Chapter 5:

Sforzando

The following day I couldn't stand leaving her for much more time. I originally planned to watch her sleep, but that wasn't going to happen, so I took a glass of wine and sat at my desk, fingering the watch that Christine found out about. She didn't even bother to take it back, so I could only say that it was mine now. The batteries don't even work, anyway.

I told Anne to convince her to speak to me, and tell her again that I loved her, and she looked at me strangely and smirked.

"I can't believe you." She shook her head and continued to wash the dishes from Christine's dinner.

"What more?" I asked. She disproved of almost everything I have ever done. Picking up a pen never seems fit in her eyes. I suppose because she practically runs the house when I'm away which has been a lot of times over the years, she feels needed to run me as well, or at least try to. I couldn't help but feel obliged to her, because if it wasn't for her, this house would never be cleaned, and the house might never have servants to begin with. I've known her ever since I came back to America... But that's a long story for another time.

"That was the wrong motive, Erik."

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"How do you know, Erik? You can't do that to her, especially at her age." She angrily dumped the dish into the soapy water. I blinked at her. "Unless you honestly love her. For such a dishonest man..." She didn't even bother to finish her sentence, and broodingly scrubbed. I ignored that last comment.

"I do love her! More than anything! How dare you speak to me like that, Anne. If I didn't love her, I would not have brought her here."

"If you loved her, you wouldn't have."

"She needed-"

"She needs help. She's a mess."

"She is fine! You should have seen her during our lesson! She hasn't been that filled with expression in at least a year!" It was a terrible lie.

"Yes, but did you see her after you walked out? This isn't a doll you're playing with, Erik. Give her back as soon as possible, or she might turn into just that-- a doll."

"You know nothing."

"Give her back!" She barked suddenly, trying to be threatening as an older woman can with a dish towel.

"I CAN'T" I didn't mean to scream. Remember what I told you about those words escaping? Yes? Perfect.

"And why not?"

"Because she means everything..." I sighed, not believing I actually said those words aloud. Anne has that effect on people, just like I have a sort of built-in feature that makes normal people want to run away on instinct. It's all natural... the way of life.

She backed off, her eyes widened, and the dish towel stopped moving. "This is not just an entertainment for you, is it?"

"How dare you think so low of me!" I barked back and stalked out of the room, "And do what I told you to, Anne!" I called back after slamming the door.

I don't even know why I tell Anne the things I do. If I can't write it down, why not tell the maid? She grows on me like Nadir did... in the same parasitic way, yet I keep her around. Only God knows why I do the things I do, for he is the master puppeteer, isn't he? The devil fights over the reins more often than not.

I waited for my darling Christine to come down the stairs. She obviously wasn't in a good mood for she ignored everything I did, and sneered whenever I spoke to her. Eventually I persuaded her to speak a few words, and she did so when I mentioned the idea of having a lesson. She lightened up with meeting Ayesha, even. Her entire expression turned surprised and purely enthused, yet not vice versa. Ayesha doesn't exactly take well to strangers. She simple glared at her, and then trotted out, as I warned Christine.

"And she's very rude." The way she said it made my heart flutter in joy because her sarcasm was back. I couldn't help but laugh with her instead of at her. She looked at me. It was obviously not normal for Erik to be laughing, so I ceased.

She wasn't exactly herself during the lesson, because she was thinking about something else. I could tell not the way she jut her chin out when I turned to speak with her, not the way she blushed when I forced her to pay attention, but she was thinking of something distant. Something I couldn't place my finger on, yet she was staring right at me. I didn't think too much of it. She wasn't in any position to take on the worst and most distinguishable.

She sang indulgently, though, which is a step up. Somehow she got very involved with the music after I explained the plot to one of the arias that she dryly sang beforehand. It was a love story of a duet which she didn't seem to enjoy. She grew increasingly uncomfortable and pale as the song drew on, and though I was very involved with the music, I couldn't help but realize the hand in my peripheral vision was becoming even more white and it began to shake from holding the music up.

At length I looked up to her, awfully worried that she might just faint from no apparent reason. It's just a song. Though I meant every word I sang with her, she didn't, which is fine for now... But she looked like she was going to be sick. I hate that nasty color on her. I've seen it way too much.

"Are you alright?" I asked suddenly, letting the last chord go.

"Yes, just feeling a little lightheaded... that's it." She waved it off, and dropped the music to her knees, wrinkling the photocopy.

She looked sort of angry and ill at the same time. If she was going to be sick, she was in no position to be angry... This is why Christine just makes no sense.

"I suppose we could resume tomorrow," I hedged. That didn't please her, so she ignored it.

"I think I'm going to read..." She sighed, and put the music back on the piano music stand.

