A/N—Thank you all so much for your enthusiastic reviews of the first chapter! I hope this continuation will not disappoint everyone…
The Usual Disclaimer—these characters are not mine, belonging as they do to the heirs of M. Leroux, Sir A. L. Webber and the RUG, and Susan Kay. I thank them for the privilege of their use. All errors concerning the Paris Opera, music, religion, history, and French language are mine, and for that, I apologize in advance.
Please read and review.
A Second Chance
Chapter 2
Copyright 2003, 2004 by Riene
On Your Shore
Strange how my heart beats
To find myself upon your shore.
Strange how I still feel
My loss of comfort gone before.
Cool waves wash over
And drift away with dreams of youth
So time is stolen
I cannot hold you long enough.
And so
This is where I should be now
Days and nights falling by
Days and nights falling by me.
Iknow
Of a dream I should be holding
Days and nights falling by
Days and nights falling by me.
Soft blue horizons
Reach far into my childhood days
As you are rising
To bring me my forgotten ways.
Strange how I falter
To find I'm standing in deep water
Strange how my heart beats
To find I'm standing on your shore.
Lyrics by Enya and Roma Ryan
From the CD Watermark
She lifted the small brass lantern from its niche and reached for the oilskin-wrapped packet of lucifers beside it. The lamp spilled a pool of orange-gold light on the damp stone passage, perhaps one of the old Communard tunnels. Christine lifted her skirts from the slightly tacky stone floor and walked quickly down the corridor, ducking to avoid the cobwebs which seemed to have grown only in the last two days, her footsteps echoing after her. The tunnels were damp with condensation, the heavy air chill and dank. The iron railings of the staircases were slick with moisture. Shivering, Christine pulled the deep blue cloak, a recent gift from Raoul, more tightly about her shoulders. Without her teacher, her guide, the steps of the passages seemed to twist back on themselves.
At the end of an arched passage was a heavy barrier, where the hewn stone of the foundation transitioned to natural rock, the very basis of the Opera. She pulled the heavy key from her pocket and unlocked the mechanism of the portcullis gate, struggling by herself with its heavy weight in spite of the clever counterbalance Erik had installed, then secured it again behind her. Approaching the lake, Christine's heartbeat began to quicken in dread anticipation. Would he be pleased or furious with her when they next met, she wondered?
Yet, as she came near the underground house, Christine's steps slowed and faltered. It was so dark, so silent. Two days ago she had last stood on this rocky ledge, seeing the waving flames of torches casting a nightmarish, hellish light against the stone walls of the cavern, hearing the oddly distorted cries of the approaching mob. She had climbed into the boat with Raoul, leaving behind a man whose last words still echoed painfully in her mind, words that now drew her back once more to this dismal underground world.
The door stood open, a dark gaping maw in the side of the stone foundation wall. She stepped hesitantly through, raising the lamp, and inside the underground house lay in ruins. The floor was a morass of sodden carpeting, shredded manuscript paper, music, and pages torn from books. Christine gave the room a rapid, despairing glance. No effort had been made here to clean any of this disarray. Great scars marred the surfaces of the formerly polished golden paneled walls. Furniture lay overturned and broken, the mahogany splinters and jagged edges catching her trailing skirts as she stumbled past. Candelabra lay in twisted metal heaps on the floor, and the tapestries which had graced the walls hung now in shreds. Christine lifted the lamp, leaving the scene of such devastation, desperately seeking her former teacher throughout the cold musty rooms of the house, but in kitchen, bedchamber, music room, and vestibule as in the library study room, all was silence and destruction.
Her steps faltering now, Christine turned slowly to the small chamber that served as her bedchamber in Erik's house, and pressed on the carved rosettes decorating the concealed door. With a soft click, the latch released, and it opened slowly toward her; she entered, trembling.
The room was exactly as she had last beheld it, with Aminta's colorful dress lying across the neatly made bed, her costume's jeweled combs discarded on the dainty dressing table. A faint hint of her perfume lingered in the air. Mechanically, Christine lit the heavy round candles on the bedside table, then stood, hugging the fluted pillar of the poster-bed. This room was untouched, unchanged. Where was Erik?
Leaving the room, Christine methodically began to search the underground house once more. The library-study seemed to have taken the brunt of the mob's wrath, and against one wall she saw what she had been most dreading to find, the dried crimson-brown streaks and splashes of old blood. Heedless of the debris, she knelt and touched the stains, dread replacing worry.
"Oh, my God, no…Erik, Erik, what have they done to you?" she whispered. Stricken suddenly with active fear and horror, Christine dashed from the house and on the ledge of rock that served as his terrace, lifted the lamp, holding it high, casting its pale luminous rays across the rocky shore toward the lake.
The first pass revealed nothing to her inexpert, frantic gaze. Slowly, Christine directed the beam along the shore again, frowning when it reflected dimly off a series of dully gleaming surfaces. Carefully, she sat the lamp on the ledge, then, gathering her skirts, Christine ran down the shore, and in her haste, nearly stumbled over the crumpled, prone body of the man who lay beside the murky chill waters of the lake.
She dropped to her knees beside him, drawing in her breath in shock. Almost unrecognizable in its swollen, battered state, Erik's unmasked face was a mass of injuries. Moaning aloud in fear, Christine reached out and touched his good cheek, recoiling at the clammy, cold, still flesh, then laid a trembling hand on his chest, feeling desperately for breath. Though the young singer had considered the possibility of her tutor's death, she had never thought it an actuality. His silent presence filled the building; he ruled the Opera from the shadows, an unseen specter, so vibrantly alive and in command of his surroundings that his death in this fashion had never entered her mind.
