Christine, I love you….
The last words Erik spoke to Christine Daae echoed in his mind as the soprano and her love rowed away, away from him forever.
He was on his knees, smothering his face in the veil she had hurled to the ground just minutes before.
Christine, I love you….
As Erik wept into the cloth that had once touched her soft curls, he thought that at last he had been honest. Not just to Christine, but to himself. He rubbed the ring she'd given him like a talisman.
After everything he had done in her name, to win her to him, now was the first time he knew for true that he loved her.
Had he loved her before? Everything before the moment her lips touched his was but a hazy farce to him now. He'd worn a mask not just to fool the world, but to fool himself. He had fancied he was Don Juan; he had fancied he was in love.
But staring into the sorrowful brown eyes of the brave Christine Daae as she, with all the courage within her, took his mouth in hers to show him "he was not alone", he knew anything he had felt before that was nothing. Dust.
He walked unsteadily to his throne, sparing the music box a glance of rueful mockery. Madame Giry's words came back to him: "You cannot win for you haven't the first clue what love really is: sacrifice for the sake of the other."
How poignant that just as his life was ending – for he was convinced he was not long for this earth now – events unfolded just as they really would in an opera. The wise woman had prophesied his end, and so it came to be: he learned what real love was, but he lost anyhow.
Christine Daae had given him life in one long burst of compassion, her sweet, dear, soft lips trembling beneath his malformed mouth, but when she departed she killed him as well.
It was the sweetest destruction a man could ever know.
He sat on his throne. Images, faint and dreary, whirled around his mind: the vicomte hanging suspended in the air, fighting for life, his Christine guarding him. Erik's mother groaning in distress when he tried to kiss her and throwing him his mask. Persia and the sideshow. Anahid and Julien.
Everything, everything was dust.
Everything but her.
The only one who could make his song take flight.
She, who had always seemed so meek, timid, yearning for guidance, had turned into a woman: strong and defiant. She'd lunged at him, but instead of violence, she gave him everything he needed to see the light. That kiss had been everything Erik never had. There he felt what was in Christine's heart – for the vicomte.
Erik felt in that kiss the sacrifices Christine would make, all for the man – the good man – that she loved.
There was nothing to do but free her. An angel could not thrive in the darkness.
The mob was very close now. He could detect the faint flickering above of their torches, hear their war cries.
All, all dust except her.
Yet Erik was not done lying to himself. When Christine left he told himself all hope within him went with her, but once he saw a feminine figure with long curls hop into the lair and stand surrounded by mist, dreadful, crushing hope stabbed his chest again.
Christine…?
Had she…?
He squinted and hope died a second death.
She had not detected him yet, so enthralled by the space around her, but there unequivocally stood little Meg Giry. She stood alone, in breeches, the bright blue light from the lake making her look almost transparently white, like a specter herself.
Hope fled from him like the sun descending into night. Erik wrapped his cloak around himself.
Meg had also heard the mob a floor or so above her as she leaned one leg down to begin descending the portcullis.
Again it felt as though a rabbit were trapped within her rib cage as she made her way down the gate like a spider crawls slowly down its web. And once again, she ignored that feeling – fear, pounding fear – and let her childhood experience climbing the rafters and set pieces lead her steps down.
Down, down, down she climbed, her expert feet never missing a rung.
At last she landed in the Phantom's lair.
Meg stood dumb and speechless. She wordlessly removed her cap, allowing her hair to fall down her shoulders, as if she were entering a church.
The Phantom's lair was everything she expected, and the realization of her expectations floored her.
For just a split second, she let herself soak in the underground palace. Her memories of every description of forbidden prison cells and ruined castles from the Gothic novels she'd read flooded her. Just as in the books, the darkness here was relieved only by the plentiful candelabrum, the mist rolling in from the lake, the organ….
Her mouth was open, her eyes misty.
This is where he lives. I…I've made it.
A chill ran up and down her spine.
She was the eager explorer once more, opening an infamous Pharaoh's tomb for the first time.
But this was just for a split second.
Then the rabbit beat in her chest again as she thought Christine.
Her second thought was there's no one here.
