap me?" I fumed. "I'll wring their scrawny necks!"

But just as I began to shift my weight, it occurred to me just what they were doing.

The girl closest to the lake called out to her companion. "Leah, be a dear and help me with this, won't you?" She gestured towards her sweat stained dress. "I'm afraid I cannot undress without some assistance."

I stared in dumb shock as I realized who they were and what they were planning to do. It had been some time since I had bothered to indulge in 'looking in' on any of the chits in the dormitories, for I had been too consumed with my love.

"I suppose that if I am trapped here, I might as well enjoy the view." I thought persuasively.

I settled myself more comfortably against the rough hewn stone and prepared to watch and listen. A nagging bit of my mind continued to insist that I turn away, not for propriety's sake, but so that I would not betray my beloved.

I squashed the thought quickly, focusing on the scene that was unfolding before me.

Mademoiselle Iglesias inched away from the hot, dilapidated lantern nervously and began to do as her friend asked. "Beth, why did the others react that way when you said that you were coming here?" Her eyes continued to dart back and forth, as though looking for me in the darkness.

What a foolish thought! Why on earth would the girl think to look for 'Señor' in this dim circle of Hell?

"Oh, that?" Replied Mlle. Giry as her friend helped her out of her limp, cotton shift. "When we were very young, before you came, Maman taught us to swim down here."

"Your mother?" The younger girl giggled as Bethany returned the favor of helping her from her own faded garment.

"What is so amusing?"

"I am sorry, Beth. It is simply difficult to imagine your mother swimming. It is not exactly a dignified activity for a refined lady."

"Yes … I suppose it is an odd picture when I look back on it." She paused and contemplated the picture for a moment before giving a little laugh herself. "She said that since the boys learned in the rain barrels on the roof, we ought to learn as well. We swam here for several years, until the stories of the opera ghost frightened us away.

Now clad only in her shift, Giry's girl slowly waded into the water. With her plump belly, she looked a bit like a waddling duck. Her companion, however, remained on shore, eyeing up the dark water that lapped at her feet like a cat eyeing up a bath. Much to my dismay, she was still fully clothed, despite all the buttons of her frock being unhooked.

"Aren't you planning to join me?" The older woman called out, all ready having leisurely paddled several feet from shore. Her pale, rounded belly floated just out of the water as she drifted on her back, reflecting the light like a tiny moon in the artificial night. "The water is a bit chilly, but you'll be used to it in a moment."

"I … I don't … It smells terrible." Stuttered Mlle. Iglesias, as she clung to the stony shore like a starfish to a boulder. Her jaw had a stubborn set to it that said she would brook no arguments with her decision. "I have errands to run later, and I don't care to smell like a-"

"Nonsense." Bethany ignored her resistance. "The 'aroma' is from a small sewage pipe clear across the lake. The water here is quite clean, Papa told us so years ago."

This did little to convince the cautious figure any further from shore.

Giry had spoken the truth. Most of the lake was, in fact, spring fed, and rather pleasant. That is, if one enjoyed the water.

I shivered at the disgusting thought.

I hated the water with a passion, and only bathed in my sterile claw footed tub when absolutely necessary. I couldn't blame the girl for her reluctance to swim, but I ferverently wished that she would.

The rest of my body agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment.

"I don't want to!" She cried in exasperation, sounding very much like my beloved when she was in a petulant mood.

The Giry girl began to tread in the water, looking back to shore with a hint of concern in her voice. "What is the matter, Leah?"

Mlle. Iglesias blushed like an unfolding rose, and moved her lips wordlessly for a moment before replying. Then she whispered something so quietly that not even I, a mere fifteen feet behind her, could make out the words.

"Come again, Leah?"

With a deep sigh, the younger girl straightened her back and threw her friend a glare that positively dared her to belittle what she would say next.

"I can't swim! There, are you happy?"

Bethany did not even attempt to contain her mirth, throwing back her head with a booming laugh that echoed across the expanse of my lake.

The glare from shore was magnified by tenfold.

If looks could kill, Mlle. Giry would be sinking down to a watery grave.

"It is NOT funny!"

"On the contrary dear, I think it is quite hilarious!" Bethany barely stifled another giggle. "Would you like me to teach you?"

"No." Came the quiet reply, barely a murmur. The land bound woman turned and sat on the damp beach at an angle that allowed me to see her profile, oblivious to the tiny waves that lapped at her loose dress. The look in Mlle. Iglesias's eyes took me by surprise as much as her tone did, for it was one of weariness and defeat. I had never observed such things from her in the past.