"Wait, Christine!" I called after her as she stormed out, and she only paused by the doorway. I realized what I just made her do... and this is probably why she hates me so still... I forced my feelings to her and it takes so little to overwhelm my poor Christine... She didn't want it to end up like this... how could she ever know that the last person to take her in would love her so? "I didn't mean for you to feel so... uncomfortable..." I whispered apologetically. She didn't turn to look at me, I could see her thinking about it and then stomping to the library... the only room she's ever comfortable in besides her own.

What comes next is something I could never have intended, or predicted... or anything of the sort. It ruined all the bridges I've built with her so far, and burnt them down so that... I couldn't even speak to her anymore. Everything was ruined by one simple mistake.

It was almost dinner time that same day, and since she spent most of the day cooped up in the library, I really looked forward to seeing her lovely face a little less pale, and a little more light. I came in silently, startling her out of the seat she was crumpled up in with a Charles Dickens classic to the point she fell out, but I got there just in time before she reached the floor, a ribbon falling out of the book along with it. She looked at me directly and gave a modest little blush and helped herself up. "Thanks" She muttered, giving into her polite ways. She then began to flip through the page, skimming almost every section in the middle, turning forth and back..

"Christine, your dinner will be cold..."

"Hold on, I have to find the page..." She sighed, and kept turning the pages. I waited a few more seconds, thinking she was just holding me up on purpose. She really enjoyed pushing buttons when she could... which is like me in some ways. The childish longing to make someone snap just because it's hilarious never left.

"You have the rest of the night!" I exclaimed. She gave a sly smile as I dove for the book, yet she was faster for the first time, and she held it below her waist to find the page still, though I could tell she already found it because the bookmark was in place. She childishly fought with me, raising her arms up to get it out of my hold, and then... unfortunately, her arm was up right when I began to bend down...

And the next thing I felt was the cold air passing my face.

I would like to say here... that I'm not what you would consider handsome looking... Actually, when it came right down to it, I could have been handsome, perhaps, if God granted me the wholesome gift of looking alive. God doesn't work like that, I've learned. And I've been snidely considered "the living corpse" for the right reasons, and the wrong heart.

But on these matters... All I remember at this point was the way she looked down to the mask as it dropped, and she was in the awkward position such that I couldn't bend down quickly and fetch it off the ground without her seeing. And slowly... so very slowly, she looked up, and very quickly, her face twisted in absolute horror. Her shrill screaming will ring in my ears until the day I die.

Everything passed by too quickly that I really couldn't keep track of it. A mad rage, and unreasonable ranting, and followed by hatred of both of us right then and there. I don't think I've ever hated myself more than just now. I was so enraged, so angry at the world, at her, at me... She would never come to understand because she was human, she wasn't perfect, and she will never be perfect which made me love her more, and the more I loved her the more I hurt... The more I hurt, the worse that it became from her screams and her pleading, I couldn't control myself because she wouldn't. For the umpteenth time in my life, I lost it.

I found myself again amongst a messy library, shelves that have been knocked over, and books that have some pages torn out from the force of impact. For a bitter moment, I thought she had the chance to run, but no, she was across the room curled up tightly next to the wall, her hair in a complete disarray, and she was shaking. She hated me now. She truly hated me. The relationship that we had... whenever we had one, was ruined in a matter of seconds because of her damned stubbornness, and proneness to accidents... I ruined her view of me forever...

I was reduced to the worst tears I have ever shed... each one of them burned as the cold air passed by my bare face. I found it hard to breathe as my chest seemed to beat against the necessity.

"You wanted to see, didn't you? You damned prying Pandora, you wanted to see? Oh, mad Christine why did you want to see?" I asked her scornfully, for I never ceased to know her never-dying curiosity. She couldn't have simply stayed with the knowledge that even though I wore a mask, I wouldn't hurt her. It wasn't her fault that she looked up, that her hand just happened to have knocked it entirely off that easily while trying in vain to reach her book that now lay crumpled somewhere on this floor.

"I didn't..." It was partially the truth, at least. I'm sure she doesn't want to see it now. Who would? I had no such courage to look up at her, but through her voice it sounded that she was crying. The angel was crying....

"Know... know that it is a corpse that loves you... and adores you... and will never ever leave you!" I rose and fell in one brief aggravated moan. I gathered more words of how much I loved her... though sometimes words do no such justice to what I felt, what she meant... I told her she can't leave me... I would rather wilt over and die than let her go now, I no longer cared for what she wanted. She was mine...

She didn't like that very much because I heard her crying even more harshly, while whispering "No" repeatedly.

I went through more words of what could have been comfort if the circumstances took another waltz in the other direction. I assured her she was in no better hands than mine. My heart felt shattered because she's been stepping on it and I let her do it. I would feel this pain if it wasn't for her existence, and all she could do was moan my name. Why should she care now? Why isn't she running? She could leave!

