![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charleygirlTitle: The Enchanted Violin
Author: charleygirl
Word Count: 3063
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama, Supernatural
Characters Involved: Erik the Phantom, Christine Daae
Disclaimer: The Phantom of the Opera is the creation of Gaston Leroux but probably these days copyright to Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Author's Note: Yes, I did pinch the title from one of the chapters of the novel, but as that's the root from which this fic sprang I decided to stick with it. Vaguely set within my 'Green Baize Door' universe.
Summary: Christine wants to keep a vigil at her father's grave. Erik isn't so sure.
THE ENCHANTED VIOLIN
Erik set the lantern down on a nearby tabletop tomb and turned to the small figure in blue at his side. Christine was shivering, though she was trying not to show it, her gloves hands firmly tucked inside the fur muff he had given her not three weeks ago as a birthday present, her face buried in her scarf. He was sure that if he listened carefully he would be able to hear her teeth chattering.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. The possible damage to her voice notwithstanding, it would cut him to the quick if he allowed her to become ill because of a foolish whim. “It’s only going to get colder, and I don’t - ”
“I have to. For Papa,” she explained, adding when she noticed his frown, “Oh, I know you think me silly, but I have kept a vigil here every All Hallows Eve since he died, and I want to do it again. I feel that I owe it to him, to try and keep his soul safe.”
“Christine,” Erik said gently, “Your father will have had no difficulty in reaching Heaven.”
“I know, I know.” She looked down at the ground, at the mud and the dead leaves, before glancing up to meet his gaze with a small smile. “I just want to make sure, that’s all.”
With a sigh, Erik turned his gaze to the lowering sky. The clouds were heavy, completely obscuring the moon; it should have been too early in the year for snow, but there was a snap in the air and he would not have been surprised if the burden those clouds carried was more than autumn rain. He drew his own cloak more tightly around himself, glad that he had thought to put on the thick wool that he usually reserved for the depths of winter, and reached for the picnic basket which rested incongruously in the long grass beside Gustave Daae’s headstone. “I suppose, in that case, we should make ourselves comfortable,” he remarked, withdrawing a tartan blanket and folding it twice before laying it upon the ground. His head was telling him that he should not be pandering to Christine’s superstition, the Angel of Music within him insisting that allowing her to sit in the cold and damp all night was a gross dereliction of duty; his heart, however, knew that he would always do everything he could to support the woman he loved.
They sat down together, a little way from the grave, leaning against the same mausoleum on which the lantern rested. Christine was a little reluctant, worrying such presumption might be viewed as a form of desecration, but Erik was more practical. The inhabitants would not mind that their memorial afforded them some ease, he was sure. Reassured, she snuggled up to him, resting her head on his shoulder, and they sat in silence for some time. The night was completely still, the only sounds which drifted across the vast acreage around them the chiming of a nearby church clock and the occasional distant rattle of carriage wheels in the street beyond. Here in the land of the dead civilisation seemed a hundred miles away.
“You don’t mind being here with me, do you?” Christine asked eventually, making him jump. It had been a long day and he realised that he had been drifting off to sleep. “I mean, I’m very grateful to you for coming, but did you have anything else planned for tonight?”
Erik rubbed the exposed side of his face, trying to stifle the yawn which was trying to break free. “No, no, my dear, nothing at all. There is nowhere else I would rather be; I am sure that the ballet rats can survive without a few scares, and I have always wanted to spend the night in a cemetery.”
She didn’t miss the sarcasm in his tone. “You aren’t scared, are you, Erik?”
“Why the devil should I be scared?” he demanded, affronted by the very suggestion.
“Oh, no reason. After all, why should the Opera Ghost be frightened by a few wandering spirits?” There was a mischievous smile lurking around her lips.
Erik shook his head. “Minx,” he said, and she giggled. “Well, I will not deny that I am a little... uncomfortable. Have you really done this for the last six years?”
“Not last year. Raoul wouldn’t hear of it.” Christine sounded sad all of a sudden. “He did think I was foolish, told me that my beliefs were just superstition.”
