Hey everyone! So, this is the turn in our story. Going into Phase 2 now. Chrissy has a fire inside her to find our Erik! Remember that comments feed the writer. Much love this holiday season, and, as always, THANK YOU for reading!- Jess
Chapter 13: Through The Glass Darkly, She Returns
"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." - Corinthians 13:12
Christine Daae woke with a start, her body wet with a cool, unsettling sweat that coated her limbs like a lingering hot rag that had been left on too long. The dormitory she slept in resounded with a dull silence, save for the light snoring of the ballet rats. Hastily removing the overly warm quilt from her body and shoving it down to the end of her small bed, she rose slowly, quiet as a child preparing to sneak about a sleeping house, in an attempt to prevent the squeaking of the bed springs. She wished to offer no signal of the departure she would make. Must make. For she had to find her own answers, and learn her own truth.
Her Erik was not dead. Christine believed the golden chord that united them would not bend or tear without ripping her soul asunder. She would know. If he were to depart the Earthly plane, she would feel it as a singular earthquake rattling her core. It would exist in her as an infinite sadness, an emptiness that would bring her to her knees in a moment's breath.
She'd lain awake and tumbled in and out of the normal routines of life for many hours now. Days even. Through interrogations, the snide looks of her fellow performers. The derision written in their sideways glances. That girl. The one that never slept. The one that sang like an angel.
Christine had felt so utterly helpless and alone over the last few days, the hours ticking by so slowly as she tried to gain the strength to breathe, to leave everything and everyone behind, knowing the search she would make. After coming back to the Opera House, following the police interrogations, the Girys had ushered her to their small flat, bathed her, put her to bed and then left her alone. They'd no idea what to say to comfort her. No one had. So, she'd left in the dead cold of the evening and gone back for the Garnier, without informing them. The tiny and wounded Nightingale had returned to the little bed she knew so well, her barren nest.
There was such a terrible isolation in the grief she felt. For grief always abandons the soul, the joy suffocates, unable to be reborn from the pain and sodden ashes of its former life. The ashes of her grief carried on the wind, carelessly swept away, unnoticed by the humanity that passed her by as Christine had simply swallowed water and food. She'd tried to make herself as miniscule and unnoticed as possible. The life of a Prima Donna held no interest for her now, without her Maestro by her side. The days would go by, and she would survive them.
Erik would survive them.
He was not gone. Could not be. And, she would find him. Her bare feet touched the cold, wooden floor, and in that moment, as she settled her toes to the ground, the realization of her situation dawned on her. The desperation to find her fiancé became a reality. She'd arisen from her daze of misery with a new confidence, a surging purpose. One goal in her endlessly roving mind.
Christine Daae put on her dressing gown, tied it with a loose knot, and tucked her small feet into a pair of overworn slippers. To those that existed around her now, she was that girl. The Nightingale that loved the so-called Monster. She did not care for their thoughts, did not wish to answer their questions. She'd been relieved and very much surprised not to have been arrested by the gendarmes.
She had no idea where to start in her search for Erik, save one place. His home? Their home? The underground cavern she had shared with him, where they had created such stunning music, where he had crafted her voice. . .It was still there, and what of him? Was he there? Had he fled to the only refuge he had known in the last several years, a place of traps and security, impenetrable to those that did not know of its myriad secrets? But she did. . .Christine knew of the secret levers and alarms, the places where not to traverse, the paths to refuse, on the journey down below.
Her slippered footfalls were as soundless as she could manage, as she snuck from the dormitory, grabbing and lighting a lantern that hung outside the shared bedroom door. Though she was only traveling five levels below the hallway in which she now walked, the journey seemed daunting and long, such was her fear of what she would find- if anything at all-,coupled with her exhaustion and sense of utter anger and defeat. But, her small feet propelled her forward with a determination wrought of desperation and boundless love for the shadowed genius she called her own. The lantern shook in her fingers as she held it before her eyes, making her way to her dressing room and to the mirrored passage that would take her to his home. The quivering in her limbs was born of the chill that had swept into the city overnight, the cold settling into the marbled floors and vaulted ceilings of the magnificent theatre, a palace to music that Erik had helped create.
Even now, as she began her search for him, Christine marveled at the beauty of his work, the flawless design of it, the untouchable stroke of genius that resonated through every one of his creations, be it a massive building of marbled hallways and gilded columns, or an aria that sprang effortlessly from his voice as he serenaded her. The familiar image of those beautiful, long, white fingers hitting the keys of the piano with an expertise that was difficult to fathom, even for a trained musician like herself, brought a warmth to her soul. A warmth and fulfillment that only Erik could give, and that now prodded her forward as she turned the lever on the mirror and walked into the darkness once more.
