I am glad to see others are enjoying the story. I am such a romantic at heart, that the story even haunts me in my dreams. Today, after perfecting this next chapter, someone I'd not seen in awhile asked me if I was in love…alas I am single so this would have come as some surprise even to me…all I could do was smile…I knew the blush she referred to…the source was this story. If it pleases but a few (myself included) it will have its' intended affect. Thank you for following along on this journey with me.
Captain Oblivious: It is ironic, in your review you had confused yourself, but I had been following your train of thought perfectly! I too think rather abstractly. Erik would be pleased with us both; he was an "odd-thinker" himself I'd imagine.
Orli's babe: Thank you for your encouraging words. I am but a vessel for the story now, it demands I update it! I hope you enjoy this next chapter…it gave me the tingles writing it.
Glitter Queen of The Ice Show: Thank you, I'd hoped you'd approve. Raoul is a man, a very handsome, worthy man….although perhaps not man enough for our Christine! He may be better suited for someone else…..
Chapter 15 Absolution in the perfect placeIt was Christine who first stirred. Her face warm against Erik's chest. He radiated such heat even through his shirt and vest. She listened to the gentle rhythm of his breathing, and felt the comfort of his arms around her. She didn't want to disturb him from the sleep that had surely descended upon him. To her he felt relaxed, muscles soft and supple rather than their normal rigid and tense state. The danger surely past now, or she would not have found him sleeping.
Christine had never seen him sleeping, or at complete rest for that matter. She'd never dared look at his face without his gaze fixed upon her. How she longed to see his eyes, and tenderly touch his face. Moving the heavy cloak that covered her, she shivered at the cool dampness of the air. Erik didn't move.
Christine, one slow movement at a time, slid from under Erik's arms laying them on his chest. He stirred only briefly before the steady rhythm of his breathing returned.
Christine felt her way along the smooth surface of the wall until she found the wood spindle of the chair that rested next to the table. Trying to be as quiet as she could, she searched the table with her hand, finding the uneaten biscuits, the knife, and the opened jar of preserves. Reaching further back, she found the candlestick and next to it the small tin that contained the matches she had observed Erik use earlier. Ever so carefully, she slipped the lid from the container and pulled a match from the cylinder and struck it on the gravelly side of the lid. The smell of sulfur and the blue-turned orange flame flickered to life.
In this brief illumination Christine glanced over her shoulder to see if Erik had stirred. Assured that he was still heavy in his slumber, Christine reached over and let the flame join with the candlewick. The room began to glow in a bath of soft amber light. The room's odd round shape provided no corners for darkness to rest. A golden bubble enveloped them.
Moving slowly, she returned to Erik and knelt down at his side. Curiously she studied the strong outline of his jaw, rugged and handsome. With his face half turned she could barely see his mask. His lashes were long and black, and slight lines traveled from the corners of his eye. His brow was not furrowed but relaxed, revealing a smooth forehead that traveled up to his hairline. How perfectly his black hair blended with his skin. His ear cupped just slightly, an advantage Christine thought for one who loved music as he did.
Her face traveled down his cheekbone strong and proud. She noted the tiny scars faint now from years of healing, but still there to the observant eye, no doubt from the horrors he had known as a child. At last she looked at his lips, slightly parted to allow his breath to rush in and out of his lungs.
No longer able to manage wandering his face with just her eyes, she reached out and gently stroked his lower lip with her forefinger. That made him purse his lips and pull them in to rewet them. She smiled to herself in her boldness that she had tickled him so.
She moved back just a bit to take in Erik the man, lying there with his long legs extended in front of him, his broad shoulders leaning against the wall, arms folded neatly at his waist. He appeared a gentleman at leisure. Had he been born with no flaws, likely he would have been a man who tormented girls with his good looks, and perfect manners, as well as his melodious song. Most likely having never noticed such a small chorus girl as herself.
As he sat there now before her, she considered the magnitude of the efforts that he had gone to in order to guard her and guide her. To encourage and teach her, to ultimately love her. She sat back on her knees and fully appreciated him, thanking God that they were finally together, and for revealing to her the angel of music…..and sending her Erik the man.
Christine moved quietly back to Erik's side, nestling beneath the warmth of his cloak. Resting her head on Erik's chest, she didn't notice that his breathing had changed somewhat.
As soon as Christine stopped moving, Erik's eyes flicked open. Why had she been studying him so? Was she afraid now, was she in horror in the finality of her decision. Did she see Erik the monster? His mind began to race as he recalled the last few moments since Christine had left his side. He was clever enough not to have allowed her to notice that he had been staring at her through the small slits that parted his upper lids from his lower.