She craned her head around, fretfully expecting that at any moment some ghostly arm would shoot out of the mist for her. Yet none came. But she couldn't be absolutely sure she was alone without a little more exploration, could she?
She resumed her self-appointed mission.
Yet it wasn't the sure stride of a square-jawed hero of old that charged through the mist to better assess her surroundings. Although bravery pounded in her temples, it was still the tentative, dainty, but quick steps of a fawn that led Meg further into the room, leaving the mist and the lake behind her.
She started once she saw the throne.
There looked to be a figure hunched over there, covered in a cloak.
Passarino's cloak from the opera.
No longer a rabbit beat in her heart. Instead it was a resounding and steady war drum.
Her eyes adjusting to the dark, the girl made her way to the throne. It seemed an endless walk, as if down a long corridor.
For Christine. For Raoul. For your friends.
Her hand was on the cloak now.
And not daring to think, to breathe, she whipped the cloak away.
The Phantom's white half-mask sat upon the grand throne's seat and nothing more.
She had opened the Pharaoh's tomb only to discover his headdress.
Still, it was not quite disappointment she felt, or relief. Mystification reigned supreme in the girl's befuddled mind.
She knelt and silently picked up the mask with her small hand, holding it close to her face. The mask shone eerily in the dark lair. Meg's entire body trembled with the knowledge of who this mask once hid.
She looked around the expansive lair, at the candles, the organ, the burned off noose, the broken mirror with the dummy crumpled in the corner (which at first Meg almost gasped at, thinking in a hysterical burst that it was Christine). The torn veil by the portcullis that Meg narrowly avoided trampling on in her arrival lay forsaken and limp. A small strange papier-mache figure of a monkey with symbols leered at her.
And now this mask.
Napoleon Bonaparte must have felt this way when he invaded Moscow: the legendary city's cathedrals and artifacts remained, but where is the triumph when there is no one present to breathe life into the city?
"Christine," Meg whispered aloud, wondering.
She stared at the mask once more.
The mob was very near now, she could hear their footsteps along with their cries of fury and the sizzle of their torches.
Suddenly Meg's brows came together angrily. This won't do, she thought.
She refused to accept this situation as it was. Somewhere someone must be here. But where?
Her eyes fell again on the throne. She looked at the polished black frame, the massive arms. Two dragon heads were carved into the corners of the throne's back, sloping into some bearded, angry god of old at the top. The arms were smooth and flat.
Then she tilted her head. One of the arms seemed to jut out just a little higher than the other, reminding her vaguely of the plank in back of her own closet.
Meg felt a twist in her stomach, something she later identified as intuition. As if acting out a pantomime, Meg unknowingly mimicked Erik's actions just moments before by seating herself on the throne. She ran her free hand down the smooth wood finish of the plank in question, her other hand never letting go of the Phantom's mask.
So engrossed was she that she didn't note the ground start to tremble from the reverberations of the approaching feet above.
She didn't see the lone policeman through the portcullis, far off in the water, trying to corral drunk stagehands back to the cellars.
Meg's hand tentatively pressed down on the slightly raised arm. It shifted beneath her hand, just a little, but enough to make her gasp in wonder.
At that moment the policeman's gun went off in the air as the stagehands rushed past him.
The shock made Meg jump, causing her hand to come down violently on the arm, pushing it all the way down.
And with it, the seat of the throne descended below, pulling a shrieking Meg down with it.
When the stagehands entered the lair after bursting through the gates, they like Meg found the lair empty of any human life.
Despite their strained relationship over the years, Erik still trusted Anahid more than anyone else. However, it was in his nature to never trust anyone completely. It was in his nature to hold secrets privy only to himself.
And so he had deliberately left off the bottom level of his domain from the map he'd presented to Antoinette Giry almost sixteen years past.
Of course, he himself barely thought of this level. He thought of it as his basement, his storage room. It was a vast but narrow space, dark and dank. No grand furnishings or candelabrum dwelt here. Broken tables beyond repair, old masquerade costumes collecting dust, and the odd bits of silverware, paper, and sundry supplies were lined up in forgotten boxes and piles. Cobwebs coated the walls.
