II.

I dreamed all that night of music. It was music that lifted me into the air bore me through the clouds, carrying me up towards the sun. The light from that same sun woke me, and I realized that my eyes were open and I was staring at a lighted candle. I had turned onto my side during the night, and I was facing a bedside table. Leaning against the candlestick was a note written in red ink.

My entire body felt heavy as I sat up and brought the note closer to my face to read it.

Phillippe—

Good morning. There is a warm bath for you in the bathroom and a clean suit of clothes in the wardrobe. You will find everything else you need on the dressing table. If you are thirsty, then there is a carafe of water on your bedside table. Once you are dressed, call me, and I will come.

Erik

I stared at it, not quite sure what to make of it. Who was this Erik person? Was he my kidnapper of the night before? Most probably. I couldn't help wondering what he wanted with me and why he had brought me here. Where on earth were we, anyway? I looked about for a window to look out of, but there wasn't even one in the room. I checked the bathroom (a warm bath was drawn, just like the note had said) and failed to find one there as well. Also, I couldn't find any doors. Not a door or window in the place. How…disturbing.

I went first for the carafe of water. Whatever I'd been given the night before had made me terribly thirsty, and I finished off half of it before I felt better. After that, I took the fastest bath of my life (indeed, I couldn't help it, my skin was crawling with the need for a bath). I washed quickly, dried even more quickly, and dressed with lightning speed. Even while I rushed through these preparations, I noticed how luxurious everything was. The bathroom was in a Roman style decorated in aqua and green, and the soaps were all from Savon de Marseille. I couldn't even tell which shops the towels and other bath things had come from, but it was likely Mother would have known.

The clothes were enough to give a frugal person heart failure. I recognized the label on them right away: Charvet. The man had bought a Charvet suit for me. Was he mad? Even Father, a count, bought his suits at a less expensive couturier! What was this man thinking? When I checked the wardrobe, I realized that he hadn't bought just one suit, but ten! This man was indecently rich.

To give myself more time to think, I made the bed and set things in order. I combed my hair, checked my appearance at least ten times in the full-length mirror, and paced. I was nervous, and I was terrified of meeting this man and talking to him. What did he want with me? Where had he brought me, and why? Why had he bought me a complete wardrobe? That wardrobe implied that he expected me to stay for a while. (I prayed that he didn't plan on that.) From what he'd said the night before, he sounded as if he'd been following me from the moment I arrived in Paris. He'd said he would explain. Explain what? I stopped in my tracks as I realized something: Was he the reason Father hadn't wanted me to go to the Opera? I remembered all the strange little conversations, the way they would change subjects if I came near, and all the little comments over the years. They all pointed to something in the past, something that neither one of them wanted me to know about, and it was something connected to the Opera. Could this man be it?

Sudden silence deafened me, and I realized that the music I'd been hearing since I got up had stopped. Was he out there somewhere, listening for me to call him? I listened, my heart pounding in my ears (I was being deafened by silence and my own heart!), and decided that was it. Praying for courage (and praying to the saint who watched over fools), I called.

A moment later, a door opened, one that had been disguised as a bookcase! No wonder he'd told me to call him, I'd never had found it. He was a tall, thin man in black evening clothes with a burgundy vest giving his ensemble the slightest bit of color (thank goodness, he looked funereal enough!), and he was wearing a black mask over his face.

"Good morning, Phillippe!" he said jovially, coming into the room. "I trust you slept well."

How could I not have? I wondered. After all, he'd drugged me. I could have done nothing but sleep!

"Are you hungry? There's breakfast ready."

"Who are you?" I demanded, suddenly finding my voice. "Why did you bring me here?" I had been kidnapped by a possible madman in a mask and taken God-knew-where and drugged. The absolute last thing I wanted to do was eat!

"My name is Erik," he said calmly, as if he'd expected my little outburst. "I knew your mother when she worked here at the Opera."

"Mother worked here at the Opera?" I parroted.

"She sings, doesn't she? Rather beautifully?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean she performed here!"

He pulled something out of his pocket then, and handed it to me. It was an old, yellowed program for Faust, and it listed Christine Daae as "Margeurite." I only knew Mother's maiden name because she'd told me all about Grandfather Daae, who'd died before I was born. He was a violinist, and he'd taught Father to play and Mother to sing.

