Chapter 2
Danielle arrived back home just as dark was falling. The lovely town house door swung open quietly, and she hung her cloak on a peg and walked into the sitting room to find everyone sitting in the plush chairs around the fire. Jacques had invited Nicola over again, and the two sat beside each other, the young man with his arm over her shoulder. Raoul and Christine sat across from them, the vicomte with his fingers laced through Christine's on the arm of her chair. Danielle paused inside the doorway, careful to keep quiet.
"So how did you and M. le Vicomte meet, Madame Daae?" Nicola was asking. The two in question had their backs to the doorway, and didn't see Danielle tense anxiously. Christine laughed, light and dismissive, but their daughter saw her hand squeeze her husband's.
"I'm sure you've already heard all about it, Nicola."
"But only rumors, madame. What really happened?" She leaned forward, and Jacques and Danielle imitated her. Even her older brother was intrigued, although he normally left such snooping to his sister. The siblings were more curious than the rest of Paris, considering how no one shared the rumors with them.
"We met at the Opera," Raoul said, "had our secret engagement, and ran off to have a quiet wedding in Scandinavia."
"What about your daring rescue from that terrible genius? The disaster with Don Juan and the chandelier? Is all that true?" Danielle and Jacques echoed her in their minds. Is it true?
"He was a terrible genius," Christine murmured, her eyes fixed on the distant past. Danielle's breath caught as she though of Erik whispering her name with such pain just before Madame Giry had interrupted them. "But with such a twisted soul…"
"It wasn't much of a rescue, though," Raoul added as he stared at the fire. "Christine saved me from the monster, not me her."
"What about Don Juan?" Danielle asked with bated breath, drawing attention to herself for the first time. Raoul and Christine looked back at her, shaking off their secret past.
"Danielle, what have you been up to all day?" Christine asked genuinely. The opportunity slipped through Danielle's fingers like smoke. Just like it always did.
"Practicing," she admitted dejectedly, which was true. After Erik had vanished and the strains of the violin long died away, she had eventually managed to rise from her thoughts and played her own composition. Christine and Raoul were still watching her, and Danielle suddenly feared that her father's sharp gaze would see right through her. His eyes were so familiar that a guilty lump formed in her throat.
"I'm just going to clean up," she said, and after Christine nodded she swept back and hurried up the stairs. At the top, she had to stop and lean against the banister.
It had been years ago, and she had barely been ten. It was late at night, and Raoul was just coming up those stairs. She had called him quietly from her bed, and her father had opened the door to see her sitting up on her pillows.
"What are you still doing up, dear?" he asked, coming to sit on the edge of her bed. He pulled the covers up around her as she burrowed happily beneath them. His blue-gray eyes were smiling as he patted her hair.
"Papa?" she asked with childlike innocence. He waited while she built up her little well of courage before speaking again. "Who's the Opera Ghost? I heard Maurice's mom talking about him, but she wouldn't tell us anything." His hand stilled on her soft hair, the exact color of his. His eyes became distant, and the covers she had been so comfortably wrapped in suddenly lost their warmth.
"You mustn't ask me that, dear." Something in his eyes seemed to close off to her, and she felt very lonely as he patted her arm. "It's not a story for nights such as these." He sat very still on the edge of her bed, staring at her but not seeing her.
It was then that Danielle had leaned that if she wanted to know anything, she would have to find it for herself. The Opera Ghost had brought great pain to her parents, and she never wanted to see that look in her father's eyes again from something she had done.
But could that sadness really have had to do with Erik? She had only thought of him as the phantom the moment she realized who he was. Then she had only seen Erik. She had never seen such sorrow in a man before, like he had no heart left, just an empty place filled with pain.
---
He sat on a grave. An unmarked grave, covered in cold, unfeeling snow. The wind blew indifferently past him, trying to pull at his hair. He looked up into it, glaring at it as it brushed his mask, his face. Strains of music suddenly flowed through it, and he looked up.
Wandering child, so lost, so helpless
Yearning for my guidance…
He searched the graveyard, but nothing appeared around him. A great mausoleum rose up nearby, and the gates stood open, a single torch flickering in the cold wind.
Angel of Music, friend or phantom
Who is it there staring?
Angel, oh speak, what endless longing
Echoes in this whisper
A graceful figure appeared on the steps out of nowhere, and he rose to his feet. She was draped in white, her back to him.
Too long you've wandered in winter,
Far from my far-reaching gaze.
Wildly your mind beats against me,
But your soul obeys!
His steps carried him closer, up the steps.
Angel of Music, do not shun me,
Come to me strange Angel.
And she turned around. The white sheet fell away from her shoulders, and he found himself staring at Danielle. The girl was shrouded in a thick opera cape he was sure was his own, and she stretched out a hand to him as dark wings unfurled from her back. She held her hand out, beckoning him into the grave. Her voice descended into something dark and otherworldly as she sang.
I am your Angel of Music.
Come to me Angel of Music…
Erik woke up in the Louis-Philippe room, staring up at the ceiling. Now that was strange. He had seen the girl twice now, in two days, and he was having nightmares about her?
He sat up with a sigh, rubbing his eyes. The lake water was cold and shocked him awake as he splashed it onto his face. Why had he called her Angel? She had been in his house, playing his music at his organ. He should have erupted in rage. But she had played it so well. Music ran off her fingers like water from a stream. It was an oasis after a long desert, a drink for such a thirsty soul. It had brought a part of him back to life he had long thought dead and buried, the music he had given up when Christine had left.
With a shake of his head, he grabbed his opera cape and hopped into the boat. He paused for a moment in putting it on, but then shrugged and threw it around his shoulders anyway. The opera was silent as he stalked through it; he came to the window-room above the theater through a different way than the girl went. He filled the space like a living shadow.
A grim smile crossed his face as he picked up his old memorandum-book. So the management had finally worked up the guts to get rid of it. Well, he had no need for it now, anyway. But his gaze lingered on the worn folder beneath it. Notes covered the one crisp paper he pulled out, and a few more pieces slipped out with it. For the first time in long years, a real genuine smile graced his lips. His gloved hands turned through the rest of the papers, and he picked up the whole folder before turning away.
---
Danielle didn't have the Opera to herself again for an entire week. MM. Moncharmin and Richard were eager to perform and bring in the profits. Consequentially, Mercier took every opportunity to test young Miss Daae de Chagny. She was cast into as many supporting or secondary roles as the maestro could find, and Danielle found herself wishing more and more that she could play the piano at performances and not just rehearsals. She hadn't been able to touch a keyboard in days.
The midmorning of the eighth day found her scaling the catwalks towards the window-room, singing quietly to herself. She sang best like this, alone, with only her theater to listen to her. The little door opened on silent hinges she made sure to keep well oiled, flooding the dark corridor it was concealed in with dusty light from the window. She skipped down the stairs and leaned over the view; the window beneath her cast spectral shadows on her face and walls, giving her wings. As she hummed, she reached out her hand for the folder with her music in it.
Hard wood met her fingertips. Her humming died abruptly, and when the glanced she turned on her hand helped no more. She knelt down to search the floor, but the small space only offered up the old memorandum-book leaning against the steps, a different place than where she had last set it down. Anxiety suddenly lifted the hair on the back of her arm. Danielle gathered her skirts and grabbed at the corner of the room where a thin gap led to a passage that cut through the higher floors all the way to the roof. The wall here projected out at a shallow slope, and the girl jumped up it and into the hall.
In the dim light she searched the floor, but her folder wasn't here either. Danielle's music had vanished. Her pulse jumped nervously, fearfully that someone had found it and taken it. Or worse, someone had discovered her room, her secrets. She knelt down and searched the dust floorboards, searching and groping along the dark floor. Her hand suddenly rested on a bit of boards cleared of dust, and she traced a footprint farther than she had gone. The dust around it was swept as if something low had dragged over it. Wide-eyed in the weak light, Danielle reached out her hand and found another footprint, and another, all swept over with a long cloak.
"Erik," she whispered. Her hand hovered over the floor now, and she stared off sightlessly into the hallway. Of course he would know the hallways and secret passages better than anyone. As she slid back into the window-room, she couldn't help but wonder why he would have taken her music. What could he want with it, when he could shake the earth and drive angels to weep with his own?
When she reached her dressing room, her arms were tangled around her cloak, a lantern, a small jar of grease and a rag. She awkwardly shoved the door open with her hip and dropped it all onto the armchair. Pushing her hair back behind her ear, she scooped up the jar and rag and dropped to a seat on the floor before the mirror.
This time, the mirror budged with an infernal squeal, like a beast in pain. Danielle cursed as if shrieked and protested all the way down its track. She barely managed to restrain herself running down to the cellars to reclaim her music. Instead, she sat and worked the grease into the track diligently, appeasing the shrieking banshee of the mirror as she slid it back and forth. By the time she finished, the secret door slid at her bidding, moving with the pressure of a breeze. With a triumphant grin, Danielle clambered back to her feet. Her cheeks were flushed as she admired her handiwork.
The color suddenly drained from her face as she slid the mirror back and caught sight of the reflection. Sitting on the desk, just where the rose had been, was her folder. She turned around slowly and reached out her hand almost tentatively, doubting its reality. Had it been there this whole time? The thing was real, the worn, soft leather familiar under her palm. All of her papers were in it, even in the order she had left them. But they were in the wrong room. She glanced at the mirror warily.
