Thanks as usual to all of my reviewers: The Little Mademoiselle, obsessedbyerik, MJ MOD, Mirrordjyn, LittleLottexoxEriksTrueAngel, Ceinwyn, jtbwriter, WTFWonder (who I hope will be pleased with the not-so-darkness in this chapter), and anyone else who I did not mention. Thank you.
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Chapter Seventeen: Aftermath
When he finished speaking he walked stiffly away without looking at her, and a few moments later she heard his door slam in a show of almost petulant anger.
Shaking slightly, Christine sank to the floor, her face in her hands. Oh God, how had everything gotten so wrong? How was there any coming back from this point? She had failed, oh she had failed miserably, and now there would be no more chances. She had ruined everything, all of her chances for freedom; her only chance now was to wait and hope that he still kept his promise, that if she spoke to him and got to know him that he would one day let her go.
'But how?' Christine thought desperately as she pushed her hair out of her eyes to stare after him. 'How could I possibly gain his trust now, after all of this? How would he ever believe me, ever forgive me? I've screwed everything up so much I don't know if there is any coming back from it.'
Soft, melancholy music reached her ears, as far away as if it was a dream, and it struck some deep chord within Christine, calming her and focusing her shaken thoughts. Slowly she stood up and stepped inside her room, gently closing the door behind her, and didn't emerge for hours. They both needed time to think, time to plan…time to heal.
When the door opened again she had slept and bathed and changed into a soft warm sweater. So often she had to tell herself that it was June, not January, and that outside a sun still shone. In that house it was always twilight winter, that kind of timeless haze of the north where the sun never quite peeks over the mountains and the days blend together without the balance of an internal clock.
Hunger pains once again gnawed at her insides and, after scanning the rooms for any sign of his presence, she sat down to the waiting cold cucumber soup and bread with a small breath of thanks. At least he was still feeding her.
She finished eating, but he still did not appear.
Nervousness slowly being quelled by boredom, Christine wandered through the house, searching not for him but for occupation. She paused in the music room, briefly entranced by the shadowed grand piano which her clumsy fingers still remembered how to play, but shook her head and kept moving. Beyond the music room lay the library, that strange and vast collection of books, and she stopped at the threshold to once again stare at its labyrinthine space in awe. Feet sinking into the thick carpet, she approached the first wall and let her fingers graze the titles. Here, closer to these faded volumes the smell of paper and leather and must prevailed and overlapped that pervading dead smell of him and the rest of his house.
She wandered deeper into the stacks, intently reading each title, sometimes pulling one off of its shelf to flip through it briefly. She rounded a corner, then another, losing her thoughts to the dreams that surrounded her. Books had always taken her mind to better places, but here they represented something more: freedom. The one freedom she could have, the one way her mind could briefly escape from this cage. She walked, and wandered, until at one moment she turned around and realized that she could no longer see the door.
Claustrophobia suddenly tightened her throat as she walked quickly back the way she had come and peered down small hallways lined with books, but she couldn't find the exit.
"I'm lost in dreams," Christine whispered softly before she even knew that she had spoken. Her face cracked into a lopsided smile. "Isn't that how this whole thing started anyway?"
Suddenly a little bubble of hysterics burst within her and she began to laugh. Shaking, she gripped a wall-high bookshelf and she laughed and laughed until tears streamed down her face. It all seemed so terribly ridiculous in that moment, so surreal. "I'm trapped in my own metaphor," she gasped between breathless giggles. Her whole world seemed to crash around her ears. She sunk to her knees. "I tried to kill a man," she slowly became hysterical, her laughter more edged and violent. "I'm so stupid that I believed in dream music, that I thought it was an angel!" She was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. "I'm so stupid! What a mess I'm in! What a horrible, horrible, stupid mess I'm in! It's my fault; I believed…I should have known. And he…he loves me! He loves an idiot!" Somewhere along the line her laughter had turned to tears, and she pounded her fists on the floor. "I'm so stupid! I'm so stupid!" she cried. "What a great person I am, I can't even survive on my own and I…I almost killed someone! I'm, oh God…" Suddenly her tears stopped as if a tap had turned off inside of her, like the door into someplace darker within her soul had briefly cracked open and then slammed closed when she noticed it. Christine stared at her hands, startled. "Oh God, I really am losing my mind," she whispered hoarsely. "What am I going to do?"