"How did you know her?" I asked. He played music, so it stood to reason he could have been a musician at some point…

"I was her teacher," he said, leaning against the door. "Her first teacher was her father, but when she was here, I gave her the coaching that made her a sensation! All of Paris was talking about her and her transformation from chorus girl to reigning diva, and no one guessed that she was receiving lessons from a voice behind the wall."

I stared at him. "Voice behind the wall?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, nodding. "She didn't see me until after her debut as Paris' darling. You see, Phillippe, I made an awful mistake. I fell in love with a woman who I'd decided would never see the mysterious voice who claimed to be the Angel of Music."

I remembered a story that Mother had told me once while I'd been sick. She'd said that once when she was a little girl, her father had told her the story of the Angel of Music: an angel who helped people who longed for beautiful music. He'd said that he'd send him to her after he died, and some years after he'd gone to Heaven, the Angel of Music did come. That was where she'd stopped telling me about it, but I'd always guessed there was more. It seemed this man was the rest of the story.

"I brought her here, and I told her how I felt," he was saying, bringing me out of my memories. "She was terrified at first, but later, she seemed to calm down. I brought her here to get her away from a childhood friend I could tell she cared for. That friend was Raoul de Chagny, and he was everything I was not for a young woman. He was handsome and a creature of the light, and I was ugly and a creature of the dark. Still, we loved the same woman. We both professed our love for her, and I could tell she was torn. I prayed to God that He would show me some small mercy and allow her to love me, but later, I learned that she and Raoul were planning to run away from Paris together."

I stared at him, not sure what to think. I had known nothing of this. Now I knew why they never went to Paris and why they rarely spoke of it. They didn't want to remember this man and the pain that accompanied all the memories of him. I sank into a chair, unable to stand any longer and listened as he continued.

"I became enraged when I learned their plans, so I kidnapped Christine one night after her performance. I brought her down here once again and gave her a choice: marry me, or I shall make sure that everyone in the Opera would die with us. I'd rigged barrels of gunpowder underneath the Opera, and if she'd said no I would have triggered them to destroy the Opera and us along with it. If she said yes, we would marry in the Madeleine church and begin our lives together. I knew Raoul would come seeking her, and he did, but I made sure he couldn't get to us. There was a room where I could keep an eye on him while Christine made her decision."

I couldn't speak, and something told me that I needed to interrupt him, to make him stop talking, but my voice wouldn't work.

"She turned to me, and she told me that while she loved us both very much, she couldn't marry me: it was living in the dark that frightened her. I could see that she was telling the truth, and that she was sorry for all the pain she'd caused me. The unhappiness in her eyes made me sorry for the pain that I had caused her and the boy she loved, so I forgave them both and gave them my blessings. That was when she gave me a precious gift; the greatest gift that a woman can give a man. After she had given it, I let her and Raoul go, and they were married shortly afterward. I found the result of that gift last night in my box at the Opera, and he is here with me now."

I understood then. He was saying that he was my father! "It's not possible," I said quietly, although I felt like shouting it. "It's just not possible. Father...is Father."

"Raoul cannot have children," he told me gently. "I heard him tell Christine about it. Raoul has brown hair, and Christine is blonde. You have black hair. Now, how is that possible? No, Phillippe, you are my son."

I stared at this man (who did indeed have black hair) and wondered if I was going to lose my mind in the next minute. He had come into my life, turned it upside down, and made me rethink everything I had ever known to be true. Father was not my true father, instead, it was this man, and Mother had been caught between them.

Dearest God, what would all of this mean?

Space

He realized that I wanted to be by myself then, so he brought me some breakfast on a tray and left me on my own. I was hungry (it seemed that I was always hungry then) and I ate. It was hard to enjoy croissants, grapes, and cafe au lait when you felt your mind had been turned inside out, but somehow I managed to eat. Once I finished, I left the tray on the table and wandered my room, looking about and examining the trinkets and curios that were there. There was a curio cabinet in the corner, and inside it were several figures that looked as if they came from Persia and India. The clock on the mantel read half-past nine, but without windows and his greeting of "good morning!" I wouldn't have known it was morning instead of night. All of the furniture was in a Louis-Phillippe style, and there were rugs covering the floor and tapestries and pictures on the walls.

