A/N: Thank you so much! :) And now...

XXII

When she was a small child, Christine feared the darkness, especially once she became an orphan. She would pull the blanket up over her head at night and squeeze her eyes shut if the candle near her bedside should blow out, with no one awake to relight it for her. Somehow, the futile act of hiding beneath the woolen cover made her feel safer.

When the Phantom, in his enraged desperation, pulled her through the cellars beneath the Opera House, she feared all of what had happened and all of what was to come. Even then, in her terror, somehow she knew he would never physically harm her. Knew too that, there, deep in the belly of his dismal underworld, no matter that circumstances said otherwise he was still the master in control.

Once more he pulled her toward a fearsome outcome, the difference being that he held no power over this dark place of mystical terror…

And in this knowledge, she had never known such fear.

They approached from a direction other than the one she'd once taken, but Christine could not mistake the sight of the many weathered perpendicular stones standing so ominous before her. Cold. Austere. Dangerous…

The Megaliths of Carnac.

She attempted to drag her feet, to hold back, but to no avail. With firm persistence Erik pulled her with him just as he had in the cellars, his grip strong, nearly bruising. They drew closer to the stones, so close she could make out their chips and fissures…

"Stop!" she insisted. "Stop – please stop!"

Perhaps it was the tears that shook her voice that finally got through to him. He halted and turned in question, though did not release her hand.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked before he could speak. "For what purpose are we in this wretched place?"

"I told you, my dear, you have no reason to be afraid –"

"No reason?" she repeated incredulously, cutting him off. "I told you what happened here. Oh, I know you don't believe me – that you think the horrid experience I went through is all in my mind – that I imagined it or some such thing. But it did happen, all of it – and I have no wish to go any closer to those foul stones! No wish to be here at all!"

Frowning, he released her wrist. She snapped it to her chest, clasping it with her other hand.

"Please, may we leave now?" she tried again softly. "It's not safe…"

Another, more harrowing thought occurred and she glanced back at the fringe of tall, widespread trees that thankfully shielded their presence. But for how long?

"Chateau Martinique is a short distance from these stones - if the Vicomte has returned, he might come here and find us!"

"He'll not find us."

She shook her head in frustration at his stubborn arrogance.

"How can you be so certain?"

His snort of a laugh came without amusement.

"He would never come here."

The Phantom looked toward the nearest stone. In this profane locale of ritual he had been left to die as a babe. The old hag who took him visited on the feast days she observed, forcing him to accompany her as an aide when he was a child, but never had she permitted him to draw this close, stating that he was tainted and unworthy. Since her death, once he joined forces with the motley band of criminals, on occasion he observed the stones from a distance but never felt the desire to step foot inside their formidable rows…

Not until he met Christine and heard her incredulous story of how she'd come to be in this century.

He returned his attention to his bride. Her brown eyes were large with apprehension in a face gone pallid, white as the first snow, and fear shimmered off her in waves almost tangible.

Once he'd taken the time to dwell on her astounding and self-condemning words of her presumed passage here, he did not doubt she spoke in truth, the truth she believed to be real. He did not question the possibility of any deliberate deceit on her part. That was made even more apparent by her terrified reaction in coming to this pagan site of ancient ritual. In the short time he'd known her she did not seem the type to condone deception, and he believed her innocent of all trickery.

"Stay then," he quietly ordered. "I'll not force you to go any further."

The Phantom turned from Christine and strode toward the ring of standing stones at the fringe of forest in the near distance. He was almost to its edge when he heard her swift running footsteps in the grass behind. Wildly she clutched his arm.

"You cannot mean to go in there!" she said frantically, moving in front of him as though her diminutive form would block his determined passage. "What if the stones take you away?"

"Why should they?"

The secrets once more swam deep in her eyes, and as she had so many times, she pressed her lips shut as if fearful to say too much, before speaking again.

"Do you think I planned for this to happen to me?" she whispered. "I had no idea the stones would rip me from my century, but they did – and what they did to me they might do to you as well!"

With firm deliberation he unfastened her grip from his arm. Immediately she grabbed hold of his hand. He shook his head in impatience, just managing to keep his voice at an even cadence.