And yet, she thought she felt slight movement. Dropping beside him, Christine lowered her cheek above his lips, hearing the faintest hiss of indrawn breath and the gentle, more rapid pulse of exhalation. Pushing aside the stained and tattered remainders of his shirt, she laid a hand on his bare chest and was rewarded with the faint, thready beat of his heart.
He was alive, then. Christine rocked back on her heels, regardless of the mud, her mind racing, shaking with sudden fear and the flickering edges of panic. Erik was badly injured, that much was obvious even to her untrained eyes. What was equally apparent was that he could not remain in the chill air of the cavern and the icy waters of the lake. It was a miracle he was not dead. Surely only blind fortune and his own tremendous stamina had warded off death so far.
He was far too heavy to lift, and she did not want to exacerbate his injuries. A dim memory returned to her; a long-ago conversation in the commons room of the students' quarters in which she had lived during her years in the Conservatory. Another girl, a student at the teaching hospital, had described how she had studied the proper movement of injured patients. The girl had solemnly assured them, and had then even demonstrated to the others how it was possible to make a bed without ever moving the patient from it. Grateful now for this long-forgotten roommate's expertise, Christine rose and removed her cloak, spreading it upon the ground beside her teacher, and with difficulty, rolled him onto the cape, letting his legs dangle. She lifted the end of the cloak, digging in her heels, and began the slow, inexorable task of dragging her fallen angel back to the lair.
Panting with exertion, her hair straggling down in a sweaty mess around her face, it seemed to take forever until they reached the confines of her room. It was the only option, the only intact, undamaged site in the underground house where she had a chance to tend his wounds.
She knelt again beside him, placing a gentle hand on his lips; a trickle of breath met her fingers. Christine looked up toward the bed; lifting him that high would be impossible. Tugging the blankets from the bed, she hastily assembled a pallet on the floor and as carefully as possible rolled Erik's limp and unresisting body on to it.
Though action had calmed her earlier near-hysteria, Christine stared hopelessly down at the injured man. Where to begin? She did not dare leave him to seek help. Turning, she went into the bath chamber of her room. Fortunately, the water still ran cleanly into the marble hand basin. Retrieving a bowl from the kitchen, she filled it and dampened several cloths. With a tired plié, she sat beside him on the floor, gently cleaning the dried blood and dirt from his poor battered face. The wig was gone, and the porcelain mask had been shattered at some point; tiny shards were still embedded in his flesh. Carefully, she removed the fragments from his wounds. How many times she rose to empty the bowl and wring the cloths, she did not know.
With his face temporarily taken care of, Christine turned her attentions to Erik's body, beginning the task of removing his torn and sodden clothing. She eased the ripped and stained shirt away from his bared chest and down his shoulders, pulling off the remains or cutting them away where the edges lay caught by the weight of his body, then stopped, tears filling her eyes. Alongside the fresh wealds were old scars, marring the pale flesh of his back and shoulders, the scars of numerous prior injuries, the marks of a lifetime of savage abuse.
She reached out and gently touched a faded white, raised line. "Oh, my poor angel," Christine whispered, horrified at the realization that this latest beating was only one of many he had endured in his long and solitary existence.
At some point she rose and searched the chamber Erik had slept in, averting her eyes from the broken remains of the coffin and its shredded curtains. He had kept a few small jars of herbal salves and medicines, she remembered. Eventually, after rummaging around through the debris, she found an intact container and hurried with it back to her chamber.
He did not expect heaven to look like this, dim and soft with candlelight. Indeed, heaven was the place he least expected to awaken. But a voice was speaking somewhere, a voice of gentleness and music. Heaven surely should be a place of music…
Cool soft hands touched his nightmare face and body, spreading a soothing balm across the fiery, rending agony that was his flesh. He could sense the angel's presence, the faint sweet scent of her, could feel her love in the tender way she touched him. Forcing his swollen eyes open into a slit, he caught a glimpse of the angel, her luminous blue eyes that shimmered with tears, the white gown, the long chestnut curls. She so resembled his own lost angel, and Erik shut his eyes again, uncomprehending. He slid back into the shadows.
She drew a clean warm woolen blanket from the carved camphor wood chest at the foot of the bed and carefully draped it over Erik's still body. Wearily, the young singer rose from beside the injured man and on unsteady feet walked to the bath chamber. She washed quickly and changed into a fresh dress, discarding the previous one as ruined forever.
With a sigh, Christine sat on the floor beside her dark angel, carefully settling his head into her lap. She had done all she knew to do, and she could not leave him to lie in this silence alone. Her tutor had numerous injuries, and his hands…she clenched her teeth, forcing her eyes away from the swollen, bruised and broken fingers. The ensuing hours became a blur of exhaustion and she spoke or sang to him, desperate to provide some contact, some encouragement to live.
A hand, soft and gentle, stroked his thin hair, carefully avoiding the areas of swelling and tenderness. The same hand moved down, to lie for a moment pressed against his heart, feeling for its dull thudding, then, apparently reassured, it moved back to lie on his shoulder. With difficulty, he tried to focus his mind. He was warm, his head lying somewhere soft, comfortable in spite of the throbbing pulses of pain. There had been an angel… Exerting his formidable willpower against the waiting shadows, Erik tried to force open his eyes. They focused slowly on the pale face of the woman bent over him. Christine? No, it was not possible, he was hallucinating again…