Carefully, gripping the bookshelves for support, she stood and walked along them, always keeping one hand to the wall. She walked, weak and tired, for several minutes until she finally turned a corner and saw the way out. Grabbing a book at random, she quickly left the room and fairly ran back to her bed, where she secluded herself until the last page had been turned.
Then she slept, woke hungry, and faced the forever daunting struggle of deciding whether or not to leave the relative safety and calm of her room. Sheer boredom and hunger finally drove her out, and she rationalized that he would probably not be there.
She was wrong
He wasn't obviously apparent at first, as she sat down to eat another prepared meal, but the nagging sense of his presence plagued her until she finished. As soon as she was done she turned her head slightly toward the sitting room and, as if by magic, he was sitting there as if it had not been an empty space a moment ago. Christine still wondered how he did these things, but was slowly becoming desensitized to the consistent strangeness, and felt no need to demand or question.
As if pulled by an invisible thread Christine rose and moved to sit near him. She curled into the thick dark chair near the couch as she had that terrible day, though this time there was not heavy weight of guilt or indecision, only supreme isolation. She felt that if she closed her eyes he would simply cease to be there, that she would open them to find herself alone. He was so still, so dark, featureless under the mask, yellow eyes unblinking; he seemed to absorb the light around him, negative space in a starched suit. Christine could not even see him breathe. She stared at him to reassure herself of his presence, resisting the urge to shake him or to touch his fragile heartbeat to know that he was really there. How could something alive be so still?
Christine stared at her hands, huddled as tight fists in her lap. The silence and his not-presence were suffocating. 'Speak!' she willed him silently. 'Say something, anything! Tell me that I haven't ruined my own life! Tell me that this silence will not go on forever! I can't breathe! Talk! Talk to me!'
The silence stretched on like a wall, an invisible barrier. She dug her nails into her palms, the stinging pain snapping her to her senses. She had stepped across a line and shattered his intensions, destroyed what he had hoped for. Though what he truly wanted could never be, she had to call a truce, had to break this silent battle that was being waged in the still air between them. Christine knew that she had to somehow undo what had been done, or she would never go free, never see the sky again or feel any air other than the stagnance of this cold apartment.
"Should I sing for you?" She gasped out, forcing the words into the air with effort, offering what she had sworn to never offer. He blinked and tilted his head at her like a bird, but still did not speak. "I mean, you said that was why I'm here. You're going to teach me, right? I'd like to become a better singer…if you want to help me." Her voice tapered off at the end as if it was absorbed by the air, and her words faded as quickly as they had appeared, leaving only that maddening, ringing silence.
Christine resisted the urge to throw her hands over her ears, as if the stillness was something she could drown out.
"If you wish."
Her head snapped up. He was still sitting there, looking at her unblinkingly, and for a moment she wondered whether he had spoken at all. But he stood, a fluid graceful moment, and turned his face to the music room.
"Now." His words were both a question and a command.
He waited for her to stand, and when she did he walked without looking back. Christine followed at a safe distance, her stomach tight with nerves and anticipation. Beyond the fear and the ache of regret in her stomach there was a small corner of her consciousness that was almost excited. This was the man who sang like a god, who burned her ears with beauty, and he was going to teach her to sing. To sing like him? Was it possible? He began to lead her through scales, and as her voice climbed higher Christine began to see the ramifications of his offer. If her voice could somehow become even a fraction as beautiful as his any job in the world of music would be open to her. She would be famous, revered, fulfilled…could such things actually happen? For a brief moment Christine saw a sweeping and glittering vision of her future, and understood why he believed that he was helping her, that he was the hero, that he was saving her life. He was offering to pull her from obscurity to reign in heaven.
Her voice broke and the music stopped abruptly, leaving her breathless.
'But the price…' Christine thought as she stared at his back, his shoulders hunched briefly as he flicked through sheets of music. 'The price is far too high.'
"You are familiar with this?" Erik propped a few sheets of paper up on the piano, his movements jerky and abrupt, vestiges of his discomfort and anger.
Christine swallowed nervously and peered at the piece. "Oh yes," she murmured, brightening. "Yes, that was a piece I worked on in school."
