Chapter 10: The Haunting Past
"Meg, wake up!"
A sharp smell invaded her nose, and with a jolt of panic, Meg jerked up, flicking her eyelids open and breathing rapidly. The world around her whirled as she tried to sit up. With a muffled gasp, she fell back backwards onto something soft, supported by someone's arms at the last moment.
"Merciful heavens, child! Don't try to get up so quickly!" A familiar, slightly agitated voice reprimanded her while the hand on her arm closed tighter, as if its owner wanted to ensure she wouldn't try any sudden movements. "Everything is all right. You are safe now…" the woman added more gently, and despite her confusion, Meg felt a pang of relief.
"Maman?" She blinked a few times, chasing away the dark spots dancing in her vision, and before her appeared the concerned face of Madame Giry.
"Yes, it's me." The ballet mistress's strict features relaxed another fraction, and her hazel brown eyes met Meg's. "You can calm down, Meg. You are safe now…" she repeated gently. Her fingers reached forwards to brush away a few wet strands from Meg's forehead. Only then did the ballerina realise that what she could see behind her mother was not the cold stone walls of a cavern, but the well-known outlines of the dark brown furniture and floral wallpaper of her mother's bedroom.
She was no longer in the opera's underground. Only, how could she have gotten here?
For a fraction of second, Meg almost let herself believe that it was all just a bad dream, but then her gaze rested on the black cape she was still wrapped in. The blood in her veins went cold.
"How I… What have…?" Her words stumbled over each other as she tried to voice the thoughts whirling in her head.
The elder Giry sighed and glanced towards the door.
"Erik brought you here after you fainted." The woman stood up from her chair at the bed, adjusting the dressing gown she had tied over her white nightdress, and went up to her escritoire to put away a phial of smelling salts.
Meg felt her eyes widening. Erik? Was that the Phantom's name?
She tried to send her mother a questioning gaze, but the latter did not turn back to her. Antoinette Giry's hands closed one of the furniture's tiny drawers, then rested on the desk's top, fingers curling slightly around its edge.
"I still can't imagine how you could do something so imprudent, Meg. You know what a dangerous place the underground and the old catacombs are. What is more, I warned you not to go there. And yet, you went straight into the abyss." A sharper yet strangely choked note slipped into her already tense tone. "I would have never thought you could do something so reckless. Tell me, just what were you thinking?" The ballet mistress turned back to her daughter with a mixture of reproach and worry clouding her countenance.
Meg felt a wave of guilt flooding over her. "I'm sorry, Maman. I was just worried about you and Christine. This whole situation is so strange, and I… I thought I could help somehow, if I only knew something more…" she finished weakly.
Antoinette Giry let out another sigh and rubbed her forehead wearily.
"I'm sorry too, Meg. I suppose I shouldn't be angry at you for trying to do something, when I'm the one to blame for keeping you in the dark. But when I saw you so limp in Erik's arms…" Madame Giry's voice wavered, and she averted her gaze. "I couldn't help but think what could have happened if you hadn't been found in time. I just don't know what I would do if I lost you too, Meg…" she whispered.
Meg felt something in her chest constrict. Just like her mother's, her eyes went to the old albumen paper photograph standing in a frame on the desk. From the picture beamed at her a teenage version of herself, embraced from both sides by her parents.
A slowly fading memory of different, brighter times…
A lump formed in her throat. "I'm sorry, Maman. I shouldn't have tried to do something so risky. I didn't really think it through." Meg bit her lip, lowering her head. "I wanted to help, but in the end I have just made everything worse, haven't I?" Her whisper sounded strangely weak in the silence that hung between them.
Madame Giry exhaled loudly again. "I don't think so, Meg," she said. "I'm not happy about what you did, because of how dangerous it was, but I don't believe it made anything worse. To be honest, I even think all of this may turn into something good…"
Surprised, Meg glanced back up, and her maman sent her a faint half-smile, approaching her again.
"Actually, the more I think about it, the more I'm certain I shouldn't have been keeping all those secrets from you. Maybe if I had made better decisions in the past, everything would look different now…" A hint of pain and grief flashed across her face, and the ballet mistress sighed again, taking her seat.
