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VII

Hours later, long after the bland and mushy gruel had been cooked, stirred, and served to the grimaces of all the men, Eustace again blocked her path when Christine wandered that way. In an attempt to make her actions appear casual, she poked about the violet flora, delicate and plentiful in number and clustered on tall shoots.

"There's nothing for you there, lass," he said with unshakeable resolve.

"Am I not allowed to admire and gather the flowers?" She plucked the stem of one rebelliously.

He narrowed his eyes. "As long as you do your flower gathering within sight of camp."

Crossing her arms beneath her breasts, she regarded him with a scowl she hoped was twice as despicable as any he'd ever given her. A hint of a smile tipped his thick lips.

"Why can I not see him?" she demanded, revealing her knowledge of this brute's reason for detaining her. A horrid thought that stole her breath with the gravity of its message assaulted her mind. "He's not hurt…?"

Eustace cocked his head, peering hard at her as if trying to determine how she was fashioned, then seemed to reach the conclusion that her bones and mind were all in order, judging by his mild snort.

"It's best not to bother him when the black moods hit. It's for your own peace of mind and his that you shan't go near. He'll be back to himself soon enough and will return when he's able."

It wasn't the first she'd heard of Erik's black moods, and she certainly had witnessed his terrible rages firsthand at the Opera House. She had been shocked and hurt when he turned them on her, but never truly terrified, a deep part of her knowing he would never physically do her harm. And she'd been right in that intuition. Even cornered and in his darkest rage he never forced her to submit or laid a hand of violence on her. He had shaken her, demanding to know why, even pushed her harshly away from him, but never once did he strike her. After each of his dark outbursts, she had always gone back to him when he asked, even when he did not, and she thought about that last occasion, when she folded her ring into his hand.

Christine heaved a tense sigh then looked broodingly at the obstacle preventing her from being near to her Phantom.

"Eustace, have you ever been to Paris, with Le Masque?"

At her abrupt turn of conversation, his suspicion resurfaced, but softly he nodded.

"Aye."

"Were you with him when he visited two weeks ago? I saw him," she explained upon seeing the sudden uncertainty in his dark eyes.

"Le Masque has not been to Paris for nigh onto six moons."

"You must be mistaken. I saw him there –"

"It is you who are mistaken, milady. Le Masque was in Brittany. He led the raid on one of de Chagny's holdings that saw one of our own captured."

Christine blinked at his low, chilling words. But that just wasn't possible! She tried to make sense of things.

"Does Le Masque have a brother? A twin, perhaps – identical in appearance?"

He visibly tensed at her first question, then let out a great guffaw at the last.

"I assure you, there is none identical to Le Masque."

Her mind in a chaos of confusion, she could think of nothing else to say or ask and he obviously wasn't going to be forthcoming with answers that satisfied. Turning on her heel, she sought solace in the Phantom's tent. Either Eustace was lying or Erik was unaware or both men told tales. Or she was going stark raving mad. What seemed to be so cut and dried hours ago now felt scattered like chaff to the four winds.

Only one man could she trust to tell her the lay of things. While staring into his intent eyes, she had seen the truth in his words, even with regard to those things she preferred not to hear. Though he had somehow misplaced his identity, she must find him and seek his knowledge to understand all of what she'd learned….

The day dwindled on, seemingly forever. Every so often she peeked out of her tent to determine if she could meet with success. Always she caught the stares of one of the men and instantly retreated, letting the flap fall closed.

"Hells Bells, will they never stop watching me?" she muttered.

At last, late in the evening while light still filled the sky cloaked by trees, her opportunity came as the vagabonds sought a night of merriment, and she waited for precisely the right moment. Once every man's attention was drawn to the ground and a game of dice, ribald shouts and cheers following, with even Tobias eagerly absent from his post and watching the entertainment, Christine ducked out of the tent and darted down the familiar path.

xXx

Time ceased to bow or bend in the never-ending torments he suffered. Anguish ripped sharp talons into his skull, ripping away with relentless pursuit every shred of thought held in the dark cavity of his mind. In violence he destroyed anything in the proximity of his path until he dropped to his knees, his palms squeezing his head in a futile effort to banish the pain.

And then came the dreams, just as tenacious in their desire to drive him mad.

When he could no longer endure, almost senseless, the visions would rape his mind. Sometimes in a fitful sleep, sometimes in the dark haze of wakefulness. Always playing out the same demonic act, as if to burrow its seed into thoughts and make them his own:

He found himself an observer in a colossal chamber of luxury with a stage flanked by crimson and ebony hangings and rows of many seats clothed with the same hue, like a meeting room of a palace where hundreds of noblemen might preside. Above, in the center of a domed heaven of painted angels, an enormous chandelier with thousands of diamond-like crystals hung suspended…

Cut down…

Falling…

Screams, so many screams.

The terror tasted sharp and metallic in his mouth. And then a voice. Her voice. So gentle. Angelic, then angry. Hurt. Condemning. A face in the shadows he could never see well but knew deep to the marrow of his broken heart.

Other voices mocked. Blood. Pain. Despair. Enraged voices. His own one of them. A cave beneath the earth. Icy water. A swarm of twisted faces. Fists and clubs striking his head, his body, booted feet kicking his ribs, the pain unrelenting, and then absolute darkness – only to repeat the cycle, sometimes with additional visions of heaven and hell crowding into the melee.

