There is nothing quite so rewarding as flipping through a notebook and reading all the pages you filled…and nothing so damn frustrating as transcribing it all.
Courtesy of my brother Joshwho unfortunately has quit his position as my prechapter entertainerin order to concentrate on his studies, and will be replaced next chapter by Delta Evenstar, a joke for you all, (the timing was impeccable to hear this) Q: "What's the difference between a Porsche and a Soprano? A: "Most musicians haven't been in a Porsche"
"He is my everything!" Erik had heard the conversation from this point onwards, and it had shaken him to the core. He did not want to answer the question Christine had asked if he loved her in return, in truth he did not know himself. He shook his head helplessly and stepped out of the corridor.
"Adriana," Erik's voice broke the confessional in the middle of the lounge room and caused both girls to look up. Behind his mask, Erik gritted his teeth and met the eyes of his Wraith, avoiding Christine's pale face as well as he could, "Will you leave us please?"
Erik might have known her for many months, but Christine was a woman as well and was sitting much closer, as such she was the one who caught the nearly invisible flinch of anguish that went through the blonde at the politely clumsy dismissal. For a moment, Adriana seemed to fold inwards and crumple together like a piece of tissue paper, then she froze herself. Standing quickly, she retrieved her veil and took a deep breath, then straightened her shoulders and walked quickly out of the room, nowhere near brave enough to risk looking up into Erik's eyes and meeting the rejection held there.
Erik looked down as Adriana passed by, clenching his fists inside his pockets, suppressing the tremors shaking his body. How could he look the woman who said she loved him, who had given him more unconditionally than any other, when the woman his heart had beat for was waiting there for him?
She was never to know what was to pass between them, what words they shared were for no phan's or lover's ears. She could have eavesdropped easily, but the temptation was like presents beneath the Christmas tree, you want to know, but the delicious anxiety of waiting has you spellbound. But the honest truth was, she didn't want to know. As soon as she entered the Louis-Philippe room she ran straight to her only release, grabbing up a pen and loose leaf of parchment she started messy blue scrawl running across the page, pouring out everything, anything! Whatever she could think of.
I am not as you
I am more dangerous than you
You live in a world of society
Governed by what you believe is of importance beyond yourself
But I am not as you are
I have loved deeper, longer, more passionately
You live in a world of intricate knots
Controlling ties
Never ending lies
I am not content as you are
My life is not lived as yours is
I do not seek admittance to your simplistic ideals
And I have felt more pain than your mortal body could hold
My eyes warned you the day we met
I am silent when you scream
And you weep when I would smile
I am not as you would be
I have no need for your transparent games
My love is too strong
My life is too bold
My heart beats in time with a world you can never imagine
And I am happy there
And then she stopped, staring blankly at the burnt out question mark of a candlewick.
She had done it.
Without even realising she had finally achieved the impossible and what she had sworn never to do, she had given herself over to True Love.
"Oh Christ…"
There are many different types of affection between the people in this world. Lust, flirting, sweetness, crushes and valentines, each with its own level of sacrifice and love. Crushes were easy, you never had to do a thing about them, just sit back and daydream of the two of you together, each smile or "Hello" you shared another step in a nonexistent courtship. Valentines were romantic and flirting was fun, but True Love? God, that only happened once. She dropped her pen onto the parchment with a dull fwap! "Oh God no," she moaned, she could never go back now. How was she to return to CD's and books when she had once known the beautiful and tragic man himself? She tried to imagine herself at home, writing English essays and bouncing on the trampoline, button mashing on the GameCube with her brothers…did Erik even know she had brothers? Or a family for that matter?
"This isn't fair," she whispered, "I was never – I never wanted to…shit!"
It was true, from the time she was eleven or so and realised that not all people found someone she had sworn to remain unmarried. Not because she didn't love, but because she loved too much. Friends and family she loved boundlessly with her entire heart and soul, these were people who knew and loved her, they didn't get jealous if she spent time with other friends or favoured a game of Star Wars chess with a brother. But give her dependence, someone who acted as though they couldn't live without her, that she always had to be beside and was never to be alone again and she would either go mad or run, she would be the one stamping on their fingers as they dangled helplessly over the cliff.
