A/N: Hello everybody. I'm so scared about this chapter because, well, you'll see. Anyway, this chapter includes Erik's back-story that I have made up entirely. I am not using the Devil's Child back-story from the movie, I dreamed this one up somehow. Please enjoy!
Chapter Twenty: I've Lost My Mind
"Okay, okay okay!" I exclaimed, when Mme. Giry pulled me into her office and slammed the door shut behind her. I whipped around, getting a bit defensive just in case the ballet mistress wanted to bludgeon me to death with her odd-looking lamp. A strange suspicion, I know, but I keep in mind that I was standing in Mme. Giry's office in the first place, which was crazy enough.
The room was dimly lit with dark pink walls and little sconces shaped like the shells I found when Mom and I went to the beach once. The room curved to the right and down a small flight of two or three steps, there was another section of the room in front of me, filled with the most obscure items imaginable. One could say that Mme. Giry was a hoarder, as most of the stuff around the room looked like junk, but she gazed at all of it with a faint, loving expression of her weary face.
There was a bust of a young woman sitting on a counter, and little black and white photographs of people were littered in picture frames on the cabinets every where. Candles lit the room in a ghostly way as I took in the rest of her things. An odd little carpet bag sat by the door, and a little pair of ballet shoes that were ripped and worn with age were strung up like a wall hanging. Delicate doilies covered the tops of the cabinets which had an assortment of little trinket boxes all over the top right in front of a mirror.
Mme. Giry turned on her lap and walked over to one of her paintings.
Portraits of Meg Giry, the blonde little girl if I remember correctly, and a man I had never seen or met before lined the walls. She touched one of the pictures of the man on his 'cheek' and sighed lightly.
"Was that your husband?" I asked and she nodded, turning to me. A small, sad little smile was on her thin lips, which was a welcome change to her scowl that I thought was carved in stone.
"Yes, yes it was, my darling Christopher, how I miss him so, but he passed quite some time ago." She said and I felt a bit bad for her, it must be hard to raise a daughter on your own.
"He was very handsome." I told her, hoping to make her feel better and she beamed with pride.
"He was, wasn't he. I always told him that he could have any girl he wanted, but he would always reply; 'I want no one but you, Yvette.'" I smiled at her as she sat down and motioned me to do the same. "But this is my story, and you asked for that of the Opera Ghost, so I shall tell, but remember, it stays in this room." I nodded.
"I promise." I whispered, crossing my heart like I was a little girl again.
"Very well. It all began close to twenty-two years ago. I was walking to the bistro down the street with my good friends from the Opera house, I was the lead ballerina in the Corps de ballet, and we were very hungry, our cook was sick and so we slipped away from rehearsal practice to find something to eat.
"It was very dark, and the lamps had blown out in the wind, the other girls were giggling at the stories they came up with at what they would do to an attacker if he targeted them and they were so engrossed with their chatter that they missed the sound of a child crying from a nearby alley.
"I was alert and I heard it. The sound intrigued me, for it sounded so mournful and sad, that I knew I simply had to investigate. I told the other girls that I had forgotten something of much importance in my dormitory at the Opera house, and I left the group, heading towards the noise.
"When I rounded the corner, I gasped. A group of three men a few years younger than myself, had surrounded a child of eight and were beating him and harassing him! I picked up a chunk of ice from the frozen street and threw it at the back of the one who seemed to be the leader. In the dark of the night, I must have looked much older than twenty, for they ran off, most likely fearing the authorities.
"I approached the young boy quietly, and knelt down beside him. He covered his face from my view and pointed to the ground where, a few yards away, a black mask lay buried in the snow. i wiped the water from it and gave it back to him, asking his name. He told me that he was called Erik, and that he had run away from his home in the countryside when his step-father threatened to sell him to the circus." I was so curious to know what happened, but Mme. Giry stopped to think.
"What did you do?" I asked and she sighed.
"I did the only thing I could, I took him back to the Opera house and led him deep into the catacombs where he could be safe. He was so frightened, but he seemed to trust me. He told me that his step father was a monstrous man who beat him and showed him off to his gambling friends. His mother, a wicked witch who fashioned him a mask and never allowed him to see his face for fear of his ugliness." I was close to tears, how could anybody do that to a little boy!
"I hope they burn in Hell." I said quietly and she nodded in agreement.
"I said the same thing to him time and time again. He told me that he had run away, for his step father had taken him to the circus and showed him the horrors of the freak show. The vile man said he would sell him to those wicked people, because when he married his mother, it was not of his intentions to gain the spawn of Satan for a son." I gasped, who would say such a thing? Were people really that cruel? What kind of horror had the hospital shielded me from?
"You're joking" I cried and she shook her head. "You must be! How could he?!" She sighed and I quieted down.
"I asked myself the same thing many times Mademoiselle. He grew up beneath the Opera house, with little help from myself. He took the reigns and raised himself, he did not need me, or his mother, he thought he did not need anybody.
"One day, he told me he was leaving to see the world, and he did not know if he would come back. He said he was tired of living like a weasel in the ground, and that he wanted to behold the world's wonders. And so I let him leave. I wish I did not.
"When he returned, he was not the young man of fifteen with dreams of being a famous architect and composer that I had known. In his place was a cold man of twenty-one. He was gone for six years and in those sixt years, he had seen the world, and he had seen Hell." again, I was shocked. I leaned forward a little bit and brushed the hair out of my eyes.
