"Tell me why am I going to this dinner again?" Kerri gasped as Marie tightened her corset.

"Because you love your brother, even if his choice in women is less than perfect."

Kerri looked at herself in the mirror, playing with her hair.

"Should we go up or down?"

"Who is at the dinner party, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Umm, some military officer, a few of my mother's friends, the Duke…"

The girls looked at each other.

"Down." They said in unison.

The Duke was a sixty year old bachelor, hell bent on "taming" Kerri. He was perverted, not to mention he smelled like Scotch, which Kerri hated.

She slunk into the hallway, skirt in one hand, and shoes in the other. She knocked on Erik's door, opening it slowly.

"I'm going to dinner now. Do you want me to bring you something? The entrée is Filet Mignon."

"No, I'm not very hungry." He said, waving her off. He was sitting at the vanity now, writing.

"Are you sure?"

Erik looked up, intending on telling her off.

"You look nice." Is what came out. She smiled.

"Thank you."

"Kerri, your mother is asking for you." Marie poked her head in the door.

"Oh, okay. I'll see you after coffee then, alright?"

Erik nodded, watching her leave.

Kerri felt the headache coming on, even before she entered the sitting room. There would be lots of interrogation about her personal life, at least four catcalls from the Duke, and her father would end up drunk.

How could any sane person want this?

Everyone turned as she opened the door. Raoul smiled.

"Kerri, you look absolutely radiant." He rose from his seat and hugged her.

"Yes, that color looks wonderful on you dear." Kerri's mother's friend Margaret added. The dress was a shade of midnight blue, with sky blue starbursts embroidered in the skirt.

"Thank you." She smiled, the gesture not reaching her eyes. She greeted everyone in turn, a kiss on the cheek and a hug. The Duke held on for a second longer than proper.

"We were just speaking with Christine about that fantastic ordeal last night. I'm sure it was absolutely horrid, thinking you were on stage with Piangi, when you were really in the arms of the Opera Ghost!"

Christine nodded, squeezing Raoul's hand.

"Oh absolutely. I was terrified."

She was lying, Kerri knew it. Maybe there was more to Christine than everyone realized.

"I can only imagine." Beth, Margaret's niece commented. "Thank God Raoul found you when he did."

"Yes, thank God."

As much as her blatant lying angered Kerri, it also intrigued her. What feelings was Christine, and why? Did Raoul even know? She made a mental note to ask her one day.

"Oh, Raoul dear, didn't you say you had an announcement?" Kerri's mother sipped her wine, patting his knee gently.

"Oh, yes. Of course. Umm, we do in fact have an announcement." He and Christine stood.

"After much discussion, and in light of recent events, we have decided that we've waited long enough. We've moved our wedding date to five weeks from tomorrow."

There were exclamations of varying volume.

"Oh, that's wonderful! Congratulations to you both."

"Dinner will be served momentarily." The butler announced. Everyone migrated into the dining room, sitting where the name cards told them to. Kerri was across from the Duke. Wonderful.

The food was well-prepared, the wine was rich and plentiful, and the conversation was good, mostly. Kerri felt like every other comment was pertaining to her non betrothed status. And was that a foot climbing up her leg? Yes, it was! She kicked across the table, causing the man to grunt. Not a bulls eye, but he stopped.

Placing her napkin on the table, she slid her chair back.

"Mother, I'm not feeling very well. May I take dinner in my room?"

"Of course dear! What ever is the matter?"

"Oh, you know how my stomach is. Nothing too serious." She smiled, kissing her brother, mother, and father lightly.

"Feel better." Christine whispered. Kerri smiled, and left the room quietly. As she climbed the stairs, she heard the dining room doors shut again.

"No, no, no!" She whispered to herself. She had to keep walking. Hopefully, it wasn't the Duke.

But Kerri's prayers went unanswered.

"Kerri! I know you can hear me."

She stopped suddenly, turning.

"And here I was thinking you were my dog. Oh wait; it appears I am not mistaken."

The man smiled.

"You know, you are such a pretty girl. It would be a shame if you were…injured."

"By someone like you, monsieur? You give yourself far too much credit."

The Duke chuckled, circling her.

"Dear child, I'm afraid it is you who is mistaken. You may be skilled in many things, but you have a severe lacking in physical presence. So many things could happen in this dark corridor, with no one around to hear you scream? An accident would be tragic."

The Duke held her chin, turning it upwards.

"My dear Duke, it appears you are wrong again. What I lack in physical presence, I make up for in aim. She stamped her heel down on his boot.

"And if any accident were to happen, I'm sure my brother would hear of it." She ground her heel into the soft cloth, and he groaned.

"And Raoul is very protective of me."

"We will speak again, dear lady. Soon." He spoke through gritted teeth, but did not forget to bow. Kerri stalked away, slamming the bedroom door shut.

"Forget something?" Erik asked, turning in his chair.

"Oh, if he wasn't the Duke, I'd…spit on him." Kerri shivered from repressed anger.

"A suitor, then."

"If you can even call him that. To call on someone, generally, there is mutual attraction."

"Not always."

"Even in arranged bloody marriages, the people can stand being in the same room with each other!"

"I find your anger extremely amusing."

"Oh, I'm sure Raoul felt the same way about your attraction to Christine." She snapped. Erik's smile faded.

"By the way, they marry in five weeks."

"Where did you hear that?"

"They just announced it before dinner. If you were planning on making a move, now would be a wonderful time to do so."

"I don't believe I'll be taking orders from anyone, let alone a child."

"I am not a child!"

"Oh? Tell me, Kerri, have you ever loved someone so deeply that you needed them with you to be truly happy, to feel whole? And when they were not present, you felt ill? Have you ever loved someone so much you could taste it?"

"Yes, I have."

"Someone who is not family?"

"Yes." Kerri sighed.

"It appears then, that we have more in common than I thought."

"So it seems." Kerri sighed, falling dramatically onto the bed.

"What happened? Where is he now?"

Kerri sat up.

"Oh, so we would like to share our life story now? Because that is what mine amounts to."

"Very well." Erik replied slowly.

"You tell first."

"Ladies always go first."

Kerri smirked. "Alright. His name was Christian. I was fifteen. We'd virtually grown up together. He was Marie's older brother." She paused.

"It was the middle of summer. We were in the fields, just there." She pointed out the window.

"There's a house that the herders use in the spring, when the animals are birthing. We stopped because we wanted to eat lunch. We fell asleep…It was innocent; nothing happened. Raoul didn't see it that way. He had him killed." She sighed. "It was silly, if you think about it. I was born noble, and he was only a stable boy. It was doomed from the beginning, I suppose."

She smiled, wiping tears from her eyes.

"Your turn."

"I was born…like this. My mother, fearing me, sold me to a band of gypsies. When I was young, two or three years old. The man locked me in a cage, starved me, beat me, put me on display in their circus. When I was eleven, I murdered that man; strangled him. Madame Giry was there, and she took me, hid me in the Opera House sewers."

"So she saved you."

"That is one way of looking at it, I suppose."

"What is another way?"

"She merely stopped my suffering, for a time."

"And what of me? What have I done?"

"I haven't decided yet."

Kerri found this passiveness on the subject frightening. Was this what drove him to murder innocent men? Vengeance?

"I'll be back in a moment." Kerri said suddenly, getting up and leaving in the room in a hurry. She returned, bearing pencils, a sketch pad, and a small book.

"I have something for you. Well, of sorts."

"What do you mean?"

She sat back down on the bed.

"It's a poem. Two poems, really."

"Oh, lovely."

"Would you stop? There really quite nice. At least I think so." She flipped through the pages of the book, stopping suddenly.

"Here we are. Are you listening?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really." She laughed.

Here is a list of fearful things:
The jaws of sharks, a vultures wings,
The rabid bite of the dogs of war,
The voice of one who went before.
But most of all the mirrors gaze,
Which counts us out our numbered days.

And what exactly about…."

"Shh! No interrupting!" Kerri cut him off.

