Author's Note: I apologize for how long it has taken me to get this chapter up. My computer is not working very well right now and will not load the preview page. I'm using a school computer to post this chapter. It may be a little while before the next chapter comes up, but never fear, it will.

Enjoy

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Chapter 23: The Penitence of a Prostitute

Erik awoke to the warmth of firelight on his face and the sounds of Christine moving quietly about the underground bedroom. He stretched languidly, content to watch her from the depths of their bed.

"Where are you off to?" he asked gruffly, a small smile quirking at the edges of his mouth. She looked beautiful, even dressed as she was in a high-necked black gown, hair netted demurely up.

Christine wrapped a black net shawl around her shoulders and walked over to give Erik a quick kiss. "Mass." she replied, reaching over to pick up her prayer book and rosary from the bedside table.

Erik grasped her wrist and pulled her down again for a more satisfying kiss. "We're to be married this afternoon, Christine. You'll have all the church you need then." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. "Come back to bed."

Christine shook her head and smiled. "I'm going to Mass, Erik." she intoned firmly. "I haven't missed a Sunday morning service since I was a small child." She kissed him again. "I'll be back in two hours or so. Your breakfast is waiting for you." Smiling, she secured the shawl and turned to leave.

Grumbling, Erik crawled out of bed. There were things still to be done before he took his bride to their new home tonight.

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"Christine."

Giselle half-opened her eyes. "Raoul?" she mumbled sleepily, her hand brushing the space next to her in the luxurious bed.

There was no one there.

She tried to quell the unexplainable pang of disappointment, and opened her eyes. Raoul was standing next to the bed.

"Get up, Christine. You're going to miss church."

"What?"

"Mass, Christine. Surely you haven't forgotten what day it is."

"I haven't gone to Mass in years, Raoul." Giselle explained calmly, though her heart had sped up several paces.

"You're going this morning. Get up."

Giselle's voice grew nervous. "I can't, Raoul."

"Of course you can. You are. You haven't missed a Sunday morning service since you were a child."

Full-fledged panic crept into Giselle's tone. "I can't go, Raoul. Or have you forgotten who and what I am?"

Raoul smiled mirthlessly. "Hardly. You are Christine Daae, my mistress, and you will do as I say." He turned to the door. "Charlotte!" he called brusquely. "Come and help Miss Daae get dressed for church."

Giselle closed her eyes, steadying her thoughts. She could feel Raoul's absence as he swept from the room, leaving only Charlotte.

"Miss Daae?"

Giselle opened them to see Charlotte looking at her quizzically.

"Are you alright, Miss Daae?"

Giselle nodded. "The black skirt and the white blouse, Charlotte." She climbed wearily from the bed and walked to the dresser.

A worn prayer book and a string of jet black rosary beads with a heavy silver crucifix hanging from it lay atop the dresser.

Giselle opened the book curiously to the first page and glanced at the gilt name inscribed on the first page.

Comtess Elise de Chagny

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The first bells were tolling when Giselle descended from the de Chagny carriage and stood at the steps of the grand Parisian cathedral—alone. Raoul had not come with her. It would cause too much difficulty, he explained. People would ask questions.

Giselle knew that the real reason was that Raoul's self-deception was not entirely complete, nor would it ever be. He was content to pretend that she was Christine in front of his brother and in his bed, but to be seen socially with her would have been to accept that Giselle was all he would ever have. She was only a plaything, a pretension to be carried on until the real Christine was wooed back into Raoul's arms.

She stared up at the cathedral, fear rising in her throat. She could not bring herself to mount the stairs and enter the doors. Surely God Himself would strike her down if such as she dared enter His holy place.

Her sins were too great and too many to ever be forgiven, even if she had already entered the confessional with a contrite heart and repentant soul.

She had not confessed her sins. She had not received absolution. And she could not enter those doors and sit among the faithful, reciting the prayers that she had long since forgotten and take the Holy Communion.

Not without adding to her many sins.

