Disclaimer: I do not own Phantom of the Opera, or Corpse Bride. I'd love it if I did, but I don't. So there.

Moonjava: I am glad you like it. Do you feel anything else about it at all? Anything at all?

Willow Rose 3: Wow, you're enthusiastic! I've never had someone be so desperate for more that they did two posts in two days begging for it! Well, here you are. And there is Erik in this episode! Rejoice, for the Chosen One shall rise! Not that there's going to be anything like that in this, of course. Yeah; it's gonna be neat!

MetalMyersJason: How could I have killed Erik? Quite easily, actually. I wrote that he had a sword wound and…oh, wait, I see what you mean. Well, for this story to work someone had to actually be dead, otherwise there's not much point, and since Erik was often described as a 'living corpse' and this thing is called 'Corpse Groom', albeit it in French, I thought it might as well be him. And he shows up in this chappy, so don't release the demons, please! I like my face! It's not very pretty, but it's MIIIIIIIIINE!

SimplyElymas: Yeah, I wanted Meg to not just be a cute little dancer. So she'll know some stuff other people don't that will become quite important in later chapters. Nadir will soon show up – though, like I said, not where you expect him. I like fluff as well – though not E/R, that I agree – it makes me feel so warm and fuzzy!

Mominator124: Really? That's funny. I mean, I'm flattered that you think that, but I must confess I've never actually read Susan Kay's book. I have the basic idea of what happens in it, of course, but I haven't read it. SHOCK! HORROR! Ah, poor Erik. I'm really torturing him in this. Well sort of; you can't torture someone much when they're dead. Or can you? MOO HA HA HA! Sorry. Just thinking of all the things that will happen. No problem about the Corpse Bride stuff. Now you will be able to appreciate my story more. And that's always excellent.

Take heart, people! There is Erik in this chapter! And also, an introduction to my version of Carlotta. Enjoy her musings over croissants and hot chocolate.

Late risers

Carlotta blew on her chocolate to cool it, and then took a deep draught from her cup. The rich, hot, sweet but at the same time slightly bitter liquid flowed over her tongue, filling her mouth with the wonderful flavour. Sighing internally with delight, she took a bite of her current croissant, and then another sip of chocolate, and felt the pastry melt upon her tongue. Breakfast late in the morning, with all these delicious treats, in the beautiful breakfast room, sometimes made up for this foreign land, although not quite. Though she had drunk chocolate at home, eating croissants alongside it was a new luxury, and even better than back in Spain. It was one of the few things she liked about her new life in France.

It had been two and a half months since she had arrived in France, in Marseilles; and that had been time enough for her to think of all the reasons why she hated this country. She hated the cold, the wet, the damp, the snow; the way some types of rain never truly rained but instead drizzled in your face and got into your garments and soaked through to your skin no matter what you did, which somehow was worse and more irritating than a full out shower. She hated the cold, bare landscape, when you could look out of the window and see nothing but varying shades of depressing grey or white as far as the eye could span. She hated the food; though in time she had grown accustomed to it she mourned the memory of customary dishes served at home, and simply could not bring herself to touch some items on her plate, especially after that unfortunate incident with the oysters. She hated the dull evenings when you had to stay inside, because it was simply too dark to do anything outside; and she hated the excessive amounts of clothes she had to wear in order to stay warm. In Cádiz they wore as many clothes in the winter as the people did here in the summer; and she hated the way the cold had seeped into her bones, giving her chills and coughs and colds for the first month she had been here.

She hated the way she was adopting a French accent while hardly aware of it; and often emphasised her own natural one, simply so that she would not forget it as easily as that. She hated the way everyone, for a while at least, at the beginning of her stay here, had spoken to her slowly and condescendingly - as if I didn't have the faintest clue what they were talking about! - and as if she didn't understand a word of French, when she understood the damned language better than they understood Spanish, she warranted.

She hated having to be here in the first place. She hated having to leave warm, sunny Spain, and her house in the countryside around Cádiz, and her family…

And she certainly hated the consequential feelings her time in France had caused concerning her family.

Mi familia…

It wasn't even as if she liked them very much, in practice at least. Oh, she was certainly fond of Madré, even if her attention was now mainly taken up with little Pedro and Juan - the bueno heirs - and Padré was fine as long as he wasn't around too much, and provided her with ample sheet music and made sure the instruments were kept in tune and she had new dresses when she needed them. Katherine was really quite sweet; but she was much too good for Carlotta's own liking, never doing or saying a thing wrong; and she was too young to be any fun, really. And Rocío – the chit! - was, to put it mildly, a little squirt, never to be happy unless she was teasing or irritating somebody; namely her, since she was the person who put up with it the least before erupting into shouting and blows, and then she ran to Padré's side and told tales on her – of course she had always been his favourite, even being given their abuela's lovely name – and she would be the one to be reprimanded and scolded, while Rocío purred like a satisfied cat, grinning at her from behind Madré or Padré, gloating in her position as the favoured daughter. Of all the things she believed she would miss when she left her homeland, she had never even considered that her brattish, spoilt, stupida hermana menor would be among them.