"The witch I was forced to serve believed any enchantment through the stones occurred on the feast days alone," he said. "It was when she would oft cast her spells. As this is not one of them, the stones hold no power, if what she said can be believed. I was never allowed close enough to discern the nature of that truth for myself."

Christine shook her head with piqued distress, clearly not wishing to hear any of this.

"And if she was wrong?" She brought up her other hand to clutch his one hand in both of hers, her skin like ice.

"She was a wretch who deserved hellfire, but in her practice of witchcraft she possessed a knowledge I could not challenge. It was she that gave my grandfather the means to fulfill his obsession and capture one of the Fae. She spoke of it often, to torment me. Only he did not pay his debt to her, and so, the curse was visited to his firstborn son – and to the firstborn of that son. Me."

"Maestro…please…" she wheedled in concern.

"My father was not born deformed – but his soul was twisted and cruel. Never did he know the love of a woman. His wife despised him and tried to murder him – I would like to think she blamed him for the loss of their firstborn child. But I was told that it was she who placed me there…" he looked toward the circular tablet of stone. "…and there left me to die…"

He walked toward the stone altar. This time she made no attempt to stop him. To his surprise, given her great apprehension to be there, rather than let go she kept a firm hold of his hand, clutching it with both of hers, and followed close behind.

Twice the circumference of a wagon wheel, the table of grey rock stood at waist level, three circles of strange markings inscribed upon its surface. He felt a shudder travel the length of her body as she drew nearer to him. Half of her front pressed against his back, from shoulder to hip, as if she wished to attach herself to him.

"I've seen those symbols before," she said in anxious surprise. "At the Chateau Martinique, in a tapestry that hung on the wall."

"Fire. Water. Earth. Wind," he interpreted quietly of the inner ring. "Time…"

"You can read that?" Christine asked in shock. "Those strange symbols are words?"

He nodded. "An ancient language I found within one of the tomes the witch kept. I taught myself what I could manage – through symbols that accompanied drawings to depict their meaning. I cannot interpret the entirety of this, though some of the additional markings are familiar."

"That night…" she said as if in a dream, her words soft and distant. "There was rain and there was wind and hail struck the stones and caused sparks, like fire. An eerie blue light flashed through the sky again and again, like a bolt of lightning striking close, only darker, and then…and then I fell through time…"

Once, he would have silenced her in grave concern that she might be overheard, and kept her mute with nervous unease in the fear that she might be deranged. Now, with no one nearby, and believing her sane, he sought to know what he'd never before allowed.

"Tell me everything you remember. I wish to know all of what happened that night."

At his quiet directive, she looked at him in shock that he would ask. He nodded softly in reassurance that he meant every word. A small smile – of relief? of uncertainty? – tilted her lips, though the apprehension never left her eyes.

"I was taking a stroll on the castle grounds near sunset and came across a child sitting beneath a tree. She told me I should visit the summit to see what it held. I first declined, having no lantern. She gave me hers. And so I went."

He looked into the distance and what could be seen of the rows of white monoliths through the trees, then back to the stone altar.

"Go on."

She cleared her throat and fidgeted with trepidation. "I came to this place, and…" She inhaled a shaky breath. "I heard a voice demanding to know what I wanted." Her hands tightened around his hand. "You will think me mad, but it seemed not only to resound inside my mind. I could hear the voice with my ears as well, in the air all around me…" When he said nothing, she went on, "I was upset, the voice drove me to distraction, and I suppose I wasn't careful. I fell with the lantern and sliced my hand…"

Without a word, he lifted her hands closer to see, turning over first one then the other to study her palms. He frowned to see the newly healed pink scar from the cut that spread from the base of her thumb, to the center of her hand. With his index finger he traced the line, his eyes then sweeping to the table where a brown imprint stained the rock. He moved to brush that area with his fingertips, but before he could come close to touch the surface, she grabbed his wrist in a death grip.

"Don't!" she pled in warning. "Don't touch it."

"It will be alright." His voice came reassuring yet determined.

"What if you disappear into another century too?!"

"It won't happen. Trust me…"

"It's not you that I don't trust…"

Her brows drew together in abject worry, her eyes shining with panicked fear. She released her grip on his wrist, only to grab his arm and hold it to her bosom, as if afraid he might suddenly dissolve from her side.

