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One morning, Erik locks me in my room. I try fruitlessly to coax him to open it for several minutes, but he downright refuses.
"Let me out, Erik!"
"I shall let you out in due course. But in the meantime, I must leave for a little while."
"I don't want to be locked in here!" I cry, pounding on the door with my little fists. "You can leave, but let me out first! You know I will not leave; I promise not to escape!"
"Oh, my sweet, I know you will not leave me! That is not why I am locking you up."
"I am your wife! You cannot lock me up! Erik!"
I hear him sigh and leave.
I let out a shriek in frustration and go sit at my vanity. I brush my hair desperately, in a frenzied manner, until I have run off all my adrenaline. I look into my mirror at the unrecognizable woman before me.
He doesn't trust me, he doesn't trust me, he doesn't trust me.
"I am a good wife, am I not?" I whisper brokenly to my mirror. All my life I have been afraid of being a cruel person, and life is definitely pushing me to my limits with Erik. I obey him. I love him. What is missing? Why can I not be a good wife?
By all means, he is not a good husband… Look how he locks you up!
No. I would stay with him either way. Where else would I go?
He yells at you…
Very little. Certainly much less than he would yell at anyone else! It is his temper, not me.
He is a madman! He does not love!
"He does too!" I say venomously to my mirror. I freeze, bringing my hand slowly to my face in shock, when I realize that I have just talked to myself, just as Erik had told me to. I am going crazy, after all! I am holding conversations with myself! Alone in this room, has Erik driven me to the brink of insanity?
I dissolve into peals of tears and laughter as I rise and dress.
I wonder if this is how Erik has felt his whole life. There is so much I do not know about him. Was he helpless his whole life, cut off from everyone else and unable to escape?
Escape, escape, escape. I tell myself I do not want to do it, and yet I dwell on it endlessly.
Poor Erik. I truly believe that he deserves a good wife to redeem him. If he had a good wife, he wouldn't be a bad man. What kind of wife am I? I am a horrible wife. A horrible wife who protects her bed and cringes when her husband touches her!
Papa would be ashamed of me. Papa loved everybody. Papa would have been able to see through Erik's face into a good soul. That is, if Erik did not throw something at him first or something of the sort.
Without a watch, I have no way of knowing how long I stay in my room, but it feels like most of the afternoon has passed when Erik knocks and opens my door.
"Christine?" he says anxiously, stepping into the room.
"I am here." I say dispassionately, leaning lazily on the corner of my vanity, where I have been lounging for quite some time. "You don't think I'd be anywhere else do you? Care to explain yourself?"
He comes over, pulls me upright, and wraps me in his arms.
I am still.
"Erik?" I question softly, my face in his bony shoulder.
"Now is not the time to ask questions, you understand?" he says breathlessly. "This is not the time for talking."
I pause, confused. "Is it time to sing?"
He gives a weak chuckle as his gloved hand knots itself into my curls. "No, I will not make you sing. I just want you here. Just here, with Erik."
I fall silent and let him hug me. I can feel his face against my hair, so unnaturally smooth when it looks so torn. His face bothers me less and less each day. I am finding that when he makes a big deal out of it, I notice it more; when he does not mention it at all, I scarcely even register it.
"Something is happening." he mumbles into the back of my neck. He is taking deep, unsteady breaths. "Alarms go off this morning and there is no one there. Erik knows, for he checked everywhere. What should I do? I cannot leave you alone now. Not if there is someone out there. I must protect you… you belong to me, and I will keep you safe."
"Can they get in?" I ask fearfully.
He shakes his head. "Erik's home is locked to all whom he wishes it to be locked to. No one can get in. But if you go out…"
I understand instantly who Erik thinks this visitor is. I did not think Raoul would be stupid enough to come back, not after whatever Erik had down to him to scare him away. Yet, I knew Raoul would never surrender until he believed I was safe. All he wanted was my happiness and serenity. Was there any way to convince him that I had found it with Erik?
No. There was not.
Does Erik really think that I would go out to Raoul and allow myself to be taken again?
I am a little impatient. "I do not want to hide."
Erik pulls back. "Hiding is not so bad." he tells me sadly. "One gets used to it after a while."
I do not acknowledge his words. Instead, I take his hands. "You could let me go out there."
He looks severely unhappy about that. "No."
"Why not?" I demand. "I will go out and explain to Raoul that I am happy here. I will get it through to him so he will leave us alone."
Erik blinks, his breathing becoming raspy and uncertain as he presses his fingers into the palms of my hands. "He wouldn't believe you! I wouldn't believe you!"