"You must think I'm a monster now..." I breathed, horrified of that very word my mother used to me a long time ago. Her reaction wasn't very different, either. Why in the world could I have thought Christine would be so different?

"Why me?" She murmured.

Yes, why her? Her innocence, her purity, her voice, her face, her hair, her hands, her smile...her lovely tears, her screams, her personality, she's beautiful... she's as perfect as any human could have made to be. And it was I to have tried to save her from her own hell as I have been saved from mine because of her. I've never felt anything like I have during these years of watching her, I've never been so protective, so careful about one specific human being. She doesn't want to hear that... There again, she doesn't want to hear a lot of things. "Because I love you more than you could ever imagine... your voice... your everything... my angel."

I couldn't imagine what it must be like in her shoes, but I scarcely can. I was thoroughly upset with myself to have fallen so quickly, to have failed so completely. I could have handled it so differently, I could have said something beforehand, could have warned her what she was going to witness if anything like that does occur, and then maybe she would try harder to stay away. I could have done a lot of things differently, like not scaring her... I scared her half to death because I was yelling at her... and I made her touch it when she's stated before she doesn't enjoy touching weird textures... not to me, of course. Why would she? I know her so well, I could have planned for this instead of breaking down in front of her.

She murmured my name, and no matter how many times I hear her sadly say my name either out of pity or regret, it will never become old. It will never stop my heart from breaking.

"Show me... your face without fear..." She asked in the smallest voice possible. From my peripheral view, she held the mask, which was quite contradictory. She asked to see it now, and yet she held my mask as if it might shield her just in worst case scenario... Meaning she might become ill, and then what will I do? I'm surprised she didn't have anything else prepared... It was a cruel trick.

She began whispering "show me" repeatedly, and pleaded with me as I only dug my wretched face further into my hands. She was asking too much. I debated whether I would or not. Odds are she wasn't leaving... she'll have to see it eventually, and if she pales and runs away, I wouldn't blame her. I was kind of hoping for it, anyway. Just get it over with... let her leave and be done with this terrible thing. I wanted to retrieve my mask and be through. I looked up to her reluctantly after a few more of her pleas in order to do so, and her big bloodshot brown eyes looked at me, filled with tears and utmost regret. There was no disgust clearly written on her face, and if there was, it was well hidden. That wasn't what I was expecting. She didn't turn away, she didn't become pale, and she didn't become sick...

My God, she is the most perfect creature my eyes have ever laid eyes on, though she was crying, though she was upset with herself... I fell to her feet once more.

At length, she offered my mask back, and knelt down so we were literally face-to-face... and I bent my head so she didn't have to directly look. She did the most godly thing, she rested her hand on top of my head and just let it linger there... and she touched me... she touched me...

"Erik..." She began, "I didn't understand you at first... but I think, finally, I do in a way..." That was the greatest thing she could have said to me at that moment. It pulled at my heartstrings a little bit more, though despite what she has done, I reached for my mask and she handed it to me.

"Thank you," I whispered lightly as I carefully placed it back over my face. So she locked eyes with me one more time, wiping away a few more tears, and then it wasn't too long before she turned and ran, burying her face into her hands, and I heard her sob loudly on the way up as I briskly followed after, and she slammed the door to her room. I wasn't going to be seeing her for a while...

I went into the music room and locked the door behind me, falling against the door, tearing the mask off once more and hatefully stared at it, as if it might accidentally catch into flames and burn... How I wanted it to burn...

I found that I couldn't compose much longer, feeling denied of any dignity or inspiration to compose, or to play it out because it wasn't something that music could solve... only she could. I moved into the living room and sat down, and simply stared into the fire, trying to think of how my life could end up so terribly wrong.

If it mattered, I apologize for not updating sooner. Life has been hectic, messed up, and at times plain confusing. It still is. I once heard that God gave us snow to stop our hectic lives for a while, just to stop and ponder upon its beauty while life remained untouched if not for a day or so. Well, we just received about 3 1/2 feet of snow. Life isn't going anywhere for a very long time. School shall be non existent for the remaining week, so I hope to go over this chapter and post a new story this week as long as the power does not go out, and if it does, then I apologize for those that care for an even longer wait. Brighter side- I got a new story. Keep watch for it.

PLEASE REVIEW. REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW. DO IT. And thank you for reading... you have no idea what it means to me.

And, thanks again to one who wishes to remain anonymous for taking the time and giving me advice. It meant a lot and it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside when people like that help me out when everything and everyone else enjoys ignoring me. It's helped a lot, boosted my confidence, and hopefully I might successfully go through a chapter without making petty mistakes again.

Love to you all, and those suffering in this snowmageddon with me, best wishes.

~The Phantom's Flutist~