Christine woke in confusion. She had no idea where she was. All she had was a music ringing in her ears. Music and a voice…
The night of music she had had made her speak her thoughts aloud in a lilting voice.
"I remember there was mist," she sang-spoke, "Swirling mist upon a vast, glassy lake. There were candles all around—" She stepped out of the room she'd been in, and saw the lake, and the candles. "—and on the lake there was a boat;" She saw a masked figure sitting at a huge organ. "And in the boat… there was a man!" She walked over to him, her curiosity growing.
"Who was that shape in the shadows?" she sang, "Whose is the face in the mask?" As she sang, she put her hand on the mask, and as she finished, she slid her fingertips underneath and pulled it off.
At first, nothing happened—the man continued to sit quietly, basking in her touch. Then he realized what she had done. His eyes filled with rage, and… something else. Anticipation, but not good. Anticipation of pain.
His hands flew upwards, one to strike her to the floor. "Damn you! You little prying Pandora!" he yelled, his voice ringing with fury and pain. "You little demon! This is what you wanted to see! Curse you! You little—"
Christine finally came to her senses, and, rising from the floor, caught his hand in hers before he could strike her down again. Then she put a hand on his right. The one that, even before he'd hit her with his left, had flown to his face to take the place of the mask. He shivered at her touch, frozen and speechless. He was still angry and frightened, like a cornered wild animal. "You don't need that," she said softly. She gently removed his hand from his face. His eyes welled up with tears that he had just enough pride yet not to shed. He closed them, partly to hide his tears, but mostly to protect himself from her scrutiny.
She looked. The whole right side of his face was hideously disfigured. It looked as though he had been burned, or hit many times, or both. The flesh was distorted, as though he had been shaped with clay that the sculptor had twisted abstractly. She was filled with compassion. "Look at me, Angel. I won't hurt you," she added gently.
His eyes opened slowly, as though he were bracing himself. "I'm not an angel," he whispered.
"Then who are you?" she asked.
He avoided the question, and her gaze. "Please," he said, his voice choked, "please let me get my mask."
"No," she said. "You don't need that."
"Don't need it?" His voice cracked on the last word. "Even my mother couldn't bear to look at me."
While he spoke, she'd continued to study his face. She gasped in horror.
He put a hand to his face in a quick, defensive motion that suggested that he'd done it many times before. "I'm sorry," he said thickly. "I'm so sorry."
She looked at him in astonishment. "That's not what I meant!" she exclaimed.
For a moment, curiosity overcame his apprehension. "Then what did you mean?"
"About your mother," she whispered, and now her voice was choked and her eyes were shining too brightly.
"Can you blame her?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, and her voice was intense with compassion. Then "How have you suffered!" she said, but it was not a question. "Dear God, how have you suffered!"
She raised one white hand and laid it on the right side of his face. He trembled under her touch, and she pulled her hand away quickly. "Oh, no! Have I hurt you?" she asked.
"N—no," he stammered. "It's just that—no one has ever touched me—there," he said, and the last word came out like a curse.
"Then it's past time," she murmured, and reaching up, she took his face in her hands and kissed his twisted cheek
This was what finally broke him down. He cried and cried, his pain still as fresh as the first time his mother had hit him for being a monster. To him, her tenderness was more intimate than even if she'd kissed him full on the mouth. He pulled her close to him and wept into her long brown curls.
Through his racking sobs, he said: "My true name is—I'm Erik."
She held him tightly and said, "I am Christine. And I am not afraid."