Gustave

"You know that that Giry gentleman plans to marry your friend Madeleine?"

Adele laughed, her sparkly laugh. I eyed her over my paper in the evening light quizzically. She shook her head. "I don't think Madeleine will ever give in to his advances. She's far too stubborn."

I smiled, setting the paper into my lap and smoothing it. "She's really not the motherly type, at any rate."

"You would be surprised. I would not put it past Armande to pursue her forever, though."

"Armande? That's his name?"

"It is," she said, bringing a steaming mug of tea in my direction. We were quite an unlikely couple—doing those things which most did in the morning directly before the sun set. "Armande Giry, a Populaire frequenter. I met him once. In fact, I think I was still with the ballet de cour when he first took interest in her."

I took the mug and sipped, savouring the warmth as it extended through my veins. "I think marriage would do a lot to soften that colleague of yours—she isn't a great believer in love, is she?"

My wife smiled warmly. "She's always claimed she has other responsibilities. Of course, she doesn't have children, and her unfortunate injury denies her a career in ballet, so those other responsibilities remain a mystery."

I lifted my shoulders in an indifferent shrug, reaching for my violin. It was a tradition; I always played for Adele as the sun set, so I could watch her with her eyes closed against the red-gold beams that stroked her lovely skin. I longed to one day do the same for my children…if I was ever meant to be a father. "Everything about that woman is a mystery. Everything about that whole place is a mystery. You know how glad I am to see you away from there."

"Stop that," she chided playfully. "The Opera Ghost wasn't dangerous. He was just…mischievous. That's all."

I smirked up at her, running my hands over the strings, contemplating the unique, steely feel of them against the pads of my fingertips. "I hardly believe the mishaps to be blamed on some ghost. But the construction workers' scandal has always made me uneasy…and that persistent LaBrant who always—"

"Gustave, let's not bring that up again. The manager was far too interested in those who returned his interest to have any dealings with me."

I nodded. "Sleaze of a man. Such a shame that he would turn a place of art and music into his own little cathouse."

"You always take such things so personally!"

My heart laughed; I merely grinned. "Music is my child, Adele."

"Well then," she continued, pursing her lips in a smile, "you will have to settle with your demons soon, because I hope to familiarise our child with the Opera Populaire in due time."

I expected to see a wistful expression come over her features, but none came. In its stead, there was only a knowing smile, and a teasing glint in her pretty brown eyes—the same glint that I fell in love with years ago.

I furrowed my brow.

Adele's hands rested gently over her stomach. I followed their subtle movements with my eyes and glanced into hers again, imploringly. She nodded, her dimples deepening in her white cheeks.

"Oh, my darling," I cried, sweeping her into my arms, and spinning her around so that her laughter flew into every corner of the courtyard. A great clock chimed the hour, and I kissed my wife passionately as we spun to a halt. "After all this time," I breathed, and kissed her again. "After so long."

"My beloved Nightingale." I tightened my embrace as she endeared the loving term upon me. "If it is a boy, can we name him Charles?" she begged in her excitement, and her smooth blonde curls danced about her shoulders.

"Yes, yes, yes!" I spoke into her shoulder, inhaling the scent of wood and flowery soap. I would return the endearment, an accolade to her favourite storey. "We can name him anything you want, my Rose."

"And if it's a girl," she said, her grin larger than I had seen it in immeasurable time, "we will name her after your mother."

I beamed at my Adele, brushing my lips against her eyelids. "Christine."

…

Erik

My fingers tremble as I dip the quill into the dark liquid. I had approached the organ gently, intent on finding rest and forgetfulness in the ivory keys, but my music and my emotions are often synonymous with one another. Three hours of furiously beating the chords out of the instrument have done nothing for me but heighten the premonition that I am about to lose the only soul I have ever cared for, and I know I must speak to her—quickly.

"Dearest Madame," I begin, speaking the words as I write them, to ensure that every last bits of tenderness and venom I feel will root themselves into my writing. "I regret to inform you that I am aware of your recent designs of utmost childish nature. You wish to rendezvous with one of the many suitors who frequent the Opera only to gawk at the dancers and feed their own insatiable lusts. I am obliged to warn you against such men and their vast promises of wealth and protection, for I have seen myself the broken hearts of the unfortunate ballerinas whom they flatter into submission. I ask only that—"

My hand stills its constrained etchings against the parchment. It is utter nonsense, what I have written, and Madame will see through it and just as quickly dismiss me. She knows the depths of my need for her, and uses it to her advantage often so I respect her as well. But I am about to lose her—and no amount of respect will keep me from doing everything I can to keep her.

"Madeleine," I force, beginning again on a new sheet. "My beautiful, beautiful Madeleine." I stop again, and before I fully realise what I am doing, the quill is sketching a bar, and a treble clef, and a string of notes begins to play itself out onto the parchment. Underneath the two lines of music I find myself writing the poetry that brims impatiently beneath my heart.