"Anyway, I am just glad that you are all right, Meg. And I thank God that Erik heard you and found you in time." Madame Giry's stern expression softened as she smiled gently, reaching for her daughter's hand.
Meg felt the slight tightness in her throat return again. But this time, it was not unpleasant.
"I'm glad too, Maman." The corners of her lips pulled up as well. "But…" she hesitated for a moment. "I still don't fully understand what happened. Is Erik the Phantom's real name? Why would he help me if he's threatening everybody? Who is he really? And what does he actually want from you and Christine?" Meg glanced at her mother uncertainly, and she took another deep breath.
"Yes, it's his name. And as for the rest… Well, I suppose I owe you an explanation. But first, let's get you changed into something dry and get you warm, before you catch a cold." Madame Giry gently squeezed her fingers and smiled faintly again. "From now on, I promise you: no more secrets."
And so, ten minutes later, Meg, in a new set of clothes, was seated on the bed with a thick blanket tucked around her and an almost empty cup of warm herbal tea in her hands, listening as her mother began her story.
A story about a cool September night over eighteen years ago, when a travelling circus fair had come to Paris, and about a twelve-year-old boy locked in a cage and put on display. A boy with horribly deforming marks on his face and right arm that earned him the name "the Devil's Child", and the grey-blue eyes filled with despair and sadness that no child should know.
And the boy whom her mother had hidden after he had escaped, seriously injuring the showman…
Her maman looked back up, her features filling with even greater sorrow.
"I wanted to help him, but I only made his situation worse. The fact that he had left the scene was taken as proof of his guilt." The ballet mistress's face contorted in grief, and she averted her gaze, glancing down at her hands clasped in her lap.
"For me, it was obvious that it was just an accident," she said quietly, "but a few weeks later, when the injured circus owner fully regained consciousness, he told the police some utter lies, trying to hide the fact that he had been mistreating a child he was supposed to take care of. The other employees were too scared to oppose him, so in the end it was his version that was taken as the truth." Madame Giry shook her head sadly, and her words tinged with even deeper despair.
"I didn't know what to do, Meg. I couldn't force myself to bring a terrified child to the police. The investigators tried to find Erik's mother, but she seemed to vanish into thin air. She had never given the showman her name or surname – just the address of her last lodging, but when the officers arrived at the place, she was no longer there, and no one was able to say anything specific about her." The woman took a shaky breath.
"In the end, I had no one to help me or support my opinion. The bruises and cuts on Erik's body, especially the most severe ones on his back and sides, were a clear sign that he had been beaten, but I had no evidence connecting them to the show owner other than my word. Everyone else seemed so inclined to condemn the boy that I was afraid of what the authorities would do to him…" Her shoulders slumped even more. "I knew that, due to his young age, he could only be sent to the House of Correction, but I feared what could happen to him there. His appearance made him an easy target, and he was in no shape to be sent anywhere." Antoinette Giry swallowed hard.
"I didn't know what to do, so I just left it unsaid during the investigation that I was the one who helped him escape. Though it was against procedure, Erik was convicted of a criminal offence without being even present at court, becoming a wanted runaway. I kept him hidden in the cellars of the previous opera house – the Salle le Peletier – and your dad and I tried to take care of him the best we could. We hoped we could save up some money to ask a lawyer for help, but our plan never came to life…" she trailed off, bitter regret filling her tone.
That was when it occurred to Meg.
"Papa's accident…"
"Yes." Her mother nodded sadly. "It happened in February, almost half a year after I helped Erik escape. You were still a little girl, but I think you remember how badly your papa's legs were shattered in that accident at the construction site. And then I had to leave my job to take care of him…" Madame Giry's features crumpled in guilt.
"I sneaked into the theatre a few times to bring Erik new supplies of food, but I didn't have time to talk with him. When Jules had finally recovered well enough, five months after the accident, and I returned to the opera in July 1864, thanks to the previous manager's kindness, it was as if Erik had turned into a completely different person. He had become cold and distant, and told us he no longer wanted our help." The ballet mistress looked down at her hands again. "I tried to reach him somehow, but over the years we only moved further apart. He won't listen to me, and I'm afraid he might do something stupid…" Her back hunched.
