Disclaimer: I don't own POTO or Corpse Bride. Sad, but true.

Once again from Meg's – and Carlotta's - point of view. Christine and Raoul – and subsequently Erik – are going to have lots of chapters to themselves later on, so I thought I'd better develop the two girls' characters early on so I don't leave them in the lurch later.

Also, Buquet is in this as well! Be warned, though, this is not the Buquet from the 2004 film, even though he was portrayed very well by Kevin R. McNally. Since he was such a 'dastard' (note the'd', not the 'b') and a sexual harasser, I didn't feel that sorry about Erik killing him. But for this story I prefer to utilise the Buquet from the stage show, and partially Leroux's book (though he didn't have much of a part in that, having rather unluckily died in the very first chapter) as a wise, thoughtful, fairly old man, if a little keen on his spirits. Besides, if he was lecherous, he'd probably have been fired from the job he has on the de Chagny estate, since it's a fairly important one; and we've already got our lecher in the Comte du Barry, Celandine's husband Louis. No more lechers, all right?

Whiskey and Ghost Stories

Meg sat back in her chair; her shoulders slumped in a slouch, her arms crossed. If her mother had seen her she would surely have rapped her across the knuckles for such slovenliness; but since Mamma was not here, she was free to slouch as she wished.

And why should she not? She didn't want to be here in the first place. Visiting the head groundskeeper was not her idea of fun. Not that she was snobbish at all…at least, she hoped not. It was just that she wanted to do more than sit in a chilly hut – never mind the fact that there was a roaring fire in the fireplace – and listen to some man she did not know prattle on to Christine about what had been happening in the grounds in the years since she had departed.

She looked over at Carlotta, who, she noticed with a secret smile, was seated as close to the fire as she could. The Spanish girl was sitting bolt upright, in a way that she herself somehow never managed to achieve, her hands folded demurely in her lap; but her eyes were anything but demure, as they gazed unmoving at Christine, Raoul and Monsieur Buquet on the other side of the fireplace, chatting away animatedly; making rapid sense of the French she heard.

It was odd; when she had first met the girl, Carlotta had struck her as almost obnoxiously proud, for some reason she could not now fathom, for all that she smiled at them – to her, she seemed to be grinning smugly, in light of an untold purpose. But after only a few minutes conversation with her, a very different person had come to light. Carlotta was certainly proud, but not in the way that a Narcissist, self-absorbed person was; instead she had more than an air of royalty about her. She walked as Meg had fancied queens might always walk; holding their heads high, quietly knowing that they were far above slouching as other humans did; regarding all around them with an air of – not superiority or disdain, but certainly determination and strength of will. Sitting now close by the blazing fire, the flames dancing over her honey coloured skin and shining in her dark eyes, Meg might fancy, with her own wild imagination, that they were not in a fairly small wooden hut, still shivering despite the furs they kept wrapped around themselves, but in a great banqueting hall, with Carlotta sitting upon her throne, regal and divine, placed above all indeed. Christine might be a beautiful princess, and Raoul the handsome prince Charming; but it was unthinkable, to her at least, that Carlotta would be anything but a very queen.

So what does that make me?

Or, for that matter, Monsieur Buquet?

She looked over at the man, as she thought of him. He was certainly unlike any man she had ever met, even in the lower parts of Paris, when they had gone walking and encountered roughs on the streets. She had never seen a man look so – well, almost wild. His hair, though barely longer than Raoul's, just down to his shoulders, was, unlike the Vicomte's, fairly matted and tangled – has the man never heard of combs? – and his face, framed by a short beard, far less matted but still grizzled with grey, was far more swarthy than any she had ever seen, even in Paris. Yet his eyes twinkled in his face like two pieces of black jade, with a mischievous joviality that almost made her want to smile herself; and his hands, though seemingly large and clumsy, and with many scars and a scalding mark across the back of the right one, handled whatever he touched or held with infinite care– the logs of wood he had thrown into the fire when they had first arrived, the poker he had used to stoke up the flames, the chairs he had pulled up to the fireplace for the girls to sit down on, the bottle and glasses he now handled-

"Mameselle Giry?"