The Day is words and rage.
The Day is order, earth, and gold.
It is the philosophers in their cities;
It is the map-makers in their wastelands.
It is roads and milestones,
It is panic, laughter, and sobriety;
White, and all enumerated things.
It is flesh, it is revenge; it is visibility.

"I really don't understand…"

"I said no interrupting!" She glared at him. "Now, this is the part that reminds me of you."

The Night is blue and black.
The Night is silence, poetry, and love.
It is the dancers in their grove of bones,
It is all transforming things.
It is fate; it is freedom.
It is masks and silver and ambiguity,
It is blood; it is forgiveness;
It is the invisible music of instinct.

She sighed.

"What do you think?"

"I think there is a reason I'm not a poet."

Kerri rolled her eyes.

"I think that you most of all should appreciate the message in these poems."

"And what are the messages?"

"Well, the one I just read to you is pretty self-explanatory. It's about Day and Night, and the difference between them. The feelings they evoke, the people they attract."

"And what about the first poem?"

Kerri smiled.

"It's about fear. Humans, by nature, fear what they do not understand, and cannot change. What is more horrific than time passing?"

"I believe the answer to that is in this very room."

Kerri shook her head.

"You are no more frightening than a lion in a zoo. In the wild, a formidable opponent, but behind bars, it is no more threatening that a kitten."

"I thought you said I wasn't a prisoner."

"The bars don't necessarily represent an objective prison, Erik. They could be anything. Doubt, fear, society's expectations…"

"How do you survive?" He asked suddenly.

"What?"

"You have such…passion for life. Most girls your age are afraid of their own shadow, and furthermore of men. Any normal girl would have headed for the hills upon seeing me. But you seem fascinated by everything, and you have a thirst for knowledge. How do you survive in this society, where women are expected to look pretty and speak only of dinner parties and frocks?"

Kerri laughed.

"Why do you think I'm not married?"

She paused.

"But I really should be asking you the same question. That opera was…amazing. I can only imagine what ecstasy lies beneath the surface of the composer."

"It is not ecstasy that lies in my soul, only torment."

"Why is it that tortured artists are the most beautiful? Is it the blind passion shining through, or just some inexplicable chromosome they possess?" She pulled a leather portfolio out from her sketch book.

"It's a pity that they never finished it."

Erik rose, taking the composition book into his hands.

"Where did you get this?" He asked, flipping through the pages.

"I stole it from Raoul. He came home one day waving it around, going on about how it was insane that Andre and Firmin even suggest that Christine play lead in this 'Phantoms Opera.'" She put air quotations around the phrase.

"I figured he wouldn't miss it. I've had it with me for awhile. I was going to learn to play it, but I suppose it should be with the author."

"No, you appreciate it far more than I ever could."

"Did you always plan on kidnapping Christine?" She looked up at him, taking the book back.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because it seems such a waste to have written this as a mask for her abduction. Why not just take her from the dormitories, while she slept?"

"Because I wanted her to want to be with me."

"Even though you knew her heart belonged to Raoul?" Kerri fell quiet. In a way, she understood.

"I suppose you knew from the start it could never work. But, like all mortals, that never stopped you from dreaming."

Kerri opened the sketchbook, tearing out a drawing and placing it face down on the bed.

"That's for you. I think I'm going to go for a walk. It's a beautiful night; fresh snow. I'll see you in the morning."

Kerri left quietly, locking the door behind her, as always. Erik waited until she had gone to look at the drawing. Turning over the paper, he bit his lip.

It was of himself. Somehow, she'd managed to portray him as perfect, no scars, no mask, just…whole.

He closed his eyes. She was making this so hard. He would leave with or without Christine. But it was Kerri's acceptance of this unspoken truth that made him want to stay. She was so young, and full of life, and open to everything, good and bad. It gave her an almost seasoned naïveté, and made her seem both knowable and a mystery. He had never felt this way about anyone before, and it scared him. He had thought Christine could handle knowing him, seeing his very soul. And he had been wrong. He was beginning to feel this way about Kerri. Could he handle being defeated by his own heart again?