There were bookcases. I've mentioned before that I'm a voracious reader, and these drew me as flames would a moth. He had eclectic tastes, I could tell that right away. There were works on religion (he had copies of the holy scriptures of every major religion), philosophy (Greek and Roman, as well as Eastern), science (numerous), mathematics (numerous), medicine (even more numerous), plants (just as numerous), and countless volumes of literature, both prose and verse (these had their own bookcase, one that reached the ceiling and took up half a wall). Also, and what was even more disturbing, he had all of my favorite authors' works. Where these also his favorites, or had he learned what I liked to read and obtained copies?

I couldn't think about it any more. I found a book (Gulliver's Travels by Jonathon Swift) and curled up on the chaise lounge to read. That book had transported me to distant places before, and I counted on it to do so now. It was when Gulliver had difficulties with the dwarf in Brobdingnag that I heard music. He was playing a piano somewhere in the house, and I couldn't focus on my book. The music was the type of music that made a person's soul soar and drew him up into the sky. It had such a calling sound that I couldn't resist it. I felt like one of the children following the Pied Piper of Hamlin as I headed out through the door and down a hallway towards the music.

I found him in what looked like a drawing room. There were chairs, tables, rugs, lamps, bookcases, and ornaments, as well as the piano in the corner. He was there, playing it, and I made my way over to a chair, still spellbound.

How long I sat there and listened is beyond me, but the piece he was playing seemed to go on and on. It did not have an emotion except, if it is possible, of a sense of journeying. It sounded as if the whole piece was running over hills at an incredible pace while still moving slowly enough to take in the scenery and enjoy it. There were times when I felt as if I were running with wild horses over plains or flying with birds across the sky. Other times I swam in the water like a fish or leapt through the forest like a deer. Slowly, I was drawn in and began to experience the music instead of just hearing it.

I don't know how long it was before the music stopped, but all of a sudden I came back to earth with a shock similar to having cold water dumped over my head. He had turned on the piano bench and it squeaked, and that was what made me realize just where I was and who I was facing.

"I heard you playing," I began to explain. "I'm sorry if I bothered you..."

He shook his head. "I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's one of my favorite pieces, and sometimes I am as hypnotized by it as you seemed to be. You sat there a full ten minutes after I stopped playing, just staring into space, and if the bench hadn't squeaked it is likely you would have been doing so even longer."

"I've never heard anything like it," I confessed, still feeling that wonderful sense of travel running through my blood. It felt almost as if the music had taken its place.

"Thank you," he said, bowing his head a little in acknowledgement of my compliment before glancing up at the clock. "Well, I've been playing longer than I thought. It's one in the afternoon. Time for lunch."

I followed him like a sleepwalker down the hall and into a dining room, where he told me to set the table. This was a problem, since I had never set a table in my life. At home, servants did that, and at school, we just took the things we were passed, be they plates, knives, forks, whatever. Still, I could remember what the final result looked like, and I managed. The plates, silver, and glasses were already set out, so all I had to do was set them up in the right way. There were linen place mats (like individual tablecloths) in front of two places, so at each place I set out a soup plate, salad plate, fork, knife, spoon, napkins, and tumblers. I placed myself at the right-hand place (after all, he should have the head since it was his house), and I stood behind my chair and waited. He returned after only a few minutes, carrying a large tray holding a covered plate, a pitcher full of something to drink, and a soup tureen that was steaming. These he set in the center of the table and we sat down together.

I was mystified at where the food had come from. "Who cooks for you?" I asked, remembering the cook at home and the cook at school.

He smiled. "I cook for myself. When I was first learning some of the results were pretty dire, but I think I've improved since then."

He served me soup (it looked like a cream or milk soup with vegetables and potatoes) and offered me the covered plate, which turned out to be sandwiches. I wasn't familiar with the filling, but it looked like shredded meat and vegetables in some kind of soft cheese in between dark bread. The drink was nothing more than lemonade, which surprised me since I hadn't known adults drank it. Also, lemons were hard to get since they were starting to go out of season. The largest harvests of lemons happened in autumn, and this was still summer.