"Hmm?" She shook herself out of her reverie, to realize that the three were now looking at her – and Buquet was holding a glass out.

"I was asking if you would care for a nip of this, Mameselle – I noticed you were shivering, even with the fire; and this does wonders for keeping out the cold." He held the glass out further, taking care to keep it away from the fire.

She gave the liquid in the small glass a scrutinizing look. It was clear and colourless, just like water; but she knew by instinct that any clear liquid that came out of an earthenware bottle was not by any means water. She cast a glance over at Christine and Raoul, who were both silently mouthing 'no' over and over again, and Carlotta, who was watching in amused silence.

What do I say? She decided to go for a counter-attack.

"Merci for your kind offerMonsieur Buquet; but my Mamma always told me never to drink from a proffered glass of colourless liquid unless the person offering it to me took a swig first." And Mamma should know, having lived in the opera house from when she was ten until she had married Meg's father and become a lady.

There was silence in the hut for a moment, save for the crackling of the flames; than Buquet suddenly gave a great shout of laughter, almost like a bear roaring, making her jump. More gently, he said, "Your Mamma is certainly very wise, Mameselle – and you are very wise to take her advice." Leaning back in his seat, he downed the contents of the glass in one swallow.

"You surely wouldn't have actually given it to her, Buquet?" Raoul insisted, still looking disapproving.

"Of course not, Vicomte," said Buquet, as he rammed the stopper back into the mouth of the bottle, looking scandalized at the very idea. "Do you think I would have done such a thing? To give this to an unprepared lady? Never."

"Never mind about me being a lady," Meg put in, forgetting her manners for the moment. "What is that stuff, anyway?"

"A special type of whiskey," Christine replied, calmly. "Strong enough to make your eyes water enough to weep just by sniffing it, and potent enough to make an unprepared tongue virtually shrivel up."

"And you would know this, how?" Carlotta inquired, curiously.

Christine smiled, to Meg's eyes almost wickedly. "Let us say that when we were younger, Raoul and I introduced ourselves to the world of alcohol, since Monsieur Buquet was not prepared to let us have a taste of it as of yet."

"So…you got drunk?" she asked, hardly believing what she was hearing. Christine, the pure, the innocent, the quiet, the meek…doing something so wild as getting drunk? On whiskey?

"Tried is the word, rather than got," Raoul corrected, with a vivacity she had rarely seen in him before now, as well as just a little obvious resentment from years gone by. "That stuff doesn't give you time to get drunk. Or rather, it didn't give me time to get drunk. As I recall, Christine, you made me drink first, before you so much as sampled it."

Christine lowered her eyes in mock embarrassment and penitence; yet she peeped up roguishly through her long lashes, in a way that made Meg marvel. This engagement and subsequent marriage really was changing her! "Well, drinking is a gentleman's sport – I rather thought you would be flattered."

"I was at first – then I was just sick."

"I know," she rejoined, smiling widely now. "I remember Philippe thought you had been eating too many treats – and they forced you to take that medicine!" She collapsed in a fit of giggles.

"You can laugh," Raoul said haughtily. "You just got headaches. I don't know what made me sicker – the liquor or the medicine."

"The liquor," Christine and Buquet both chorused.

Meg was completely at a loss. Sickness and headaches brought on by hangovers? These two? The sweet little courtly lovers that had so charmed her earlier? Truly, was the world going mad? Carlotta too looked puzzled, as if she could hardly believe what she was hearing; her nose wrinkled in confusion.

Raoul must have realized what was going through the heads of the two, since he swiftly turned to them and said, "But don't you two go thinking that we spent the whole of our childhoods coming to Buquet to get intoxicated!"