Old boyfriends flashed through her mind, they had all been like that, desperate puppies wagging their tails for affection. Every time she had begun a relationship she had known it would end, and it had. But she had always been guarded, it saved her tears for more important things, the people she could love unconditionally, rather than the ones who presented her with restrictions and adoration. Friends and family didn't get jealous or protective or possessive, all three things she hated, she was her own person.
But Erik…Oh Christ why had she let her guard down? Why him? Why did he have to be the one? She kicked Beverly Farmer's Collected Stories across the room where it fell open to a page on Hometime. "But it's only the first time you give your whole self." The words stared mockingly at her from the corner, the white cover ripped thanks to the tender ministrations of her foot.
And you never do it again. She snarled at the book in frustration, all about love, the lot of it. "Define Love," she hissed bitterly. Suddenly the opulence of the room…their room…Christine's room, sickened her. She had to get out.
She pulled out a willowy black dress from the wardrobe, simple, dark and sombre, anchored by a chain around her middle. She thanked God she could make her own clothes, anything from Erik would have been tantamount to the Punjab tightening around her neck. She dragged off her other clothes, dropping pants and jacket onto the floor and cinched the chain loosely around her waist. Her fingers reached automatically for the veil crumpled carelessly on the dresser, then stopped. No, the reign of the Theatre Wraith was no more, if she was to go, then so were the feathers. Hairpins trickled slowly through her fingers, what had it been but a game? Some great glorious mockery played for drama and entertainment.
She slipped out of the room and through a tiny false passage that led to back stage. In and out of the shadows she danced, a small black waltz to a requiem. She was dead now, a life that had tasted True Love and could not keep it was a life unworthy of living. She followed her feet, bare and dust covered to the tiny chapel buried a floor below the stage in a little out of the way corner.
Religion, better now than any other time, in all her months below the Opera House God had never once crossed her mind, unless she happened to find Him mentioned in the lyrics of a song. Strange for a girl brought up in the Catholic Church, taught to love and cherish the sacrifice made for her sins. Well good Lord look at them now, she probably warranted another nail through His hands for all she had done.
Three steps down through the arched doorway she halted, not here, she couldn't. Here was where Erik had first sung to Christine, lulled by the voice of an Angel. She turned around and around again, Box 5? No, that was where she had sung to and he had watched from. The flies? The stage? The dorms? No! Everywhere here was made by him, and touched by him for her. Ironically she wondered if it was wrong to pray in the torture room? It had probably heard more begging and pleadings for Christ than the small stone room before her.
Finally she gave up and wedged herself into a niche outside of the arched doorway. A tiny grey spider cleaned the remains of an egg sac from its web, folding the silken threads around busy legs. Adriana lifted a hand and invited the spider onto her finger, turning her wrist this way and that to watch it scurry. A scorpion may have been more fitting, or a grasshopper, but this would have to do.
"We're not so different you and I," she said idly, "Both man eaters in a sense, much easier that way I suppose, dinner and sex…or whichever order you prefer," the spider didn't reply, but followed down her arm to her elbow until it changed it's mind and crept back up to her palm. It had always puzzled her why people were so frightened of spiders. In the end, weren't they more scared of you than you of them?
Well all right, spindly little red backs and hairy funnel-webs were terrifying, but there was ample reason to fear those. But this little lady was a furry grey, delicate and mothering. Grey was her favourite colour, so simple and elegant.
"We are the grey, we stand between the candle and the shadows,"
(Fuck off Delenn,) she thought, (I'm talking about spiders not Minbari.)
A hand touched her shoulder, "Adriana," it called softly, she flinched away and curled in on herself, "Don't," she whispered.
"Don't what?" Erik asked, his voice concerned.
