21) You must try to be brave
"Can´t you at least come with me?", Christine pleaded, clutching Mme.Giry´s hand as if her life depended on it. The older woman hated to see her like that, but she couldn´t help her. "I´m afraid it´s impossible.", she said. "There are lessons I have to give. I offered to have an additional rehearsal with Ariane to show her all the steps she´ll need in the new opera. It would be very suspicious if I cancelled it and simply disappeared, especially with Meg not being there as well."
The rational part of Christine´s mind understood it. Yet the other part wasn´t accessible to reason. She was frightened. There mere idea of going down to Erik´s home alone made her break into a sweat. What if Meg was indeed with him? The last time she had seen them kissing she had thrown up afterwards. And what if Meg was not with him? Christine couldn´t just turn on her heel and leave. She´d have to talk to him. But about which topic?
Seeing the anxiety on the girl´s face Mme.Giry said: "You´re only supposed to search for Meg. You´ll ask whether she´s there and go away again, with her or without her. No one expects you to tell him everything about your feelings… although it would be a good occasion, of course." The ballet teacher had to admit to herself that she wasn´t sending Christine down there without a reason that had nothing to do with her daughter. The girl had to speak openly with Erik sooner or later, or her own negative emotions would eat her up.
One last time Mme.Giry squeezed Christine´s hand reassuringly. Then she pulled her hand back. Giving her a kind smile she told her: "Always keep in mind that it´s your decision.". The girl heard the door close behind her and knew she was alone. Tentatively she made a few steps towards the hole usually covered by the mirror. The older woman had opened it minutes ago, and the room seemed to have grown colder and less comfortable since then. Christine took a deep breath and crossed the threshold.
The difference to the other corridors in the opera was striking. For once, this one was dark, much darker than anything Christine might have considered dark before. It was the sort of pitch-blackness that couldn´t be broken, not even by the sun itself. What was the tiny lantern in the girl´s hand to do against it? The little light it emitted was immediately swallowed by the enormous mouth of darkness.
The longer Christine´s journey lasted the more cautious her steps became. She lifted her feet high into the air, determined to make as little contact with the ground as possible. Surely it was terribly dirty and slimy, and once or twice she trod on something that broke under her foot, suspiciously sounding like the bones of a small animal. At least she knew now where the rats had come from yesterday.
A dreadful cold rose from the stone floor, effortlessly penetrating the soles of her shoes and the thin tights she wore. Soon her legs started growing numb and it became harder to move them. Christine wrapped the grey woollen scarf more firmly around her shoulders. She was glad that Mme.Giry had told her to take it with her. Still it was almost unbearably cold, and she could hardly keep herself from turning around and leaving again. Only the fact that she had promised it to her ballet teacher made her go on.
The girl wondered why she hadn´t noticed any of this the first time she had come down here with Meg´s mother and Raoul, though they had taken the same way. She had probably been too worried about her friend to pay attention to the path itself. She could remember everything that had happened: the resolution to go to Erik and talk to him about what he had done, the conversation with Raoul in which she had for the first time spoken out loud that she loved Erik. Then she had met Mme.Giry on the way back to the opera, and she had told her that Meg had vanished from her room, possibly trying to confront Erik with his actions. They had found Raoul at exactly the same place where he had been when Christine had left, and surprisingly he had agreed to come with them.
Christine wouldn´t have thought it possible that she´d return here one day, looking for Meg a second time. As she came closer to Erik´s home the option that her friend could be with him became more and more appealing. At least this would keep her desire to wrap her arms around his tall body and kiss him at bay. She knew this was impossible, no matter if Meg was there or not.
She sighed inwardly and closed her eyes for a moment. It had been so long since this one evening he had come to her for a singing lesson and actually shown himself. Christine still dreamed about it, though. In her fantasies he never left again. They kissed, and then he told her how much he- Her daydream ended abruptly as she stepped onto a slippery stone and stumbled. To her surprise it sunk into the floor. Which floor? Suddenly there was nothing but a big hole right in front of her. Christine desperately tried to remain on her feet, but gravity pulled her down mercilessly. She gave a soft cry as she fell… and fell… and crashed to the ground some ten feet below. The girl´s world dissolved around her.