A fragment of my heart felt a twinge of jealousy that I had not been privy to the complete sum of the girl's emotions while I had been 'courting' her. Why shouldn't I have been given everything that she had?

"Why not dear? It isn't so very hard, ma foi!"

"I do not wish to learn." She said firmly.

"Hmph. Fine then, have it your own way. I for one, am enjoying this tremendously." Giry's girl returned to her slow, patient strokes while continuing to tempt her friend out into the water.

"I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be in the nice cold water."

"I'm not coming out there."

"Oh, you are incorrigible! It is quite nice, especially after lugging around my little 'treasure' all day long." She crooned sarcastically while stroking her heavy stomach. She began to speak to it. "You had just better come out soon, my bebe, or we shall have some things to discuss between us. Oh, what is that, bebe?" She pretended to listen to her stomach intently. "You think Auntie Leah ought to come out in the nice cool water with us?"

"Did you hear that, Auntie Leah?"

With a sigh, she stood to her feet and began to shed her clothing and take down her long, dark hair. It fell nearly halfway down her flexible back. In a few moments she too wore only a thin linen shift.

"Uhg. I heard you, Beth." Came the exasperated answer. "But I am NOT coming out there!" She sat down in the shallow water and reclined on her elbows, her hair pooling around her as she cooled in the chilly water.

Both my mind and my body were rather pleased to see her finally fulfill our wishes.

Now if only she would dispense with that cumbersome shift of hers, Eric would have a brief glimpse at heaven.

Though I knew I ought not to betray my true goddess in such a fashion, I couldn't help but drink in the sight of this angelic form in white. Her soft forearms disappeared under the midnight liquid, and her silky tresses cascaded down her back and melted into the gentle current like black ink. She was not my Christine, but she was not so very difficult to look at either.

By the time I had regained my senses, Beth had beached herself along side of the object of my attention and they had begun to converse in low, content voices.

"So are Mama Beth and Bebe happy now?"

"Oui, of course, Auntie Leah!"

"Good, good." Replied the appealing girl, sounding content and a bit sleepy.

After a few moments of companionable silence, she spoke again, turning the conversation in an unexpected direction.

"Beth," She asked shyly, "You love Beval, yes?"

"Of course!" Snorted Bethany, as though she had asked whether or not the sky was blue. "You know that … why do you ask?"

As Mlle. Iglesias turned her head to look at her friend, I caught another brief glimpse of her features. A deep emptiness, a bitter sort of longing was painted across her pained face as clear as day.

"What … what is it like?" She inquired softly, turning back to gaze at the unending darkness. It was as though she could not bear to hear the answer, but could not live without it.

"What do you mean, 'what is it like'?"

"Being in love." Was the barely audible reply, laced with a thousand strands of sharp emotion.

"What makes you ask?" Bethany asked gently.

"I simply wished to know what I'm missing, that is all." She said with a bitter, self depreciating little laugh. "I see it all around me, every day. You and Beval. Henry and Leotyne. Tina and her pinings for her mysterious lost love…"

"Lost love?"

"Oui. She hardly speaks of him, but I often catch her staring off into space with that sad, wishful expression of hers. She has even written poetry about it."

"Really?"

"Mmm. She has quite a talent for it too. You should ask her to see it sometime."

"Leah, you are avoiding the subject again. Honestly, it was your subject this time!"

The raven haired girl shrugged her shoulders guiltily. "What is it like, Beth? It seems apparent that I am unlikely to learn first hand in my lifetime, but I should like to know."

"Oh, Leah." Bethany sighed as she put an arm around her shoulder. "How can I begin?"

Authoress's Notes:

I don't think that the lake is spring fed, nor am I sure if it would be considered clean enough to swim in, but hey, its called artistic licence for a reason! So there.

Did ya'll like the idea of Tina the poet? I wanted my Christine to have a little bit of a life outside of the realm of music, so that the poor girl gets a little depth in her character! Leroux kinda makes her out to be either a conniving manipulator or a brainless ditz, depending on how you interpret her character, but I wanted something a bit more realistic, so I threw a bit of myself into her.

If you want to read the poem that Tina wrote (Well, I wrote it, and then later realized that I could work well for Tina's perspective at this point in the story. An embedded work! Yippie!) Check out my piece called 'Love Shall Ever Lie'.