"Just…don't" she held her hand up to the web and let the grey spider back, "If I have to go just tell me," Oh God she was one big cliché today, why the Hell did this have to happen?
"Go? Erik questioned, "The only place you should go is home for your cloak before you freeze."
Home…the House by the Lake was home.
"Where's Christine?" How stupidly frightened she was of an answer. The long shadow before her shifted and Erik lowered himself down to sit beside her, long bony knees linked by the loose hands dangling between them. "She is going back where she belongs," he breathed.
"She belongs with you," she watched as the spider started weaving a new web, Erik sighed, heart lying heavy in his chest, "Perhaps, and dreams have a habit of coming true whenever we ask them of it,"
"What the hell does that mean?" normally a riddle was fun, but today it was just too much. Erik shrugged, "She went home, to her Vicomte," he took a deep breath to hide the waver in his tone, "As she was supposed to,"
(Not according to the EC phangirls) Adriana thought tiredly. There were so many things that needed to be said, and no words to say them in, so instead they followed round after round of meaningless conversation.
"It took me longer than I expected to find you," Erik's hands were loosely tangled over the deep V of his knees. "I had thought you might have been in your sewing room, or perhaps Box 5, not here," He would never admit the panic that had gripped his soul after finding the room empty, and that poem…
"I-" she hesitated, "I needed to pray,"
"For what?"
"I don't know," she replied, "Guidance? Whatever it is people normally pray for? Something I suppose,"
"I never expected you to be religious,"
"Really?" Adriana turned her head against the wall to gaze at his blank black mask…black today somehow seemed fitting for both of them… "There's a lot you don't know about me,"
"Then tell me," a faint smile flickered at the corner of his lips.
"Tell you what?" she teased.
"Anything, everything, three things,"
"Three things," she knitted her brow, "Okay…I collect pencils…I have twenty two first cousins and…a crush on Johnny Depp,"
"Who?" Erik asked incredulously, she shrugged,
"Never mind, you don't know him,"
"I see, anything else?"
She frowned momentarily then thought of something, "Yeah, I prefer to bowl rather than bat in cricket, I play Wing Attack in netball, I'm afraid of clowns and I used to have braces,"
"You couldn't walk?" Erik turned and looked at her in surprise, then down at her legs curled under her skirt.
"Braces" she put emphasis on the final syllable, "Not a brace, for my teeth,"
"What about them?"
"Well you think that they're this straight naturally? Two years of metal in my mouth, a plate and I still have the retainer stuck behind my bottom teeth,"
"I often wondered what that was,"
"Well now you know,"
They were quiet for a moment, then she nudged his elbow, "You're turn,"
Erik laughed dryly in reply, "With the study you have made of me? I doubt there is much to tell,"
"They can't record everything in a book Erik, tell me something I wouldn't know,"
Erik sighed and thought for a moment, pressing the pads of his fingers together, "I wrote my first song when I was four," he said finally, "Well not write perse, but I thought of the tune, it was a lullaby,"
"What was it called? Adriana asked softly, the spider made a calculated leap to the next strand of its web, trailing silken fibre behind her.
"Little Angel," Erik replied, he had not thought of his song in many a year, how strange that he should remember it now.
"Can I hear it?"
Erik drew in a breath to tell her no, then paused and opened his mouth and began very softly to sing…
"Held tight little angel
The seraphs weep
Held tight little angel
And rocked to sleep
Held soft little angel
For the Lord to take
Be loved little angel
When your soul does wake…"
It was a song meant for no one's ears, only heard by the two shadows sitting side by side in the little niche beside the doorway. Adriana wanted to say something, 'That's beautiful,' or 'You were only four?' but somehow nothing seemed profound enough to be worth hearing, so she stayed silent. With hesitant movements, her short-fingered hand crept into Erik's long one, curling her hand around his.
"I don't ever want to leave you," she breathed, too quietly for Erik to hear, "Swear I never have to go,"
And if Erik felt the soft whisper of her lips on the cloth of his shirt, he only thought she prayed.
Well? Did you like it? Please tell me what you thought