“The nerve of the man,” Erik growled. “Would you like me to harm him for you?”
She swatted his arm and he yelped. “Raoul and I had vastly different upbringings; he just couldn’t understand. I know that you aren’t convinced either, but thank you for humouring me.”
“You know that I would do anything for you, Christine. There is no one with whom I would rather be sitting in the cold and dark, surrounded by the dead.”
Christine laid her head against his shoulder once more. With his free hand, Erik lifted the hood of her cloak, drawing it over her curls. “I knew there was a reason why I love you,” she said.
They lapsed into silence once more, and before long Erik felt his head nodding. As his chin touched his chest he jerked awake, sitting up straight and blinking into the darkness, cursing himself. Not so long ago he had spent every night prowling the Opera House; age was evidently catching up with him, for now he was dozing like a useless old man! He shook himself, attempting to remove the sleep which clung to his mind, and it was then that he realised Christine was gripping the fabric of his cloak with her cold little fingers and her body was trembling against his. Squinting at his watch he saw with a start that it was midnight; a moment later the cemetery chapel bell began to toll the hour.
“I know that you wish to stay, but enough is enough,” he said, taking hold of her hand and trying to chafe some warmth into it. “You’re frozen! We should go home.”
“No... No...” she murmured, eyes fixed upon something out there in the shifting shadows, beyond the pool of light from the lamp which grew steadily smaller as the candle burnt itself out. “Can you not hear it?”
“Hear what?” Erik listened, hard, but could hear nothing but that steadily tolling bell.
“A violin... someone is playing a violin!” Christine turned her startled gaze upon him. “I know that tune, and I know that violin!”
“What... Christine, whatever are you talking about?” he asked, grasping her by the shoulders and staring deep into her wide brown eyes as her lip wobbled and they began to fill with tears. “How can you possibly - ”
“It is my father’s violin, Erik!” she cried, a sob breaking up the words. “I would know it anywhere. He has come to me, playing The Resurrection of Lazarus as he promised!”
“Christine, I don’t... Christine!” She pulled away from him, stumbling to her feet, just as the wick inside the lantern finally died, plunging them into complete blackness. Erik cursed, struggling to rise and becoming entangled in his own cloak. He heard the grass rustling as Christine moved and he called her name again. She did not appear to hear him, her voice retreating into the distance as she ran, crying out for her father.
“Papa! I’m coming, Papa!”
“Christine!” Frantically, Erik tried to strike a match and relight the lamp; his fingers shook from a combination of cold and desperation, and he burned them twice before an orange glow illuminated his surroundings once more. He lifted it high, cracked tombstones and leaning marble angels looming out of the darkness at him, but there was no sign of Christine. The chapel bell tolled for the twelfth time, and it was then that he heard it: the lone, melancholy voice of a violin, drifting across the graveyard. The musician behind it was a virtuoso, the notes soaring in a complex pattern, swirling around and around, drawing him in.
The sound was hypnotic. Erik, knowing more than most of the mesmerising potential of music, found himself stepping forwards, towards it, pulled by some power beyond his own volition. As his feet touched the gravel of the path with a loud crunch he quite suddenly became aware of a presence, a kind of mist that was trying to insinuate its way into his mind. Shaking his head he attempted to dislodge it and it retreated as if realising that it had touched something darker and more powerful than itself.
Erik would rarely admit to being afraid, but icy fingers took hold of his spine, filling him with foreboding. Something was out there, calling to Christine, and it wasn’t Gustave Daae. Taking a stronger grasp upon the lantern, he ran hell for leather into the night.
________________________________________
Where was she?