Its other function was a potential hiding place, his means of total escape. He knew that someday he might push Anahid too far – that Meg, every day showing more and more dangerous signs of independence, might leave the opera house and thus his threat to Anahid's freedom would carry less weight. And so he prepared for that day, so that if Anahid ever did lead interested men from the police to his lair, he could elude even her through one last trap door – hidden as the seat of his own throne.
Yet now, emotionally gutted, he did not think of true escape.
He thought of death.
Yet death by the mob's hands - - or, if he was luckier, apprehension by the police and then a lawful death – was abhorrent to him.
He refused to let the last human face he see be those belonging to the common and enraged masses as they tore him apart, more animal than human. He also refused to let it be the cold and indifferent face of the magistrate and executioner.
Let it be Christine. He'd feast on her image in his mind as outwardly he starved, alone in the dark, where he belonged.
Of course, little Meg Giry had already ruined that a bit by appearing right after Christine's exit from his life.
But no matter. Better Christine's beloved friend whom he'd watched over since her childhood than the frenzied mob.
Either way, now, down here, he could be alone.
He would sit down here and let the faint sounds from above of the mob lull him, the Phantom past the point of caring for the material objects the mob would no doubt destroy.
The dark had always been kind to him. Always embraced him. Never turned him away. He'd succumb to darkness now.
He was past everything but his memories of her. She would sustain him and give him peace in his last dark lonely moments….
Yet even this endlessly pleasant illusion shattered when he heard the quick sliding "ka-CHUNK" of the throne's seat deposit a small shrieking figure he could not quite make out in the pitch-black around him.
But he did recognize the high-pitched and breathy voice that called out "Oof" as the figure landed on the ground.
His eyes narrowed in the dark.
Then fury, which he thought dead in him, swelled up once more.
Meg Giry AGAIN.
Would this pesky petite rat never let him be?
He heard her panting, gulping. He heard her fumble for something, then the tell-tale sounds of a match striking a matchbox, the girl obviously trying to bring this cell some light.
Hate seared in his chest. Meg Giry…she in this moment encapsulated everything from the world above that had driven him to seclusion: insatiable curiosity, girlish fright, and an adamant refusal to let things be, that instinct to meddle….
The rush of hate turned into hysterical laughter in his chest, and it bubbled out ominously just as the match finally caught flame and the two could just see each other in the gloom.
They stood face to face for the first time.
Save for Christine and Anahid he had not been so close to a woman in a long, long time.
He laughed all the harder at her dumbstruck little face as she gazed at the Phantom.
Pretty little fool.
Dust coated her cheeks, her thick curls even unrulier than usual. The flickering light turned the red strands in her blonde hair into a fiery halo. Her pale emerald eyes were large and blank with terror. In her other hand she held his mask.
He was amused by her get-up: was it a girlish thrill that made her want to disguise herself as a boy, like a figure in a melodrama? Or was it all practical, given the journey she just undertook?
And how did this devilish girl know how to find his lair so quickly? Must be Madame Giry overlooked her little mouse's penchant for snooping, and the girl recklessly found his map. Poor Anahid. That brilliant woman outsmarted by her own giddy moppet.
In Meg's eyes he saw both Persia and a frightened little girl.
He saw a lump bob up and down in that slim throat. The girl couldn't find words, obviously, as she stood staring at this specter that haunted her youth.
Well, she stood. He was sitting crumpled against the wall, as disarrayed and lifeless as the dummy above. His hideous face was the only proof he was alive, animated in its cackling as tears streamed down those pale twisted cheeks.
Meg did not fear his deformity, but she feared the half-demonic, half-mourning expression in his mismatched eyes and that unearthly laughter.
Her lips trembled as she tried to address him. "M-m-monsieur" –
"How polite little Giry is!" Erik crooned, a wide smile splitting his gruesome face. "And yet how terrified, too!" He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, laughing and laughing and laughing, and clutching his stomach, and laughing….
Meg had never felt such terror in her life. She didn't know where she was - this place was not on the map! - and yet here she stood in front of the Phantom, who had spoken her name, and here she was with no weapon, save a matchstick.
A matchstick that was quickly burning out. This brought some semblance of reality back to her. Looking around, she noticed a few candles in a box. Crouching down quickly, she picked one up and lit the wick.
