A/N:
I apologize for the length of time it has been taking me to get these chapters up, but life has been simply crazy lately.
I hope this chapter may also clear up a few misconceptions I was aware of about the nature of Madame Giry's dream.
Enjoy, and please review!
-
Chapter 28: A Litany Of Suffering
Erik stood at the window, fists clenched at his sides, a trickle of blood running down his hand where he had torn the ring from his finger.
He watched Christine stumble out of the house and onto the mist-slicked streets. He watched her begin to run, watched her slip and nearly fall, and watched her disappear into the fog.
And when her slender form was gone from his sight, he tried to pretend that the sudden pain that washed throughout his entire being was the result of her betrayal.
He turned to the table next to the armchair and went to pour himself a glass of wine. He took a sip and grimaced. The drink, so rich and sweet and inviting only a few hours before, now tasted terribly weak and insipid.
Together with the familiar taste of the wine came the image of Christine, clad in a dressing gown only, her hair tumbling loose around her shoulders, her lips stained a bright scarlet…
With a sudden curse, he flung the goblet away from him. It struck the wall sharply and shattered, sending bits of crystal and a stream of crimson liquid to the floor.
His eyes fixed on the red liquid trickling down the wall.
A sudden hunger for blood reared within him, that familiar surge of barely controlled violence that had spurred his many crimes within the Opera. He had killed for her before…he could kill for her again.
"You fool!" he shouted, covering his face with his hands, his fingers digging into his skull. He ran them harshly through his hair, thick on one side, a mere smattering on the other.
Yet another reminder of what a monstrous visage he possessed.
It was no wonder that Christine still dreamed of her Viscomte.
He sank into the chair, mindful that tears had begun to trickle down his cheeks. Where had the rage gone, the numbing need for blood and death, even Christine's? Now there was only pain, an aching need to hold her and know that she loved him still, and a terrible emptiness in the room.
He rose suddenly and, without allowing himself another moment to think, pulled on his gloves and pulled his cloak from the wardrobe.
There was only one person who could help him now.
-
Christine rose from the cobblestones, her dress soaked through from the deluge of rain that was now turning to snow in the freezing air.
She walked up the steps of the cathedral and through the doors.
It was empty, and mostly dark, save for the candles burning around the altar.
She fell to her knees, and lifted her gaze to the crucifix above the altar, the dying Christ illuminated golden in the candlelit glow.
There was only one prayer on her lips, a litany of pleading.
You know what it is to suffer. Look down on us, see his suffering and mine, and bring him back to me. Have mercy. Bring him back to me.
-
The carriage stopped at the gates of the cemetery, and Giselle stepped down, her cloak wrapped tightly around her to shield her from the cold.
The rain had lasted only moments, the chill of the air turning the droplets to sleet and then to snow.
The flakes fell in soft, haunting trails from the sky, lacing Giselle's hair and biting at the pale skin of her face and hands as she walked among the stone sculptures and ornate graves to a small, poor plot, without marking, save for a small stone that stood between the two graves and had only names and dates.
Pierre and Jacqueline Auteur
1842-1868
She knelt in the snow, her eyes fixed on the cold, rough-hewn stone.
"I'm sorry." she whispered, her eyes beginning to sting with the familiar onslaught of tears, mindful that she had brought nothing with her to lay on the graves, so long bare.
She had not been the only child to be orphaned by poverty. Most other orphans that Giselle had known, regardless of their upbringing, had ceased to find comfort in God when they had found themselves left alone and homeless on the streets of Paris.
They had found their comfort in the memory of their parents, whom they believed with childlike faith were watching them at all times from the warmth and security of Heaven.
"Have you been watching me all this time?" Giselle whispered to the silent graves. "I hope not. I hope you cannot see what your daughter has become."
A tear slipped down her cheek. Her mother's face came to mind, that beautiful, sweet face, and Giselle winced. What would her mother say if she knew what her precious, beautiful daughter had become?
Giselle closed her eyes. "I had no choice, mother." The tears came more quickly. "God have mercy on me, I had no choice!"
Except in the matter of the Viscomte.
And for that accusation of her conscience, Giselle had no reply.
None but tears.
And, having shed so many over the past two years, Giselle felt them to be a poor penance, even as she knelt in the snow, her arms wrapped tightly about her chest, the only sound in the cemetery the wracking sobs that shook her thin frame.
-
Raoul was not a heavy sleeper.