Erik tried to assure himself that had she felt any of those things she would have moved to the other side of the room, surely not been willing to return to the comfort of his embrace. Erik sat a long while not knowing if she had fallen asleep again, or if he dared move and disturb her.
He heard her draw in a long breath, and perhaps a soft yawn. Carefully, he lifted the cloak that had been draped over her. Looking down he felt Christine's head rise and he looked into those beautiful eyes. How they glistened in the soft glow of the candlelight. He smiled at her and reached down to kiss her on the forehead, drawing his arms tightly around her waist and lifting her up beside him.
Christine now sat with her head at his shoulder looking up into his eyes. She smiled back a comforted smile of reassurance that she was right where she wanted to be. The two sat just gazing into one another's eyes and studying the expressions on each other's faces.
Erik broke the silence first "Christine, you stirred long enough to light the candle, how then is it that I found you yet again in my arms…or perhaps the candle lit itself?"
Christine half giggled and put her head on Erik's shoulder, drawing even closer to him. Erik continued "the present danger is past now, but we must always be prepared lest they return here. Having found nothing they will continue to search, and we cannot stay in this place forever, it has little comfort to offer us."
Christine would have been content to stay there forever with Erik at her side. "Erik?" Christine started, "I would stay with you in the loft of a horse barn or the muddy depths of a moor, it doesn't matter to me as long as we are together." Erik loved hearing her speak those words to HIM, to only him. She was his, in all the ways that mattered most, and that was enough for him
"Christine, I must tell you that it both fills my heart with wonder and my mind with despair to hear you speak of this. A young woman must have hopes and dreams to have a family, a home to share." Erik felt at once sorry that he had thrown yet another seed of doubt into the room.
Without hesitation, Christine looked at Erik smiling sweetly, glancing first down and then moving closer to him, she turned her face up to his and tenderly kissed his lips. Backing away just far enough to look Erik in the eyes, she fixed her gaze on him with all the passion she felt inside of her "we shall have a family Erik, and a home is wherever the family is, wherever love lives."
Erik was undone. He pulled Christine up into his arms and began to kiss her passionately. Christine pulled her arms from his chest and flung them feverishly around his neck eagerly meeting his embrace. The kiss was one of deep passion and unexpressed yearnings, how quickly it warmed them both.
Erik suddenly pulled away, pushing Christine to the end of the length of his arms. "No" he breathed, turning his head from her view and pulling his knees up to his chest. Christine sat on the edge of his cloak not knowing why he turned from her.
"Erik? Have I done something wrong?" She said nervously biting her lower lip, still wet from the kiss they shared.
"No, Christine, you've done nothing wrong, in fact you are all that I'd ever dreamed of. Your beauty and innocence reach to the depths of my soul, filling it with joy." He turned to face her, his face shining with tears that were flowing down it.
Christine looked worried and she could feel the emotion swelling in her throat. "Erik, I thought that you loved me, wanted me here beside you…to share one love…one lifetime?" She said more as a statement and less as a question. Her head hung low now. "Your music stirred something in me that I never knew existed. A feeling that explained the blush on the face of nearly every bride I've ever seen."
Erik turned to look at her. Christine continued, "I do not wish to displease you. I was following my heart, listening to the sounds of your music in my head…." Erik leaned forward and lifted her chin.
"Christine what you are feeling, you no doubt know that I am feeling too. My only wish is one of honor, and I would never do anything that would find you in a situation of question. It is because of this that I stopped before your voice inside my head led me beyond recall."
Christine looked up at Erik, sensing for the first time he was speaking honestly and frankly to her as a woman, not his muse, not his pupil, but as a woman. Christine stared at him, not knowing quite how to respond.
"Christine, I must ask you something, and I do not need an answer this night, or the next, if it takes you some time to consider it, as it is a most serious question." Erik slipped from the ground and drew a knee beneath him and put one foot on the floor in a half-kneeling position. He pulled Christine to him, and she too was on her knees. Staring deeply into each other's eyes, Christine's eyes began to dance. A radiant glow overtook her face as though she was smiling from the inside and it could not be contained and overflowed.
Erik reached down into his pocket, pulling from it a small bit of wrapped fabric. Fumbling with the ties that secured it, he reached in and pulled out a ring. Christine's eyes grew wide as she took in the beauty of the stone that lie in the center of the ring. It wouldn't have mattered to her if the stone had been, well, just a stone, it was the band that held it's meaning….a golden, never-ending circle of trust and love.
Erik looked back from the ring and at Christine. She was trembling now, and not from the cold, but from sheer anticipation. Erik smiled at her noting her eagerness, and that reassured him, giving him courage to proceed.