"What did you come for then?" Carlotta asked, rather bluntly, but at the same time plainly stating Meg's own private thoughts.

Christine's eyes now shone, and not just from the fire. "For the stories, of course."

"Stories?"

"Stories," Christine confirmed. "We used to visit him, and go down the village, and ask the people there to tell us stories, as well as all the workers in the grounds. As a sort of hobby, you know."

"I will always remember those times, for one," Buquet chuckled. Sitting up straighter in his own chair, he managed to put on a slightly higher pitched voice that his usual tone, and opened his eyes wide, obviously mimicking some sort of child, probably Christine or Raoul. "Kind gentleman, have you a little story to tell us, please?"

"And you did?" Carlotta inquired, more curiously now.

Raoul nodded in affirmation. "He did. Buquet here may be a bit gruff; but he has the most fantastic talent for telling stories I have ever come across. I always said you should have been in the theatre," he went on, talking now to the head groundskeeper.

"Yes; but if I had what would have happened to the grounds? And besides, what theatre would take me in?" Buquet shot back.

Meg, meanwhile, was thinking. Perhaps this was her chance to find out more…

"So, you know lots of stories?" she asked out loud.

He nodded in the affirmative, smiling proudly.

"Then would you be able to tell us about the ghost in the woods?"

The smiles disappeared off the faces of those around her as the sun suddenly ducked behind a cloud in the sky, so abrupt was the transformation.

Carlotta sat, bemused, looking around her. What was going on? All this for the sake of that word – what was it? 'Ghost'? She didn't know the word. She'd never had cause to learn it.

"Ghost?" she asked, her voice breaking the tense silence.

Raoul looked over at her, blinking. "Oh. Um. I think it would be 'fantasma' in Spanish." Unlike Louis, Raoul had bothered to learn Spanish in his youth, and learnt more of it when she had come to stay, so that he would be able to have basic conversations with her in her own language.

She felt her own mouth unconsciously open, and her eyes widen. "Una fantasma? En el bosque?" she asked, slipping back into Spanish, as she tended to do when she was nervous.

Buquet nodded slowly, catching the meaning of her inquiry though he didn't understand the language she spoke. "Yes. There is supposed to be a ghost there – but it's just a story, I assure you, Mameselle."

"Well, if it is a story," Meg pressed, "then you will be the one to tell it the best, Monsieur Buquet." The girl's eyes were sparkling with the flames, and for the first time since she had entered the hut she looked really interested.

Meg Giry was a bit of a puzzle to Carlotta. She was ever changing; sometimes she was lively and sprightly, at other times quiet and thoughtful; and she switched very quickly between the two moods – or at least, the moods that she had so far seen. Carlotta wasn't used to this; the people that were normally around her usually stayed in one mood for a long time, or did not even show their mood at all. But the short girl carried certain vivacity in her, no matter what mood she was in; and Carlotta got the impression that she was always ready to smile or joke, save for when she was sad or low. In fact, she reminded her more than a little of Rocío; but her hermana menor made jokes much more at other people's expense, especially her, and she doubted that Meg would do such nasty things.

Yes, on the whole she was very glad that the two had come to the de Chagny mansion. Even if Christine, who seemed nice, if a little quiet, was engaged with the Vicomte most of the time, she could always spend time with Meg. The little Giry was certainly lively and friendly enough to help the days and weeks until the wedding pass by swiftly.

And now she talks about ghosts…

She shivered. She had never liked ghost stories; in the hot nights back in Spain, when the girls had not been able to sleep, Rocío had often sat up in her bed – just my luck to share a room with her! – and told stories of ghosts and goblins that she had heard off the gardeners, the maids, cousins who had come to visit, friends, cousin Paolo, on whom she had a huge crush; sprites and spectres, and vivid imagery so horrible that she had put her head under the covers, despite the heat, in an attempt to shut out the words that continued to drip like ice cold water into her ears, and freeze her heart with dread. And when Rocío had finally grown tired of her own voice, and blew out the candle and went to sleep herself, she stayed awake, looking up into the darkness, unable to rest from what she remembered.