"Christine, it will be alright. Nothing will happen…"

He heard her abrupt inhalation as he brushed the bloodstain with the fingertips of his other hand, then her slow release of breath when both remained standing and no unearthly abduction occurred.

The imprint resembled her small hand; the blood shed must have covered the whole of her palm, though why the fresh blood did not wash away in the hailstorm he failed to understand. Once the ice melted, surely the water would have washed away the stain, but it appeared as if the blood had soaked into the slate to become part of the altar.

"What happened to you then?" he asked pensively.

"The earth sounded as if it were coming apart from inside," she gave another little shudder against him. "It was so horrendously loud, and my head ached fiercely. I couldn't breathe and tried to find shelter beneath the table, when the hail began to fall…"

At those words, he knelt to look beneath the rim of rock and brushed his fingers along a smear of rust brown within the cubbyhole where she'd hid. This time she did nothing to prevent his scrutiny, though she did also drop to her knees, placing her hand to his shoulder as if fearful to lose contact with him even for an instant.

"The earth felt as if it were tilting," she went on without being asked, "I could no longer breathe. It grew worse – the wind, the hail, the awful screeching and groaning – I felt as if I was crumbling apart inside, as if my very being might explode as the earth seemed to be doing. And then I must have passed out. I remembered nothing more until I woke up lying in the grass. It wasn't wet from the storm, but dry, as were my clothes, though it was still night, and I thought that very strange, thinking only a short time must have passed. I left this place, to return to the chateau, and that's when your men found me."

The Phantom stood to his feet, grasping her arm to help her up.

"And was it a feast day when this happened to you?"

"Yes. The same as here – the Midsummer Solstice."

He nodded, staring again at the table of slate. "I recall a ballad I had forgotten, whether due to my lapse of memory and the dark spells I am unsure. It spoke of a faerie hill and a mortal woman who went there to confront the Fae queen and save her true love imprisoned there, but she disappeared into the ring of stones, never to be found again…"

He brushed the pads of his fingers along the engraved symbols nearest him in curiosity, feeling her arms again wrap desperately around his other arm. Mayhap it was a trick of the setting sun, but the ancient text beneath his hand seemed dimly to glow as if embers lay buried beneath their shallow etchings.

Christine gasped and stepped back, urgently tugging him with her.

"Please let us leave this awful place, Maestro. Surely there's nothing more to see here."

He allowed her to pull him with her a few steps in retreat. Something crunched beneath the sole of his boot, and he looked down to see.

Something shimmered on the ground. He crouched down to peer more closely, and Christine leaned over his shoulder.

"I think it must be a piece from the lantern that broke…" Her gaze searched the area, and she pointed. "There."

The Phantom approached the grassy patch several feet away and dropped to one knee. He picked up an odd contraption of ebony metal and glass – not bubbled or hazy or leaded. It was stained with no color save for the rust hue of her blood where she'd cut her hand on its jagged edge. He held the small receptacle upright. A trace of liquid surrounded a wick inside it. He placed his finger there and rubbed the wetness with his thumb and forefinger then brought them to his nose. It was an odd but strangely familiar odor, though he swore he'd never come by it before.

"It's kerosene," Christine said, coming up behind him, her words more than a little curious. "The oil used to light the lamp."

Never had he heard of such an oil, never had he seen a lamp with glass so thin and clear it was transparent. He withdrew from his pouch the flint and struck it so that the spark ignited against the tip of the slender wick. It caught at last, burning clear and bright. He stared at the tiny flame a moment, then fiddled with the knoblike protrusion at the side of the glass, which magically adjusted the strength of its luminosity.

All the while Christine watched in fascinated confusion, repeatedly turning her attention to him and then to the lamp he held. He blew out the flame and brought the small lamp closer to his scrutiny, studying the elegant lines of its metal structure. Turning it over, heedless of the hot oil that ran onto the grass, he noted an inscription engraved at its base.

His heart seemed to stop as he read, and read again:

J Schlossmacher à Paris Xre 1869 - No. 126

The markings of the maker, the city, the year, the issuance of the number made…

The year.

"Dear God…"

His whisper came as a fervent oath of disbelief wrapped within a hopeless prayer for understanding.

The year…

Swiftly he looked up from where he knelt to where Christine stood, wringing her hands in her skirts. His eyes took her in from tousled head to covered foot, before returning to her anxious face.