Erik began "So many years ago your father left this earth, leaving against his will to ascend to heaven to be with his father before him. In his wisdom he prayed for one who would love and protect his only daughter, to guide her and guard her. His passions were few, you, his precious daughter, and his music. He prayed that one day she would meet a man that would love her and defend her, and bring her the happiness he could no longer provide for her. He wished only that she could find the happiness that he had found in the love he had for her mother before she died. He carried that wish with him to his grave, sending the prayer out into the heavens." Erick paused, searching Christine's face, taking her hands into his.
"That first night you came to the Opera House, I heard you crying in the darkness. I sensed your loneliness, and felt it too. I stayed by your side, teaching you the craft that your father loved so very much, learning from you what true beauty of spirit really was. I had never gazed upon a purer soul than yours. Over the years you grew and learned more than I had ever imagined. The music had started out as a means to distract you from your despair, but had become a gift of its own, and I watched as it became part of you, filling you with its sweet reward. It was then that I gazed on you as a woman…a woman in need of a suitable husband, one who would be kind and true….but I was saddened to think that one day I would have to let you go. I had come to love you, cherish you. When Raoul appeared as a suitor he frightened me."
Erik looked down from his gaze, fully knowing he was admitting to her his obvious jealousy. "Not because I thought he would do you harm, but because I knew he could offer you all of the worldly comforts that I could not. As my fear grew, the more desperate my need to hold onto you became. Raoul was not a bad man, he had simply become my enemy for he was trying to claim you, and I felt I could not let you go. In these pursuits I thought I had lost you forever…" Erik's voice cracked, and he fought the urge to stop.
"I thought you were gone to live your life happily with Raoul and that I would be alone once more. I could not bear to think of life in this place without you. I wrote Don Juan in hopes of snaring you, but secretly wishing you would see through it and know my real intentions, and come with me of your own free will. For something that is captured and held prisoner cannot be beheld."
Erik had flashes of his own past, being caged like an animal against his will…but his spirit never died, it yearned to be free. Erik closed his eyes and continued. "It was almost my undoing when I realized you had chosen to go with me, to follow me into the depths of this world, not really knowing what life you were choosing."
Christine looked pleadingly at Erik, embarrassed by all she was hearing. Erik looked up again, into Christine's eyes, "you were an answer to my fervent prayer….to have one to love and to hold, to feel love in return…" Erik could contain his tears no longer. He sobbed once and raised his hand to cover his face.
Christine lifted his chin with her hands, gently running her hands over the smooth exterior of his mask. She surveyed the outline of it and carefully let her fingers caress the edges of it. "Erik?" She said to him, looking him once again in the eye, "I need to see you, all of you…in a moment such as this, I need you to know that I love all of you, not just what my eyes now behold."
Erik furrowed his brow not understanding what she meant at first. Christine gently pulled at the edge of the mask, and Erik instinctively reached out to grab her wrist to stop her. She hesitated and reached out her hand gently entwining her fingers with his. She brought her hand to her shoulder and left Erik's hand to rest there. She once again reached up and tugged at the side of the mask until it loosened and was freed from its place.
Christine laid it gently on the folds of her dress and turned back to Erik. She freely ran her hands across the marred flesh, tracing the jaw and the brow.
Erik was overwhelmed at the contact of flesh against his hideous face. Never had anyone so freely touched him, the worst part of him. He shuddered but could not take his eyes off of Christine.
She reached out and gently kissed his lips. "Go on" she said smiling up at him.
Erik swallowed hard, feeling so exposed that his breath could barely escape his lungs. Christine's gaze never faltered, she never glanced away, she was looking at him, as a man, nothing more, nothing less.
"Christine" Erik began "the heavens have truly conspired to bring us together against all odds. I cannot believe in my heart that this would have happened except as the answer to long unanswered prayers…you were an answer to my prayer…and I can only hope that your father would accept me as an answer to his." The last words catching in his throat.
Christine looked deeply into Erik's eyes, and were met with all the intensity she knew belonged to her.
"Christine….would you share eternity with me, to share one love, one lifetime…..would you be my wife?" With that Erik gasped, knowing in that moment he had bared his soul to her as he had no other, and his very existence rested in her reply.
Christine, tears streaming down her face, her eyes darting around every inch of his, smiled widely. Without any doubt or reservation to the core of her being reached out and slipped her arms under Erik's, pulling him close to her.
Erik's heart leapt for joy, but did so with one final reservation. "Erik, my love, you need to know that there were not two prayers but three that filled the stars this night….for I had been praying for God to send you to me…" her eyes overflowing with tears of joy. "Erik, I'd wish for nothing more than to be with you for the rest of my days, and God willing, into eternity."
The two embraced in a passionate kiss. Their tears of joy mingling as their faces touched. They stopped to look at each other and smile before embracing once more. Erik reached down slipping the ring onto Christine's finger, wrapping his hand around hers and squeezing it tightly to ensure it's home was secure.