What would they say if they learned I had been terrified by my hermana menor with ghost stories?

But already Buquet was saying, "There's no point in that story, Mameselle. I'd rather not tell it."

"No; tell it, Monsieur Buquet," came Christine's voice suddenly. The girl cast a glance at Meg's eager face, and then looked back at Buquet. "If I know Meg, she'll just go asking about until she gets the answer she wants. She's very stubborn in that respect." She shot a small smile at her best friend. "Better she hears it from you than anyone else."

The man hesitated, then sighed. "Very well. I'll tell you. But don't you four go telling anyone else about this, all right?"

They all nodded; even she. What else could she do? All she could do was sit straight-backed, as her Madré had taught her, and look mildly interested in what the head groundskeeper had to say.

At least he can't be as vivid and gruesome as Rocío.

Buquet threw another log into the fire, and gazed into the flames for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he uncorked the bottle again, poured out another glass of the whiskey, and tossed it off, before he began to speak.

"Nobody knows exactly when it happened," he said quietly. "Maybe twenty, fifty, a hundred years ago. Everyone's just been aware of it for a great while. Nobody knows how the story spread, or if it is a fable, then who started it. It's just always been here, with us."

He broke off, and looked around at them. Christine and Raoul, with the air of those who had heard the story many times before, but still despite themselves were eager to hear it again, sat close together, watching him intently. Meg sat forward in her seat, her hands now rested on her lap instead of crossed across her chest, her head slightly on one side, intent on him. He sighed softly, shook his head, and went on.

"Now supposedly, there was once a man who lived around here – like I said, I don't know how long ago, or where exactly, or anything. Anyway, he lived around here…though I am surprised he had lived for so long."

"Why?" Meg asked. "Was he very evil?"

"Well," Buquet thought for a moment, "hmmm, well, no, not as such – not then, at any rate. But it was his face, you see."

"What about it?"

"Why, it was a face such that any God-fearing mother would have drowned him at birth." Buquet held his right hand up to his own face, covering his right eye and a god part of the right side of his face with his great hand. "It was so horrible that he wore a mask over it all the time – though only half a mask, like this. Half of his face was very beautiful, indeed – seemingly more like an angel's than anything else. Handsomer even than you, Vicomte!"

Raoul laughed jokingly, despite the situation. "Oh, I find that hard to believe!"

But Carlotta was by now focused on the story; a strange, morbid fascination filled her both at the thought of the chillingly beautiful face, and at the thought of the mask, and what lay beneath it. "But what was the other half of his face like?"

Buquet's smile at his jest with the Vicomte faded, as he lowered his hand. "Well, it wasn't for nothing that they called him 'the living corpse', you know."

"What?" Meg squeaked. "You mean…"

"Yes, I do," the man replied soberly. He ran his finger down his nose, as if it were a knife; carving out a large chunk of the bridge, severing the right nostril completely. "Half his nose had never grown, like a skull's; and the skin was cracked and dry like aged parchment – although there was enough of it, apparently, to be left rotting on the bones of his skull. It was as if someone had torn the skin and part of his nose right off his face!"

Meg grimaced; and he chuckled to see it. "Well, you asked, Mameselle. Anyway, even though he looked like a demon or a corpse in some respects, in others he was as gifted as if he had been one of God's own angels. He had the most beautiful voice ever heard, just like an angel singing, if one could hear them sing; and he wrote music brilliant enough to make one's soul soar out of their body. And they say that he held many people in thrall, as he sang and played; and cast spells over them, so that they obeyed his every word, and followed him as if they were sheep."

"And this was so wrong?" Carlotta heard herself ask.

