Disclaimer: I do not own Erik, or Meg, or Madame Giry, or any other characters from the ingenious mind of Gaston Leroux! Anne just currently resides in my head until she's done telling her story.

AN: Okay, to let some of you know, I'm a NANOWRIMO girl which is the National Novel Writing Month where you try to write 50,000 words during the month of November. I decided not to start a new novel ( it would mean I wouldn't be writing about Anne/Erik ) and instead decided to use this story as my NANO. However, Chapter 14 was my starting point since that was posted during the month of November. That's why I'm pushing out all of these chapters. Hope you all are enjoying reading this as much as I am writing! Erik dedicates a song to you each time you favorite/follow/review!

Chapter 20

"Anne, your help is been invaluable during rehearsals!" Meg clamored, plopping herself down on her bed. "I've never seen someone play as well as you do."

I laughed at her silliness. I was standing in front of my dresser, taking the pins out of my hair. I had been practicing with the troupe for about a week now, and I was enjoying it very much. It was tiring work, but it was a great feeling to be a part of something that brought such great intrinsic rewards to me.

"Well, Meg, there are many that play far better than I."

"But you play so effortlessly!" She crossed her legs and rested back on her hands. "And you're a completely different person!"

"I'm the same Anne, Meg. I don't undergo make any great transformation when I play. You're quite silly, Meg." I massaged my scalp and picked up my brush.

"Yes, I am. But that's what makes me, me!" She stood up and took my brush from my hands. "Here, let me do that. You work so hard!"

I let her pull me over to my bed where I sat down and she sat behind me, running the brush through my hair. I wasn't going to lie, my hands and arms were tired after all the work I had been putting in. I had very little time to learn the music for the Opera, and there was also the music for Madame Carrolton's lesson, as well as my own music to learn.

"You do look tired, Anne, if you'll allow me to say so."

"Yes, Meg. I am tired, but you brushing my hair makes me feel better." I smiled at her before turning back around to let her finish. My mother used to brush my hair before we lived with Grandmama and sometimes, when the nightmares came, she would come and sit with me and then she would brush my hair to help lull me back to sleep. After a while, I learned to stifle my screams of terror into my pillow but mother always knew the next morning when the nightmares had come. I was always a complete wreck and it looked like I hadn't slept in weeks. I was grateful that the nightmares hadn't come since I came to the Opera House, but I knew it was only going to be a matter of time. I was never safe for long.

"Anne?" Meg had scooted over next to me and she was looking at my face. "You're crying! What's wrong?"

I sniffed and dabbed at my eyes. "Nothing…just…thinking about my mother." Telling her the truth would solve nothing and it would only cause her to worry. Aunt already worried enough over me. I didn't need someone else to stress over me.

"Well, you'll feel better after some sleep." She hopped down off the bed and pushed my shoulders down towards my pillow. "Luckily, tomorrow's Sunday so we all get to sleep in and have a good day of rest. I'm going shopping with Mama, but I think it would be good if you slept for the day."

I knew exactly what would make me feel at ease and would help me get plenty of rest. I was due at eleven to spend the early afternoon with Erik. He said he would be composing, but I was more than welcome to practice or use his library. I would probably end up staying the entire day if he would allow me to. It had been almost two weeks since my first lesson and I had now had them regularly. Twice a week I would find a way down for my lesson which usually lasted for an hour and a half. The lesson would then transition into the two of us talking, or me going off to the library while he did whatever he pleased. I usually made some sort of dinner, and once surprised him with a pastry I learned from that dark time.

"Now you look happy, Anne. You certainly are strange."

"Thank you, Meg. I'll take that as a compliment."

"Most people think it improper to be anything but proper."

I smiled and sat up. I took her hand and made sure she was looking at me. "You have to understand, Meg, that I spent a long time doing what I was told and doing everything I could to please those that mattered the most to me. Now, with Mama gone and me in a new country, I find that I have the freedom to choose for myself. I learned that conformity was not going to bring me happiness, and I know what people with money do to those without money."

"So you'd rather be poor and happy…"

"Than rich and miserable," I finished for her.

"But I don't understand."

"Do you love to dance?"

"I love it more than anything else in the world!" Her entire face lit up, and her eyes sparkled.

"Does it make you happy?"

"Yes!"

"That's something you cannot buy. That sort of happiness cannot be bought or sold with anything. Dancing makes you feel as if you've come alive. We're all different people when we are doing the things we love."

Meg thought for a moment, apparently turning my words over in her head. I loved Meg, dearly. She was a sweet girl with such a good disposition, but she was naïve. She only had her own close circle and her mother sheltered her almost too much.

"I think I understand you a little better now, Anne."

I smiled. "But you still want a rich husband."

