A/N: Thank you for all the comments. I appreciate your taking the time to read this.

4.

I had to stop before I reached the singers' foyer, overcome as I was. Trying desperately to regain my breath, I paused and pressed my back against a wall of masonry, clasping my hands tightly. My shoulders still stung from Collier's unrelenting grip, and my heart, beating in the silence of another abandoned winter day, shuddered in my heavy chest.

What had happened? I wondered. What had made a basically decent man snap? I recalled, with a chill, what he had said to me: "This is a war, woman!" I knew from prior experience Collier's wryness was an attempt to alleviate some hidden grief that the war only prolonged. The news from the south was bad—in Charivari, I had read the citizens' armies were being repeatedly beaten back by the Germans.

I moved to walk once more around the familiar corner to the home our singers' foyer had become and was stopped by the sight of a man standing resolutely in my path.

I jumped back a little, but refrained from crying out simply because I could not. The man seemed to know quite well that under no circumstances could I make any noise; he reveled in the knowledge, as if thinking it was he, himself, who kept me silent-as if his startling and pitless eyes—grey, with a wild tinge of yellow—kept my throat in an invisible vice. He was bewilderingly tall, completely out of place in the blunt, squat corridor that he dominated. His thin, spindly frame only accentuated this unnatural tallness, causing his strange and solemn figure to seem to rise to a height to rival the highest most twisted of the leafless trees. The clothing he wore, too, could only be a conscious mixture between personal style and an aim to create a mood of Byronic gloom. He was swathed dramatically in a black cloak that absorbed all the light from the grey world I lived in, yet reproduced it in cunning patches of shining light on the folds of the thick material.

Strangely, it was the mask I noticed last.

The mask he wore over most of his face, revealing only his bottom lip to make speech possible and the eyes I have already mentioned. The mask did not startle me as much as it should have, for it seemed I found it more familiar than menacing.

I was just gathering up my senses and wits, yanking them out of the hypnotic grip of the yellow eyes, when the man in the mask stepped forward and gave me an antique dashing little bow. "Mademoiselle," he murmured in a smooth, melodious voice.

I jumped back half a step, and the slight smile on his chalky white lips melted away. The grip of the probing eyes were back on me, forcing me to remain in their dubious range. "What do you want?" I managed to ask.

He shook his head in something like disappointment. "Your manners, Mademoiselle? Introductions first."

I could not imagine that he was being in earnest. The insinuating tone could only be mockery, the expectant look behind the black papier-mâché only a further guise for what real feelings this stranger was concealing. A white hand, however, appeared out of the blackness of his cloak, dangerously graceful, long fingers curving with a strange fluidity in a gesture of request.

He stared at me with an odd, unnerving expectancy. "Manon Lapaine," I said finally, hesitatingly curtseying.

He nodded approvingly, joining that marble collection of digits with a mirror image of the same. "Who are you?" I challenged, seeing that he made no offer to give his own name.

"Surely you've heard of the ghost in the cellars, Mademoiselle," the stranger said warmly. "No doubt that fool Collier has acquainted you with my existence." He dropped his arms slowly, letting the black cloak swirl around him in a manner that was truly spectral. Yet—I could not believe . . .

"You're not a ghost," I declared, reaching impetuously forward to take the arm of the yellow-eyed stranger.

It would be the only time I'd see him awkward, when he pulled away with a look of pained surprise, staring at the hand that brushed his cloak with plain revulsion for my audacity. The way he looked at me almost made me mouth the words, "I'm sorry."

"I thought you might find it useful to know," the stranger finally said, shaking himself, "where your morphine has been going."

The shadowy figure in the darkness—the specter in the cellars—the morphine thief—all led back to this strange man in a black mask, claiming to be a ghost. Oh, indeed, war did bring out the strangest people . . . "Why . . .?" I asked in perplexity.

"That is not your concern," the stranger said coldly.

"And yet it must be," I retorted, "for you to speak of it to me." I glared at the man, at his alabaster skin and darting intense gaze from behind the black eyeholes—

"Erik!" I exclaimed suddenly, and the shock and bewilderment apparent in the glistening yellow eyes could hardly exceed my own.

I had seen him before, and his name was Erik. This much I knew.

A year before, I had been living with my brother Jean in the tenements he owned. One misty morning—in those days of plenty before the war—I had been hurrying back to my brother from the market. I would not have even remembered the incident had it not intrigued me later. As I had turned from the street to the little homely door, I saw someone else exiting. Since I generally did not socialize with my brother's tenants, I took no notice of the man—until a chance movement in the stranger's elegant stride allowed me to look upon his face. It was the same mask of black papier-mâché, and I stopped for a moment to stare as the stranger went on in his flight, his black cloak streaming behind him, the folds shimmering like mother-of-pearl.