But now sometimes she felt she would do anything to be allowed to go home again, back to Cádiz; go home to help Katherine practise her catechism, and play hide and seek with Pedro in the garden; play the piano in the evening and sing loudly enough to get everyone protesting, instead of just grinning politely and painfully as they did here; even to endure Rocío's teasing about her hair and her need for a corset to keep control of her bosom and stomach, the latter despite all Madré's predictions having still retained a layer of puppy fat, no matter what she did; though her absconding from eating much of the food put before her had helped to diminish the aforesaid fat a great deal, she had to admit.

But of course she had agreed to come here in the first place; and there was no backing out of a bargain. If she had known what she was letting herself in for she would never have come, but that could not be helped now. She had made her bed, and she must sleep in it. Or whatever the saying was here.

All the same, she couldn't help thinking of home, in the long afternoons of playing in the music room or wandering around the beautiful but lonely mansion; thinking of her own house in the south; certainly smaller but definitely warmer, both in temperature and in atmosphere. It was January now; in only a month or so it would be Katherine's tenth birthday, and soon after that she would take her First Communion…and she wouldn't be there. If Madré's plan succeeded she wouldn't be there for Pedro or Juan's First Communions either. She wouldn't be there for one of the most important days in her younger siblings' lives, and there was nothing she could do about it. She had, after all, agreed to it.

She supposed it was the boredom that was making her think like this. After all, being shut up in various houses with no one her own age to talk to was beginning to tell on her, antisocial though she was – she much preferred practicing her music or reading to talking. But since she was rather less fluent in reading French than understanding it and she had typically forgotten to bring many of her own books with her – she had sent a letter to Madré saying she was well and asking her to send her favourites, but she hadn't received a reply as of yet – books were out of the question, and you could only do so much practice before you got tired of that as well. She might well die of cold if she went outside too much, and there really was nothing else to do, unless she counted the embroidery she had found tucked into one of her travelling cases, evidently by her mother. She, however, did not count that. She would never be that bored.

Of course, she had not been completely alone, or without people her own age. She had been forced into tight corsets and dragged to various balls, and flung into the paths of various Comtes or Counts or Vicomtes, some much older than her, many her age, one younger than her, only just sixteen to her eighteen years, and only dancing because it was his birthday and the ball was held in his honour – she suspected that that last partner was because her guardians were becoming slightly desperate. And they had every right to be. After all, the reason she had been brought to this wretched country in the first place was so that she would gain a husband; and so far the only thing she had gained was various colds and a relatively mild, though certainly unpleasant, case of food poisoning when compelled to eat those oysters. She rather had the feeling her cherie relatives, as the people here would put it, were beginning to despair of ever finding her a suitable mate.

On the whole, Carlotta was not sorry. From what she had seen of French society and the way various males had looked over her as if she were a horse to be bought or sold, she was much better off being out of the marriage game, and out of marrying into the French aristocracy in general. It seemed to her that most French men thought it acceptable to obtain a rich wife and then sleep with as many other women as possible. Such a practise she would hardly have believed until she came to this degenerate country; but then France was very different from Spain. Of course the Comtes' Philippe the Elder and Younger were always very respectful to her; and she enjoyed talking to Vicomte Raoul – he was honest enough to wince at her singing, and she was drawn to him because of it, in a strange way. If circumstances had been different she might have allowed herself to become attracted to him; but from the first time she had met him she had been made to understand that he was betrothed, and so off limits. She didn't really mind. She doubted he would have been attracted to her – so few other men were, with her blunt manner and her loud voice.

Earlier, in previous days, he often came into the music room to hear her playing before her breakfast, for some reason she could not fathom at first – so few people sought her out to hear her music, though they applauded it at the time – but as time went on she came to understand that he came for her company rather than her music. He too was bored, cooped up in this house, waiting for his fiancée to arrive; and now that she had arrived he had abandoned their by now routine to go out walking with her instead. But she did not begrudge him for her; nor Christine. To tell the truth, she was rather glad for her own reasons that Mademoiselle Daaé and Mademoiselle Giry had come to the mansion; at least now she would have some people to talk to who were the same gender and age as her, and didn't look as if they were about to burst into tears whenever you so much as glanced the wrong way at them, as Celandine did.