Somehow this decisive act – as small as it was – gave her renewed confidence.
Through the hysterical tears blurring his vision, Erik saw that against all reason, Meg Giry did not squeal and run away as she had in the past in response to his various machinations, but instead squared her shoulders and hardened her eyes. She approached him.
"Where are Christine and Raoul?" She asked without stammering. Her voice trembled, but Erik felt it was more from passion than fright this time.
At Christine's name, Erik hissed as if in pain. The hiss turned into a strangled cry as he writhed against the wall, his head in his hands. The laughter faded into sobs as he pleaded, "Why can't you leave me be? Why can't the whole world leave me be?"
Meg felt like laughing herself at this. Perhaps if you had not murdered so many people and caused so much chaos they would have left you alone, monsieur!
She dared not speak this aloud, however, determined to stick to interrogating him. With a great deep breath she stepped closer to the crying man. Her icy gaze never left him. "Tell me, where are Christine Daae and Raoul de Chagny?"
He merely sobbed.
Her terror increased. Oh god, had he….? Were they…?
This unnamed thought pushed out all her fear of him and without thinking of the consequences, she shook his shoulder. "What did you do with them? Are they dead? Did you kill them?" Her little voice tightened with fury.
With a growl Erik pushed her away. "Meddlesome wretch…why don't you ask them for yourself how they are? If they're still in Paris. They're gone, gone…." He lost himself in his misery again, head loping wearily to his shoulder as he gazed at some unseen point on the floor.
"Gone?" Meg breathed. "How…how do you mean?"
His eyes swam in such a disoriented way that she was reminded oddly of Lajos. He seemed to forget she was there and when he spoke, it was with a soft smile on his lips, as if he were talking to himself, narrating a beautiful dream:
"She…she kissed me, you see. I threatened the boy's life…and she kissed me."
Meg shook her head, blinking, sure she heard wrong or that he was just plain mad. "Christine…kissed you?"
"Right here, on my lips…" His fingers fluttered there softly, as if his lips were tender, holy things now that Christine's had touched them. "Oh, Miss Giry, you cannot imagine…you, so young and thoughtless, and not made of the same immortal material that Christine is…you don't know what a kiss means to a wretch like me. You see, I was going to strangle him to death with my lasso. Right in front of her. I made her choose between us. And her eyes…oh! Her eyes, Meg Giry!" He gasped in ecstasy. "They were dark and terrible and lovely and full of passion, full of kindness, as she said 'God give me courage to show you you are not alone!' And…" He wrapped his arms around himself, eyes shining, laughing again. "And she kissed me! And not some modest peck! She gave me her very soul in that kiss…but not really. No, I knew then that her soul belonged to the man dangling in my noose…and so I knew I must…must…."
Meg, so easily engrossed by stories and fearing for her friends, said attentively, "Yes? Yes?"
"I knew I must free them."
Hope spread its wings inside her heart. "Did you really?" She whispered ecstatically.
He closed his eyes, gently this time, and nodded silently.
Meg cringed as she heard a crash above. So taken up by the Phantom was she that she had ignored the mob raging above in the lair.
She shivered at the thought of their wrath.
She turned back to the Phantom, her eyes bullets. "Listen here, monsieur. I'd very much like to believe you. But…but you've killed and hurt so many. Why…why should I believe you?"
Eyes still closed, he said tiredly, "It is immaterial to me whether you believe me or not. Do as you will, little Giry."
His indifferent attitude irked her. She straightened, jutting out her chin. "It should matter to you, monsieur, for what's stopping me from going up there and telling the mob where you are?"
Such an odd mix of shy fear and plucky temper this little Meg is, Erik thought quizzically.
It never occurred to her that he could respond by killing her, right there. Luckily for her, he merely laughed again. "Ah, yes! It is fitting that my rescuer's daughter be the one to end my life! Go on with you, then! I hoped to die down here alone with my memories, but if the fates want me in the hands of the hungry horde, so be it! Go!"
Though he still laughed, Meg took note of his tears.
He….
The Phantom of the Opera…
He was a broken man.
She took a moment to think on that.
