Meg bent her head over her pointe shoes as she sewed on new ribbons, determined that she appear focused solely on that task. Yet a close observer – such as her mother sitting nearby – could see that from where the girl sat on the floor in their flat, her eyes would occasionally drift hesitantly up to that very mother. Studying her reactions.
Her efforts with her pointe shoes was a deliberate ploy. If her mother saw that Meg still held ballet as her first priority, she might not be so incensed that the French Secret Police had just that morning accepted Meg's offer. The Girys and Erik were due at the station tomorrow morning.
The police were still stationed outside their door. Unsmiling and indifferent, they had not inspired Meg to converse with them in any great depth. She found herself invariably tongue-tied in their presence, and she'd scurry in and out of the flat like a mouse with a cat close behind. Privately, the officers took bets on how long the skittish girl would last in the force.
She had not seen Erik since that day in the lair. She knew that Darius Shahzad made sure the best men from the secret police were assigned to watch the Phantom, which included he and Cedric in shifts.
Meg was surprised by how much she…missed Monsieur Erik. He was nothing but trouble, a walking representation of everything cynical and bitter. He was overdramatic, passionately angry at the outside world, and full of melancholy.
Yet there was that hint of compassion within his mismatched eyes, the tremor of deep emotion in his tenor voice that Meg did not know she'd grown somewhat accustomed to until she was no longer in his presence.
But all that would change tomorrow morning. They would be reunited.
Meg hummed with artificial thoughtlessness, trying desperately to appear nonchalant about everything. Except for when they arrived home from the lair that night, when Madame Giry had positively exploded at her daughter about the stupidity of her plan, there were no words spoken between them about the arrangement. There'd hardly been any words spoken between them at all—just lingering glances from Madame Giry that almost looked like panic.
Now that they'd received word confirming everything, Meg knew it was only a matter of time before Madame Giry berated her again. Yet valiantly Meg hoped supposed indifference on her part would stall the conversation.
Inside, Meg practically vibrated with pent-up excitement. Her veins were on fire and her heart thumped wildly in her chest. She…she was a spy now. Or would be, soon. She, little Meg Giry! This thought alone brought a pink bloom to her cheeks not unnoticed by her mother.
Meg hated to admit it considering the circumstances surrounding her induction into the secret police, but she was happy. Very happy.
Yet that didn't stop her from practically jumping in the air as her mother finally snapped, banging shut the ledger she'd been pretending to work on.
One look into those grave dark eyes, and Meg knew the time had unavoidably come to Talk.
"Yes, Mother?" She asked in meek resignation.
Her beating heart stilled as the silence stretched. Her mother's face was immobile, unreadable.
She must be absolutely furious.
What Meg couldn't know was that Madame Giry wasn't looking at her daughter in anger. She was trying instead to memorize the way Meg looked now: sitting sprawled like a child on the floor in her usual tutu, her wild strawberry blonde curls tumbling down her face and shoulders, the only weapon in her hand a sewing needle that hovered uncertainly now over her small pointe shoes.
Will this be the last time I ever see her so untouched, so guileless, so…Meg? This was the sad mantra Madame Giry repeated to herself now.
Meg sat waiting.
At last her mother spoke. "I remember my first assignment."
This captured Meg's attention completely. Because of her fear of her mother's temper, Meg had steered clear of pressing her about her recently revealed past. Yet now….
"Yes?" Meg asked breathlessly.
Madame Giry closed her eyes, and memory seemed to make her impressive face look more alive, more expressive.
"It was soon after my father died. I had run little errands for him before, but this…the shah asked me to dance for one of his advisors. It was a very simple task. I was to study this advisor and let the shah know whether he favored wine or beer at night. After only somewhat successfully evading the advisor's advances for the night, I went back and reported that it was wine. The next night it was announced that he'd died after drinking his usual glass – sudden heart failure, they said, though one of the guards confided in me that he'd heard it was poison."
Madame Giry opened her eyes and they shot straight through to her daughter's heart. "I was sixteen."
The pink left her daughter's cheeks.
"Could you do that, Meg?"
The question was asked in a simple flat voice. That made it sting all the more.
"No, Mother, no!" Her face was now red.
"Then how do you think you could ever be a spy?" There was a hard, weary note to her words.
