It wasn't until I discovered Erik sitting at my kitchen table that I remembered the note I had left in his garden inviting him over the previous night. Andre wasn't due home until morning, but for once I wasn't sure if that fact made me more or less comfortable with the boy's visit.

"You weren't supposed to see," he said, tawny eyes glued to the table.

A part of me wondered if someone had forced him to come. "How long has this been going on?"

"Since I met Cecile," Erik confessed, finally looking up from the table. When his eyes caught mine, I could see even beyond the mask that they were filled with tears. "She never treated me like you treat Cecile. She never held me, never fed me. She hated when I so much as looked at her. I just wanted to see…" he trailed off.

I looked at him expectantly, and Erik shifted uncomfortably. "I just wanted to see if she could. If she just couldn't be a mother, then it wouldn't be my fault," he explained.

"Erik, what you're doing is wrong," I stressed, although it was hard to stay firm; His actions were wrong, but his intent was heart retching.

"Nobody got hurt!" He exclaimed passionately. "She's happy, I'm happy, Charles is happy –"

I blinked, confused by his response. "Charles isn't real, Erik. You made him up."

"Madeleine doesn't know that."

"You have got to stop this! It's cruel and manipulative," I stressed.

"Why should I? I don't have to do anything you say; you're not my mother," Erik spat, standing to leave. I caught him by the arm and pulled him to face me, clasping his shoulders when he tried to squirm out of my grasp.

"Erik Renard, you listen to me and listen well. I love you like a son. Whether you choose to love me like a mother is entirely up to you, but I should think after two years you at the very least can acknowledge that I have nothing but your well being in mind."

The boy said nothing and refused to meet my eyes, so I continued. "Do you know what I think? I think you wanted to be scolded. You knew very well before you came today that I did not approve of what you are doing to your mother, but you came anyway."

"I don't care what you think!" Erik spat, but large tears were beginning to well in his eyes.

"What you are doing is wrong," I said again, firmly. "Whatever Madeleine says or does isn't real, Erik. It's all something you've forced her into. For better or worse, she doesn't feel any differently for you than she did before you started playing this twisted game. Now is the time for you to show what kind of man you're going to be. Are you going to be the sort of man who gets what he want honestly, or through deceit and manipulation?"

I let Erik cry, but stood my ground. It hurt to see him so upset, but I knew if I enabled this type of behavior so young it might never end. That thought stung more than the heaviness of his tears.

Erik left that night without ever answering my question. He was smart, far smarter than an ordinary child his age, and I knew he would think on it long and hard before making his decision. And really… I couldn't blame him. From where I sat it was an easy choice, but my life had been blessed. I had a mother and father who loved me, siblings to model my behavior after, friends, a husband who for all our troubles recently I loved dearly. Up until that point in my life a miscarried pregnancy and moving away from Paris had been the most difficult things to happen to me.

In six years life had already given Erik more heartache than I hoped to ever know. If deception granted him a small happiness, how could I blame him for being hesitant?

Weeks later, I was beginning to think Erik had made his choice and had chosen to continue with his deception against my advice and was too ashamed to see me. I was outside in the front of the house playing with Cecile in the light snowfall when I spotted Erik lingering like a ghost in the shadow cast by setting sun against the house.

"Good evening, Erik," I greeted cordially, curious but in too light a mood to be as guarded as I probably should have been given our last conversation.

"Collette, Cecile," he greeted in turn, shifting uncomfortably. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"It's all right," I promised, hating the way he used my name when he knew I was upset with him rather than calling me Mama as he was prone to otherwise. "She's still too little to be out here for long in the cold, I was just about to head inside and put on tea. Would you care for a cup?"

His masked head shook, and I realized suddenly he seemed even taller than the last time I had seen him only weeks before. "I just wanted to say I stopped pretending the statue was real. It took a while for things to get back to normal. But they are."

I frowned gently and wrapped my shawl tighter around Cecile. "I'm glad to hear that, Erik. Not that things went back to the way they were," I clarified. "But that you made the right choice. Are you sure you wouldn't like some tea?"

"Madeleine doesn't know I'm gone."

"Just one cup to warm you up before you go, then," I insisted, thinking he looked leaner than I remember him in addition to taller. I resolved to send him home with some of the lamb I'd made for supper in addition to tea.

Erik accepted my offer, but lingered near the door of the kitchen until I put Cecile in the crib I had moved into the kitchen to keep her up at hip height while I cooked. As soon as the girl was down, Erik was hovering by the crib.

Neither noticed while I watched them interact through the bars of the crib. Cecile was three months old, and just starting to notice the world beyond Andre and I. When I spoke with her or sang she often gurgled and chirped in response, delighting in the sound of my voice as much as I delighted in her squeals and giggles. She watched Erik now, eyes fixated on his masked face in hunt of the happiness and approval she so often saw in mine and Andre's faces. When she could not read him, she reached her tiny hand through the bars to touch him. Erik drew a sharp breath and jerked back away from the crib. Cecile began to whine in frustration, unused to Erik's response.

Erik was just as distressed by her response as she was by his, and ventured forward again. Cecile reached as far as her arm could manage, and after along moment of hesitation Erik came close enough to allow her tiny hand to rest on the black leather of his mask. Cecile's deep blue eyes lit up at this concession, and she squealed in excitement. Immediately the little of Erik's true face that could be seen lit up.

"I think she likes me."

"Yes, I think she does," I agreed, amused.

"Would it be all right if I brought her a present?" He asked, reaching into the crib when Cecile's other hand pried his fingers off the bars to inspect.

"Of course it would. I don't want you spending any of your own money though, what will it cost?"

