My reviewers,
Thank you so much, for reading this story, and for consistently and faithfully leaving me such wonderful feedback. You helped me write this as much as anything else--I owe most of it to you. I think that, had I not had your standards to live up to, it would have turned out rather differently. I hope that you have enjoyed reading this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it; and, I am sorry, if the ending left you a bit heartbroken. It did the same to me--I cried the entire time I was writing it. But, as one of you said to me, "it is the stories with the tragic endings that we love best". Well, I agree completely--otherwise, I think, Phantom would not have such a devoted following.
And so, I will end this story now, on one final note--another of Tennyson's most beautiful of poems. I recommend him highly, to any who are unfamiliar with his work.
Come not, when I am
dead,
To drop thy foolish
tears upon my grave,
To trample round my
fallen head,
And vex the unhappy
dust thou wouldst not save.
There let the wind
sweep and the plover cry;
But thou, go by.
Child, if it were thine
error or thy crime
I care no longer, being
all unblest:
Wed whom thou wilt, but
I am sick of Time,
And I desire to rest.
Pass on, weak heart,
and leave me where I lie;
Go by, go bye.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson
