Authors note: This story is inspired by the movie "The secret garden" from 1993. As always we all want the original story to end differently but we all know that we don't want it any other way than it already is. This is mostly based on the 2004 movie version. Enjoy!
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Fog. That was what she saw when she looked out through window at the English landscape, she was on her way to her uncle and aunt from Sweden, two people who she hadn't met in many years served now as the only ones she had to turn to now after that night in Paris.
Christine sighed, her breath turned cloudy in the carriage, her mind returning to him as it did every hour of every day. She had left Raoul and the Giry's for a life in Yorkshire, three little words that she one day had read in L'Epoque had made her more sad than she ever thought she would be. The fairy tale was over all hat was left was the cruel reality of death and sorrow. It had ended now, the music of the night.
It was past midnight now and Christine woke up from the sleep that had taken over her an hour ago. The carriage pulled over at her relatives estate, Karin and Carl Daàe were two people who had made their fortune in the florist business. A small smile graced Christine's lips as she stepped out of the carriage to greet the only family she had left now.
"Oh, little Christine, look at you, the image of your mother and father shines through you!" her aunt said happily as she wrapped her arms around her niece.
Her uncle greeted her the same way. "We should have written to each other more often, but you and Gustave moved around so much we lost the latest address, and since he passed away you have lived at Palais Garnier."
"Yes, I have, a hectic time that was."
"Oh, I can imagine with all that singing and dancing every day. But look at you, you have grown into a beautiful young woman, we have always hoped that you would come for a visit." Lena smiled at her and asked their servant to take care of Christine's luggage as they moved inside the chateau. Christine frowned her eyes, having a difficult time to see in the heavy fog.
"I know, can you believe this weather in June and everything" Carl said. "It reminds a little bit of home, doesn't it?"
"What?" Christine asked, thinking of the foggy lake beneath the opera house.
"Back home in Sweden" her uncle frowned.
"Oh" Christine sighed "Yes it does, a little."
Christine didn't take much notice at the beauty of the house, she was exhausted after the journey, the first thing she did when she entered her suite was lying down on the large bed.
"Oh, dear" Lena said and sat down on the bed beside her niece. "I know your tired after travelling by boat and train for so long, I shall have some food sent for you and a clean night-gown."
Christine only nodded in acceptance and started to remove her shoes as her aunt came back later again with a tray of food.
"Sorry it took so long. You think that your uncle would let me carry a tray? All the men in the Daàe family has always seen us women as fragile things."
Christine smiled as she grabbed her night-gown and went to the bathroom, a bath had been run for her and Lena helped her wash and comb her long hair, changing into the night-gown Christine went back to the bed determined to sleep.
"There, darling" Lena tucked her in "Is there anything else you need?"
Christine shook her head and picked up her book that had been unpacked and laid out on her bedside table, Lena immediately recognised the book of Little Lotte's adventures.
"You still have it? How nice you must let me read it sometime, it has been too long."
Christine looked down at the book then looked up at the Lena.
"Perhaps you would like to read for me now, aunt?" Christine said and gave the book to Lena who smiled and sat down by the bed with only one single candle to illuminate her vision. Christine's mind drifted of to her own adventures of the Angel of music. Thinking of his voice and how beautiful it had been.
Lena noticed that she had fallen asleep and bent over to kiss her niece's forehead and blew out the candle.
As she walked down the corridor from the room she looked out through one of the huge windows at a tall, dark figure that worked both night and day in the garden. If only he and Christine knew what was going on right know they would be greatly surprised. Lena smiled to herself and walked down to her and her husbands room for a few hours of sleep.
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The next morning the fog was over, the sun rose up and woke all the servants up from their sleep. Christine received help with dressing herself from the night-gown into a green velvet gown.
She walked down the grand stair to the dining room, where her relatives were enjoying their breakfast.
Her uncle looked up from his paper.
"Sit down, dearest, I trust you slept well?"
"Yes, thank you" she smiled shyly.
"Tea?"
"Yes, please."
"I suppose you want it the way your father always did, cream and sugar?" Carl said with his eyebrows raised.
"Yes, thank you" she replied, for the first time in weeks she felt like she was home.
"Christine, dear, you uncle and I are going away today, the tulip-season has started and we have to watch over it so you are free to do whatever you want."
"Fine, I think I shall spend some time outside the house."
"Oh, please do! The gardens, we have plenty of them, they are blossoming now, you have to see them!" Carl said and smiled with winked at his wife who knew what he meant with it.
They left about an hour later, Christine took her book and walked out to examine the gardens. They were very beautiful and carefully tended. She found a bench among some daises which served as a seat for her reading, as she came further more into the story she looked up as a familiar sound was heard.
It couldn't be? That voice! She jumped up from the bench and followed the sound, it seemed to come from everywhere, almost as if the flowers were singing and the bluebells were ringing. She ran from one garden to another only to find the voice escaping her the more she searched.
Then at last she found a huge wall of rosebushes, the voice seemed to come from behind it. No door were to be found, as she tried to find it the thorns stung her hands. Her eyes started to water with desperation and her heart beating in excitement.
After a while the voice and it's wonderful song had died away. Christine blinked back her tears and declared herself as insane and the voice as a hallucination. She walked back to the chateau and stayed in the library for the rest of the afternoon.
If only she had stayed a little, she would see him walk out from the hidden door. A man that had arrived to the estate a few weeks before she had, a man who knew her in so many ways and now worked as a gardener, a man...wearing a mask.
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