"I owe my soul to you

"I'm only whole with you

"Standing beside me

"In your eyes the music summons

"Whispers so soft, forlorn

"Within me, songs unborn

"Cry, 'Let me love you'

"Say that you will

"Say that you love me too."

I sing as I write, willing the ink to trap the gentle sound of my voice within the words before it dries. I continue to write, spent of that emotion and ready to command her acquiescence. "You mustn't leave me, Madeleine." How good it feels to pen her name! "You will come to understand this in time." How will I close? Honestly? Can I write "Love, Erik," and be done with it?

No.

"Your obedient servant," I mutter through my teeth, knowing that she will recognise and appreciate the irony. "O.G."

The parchment folds easily in my hands after I allow the ink time to dry. I fit it into an envelope and hold it to my lips, touching it softly with a kiss that I quickly drown in hot, red wax. My seal is ominous—a skull—but she will recognise that the letter is from me.

…

Madeleine

I held the letter next to the candle, willing myself to let it slide into the bright yellow flame. It would not matter, though; I could never forget the contents. As long as I lived. They would always lurk in my mind.

He would always haunt me.

My door opened, and I pulled the letter away from the candle, whipping around to face the intruder. It was only Armande. "Your things are in the carriage," he said carefully, sensing my unease.

I nodded gratefully, and looked back at the letter. I couldn't burn it. Instead, I folded it into quarters and slipped it into my bodice.

"What is that?"

I stood, shaking. "A letter...wishing me farewell."

He was in the room with us; I could feel him. Armande's presence did not allow him to reveal himself, and I felt much safer, much physically safer. I let my fiancé—what a terribly foreign word!—take me into his arms and lead me from the room, forcing thoughts of Erik far away from my present mind.

It would not be done, however. Moments later I stood in front of the carriage, willing myself to entre, but the power that had rooted me to the opera house from the beginning desperately clung to my skin and enticed me to remain. I shook my head, several times, screaming inwardly that nothing good could come from returning to him. Even briefly, but my will was not strong.

You will come to understand this in time.

I shuddered, knowing that I could not leave him like this. I had to see him once more, or it would destroy us both.

…

Erik

I cradle the picture in my hands. Madame's lovely face smiles up at me from beneath the glass. "You, too, would forsake me," I growl, the tears burning through my eyelids. "I am," I sneer bitterly, and my eyebrows rise in one accord with the corners of my mouth, "a fool to have ever thought you would not. You would love a fool just as soon as you would love a monster..." My voice catches, and her face becomes indistinct as my vision blurs, and my manufactured grin contorts with sobs. My fist presses against my mouth as my chest rises in heaves, and I bury myself within my cape so that not even the starlight can find me.

"Erik…."

The picture falls to the floor, and the familiar sound of shattering glass perfectly flourishes her low, refined voice; a crash of cymbals over a dark current of brass instruments. I stand with a start, flip my cape behind my shoulders, and strain to see her through my tears. At once I curse myself: I forgot my defenses, and even worse, was not alert enough to sense when she came in.

There is silence. I notice the way she trembles, and remember how frightened she is of me.

"I cannot put words to the anger you must be feeling," she says slowly.

I do not move.

She starts toward me. "You are only a child, Erik, so young! You couldn't understand what it is to love—"

"Love!" I turn from her, strangely calm. "No, I could never understand what it is to love. I've never been given the chance, have I?" Her eyes fall. I continue. "The only love I've ever known has gone unrequited." I realise that my mask is not on my face, and clench my teeth—I have made certain that she has not seen my face since the creation of this mask in particular. I stoop swiftly and lift the mask from the ground, toying with the eyehole, the weight of my heavy cloak bearing down protectively on my shoulders. I haven't always worn a mask around her; she is the one soul in my life who looks upon my face without terror. But it is this face…

I feel Madame's soft hand on my arm, and I lean into her small frame. Just as suddenly I rebuke myself for immediately reacting to the sensation of her touch. "I care for you, Erik, in a way I could never care for another. You are my most cherished." She pauses, and I notice, for the first time, that her hand, the hand that holds me, is shaking. Perhaps it has always shaken. "But Armande is the man I was meant to be with for the rest of my life."

I tense beneath the weight of her arm, and recoil suddenly, confusing even myself; my words come before I even feel them. "It was this face that betrayed me in my mother's arms, and it is this face that would turn you from me now. No, you understand little of love, of true, unconditional love, Madame, and that is all you'll ever know." My hands shake as well as I stare at her, the beautiful face of the woman who once saved me, stirred real love within the heart I truly have. I lift the mask to my face and press it to my skin. "But God is merciful to some, and you will never have to see this face again." Without another word, I jump from the rafters onto the flight below, and disappear into the dark corridors of the Opera.