As she started to leaf through the paper, the tense feeling in her fingers gave way until she reached the end of the stack. Something in her chest quivered as two odd sheets slipped out. Red ink was formed into dozens of flowing notes over the staves dividing the papers, scrawled in the same quick script of inspiration that enameled Danielle's own work. Even written in notation, it still had a strange look to it, reflecting the strange script in the memorandum-book. A breathless knot worked its way around her heart, and it tugged her urgently to the door. Her fingers began to itch for the keys, and with one last glance at the mirror she spun on her heel. Soon she was running through the house, the silence wavering in her wake until it closed back on itself like water. The music flamed into life like the strike o f a match, flowing through the Opera like a hidden serpent beneath the lake. It sang her sad song, though its player hardly noticed it in her anxious state. She held her breath as she turned to the scarlet paper, fearing the serpent to be a roaring dragon about to engulf her.
The first chord sang out, and she exhaled in surprise. It was so much softer than she had expected, moving seamlessly with her own. The notes were the quiet lament of the blind, yearning to see the light but only able to settle with the warm touch of fire. The cry of the hidden afraid to be found. Her hand brushed the sheet aside to the next red page, but the next chord pierced the memory of the last with a painfully flat discord.
Wincing, Danielle shook her hand and peered closer at the page. The key was different, and written beneath the measures were lyrics in neat, tiny script. At the head of she page, sketched in flowing and curling letters, were the words "Past the Point of No Return." It wasn't even edited for piano, but in a second stand were the notes for the lyrics. The margins were filled with what looked like stage instructions.
Intrigued, Danielle gently picked up the page and jumped up to the stage. She stole one furtive look around the theater before beginning to sing.
You have brought me to that moment where words run dry
To that moment when speech disappears into silence…silence…
Daae's voice echoed across the empty velvet seats as she followed the notes. The theater grew silent with the fervor of the hidden listening. Danielle let passion leak into her voice as she became caught up in the music. Half way down the page she shut her eyes and let go completely, singing all the louder.
When will the blood begin to race, the sleeping bud burst into bloom?
When will the flames at last consume us
And a voice of thunder suddenly answered her, singing with her.
Past the point of no return, the final threshold.
The bridge is crossed so stand and watch it burn
Danielle's voice faded as Erik shed the shadows and swept across the stage, a raven unfurling his wings. She watching him sing with such a light in his eyes that her fingers tightened around the folder again.
We've past the point of no return…
His voice echoed through the theater, and Danielle shut her eyes as she tried to gather the last dying notes. Such power was in his voice that she nearly forgot to breathe when he stopped. As he drew closer, he slowed to a halt before her, as if she stood on a hilltop that had slowed his charge. She took a tremulous breath as she opened her eyes. "This is your Don Juan ?"
His hands sank back to his sides, and he nodded without taking his eyes from her. Those eyes…Now she knew what that strange power in them was. "Yes, Angel, this is my Don Juan Triumphant. It was meant to be an opera. You sing it very well."
She ran her thumb unconsciously over one of the margins. "Has it ever been played?" she asked tentatively.
"Only once," he replied softly, a lion's growl. His eyes fixed on hers, waiting for her to incriminate him. Questions swelled in her throat, demands to know what had happened, why it was so secret. She had held her tongue for so long. But Erik seemed to have held it longer. While his words were a predator's, his back was that of a beaten dog. His eyes threatened her to ask, to dare and rekindle some past rage, and yet pleaded to be relieved of that terrible memory.
"Why only once?"
"Because I left after that," he said, turning away to pace across the stage, taking his eyes with him. Danielle was surprised to find that she almost wanted them back. The sorrow deep in them was like whatever this memory was: something he needed to share before it crushed him, drowned him beneath it.
"Why?" The wall of his back paused.
"Why," Erik repeated mournfully. "That was the night I took your mother with me to the cellars. The night Paris learned of the Opera Ghost." His gaze was lost to his world, his back still to Danielle. "I held your father's life in my hands, that night. But I gave it back. I gave it back…because Christine wanted it. She was willing to sacrifice her own for it." His pale eyes were veiled with the mist of years past, and he didn't hear her step closer.
"But you came back?" Danielle thought he hadn't heard her. He stood, statuesque, staring out over his Opera as if she didn't exist.
"This is my home. I could find no better place for me."
Than his prison. No one to want him.
Danielle stopped behind him, her hand half outstretched to touch his shoulder, and drew it back. She forced her eyes down to the folder, feeling like she was intruding, watching Erik stare out over his theater. His prison.
"It's so easy to play," she mused to herself, looking over the red paper again. Erik's sigh pulled her head back up.