Buquet shrugged. "Apparently so, since people began to whisper against him, wherever he went. They said things like he'd given up the half of his face while still in his mother's womb for powers from the Devil himself; that his voice was a thing of witchcraft and that he himself was a witch; that he was evil and would desire to steal away children and young women for unholy sacrifices; all that sort of stuff. But they could never prove anything against him. At least," he corrected himself, "until people started dying in his wake."

"How?" Meg asked. She was, Carlotta thought, taking a rather ghoulish delight in the story.

"Always one of two ends; their necks would either be broken, or they would have been strangled. At first people thought that the person who did the deeds killed them with their hands; but all the throttling victims had rope burns on their necks, so they came to realized that the murder used a rope to throttle them – and possibly to break the necks of the other victims as well." He grabbed his shirt collar, and jerked it up so that his head was on one side, letting his tongue hang out, imitating a hanging victim. The thought was so awful that she had to turn her head away.

"Why on earth would he do that, if it was him?" Meg asked, slightly hushed, even she awed by this revelation; her eyes wide.

The man shrugged again, as he released his collar. "Who knows? Maybe he was angry with them condemning him for his face. Or maybe he dedicated their souls to evil, or some such rot. Or maybe he just liked killing for its own sake. That can happen, you know; a man can kill another by accident, or in battle, and then grow to love taking life, and can't stop himself from doing it; until he becomes almost a monster. And many say that this man was already a monster. He probably felt he had no obligation towards the world, because of his face and how people had rejected him because of it."

"What happened then?" she heard her own voice blurt out, beyond her control.

"Apparently for a long time nobody could catch him at it, though many suspected him," Buquet went on, pouring out another glass of the liquor. "Then one day someone saw him leaving the house of a certain person, and later on they found that person dead inside the house, throttled with evident rope burns on their neck. Of course they reckoned it must be him, and now they had proof; so quite a few men went after him, meaning to kill him. They would have done too – in fact one of them managed to get a knife into him – but he knocked them all down, and ran away into the woods. He ran a good three miles, with the men chasing after him all the while; hunted through the trees like a fox with the hounds on the scent. They were determined to have his blood, you see; and when they caught him they meant to tear him limb from limb."

There was a pause as he drank off the newest glass, giving Carlotta time to reflect on this. She shuddered to think of it; hated to think of the man desperately trying to flee through the woods, knowing that if his pursuers caught up with him he was dead; hated to think of the fear and agonies he must have suffered – no matter what he had done, no human should have to go through that. Meg, from what she could see of her, had a white face and wide eyes; Christine and Raoul were both solemn looking, and thoughtful; though they had obviously heard the tale many times before, that evidently didn't make it any less thought-provoking.

"They would have done, too," the man continued, setting down the glass, "if they'd caught him in time. But they found him collapsed, the life gone from him, on a bank under a tree in the middle of the wood, his eyes open, his mask slipped half off his face, and his eyes, yellow as a cat's, staring sightlessly up at the sky!"

"Why did he die?" Meg asked, after a hushed silence after this last statement.

"Well, at the time the men were so spooked as well as furious that they would have sworn that the Devil had come and stuck him down and carried him off to Hell," he replied conversationally. "But I reckon it had more to do with that side wound. He ran three miles, so he must have lost a lot of blood – too much to be remedied. So anyway, they buried him then and there, in the ground that had grown soft and wet with his own blood, with no priest or pastor to say a prayer over him, and no marking of his grave."

"Oh," Carlotta heard herself whisper. "Oh." Unconsciously she clasped her rosary, seeking it as some sort of comfort, against Buquet's words. "Oh, the poor man!"

Buquet chuckled, but not unkindly, at her apparent distress. "You don't need to worry your head about it, Mameselle Gudicelli. It's just a story; it's not real."

"But tell us about the ghost!" Meg persisted.

