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Chapter 5: Perfect Authenticity

I stayed there for perhaps five more minutes, shaking. I heard Erik's whimpers. "Christine," he moaned to what he thought was an empty room. "Christine, Christine…" I knew that I had to go, for my senses were too bruised to think properly. My head was on fire, memories still being added because of the catalyst of his words. Besides, with Erik being so injured, I knew that he would not welcome seeing me and hearing talk of escape. I went back to bed, determined to think of a way to escape with Erik.

Raoul was mercifully oblivious to my obvious conflict the following day at the dress rehearsal. The Spanish Pretender coached us repeatedly on "The Point of No Return," trying to make us sing it more gently and innocently. The only good thing was that every time Raoul's hands began to grip territories of my body that were indeed scripted but were not proper, the Spanish Pretender made edits. Edits of which, in this case, I most approved. Raoul grit his teeth, but obeyed.

We played the Opera through until the end until each line was confidently delivered, each note hit with the accuracy of a nail by a hammer. The whole of Spain was bursting with pride to have this opera performed, and the ladies began rumors that Don Juan's creator would be playing his favorite role. They only wanted to have the horrors in Paris repeated, and I never enjoyed myself in the past five months as much as I did "stabbing" Raoul out of jealousy and revenge for his wandering eyes at the finish of the opera.

At the end of rehearsal, Raoul took it upon himself to treat me to dinner in the gardens outside the opera house. "My dear, I have a surprise for you," he told me after we had finished.

I tried not to tense, knowing what was coming next. Come, Christine, you must act your finest, now. Put the plan into action.

"We – I – have recently captured the Opera Madman who antagonized you for so much of your life. He had admitted to all of his crimes, and they are even more horrendous than even we thought."

"How did you manage to capture him?" I gasped, my curiosity only partly acted. It would be the easiest part.

"I was walking past a pub with some gentlemen friends, telling them about our upcoming marriage. You don't mind that I told them, do you, Christine? After all, we had always planned to get married."

"No, not at all," I murmured, looking demurely down upon my skirts as a lady should.

"Excellent. In any case, that dastardly man fairly melted out of the shadows – my love, no mortal man within the Lord's Book of Life could move so quietly. He made no apology of having frightened – er, startled – us, but demanded to see you. His eyes would terrify any lesser man. I feared for your life, Christine – after all, you have not been fairing well of late, so I refused him. That man looked as though he would have liked to kill me! He grabbed one of my friends and held a knife to his throat, asking me if that would give me the proper motivation. He insulted me most gravely by saying that I had a 'hero complex,' and invited me to prove him wrong. What could I do, my love? His captive was my dearest friend. I agreed, but as we were walking along, I sent one of my friends to get the police. I was fearful that he might take revenge on both of us, and I wished for an escort to protect us both. The Phantom reacted violently when he saw the gendarmes, and out of fear for their own lives, they had to stab him. I've done the gracious thing and have taken him – my dear, brace yourself – into our very home. Do not look so worried! He is safely locked away, with the best of care. But he has some misguided notion that I have double-crossed him, and he has acted most viciously. Last night, he tried to replicate his past scars upon my face, and it was only narrowly that I escaped."

"How did he become beautiful?" I asked with feminine breathlessness. "Did he go see a witch?"

"A sorcerer, my Little Lotte! A wizard conjured up an evil spirit to take control of the Phantom and make his features outwardly attractive."

"Raoul, is there any way to free the poor man? After all, he is not in his best mind."

The Vicomte's eyes lit up, and I could practically see the lie forming before it left his lips. "Yes. I've gone to see the clergy of the church, and they say that the only way to expel this cursed, violent spirit is to force the man to undergo a passion of emotion. This will reawaken the true spirit of the man."

I tapped my lip, then appeared to start with an idea. "I know, dear Raoul," (I nearly vomited), "that we have long practiced for this production of Don Juan. But, because it was most likely the greatest source of emotion for this misguided man…would you be so selfless as to surrender your part to him at the Point of No Return?"

He clasped my hand and patted it reassuringly. "That was exactly my thought, dear Christine, but I was too afraid to suggest it. Are you sure you would overcome the strain? After all, it was that very song that nearly did you in."

I held my breath. "'Did me in?' Are you referring to what I cannot remember?"