The rattle of carriage wheels took him from his slumber, and he rose from the bed. It was only a stride to the window, and he recognized Giselle's slender figure as she stepped into a waiting carriage.
It was headed in the direction of the cemetery.
A flash of déjà vu swept over him as he remembered another cold, snowy morning, another window, another woman in another carriage, headed for the same bleak cemetery.
He clenched his teeth. There was no Phantom to take this Christine from him. That cursed beast knew nothing of his liaison with this woman that he had turned into Christine, who, by every right, should have been his.
No, the Phantom nested quietly with his ingénue, and one day, he would let slip the façade of humanity and prove again what a murderous demon he was.
And then, his precious Christine, Christine Daae, would return to him.
And yet, assured though he was that history would not repeat itself, Raoul left the warmth and comfort of his chambers, ordered his horse saddled, and in a matter of mere minutes, was headed in the direction of the cathedral and cemetery.
And, somewhere above the muffled hoofbeats of his stallion's swift gallop, he thought he could hear a deep and resonant voice echoing through the trees.
Yet while I live, I will haunt you 'til you're dead…
With a grim satisfaction that came of knowing that he had been right, Raoul smiled mirthlessly.
He knew the voice.
It had never ceased to echo within his dreams.
-
The rain was hard and driving, the lightning bright and deadly when it cut through the evening sky.
And within the small house, Erik stood, blood trickling from his left hand, staring despondently out of the window, at the storm that seemed to have been unleashed from within him. It now raged without him.
The spires of the cathedral twisted up into the furious heavens, and before the altar, beseeching the glowing figure of the suffering Christ, Christine knelt, tears streaming from her face, her lips moving in one silent prayer.
The thunder rumbled, the sound as of a stallion galloping, and over it all was the resonant voice of the Phantom, deep and angry.
The lightning abated, the rain turned to sleet and then to snow, and on the snow there was blood…
And Erik's voice, full of pain and regret, as she had heard it so many times before, screaming her name: "Antoinette! Antoinette!"
Madame Giry sat bolt upright, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. "Only a nightmare," she whispered to herself, trying to calm her racing heart. "Only a nightmare."
And then, the harsh knock that had pulled her from her dream came again, and Erik's voice, full of pain and regret, as she had heard it so many times before, desperately called out her name.
"Antoinette!"
She scrambled from the bed, grabbing her dressing gown and knotting the sash hurriedly about her waist, hurried to the door. "I'm coming, Erik!" she called, pulling the door open.
His clothing was rumpled, as though pulled on in a great hurry, his eyes were red-rimmed, and his auburn hair was wild on both sides…
His auburn hair.
Antoinette blinked. He wore neither his wig nor his mask. A knot of foreboding and fear twisted in her stomach, and at the same time a dart of pain shot directly through her heart. He looked so forlorn, so vulnerable without the thick black wig and the leather mask that had always, always augmented his perfectly debonair appearance.
She longed to wrap her arms about him, to pull him close to her and let him weep on her shoulder.
Instead, she turned concerned eyes up to him and calmly asked: "Whatever is wrong?"
"I…Christine…gone…the boy…she…I…" He stammered needlessly, suddenly unable to tell the awful tale of what his rage had once again cost him, now, when he stood before the one person who could help him mend what was broken.
She said nothing, only watched him with eyes full of compassion, and a wracking sob escaped him, and then another.
Antoinette hesitated only a moment. She had no earthly idea what had transpired, but she could infer at least that Erik had lost Christine again, whether by Christine's folly or his own, and her heart crumbled within her for his pain. He had known only pain all his life, and she wondered at what cruel trick of Fate it was that would grant a man his only wish for happiness, only to snatch it from him once again.
She wanted nothing more than to comfort him, to close the distance that had always seemed to linger there whenever she saw him. The stiff formality that seemed to exist always between them held her back a moment, but then she considered the utter foolishness of the situation, she, standing there in her dressing gown, her hair loose about her shoulders instead of bound up, he, disheveled and weeping, without even the small comfort of his mask.
It was no trouble at all to draw him down to sit with her on the edge of the bed, and she wrapped her arms about him, holding him close to her. "Shh, shh," she whispered, stroking his hair comfortingly as Erik, overwhelmed by emotion, simply leaned his forehead against her shoulder and sobbed brokenly. "She will come back. She loves you, Erik. Whatever has happened, it can be mended. You have both done so before."
"No," he managed. "You don't understand, Antoinette! She won't come back! She will never come back, because she fears me!"
