Chapter 26
All is silence; no one is near
our songs to disturb.
- Le Nozze de Figaro, Act I, Scene I
The mirror swung shut behind them. Immediately they went from full light to the deepest darkness. Before she could ask for it, Christine felt Erik's arm go around her waist to steady her, the only thing she could detect in the blackness, warm and solid and reassuring.
He soon produced a torch, seemingly from out of thin air, and as her eyes adjusted to the light, she found they were standing in a dank stone passage, much like the one she'd gone through with Madame Giry earlier that year.
Before she had time for more than a gasp of interest, he charged forward, pulling her along the passage with her hand tightly clasped in his. He held it not in an easy, companionable way, but carefully, almost gingerly, holding it up as though it were very fragile, as though she might fall at any moment.
Though she could not imagine why such concern was necessary, she did not object. She liked it, though she would never admit it to him.
Their footsteps echoed in the vastness of the tunnel. He moved quickly, head held high, eyes flicking to and fro like a panther's.
Christine did not feel the need for such paranoia; she knew he was frightened, but she felt sure that he would be a match for whatever they might encounter. Still, with tunnels branching off every which way, every one going on until it was obscured in darkness, it was like an underground city. It reminded her of a dream she'd often had as a girl, where she went wandering through an endless series of dark underground passages, and though she was lost she never felt anything but excitement, eagerness to see what lay around the next bend.
"Do I dream again?" she said in amazement.
He smiled grimly but did not reply.
Their path took them slowly but steadily downwards. For some time they walked in silence. A few times she ventured a remark, but he replied halfheartedly each time, his eyes on their course. Only once did he speak unprompted, to ask her if she was warm enough and if he was going too quickly for her, but when she said he was, he merely apologized, promised to slacken his pace, and, without realizing it, began to go still faster.
Eventually she abandoned her attempts at conversation. She had the sense that for now she was walking with the Phantom, not Erik, that he became this dark and silent creature whenever he had to venture out into the open.
They descended further still, and she calculated that by now they must be several stories underground, deeper even than Paris' legendary catacombs, a place she'd always been intrigued by.
After what seemed an eternity, when she began to feel that they were never going to reach the end, she saw ahead of them a flight of stone steps which ended abruptly in the water. A small boat sat moored at the bottom, eerily still on the flat calm surface.
"Is this part of the same lake?" she asked, surprised; it did not look at all as she recalled.
He nodded.
"It must be immense. I cannot even see the grotto from here."
"It is rather a labyrinth. Night is blind here," he added with only the scarcest hint of irony, and he gestured melodramatically with a sweep of his cloak. "For the rest of the journey, we shall have to take the boat. Do you mind?"
"Good Heavens." She smiled with excitement and swiftly began to descend the stairs. "How thrilling."
Erik swiftly moved to join her, putting an uneasy hand on her arm as though she might fall into the lake.
She stopped and turned to him with a smile so lovely it froze him where he stood for a moment.
"It is remarkable." She looked around with eager eyes. "Who would ever have guessed that such a place lay here, beneath the Opéra district, no less? It is like another world."
"Yes. The underworld. And now we begin our journey on the river Styx," he said dryly.
"For my part, it reminds me more of Venice, as I picture it," she offered. "Venice at night."
"As ever, you manage to make things sound considerably more pleasant. It is an admirable quality of yours."
"As ever, you manage to make things sound considerably more sinister," she riposted. "It is a... notable quality of yours."
He chuckled.
"I have always dreamed of Venice," she mused. "I should love to go there one day."
"You shall." He arranged a cushion against the seat of the boat for her. "It will not be five years before you are starring in an opera there."
"That would be extraordinary. I hope you are there with me if I ever am fortunate enough to go, mon cœur."
"I fear that would not be possible." He braced one foot against the edge of the boat to steady it and held out his hand to help her in.
She sighed and settled into her seat.
Erik threw off the mooring-ropes, leapt neatly into the boat, and, taking up a heavy pole that had been leaning against it, shoved them away from the dock.
With the ease of long practice, he took position in the back of the boat and maneuvered them out of the shallows. Christine watched him, impressed. She'd tried to pole a boat once, on a lake in the Bois de Boulogne, when she'd taken a trip there with Meg. In the end, she'd accomplished little more than pushing it around in lopsided circles, stranding them in a clump of lily pads. Meg had fared little better, and eventually they'd had to give up and laboriously paddle themselves back to shore with their hands. They still laughed about it.
It was difficult to imagine a scene more different from the gloomy prospect that now stretched before her. Soon they had left the shores of the dark lake behind. There was no illumination but the delicate lamps on the prow and stern, which cast just enough light to give a hint of how vast the darkness was beyond. Christine shivered, both thrilled and a little uneasy.
She drew back and leaned against Erik's legs, drawing comfort from his nearness. His strength and darkness might have been frightening to some but when she was with him, she felt safe, for it seemed nothing could match him.
Nothing except her, it appeared. She smiled.
With clean, sure strokes Erik propelled them through the dark water.
"I hate to think of you being by yourself down here all those years," she said momentarily.
"Then do not speak of it," he snapped.
She blinked in surprise.
He sighed. "Mon rêve, forgive me. You did not deserve... just because I..."
She looked up at him in confusion.
He stopped awkwardly, unable to convey his thoughts. With a sigh of frustration, he stabbed the pole furiously into the water.
Christine reached her hand back and brushed her fingertips against his, a poor gesture, but all she could do for now.