"Yes. In light of our decision, I think now is a good time to tell you. The night before our wedding, the Phantom snuck into your bedroom and knocked you unconscious. Apparently, his exuberance for the task was too great, for he also stunned your brain into forgetfulness. He took you to the Opera house and, in my name, arranged for you to rejoin and continue to be his slave. He terrorized the staff into promising that they would not tell you of your real past." He stood and came to me, holding me gently in his arms. "We are blessed that I arrived before he could take you."

It was irresistible. "But – I remember his servant girl, Clarice. Didn't the gendarme kill her? Was she also evil?"

He looked uncomfortable for a moment. "There is no way to put this lightly. She was his mistress, under his spell as you would have been. It was kinder to free her of this life than force her to suffer under the weight of her sins." He was clearly becoming confused, and I didn't want him to become fearful that I would see through his plan, so I let the issue rest. "All right, Raoul. I understand."

"I shall have the Phantom sent for, surrounded by guards, of course. As soon as he arrives, I shall send you home and we shall encourage him to practice his lines."

"You're so brilliant, Raoul," I simpered. The Spanish Pretender would have been proud of me.

A ballerina was, of course, bribed to dress in my clothes and be delivered home in my carriage. I wanted to stay and watch the rehearsal. I watched from the back of the hall, too far for anyone to distinguish me (sadly, nor I, them). But I could hear him. Erik was led out, captured in chains, but walking under his own power. I almost cried out to watch him obviously suffering, but when the orchestra played, he seized onto the music and perceptibly surrendered to it. He was unashamed and unabashed to reveal himself so completely within the music, frantic only to immerse himself in his beloved work once more. It was a renewal so total that it seemed intimate, like the meeting between husband and wife. My eyes wept to see him so obviously in love with the lines, caressing each word as if it was an angel come to embrace him. Each note was held and blossomed, dancing in unity with the orchestra. I alone noticed when his voice quavered not from vibrato, but from tears of ecstasy.

This was the Phantom once more; with each note healing him and strengthening him. He was a dark angel from Heaven, and I felt myself submitting to his spell with wide eyes. He was not a man, but the Master of Music. He was an angel, full of finesse and passions. He could defend himself, he was a genius – but here was where he shone, where he was in his kingdom, in his element. Everything was his; the walls fairly bent from their braces to be closer to him. I willed my heart to sing to him, to prod his heart gently and tell him that I was there with him.

The Spanish Pretender tried time and time again to change his actions to her milder version (the ballerina in his arms was nearly swooning), but he just stayed silent and indifferent to her commands. Finally, the rest of the actors forbade her to attempt to change him; they wanted to listen to his voice. It swelled over the seats, racing over balconies and vaulting over ceilings. The whispers found my heart, and the red mark beneath my ear where his teeth had pierced my skin. My breath came faster, and accordingly, his voice become deeper and richer.

He couldn't know that I was there, draped in black and in the furthest seat from the stage, but it seemed impossible that he could not be aware of my existence. His music was making love to me, a plea to join him. My fingers gripped the armrests of the chair to keep myself from rushing down the aisles into his arms. My love for him flowered anew, and my desperation awoke from its cold shackles in greater intensity than ever before. What had I been doing, waiting because of my delusions mocking his greatness?

Here was the rebuttal to all of Raoul's pathetic attempts to humble him. Here was the proud king, the manipulative mage, and the sleek assassin. I defy all of you, he seemed to say. Let he who would die dare to test himself against me. I felt shocked, as I looked down upon my chest, that he had entrusted his faith and life to my small heart. For all of his stealthy, predatory nature, what awesome tenderness must crescendo in his bosom for me, what noble passion for me.

I was spellbound until the end of rehearsal, and when he was taken off stage, I knew that I must flee to be home before Raoul arrived. I resolved never to again let Raoul find us and separate us after this night.

The night of the concert, everyone in the Chagny household fluttered over me as if they were afraid I would faint at the sudden realization of what I would do that night. I accepted all of their ministrations with a secret smile: they would be scandalized if they knew what would truly happen. One bright spot in my afternoon was that Meg had arrived, as a favor to Raoul, to give me moral support. She, of course, was a loyal subject to our king, the Angel of Music, and once she heard of the torture he had suffered at Raoul's hands, she was more than happy to obey my every suggestion.