But she must. For her own sake, she must enter that cathedral and pretend to be what she was not.

It was only what she had done for well nigh on two years.

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"Good morning, Father." Christine greeted the priest at the doors as she entered. "You will be performing the ceremony this evening?"

"Of course, Christine." Father Clare smiled. He had known Christine for all of the nine years since she had first come to live at the Opera Populaire. He touched her cheek. "Are you happy, child?"

Christine hesitated only a moment before nodding. "I am."

The elderly priest's brow creased with concern, but he only nodded. "Very well, then." He glanced behind her to see more of the parishioners entering, along with a young woman that he did not recognize. "I will speak with you later, Christine."

Christine nodded and slipped past him to her seat.

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Giselle tried to quiet the racing of her heart as she approached the priest standing at the door. He greeted each of the parishioners in turn, and then his eyes met hers.

"Welcome, mademoiselle." He smiled. "Or is it Madame?"

"It is mademoiselle." Giselle affirmed, her eyes cast down.

"And what is your name, mademoiselle?"

Giselle paused. Raoul would wish her to answer with the name Christine. But surely this priest knew Christine, and would not be fooled. And asides from that…Giselle could not bring herself to lie to a man of God. To do so would be to damn herself further.

"Giselle." she answered quietly. "Giselle Auteur."

"Welcome, Giselle."

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Giselle found a space in one of the back pews, among some of the poorer members of the church. She affixed a properly penitent expression on her face, watching Father Clare solemnly as he stood before the altar and made the sign of the cross over the parishioners, as all the while she glanced surreptitiously about the congregation for a woman who looked like her.

She did not see Christine.

She snapped back to the present as the priest began to speak, and hurriedly kneeled with the rest of the congregation as he began to speak.

She closed her eyes as he began to recite the forty-second Psalm, allowing the distantly familiar words to flow over her.

For a brief moment, she felt young again, innocent, kneeling beside her mother, a worn wooden rosary clasped in her childish fingers instead of this expensive set of glass beads. She smelled the soft, soothing scent of the lavender sachet that her mother had kept among her clothing, the one concession that she had made to her own pleasure.

She heard her father's rough voice mingled with her mother's beautiful lilting tones as they made their confession to God. She murmured the words softly, her mind still far away in a time that, despite its hardship, had been perhaps the most beautiful of her seventeen years.

"I confess to Almighty God…"

And then, she was no longer a small child, but Giselle Auteur, alias Christine Daae, again a prostitute of two years now paid to impersonate a young diva. The sound of her own voice brought her back, no longer the halting tones of a child just learning the prayers, but a young woman aged beyond her years, not in body but in mind and soul.

A small, twisted voice echoed in her mind, taunting her as she clenched her fingers tightly around the rosary, reciting with the others the confession.

All liars shall have their place in the Lake of Fire, Giselle. Your spot is growing hotter every moment that you kneel here in false piety and unrepentance.

"…and to all the Saints, and to you, Father, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed…"

She had to choke back a bitter laugh. She glanced to either side at the kneeling penitents. They all murmured these words, but she was sure that many of them did not truly think that they had sinned exceedingly. A bit, perhaps, but not exceedingly.

Ah, she had sinned exceedingly. And when she had made her confession before God and received absolution, she would sin again tonight and perhaps the night after that, and every night until the day that she died and drowned herself for all eternity in that lake of fire reserved for liars and whores such as she.

"…therefore I beseech the Blessed Mary, ever Virgin…"

What right have you to beseech a virgin?

The confession was finished a few sentences later, and Father Clare intoned over them:

"May Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you your sins, and bring you to life everlasting."

There is no forgiveness for you. But ah, yes, there is life everlasting for you. An eternity of suffering to atone for this life's sins.

Father Clare made the sign of the cross over them again and they, still kneeling, continued on with the petitions for forgiveness of sins and purity.

"Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy." she whispered during the Kyrie.

No words she had ever spoken had been so heartfelt or true.

There is no mercy for you.

