9
Helen felt a tiny hand on her forehead, cool and gentle. She could smell tea and muffins, hear a fire gently snickering somewhere nearby. A deep, gorgeous voice said something and a child's answered. Footsteps walked away, and there was silence.
Someone adjusted the blankets around her and a pattering sound of small feet zipped here and there around the room, followed by a door creaking shut.
Forcing her eyes open, Helen peered around the dimly lit room, wondering where she was. She heard a dog whine somewhere, and tried to sit up. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, but she couldn't place it.
The table by the fire was set with breakfast food, but she couldn't seem to get the energy to stand. Give off a growl of impatience; she let her head fall back on the pillows. As if on cue, Katrina appeared her face more solemn than usual. "Oh, Katrina, shouldn't you be helping Marie?"
"No, I told Marie I was sick and had to stay in bed." The little girl walked over and peered down at the woman.
"Why would you say that?"
Katrina bit her lip and shuffled awkwardly. "Because Uncle Erik said not to leave you alone until you could walk."
The memories from the night before came back in a solid wall, and Helen sat bolt upright in panic, only to have a pain run through her skull. "Oh!" She cried, clutching at her curls. Katrina gently helped her lean back and propped her up with more pillows that seemed to appear from thin air. Walking over the food, Katrina brought it over to serve her guest in bed.
After some blueberry muffins and tea had found their way to her stomach, Helen felt better. She gazed at Katrina with new eyes, remembering the face from the night before. The living skull, the blazing eyes, the yellow skin that burned as if with fever. He had caught her before she'd fallen into the fire, but she had shoved away, landing instead on, what? A table?
The child seemed the same as always, just concerned. How she could face her life so complacently was a mystery. "How long have you lived with Erik?"
Katrina shrugged. "Longer than a year I think. My Mother and Father wanted me to."
"Is he really your uncle?"
"Of course, he's my mother's brother."
To think of that face with a family, a mother, father, sister, and now niece was surreal. Helen remembered all the rumors she'd heard about the former singer and the opera ghost, and believed them. She believed ever word, the good and the evil.
Katrina moved the tray and held out a robe. "Do you think you can walk now? I can show around our house."
The concern on the young face forced Helen to paste a smile on her face, and stand slowly. Katrina took great care in leading her friend out of the room, and down the hall. "That's where Christine used to sleep," she said pointing back through the door they had left behind. Helen felt cold and pulled the robe tighter around herself.
The child proudly showed her own room, but only pointed to the closed door of her Uncle's. She showed the music room, and tried to explain the necessity of having a piano there as well as in the main part of the house. Helen only nodded, wondering vaguely about things she could barely put a name to. Katrina took her at last to the room she had fainted in, settling Helen in the chair near the fire. Stood before her, waiting, the girl was silent for a moment. "You hate my uncle, don't you?"
Helen's heart broke at the sadness in the girl's voice. "Oh, Katrina," she took the child's hands gently. "How can I explain it to you?"
"Uncle Erik already did, but I didn't want to believe him." There was the ring of disillusionment to the words, but no bitterness. "But he's always right, so I should have listened."
"What did he say?" Helen felt a rising horror at the thought of that thing explaining her fears.
Katrina turned away a little, looking into the fire. "He said that anyone who sees him is afraid, always. Christine was, my grandparents were, my mother was, though I think she learned not to be. He said that that kind of fear turns into hate. You can't get away from it or change it, so people hate it. Some people loath it he said. I looked up loath in a book, it means worse than hate." She turned back, as if this information might bring about a special response. When it didn't the girl went on. "I used to think people talked about him as the ghost so cruelly because they didn't know him, and I suppose that's still part of it. But that doesn't change the fact they hate him."
Helen rubbed the girl's hands between her own. "My dear, your uncle is right. People are afraid of him, because he's worth being feared. But you love him and aren't afraid."
"Yes, but I'm unnatural." Katrina remarked. Helen vowed to strike Erik when she saw him again. Provided Katrina was out of the room and she didn't faint first.
Controlling her anger however, she said slowly, "Would it help if I tried to understand your uncle? I may never be a good friend, but at least I may learn not to hate him." Bending a little she gazed into the watery eyes before her. How controlled that girl was! She should be weeping on the rug by now. "Will you help me if it's alright with your uncle?"
Katrina nodded, looking a little happier at the idea. "An experiment? To see what happens?"
"Very much so," Helen dryly muttered.
The rest of the day was spent showing Helen her favorite books and some of her lessons. After about nine o'clock, Katrina simple crashed into sleep. When Erik returned, she was tucked in bed, Tomino at her side. He walked out softly to find Helen standing in the hall.
"Katrina and I have come to an agreement, and I think we should talk while she can't hear."
With a nod, the cloaked man led her back to the sitting area.