And while we are on the subject…

Louis had at that moment walked into the room, his face set in a scowl. He checked at the sight of her, and made a hurried bow.

"Pardon, cousin. I didn't think you would be up so late."

"Buenas dias, mi primo. ¿Que tal?" she replied blandly, secretly gleeful at the annoyed look that flashed across his stupid face as she spoke. "I have been up since half past seven, actually; but we are not all so late risers as you."

Louis forced a smile, and sat down opposite her, not meeting her gaze. Carlotta smiled softly into her chocolate. Louis hated it when she spoke Spanish; he had never bothered to learn the language even when he was young, and consequently was eternally suspicious that she was insulting him without him knowing it; never mind the fact that he should at least be able by now to tell when she was saying 'Good day, my cousin. How are you?'. He certainly wouldn't put it past me. And she wouldn't put it past herself either. She might be a relative fish out of water in French high society; but she still knew how to be one of the most irritating girls in the world. To special people, of course.

She watched over the rim of her cup as he now loaded his plate with brioche and croissants, and began to slather the latter in butter. She was barely able to suppress a shudder, and looked quickly away, so that she wouldn't have to watch him stuff a buttered croissant into his mouth, watch him chew it, watch the crumbs and butter stick disgustingly in his moustache. It was enough to put her right off enjoying her chocolate. Louis, to her at least, never looked more unattractive than when he was eating. Yet some women – many in fact – she knew, found him incredibly attractive; and seductive, or so it would seem by the amount of females he was rumoured to have bedded. I know they say love is blind, but they must be suffering a complete sensory depravation.

Louis was yet another of the things she hated about France; the country would never be able to redeem itself in her eyes for turning out him and men like him. She was profoundly glad that they were kin only by Louis's sister's marriage to one of her cousins. If she had actually had any relation to him in blood, she probably would have killed herself by now, rather than live with the mortification of it. He was odious in every way to her; not least because of his lechery. She could still remember the humiliation she had suffered at his hands when he had offered to escort her to a ball and she, though reluctant, had accepted, out of politeness and an attempt to get on with him. Little had she known the real reason behind his offer; for a joke and seemingly to get back at her for giving him a headache by deliberately singing too loudly the day before, he had made sure that she had spent the whole night dancing with many of his more lecherous and not always single comrades; as if she were fine material for some sort of mistress.

The bastardo, she thought, as she sipped her chocolate quietly, resolutely not looking at her breakfast partner. That night had been an attempt at a severe blow to her pride; and while she would readily admit thatshe was certainly more wilful and aloof than other girls, she was not about to have it broken by a lecherous, adulterous, greasy Comte of a cousin.

"Never let them break your pride. Remember, sometimes it will be all you have left to you. They can do what they can, but if you remain tall and proud you will never be defeated. So never let them break it, mi hija." That was what Madré had said, the last time they had seen each other, as her bit of parting advice. And she knew it was good advice. Her mother, for example, had never been broken. From the beginning she and Padré had been equal in the marriage, and shared power in the businesses he held, because of her strength and independence. If Madré told her such a thing, she was not stubborn enough not to listen to it.

She raised her cup to her lips. Here's to you, Madré, she thought, as she tossed off the last of the chocolate.

As she set the cup downshe happened to look out of the window by the table; and her gaze was caught and held by what she saw outside. Three figures were making their way across one of the lawns, and even from this far away she could make out the distinctive golden-brown hair of the Vicomte. She could not make out the others, but she guessed – by the amounts of furs wrapped around them, as well as the skirts – that Raoul escorted two ladies. And she didn't think they were his sisters – Celandine spent most of her time sewing or reading, and Genevieve was still recovering from a cold she had had the week before.

For a moment she sat considering; then suddenly she stood up, pushing her plate away, and turned to make her way towards the door. Louis looked up from buttering another croissant.

"Where are you going, cousin?" he asked.

"Out," she replied, with pointed briefness.

The man raised one slanting eyebrow. "I can see that, Carlotta; out where?"

"Outside."

He didn't say anything else; but his expression said, very plainly, What, you?

Yes, me, she thought primly, as she turned away without another word, and walked to the door.

Now, if only she could remember where she had put the furs prima Diane had bought her in Marseilles…

From the window he watched the young Spaniard, well wrapped up in furs to protect her Southern skin from the nose-reddening cold, tramping out across the crisp white snow; following in the footsteps of the other three.

"What is it?" Genevieve asked, as she sat by the fire – although she had gotten over her cold, she still preferred to have a roaring fire in the room, for the moment at least.