He stopped, listening, trying to gain his bearings, but the music seemed to come from all directions at once, echoing impossibly around him. The clouds ensured that the darkness was absolute; he could see nothing beyond the protective circle of light which surrounded him. Swinging the lamp this way and that he advanced, carefully treading between the graves, stumbling as he caught his feet on fallen masonry. His quest had brought him into the oldest part of the cemetery; he shouted in surprise as he turned and came face to face with a huge, crumbling Christ stretched upon the cross, what remained of its face twisted in the agonies of a drawn-out death. Erik’s heart was beating so hard he could hear nothing for several moments but its thumping in his ears. He struggled to bring it under control, only to start once again when the veiled figure of a mourning attendant seemed to leap out at him; spinning around he tripped, falling into her arms, his unmasked cheek hitting the freezing marble from which she had been carved.
The shock of the cold against his skin caused him to jerk away once more and quite suddenly he was falling, the lantern flying from his grip and his hands clutching nothing more than empty space. He landed so heavily that the wind was entirely knocked from him; he lay there for some time, trying to catch his breath. Above him the branches of the trees which lined the main drive reached into the sky like the struts of a ghostly cathedral nave, black and skeletal as though they had been sketched onto the clouds with charcoal by some great celestial artist. Recovering himself, Erik sat up, hands pushing against the ground. He froze when he realised that the surface beneath his fingers was not mud or stone but rather polished wood. Slowly, hesitantly, he moved his hand backwards, encountering a large metal pin screwed into the oak, and he felt his gorge rise. There was just enough light left from the now broken lamp for him to see as he stood up on his knees the brass plate at the level his head had been resting:
Georges Henri Lacoste
1836-1884
If Erik had been prone to screaming he would have done so now. Backing instinctively away, his feet sliding on the slick lid of the coffin, he fell against the damp earthen wall of the open grave. Cold sweat started on his forehead, running down beneath the mask and chilling him to the bone. He scrabbled at the grass edging the hole, searching for a handhold, a root strong enough to bear his weight. Seconds ticked past, so slowly that it seemed time itself was coming to a halt like an unwound clock, before he grabbed onto something solid and was able to drag himself, inch by interminable inch, away from the horror into which he had tumbled.
It took some time for his breathing to return to normal as he collapsed into the pile of earth left by the gravediggers, his legs lacking the strength to support him. Graves had always terrified him, his time in the carnival billed as the Living Corpse only serving to increase that fear. Ever since four of the gypsies, intent on some fun at his expense, had grabbed and subdued him with a blow to the head, shoving him into a narrow wooden chest and hammering down the lid, he had suffered from repeated nightmares of being buried alive. Only the intervention of Dumitru, the man who had taken him prisoner in the first place, yelling about the loss of his investment, had saved Erik’s life; the huge, black-bearded lout swore vehemently and cracked heads as Erik, stunned and sick, was dragged back to his cage and locked in once more. It was an experience he never wished to repeat.
Gradually he came back to himself, and as he raised his head he realised that he could hear the violin, louder now than it had been before. It was accompanied, too, by a pure soprano voice which carried on the still air like the song of an angel. It was this sound which forced Erik back to his feet and, reeling and staggering like a drunkard, he hurried as fast as he could towards it, driven entirely by instinct now that the candle had gone out for good.
There was a huge mausoleum at the far end of the cemetery which he remembered from his previous visits with Christine, an enormous ugly structure surmounted by a cross which had been almost completely engulfed by the ivy that covered the tomb. At the top of a flight of steps and behind an elaborate wrought-iron gate sat a large lead sarcophagus, squatting there like an overgrown beetle. As he approached he became aware that the music was coming from that imposing edifice; a moment later he was forced to throw up an arm to shield his eyes as light suddenly burst from inside the building, blazing with an unearthly brilliance. It threw Christine’s small figure into perfect silhouette, a bundle of clothes kneeling upon the wet ground, her arms outstretched in supplication.
Erik’s eyes adjusted, and beyond Christine he could make out someone else standing on the steps of the mausoleum, a shadowy form which seemed to solidify as the music built to a crescendo. His stomach lurched and the chill ran down his spine once again. Starting forwards he all but fell to the floor next to Christine, taking hold of her arm and enfolding her hand in his.