"It always is," he despaired, "always so easy to make believe." He finally turned back to look at her, standing there staring at him with the folder in her hands. His pale eyes flicked over it as he realized she had said that about the music. "You're composing is the best I've heard in this Opera," he said without the slightest flicker of uneasiness.
"How did you do it?" she praised. "I can play yours as if I wrote it myself."
"All music is a story, little Angel," he explained, and she thought she saw something dark and wary pass over his face for a moment. But it must have been her imagination again, because he paused for only a moment. "It says things that words could never convey. You are a great storyteller, Danielle. It was not difficult." Her heart quickened unexpectedly as she realized what he had said. He had never used her name before, not like that. He looked about to say something else, but instead gestured down at the piano. "Would you play it for me?"
Danielle took a long time searching for something to say when there really was nothing. She longed to say something to those eyes, those eyes that held all the sadness in the world beneath a glaze of power. She finally dropped down into the pit and sat at the piano, regretfully slipping the scarlet paper into the back and pulling out her own. Maybe she should get some colored ink. Erik lingered over her shoulder quietly, and his presence behind her kept fumbling her fingers. His warm breath suddenly whispered close to her ear.
"I'm a phantom, Angel. I'm not even here." He turned the page and laid his hand lightly on her shoulder. A faint, wistful smile passed over her lips, and she found her notes shedding their hesitation.
He listened admirably. It reminded him so much of his own Don Juan. It was a masquerade, a tale of hiding behind masks. It was the sad sound of longing, of a game of pretend played out long past its end. A lonely soul hiding from the world, observing what it could never be a part of. Of the blind longing to see the light. His thumb unconsciously caressed her shoulder as he listened to the music beneath her fingers. It seemed almost natural when she leaned slightly into his touch.
"A pen," she suddenly murmured, and twisted around so abruptly that Erik started back. She reached past him to grab a pen off a nearby stand and twirled it lightly through her fingers as she played with the other. He was drawn back by the edge of the stage, afraid that she had shunned his touch. After a moment, she paused in her scribbling as if something were missing. Her gaze fell on his again, an overpowering creative light in her eyes. "Come, Erik," she said gently, shifting down the bench. "Would you help me?" She seemed so eager to get back to composing that he found himself sitting just to appease her. She smiled at him shyly, then bit the pen between her teeth to play with both hands.
The phantom shook his head as she smiled around the pen before pulling it from her teeth to note it down. In the small lull, he slipped in. He gently took the pen from her hand as she tried to return it to her teeth. His hand played a few notes and added them to the sheet, cautiously ignoring Danielle's subtle wisp of a smile. She played a few more measures, dancing in tandem with his. She led, Erik circumspectly recording their waltz. They danced past either's sense of time, lost in the music.
At last, Danielle dropped back from the dance, stifling a yawn behind her fist. "I should go," she said, pushing her hair back over her shoulder. She started to gather her papers, but Erik took them from her hands.
"I'll take them." At her dubious expression, he tried to turn the rictus his lips were familiar with into an amiable grin. He finally had to make do with patting the folder protectively. "I'll put them where they belong. Tomorrow, they'll be right where you expect them. I promise." He itched to ask her if she would be willing to sing with him again, to play his own Don Juan with him. He was like a man so long deprived of water that he found himself begging for every last drop, yearning for music.
She watched him for a long second before nodding. "All right." After they passed a strange silence, Danielle rose and gathered her cloak. Erik looked after her as she strode up the aisle and swung the cloak around her shoulders. She walked slowly, not wanting to leave. At the doors, she paused, glancing back into the dim house as she fingered the grain beneath her palm. Her other hand rested over her chest lightly, where something other than pity stirred, something she had never felt before.
"Good night, Erik," she called softly, almost shyly, and shut the door behind her.
The door closed with a resonant thud in the thick silence that followed. Erik stood, frozen in amazement. The folder slipped from his suddenly numb fingers with a flurry of papers, like birds leaping into flight. They fluttered themselves into silence while the phantom stood, and suddenly started back into life. He vaulted out of the orchestral pit and rushed up the aisle. By the time he reached the doors, he threw them open and raced into the grand foyer. His flight carried him up until he finally broke free into the dusky twilight of the old Emperor's entrance. The murky light disguised him against the Opera's façade, and he crept forward to peer down at the main boulevard, an eagle peering down from its eyrie. Just disappearing down the street was a dark blue cloak, a black ribbon trailing in the breeze from her hair. At the corner of the Paris Opera, Danielle turned around and lifted her head to look up at the roof. The poor phantom forgot to breathe as she seemed to pick him out against the fading sky. Then she turned and was gone, leaving Erik fingering the chains of his solitude.