"Silly Erik." I sigh. "If I tell him alone, I think he can believe me."
"You would lie to him."
"Saying I am happy here? That is no lie."
"If you had the chance to go back and stay with your boy," he says hesitatingly. "Would you do it?"
I squeeze my eyes shut. "I—no."
"That cannot be true!" he cries. "You wanted to run off with him, simply to get away from me! Up on the rooftop, you loved him! And you despised me!"
"I would have chosen Raoul then, yes. But I would choose you now. I'm glad that I did."
"You despise me!"
"Why can you not believe me?" I moan. "I am just as confused as you are to as exactly why I love you, but I do! You fight me every step of the way, and I don't know what else to do!"
I press myself against him and kiss his face, again and again and again. "Say I don't love you now, Erik! Think of every kiss, of every touch, of every song, and explain to me how in God's name I could not love you after all that we've been through!"
He is remarkably composed through my emotional turmoil. "Because I cannot believe you if it's not true." he whispers. "Tell me it's true. Show me it's true."
I have already sealed my destiny. "I chose you because of Raoul. I stayed because of me. I fell in love with you because of you."
"You do love me." he murmurs. "Sometimes I can see it in your eyes… your lovely, blue eyes…"
I rest my head against him and his hands fall naturally at my waist.
"Say something." he instructs me suddenly. "Tell me something. Anything. Find something to talk about."
He pushes me away and I clutch my arms around empty air. He does not look at me.
"I—I dropped a towel in the sink yesterday." I ramble, baffled by his emotions, but knowing not to question them. "And I cleaned off all the old newspapers. Lots of them. What do you do with them, anyway? There are so many and I—"
I break off with an exaggerated cry. "Oh! I have been forgetting! It bothers me every night." I go over to my drawer and pull out the newspaper I had saved several weeks ago. "I found this and it just caught my attention. It will drive me crazy until you say it's not talking to you."
Erik doesn't want to take the paper. He appears to be only interested in me. He takes his hand and runs it down my curls, all the way to my waist. I let him. His hand is over the fabric and it is impossible to tell the temperature of his hand. I cannot look at him in the eyes because my face is turning crimson for reasons unbeknownst to me. I feel physically drawn to him.
That is even more confusing, as Erik's physical appearance is not pleasing in any way, and yet, it is still mine. Erik is solid and dependable, unruly and capricious, and yet utterly and completely mine. I belong to him and he belongs to me. To share such a level of intimacy with someone—no wonder I was blushing!
Erik reaches and captures a kiss before saying abruptly, "No one is out there. No one at all."
He leans down and picks up the paper that had fallen from my hands to the floor. I show him the article. "What does this say?"
His face changes as he reads it, from anger, to absolute sorrow, back to complete rage. He begins to laugh hysterically.
Here it is again. The violent changing of moods, which always seems to be my fault.
"You would not dare!" he cries. He looks at me with flaming eyes. "You knew. You knew. You had to! Why did you hide this from me?"
"I didn't hide it!" I argue, stepping away. "I don't know what it means! That's why I was asking you! I kept forgetting—"
He grabs my shoulders. "Foolish child! You have no idea! You don't know what you've—"
He takes a deep, shuddering breath and breaks off, leaving the room. I stand still for a moment, terrified and teetering, and then follow him into the main room. He has his mask on.
"Don't go!" I plead.
He comes and kisses me, and he feels possessive, demanding. I stiffen involuntarily, caught off-guard by his manner.
"Everything has changed." he gasps. "Back in your room. I must lock you in again!"
"No!" I say sharply, twisting away. His bony hand closes around my arm and I know that I am not getting away. "At least let me stay in the drawing room!"
My arm hurts. He still doesn't trust me, he still locks me up.
"You don't love me." I whisper, my eyes filling with tears.
He throws me into the room with a harsh cry and a second later he is over me, bringing me up carefully, kissing my lips. I kiss him back. I am drifting away… the least he can do is put me on my bed… Why can we not just be normal? Why is all this happening to me...?
He seems to read my mind as he lifts up my limp form and tucks me under the sheets. "I told you, it is not you I do not trust." he says in my ear. "Rest, my wife. I may be gone a long time—"
I kiss him again and again and I am crying and he is too.
"Stay here, Christine." he orders and he lets go of me with one last, lingering look.
I watch mournfully as my dark phantom opens the door and vanishes. All of that, to be over in under thirty seconds.
"Where else would I go?" I whisper.
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