I do not know how she managed to do it, but she attained Erik's book of chemistry notes from Raoul's friend. I could see from her smile that it was a mischievous and daring adventure, and I resolved some day to ask her about it. I made her a copy of the notes of the antidote to his acid while firmly ignoring the numbers of people who had been killed or mutilated by the acid. He had started a new path; he was forgiven in my heart.

These chemicals were packed into my satchel beneath traveling clothes. With the remainder of the time, Meg and I took refuge in my room. We shared girlhood stories, and had the proper sort of afternoon that girlfriends should have before one's wedding night. Erik had not meant to deprive me of this, but inadvertently, he had. I was grateful for this second chance, for by the end of the afternoon, Meg and I had learned much from our respective pools of knowledge about how to please our future husbands.

Raoul came into the room, then, and Meg and I clasped each other tightly. "Do not fail," she whispered to me. "He is your future, my dear friend. Do not lose him."

"I swear to you, I will not. Thank you, Meg. You have been my dearest friend."

"Not your dearest, my almost-sister." We stood, arms about each other's waists, and walked past a mystified Raoul. "Your Dearest Friend yet waits for you to rescue him." She kissed me as would a sister. "I shall poke my tongue out at Raoul as the curtain falls upon him," she giggled.

"I shall watch for it, and join you in spirit."

I did not see Erik until the moment when the Point of No Return had begun. I suspected it would be that way, for Raoul must be as terrified for me as he was eager that the Phantom would be crushed by my repeated refusal of his affection. Erik was locked away somewhere, probably in costume and masked.

Raoul kissed me briefly, and without warning, as when we both exited backstage. "I shall watch for your triumph, my dear," he whispered. I looked up and saw Meg's dutiful pink tongue from the bridge above the stage, and suppressed a giggle. It made Raoul's sickening infatuation easier to bear.

"I swear to you," I told him, "that the Phantom will never again intervene within your life."

"Our lives," he corrected, and held my hands.

"Raoul, I must go!" I protested. "There's my cue!"

"Don't forget me," he pleaded, and I remembered his look of dawning awakening the last time the Phantom had sung me this particular song. I almost felt pity for him, that he was about to be so betrayed. Almost.

"I shall not forget my duty," I told him, and wrestled my naked arm from his grasp. He began to look afraid, but once I had taken my first step on stage and begun my first note, he could do nothing. He could only watch in helplessness. What a fool.

I heard Erik's first note, and shook with happiness. The fine hairs on my arm stood at attention. Erik walked towards me, singing as a professional would sing: without regard for personal feelings. He had indeed set himself as Don Juan perfectly, for his greatest strengths – those of mastery, domination, stealth, and sinister seductiveness, were revealed in every ripple of his voice and line of his body. His hand was hot and rough as it seized my neck and slid like bath water down my arm. It was almost as if the past year and a half had never happened – including the mask. Of course, he was wearing it now not only for the music, but also for himself. He was perfect, I thought, as I let the audience feast their eyes upon us. They had all realized, of course, that it was not Raoul, and I could feel their souls pushing at the edge of the stage to join Erik.

I swayed and pulsed to his music. Meg would later say that we almost set her afire for the obvious desire that arced between us, and I believed her for it. The violins, like lush skirts, harmonized with him. The flutes were the ideal contrast to his tenor seduction: their childlike innocence submitted to their mockery by his far-from-innocent words. The rhythm was daring, like some lovely, flowering whore tempting her favorite patron.

Then, I began my solo, my response to his proposal. I watched him as I sang. I, I who had become well versed in the subtle moods of his eyes, could read the hesitation and fear. I wished I could send him the truth of my words within the music, but he was obviously afraid that I was acting as well as I had the previous time we had sung this.

I submitted to the music for him, let my voice deepen and mature. I called to him from across the stage, seeing him swallow and begin to strengthen from my passion despite his anxiety. I could detect the slightest warble to his voice as he joined me that normally seized and ravished notes. He was afraid. Afraid of me. He was singing his own heart out.

How this must be hurting him, I thought in a detached way. This was his song, his triumph, and now he was being made to sing it on a possible walk to the gallows. I schooled my face not to betray any emotion unsuitable to my acting, but inside, my heart overflowed with love for him. In just a few moments, I would correct the evil that I had done long ago.

We climbed up the stairs, crossed the bridge to each other. The words were intoxicating with desperation, and though Erik's touches were as confidently masterful as Don Juan's, I could feel his arms trembling against me. When the last words were sung, I waited. The last fifteen seconds, perhaps, those crucial moments that had decided the history of my past life. They would be corrected.

