Chapter Nineteen – Truth and Consequence

Persia 1875

I lay Christine down on the dingy mattress in my room at the inn, resting her head on the pillow and running to find some blankets to keep her warm. When I return, I see her shifting around on the pallet, moaning almost inaudibly, but moaning and grimacing all the same. Her body, now reduced to mere skin and bones, writhes uncomfortably on the mattress, and I feel a rush of emotion towards her. Rushing to her, I pull the thin blankets over her and stroke her forehead again, knowing she won't awaken until I rouse her from her forced slumber. Maybe I should wait a little time. Maybe I shouldn't.

She wakes quickly as I waft a second vial beneath her nose, the smelling salts sending a jolt of awakening through her fragile form. Christine sits up with a start, breathing heavily, shivering almost. I watch as she looks at her surroundings, at the bare room I've rented for the time being. And I follow her with my eyes as she turns to me, her deep brown eyes locking with my own green ones.

Then she screams.

The euphoria is overwhelming, making me feel as though I've melted into some sweet, angelic elixir that can do anything. Suddenly, it ends, and I sit up with a jolt, blinking the sleepiness out of my eyes.

This is not where I fell asleep. I had fainted upon finding out that Chandra had found my…that man, and I knew that I'd been tucked in and left to sleep. What isn't entirely clear in my mind is what happened after that. I remember not so vividly waking up to a masked face in the darkness and crying out against it, but I can recall no more than that.

The room I am in is a rundown little space at what I can only assume to be an inn or boarding house. There are dirty cracked windows to match the mirror across from the bed, hanging lopsided over a muddy washbasin that looks as though it itself had not been cleaned in ages. As my eyes travel around the room, from dilapidated wall to dilapidated wall, until my eyes settle upon the one person I never hoped to see again in my life.

There is nothing to do but scream, though I know that he will not be dissuaded from whatever his plans are by a childish shriek. I shudder uncontrollably as the figure reaches a hand out, a hand probably meant for comfort, but I shift away on the tiny pallet, moving from his hands, hands I only remember as being the ones to rip my skirts away and touch my skin. Years ago…no. It didn't happen. Stop thinking on that.

"Christine, stop it!" he growls at me as I continue to dodge his hands, reaching out to me. Finally, his hands grab each of my shoulders and force me to sit still upon the mattress, though I continue to squirm against his fierce grip.

"I'm not Christine," I whimper, tears pooling in my eyes for unknown reasons. The shivering doesn't subside, and I quake under the iron grip I'm being held with. Biting my lip to keep from crying, I repeat, "I'm not Christine."

"Who are you then?" the man says through gritted teeth. He's just another man. "If you are not Christine, then who are you?" His steely-green eyes stare me down, and I don't think I could've moved even if I wasn't being held. The look is so utterly penetrating, and I feel transparent, that every part of me is open to viewing.

"I-I-I am R-risa," my voice shakes as my mouth forms the name I have grown accustomed to, though it still does not suit Christine Emmanuelle Daaè, the wife of le Vicomte de Chagny, the former opera singer. But it does suit Christine the harem girl, who I am afraid I've become whether I like it or not.

The words escape into the air, floating to the man across from me, and I realize that my body still shakes, and, though I try to stop it, it persists. But I'm not cold, and even when I'm scared I can stop the undeniable shivering. "Well, Mademoiselle Risa," he says in a very sly voice that I've heard one too many times, "maybe you could be of assistance in helping me find the girl I'm looking for. You do not recognize this, perhaps?" With that, he draws from one of his pockets a small ring, clearly not meant for a man's hand, with an exquisite setting of crystals on the top, looking like a flower or a starburst.

My hand flies to my mouth of its own volition. "No," I breathe, "it can't be…" my voice trails off and I find myself feeling very faint again. All of the memories I've suppressed, all thought of my former life, come flooding back to me in harsh torrents of pain, love, and remembrance. There was the death of my father, my days as a dancer at the opera, the night of Hannibal, the trip to the underground lair, being on the roof of the opera with Raoul, the Bal Masque, my journey to the cemetery, the one and only performance of Don Juan, and then…

The final visions that passed through my mind in those few seconds were of the lair beneath the opera house, the fight that had ensued in the catacombs between my lover and my teacher. All of the things I'd felt then couldn't possibly be resurrected in me now, every pang of guilt or rush of love or frenzy of hate. "Risa?" he asks, "Are you all right?"

I hear myself mumble something along the lines of, "Tea, please. I must sleep. It's very late, and I need tea." The face across from mine twists into something of a wicked grimace and the slackened grip on my shoulders tightens.

"You cannot have it, Chr…Risa," he growls at me.

"Why?" I mew, my voice a quiet but painful whine. "I need it to sleep."

"No you don't!" he shouts at me standing up with a great ferocity that sends me toppling onto my back on the rough mattress. "Don't you know what it is, petite fille?" Little girl. He'd called me a little girl, and that somehow stung more than most things. "Well, do you?" he snarls. When I do not answer he takes firm hold of my shoulders once more and wrenches me into a standing position, and the quaking of my body increases, though it's been continuing through all of this. "Haven't you heard of opium, fille? Do you even know what it is or what it does to you?" Somehow, I manage to shake my head in discouragement. "Opium is a narcotic, petite fille, and you are addicted to it! It's that damned tea they've been giving you in that hellhole of a place!"

"How dare you say that about them?" I spit back, surprised at my own confidence towards a man who…well…it is unusual of me to be so assertive, to say the least. "They gave me a home and here you are accusing them…"

That'd done it. In an instant, I find myself being held in the air, my feet dangling a few inches above the ground, my face mere inches from his. "You mean to tell me that those whores gave you a better home than you were offered previously? You mean to tell me that their conniving hopes for you were more to your liking than a comfortable life somewhere else? You are worse than I thought," he growls at me, tossing me back on the mattress.

"J-just bring me my tea," I mutter, curling up under the pitiful blanket, my hip sore from being thrown on that awful mattress. Even the addition of a blanket doesn't do anything to help the shivering go away. As he remains silent, I let my mind take hold of what I said in support of Chandra and the rest of the harem. She would never do this to me; I meant too much to her as a means of entertainment for her husband and then a source of income. And Indira…she was always so kind to me and I cannot see the villainy within her that would ever do such a thing to me as drug me.

The masked man's voice brings me up from my reverie. "I will not," he begins through gritted teeth, "bring you any such 'tea.' If you want it, ma fille, you will just have to learn to be without it."

I stand abruptly at these words and scurry around to face him as he moves to walk away from the mattress. He's broken my last nerve, though I suppose he'd done that long ago…you can't hide that you know him, Christine. "You've never denied me anything in my whole life and this is the time you choose to do it?" I shriek at him, though it comes out a little shakier than I had hoped, as the shivering I'm trying so hard to suppress continues its evil hold on me.

He leans over so his face is right near mine and places a hand beneath my chin, turning my head so my eyes look straight into his. "I do not believe that I've had such an opportunity, Mademoiselle Risa. You and I have not known each other for longer than a few nights ago, am I correct?" He pauses for the effect and then turns on his heel to walk away, leaving me utterly confused and hurt. He opens the door and begins to walk down the hall of the inn when I run to the door to follow. I have no other choice.

"Angel!" I cry, sounding completely defeated, my legs threatening to buckle from the intense shivering. I watch the ground begin to grow much too close as I shout, even louder this time, "Angel!"