Antoinette closed her eyes a moment. "What has happened, Erik?" He made no reply, except to shake his head. "I cannot help you if you do not explain!" She let him go abruptly and gently lifted his head to face her. "Tell me what has happened."
And so he told her all that had transpired that night, beginning with Christine's fateful whisper of Raoul's name.
"I almost killed her, Antoinette. If I hadn't told her to leave when I did, I would have killed her." He covered his face with his hands. "How can I ever look at her again, ever touch her again, ever claim to love her, when I would have taken her life and, for those few moments when the rage completely consumed me, would have taken pleasure in her screams and the feel of her blood on my hands? How?"
For several moments, she had no reply. What possible response could there be to such a ghastly confession? No priest on earth could give absolution for such a thing, and neither could she. Antoinette closed her eyes tightly and embraced Erik once again, her hands running soothingly over his hair. All the while, her mind spun madly as she struggled to find the words that could once more right their toppled world.
"Do you still feel that rage, Erik?" she asked calmly, masking the flood of emotion surging within her, mingled with fear for both Erik and Christine. "Do you still wish to kill her, or have her gone from your sight?"
Erik shook his head. "No! I would give all the world to have her safe in my arms again, but I am afraid that will never be. She will never believe that she is safe in my presence, and she will never believe that I have forgiven her or forgotten. And to be honest, Antoinette, I am not sure that I can forgive or forget."
"You have already begun to forgive her, Erik. Find her. Find her and let her explain, as much as she is able. Then you may decide whether the bridges burnt are entirely beyond repair."
-
Raoul felt a chill go down his spine as he approached the cathedral. Smoky fog hung heavy in the air, twisting up around the everlasting spires of the grand monolith, and the swirling flakes of snow that drifted down through the mist gave the cathedral an ethereal appearance.
He remembered how Giselle had returned from Mass that past Sunday morn, conscience heavy but her spirits lighter. She had even tried to refuse him her bed, but he would have none of it. Giselle had acquiesced, rather quickly if memory served him correctly.
But her eyes had been even more blank and dead than usual, every trace of expression gone, like a ember ever closer to dying out entirely…
Raoul pushed the image from his mind, leaving his horse standing at the steps and taking the cathedral steps two at a time, some unexplained urgency pressing at him.
He burst through the ornate doors, and looked into the yawning chasm stretched out before him.
Illuminated by candles, high above the altar, hung the golden effigy of the suffering Christ. With infinite compassion, transcending all agony, He looked down upon the woman who knelt before the altar, her quiet sobs barely audible, daring, tainted as she was, to beseech He who had no sin.
And then, she heard the heavy tread of a man's footfalls, and turned.
A seeming halo of light spread about her from the candles directly behind, and Raoul knew within the space of an instant that this woman was no fallen angel.
"Christine?"
-
It took Erik only minutes to arrive at the gates of the cemetery.
Christine would, undoubtedly, be at her father's grave. Where else would she seek solace, to whom else would she go to cry for the loss of her Angel, the spirit sent by her father, somehow manifested in a living man?
Shrouded in his cloak, he hurried across the snowy ground, headed for the monolithic grave of Charles Daae.
But when he reached the stone monument, Christine was not there.
He heard the sound of soft sobs, and turned down another path.
Not twenty yards from the grave of Christine's father, a brunette woman knelt before two absurdly simple graves.
"Christine!" he exclaimed, crossing the distance between them in a matter of moments.
The woman turned, and froze. "Who are you, monsieur?"
He stopped suddenly.
The woman met his eyes, and he knew instantly that she was not Christine.
Her features matched those of his angel almost perfectly, the long, curly mahogany locks were the same, the shape and stature of her body was a near perfect match.
But this was not Christine.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her to her feet. "Are you Christine Daae?" he hissed suddenly, not understanding what was happening, but acutely aware that something was wrong.
She nodded, suddenly frightened. "I am! What do you want, monsieur?"
"You are not Christine!"
The façade impressed upon her by Raoul suddenly seemed terribly safe…and somehow…terribly precious.
"I am!"
-
And within the cathedral, perhaps only a hundred yards from the twin graves of Pierre and Jacqueline Auteur, Fate played her cruel hand once again, her pleasure in the ironies of life not yet sated.
The woman kneeling at the altar, framed in light, and never looking more like an angel than she did in that moment, looked at the man standing shadowed in the doorway, and her lips once more formed that fateful question:
"Raoul?"