"You were just a child, Meg, and even when you grew up, I didn't want to involve you in this. Formally, Erik is still a convict, so one could be punished for helping him. According to regulations, criminal sentences can no longer be carried out after twenty years, but considering the way Erik was condemned, I don't think we can hope that waiting till then will be the solution. I wanted to keep you away from it all to protect you, but perhaps it was the wrong decision…" she paused. When she spoke out again, her sorrowful tone became even quieter.
"I won't lie that, as the Phantom, he doesn't scare me sometimes, but he is not a bad person, Meg. Behind the facade of coldness and anger, I can still see that lost and sad boy who needed my help. The boy who begged me not to leave him alone in the cellars of the opera. And the boy whom I failed…" Her voice broke, and as she looked back up, a surprised Meg noticed tears in the eyes of her usually so composed mother.
"All of this is my fault, Meg, and I don't know what else I can do to help him. I just don't know…" Antoinette Giry hid her face in her hands, and Meg felt something in her chest constrict painfully.
She hadn't seen her mother so broken since those awful, devastating months after the severe pneumonia took her father away from them five years ago, and it wrenched her heart to watch her in a similar state again.
The dancer silently slipped out of the bed.
"You did all you could, Maman; you can't blame yourself." Her quiet, soft words filled the silence, and she gently put her hand on the ballet mistress's shoulder. "I don't know what to do either, but we are in it together now, so maybe with time, we can think something up. We'll solve it somehow…" She knelt, wrapping her arms around her mother's waist. A second later, the older Giry returned the embrace.
As they held onto each other, Meg only prayed inwardly that what she had said would turn out to be true.
Erik stepped away from the door just before Madame Giry could start her story. He wanted to make sure that her daughter felt all right, but he did not have the slightest intention of hearing the ballet mistress's explanations. He moved, soundlessly disappearing into darkness just as he had come, trying hard not to think about it all.
The old memories swarmed around him, awakened from their slumber, jarring and merciless, but all he wished for was to forget about them.
Forget about the moment when the very few adults he had managed to befriend during his first months as a member of the troupe had left after another heated argument with the owner, leaving him lost and alone. About that time when the letters from his mother had stopped coming to the circus, but he had still naively believed that she would come for him, just as she had promised.
Forget about the cage, the title "the Devil's Child" and the expressions on people's faces when they looked at his deformed arm. About the show director's worsening moods and their implications.
And certainly forget about that day when the half-drunken showman ripped the mask off his head, and about the two hellish months of torment that had followed…
His chest constricted, and Erik forced himself to push away the thoughts. He had neither need nor wish to remember any of them.
Yet, as he finally fell asleep that night, the memories came to him anyway…
The people started to come inside the tent, and the thin boy, kneeling in the large cage and observing them through the holes cut in the cloth sack covering his head, felt his throat constrict. Sweat started to bead on his bare chest, but this time it had nothing to do with the stuffy warmth of the late July evening. The lad lowered his gaze to the ground and forced himself to take a few deep breaths, ignoring the unpleasant smell of the rotting straw that the ground was upholstered with.
He didn't like all these changes – the cage, the name "the Devil's Child", his caretaker's worsening moods – but he kept telling himself that since he had already endured almost seven months here, he could survive a few weeks more.
Just a little more, and he would be able to leave this place, reuniting with his mother. And maybe he would even be able to help her, with the little salary they had been promised.
It worried him a bit that her letters had stopped coming recently, but she had been informed about their route, so he had no reason to doubt that she would find him. She was supposed to come back for him during their last stop before Paris, in the middle of August. And she would surely take him home before his twelfth birthday, just as she had promised.
The showman's deep, raspy voice rose over the surrounding muffled murmurs, pulling him from his thoughts and announcing the beginning of the show. A moment later, the lantern lit the cage and the people the closest to it gasped loudly, noticing the strangely red and deformed skin stretching from his right hand up to his shoulder.
The boy swallowed hard and tried to focus on reciting some pleasant and calming melody in his head. It was hard not to hear the words everybody whispered, though.