"Carlotta's out in the grounds."

She looked up from her book, the surprise evident on her face. "Carlotta? Are you sure?"

Philippe chuckled as he looked away from the window. "Is that so surprising?"

"Well, you know she hasn't been outside for once since that one time you showed her around the grounds. I was beginning to think she wouldn't set a foot beyond the doors until the thaw."

"Can you blame her? I can't; I can barely stand the temperature sometimes, and I'm not even from Spain. Heavens knows what it's like for her." He cast another glance out of the window; she had now caught up with his brother and the girls, and they seemed to be in discussion. "But it would seem that she's been lured outside now."

"Christine and Raoul?" Genevieve asked, this time without looking up from her book.

"And Mademoiselle Giry."

"The young ones together again; and with new companions to make up for those lost to them." Genevieve sighed, as she sat back in her arm chair, and looked over at her brother. "Sometimes I wish I were young again, Philippe."

"You are young."

"I mean younger. Of an age with them again. I feel like an old woman sometimes. Certainly I have felt like one with Carlotta around the past two weeks. She makes me feel aged and decrepit, without meaning to. She's much too lively for me; she needs people her own age around her." She sighed again, as she looked down at the pages of her book, held open on her lap, and gently ran her fingers down the page she was currently on.

"What are you reading?" Philippe asked kindly, trying to distract her from her present seemingly gloomy thoughts. If she got into the same mode as Celandine there would be no hope for her.

"Hmm?" She blinked, then looked down at the book and smiled. "It's just something I found in the library earlier."

"Well, that certainly narrows it down," he joked, moving away from the window, having watched the four young people now set off together. They both knew that the library contained a vast amount of books, such that it might almost take a lifetime to read, amassed and collected by the great wealth of the de Chagny family.

"I don't really know what it's called," Genevieve confessed, holding it up for him to see. It was handsomely bound in red leather, but it had no type of title that he could see; the cover and spine were both blank. "It has the most beautiful poetry in it, though. Oh, and it has the strangest message at the start."

"What do you mean?"

"Read it and see."

Keeping her page with one finger, he flipped to the front of the book, and found on the title page, instead of a title, a short passage, written in carefully printed but still slightly scrawling letters:

'In memory's golden casket,

Drop one pearl for me.'

Erik.

"Isn't it lovely?" Genevieve asked, looking up at him with warmth and love shining in her eyes. "The poetry's wonderful as well, but I don't know if they were written by the same person."

"Yes," Philippe agreed softly, as he still stared at the words. "Quite lovely. Quite a find."

At that moment, the door opened, and a footman came in. His eyes alighted upon Genevieve.

"Pardon, Madame; but Madame du Barry wishes to see you. She said it was important."

Genevieve sighed, pushing herself up and out of her chair. "Very well. I will be there directly."

He nodded, and was gone.

She looked at Philippe. "How odd; why would she want to see me? She's been keeping herself to herself these days; I've hardly been able to get a word out of her."

"Perhaps her wanting to talk again is a good sign?"

"I hope so. I will see you later, Philippe." And she went out of the room.

He, left all alone, walked back to the window; but the four figures were by now down the hill and out of sight.

Suddenly, he was aware that he still held the book, open on the title page, with the words visible. He shuddered, and closed it firmly; then walked out of the room, with it tucked under his arm.

Was curiosity a sin? Was it something to be reprimanded in certain people? He did not know the answer to that. But it might raise questions; questions which he would not know the answers to and did not need answering. Only a little curiosity could be fatal.

A single kiss woke up the Sleeping Beauty in the wood.

He was going to pay a little visit to the library.

Spain is a very Catholic country, in most places, and even more so in the nineteenth century;and first communion, being a very special occasion in a devout Catholic child's life, was even more so in Spain at that time. The children would be given enough presents to rival Christmas, and it was considered one of the most important events in their lives.

Rocio is a Spainish girl's name - it means dewdrop.

Abuela - grandmother.

stupida hermana menor - speaks for itself.

bastardo - likewise.

Mi hija – my daughter

Oh, you're all going to kill me, aren't you? Well, to be fair, I said Erik would be in it – just not how, or why. And in this, I hope I have created even more mystery. I also hope I've made you like my Carlotta. She's certainly not going to be perfect; she will be a bit like her stage, book and movie self – but not enough to make her a bad person. And she will have an important part to play in the way things turn out.

So, I sign off; and hope you don't come looking for me in a Punjab mob – whish is the same as a lynch mob, except you use a Punjab lasso instead of a noose. Gets it over with quicker.

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