The pair got to their feet, each wiping the other's tears from their face, smiling as neither had smiled before. Christine turned away straightening her dress, and pushing back the brown curls that had fallen into her face. Wiping under each eye and running a finger below her jaw for good measure. She turned to Erik wanting to embrace him for all he was now, her love.
She moved toward Erik, but he grasped both of her hands in his, drawing her near to him. "Christine, a proper wedding, by all measures is impractical now. We would have much to overcome before anyone would be able to accept this choice, if ever they would."
"Erik, I've no need of this formality, as I believe we have already stated our love for each other, no words will make that more real, I.."
Erik interrupted her. "Christine, my feelings of passion for you are most evident, and long I have waited for you to feel the same. I have no intentions of making you a dishonored woman this night, you are worth far more than my fleshly desires."
"Erik, I …" "Christine, I love you, but without a blessing I shall not take you as my wife, it would be wrong in man's eyes, and in God's. Your father would be most displeased, and disappointed in us both."
Christine hung her head realizing that the words Erik spoke were true. She stared at the ground looking back and forth. "But how, ….who,… where would we be able to find.." Christine stopped as she knew her questions were fruitless. She felt guilty for even asking him.
"I have an idea, if you are willing to come with me?" Erik said looking at Christine.
"I will follow you anywhere…to the very ends of the earth if you'd ask it of me," she replied, an excited timber in her voice.
With that Erik moved the water pitcher and basin from the table and slid it across the room. He stood upon it and reached his arms above his head. Straining with his arms he began to slowly move the large slab of rock that covered the hole in the ceiling.
Christine looked up in amazement as she saw that it led to yet another cavern, but this one with a bit more light, but where did it come from? Erik first peeked his head through it looking carefully about to be certain that there were none there. He knew the tunnel could only be reached from the outside, but was careful none-the-less. Convinced that it was clear, he hoisted himself through the opening. Christine could hear his faint footsteps as he ventured further. She dared not call after him. He was gone only a few minutes before he returned and peered down at Christine. "It should be alright for us to go this way" Erik said. "Come, I'll lift you if you reach your arms up to me."
Christine looked up at him, and he seemed to be a world away. "May I have but a moment to collect my things?" she asked.
"We will return here as I am sure it is safe, and we will not be disturbed further this night."
"Erik, can you give me but a moment? There is something that I must do."
Erik looked down a bit confused but agreed to her request. Christine rushed over to her bag and from it pulled the ivory gown she had looked at early in the evening. She knew not if it was suitable, but it was beautiful and she wished only to look the part No beading, no ruffles, just a smooth expanse of delicate fabric that fluttered over her head and down onto her shoulders. She moved back and slipped once more into her cloak. She went to the table and looked up but saw no one. "Erik?"
"Yes?" came his response as he moved back into view. "I am ready" Christine replied. She went to the candle and snuffed it out with her fingers. Moving back to the table she climbed it, a little unsettled by the wobbly legs, she stretched out her arms toward the vast area above. Erik reached down and grasped both of her arms and hoisted her through the hole. He carefully stood her to one side and pushed the stone slab back to its resting place.
"Come…I know the way." Erik took Christine by the hand and led her up the winding path of the cavern. This tunnel was smaller than others and Erik had to crouch in many places in order to pass through. He held Christine's hand tightly as they wound their way up and up and up, turning several times before she saw the first glimmer of faint moonlight. It was still night? Christine thought. Or had night passed into day and into night again. She didn't know, and wasn't sure that it even mattered.
She began to smell the sweet essence of burning wood, a fragrant scent of pine, or balsam. The moon's glow grew brighter, piercing the darkness of their world. As they reached the opening to the cave, they crouched even further, and she heard Erik push yet another stone on it's side. He climbed out first and reached back in pulling Christine up to a sitting position on the firm ground. The chill of the night air rose from both of their mouths as their breath mingled with the frosty air.
Christine looked around and could see nothing but a massive canopy of trees and the hint of softly falling snow. It was a beautiful night filled with stuff of storybooks she thought to herself.
Erik rose to his feet, and held out his hand for Christine. She put her hand in his and rose to her feet as well. "Christine this is a place where we can receive the blessing that we desire, for if none object here, we shall be together before the sun rises."
Christine felt her heart thumping in her chest as she followed Erik through the trees, the snow softly crunching beneath her feet. At last they were in a clearing, and at once she realized what Erik had been talking about. She wrapped her arms around him, and he put his cloak around her. The pair walked into the field, steps in rhythm, and hearts soaring. "This is the perfect place." Christine said smiling up at Erik. "Perfect."