Meg flew quickly to her mother, on her knees before her, clutching her hands. The girl's eyes were pleading, sweet, and so very willful. "That was terrible, Mother, and I hate that you went through it! But this time – this time it won't be like that! Paris is different."
Madame Giry shook her head slowly. "No place is different from any other, Meg. You…you don't know that yet. Despite the Persian blood running through your veins, just as much as the French, you've grown up with the prejudices of this country, whether you realize it or not. You think of Persia as some exotic den of primitive savagery, and Paris a civilized oasis – good vs. evil."
Meg shook her head vehemently. "No. No, I don't think that at all."
Her mother's hand ran through the dancer's hair. "Yes, you do. You think you don't, but you do. You are a kind, open-minded girl, but that is what you think all the same. Let me tell you something, Meg: corruption is universal. It corrodes every government, every society, every country. You will find yourself asked to do things you wouldn't dream the nice people in suits and curled mustaches would ever ask of you. And then you must choose how much you value your freedom over your morals."
Madame Giry recognized the little head tilt, the innocent but penetrating look in those eyes. "I never heard you speak this way before," Meg whispered mystified.
Madame Giry said nothing.
Meg fiddled with a loose thread on her mother's dress. "Would you rather I had said nothing down in the lair? We'd all be under arrest."
Another small moment of silence. "I don't know, my child. I don't know."
"Well, I do." Meg said with a sudden burst of fire, facing her mother squarely. "I know it was that kindness you always try to hide that made you flee Persia, made you protect Monsieur Erik all these years. That and love for me. Well, I won't see you imprisoned for it. Nor Erik. He's a louse who's done evil things, but…but this could be his chance! His chance to do good! Oh, I know, I know you think Paris is as bad a place as everywhere else, but look me in the eye and tell me you think Darius Shahzad is as evil as all that! You can't, because you're fond of him, and I can tell, I can just tell he's a good man. Besides," She threw back her thick mane. She was suddenly matter-of-fact, almost but not quite flippant. "Who knows. This might all prove to be…rather fun!" Small shrug.
"Oh!" Madame Giry exclaimed, standing and pacing the room. She muttered some Persian curses under her breath Meg didn't understand. "Nothing I said has made any impact on you, has it? Nothing at all!"
Meg just sat still, trying but mostly failing to look shame-faced for her mother.
Madame Giry seemed to speak mostly to herself. "When I think of how Julien and I promised ourselves you would never fall into such a life…." She trailed off, biting her lower lip and shaking her head.
Meg's quiet voice: "Will you tell me about him? About you? I know so little."
A small shiver ran up Madame Giry's spine. No tears, however.
"You have already heard all the pertinent facts. Darius revealed everything you need to know."
Meg frowned. "You know I want to hear more than that. I want to know…who he was, who you were…are."
Anahid solemnly bowed her head. "I cannot simply begin like that. That's far too general. Ask me specific questions and I will answer as I can." She sat herself down in the wicker chair by the table. There was nothing but honesty to her now.
Meg scrambled to think of something that would…that would…that would get at the heart of things. "Was he a...a kind man? As kind as he seemed, helping you rescue Monsieur Erik?"
Her mother tilted her head in a way very similar to her daughter – one of the few physical gestures beyond dance the two suddenly appeared to share. "Yes, he was kind…kind, but when I met him, he was very unsatisfied in life. Unfulfilled. He had great ambition…to do what, I don't think even he knew. But I believe he yearned to help someone. Yearned to do some great thing."
"And did he find greatness in you?" Meg asked, craving a picture of passionate romance.
Yet the opaque eyes of her mother would hide forever the great depth of that passionate love. Some things you must keep close to your heart, away from even those you love, if you want those things to remain yours and yours alone. "Maybe in part," she confessed at last. "But our relationship was based just as much on companionship and trust as it was on romance. He…"
She squinted her eyes, staring at something ahead of her. Meg instinctively felt she was searching for the right words. She was trying to decipher in her mind what she wanted, needed to say.
At last she found it, simply and succinctly. There was a hint of surprise in her voice as she spoke, as if the realization was so obvious she couldn't believe she'd missed it all these years. "He was the greatest man I ever knew."
Warmth radiated in Meg's chest.
It was vastly comforting to know that no matter what happened tomorrow, Meg had in her veins the blood of the greatest man her mother ever knew and the greatest woman Meg ever knew.
A/N: Quite the short chapter, but hopefully it will do before more action, drama, and the like appear on the horizon!