No More Gifts
"The Opera"
(Part II)
CHRISTINE DAAÉ'S (SECOND) JOURNAL
The boxkeeper was standing at her station between Boxes Five and Seven when we arrived, sitting upon her old wobbly stool and reading the evening news with a polished spyglass held up tightly to her one good eye.
"Madame Giry," Erik greeted cordially, sounding nothing of his prior distress except for a slight terseness to his tone. "A pleasure to see you, as always."
The poor startled woman dropped her paper the moment she looked up and saw us. Erik, with his ghastly face on full display save for the ornamental glass nose slung from the loop of piano wire about his balding head, looked to be an incredibly suspicious and intimidating figure, despite his sociable, nearly gentlemanly pose beside me.
"It is my understanding you helped arrange the wedding ceremony the other day," Erik went on in what might've been mistaken for an amicable tone, as Madame Giry gaped at him in perfect fear. He grabbed my hand and held it up next to his own, to show off our two gold bands. "I am forever indebted to you for this, Madame. It was something like the happiest day of my life."
Her wide eyes flitted between the rings as she stammered out, "You are – you are –"
"I am Christine Daaé's husband," Erik proclaimed, puffing out his skinny chest. "Now, will you open up the door for us, already? We are late to the show as it is."
With a squeak, she jumped from her stool and started off to Box Five's door, fishing the key out of her skirts with her shaking hands as she went.
"Ah, Madame! Where do you think you're going?" Erik had the gall to sound amused as he called to her, though I knew he wasn't. "That is the ghost's box, if you haven't heard!"
"Oh!" she said, running back to us. Confusion and fright had her grabbing at the keys on her belt with a random urgency, her hands shaking as she failed to find the proper one to rid her of this nightmare. "Where shall you be sitting then, Monsieur?"
"In Box Seven, as our tickets say," Erik said, and then suddenly materialized a pair of tickets printed with the very information he claimed. I could see Madame Giry's mind was divided on whether to take the tickets or not; in the end Erik made her mind up for her and set the tickets down on her stool.
"We would very much like to see the opera now, Madame," he reminded her with thin patience. "Open the door, please."
As if she didn't know what else to do, she scooped up the tickets and evaluated them quickly with her spyglass, acting like she was able to read the text at all through the shaking lens, before then skirting in a wide circle around us to unlock the door to Box Seven.
"Enjoy the performance," she mumbled, half by reflex, half by accident, as we pushed past her with all the indignity of a pair of real, legitimate paying patrons. She shut the door behind us swiftly, yet as professionally as she could, and the last I heard from her just before it clicked in the latch was the quietest, most fearful squeak of "Congratulations."