He chuckled again. "No dissuading you, is there, Mameselle? Of course there's no truth in the story; but people still say that if you care to go into the woods – which they don't, of course; go into the woods I mean – sometimes you might see a black shape, wrapped in a dark cloak; and seemingly wearing a white mask, and the other side of the face shadowed as the dark side of the moon. And if you see that, you should run for your life; for it is the ghost of the 'living corpse', who has fought his way out of his grave, and walks the earth once more; and that the handsome side of his face is now the white side, since it is his skull, the flesh having rotted away long ago; and that which was once white with the mask is now dark with evil. And if he catches you in his gaze, there is no escaping him; you are spellbound and follow him at his will; and then…" the man chuckled, and put his hands at his neck, "he will catch you, with his magical lasso!"

"And what then?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Buquet turned to her, his face now perfectly serious, without any form of jest. "Then, Mameselle, you die. And he laughs over your body."

There was silence, except for the crackling of the flames. At length, Raoul got up, and stretched. "We had better be getting back to the house. I'm sure they'll be wondering where we are."

Buquet got up as well. "Aye, you'd better go. What would your elders say if they found you'd been sitting and chatting with the head groundskeeper?"

"They won't know," Meg said confidentially, as she stood up as well. "Because we won't tell."

The four shuffled out of the hut, blinking in the bright light after the shadows the fire had created. They all thanked Buquet politely for his reception of them, and he bowed jokingly and invited them to come back any time they pleased.

Carlotta was eager to get back to the house – she was cold, and not just from the temperature. But as Christine and Raoul started off together, she could not help waiting for Meg, secretly fingering her rosary beads. And, quite by accident, she assured herself, she heard Meg hurriedly ask, "Do you really think there's any truth behind the story, Monsieur?"

Buquet darted a glance at her, but she quickly turned her head to look away; and he must have thought she could not hear for he said, very quietly, "I am not sure, Mameselle, but this I know; I have been heads groundskeeper of this estate for five and twenty years, and I've never seen so much as a pigeon or fox in those woods, search though I might. I keep my own council, but…"

She could not bear to hear any more. She set off at a brisk walk, and after a few moments heard Meg's hurried, crunching footsteps coming swiftly after her, and the footsteps' owner caught up with her just as swiftly.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting," Meg said brightly, pulling her hood over her golden hair."

"It is quite all right."

"I could see you looked a bit nervous in there – you don't like ghost stories much, do you?"

She turned to look down at Meg's face, but the little Giry had a sincere expression. And because of that, she found herself saying, in a way Madré would deplore, "My sister always told them to me when we shared a room. It would scare the spit out of me."

Meg nudged her arm in sympathy. "That's certainly not a very nice way for an elder sister to behave towards her younger one."

Carlotta felt her cheeks burning in mortification as she was unable to prevent herself from blurting out, "Rocío is nearly two years younger than me."

There was silence from Meg from a moment. Then, she chuckled. "And to think, all I had to put up with was Christine talking in her sleep." Boldly, she suddenly linked her arm through Carlotta's, and beamed up into her face.

A few months ago Carlotta would have probably slipped her arm out from Meg's; but time in France had taught her the value of companionship. And to her surprise, it was rather nice to walk arm in arm with another girl. She'd never done that much in Spain. Padré wouldn't have heard of it.

Now, if only Meg wasn't so short – she had to moderate her long strides so that the rather smaller girl could keep up with her, and as a result was disrupting the grace that Madré had built into her over the years. But she decided that for once, she didn't care.

These are going to be a very interesting next few weeks.

Really sorry about the general boringness of this chapter; but this was necessary to introduce us to Buquet, who will play a moderate part in the action – I haven't yet decided whether he dies or not – and the interaction and opinions between the four young ones. More exciting stuff will come; but for now it's the necessaries, I'm afraid. If you don't like it, lump it. But review out of courtesy, please. Thank you! And have a nice day!