"Maestro, are you alright?"

At her faint whisper and the tentative touch she ghosted over his shoulder, he felt thoroughly shaken. Somehow he rediscovered the power of speech, if only to utter three syllables.

"Forgive me."

She shook her head, at a loss.

"What…? Why?"

He released a long shuddering sigh and with it the remainder of his ability to speak. Slowly he shook his head, returning his attention to the lamp in his hands. Feeling as if he were in a mindless daze, he laid it carefully back onto the grass as if it might shatter into nothingness if he held it any longer. For the barest moment, he understood and shared her fear that once seemed ludicrous in its impossibility. Logic seemed to fade into oblivion, the tenets of all he believed fast crumbling to dust.

"Maestro, please – you're frightening me…" Her hand moved to lightly press against his jaw under the mask. "May we leave now? Have you not seen all you wished to see?"

The Phantom stared up at her a moment, realizing she was speaking. Seen…he had seen, yes, but had yet to comprehend…

Wearily he stood to his feet. She again wrapped her hands around his arm, this time offering support, and in this incomprehensible moment that lacked clear sense he needed it. He looked back toward the rock altar, the source of such utter misery and merciless division.

"Maestro…?"

At the dread that once more clouded her voice, he barely nodded in answer to her repetitious plea before she could ask again, and turned her away and to their waiting horse.

xXx

Immensely relieved to depart the wretched megaliths, Christine set her focus entirely on her husband. She couldn't help worry over his marked behavior. He moved with studied deliberation, still graceful but as if he must contemplate each action before it was taken, his manner again distant, but eerily so…always as ever silent as a ghost.

It frustrated her to no end that the memories that surely must torture his soul – the horrific life of the babe left as a sacrifice on the ancient altar – did not even belong to him. Her Erik of the 19th century suffered none of those tragedies, though his story, what little she knew of it, was just as heartrending. But of course she could say nothing about his error in the belief that he was Le Masque, though she sorely wished she could alleviate his unjust torments and unburden her soul.

"I expect we'll be arriving at the campsite soon," she said, desperate to steer the conversation away from any potential mention of the stones now that they'd finally left them.

"Not yet," he said after a moment. "I have one final place I wish to visit."

"Oh?" she said, thankful he had dispensed with his silence, but nervous as to his meaning.

He looked at her then, studying her face almost as though he'd never seen it before.

"Maestro…?"

"You must be weary. A pond lies a short distance from here. We will stop there to rest."

"Oh, yes," she said in gratitude. "That does sound lovely."

Within a short time, they arrived at the promised pond. It sat still and serene, shadowed by a myriad of overhanging tree boughs, making it appear as a sheltered bower. Christine refreshed her face and the nape of her neck with the cold water, wishing for the uncomplicated ease and playful camaraderie they had known by the brook earlier that day.

Her Maestro sat on a low shelf of rock by the pond's edge, one arm propped against his upraised knee. He stared at the water, scattered here and there with lily pads, the fragile wings of dragonflies that darted over their surface shimmering with iridescence against the evening sun. Yet she doubted he saw any of it, his mind seeming fathoms deep.

Taking the napkin with leftover berries from the basket, she hesitantly approached her husband and sat down beside him.

"Maestro? I brought you something to eat..."

With slow measure, as if just aware of her existence, he turned his head to look at her. His eyes behind the mask were gentle, shining a silvery grey in the soft evening light, very little blue to them, and she held a breath as they traveled over every curve of her face. His hand lifted to brush away a damp ringlet from her cheek, the callused pads of his fingers a tender rasp against her skin.

"I believe you."

His words, barely there, Christine felt to the bottom of her soul. Still, she shook her head, not certain she understood.

"What do you mean?" she asked softly.

"I believe you," he said again. "All of what you said. That you came through the stones from a distant century."

Her heart clenched in shock with his coveted words, the relief they brought coming in waves that threatened to bring back the tears.

"You truly do?" she whispered. "You believe me?"

He nodded, cupping one side of her face.

"Oui, ma damoiselle. I do. Forgive me for the length of time it took to arrive to that point."

She smiled and sniffled through the wretched tears that seemed determined to fall, and he brushed the damp trails away with his thumb.

"You could hardly be blamed for doubting me," she said. "It is all rather incredible…"

"Quite."