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Christine stood further forward in the congregation, but she glanced back for a moment as they sang the Gloria.

A young brunette woman caught her eye, dressed in a plain, but finely crafted black skirt and white blouse. She was clutching a set of black rosary beads, so tightly that her knuckles were turning white.

It was not the state of her dress or hands that caught Christine's attention, however.

It was the expression on her face, an expression full of emotion so strong that it could not be put-upon, as were the expressions on so many of the faces here.

There was pleading etched on every contour of the girl's face, and in the depths of her brown eyes, a sorrow too deep for any words.

With a start, Christine remembered another person's eyes, staring into her own, the same pleading etched onto his face, a pleading for acceptance and forgiveness, the same sorrow welling from his eyes.

And in his eyes, all the sadness of the world…

Erik…

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At last they reached the Nicene, and the congregation stood. Giselle brushed a strand of hair from her eyes, joining the congregation as they recited the creed.

"I believe in the one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ…"

Do you really believe, Giselle? Or do you lie yet again?

Giselle caught her breath as she continued the recitation. Did she really believe in God anymore? Did she believe in a Being who could look down on the suffering of hundreds like her and not do anything?

If there was a God, He had forsaken her long ago.

She dropped a few coins into the plate as it was passed during the Offertory, given her by Raoul.

This offering, at least, was not tainted.

The preparation of the altar for Communion went on for some time, as all the while Giselle's heart beat steadily faster.

She had been raised since she was a child to believe in the teachings of the Church concerning the Holy Eucharist, and she knew that, in her unabsolved and unrepentant state, she was unworthy and forbidden, by the rules of the Church, to take Communion.

But to support her façade, she must.

Idly, she wondered with impersonal curiosity what would happen when she received the sacred bread and wine. Would God strike her down publicly for her many sins? Would some divine force fall from heaven and consume her at the foot of the altar as happened in the catechism stories?

"For this is my Body…"

She would find out in a moment.

"For this is the Chalice of my Blood…"

"Our Father which art in Heaven…"

Oh God, why have you forsaken me?

"Thy kingdom come…"

That I may be expelled…

"Give us this day our daily bread…"

Which I am unworthy to receive…

"…forgive us our trespasses,"

Mine are too many to be forgiven.

"And lead us not into temptation…"

My only temptation is to escape from my present condition and give in to death…oh, God, deliver me from the temptation of others and deliver me to temptation…let me die…

"But deliver us from evil…"

Please.

"Deliver me by this Your most sacred Body and Blood from all my sins…which I, though unworthy, presume to receive…"

And in so doing am duly damned…

Giselle knelt at the altar and closed her eyes as Father Clare administered the Eucharist. The bread touched her tongue, and the sensation was so foreign that she felt once again as though she were a small child again, receiving her first Communion.

But it could never be.

Innocence lost could not be regained.

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As Christine knelt and waited to receive her Communion, she glanced at the brunette. The same childlike expression was on her face again, and Christine wondered at this young woman who seemed so hopeless and bitter, and yet so innocent at the same time.

Who was she?

Where had she come from?

Christine knew that she had never seen her before, and yet she knew all of the people who attended Mass at least marginally.

She made up her mind to catch the girl before she left and find out just who she was.

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"May your Body, O Lord, which I have eaten, and Your Blood which I have drunk, cleave to my soul and grant that no trace of sin be found in me…"

Too late for such privileges. You are purely sinful, Giselle, you cannot be cleansed.

The priest made the sign of the cross over the altar and then himself, then blessed the congregation.

Giselle traced her fingers over the rosary as she recited three Hail Marys with the congregation, eager to leave.

Finally, Father Clare spoke again.

"Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us."

Giselle echoed it, then rose with the rest of the congregation.

She turned towards the doors, then suddenly just behind her caught sight of a beautiful young brunette.

The woman looked much like Giselle herself.

Christine…

She was the picture of an angel, all white skin and wide, innocent brown eyes.

She was the woman Giselle longed to be.

And she was walking towards her.

Giselle bolted.