The Roses We Kept
Labyrinth/Phantom Crossover (heavily Kay's Phantom, with ALW undertones later on…)
A/N: The first part of this chapter is almost straight from Susan Kay's Phantom. All credit goes to her. Phantom of the Opera belongs to Gaston Leroux, of course, and the musical to Andrew Lloyd Webber. And Labyrinth, which I so dearly love, (i.e. David Bowie, who is greatly missed) belongs to Jim Henson and company. Any other unrecognizable characters belong to me, but they'll be coming along a bit later on.
Also, this is a working title. I started writing this story like four years ago and still have no idea what to name it. If y'all have any suggestions as we go along, please share them!
I hope you enjoy this strange melding of worlds, lol.
.
.
.
Chapter One
1656 - Boscherville, France
.
.
.
It was the evening of his fifth birthday; the first one in which Madeleine was going to acknowledge. But things did not go as planned, and it is a terrible thing when plans go awry.
Erik, having never known what a birthday was or what it entailed, had been curious. When he asked his mother the significance of such an event, she had simply said it was the day he was born. They were to have a special supper, and their neighbor, Marie, was bringing Erik a present. He was mildly intrigued by the notion of receiving a present, the mask he wore on his face being the only one he was able to recall. However, other than that small institution, Erik found the day to be inconsequential. He would much rather continue composing at the piano or tinkering with his little mechanical contraptions, or anything else really but a boring supper in which he would have to mind his manners lest he incur his mother's wrath. Madeleine had told him to go to his room to change for supper while she set the table three times now, and he really had meant to do so, that is, until a thought occurred to him.
"Mama," he said quietly.
"What is it now?" she demanded irritably, pulling a tablecloth from the drawer.
"Will you give me a present too?"
"Of course," she replied mechanically. "Is there something in particular that you want?"
He came to stand beside his mother as she put the napkins out on the table with a trembling hand and something about his taut silence made her suddenly very uneasy. She sensed that he was afraid of her refusal, thinking that what he wanted was going to be highly expensive, no doubt.
"May I have anything I want?" he asked uncertainly.
"Within reason."
"May I have two of them?"
"Why should you need two?" she inquired warily.
"So that I can save one for when the other is used up."
Madeleine began to relax. That didn't sound quite so alarming… by the sound of it, maybe he wanted nothing more extravagant than a ream of good quality paper. Or perhaps a box of sweets…
"What is it you want?" she demanded with sudden confidence.
Silence.
Erik began fidgeting with the napkins that were sitting on the table waiting to be folded, eyes downcast.
"Erik, I've had quite enough of this silly game now. If you don't tell me what you want straightaway, you will have nothing at all."
He jumped at the sharpness of her tone and began to twist the napkin he had picked up between his thin fingers.
"I want – I want two…" He stopped and put his hands on the table, as though to steady himself.
"For God's sake!" she snapped. "Two what?"
He looked up at her.
"Kisses," he whispered tremulously. "One now and one to save."
Madeleine stared at her son and without any warning burst into uncontrollable tears and sank down at the table.
"You must not ask that." She sobbed. "You must never, never ask that again… do you understand me, Erik… never!"
He shrank away from her noisy grief in horror and backed away to the door.
"Why are you crying?" he stammered.
Madeleine made a mighty effort to control herself.
"I'm not… crying," she gasped.
"Yes you are!" he shouted in a voice that was suddenly ugly with rage. "You're crying and you won't give me my birthday present. You made me ask – you made me ask – and then you said no, well, I don't want a birthday… I don't like birthdays… I hate them!"
The door slammed behind him followed by angry footsteps up the stairs. A tense moment passed before another slam! came from above as the echoing bang of the door to his attic bedroom being shut harshly reverberated throughout the old house.
Madeleine sat where he had left her, staring mindlessly at the trampled napkin he had thrown to the dirty floor. No matter how much she scrubbed at it, the hours spent on her hands and knees, it never was perfectly clean. "I cannot bear this any longer… I cannot bear this burden anymore, Erik!"
Suddenly she recalled a fairy-tale she had been told as a young girl. Right now, in this moment, she longed for it to be true.
"I wish – I wish the goblins would come and take you away, right now…" she sighed wistfully, hiccoughing with leftover sobs.
Everything was quiet in the Underground, peaceful even. A day that neither hurried nor dragged on, anticipated nor grieved, but easy and inconsequential. It was so relaxing, that the Goblin King began to pace his throne room with the ferocity of a caged lion. It was the calm often experienced just before a child was wished away, something he had learned to anticipate well in his thousands of years in existence.
Then, he felt it. The pull of the words that, once spoken, were irretrievable. He smiled wickedly and waited.
"I wish – I wish the goblins would come and take you away, right now…"
"You hear that?" the goblins squeaked excitedly. "Someone's wishing away a babe!"
The king whipped his head in the direction of the noise-makers. "Hush it, fools! Don't you think I know that? Go make yourself useful and frighten the mother a bit! I'll follow shortly…"
Back in the Aboveground, lightening flashed and thunder roared with such sudden ferocity Madeleine thought the end of the world had landed on her doorstep. The curtains in the opened windows billowed out with the cutting wind, the candles flickered out, and the room plunged into utter darkness. Then, just as quickly, all fell silent.
Blindly, she climbed to her feet, stumbling through the pitch black, groping for a piece of furniture or anything that could help her find her bearing.
"Erik?" she called. No answer. "Erik!"
A shadow flitted about the edge of her vision but every time she turned her head in its direction, it vanished, followed by fits of laughter and giggles that seemed to echo around her. Her heart beat rapidly and she fought for even breaths. Then something tugged on the hem of her dress and she shrieked in terror. A sharp, disbelieving sort of fear began to choke her. Erik… where was Erik?
"Erik? Erik, please answer me!" she called out more frantically. "Where are you? Erik!"
"Oh, for the love of the goblins, would you please stop that infernal shrieking?"
Madeleine froze upon hearing the smooth timbre of an entirely unfamiliar voice come from behind her. As she turned she saw the man to whom the voice belonged, somehow bathed in a pale light despite the darkness, clothed in a black billowing cloak that swept about his grey leggings and boot-clad feet. His hair glowed white and stuck out from his head in strands like the feathers on a bird, some long enough to reach past his shoulders. The shirt he wore was the color of fresh cream, open at the neck, with loose sleeves cuffed at each wrist. There was a rather peculiar amulet glinting off his chest in the pale light shaped like a sickle. His eyes pierced her and the skin of his face was colored in places like none she had ever seen.
Madeleine gasped, making the sign of the cross upon her chest. "Ou est vous, Monsieur? S'il vous plaît ... Que voulez-vous?"
"Ah, yes, we are in France. My apologies, Madame." He said in flawless French. "It has been a long day filled with idleness and in my eagerness, I overlooked that detail."
"Who are you… what do you want?" she repeated trembling.
His high brows lifted. "You don't know?"
She shook her head and swallowed.
"Why, I am the King of the Goblins, Madame!" He feigned offense. "It is quite rude not to recognize me seeing as you addressed me yourself mere moments ago. How disappointing… I had believed the French to be a bit more accommodating."
Madeleine trembled in silence.
"Besides, this isn't about what I want, Madeleine. It is about what you want."
She eyed the man before her warily. "What do you mean?"
The Goblin King frowned at her confusion, though he was used to this reaction. "My but you are a daft woman. I have taken your son to my castle beyond the Goblin City. Come, look," he said, gesturing her over to the window and pointing out. "There."
Her hands flew to cover her mouth. For what she saw when she looked out the window was an unfamiliar and unwelcome sight indeed. The sky glowed orange and pink and the hill which they miraculously now stood upon looked out over a vast labyrinth of twists and turns and shrubbery. Beyond, very far away it seemed, stood a castle of earthen stone the likes of which Madeleine had never beheld in all her years.
"In order for you to retrieve your son, you must run my labyrinth and best it. If you manage to reach my castle before the clock strikes the thirteenth hour, I will give him back to you and you'll have no memory of ever coming to this place. But, if you should fail… your son will stay here in this realm for the rest of his days."
Her brows knit together. "Erik? You have taken him?" she asked dumbly.
The Goblin King rolled his eyes. "I have. What's said is said, after all. But, you don't have to bother yourself with all this. In fact, I've brought you a little gift…"
"A gift? What is it?" she asked, eyeing him warily.
The Goblin King flicked his wrist in the air before her and produced a glass sphere, balancing it on the tips of his slender gloved fingers. He smiled at the familiarity of this dance. "It's a crystal, nothing more. Except if you look at it this way… it will show you your dreams."
Madeleine peered into the glass and saw a man she instantly recognized. It was her husband, Charles, who was tragically lost to her before Erik's birth. Her eyes welled with tears as his apparition smiled at her the way he always did when he told her he loved her. Unthinking, she reached out a hand to the sphere, but the Goblin King snatched it away out of reach before she could touch it.
"This is not a gift for an ordinary woman who takes care of a troublesome child," he admonished quietly. He began rolling the crystal, spinning it around in his fingers until Madeleine was thoroughly entranced. "Do you want it?"
Madeleine nodded, again reaching for the crystal. But just before her fingers could make contact, he added, "Then forget the child."
To her own shock, she immediately dropped her hand back at her side, forlorn.
"No," she said, slightly surprised. "I – I want my son… and I want to go home. Please, Monsieur."
"Tsk, tsk. That is too bad, Madame. I had hoped this would be an easy transaction, but they rarely ever are, are they? Be warned Madame, I am not to be defied. You are no match for me. Leave the child and take my gift. I'll not offer it to you again."
"I-I don't think I can!" she replied bitterly.
The Goblin King let out a long sigh. "Very well… you have thirteen hours in which to solve the labyrinth… or your son becomes one of us, forever!"
With that he faded from her sight, as if he'd never been there at all. Regrettably, the strange new world beneath her feet remained where it was. Resigned to her choice, Madeleine began to climb down the hill toward the vast maze that lay below.
.
.
.
Extra A/N: So... there we go. This is actually the first fanfiction I ever started writing. I have over 70k words written but am nowhere near the end of the story, so it will be a long one. This story is like a child to me, so I'll never abandon it, though it may take me years to finish. I just hope someone out there enjoys it.
I don't know how many people will actually find my little corner of the internet with it being a bit of a weird cross-over, so idk if I should change it to just the Phantom category as it is mainly an Erik/Christine story. It mostly just takes place in the Underground. Anyway, I'm rambling.
I'll probably post the first few chapters rather quickly, within the month, then slow it down so I always have something to post.
PLEASE REVIEW AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!
Thanks for reading!