First scene is quizzical flashback to the return trip to Paris.
Les coupes transversales
Cross-sections
Scene XVII
Focus: la Suédoise
With trembling hands, Charlotte set down Le Fantôme de l'Opéra. She wasn't one to get motion sick, but she stumbled down the narrow hall to the wash rooms. Halfway through the door, the train swayed as a bullet train passed them and she was thrown roughly enough to bruise her hip against the doorjamb. A low groan parted her lips and the meager contents of her stomach soon followed.
It all seemed so wrong. The grasshopper or the scorpion? Yet how was she to deny what she knew?
Little Lotte and her Angel of Music.
Charlotte and Christine.
He was still there, somehow, after so many years. Long after any mortal should have been dust and ashes. Which lead her to believe that she--yes she!--had been wrong in believing he was just a man. She gripped the edge of the sink tightly with one hand and scooped water into her mouth with the other. Shuddering, she pushed her blonde hair back from her face and grimaced at her reflection.
She wondered what was happening to her. Was she turning into Christine? She couldn't imagine being anyone but herself. She didn't want to be anyone but herself. She wasn't some puppet or one of Pavlov's dogs who could be programmed until she just voluntarily sacrificed the sum of her individual existence. Identity was the most personal thing anyone had, and if you were unwilling to change, you were immutable. If she wasn't the girl she believed she was, how could she do anything? Without knowing herself, how could she know anything? Without context the pieces meant nothing.
Her fear of this abrupt transformation chased her headlong into the idea that Christine had been a part of her all along. A sleeping memory was something Charlotte could swallow. That she could be Christine and the same person she'd always been was a comfort she clung to.
How was the Phantom still alive? Was he really a ghost? He'd seemed solid enough, but she'd never met a ghost before. How was she to know? How far did this unreality go? Had he made a pact with something? Was he a something himself?
The screams freed themselves from the cellars in her mind, and she slipped down until her knees were pressed against her chest by the narrowness of the cabin. She drew deep shaking breaths, wondering if the Phantom were responsible for those screams. What new victims? What fresh horrors would await her at the bottom of the lake?
Charlotte could remember the whole ordeal with strangely punctuated accuracy, but it left a bad taste in her mouth. While the conclusion was vivid enough, something about it made her hurt harder than it should, left her bewildered and shocked.
Charlotte realized she wouldn't be able to lock Ralph out any longer. Who knew what danger ignorance would lead him into? How comforting it would be to turn to him and find real understanding. Marguerite would stitch her together again for the time being.
Scene XVII
Focus: le monstre
Silently, he surveyed the arching hole that led to the world beyond his. Dull reddish light filtered through it. It taunted the eyes, doubling vision, giving two outlines to everything, one red, and the other dim green. Even to his sharp night adapted vision, the stones of the wall shifted and slithered like the skin of some monstrous snake.
Although that was not nearly as terrible as the effect upon the thousands of death's heads heaped outside the opera house's outer wall. Tidy stacks of human bones, meters high, even the dead had not remained unshaken by the Revolution. The bones had been collected from overflowing churchyards and the priests had taken their complaints up with Madame la Guillotine.
At first it had made Erik weak and ill to come so near to the spot, but in time he'd become immune to it. Now, while its mistress was on extended vacation, it bothered him not at all. Her so-called darlings, he assumed, were hiding. When she returned they'd take the first wave of rage, but the first would be nothing to the last. She'd save the grand finale for him alone.
So he came to guess at the hour of his death, to question mortality.
Scene XVIII
Focus: le guardien galant
Monsieur le Vicomte,
Being in neither sound body nor mind, I am making a number of arrangements in preparation for what is imminent. It is understood that you will now be Ms. Daaé's caretaker and as such will be pressed to meet high expectations and rigorous standards. Her affection is not to be taken lightly, nor her safety and happiness.
I have opened a trust for Ms. Daaé chez banque de Lazard Freres. She will never want, should your family prove disagreeable, and you will find that my bankers are loyal solely to her. Allow me to take this opportunity to remind you that death has never prevented me from killing before, nor shall it if any mistreatment befalls Ms. Daaé. I trust she will be quite content in her new home.
I had purchased a pleasant home near Upsala for my own wife as a wedding gift; however I should now be pleased to present the property deed to the new Vicomtess. You may tell her what you wish of its origins.
Best Regards,
O.G.
Ralph sat for a moment with his eyes closed, looking somewhat pained. The he sighed and relaxed slightly.
"This isn't very far from the station really. Your flat's still in the 10éme, right?"
"Yes."
"Has she, Charlotte I mean, seen this?"
"No, I don't think so, Ralph. We went through a lot of documents very quickly; this fell out of something after she'd left...what does it mean?"
"It means we've got to talk," he muttered and dragged his hand through his hair in a tired fashion.
Ralph fumbled in his pockets pulling out his mobile. Marguerite felt sorry for him.
The phone immediately went to Charlotte's voicemail, which meant that she'd turned it off.
"Charlotte? It's me, meet me au Café de la Paix as soon as you can get there, please. We need to talk and sort things out. Okay? I'll see you then…bye."
"She said she was going for a walk," Marguerite said guiltily, "I guess I should have gone with her or something, but I felt like she needed some time to sort herself out."
"It's alright. I rather think she's going to show up. I'm going to take this, though." His fingers drifted over the ancient paper, hesitantly.
"After all, it belongs to me."
--
Brief, but hopefully informative. My computer is dead, so this has been a real nightmare. More interestingness in the next chap., whenever that is. I'm such a procrastinator; I mean really, college applications are just a bit more important than this. But I can't help it! My life is so unutterably dull when I don't have time to make up far flung and fetched stories. Enough whining. Anyway thanks and I do hope you'll review me.