That was all. I opened the door and scurried down the dark corridors until I found my brother's room. "Hello, Jean," I said, smiling as I perceived him laboring over the accounts, balancing a ridiculous set of old spectacles over his nose.

He smiled in response and continued on his work until I had set down the groceries and was hiding them away in the pantry. "Oh, Manon!" he cried with mock outrage. "You have been too frugal! Why did you not one of Monsieur Duval's apple tarts?"

He knew my weakness for sweets. "The pittance you get from that newspaper," I teased, "only allows me to make a few indulgences—but not this week."

"Oh, indeed?" Jean responded with infinite mirth. And then, reaching into the drawer of the wobbling escritoire, he drew out a purse bulging with gold and silver coins.

My mouth dropped open in a very unladylike display as I stared at the glowing pile of hard currency. Jean's steady grin was contagious, and it eventually overpowered my uneasiness.

"Where—where did you get that?" I asked breathlessly.

Jean went on beaming. "Did you see the man who just left?" he asked. "The fellow in the mask?"

I looked down, slightly taken aback. "Yes."

"He came in requesting a room and before I could stop him—" Jean had removed his spectacles and was waving them in the air, "—he had given me this and was outside the door!"

I looked again at the money, exaltation slowly transforming to distrust. "Does he mean to come back?"

"Of course!" Jean exploded cheerfully. "He advised me he keeps peculiar hours, which is why he paid so well." Jean chuckled. "But I would be willing to put up with any degree of peculiarity for this—" and he jabbed importantly at the money.

Dubiously I knew that money like this did not come from the pockets of anyone who had obtained it honestly. "Who is he?"

"He calls himself Erik," Jean replied, picking up a scrap of paper from amongst the gold and silver. As he handed it to me, I noticed the handwriting was twisted and uneven, like an untrained child's, in the single word: Erik. "I think we've got some deposed aristocracy here—you know their ways—eccentric and all that."

"Why would he wear a mask?" I found myself asking. "Only a thief would want to hide his identity."

Jean's smile faded briefly. "Well, I don't pretend to understand the idiosyncrasies of our chastised ruling class. Do you?" He was nervously smiling, poking my arm with his finger as he had done to irritate me since childhood.

"You are too trusting, Jean," I said crossly.

"No, simply animated by the prospect of gold," he grinned.

I aimed to meet this Erik myself and form my own opinion of him to validate my theories, but his hours were indeed peculiar. For a week I saw nothing of him—though I found, much to my horror, my brother had given the stranger the room next to mine. This, however, became more useful than annoying as I could hear through the thin walls when the man entered and exited. It seemed to me he was out until about one in the morning and then took his leave again at six. For five hours he was still in his room—asleep, I gathered—and then he was gone.

Eccentricities indeed!—I thought. The man appeared to need little sleep. The second week less than the first, I discovered: Even at this time before the war, I did not sleep well and one night, when the stranger Erik came in at 1:00, he was not completely silent.

I was staring at my bare room, the lonely dresser beside my bed, the cracks in the ceiling, listening disinterestedly to the scuttle on the floor that was probably an insect. Then—suddenly a ghostly, disembodied music began to pervade through to me. Hushed and fragile, it was clearly the plaintive strings of a well-loved violin. The music was brief and very, very quiet—barely audible beyond the partition. But its effect was radical. Suddenly I was sitting up in bed, pressing my ear to the wall to hear more of the sweet, exquisite but very sad music. It seemed as though I had heard it before—where or how, I could not know.

Then it was over, and Erik on the other side of the wall was silent once more. It had lasted less than a minute, but it was so beautiful I found myself hoping I might hear it again.

I did. The next night and the next, at about 1:00 when I heard the door open, there were almost immediate notes wafting from the violin. The songs were always brief, embarrassed and furtive, but achingly beautiful. I wondered at the cause of these sudden, short bursts of art amid the darkness and monotony of my life—he was obviously a musician of unparalleled skill. Why did he play alone in the middle of the night when he should have been playing for all of Paris in the concert halls?

One night I was given another clue. Listening eagerly, I was disappointed that there was no music—only silence after his entrance greeted my hopeful musings. Just as I was drifting off, a few simple pluckings of the violin were followed by an equally soft and agonized voice—flawless but so wrapped in melancholy it was almost painful to hear.

I decided after that night to go to my brother about Erik, the secretive and remarkable musician. Surely I could at least meet him, as I still had not seen a sign of him. I had formed a rather elaborate history where in the mysterious Erik was an escaped Finnish violinist who had lost favor at court and was hiding here in Paris.

Accosting my brother, I found something entirely different. "How naïve I was," Jean said with uncharacteristic sobriety when I had asked, simply enough, to speak to him about Erik.

