When my mind awakens, I do not immediately open my eyes. I am lying on the ground, but a cold hand is under my back, keeping me suspended a little above the hard surface. I try to draw my legs up to my chest, but the pain in my ankle suddenly seems magnified. I moan.
"I shall assume you are in quiet a lot of pain," a voice slithers out of the darkness, both beautiful and terrible to hear.
"Erik?" I whisper, my senses gleaming at the sound of that voice.
"Who else?" he replies, his tone a little cold. "Silence. Try to breathe normally."
I lay unmoving, my breathing coming harsher. Without thinking, I ask, "Where's Raoul?"
I do not think of the consequences of my words. Erik's hand lifts me up into a sitting position, and I am so bewildered that I do not even comprehend that this is the first time that he has touched me since our 'wedding'. My head swirls dangerously, but Erik is there, supporting me.
"What ever do you mean, my dear?" he asks, his tone polished. "I have told you time and time again that your ex-fiancé is far away. He is unhurt. You have no business to be fretting about him."
"He was here," I recount, unable to stop my babbling. "He came while you were gone and we were running and I begged him to take me back and then I tripped a little while he pulled me, and then everything—"
"Silence!" he hisses. "I told you to be still!"
I stay frigid as ice as his hand caresses my bodice, from my waist to my stomach, but no further in either direction. In shock, half of me still wanting to cry from pain, I tremble at the thought of him touching me. Half of me wants to smack him away, and the other half is almost calmed at this interaction with another human being.
"Raoul is far away," he says, almost hypnotically. "You were simply wandering around in the dark. You must have been dreaming." His voice takes on a soothing manner. "My poor angel, falling and losing her way in Erik's labyrinth!"
I am desperately trying to take in his emotions, but his hand has gone to my stomach again, and I am distracted. What had I been dreaming about... It was impossible to recall exactly!
"Come home, darling," he says, and in one, fluid motion, I am in his arms. One hand is under my arm and around my back, and the other in under my legs, in the crook of my knee. If I had not been in so much pain, I might have recoiled in shock at this sudden, gentle Erik. He cradles me almost like a child, ever mindful of my foot. As he walks, I can tell is attempting to absorb the impact of his step so that it does not rattle me with pain.
Dully, I think it's times like these why I wonder why I don't love Erik.
It seems as though we walk for hours, although it couldn't be more than a few minutes. I can hear his breathing remain very steady as he paces himself up the slight hill. I am little more than a ragdoll to him, I realize. The thought frightens and excites me. When we get to the door, he pushes it open carefully and heads straight for my room. He lays me down on my bed.
"Thank you," I mumble incoherently, as I roll over to get comfortable. But my movement creates a jagged pain in my ankle, and I bite my pillow so Erik won't become alarmed.
He notices anyway, of course. "Wait here," he tells me, as if I am going anywhere, and disappears for a moment. When he returns, he is carrying wraps and tonic in a flask.
He takes my ankle gingerly and wraps his hand around it. His hands are like ice, and it calms the burning sensation. His fingers are ridiculously quick and my ankle is bandaged before I have time to sit up. He hands me the flask. "Drink this," he orders.
I stare at him warily. "What is it?"
"You have greatly injured your ankle," he replies quietly. "You are not a novice when it comes to injuries of the foot. This is the same tonic the physician gives the little dancing girls when they are. You will be in excruciating pain by tomorrow. This will help soothe it."
I stare at his mask. I wish he would take it off. It is so hard to read him when he hides his face.
I swallow it whole.
My vision grows blurry as I fall back against my pillow, although I cannot tell if it is from the tonic or the sudden movement. Erik's golden eyes watch me sadly, and I struggle to make sense of everything that has just possibly happened.
"Sleep, my angel," he coaxes. "Erik does not wish for you to be in any pain." He leans over, and I think he is going to kiss me, but then he is gone.
I toss and turn. In the end, I do not think I have slept at all, but caught between being awake and unconscious. By the time I fall asleep, my ankle is throbbing. My dreams are of running people, Raoul watching me, saying, "Wait for me, Christine," and Erik in the shadows, reaching out to touch me, to kiss my lips—
Hands roughly seize my shoulders.
"Why?" I hear. "Why, why, why?"
My senses gathering, I open my eyes to find Erik's mask-less face mere inches from my own. My mouth widens in a silent scream, unsure if it is because of his face, or his appearance.
His eyes are flaming with fury and he is shaking—oh, he is shaking me—and I attempt to pull away.
"Why would you leave Erik when he told you not to?" he demands, his voice low and deadly. "Your young man came and you ran off with him! Damn you, you foolish child! You think nothing of your actions, nothing of what the next day will bring! You think of only what you are doing now. How could you? Erik trusted you, and now he cannot ever trust you again. Erik has trusted you one too many times, Christine."
I gasp in a sort of understanding. "Was that real?" I ask in real confusion. "Was that a dream, Erik, I do not know!"
"You left me, as I knew you would," he says furiously, his voice washing over me like a dreadful black cloud. "You left your husband, Christine! Time and time, I have reassured you about the world of your ex-finacee and yet you continue to pine for him, running with him the first chance you receive!"
"It happened so fast-" I whisper helplessly.
"You're lying!" he yells, suddenly leaning over me, pressing me back onto the mattress in horror. "Why would you leave me for him? Why would you promise me, Christine? You lie, you lie— You have been planning this for weeks!"
"This is untrue!" I protest, my voice weak and my argument terribly unhelpful. "Erik, Erik, I am sorry!"