Erik looked up at me without moving away from my daughter's demanding grasp. "Oh, it won't cost anything. I've already made it. I just think she would like it is all."

"You made it?" I asked, taking the kettle off the fire when it whistled.

The boy nodded. "It's nothing special. Just a music box."

"Where did you learn how to make music boxes?"

"I took apart one of Madeleine's and studied it. That's really the best way to learn things you know. When doctors want to learn about a body they dissect corpses; when architects want to learn about a building they can go right inside and look at the foundation and innards. I wanted to learn how to make a music box, so I took it apart."

I chuckled. "Well I certainly hope you put it back together in better working order than a corpse is reassembled."

This caused Erik to grin. "It works even better. It plays a different song every time you wind it up, now. Madeleine thinks it's unholy," he added with a bit of a sneer.

"Well I can't wait to see it," I promised, pouring us both tea.

Erik brought my daughter gifts from the very next visit until his very final one. A remarkable little music box was first, carved from cherry wood with an intricate ivy pattern gracing the lid. Like his mother's box he had reassembled, the one he brought to Cecile did indeed play a slightly different melody each time I wound it. I could not for the life of me figure out how it was done, and when asked Erik would only smile and insist it was magic. Over the weeks he brought her a papier-mâché ballerina, a mobile made of shards of glass he had tediously smoothed to a safe edge, and even once brought her a ribbon to tie about her sparsely covered head as blue as her eyes. He talked his mother into buying it for him in return for a month's worth of weeding the ugly skeleton of a garden surrounding the house. Some days his gifts were more extravagant than others, but over the course of nearly a year I lost count of how many sweets, toys, and trinkets he brought to amuse her.

I no longer had to invite Erik into my home in order to see him. He now came and went as he pleased, regardless of whether Andre was there or not. Andre seemed to have developed a quiet understanding of my relationship with Erik, though I knew he still felt more comfortable being home when Erik visited than finding out the boy had been by while he was gone.

At first I thought nothing of Erik's bold new insertion into my life, nor of the increasing frequency of his visits. On one Sunday morning, however, I caught another glimpse into the life Erik so carefully guarded.

For the first time in the nearly three years since I had moved to St.-Martin-de-Boscherville, Madeleine attended the public mass. And she did not attend it alone.

I was not the only one to notice this stark change attendance, and was quickly pulled aside by a group of women eager to gossip. "Is it true the boy is dead?"

"Excuse me?" I sputtered, wide-eyed. Surely they weren't speaking of Erik? I had only just seen him on Friday…

"You see him more than any of us," one of them reasoned, though how they knew that bit of gossip was beyond me. "Is it true he's dead? Why else would he let her leave the house?"

"He was fine two days ago," I promised, more than a little irked by the question. "She's the one who keeps him confined, not the other way round," I added, though this was pointedly ignored.

"Isn't that the doctor who moved in last summer?"

This I had a definite answer to. "Doctor Barye, yes. He's been looking after Cecile. Wonderful man."

"Too good for the likes of her, anyway," one of the women remarked. I felt ashamed at my inclination to agree.

"Do you think they're really courting?"

I watched the two from afar, wondering at how the kind older gentleman doted on the woman no older than I was but who looked far more wizened than I. It was a strange but strong affection, as though she were a treasured but fragile object that might break at any moment.

Suddenly it was no small wonder Erik's visits had become more frequent and less troubled – If Madeleine ever noticed he had snuck away, I was certain she didn't mind the privacy with her new beau.

Certain now that Erik was not dead and merely making himself scarce around his mother's beau, I resolved to ask him about the matter the next time he visited.

I did not have to wait long. Before the end of the week Erik returned, this time bearing a pair of roses. He presented one to me with such pride I curtsied and hugged him tightly. "It's lovely, Erik! But where on earth did you get the money for roses this early in the season?"

"They're the first two roses of the season," he announced. "I've saved the bush in Madeleine's garden. I thought it was dead, but it was only neglected. I cut all the thorns off, do you think it would be safe to give to Cecile?"

His eagerness was utterly charming. Sometimes I wondered if he fancied himself more her first suitor than her brother. "Of course. She will love it."

While he double checked the flower to make sure it wouldn't harm my blue-eyed angel, I decided to ask what had been on my mind. "Do you know who I saw at mass on Sunday?"

Erik shook his head, but I could sense feigned ignorance.

"Your mother, and Cece's doctor, Doctor Barye. Do you have any idea what they were doing out together?"

"Taking communion, I expect," he said nonchalantly, sitting with Cecile on the floor and hugging her tightly when she toddled over to him. The progress she had made in her first year of life was remarkable to a new mother such as I; in no time at all she went from being completely unable to move without my help to being an unstoppable force in our home.

"Yes, I expect," I agreed calmly. "Strange that they should be out together in public though, don't you think? Doctor Barye seemed rather fond of Madeleine. Have they been seeing each other often?"

Erik hesitated, refusing to look at me before nodding. "Yes. He doesn't care for me much. He thinks I'm holding her back. That I would be better off at the abbey or the orphanage in Paris."

I frowned deeply and sat on the floor with him and Cecile. The girl toddled into my lap to play with the lace on my collar, and I hugged her in one arm while cupping Erik's pale little chin in my hand. "Erik, I would take you in myself before sending you to the abbey or an orphanage. I don't think it will be necessary, though. He's a single, older man gentleman; it may take him a while to get used to the idea of having a son, but he will get used to it. Children are a lot of responsibility. You're very old for your age, so you will be more responsibility more so. But if he loves Madeleine he will have to come to accept that the two of you come hand in hand. If he doesn't, then you don't have anything to worry about."