"What do you mean?"

"There have been complaints. He's been disturbing people at night. I've asked him to leave."

"What? I mean, it's true he's been making noise at night, but it's hardly a disturbance."

"You were right, of course," he muttered, apparently not hearing what I had said. "Why on earth I allowed my greed to overpower my better judgment—you should have said something, Manon—"

"I did say something! Just now," I interrupted, irritated. "I tell you, he's a wonderful musician—"

"A freak is what he is," Jean added coldly.

I stopped suddenly. "What do you mean by that?"

"The mask, Manon: you were right about the mask," Jean murmured, taking my hands. I looked into his eyes, seeing sudden worry. "One of my tenants had seen him before. In the fairs, like the ones we used to see when we were young."

"A freak?"

"More than just that," Jean went on, lowering his voice. "Who knows where he acquired the gold . . .?"

I thought how dissimilar the ideas of a freakish thief and the voice I had heard at night seemed to be and could only wonder who had been deceived more. "And he is leaving? He agreed to it?"

But that was not the end of it. As I walked down the corridor, lost in thought, toward my room, I noticed that his—Erik's—door was halfway open. Pausing in his flight, I saw the tall violinist crouched on the floor, placing his few belongings into a small, lean suitcase. He was dressed all in black, and from behind I could see the ribbons of his mask tied on the back of his head.

I remembered Jean's first impressions of an eccentric aristocrat, and the description fit better than expected: Erik's movements, even in the haste of departure, were elegant and surprisingly refined.

But then he stood up, and came to the door, brushing past me quickly with a quizzical look. His soft cloak touched me as said curtly but very politely. "Excuse me, Mademoiselle." Then he turned and walked from the past into the present.

He was still reeling back in the shock that I had called him by name. He stood there with bewilderment visible in his grey-gold eyes, his white, translucent hands held up in a gesture of absolute surprise. The silvery gauze of his shirt appeared, for a moment, out of his black cloak amid the sudden motion.

I replied to his unasked question, "You lodged under my brother about a year ago."

There appeared to be some relief from behind the black papier-mâché. Immediately he regained his dignified, superior stance and glanced back at me coldly. "I see."

"You played your violin at night," I went on, stepping a little closer.

A look of displeasure crossed his face, and then he turned away with an air of embarrassment. "Perhaps," he conceded, dropping his arms so that his cloak fell over him in a cascade of blackness. He cleared his throat. "I have a proposition for you."

His sudden transformation into a cool, diplomatic façade was most amusing and I could not repress an incredulous smile as I said, "Really?"

"I will continue to use morphine occasionally and you will not inform your captain of my activities—"

"What use is that to me?" I asked sharply.

His eyes narrowed and gleamed with a look that silenced me at once. "And I will reward your troubles with something very dear in this age."

And, apparently out of nowhere, Erik produced a crisp-crusted, golden-flaked pie. I stared at the sudden advent of food, feeling my mouth growing dry in anticipation. I restrained myself though I could see my own hunger reflected in his satisfied gaze.

"Be cautioned, Mademoiselle," he said, "that if you betray me I will take precautions that you are permanently silenced."

I gulped. I looked into his yellow eyes. Their frigidity gave me proof he was as brutal as he claimed. Still, even at that moment I could discern something delicate and compassionate beyond the apparent hate and coldness. His words should have given me all reason to fear I should have turned at that moment and run, screaming. Instead, I found myself inexorably trusting his lunacy and believing his crazy proposal.

"Why not continue as before?" I asked. "Steal the morphine instead of trading it?"

There seemed to be a trace of amusement as he answered, "You see, I don't enjoy the prospect of a hundred soldiers tramping down to my home."

"So you do live down there?"

Another grim silencing look. I cast my eyes down, all too aware of the curbed intensity lurking a few feet away. "What do you want the morphine for?" I asked.

"The same thing for which Soeur Babette wanted it," he explained nastily.

"You are very impertinent!" I cried.

"And you are very hungry," he said. He rose his eyes from beneath the black, gazing at me in some silky emotion I could not fathom. "Be sensible, Mademoiselle," he offered in a quiet, supplicating voice—for a moment I could recognize the tone that had haunted my night along with the lilting violin.

"You must understand," I said, staring deeply at the pie, "the morphine is not really mine to bargain for."

"My demands are modest enough," he said, not tearing his glittering gold eyes away. "I am not in as constant a need as you may perceive."

I really did not have a choice. If I refused, who was to stay I would get back from this meeting alive? I nodded slowly and took the pie from his grasp. It required all my self control not to dig my fingers into the savory crust and devour it.

"When I am in need of your services," Erik said coolly, "I shall find you. Until then, Mademoiselle, good day."

And walking into a shadow, he disappeared.