At last Erik felt her eyes leave his face. She carefully put down his mask on the ground beside him. Then she scampered off to where the throne seat had dropped her, feeling for the correct lever on the wall.
She was a clever girl, Erik gave her that. She quickly found it and the seat came down and Meg crawled on, ascending to his lair again.
He kicked at his mask carelessly. Of course he shouldn't expect mercy from little Meg. Mercy only existed in Christine. Besides, wasn't this just what he deserved? To be torn apart was an operatic way to go out, at least, even if it lacked the poetry of a slow death by dehydration and a broken heart.
He heard Meg's little voice try to rise above the tumult. "Listen! Everyone! Please listen to me!"
The mob still raged, knocking things over, breaking some knick-knack or another. They probably had not even noticed her arrival from below.
Erik guessed she put her hands around her mouth to project this next message that finally succeeded in catching their attention: "I know where the Phantom is!"
He heard the great shuffling of feet as they gathered around her.
"Where is he," one harsh voice spoke over the rest.
And Erik waited for her to show them the throne.
He did not expect: "I saw him row away on his gondola, toward the Rue Scribe! I tried running after him on the bank but lost sight of him!"
Erik heard oaths and curses, then that same rough voice say, "All right, men! You heard the girl! Take your torches and let's storm after the bastard! Who cares if we get a little wet, eh?"
A chorus of assenting voices answered him.
The ground above Erik trembled as "come on" and "get to it" mixed with feet trampled out of his lair. He heard the splash of water as the group trudged through the lake, following the water out to the Rue Scribe gate.
There followed several moments of silence.
Erik sat back. The Giry girl had probably gone with them. She…she had protected him. Odd little brat.
He breathed deeply, closing his eyes. She's more like her mother than I thought. Maybe now he could be alone….
He re-opened his eyes at that familiar "ka-CHUNK" of his throne seat.
He said nothing as with quick steps Meg approached him again. "I had to wait to make sure they were all gone." She said in a quiet matter-of-fact voice.
He stared dumbly at her feet in their boots. "Very brave of you." Even Erik couldn't tell whether he was being sarcastic or not. He lacked the energy even for bitterness.
"Monsieur?" Her voice was neither terrified nor indignant now, only timid. "I…like I said, I want to believe you. So…so I'm going to find Christine and Raoul. If they're safe and sound like you say, well…I suppose that is that! I don't know what I'll do. But if I can't find them, or if I find out…"she gulped... "they're hurt…" He saw her feet come together as she straightened her posture again. "…then I will personally bring the police right here."
He glared at her straight in the eyes now. "You have your mother's will, little Giry, I'll give you that, but none of her intelligence. It wasn't wise to tell me that. I could very well leave." Before she could protest, he went on, "But I won't. I don't care what happens to me, can't you see that? I'm done, mademoiselle. I shall not live much longer either way. I may even be dead by the time you get back." His eyes glazed over. "Could be I'm dead right now."
He pronounced this in a dull deep voice, sounding like the low dirge of a funeral organ.
Little Meg's animated face was too busy lost in thought, probably wondering how to find her friends. All she said in reply was a disinterested, "Hm."
Then quick as lightning, without any ado or even a last ominous warning, she scurried back to the throne seat. A quick study, she pulled the correct lever.
And thus unceremoniously ended Meg Giry's first true encounter with the Opera Ghost.
As he heard her dainty footsteps die away above him, Erik melted into the darkness again.
It did not even occur to him that Meg, always so susceptible to frights and bursting into screams, did not glance away from his deformity or even shudder at it.
He fell into an uneasy sleep. He dreamed of a crystal clear voice, singing more beautifully than any other mortal on earth, and of long dark hair flowing down like Rapunzel's. Slender arms in a wedding dress cradled him.
But then throughout his dreams were quick little footsteps crowding out the voice, belonging to a set of small boots on a small feminine frame. This frame was marching ahead of him, her bright hair made of fire illuminating the darkness.
A/N: Y'know, I always compare Meg to Daenerys Targaryen, but right now I feel like her closest Game of Thrones counterpart is Brienne of Tarth: charging forth to rescue people, taking it on as her holy mission, only to find they're not there...whoops. :P
Hope you enjoyed Erik and Meg's first confrontation! There will be many more!