Out of the smoky mists of a building ablaze against a dark sky he witnessed her slow approach. Her face remained in shadow. She seemed to be waiting for something, softly crying, and he groaned, tearing his eyes away, unable to look. Unable not to, as his eyes found her form again. Usually she melted into the darkness or turned away, a pitiful wraith, but this time, she was still there, the sky ablaze in crimson flames beyond her, and he was terrified.

"Leave me!" his command came no more than a croak. Shaking and weakened by the physical and mental agony, no longer able to support his weight on an arm that trembled, he crashed to the ground falling hard on his shoulder.

A sharp little cry of horror, running feet, and then he felt his upper body pulled into soft arms, his head pillowed against full breasts. He tried to focus past the confusion. She had always been out of reach. Taunting. Tempting. Never allowing herself to be caught and held. Never holding him. The encroaching shadows painted her face in darkness, as always, when suddenly she leaned close, her features growing clearer, and he gasped.

"Christine...?"

Tears sparkled in the wide brown eyes, as terrified as his own.

"You know me?" she whispered.

Know her? Should he? Drawing his brows together, he tried to make his mind obey the simple query, to form a reply, but it was useless, and the blades of pain began to press deep into his skull once more.

"Go, damoiselle," he hoarsely said at last, lucidity for the briefest moment slipping past the bonds of lunacy. "I have no wish to harm you."

"Oh – what is wrong?" she begged of him, ignoring his directive and holding him closer. Her palms smoothed frantically over his chest, back, hip and thigh, as if seeking the reason for his miserable state, intent on finding injury. "Please, oh please tell me, what can I do to help? Only tell me!"

It was on the tip of his swollen tongue to order her to go a second time, but other words found their way through his cracked, dry lips instead.

"Sing for me."

The request was both foreign and familiar, thoughts again stripped from his mind as the pain became excruciating. Squeezing his eyes shut, he gave way to the swirling void of darkness.

xXx

Christine held her Phantom close, her heart pounding against her ribs in painful thuds, his heart echoing the frantic tempo of hers.

Following his trail had been simple, a swathe of destruction of cut branches and limbs littering the path such as a sword would make, until she'd come upon the sword itself, carelessly thrown aside. She had stared in horror at the engraved silver handle of a skull with rubies for eyes and a blade so lethal, then hurried down the east side of the cliff near the lake, where an outcropping of gray rock stood nearly hidden by hanging vines and bushes.

Her first sight of him lying on his side on the ground, struggling to push himself up, had frightened her. His clothes were muddy, his mask torn from his head, lying near him, his hand clawed over half his face. But the moment he looked up into her eyes as she drew him close to her bosom and bent near, she had been so sure she'd seen the memory of her come to life in his one uncovered eye. Then he had called her damoiselle, as only Erik of the Forest would, and her hopes had been dashed – to be renewed by his hoarse plea that seemed even to stun him.

She traced her fingertips against the part of his face not hidden behind his hand, the lines of pain there making his features sharp, his lashes and skin wet from tears and sweat, and this she wiped away with her sleeve. No other man's opera would suffice, not even his own scandalous Don Juan, and from her lips she released the gentle strains of his music that no one else had heard, the music he once shared with her in his dark cavern of candlelight five cellars beneath the earth, the music of the night…

Within a few lines of her song, his body tensed from thigh to shoulder, every muscle held taut and rock solid as stone against her. After several lines more, she felt the gradual release of his tension. She brushed long strands of damp hair from his brow as she finished her song. A long silence passed once the last note held and wavered on the chill air, and she thought him asleep.

"Write," he whispered hoarsely.

She shook her head in confusion. "What?"

"Not sing…write."

Her heart slammed against her chest at his words. She had altered his lyrics slightly to make them personal, coming from her. "The music that I write" becoming "the music that I sing." And the composer had noticed the difference, even if he still did not seem aware of the reason for such knowledge.

She struggled against the fear that this snippet of memory returning was all a fluke, a dreadful coincidence, and held fast to the fledgling hope that it was not.

"Would you like me to sing another?" she asked him quietly.

He did not respond, nor did he refuse, and she followed the tugging of her heart, the words she sang a gentle melody he once sang to her in her dreams as a child. From the gradual calm that eased his body, she felt her song had found whatever struggle hampered his soul, until at last by his even breathing, he slept.

Having no desire either to move or release him, she leaned her shoulder blades against a smooth boulder for support. His hand he still held over his scarred face that he had turned toward her bosom, the unblemished side freely open to her tender perusal in the deepening twilight. His was a handsome face, a strong straight nose – on this half – beautifully sculpted cheek, jaw and brow…his lips, the bottom fuller than the upper in a slight pout, the edges forever tilted upward in mockery, and she felt a rush of warmth to remember them crushed against hers. He possessed a defined face to complement a lean, chiseled body. The man could be a god, like one of those many statues and paintings she'd seen at the opera, save for the flaw that swept across most of his countenance on the right side. Earlier, she had glimpsed enough through the gaps of his fingers to know the deformity was there, that this was her Erik. Surely no twin could be that identical.

Silently she vowed to help her beloved Maestro find his way back to who he was and who they were together. Recalling what had just happened here, music, perhaps, was the key.

xXx