At his encouragements to begin eating (and after we had said grace) I took a spoonful of soup and felt as if my tongue had died and found Heaven in a spoon. He wasn't just a cook, he was a god in a chef's hat! (Well, he wasn't wearing one, but I could imagine it easily.) I'd never tasted anything so fabulous. The sandwich and lemonade were also wonderful, but the soup was fit to grace a king's table. While we ate, he told me about how he'd made the food. The lemonade was made with water, honey, and crushed lemons, and the sandwiches were wheat bread he'd made himself (he felt wheat was more healthy to eat than white) beef, water cress, spinach leaves, and what was called Philadelphia cheese. He'd said that he'd discovered it some years back and that it was very useful in many ways. The soup was a cream soup as I'd thought, and it included cream, potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, celery, onion, and herbs. It was plain food, according to him, but it was tasty (delicious, in my opinion) and healty to eat.

I had three bowls of the soup and two sandwiches, and when I leaned back in my chair, replete, I heard him chuckle. "I'd heard that young men were hungry, but I'd never known just how hungry they could be. It's good I decided to fix a lot, just in case."

"You're quite the chef," I said, feeling the slightest bit sleepy with my full stomach. "The cooks at school or home aren't near your level of skill."

He raised his tumbler to me in a toast. "Well, thank you! That's quite a compliment."

With a full stomach, I suddenly felt as if I could talk to him. "Um, Monsieur..." I began.

"Call me Erik."

"Erik, why did you bring me here? Why did you tell me about Mother and Father and you? What plans do you have now?"

He nodded. "I'm surprised you didn't ask earlier, but then, I think you were in shock of some kind. I brought you here so I could tell you the truth and allow you to get to know me. Think about it: If you were in some place where you could get away from me, would you stay with a man in a mask?"

He was right. I wouldn't have, but since I had yet to find a way out (or even see the outside of the house, the place seemed to have no windows or doors to the outside I could spot) I'd been forced to stay where I was. A man in a mask was frightening in his own way, and for the first time, I plucked up the courage to ask about it. "I see what you mean, but why do you wear a mask?"

He propped his chin in his hand and looked at me. "For the same reason I live here by myself: So I don't have to see people and so those people don't see me. I frighten them as much with the mask as without it. I am--disfigured, Phillippe, so disfigured that not even my mother could stand to see my face. It was a marvel that your mother found room in her heart for me."

I nodded. "She's a very loving person."

He agreed, I could tell. "She is the most loving person I have ever known, besides a few I have met in my travels."

He didn't expand on that, and I didn't ask. I sensed there was something very sad about those people he didn't want to discuss. Instead, I plowed ahead with my questions. "So, why did you tell me about Mother and Father and you?"

"I felt you had a right to know--you're fifteen, after all, and not a baby, and I felt I had the right to tell you and have you know about me."

I noticed that he didn't mention my rights to happy oblivion.

"As for my plans now, do you mean my plans in regard to you?" When I nodded he continued. "Well, I have sent your mother a letter. I told her what I've done, where you are now, and that I intend to keep you with me for a month. She needn't worry about you in the slightest. At the end of that month, if you wish to leave and never see or hear from me again, then I will honor that wish. If you wish to keep up our relationship in some way, then I will be more than happy to oblige you, but I am firm in my decision about the length of time we are together. A month is not so long, when you think about it, when you compare it to years or a lifetime."

A month? He wanted me to stay a MONTH? "What about school?" I protested. "It starts in two days!"

"I can teach you, if you're worried about your education, Phillippe. As for your friends, I'll allow you to write to them, and Christine and Raoul, of course."

"But I can't stay a MONTH!" I said, almost frantic.

"Would you prefer another length of time?" he asked, looking a little surprised at my worry. "A year, perhaps?"

"No!" I told him quickly. I wasn't sure if I could stand a month in this odd house, much less a year.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "That was how long I originally planned to keep you with me, but I'm sure Christine would have begun to pine for you after that long."

I slouched in my chair, not able to think. A month? He'd originally planned a year? A month? A year? A month in this house where you couldn't see the outside, living with a man who said he was my father, and not seeing another soul for all that time?

What was I going to do?