"Who wouldn't?!" She cried, jumping up and putting my brush away. "I would take care of mother and she wouldn't have to live at the Opera House and everything would be alright."

"But living at the Populaire makes her happy. And Meg, you would never be able to dance again. You would have children, and would have to give up your dancing career entirely."

"That is why I shall never marry someone who doesn't let me continue my career." She nodded affirmatively letting me know that her mind was made up.

It wasn't that simple. It was never that simple. Women don't get to have both the love of a man and the love of their career. When they married, they became a dutiful housewife obeying every command given to them by their overbearing husbands. There was no time for anything else. But Meg did not want to listen, and she was fully determined to believe that she was right. There was nothing else I could say on the subject, I settled into bed, and Meg blew out the candles.

I woke up in a cold sweat, my face buried into my pillow. The nightmare had come again and, as always, it terrified me. The fear, the unrelenting terror, gripped me from my deepest core to where I was numb to anything but the horror. I was crying softly, and I buried my face into my hands as I sat up. I could still see the face…that face so distorted, deformed it was hardly a face in the darkness of my dreams. I could still hear the voice, the voice that dripped with venom like a poisonous snake. The memories pulled at me like a swimmer caught in the current of the sea. I was threatened with being pulled under the ocean of my own nightmares and never resurfacing.

I took a few deep breaths and dried my eyes, all sleep now gone from me. I couldn't sleep again because with it would return the horrors of my past. What I had seen…what I had…experienced was too much for me to deal with and so it was locked away like the dark secret it was in the recesses of my mind. It had happened so long ago, but even now I didn't feel safe from him. I knew I had nothing left to fear because he would never find me and he wouldn't even know me if he did. I was no longer the girl twelve but the woman of twenty-five. I was twice the age I was then, and twice the woman. Yet, why was I still plagued with this fear, this dread, this horror that should no longer haunted me? I was safe. I was free. He could no longer harm me.

Silently, I got out of bed and walked over to my trunk that was at the foot of my bed. I lit a candle and softly opened the trunk, trying to avoid the creaks so I would not wake Meg. I fumbled out in the bottom of the trunk and found the latch that popped open the secret compartment that held the box from Mama. I pulled out the letter and by the soft candle light, read her words of tender love and encouragement. I felt comforted, as if she was right there in the room with me. I kissed the parchment and tucked it back into the envelope. Looking in the box, I pulled out a locket that I hadn't seen since the family photo we had all taken together so long ago. Inside was a picture of Mama, but the other side was blank. I found it strange that Mama would have the locket and only put a picture of herself in it, and not a picture of Papa, or something of me and Elizabeth.

I was glad I had a picture of Mama, regardless, and I slipped the chain over my head. After returning the box to its hideaway, I closed the trunk and sat on top of it. I looked at Mama's picture thinking of something she once told me after we had moved to Grandmama's and the nightmares came with greater frequency.

"We all have dreams, and we all have nightmares. But we overcome the nightmares because of our dreams. Do not dwell so much on the terrors of the night for they are always gone when the sun breaks over the horizon. Your nightmares will have power over you, only if you let them."

How I missed her and her words of tender care and love. I wiped away a tear and closed the locket. I tucked it underneath my nightgown, determined now to always wear it. Comforted by her memory, I decided to brave sleep once more. I blew out the candle, straightened the covers of my bed and climbed in. I said a soft prayer for peace and a restful night, and closed my eyes in slumber. The next time they opened, Meg was already gone, and the small time piece in our room read nine-thirty. I breathed a sigh of relief and got out of bed. However, when I got out of bed and I turned around to make it, I looked in disbelief at the sight before me.

It was a complete mess. I had thrown the pillows off, and the sheets were entirely untucked, and the quilt was practically hanging off the bed. Apparently, my sleep had been a fitful one and that was not going to bode well for me. Already, I felt weary with sleep that had been denied to me, and I wondered about getting back into bed and not pushing myself today. I thought it entirely ridiculous since I knew all that I needed to get better was to see Erik and to spend some time with him.

"Doing things for others always makes you feel better." My mother once said, and I was determined to take her advice. I made my bed and then looked the mirror and found that my hair had faired just as well as my bed. Despite my frustration, I gently ran the brush through my hair and pulled it back with a few pins. Having my hair up so often only caused me to have headaches. As I tried to get dressed, I found my legs to be wobbly and I had to take a great deal of time to get ready. My head felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton and my ears were slightly ringing. I put it off to the restlessness and nothing serious. I needed to see Erik, and once I was doing what I was supposed to be doing everything would be fine…just fine.

AN: What sort of past is she hiding? How will Erik react? Leave your ideas in the reviews!