It was enough. He understood. He smiled down at her, more tenderly this time, and she felt the anger go out of him, leave the room, leave them in peace.
They drifted over the water like a sheet of murky green glass. Wisps of mist hung over the lake like trailing veils.
It was the atmosphere for calling forth snatches of peculiar song, for making you say strange poetic things that you forgot again soon afterwards. She felt rather as though she were under the influence of some strange but not unpleasant drug. Her lingering anxieties disappeared.
At last they came upon the grotto and she was afforded a new view of his home, resplendent from across the gleaming lake, afire with the candles he never extinguished, spreading out like a city in miniature.
Hanging from an outcropping of rock a few yards away was a heavy portcullis. When they had passed underneath of it, Erik threw a lever and it shut behind them. With the same motion, candelabras rose out of the water, their wicks bursting into flame as they met the air. Christine whirled around, staring at them in astonishment. She knew it was one of Erik's tricks, that he was capable of effecting almost any illusion one could imagine, but the effect was still so surreal that it was difficult to credit her senses.
The candlelight reflected hazily off the mist, so that the room seemed to be filled with glittering golden smoke, and the surface of the lake was turned to a cloudy gold as well.
"Sing, my angel of music," Erik pleaded suddenly, his voice both rough and tender. With the dropping of the portcullis, the tense silence that had hung over him had fallen away, and he became more like the Erik she knew. "Sing for me."
She must. She had to sing for him; she needed it as she had never needed anything before. The whole earth turned on the music.
She drew a breath; conscious of the power within her, she began to vocalize strangely, as though possessed by some fearful beauty, her song growing more and more extravagant and unearthly.
As though urged on by her voice, the boat drew forward and soon nosed up against the shore.
Erik sprang out as nimbly as a cat and drew off his cloak with a flourish, describing elaborate, swooping symbols with it in the air before letting it come to rest in immaculate folds on the stone.
He helped her carefully from the boat, not letting go of her until she was well away from the water, as though even a drop of it daring to touch the hem of her dress could have dissolved her like a sprite. His gaze held her there, like a director who had just positioned an actress just where he needed her to stand.
Standing at her full height now, in possession of all her powers, her voice grew stronger yet, and at last alighted on a glittering high Fa, stretching it until it was as thin as possible like a sheet of gold.
The whole action had seemed to come from outside her; she would never have thought she was capable of creating such beauty of her own volition. Her hands went to her throat in astonishment.
Erik merely smiled, satisfied - pleased but unsurprised. "Well done," he murmured. "Bravissima."
Pride coursed through her. She craved his praise more than any applause from Paris' elite or any jewels emperors could bestow upon her. For his genius was what had catalyzed her apotheosis. His limitless high standards were precisely the level of greatness she had always aspired to herself.
His green eyes fixed on hers, he took both her hands and led her tenderly forwards.
"And here we are," he said. "This is my realm, illusion's domain. A kingdom where all must pay homage to music."
As he helped her up the steps toward the piano, the thought suddenly occurred to her it felt almost like he was leading her to the altar. Candlelight, incense - in some ways, this ethereal scene was much like how she had pictured that day for them - or night, if he still liked the idea of a midnight ceremony.
She could practically imagine the wedding march playing.
When he began fiercely attacking the pipe organ he'd assembled down there, throwing up immense, powerful chords that seemed to shake the very foundations of the city, the impression grew still stronger.
The thought made her blush at her own haste. The marriage at the mayor's office would be happening very soon, it was true, but their wedding, their real wedding, might not be for months yet. There was much to plan, especially if now he would agree for her to invite her friends, as she hoped. You are getting ahead of yourself, Christine.
Fortunately for her overactive imagination, soon he switched to the gentler tones of the piano. Eventually he abandoned the instrument altogether and sang for her, something hauntingly beautiful that he had composed for her, that he called the Music of the Night.
She stood spellbound by the melody. Each note seemed to melt into her. She was floating, she was falling. How was it possible that she had inspired something so beautiful?
"Help me make the Music of the Night," he finished at last, kneeling before her and kissing the outstretched palm of her hand. "Forever and a day."
"I will," she pledged, gently pulling him to his feet.
He folded her into an embrace.
"What was it you wished to sing?" he murmured after a moment.
"Oh, yes. I had forgotten. It is called Depuis Le Jour. Have you heard it?"
"No."
"Good." Smiling, she pulled away, though she tugged him along behind her with one hand, and moved to the piano. After finding the note she needed, she began to sing the aria she had been wanting to perform for him since weeks ago.
She was pleased to finally have the opportunity. It was a gift for him that she had been working on strenuously.
Though its sound was soft and gentle, it was deceptively difficult to sing, with long, exposed high notes that left little room for error. It also sat in a tricky place in her voice - it was a little lower than was comfortable for her, and fast-paced staccato pieces came more naturally to her than the long, languorous phrases of a love ballad like this. But ever since she had first heard it, it would not let her go. The melody was infused with a delicate, airy splendor that seemed to shimmer in the air. She had known she must sing it for her love, her Angel of Music - she must.
And she could see from the rapture on his face that he entirely approved.
Ever since the day when I gave myself,
My destiny seems all aflower.
What a beautiful life!
My dream was not a dream!
Love spreads its wings over me
In the garden of my heart
There sings a new joy
Everything shimmers,
Everything rejoices in my triumph
Around me everything is light and joy
And I tremble deliciously
At the charming memory
Of the first day
Of love!
END OF CHAPTER 26. Thank you so much for reading!