The beats slipped away, and I waited for him to take in that breath to begin singing again, but none came. Instead, I felt him shaking. "Please don't make me do this," he begged beneath his breath. "I can't bear it."

"Do it!" I hissed to him, my professional side panicked over missing an entrance.

Therefore, he began to sing again, and this time, it was obvious his voice was shimmering with tears. "Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime…Lead me, save me from my solitude…Say you'll want me with you, here, beside you…" His voice suddenly rang out over the audience, a full fortissimo. "Anywhere you go, let me go too!" I felt a tear slip down his face onto my bare shoulder. He paused, gathering his strength. I felt the notes choke in his throat.

"Use my name!" I ordered. "Just like last time."

"Christine," he choked, "that's all I ask of you." The audience gasped, fearful fluttering beginning as they suddenly realized who Erik was, and remembered what had happened in Paris – yet, they would not move from their seats. Human curiosity had glued their eyes to our forms.

I knew Raoul was watching me from the sidelines, waiting for me to betray Erik and break his spirit. It wouldn't matter to Erik, then, how the soldiers tortured him. He would welcome death; Raoul wanted this.

I didn't.

I lifted my hands to Erik's face and saw telltale lines of the recent scarring spilling like spider's legs from beneath the mask. His eyes filled with tears as I removed the mask, and he winced to hear the crowd's gasps. Raoul had created a long, hideous scar from his right eyebrow to jawline, and had used glass shards to make tributaries off the river of red. I let my fingers trace over his jaw, over the soft skin of his cheeks. He closed his eyes, warm tears gliding over my fingertips. "Do not torture me, Christine."

I kissed him.

I heard a helpless cry from his throat, a shocked uttering. His eyes burst open. I watched myself in the reflection of his eyes as I kissed him, molding myself to him recklessly. His eyelids fluttered shut, and I felt him reach beside me to grip the railing for security. Let the ladies in the audience faint from the display, I thought deliriously. Erik was once again in my arms. I let go of him for a brief moment. "Won't you kiss me, my Phantom Angel?" I begged.

"Christine," he moaned, and with a shiver that spread from his body to mine, I was his. He bent me over backwards as his mouth met mine and plundered the soft love he found within it. I was quivering, held in limbo by the steel vice of his arms, and I loved it. My teeth found his neck and bit down; he groaned. I sobbed with joy beneath his mouth and clutched his warm, broad shoulders. We were afire in the light of Heaven, and we were proclaiming our love to the whole world.

His hands tangled themselves within my hair, my shoulders pressed to his. He looked up, briefly, as he saw soldiers flooding the bridge. Raoul had panicked; the Opera was over.

So was he.

With a grin for me, Erik caught hold of a hanging rope and spiraled down into the darkness of backstage. We waited in the dark, our breath hot and stifling, but both of us gasping and laughing silently. There was an ominous pause from the audience, then a slow clap that escalated into thunderous applause.

"I much prefer this truncated ending to your opera," I told Erik breathlessly.

"I'll never be able to give them the finale if you and I are playing!" he chastised me, his eyes drunk on happiness. "Oh, but what a finale you've given me! Christine, I thought you were going to –"

"I know, and I'm sorry I couldn't relieve you before this time. This was the only way."

His hand suddenly went to his face. "He- he-"

"Shh, my darling." My hands stroked the gorges on his face; I knew I was crying. "I heard you, while he was doing it to you. I didn't leave after that night. My sweet angel – I cried out for you."

"As I for you," he sobbed.

"You were so brave," I murmured. "Such courage, such love in such a maltreated heart." I took his arms and slipped into the suddenly tight embrace he gave. "Come, my love. Burns can be treated, if that is your wish. Regardless – I have what I want and need." I led him away, through a back door, as the soldiers scurried and fumbled in the velvet darkness for us. I constantly looked back for him, encouraging him and reassuring myself that he was following me. His eyes showed curiosity at my new boldness and maturity. I was now matched for him.

He swept me up into his arms at the stage door, crying out my name, and the burning in my body was not cooled by the lack of stage lights. Soon, my tones would be joining his in that cry of love.

"I believe you owe me a wedding night to shame all others."

GOOD JOB, Christine! Poetic justice!

Now, brace yourself, ladies and gents, it'll be a bumpy ride! ...erm, that came out wrong.

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