“Christine,” he said urgently, trying to draw her gaze from the scene before them, “Christine, listen to me. Whatever you may think, that is not your father.”
Her beautiful face was blank, her eyes glazed as though in a trance. Horrified, he searched for some spark of recognition; she had never looked this way when under his spell.
“I don’t know what that thing is or where it has come from, but I do know this: it cannot be your father. Gustave Daae is dead, he died more than six years ago and though I know you wish for it more than anything there is no way to bring him back. I’m sorry, my dear, truly I am, but there is nothing to be done. Your father is gone.” She blinked, and his heart leapt in hope. “Christine, can you hear me?”
“...Erik..?” Her voice was small, confused.
“Yes, Christine, it’s me. Look at me, my angel, please. Look away from the light.”
“I... I can’t...” She tried, her hand gripping his so hard that her nails dug into his skin even through her gloves. A frown touched her brow and her lips parted in frustration. “Erik, I can’t!”
“Yes, yes you can.” On an impulse he cupped her face with his free hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. As her gaze shifted, like the prince in a fairytale he lowered his lips to hers, capturing her attention as no one else could. Behind him he heard a scream of rage and the sound of a hundred violin strings snapping. There was a thunderclap and a blinding flash of light which seared his eyes even through closed lids, and the darkness descended once more.
Christine clung to him, face buried in his waistcoat, as he slowly stood up, gently pulling her to her feet. He held her close, stroking her hair, for what felt like years, before she raised her head; as she did, the clouds finally parted to allow a sliver of moonlight through, and her eyes widened as she took in his dishevelled appearance. Erik groaned inwardly, knowing that he must look as though he had been dragged through a hedge backwards.
“Oh, my... you’re filthy!” she exclaimed, fumbling in her sleeve for a handkerchief, which she wetted with her tongue and applied to his face, scrubbing at the dirt. He tried to pull away, feeling like a small boy being cleaned up by his mother, but she wouldn’t let go. “There’s mud all over your mask. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” he said wearily, eager to put the night’s experiences far behind him. “In the meantime, a hot bath and a large cognac are calling me. Let’s go home.”
She stared at him for a moment before nodding. Ever the gentleman, he offered her his arm and she took it, holding on tightly as they turned and began to walk away from the mausoleum. The sky was clearing, revealing a bright full moon and a dusting of stars on a blanket of rich, dark blue. Almost unconsciously, Erik stopped to look up at it, grateful for the reassuring presence of his old companion. He and the moon had had long conversations during many nights spent on the Opera House roof beneath Apollo’s Lyre.
“Erik...” Christine said at last, and he glanced down at her. She was pale, her eyes haunted. “I... I don’t think I want to do this again.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “I am delighted to hear you say that, my dear.”
Sweeping an arm around her shoulders he enfolded them both in his ruined cloak and together they hurried down the long drive, back to the land of the living.
Author: charleygirl
Word Count: 3063
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama, Supernatural
Characters Involved: Erik the Phantom, Christine Daae
Disclaimer: The Phantom of the Opera is the creation of Gaston Leroux but probably these days copyright to Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Author's Note: Yes, I did pinch the title from one of the chapters of the novel, but as that's the root from which this fic sprang I decided to stick with it. Vaguely set within my 'Green Baize Door' universe.
Summary: Christine wants to keep a vigil at her father's grave. Erik isn't so sure.
Erik set the lantern down on a nearby tabletop tomb and turned to the small figure in blue at his side. Christine was shivering, though she was trying not to show it, her gloves hands firmly tucked inside the fur muff he had given her not three weeks ago as a birthday present, her face buried in her scarf. He was sure that if he listened carefully he would be able to hear her teeth chattering.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. The possible damage to her voice notwithstanding, it would cut him to the quick if he allowed her to become ill because of a foolish whim. “It’s only going to get colder, and I don’t - ”
“I have to. For Papa,” she explained, adding when she noticed his frown, “Oh, I know you think me silly, but I have kept a vigil here every All Hallows Eve since he died, and I want to do it again. I feel that I owe it to him, to try and keep his soul safe.”
