19

Katrina needn't have worried that Tomino would forget her in her absence. At the sound of her voice, the dog scurried to leap at her, sending her luggage flying, and trapping her on the floor.

He had grown considerably, and it took Erik and Katrina both to move him aside. As soon as she was freed, she threw her arms around her uncle's neck. "Oh, oh, oh, I am so glad to see you!" Katrina sobbed. "I'm glad I don't have to go again."

Unused to women, or crying, and particularly a weeping female, Erik wisely waited until the storm passed before asking; "Are you sorry you went?"

"No." She answered. "I liked it. But I missed everyone too much."

This reply seemed to satisfy him, and he took her hand in one of his own, and picked up some of her scattered parcels. As they walked down the hallway, Katrina saw the door to Christine's room wide open, with stacks of items piled high on the bed and boxes near for packing. She stopped and stared, her eyes huge. "What happened?"

He glanced over the contents of the room as if it wounded him to see them. "It is time I let Christine go, child. I will waste my time with you if I do not."

"Are you keeping nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Not even the music?"

His face relaxed into what could have been a smile, and bent his yellow face near hers. "Music is not a thing, to kept or thrown away, Katrina. It is a living, breathing spirit that only waits for the player to give it life. I cannot keep that in a box, or on a mantel, can I?"

If asked, Katrina could never after explain her feelings at that moment. She felt glad that the room was open, and it was no longer a tomb. But, she was also sad, for the thought of her beloved uncle giving up the memory of the woman he loved seemed like a death of some sort. Today, we would simply call it moving on, but for such as Erik, it was not simple.

Perhaps she sensed this, and felt a frowning nod was the most appropriate response when he told her she could take what she liked before he sold the rest.

That evening was like all their others, but the edge of it was tinged with relief.

When Erik had taken in the child, it had almost been a whim; a passing attempt at the life denied him. He had not wished or expected affection. The responsibility that had accompanied the child at times threatened to overwhelm his already occupied brain, but at night, he found the sleep sweeter and the moments of peace more blissful.

Sometimes he had found himself gazing longing at her empty chair or at the listless dog, wondering why she was gone so late only to remember Katrina had been with Marie. He would wander the secret haunts of the Opera, feeling a state similar to frenzy taking over in his loneliness. The time given to Katrina, he realized, was an investment. It somehow always returned to him, in ways he scarcely noted.

As she came scampering out in her nightgown for one last hug, one last chapter of the book they had started, he felt that blissful happiness quietly take over his spirit.

Erik felt her slip into sleep, and carried her to bed, Tomino trailing behind. As he smoothed the coverlet, and the wild hair catching the firelight in such a way that it looked like ember itself, he let out a long, heavy sigh.

As it echoed into silence, he left the child's side.

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