She sang as she made her way through the maze of tunnels, and as she rowed the tiny, beautiful gondola of his making across the blackened lake. An aria she had only ever sung for him. A mezzo piece, but one of such intense beauty that she had not been able to refrain from singing its notes and lyrics. The Opera, Samson et Delilah, had yet to be performed in Paris, as the managers of the Garnier thought it too Wagnerian. But, her Erik had taught her the music and she relished vocalizing it for him now. The boat slid through the water, the sound of her glorious voice echoing through the cavern.
"Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix,
comme s'ouvrent les fleurs
aux baisers de l'aurore!
Mais, ô mon bienaimé,
pour mieux sécher mes pleurs,
que ta voix parle encore!
Dis-moi qu'à Dalila
tu reviens pour jamais.
Redis à ma tendresse
les serments d'autrefois,
ces serments que j'aimais!
Ah! réponds à ma tendresse!
Verse-moi, verse-moi l'ivresse!"
The siren was making her way home.
The little gondola wobbled in the dark, soundless water as she rowed it to the bank of the house on the lake. Christine had struggled with steering it and marveled in her memories of Erik's seemingly effortless maneuvering of the small, narrow boat. But, she also thought, as she oared it to his house, If Erik had returned here after the shooting, after his flight from her arms, he had come another way. There were many ways he knew to come and go from his underground sanctuary that no other person would ever learn
Her Trapdoor Lover.
Christine moored the gondola to the dock, quaking in the cold, her clothing too insubstantial for the temperature. She had left in great haste and urgency, uncaring of donning warmer attire. The chill of her skin was simply an afterthought in the grand scheme of things. She would find her Erik. Shivering was nothing to her, an afterthought, though she knew he would have concernedly chastised her for putting her health at risk. There would be time for that, and all of his other words of advice and love later.
When she found him.
Lifting her skirts, Christine stepped onto the shore of Erik's home, Inhaling deeply, she steeled herself for whatever may be waiting for her, whatever answers may appear on the other side of the hidden door once she found the lock and opened it. Her arms trembled as she upheld the lantern and traced the stone wall with her fingertips, replaying in her mind Erik's directions on how to enter his home.
"To the right, dear girl, about waist-high for you, I think," Erik had deftly and carefully placed his large palm over the back of her hand, guiding her to the spot in the wall. She had quaked in her feet at the sensation of his touch,a touch that wordlessly promised so much more. But, Christine had been young and innocent then, and so very confused. The first tinglings of desire had been made fear. She had not embraced them, for she did not comprehend their power. The heat and fire of him that lured her ever towards his tall, intimidating frame was a daunting challenge she had not yet been prepared to face.
"Press your finger down here and push," he instructed, his bloated lips a whisper against her earlobe, "and then you shall know the great secret of how to enter Erik's home, how to find him in these dark caverns, where he hides from the rest of humanity."
She'd pressed down the lever then, with little success. Her mind was very much distracted by the man that stood behind her, and her hands became clumsy, useless things. Erik had caught her fingers in his, stopping her attempts. He gently turned them over in his own hand to trace the lines in her palm. The two stood in silence for a moment that captured the tension between them in gentle, stuttered breaths, before Erik cleared his throat again and guided her hand back to the wall. "I should have been more precise with my instructions, little nightingale," he murmured, his mouth still clinging in the air by the shell of her ear. "Be gentle, as a lover might be to wake a dozing partner, fallen asleep to the sounds of warm lullabies. . .a light tap and push." Erik took her first finger in his hand and led it to the little lever in the stone. "Here. Now, tap and push."
And, she had succeeded, her fingers certain and confident as Erik taught them their method. The door opened soundlessly for them. When it welcomed them inside, Erik had retreated from his grasp upon her. As if the moment of physical contact, the intimacy of his whisper in her ear, had never happened.
A ghost of a dream unclaimed.
Christine smiled up at him as they stepped inside the house on the lake, but Erik had simply stared, astonishment in his eyes, before turning away from her, again. Kindness being a treatment so very new to him. "Thank you for the secret, Erik. I will keep it to myself." She'd wished to stop him then, to place her hand to his shoulder and turn him around to face her, to say the words she had been feeling and contemplating for so many weeks. But, her fear had been too great, the fear of the seemingly impossible hope that they could be together, that she could and would pull him from his darkness with the unrivaled beauty of her soul, and her voice.
