It has been a while, I know… but it's been hard writing these days, and I'm still looking for that ephemeral thing- a job. This is Part 2 of "All For Thee My Heart Is Yearning". I start out once again from Erik's viewpoint, then switch to Christine's and then I move to third person. It's not the best in the world, but I hate writing bridgeing chapters…. And I just can't bring myself to skip ahead.
To Nade-Naberrie, Mad Lizzy and The Lady Arianrod- Thanks so much for your continued reviews. It's kinda unbelievable to me that there are people out there who really really like what I write… it gives me hope that I might eventually sell my novel. Thanks again for the support and the reviews.
Warmest Regards
K.S.
All For Thee My Heart Is Yearning: Part 2
Erik:
I returned her, of course. She is now resting under the watchful eye of Madame Giry. I did not touch her. I couldn't, not even to take her hand and lead her from the boat. I delivered her to the ballet dormitories in appalled silence, for I could think of nothing to say that would sway her to forgive me. I delivered my letters as soon as I saw her to her destination. She may hate me, she may loath me, but I will not let that stand in the way of her success.
And now, I sit in the shadowed recesses of the roof, watching as the sun fades in the west, painting the sky with crimson and coral, fading to twilight blues and purples in the east. The stars will be out soon, and there is comfort in them- those scattered diamonds on the velvet of the night sky. And now, in the dark of the night, I can wonder about what might have been. What might have been had she not seen my face; what might have been if I'd not been foolish enough to take her to my home; what might have been… and then reality collapses upon me and I know that my life has been nothing but a series of what might have beens. Despair has been my constant companion, and, unlike Death, he is not known to wink.
I'll never know. I wanted so much to be normal- for once, to walk down the street and not have anyone turn about, or worse, begin to scream or summon the Surete. I was so certain…. So sure that she could look at me and love me. That if she could love me, then everything would end all right. Some childish fantasy- that if someone could look at me and not see the monster, then he would not exist. A sorry ploy to keep going on, lying to myself, looking for a way out of this hell I find myself in. And I believed in that fairy tale, as surely as she believed in her fairy tales from the lands of the Vikings. If only… if only she could see that- that I need her as much as she needed her Angel of Music. If I could somehow explain to her… that perhaps I needed an angel as much as she did… that she is my angel- my hope.
But who is to say that she will believe me?
The night is beautiful. It will be autumn soon- with its whirl of colors and the air crisp and bright. The leaves will fall and dance their minuet untill they hit the water of the Seine and drift along the current, borne away to where-ever the river wills them. And then will come winter. Bitter cold. "Now is the winter of our discontent…" Richard III. Such marvelous words, from a man who could create heroes and monsters that have stood the test of centuries. I'm so tired. Tired of thinking, tired of feeling, just plain tired! I want so much… I ache for the wanting of it all… for everything that I know now that I shall never have.
Christine:
He brought me back. After all those dreadful threats of keeping me forever, he brought me back to the Opera. I don't understand him! He never even touched me after I gave him back the mask, not even to help me out of the boat. He barely even said two words the whole of the journey back, only telling me to be careful, that the stairs were a bit slippery here and there. Then he turned me over to Madame Giry.
Oh, Madame Giry! Her face was very carefully devoid of any emotion upon seeing my dishevelment and the redness of my eyes. What she must have suspected! But she ushered me into her bedchamber and shut the door. I heard her voice, whispering, urgent, angry and accusing. And his, tired and… and hurt! I very nearly went out there, to defend him. What a mad thought- as if the Phantom of the Opera would need defending from a ballet rat… because even after last night, that is all I am. A ballet rat who turned into a diva overnight. I have no illusions that I won't go back to the chorus, at least for now. The next production, I may be moved up to a small singing role. But it will take me years to do again what I did last night.
Last night. Everything was perfect last night. And now- we are all paying for it this morning. I wish I had the courage to go out there and take his hands and tell him that it doesn't matter. But I don't. And I shall never see him again, I know that. For how could we go back to the comfortable routine of teacher and student after last night? We can't I know we can't, and I am driving myself insane trying to find a way in which we could. I want everything to be as it was! Is that so wrong, so childish a wish?
And even as I ask that of myself, I know it for the lie it is. If it weren't for that… that… face- I wouldn't want things to be as they were. I would welcome the fact that he is a man and no Angel, and with open arms. But now I don't know what to do and I don't know what I want. I just feel this overwhelming ache- I'm not even certain who I ought to feel sorrier for: myself, for letting my wild imagination get the better of me; or for him, because of what having that face must have cost him. And I can't even summon up the courage to open the door and to appologise. Does that make me a monster?
The Wisest Hour:
And so, two souls wandered, lost in the darkness of their own doubt. The Opera House, shrine to music and to magnificence, slept, like a great dozing cat in the center of Paris, oblivious to the plots and pageants that ravelled and unravelled, like so much spun sugar candy. The solitary figure stood on the roof till dawn glimmered on the edge of the eastern sky, still as a statue- heart battered, but still beating. Three o'clock in the morning had come and gone, and with it, had come that most precious and treacherous of notions, Hope. The wisest hour of the night had offered counsel, and he heard, in the wind and in the song of the stars, to not abandon Hope, for it had not abandoned him. And, resolved, he returned to his home five levels beneath the Opera House, to prepare himself to take the leap- he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Faint heart never won fair lady, and his heart, so starved of love- the giving and the receiving of love, could hold the empire of the world. Everything had been washed new in that hour of three o'clock, and he was ready.
She allowed herself to be cossetted and put to bed like a child, and like a child, she sang herself to sleep. That sweet old song that she had trusted even as she had trusted his voice. And she told herself as she drifted off, that things would turn out all right in the end, for she truly believed that. When she slept, she dreamed of him, chained and disheveled- his clothes in tatters, and his back criss-crossed with scars. She woke with a start and knew that she had to make things right between them. He was chained, down there in the dark, even if he did not realize it. The darkness bound him, as surely as those chains had. What light was there, in the darkness, that he did not have to make for himself? Perhaps, just perhaps, in her sleep-ridden mind, she realized that she was the light he so desperately craved.
A/N:
There it is... I hope you enjoyed and I've started working on the following chapters of All Through The Night... so there should be some more coming soon. If you need a fix, though read my other Phantom pieces- Fairy Tales and For What It's Worth... or go to and look up my original stories on there.
Thanks again
K.S.