Carlotta is a Catholic, in case you haven't noticed, what with the rosary and all. I am Roman Catholic myself, although not very devout; but I have a deep understanding of my religion, even if I don't practice it very strongly. Since she's been brought up in Spain, she is very much more religious than I – and this will come in handy later on, I'm sure. Since she's so religious, she would certainly be taken aback at a person not being buried properly, no matter what they had done.

En el bosque? – In the wood?

Lydiby: I understand your opinion. I mean, lots of the writers are saying 'Oh, I'd love Erik despite his deformities and faults'. I can see their point with Gerard Butler's Phantom, since he doesn't really have much of a deformity in the first place; but Michael Crawford's original Phantom was pretty gruesome, though I suppose it was all right if he covered it up. Like I've said before, I haven't read Kay's version, so I don't know about that; but as for Leroux's Phantom – the starting point of it all – I have to scream, Who do you think you are kidding? No offence to the guy, since it is not his fault, but I mean, come on – not only does he not have a nose, and his skin is yellow, as are his eyes; but, we are told, he smells of death. I take this to mean that he smells of something rotting. Am I therefore supposed to be impressed by the fact that these writers are turned on by the scent of rotting meat? Also, although I know that people can love other people despite hideous deformities, I find it hard to believe that writers can simply pen all their desires and hopes on a man who can sing extremely well and hides behind a mask. Some Eriks look like corpses; others look as if they've had pieces of their faces torn off – while Gerard Butler looks as if he has a bad case of sunburn; but we'll ignore that? Can you assume that, when faced with this sort of thing, you would not squirm? Though I am an EC shipper, I can understand her horror and dread of the Phantom, considering what she has been faced with. When coming face to face with a man with a face with a corpse for the first time, would you scream or leap on him and kiss him passionately? I mean no offence to anyone who does not take kindly to this statement – this is just my opinion, and I agree with you, Lydiby. Also, sorry about being sarcastic about the smile thing. I thought you were being jokey sarcastic, and decided to be jokey sarcastic in my turn. Guess I was wrong. Forgiveness, please?

Mominator124: Hello there. Or your evil twin Skippy. Anyway; he is a bit of a misfit, isn't he? Our poor little Phantom just can't get a break. But then again, everyone does seem to love him because he's anything but ordinary. Umm…I was thinking more along the lines of what he will look like when he first appears to Christine – but I don't want to spoil it! Wait and see!

SimplyElymas (or just Elymas? Help, please): I wanted Nadir to be all reasonable, since he was older than Erik when he died, and has been there longer – and is pretty practical in the first place, even without being dead. I want Erik to be a bit of a poet as well; but unfortunately that would mean I would have to write poetry for him to say – and I'm not very good at poetry, I must admit. Oh, well, we shall see. Say, I hope people don't start to like Carlotta more than Christine! I'm gratified, but this is a love triangle between Christine, Raoul and the Phantom, not Carlotta! Christine's the heroine! But then again, I've made my Carlotta real seeming, so I guess that's good.

MetalMyersJason: Don't worry, I will. How he's going to get it will be interesting, but…nope, can't say anymore! So here's your Erik; dead I'm afraid, but everyone dies sooner or later. Let us say that his hands are more than just cold and skeletal – at least in the Land of the Living…

Kat097: No problem! I'm glad you like it. I love writing this sort of thing – it makes me feel so fulfilled. This film does look very good; the trailer is excellently spooky. I would put up the address, but the stupid post won't let me do it. Just look for the official Corpse Bride website. Unfortunately, the film itself won't be out 'til September, for us poor people stuck in England! But not so poor, since we got all that special stuff on the Phantom DVD without any hassle!

Willow Rose 3: Well, anonymous reviews are now accepted, thanks to your wise advice – and it's just as well, otherwise SimplyElymas wouldn't have been able to review. So thanx! Ah, I'm forgiven! And I was superb! Ah, my life is good.

Moonjava: You like it a lot, hmm? Good.

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