"You are not sorry!" he says angrily, his long-fingered hands clutched into fists beside me. "Even now, after I have been a good husband for these past few weeks, you attempt to flee from me! Erik is tired of it, Christine! Erik does not want a dead wife who will run from him! Have you forgotten your promise?"
"No," I say bleakly.
"Then you may never ever leave me again!" he roars triumphantly. "How you will pay for this mistake, Christine!" And he grabs me violently, shaking me like a small child.
"Let me go," I whimper, and his hands fall from my neck to around my curls, down my sides, as he slides down to kneel at the side of my bed.
"Erik will never let you go," he moans, and I realize he's crying now, hurt and crying. He pulls on my hands and buries his face in them, and I cannot pull away. "Erik cannot let you go because he's in love with you—why he is so terrible if he loves you so? I don't know, Christine, I don't know. I'm so afraid of you, Christine, so very afraid. Why do you run when I love you so? Why do you think only of escaping when I have provided so much for you here?"
For all of my practice with crying for the past month, I do not shed a tear. I cannot spare a sob for this miserable man. I stare at him, almost wonderingly, until he glances up at me. His breathing is heavy. His rage is over. He looks around and adjusts the mask on his face.
"Erik, I am sorry," I say, and my voice sounds empty. "I promised you. And I am sorry."
"I do not believe you," he says softly.
"I know," I sigh heavily. "And I cannot blame you for that. Just know. Just know that I am sorry."
"Do I frighten you?" he asks softly. I put my tongue between my teeth and observe him.
"Can you take off your mask?" I ask him. He blinks.
"That will frighten you more," he protests, and I sigh again.
"I've seen your face many a times, Erik, you know that. It does not cause me anymore fear." I hold out my hand gently, an unspoken request for the fabric. He is tempted, but he does not trust me. "Please, Erik," I whisper. "It was wrong of me to leave. It was wrong of me not to think of you. I'm trying to understand you. I cannot understand you when I cannot see your face. It is very simple."
Erik frowns. "You need not to understand me, Christine. And you are mocking me with your apologies."
I pout and cross my arms like a child. "Take off the mask."
Erik looks faintly alarmed at my answer, and in defeat, he hands over his mask. I can still see the tears on his face. He sits back patiently on his heels, showing no signs that a few minutes previously he had been in a furious frenzy. With a deep calming breath, I force myself to stare back into his face without any sort of acknowledgment at the hideous sight before me.
He is looking at me so curiously, and as I look into those eyes, I see—innocence. Innocence.
Erik is just as much of a child as I am. We need to learn from each other. He will never be bold enough to take that first step, so I must leap ahead and drag him with me if I must.
His gaze is unnerving, however. He continues to look at me with the same, undisguised expression.
"Why do you look at me like that?" I ask uncomfortably.
"Understand," he murmurs. "You wish to understand me?"
"Yes. But it's difficult with the mask on."
"You leave me, because you do not love me. But... you want to understand me?"
"Perhaps if I understood you," I say very quietly and very seriously. "I would not want to leave."
Erik seems to think about that very hard. I can see the way his eyes flicker, as his brain takes in that information. "You speak truths, Christine?"
"I speak the truth," I agree. My ankle hurts something terrible, but now is not the time for such a thing.
He looks down at the floor. "No one has ever cared enough to try to understand Erik before," he tells the carpet. "No one has ever asked."
"Well, I have," I say. "This must be done properly. I will understand you, and you will understand me. And Erik, I swear to you, if you allow me to understand you, I will not pine to leave. I do not hate all of it here. I like to sing and I like when you talk to me. Please Erik... I am sorry for leaving. I was scared."
Erik is looking terrified now himself. I think he is so used to having his face covered that he doesn't try to hide his expressions at all.
"Very well," he says, inclining his head, as if I have asked for something trivial. "I will keep my mask off so you can understand me. And you will not want to leave."
"At dinner tonight," I announce. "I will eat and you will talk. Tell me things. Things about you. Things you feel. Maybe I'll give you a scenario and you will tell me how you would react."
He's crying again.
"What did I say?" I ask anxiously. I want to pull my hair out at his impossible mood swings. "If it bothers you so, we will not do it!"
"Christine cares," he cries. "Christine is trying to understand her husband. Christine tries to leave me, but she wants to understand me. Ah, the complexities of women! Am I a fool to think that she cares?"
He is like a child. I have no right to sit and cry in my room when there is a man out there who is desperately seeking my company. I cannot help but think of Raoul, about what happened to him, about where he is now... the fact that I might have just given up my freedom forever does not depress me nearly as much as I think it does.
He clutches at my dress. "I do not understand myself. How could I expect you to understand me?"
He is thinking about it, and I am encouraged in that, at least. "Let's try. We'll talk tonight at dinner."
Erik pulls a pocket watch from nowhere. "My dear, I do believe it is about dinner time."
"Oh!" I say in shock. It appears I have been sleeping longer than I thought. "Let me dress properly and I will come right out." With a plan, a purpose, I do not feel so lost down here. The more I think about it, the more I think that seeing Raoul was nothing more than a dream. As I go to stand up however, my entire body cries out as my foot makes contact with the ground.
Erik hesitates and stands up, supporting me. "You are lovely as you are. Let me help you into the kitchen."
My body tingles at his touch and I am once again amazed at his boldness, yet soothed by his presence. Ever so carefully, I toddle into the kitchen with him, thinking.
.