"What happened to him?" I asked and she grew silent for a little bit.
"He went to Persia, Mademoiselle, and it was there that he grew from boy to man, it was there that he realized he could never be accepted, no matter how beautiful his music or how majestic his buildings, he did not belong in the world of the living." I began to get a bit frustrated, as she was being vague on purpose.
"Just tell me!" I exclaimed and she patted my hand to calm me down.
"He was employed for the spoiled Empress Ayesha of Persia, as she had executed her latest magician. She saw mystery in him, and admired his courage when he told her he would rather die than remove his mask. She doubted him, as she did not expect a French man to have talent in illusions, but he learned the tricks from watching the effects used in Operas, and he preformed them well. The Empress was impressed and she hired him to entertain her.
"One day, she grew impatient with him, and demanded that he take off his mask. He refused, and so she locked him away for a week with no food or water. When he was brought to her from his prison, he resisted still. She had him beaten by guards and his mask forcibly removed from his face. She laughed at his hideousness and had him brought to the center of her city." I didn't want Mme. Giry to go on, and yet, I didn't want her to stop.
"What did they do to him?" I inquired and she shuddered a bit.
"She had every one look at him for what he really was; not a great and powerful magician, not even a man, just a beast on display. He murdered the palace guards that were stationed in the square by himself - although I do not know how, Mademoiselle, I suspect adrenaline, made potent by humiliation- with their own whips and fled the scene, returning to the Opera Populaire. He adopted the Punjab lasso as his weapon of choice after that day, and found that he had a mystical bond with it, as it was what he used to make his first kill. He stayed underground and two years later, young Christine Daae came to live and train for the corps de ballet. It was love at first sight, and he tricked her into believing that he was her father's Angel of music." I grit my teeth at the mention of Christine, as I found myself disliking her more every day I got to know Erik better.
"And then?" I asked and the ballet Mistress shrugged.
"The rest you know of, Mademoiselle, I have told you his story, or at least, what I know of it, he would only tell me in small bits, I am quite certain there is more he refuses to say about, things too perverse and twisted to share." I nodded and blinked back the tears that burned in my eyes. Poor Erik, poor, poor Erik, he deserved none of that!
"Thank you, Mme. Giry, but I must be going." I said, looking at the clock and I began to panic. "He expected me back within the hour, I must go or I will be late!" I exclaimed. I didn't wait for her goodbye, I just yelled mine over my shoulder and ran from her office to Christine's dressing room. I threw open the door and shut it behind me, trying not to gag at the sight of all the flowers and the pink that stained the walls and carpet. I pushed open the mirror and tore down the hall, lifting up my golden dress so that it wouldn't get damaged.
Down the winding hallways I went, not stopping to breathe, I just couldn't. There was a horrible pain in my chest after hearing what happened to Erik, and once again I found tears burning in my eyes as visuals of him being hurt flashed in front of me.
I finally reached the lake and I jumped in the boat, paddling as fast as I could away from the shore. The pain in my chest had still yet to subside when I reached the other side to see Erik still at his organ. He turned to look at me in surprise as I jumped out of the boat.
"You spent quite a bit of time collecting your things." He said in a suspicious way and I rolled my eyes.
"Hey, I got back within the hour!" I exclaimed before getting quiet. "Besides, Mme. Giry almost caught me" I lied to him, not wanting to tell him what really happened and he whipped around. It seems as though he turned around too fast, for he let out a small noise of pain before bending over and clutching his abdomen.
Oh... my God.I sprang into action, grabbing him around his shoulders and pulling him into the bedroom.
I all bur ripped his shirt off and let out a defeated noise when the inevitable finally happened. Five of his stitches were popped, which was the cause of his pain. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that they weren't from the middle, but rather from near the end, making blood and gut spillage impossible. I quickly re-bandaged his chest up and decided that I was going to put an end to this getting up and walking around whenever he wanted.
A half an hour later, Erik was laying down in his bed, his back propped up against the swan head board. He had agreed to write his music and stay in his room from now on, His little monkey music box played in the background as I sewed a new hem onto the gold dress. I sighed and stood up, sitting on the edge of the bed. Erik looked up at me quizzically as I sighed again and shifted closer to him.
"Isn't it funny how it always ends up like this?" I asked, playing with a loose string on my dress. Erik stared at me strangley before replying.
"What do you mean?" He asked and I shrugged, moving even closer.
"I don't know, it always seems to end up with you wrapped up in bandages to keep your insides from falling out." I said quietly as another vision of Erik before that evil Empress flashed in my mind. "Sometimes" I said quietly "I think I need to be wrapped up in bandages to keep my insides from falling out." I whispered and I finally let the un-shed tears fall down my face. "I'm losing my mind." I said desperately and Erik leaned in a little closer, just a little bit, not to much, but he did.
"Why?" He asked, keeping his voice down.
"Because, I want to do this." It was then that I completely went crazy.
I closed the small amount of distance between us, and pressed my lips against his freezing ones. I closed my eyes and kissed him for a full three seconds.
He didn't kiss me back.
I pulled away from him and let out a little sob. I had to go, I couldn't stay here, everything was just too wrong. I grabbed my gold dress as Erik remained frozen and I turned and left. I never looked back, my heart wouldn't let me.