Hideous… Unnatural… Disgusting…
A small bundle of straw hit him straight in the head, making him flinch. The scruffy-looking man who had thrown it erupted into spiteful laughter. His friends joined him noisily, adding some vulgar words to the description of "the little monster".
The eleven-year-old looked down again. His fingers clenched around the frayed edges of his knee-length trousers.
Just a little more…
In contrast, the showman seemed to enjoy the visitors' reaction. A smug note entered his tone as he spoke out again.
"I have promised you a true demon, haven't I, mesdames et messieurs?" he boomed with dark satisfaction. "However, I assure you, that's still not everything that I've prepared for you tonight! You flinch now, but you have to know it's nothing compared to the creature's face!" he roared, and the same moment, the boy jerked his head up, his eyes widening with a mixture of shock and fear.
Taking off his full mask was not part of their deal! No one was to be able to recognise him nor see the worst part of his deformity. He was just supposed to show his distorted arm, take part in the swordsman's act (before the latter had left the circus with a few other performers after another argument with the show owner), or just sit without a word, and that was all!
His terrified gaze met the one belonging to the show director, and what he saw there sent shivers down his spine.
The man said something more to the audience, but the preteen could barely understand a single word. His heart started to hammer so fast he thought it would burst out of his chest.
The dark-haired showman bowed to the loud applause and approached the cage door. His bearded countenance stretched in a nasty smile, in which there wasn't even a trace of warmth. "It's the final time for you to become a profitable investment, my little freak, so don't even think about trying to do anything…" he hissed quietly, so that only the lad could hear.
The boy felt his stomach turn upside down.
The key turned in the padlock with an unpleasant rasp, and the burly circus owner hunched, stepping inside to the accompaniment of the jeering crowd.
The boy's veins filled with ice-cold terror.
"Please, no..." The words that left his lips were barely louder than a whisper, but in the man's eyes he could see that he had heard him. Heard, and couldn't care less.
The showman took another step towards him, staggering slightly.
With a pang of panic, the boy backed away, crawling backwards on all fours, but there was nowhere he could run. His gaze swept feverishly over the gathered, inwardly begging for help, but from all sides he was surrounded by cruel, unfamiliar faces. A second later, cold metal bars dug into his bare back, putting an end to his futile attempt at escape.
The circus owner leaned forwards, clasping his large hand around the boy's arm in an iron grip. The man's alcohol-reeked breath swept over him.
Please, no...
He tried to beg again, but once again his plea remained unanswered. The showman's other hand slowly reached out for the sack concealing his face…
"No!"
Erik's hands convulsively clutched the bedding as he jerked to a sitting position, gasping and fighting for breath.
The rational part of his mind knew it was just a dream – a pitiful shadow of his cursed past, but he could not calm his hammering heart. Could not get rid of the invisible band closing around his chest. Could not drive away the panic flooding every centimetre of his body.
A muffled roar ripped out of his throat. His fingers curled into fists as he forced himself to take a few slow gulps of air. He was no longer that pathetic weakling. And he was not going to let anyone ridicule or disregard him again!
Rage and hate ignited inside him, burning the remaining black droplets of fear and pain, like a fire chasing away mist. But when they had subsided, all that was left was dark emptiness.
Covered in cold sweat, Erik stared into the space of the cave that served as his bedroom. The faint gleam of the lantern that he usually left lit in the main part barely reached him.
A part of him wondered if he would ever be free from that darkness inside him, even if he managed to leave what surrounded him here, in the opera's underground…
Author's notes:
1) Albumen print was the method of producing photographic print on paper base from negative, using (among other substances) the albumen from egg whites. It was the dominant form of photographic positives from around the 1850s to the end of the 19th century (according to some information I once read somewhere and on Wikipedia).
2) I know nothing about the French judicial system, but according to the French Penalty Code of 1810 I checked, the accused under 16 were indeed placed in the House of Correction (Fr. maison de correction) for a determined number of years. The period of time after which the sentence could no longer be carried out (20 years) was first introduced in 1791.
3) In this chapter I would like to send warm hugs to everyone who has ever struggled with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD or other psychological problems. Please, take care of yourself in a healthy way and never give up. You are amazing – never doubt it. ‹3