"Yes, well…now that you know it's real, now that you believe me, does it matter?"

She held her breath, afraid to know, desperate to hear…

"That you are nearly four centuries older than I?"

She narrowed her eyes in a little grimace at his mildly teasing rejoinder. Hardly that, and certainly he must outnumber her in years by what she presumed was a decade and a half. But she couldn't tell him so without revealing his identity.

"I am but seventeen, monsieur..."

"And as young and beautiful as the first breath of spring."

Somewhat pacified by his poetic compliment, she nodded solemnly.

"You are forgiven."

He grinned faintly at her mock-solemn words and leaned in to kiss her forehead. She relaxed for the first time in what must be hours. Resting her head against his strong shoulder, she looked out over the placid water, allowing the languid atmosphere to lull her into a sense of security.

The minutes passed in blissful ease, moments sorely missed from their day.

"It's so peaceful here, Maestro. Shall we stay the night?"

"We have one last destination before the sun sets."

"The camp?"

"No, not the camp."

Christine furrowed her brow in amused vexation when he said nothing more.

"Is it to be a secret then?"

She felt no true dread. Surely there could not exist a place as horrid as the standing stones. Perhaps he was taking her to another hideaway surprise, like what she had come to think of as the fairy hill, with its many delightful fireflies…

Her cheery thoughts dwindled to grim recollection of the ballad he referred to at the megaliths. He called the ring of stones a fairy hill. Yet such horrid places should not be given deceptive names of allure! Devil's Rock or Demon's Trap seemed more suitable.

"We are going to a place I thought never to return," he answered at last, his tone grave. "The witch's cottage."

There was neither deception nor allure to be found in that, and she lifted her head in shock to look at him.

"Why would you wish to go there?"

He took gentle hold of her hand, kissing the newly formed scar, his lips cool against her skin. The gesture was so tender, the look in his eyes so distant…

"Maestro?"

"Come, mon amour. Let us continue on our journey."

He stood, once more helping her to her feet. For an instant Christine thought of pleading to stay at this lovely pond for the night, to use any means to delay, but what was the point of shirking the inevitable? His obdurate nature would remain intact; she'd had a lifetime of experience to know that. He would insist on visiting the dreadful cottage that was never even his home – whether now or later, what did it truly matter? Best to go with all haste and get it done and over with and forever put behind them.

A short time later Christine again stood, horrified, in a place she had no wish to be, wishing to rescind her passiveness not to further persuade a night's sojourn at the pond.

She swallowed hard and stared at the small crofter's cottage, a cottage she had been to before…

It stood whole, of white stone and thatched roof, not yet the casualty of a fire, with ivy growing wild up along its walls. The area in which they now stood – atop a slight slope of ground, beneath the wayward branch of a tree whose trunk appeared split in half from a bolt of reckless lightning – was the exact spot in which Raoul told her that Erik was dead.

Christine felt her trembling knees give out, the mossy ground, as then, swiftly rising up to greet her – this time the arms that caught her his arms…

Not dead, not erased from the world , but transported to another time, as was she. She had wished for, prayed for this moment, to be with him again. It still seemed too incredible to believe…

"Christine, are you unwell?"

He supported her with his hand at the base of her spine, her back leaning solidly against his arm. Shaken by the day's series of strange events, she looked up into his questioning eyes and slipped her fingers to the nape of his neck, bringing his mouth down to hers in reply.

"I'm so thankful you're with me," she tipped her head back slightly to say, their breaths intermingled. "It's all I have wanted…"

He brought her slowly upright, his eyes puzzled, almost – remorseful? – until a shutter swept over them, shielding the glimpse of tender emotion her words produced.

Before Christine could question what he hid, Erik took her hand.

"Come, my dear. You may rest inside."

"Why exactly are we here?"

He hesitated but this time awarded her curiosity.

"There is a matter that requires careful examination, and the means to acquire it is to be found within."

His enigmatic words hardly provided the assurance needed.

Warily Christine followed Erik's lead to the abandoned hovel, a sudden dread casting a dark pall over her soul. She sensed by opening the door to whatever shadowed secrets lay inside, enlightenment, like a blade, would cut bone deep...

xXx

A/N: Oh dear…I wonder what the Phantom has in mind…?