"I know," he nearly snapped.
Christine jumped, then frowned, trying to resist the urge to hiss, 'then why did you ask?'
"You were rather horrid at the time of your last attempt with this piece, though it is not terribly difficult. Let's see if you have improved at all, shall we?" He continued as if he hadn't noticed her glare, folding his long fingers over the keys with insufferable calm. "Begin."
Unsettled and thrown into the piece, Christine began to sing, but barely made it a few bars before the music stopped.
"No, no!" He snapped, his hands curled into frustrated fists in his lap. "If you won't even try…"
"I am trying! My form…" Christine bit back, and he whipped on her.
"Do you think of nothing but your form, your precision?" He hissed at her. One white hand uncurled from his lap to gesture angrily at the still paper. "Do you have any idea what this piece is about?"
"Of course, it's the story of…"
"Not the story, the emotion! You sing as if you were dead, and we both know, my dear, that out of the people in this room you are the least dead." He muttered his black joke viciously, and Christine felt her breath catch.
"What should I do? It's how I sing," She snapped, her nerves frazzled.
He took a deep breath and visibly calmed, his shoulders twitching as to remove tense knots, his hands uncurling to spread spider-like across his dark knees. "Tell me how you feel, right now," he said softly, his head tilted to stare unblinkingly at his hands. "Tell me honestly. What do you feel?"
"I…" Christine faltered.
"I will not get angry. I want truth. What do you feel?"
"I feel…" Christine thought for a moment. "Uneasy," she acknowledged.
"Go on."
"I feel uncomfortable." He was silent so she continued. "I feel hesitant. I feel nervous. I feel sad. I feel," she paused before saying it. "Fear. Afraid. I feel anger. I feel frustration. I feel hate. I feel pity. I feel guilt. I feel pain. I feel, I feel…" Christine rolled the word around in her mouth before saying it. "Regret," she whispered.
Slowly his face turned to look at her, his yellow eyes sharp, and she had to close her eyes to escape from their stare. "That's it," he said. "Tell me what you regret."
"I don't see…"
"Tell me."
"I regret that I'm….that I'm not a stronger person," Christine whispered. "I regret that I'm weak, that I let this happen to me. I regret…that I didn't see what was going on sooner."
Softly he began to play an unwritten introduction without looking at the keys, his eyes still fixed on hers. "Go on," he murmured encouragement.
"I regret that I'm here," she hissed, tears gathering at the corner of her eyes. "I regret that I'm not in control of my life. I regret that I didn't live my life enough. I regret that I don't have my father here to protect me. I regret that I'll never hear my mother's voice again. I regret that I didn't try harder to get away, run farther, faster." Her voice was coming out loud, quick, hysterical, her words blurring together. The music rose in pitch, coming closer to that moment of words and emotion. "I regret that I was so stupid that I believed in angels. I regret that this has happened to me. I regret I couldn't protect myself. I regret my life. I regret my pain." The music filled her head like screams. "I regret, I regret, I regret…"
Jolting she recognized the beginning of the song. "Sing!" He cried, and Christine plunged into it, her voice disoriented, raw, crashing in the air, as if every single moment of bone aching regret that she had ever experienced in her life was being purged. The notes were imperfect, the form neglected, but the sheer energy was like her soul ripping from her body. She sang with such regret it was like dying; she nearly collapsed by the end of it, her heart pounding in her head, her mouth gaping like a landed fish.
"There," his voice shook her out of her stupor and she tilted her head to look at him. He was staring at her with something tenderly painful in his eyes. He reached to brush her sweaty hair out from in front of her eyes, and for that moment she did not move away. "Form does not create beauty. It is our conduit, our studies, but in the end it can not create passion. You feel so much, yet I never hear it. Do you lock it away so tightly?"
She stared at him for a moment, her chest tight. "I'm sorry," she gasped breathlessly, her guilt overwhelming. "I'm so sorry."
"As am I," he whispered. "We both have much to forgive."
"And regret," she said, her voice soft, breakable. "Much to regret."
He stared at her for a moment longer. "Yes," he agreed, standing to gather his papers, his back curved and shoulders slumped, his tall form radiating weariness. "But I don't know which is harder to accept."