"I must attend to the fire, Christine," Erik said abruptly, practically fleeing from the room. "You should change clothes and make yourself comfortable. I do not wish you to catch a cold down here. I will start some tea for us. Your voice and your body will need some rest this evening."
Christine had retreated to the guest bedroom, the room that had been made for her, though Erik had never told her as much. It was covered in a wallpaper of vibrantly colored wildflowers. The Louis-Philippe furniture that she suspected had once belonged to his mother sat freshly varnished for her arrival. The vanity that held the only mirror in the strange domicile was stocked with combs and hairpins for her use, and the full water closet with hot, running water in a claw-footed tub was surrounded by soaps and oils that would cover her body with a beautiful scent. All of it had been made and planned for her. The gravity of Erik's love and devotion, his thoughtfulness to her comfort, had centered Christine as she took it all in..
In that moment, she had known that the love he held for her was vast and unique, that it meant more than singing lessons and reading books by the fire. He wanted her as his wife, his partner for life. Deep inside, she realized she wanted that, as well, but had been too frightened to grasp the reality of such a future at the time. The Glass Lotus had begun to blossom then, as their love grew, forming in an uncertain chrysalis, frightening in its truth. Christine Daae had not the strength to ask him of his love that evening, as she set her toes into the steaming waters of the bathtub.
Her truth had come later, on that stage, as she had kissed him.
The pleasant memory shattered as the girl became frustrated in her search for the tiny switch that would offer her entrance to his realm.
Christine Daae traced the wall again, her fingertips certain and unwavering in their mission.. On her own, she found the latch, waist-high, and applied a light tap and a push. "Just the touch of a lover gently waking their silent sleeping partner," he had said. The stone door opened slowly, and she pulled her hand away, ready to enter. It smelled of something coppery, coated with a thick fluid. When Christine removed her hand from the lever and closed the door to Erik's home behind her, she found her fingers to be sticky in a rich, drying substance. She sniffed them blindly and set the lantern to the echoing ground. Blood. His blood. She was sick at the sight, the smell, the reality of it.
Was he here? She did not know, but she would find the truth of it. She called out his name several times. Still, the rooms did not stir, and no footfalls echoed in her sensitive ears, as she followed the trail of blood, lantern light her only guide.
ErIk had come here. He had not passed at Raoul's hand. He had fled. Christine Daae walked further inside his home, as she held her blood-soaked hand up to her eyes, and searched each room.
In that moment, that instance of realization, Christine became a woman breathing through nothing of her own lungs but for the promise of hope. That she would find him, and reclaim the love that had been shown to her. The love of the most exquisite kind. Sacred, Blessed, and tarnished by the cooling blood that bathed the fingers she held to her face.
He would live. She would find him.
The tattered score of Don Juan Triumphant lay open on the music room floor, as she entered it. It was anointed in fresh, caking crimson, it stuck to her heels and then to her fingers as she lifted the remaining pages. The score had been torn in a very hurried, haphazard fashion, pages taken in desperation to capture the irreplaceable music. A battered chest of bloodied wigs and masks lay open in front of her, as well. She grabbed one of each, along with the damaged score, tugging the precious items to her chest as she moved through the house.
Erik had returned to this place.
Christine followed the trail of blood to her bedroom, the only room he had ever created for someone he loved. She found it empty. The blood trail seemed to end there, for she was far too exhausted to follow it further. She fell into the bed he had made for her, staring at the delicate hand painted wallpaper of daisies and lilies. . .a room created of everything beautiful that had ever been remembered in a song she had performed for him, or in her simple, compassionate words spoken to him. Their shared memories would never matter to others that did not comprehend the depth and simplicities of the love and understanding between them. The space existed as a place to be recalled and remembered, and enjoyed for her. Erik had made for her a hidden sanctuary.
The tiny bird that existed inside of her laid down with the remains of his score and the bloodied mask and wig she had stumbled upon in her frenzied search. She tucked them all against her body with the reverence and shelter she might offer a sleeping babe, holding the items to her soul as she allowed herself to surrender to one last rest before the ensuing battle.
She held the treasures in a desperate grasp, as one might hold a lover never to be caressed again. The remaining blood that coated her flesh served as the first mark of the journey she would undertake in the morning. The smell of it, the texture of its history across her fingertips, Christine curled into the hope of HIM.
His blood would not be a forgotten memory.
She would find him.
Alive.
Her Erik was not dead.