“Christine,” Erik said gently, “Your father will have had no difficulty in reaching Heaven.”
“I know, I know.” She looked down at the ground, at the mud and the dead leaves, before glancing up to meet his gaze with a small smile. “I just want to make sure, that’s all.”
With a sigh, Erik turned his gaze to the lowering sky. The clouds were heavy, completely obscuring the moon; it should have been too early in the year for snow, but there was a snap in the air and he would not have been surprised if the burden those clouds carried was more than autumn rain. He drew his own cloak more tightly around himself, glad that he had thought to put on the thick wool that he usually reserved for the depths of winter, and reached for the picnic basket which rested incongruously in the long grass beside Gustave Daae’s headstone. “I suppose, in that case, we should make ourselves comfortable,” he remarked, withdrawing a tartan blanket and folding it twice before laying it upon the ground. His head was telling him that he should not be pandering to Christine’s superstition, the Angel of Music within him insisting that allowing her to sit in the cold and damp all night was a gross dereliction of duty; his heart, however, knew that he would always do everything he could to support the woman he loved.
They sat down together, a little way from the grave, leaning against the same mausoleum on which the lantern rested. Christine was a little reluctant, worrying such presumption might be viewed as a form of desecration, but Erik was more practical. The inhabitants would not mind that their memorial afforded them some ease, he was sure. Reassured, she snuggled up to him, resting her head on his shoulder, and they sat in silence for some time. The night was completely still, the only sounds which drifted across the vast acreage around them the chiming of a nearby church clock and the occasional distant rattle of carriage wheels in the street beyond. Here in the land of the dead civilisation seemed a hundred miles away.
“You don’t mind being here with me, do you?” Christine asked eventually, making him jump. It had been a long day and he realised that he had been drifting off to sleep. “I mean, I’m very grateful to you for coming, but did you have anything else planned for tonight?”
Erik rubbed the exposed side of his face, trying to stifle the yawn which was trying to break free. “No, no, my dear, nothing at all. There is nowhere else I would rather be; I am sure that the ballet rats can survive without a few scares, and I have always wanted to spend the night in a cemetery.”
She didn’t miss the sarcasm in his tone. “You aren’t scared, are you, Erik?”
“Why the devil should I be scared?” he demanded, affronted by the very suggestion.
“Oh, no reason. After all, why should the Opera Ghost be frightened by a few wandering spirits?” There was a mischievous smile lurking around her lips.
Erik shook his head. “Minx,” he said, and she giggled. “Well, I will not deny that I am a little... uncomfortable. Have you really done this for the last six years?”
“Not last year. Raoul wouldn’t hear of it.” Christine sounded sad all of a sudden. “He did think I was foolish, told me that my beliefs were just superstition.”
“The nerve of the man,” Erik growled. “Would you like me to harm him for you?”
She swatted his arm and he yelped. “Raoul and I had vastly different upbringings; he just couldn’t understand. I know that you aren’t convinced either, but thank you for humouring me.”
“You know that I would do anything for you, Christine. There is no one with whom I would rather be sitting in the cold and dark, surrounded by the dead.”
Christine laid her head against his shoulder once more. With his free hand, Erik lifted the hood of her cloak, drawing it over her curls. “I knew there was a reason why I love you,” she said.
They lapsed into silence once more, and before long Erik felt his head nodding. As his chin touched his chest he jerked awake, sitting up straight and blinking into the darkness, cursing himself. Not so long ago he had spent every night prowling the Opera House; age was evidently catching up with him, for now he was dozing like a useless old man! He shook himself, attempting to remove the sleep which clung to his mind, and it was then that he realised Christine was gripping the fabric of his cloak with her cold little fingers and her body was trembling against his. Squinting at his watch he saw with a start that it was midnight; a moment later the cemetery chapel bell began to toll the hour.
“I know that you wish to stay, but enough is enough,” he said, taking hold of her hand and trying to chafe some warmth into it. “You’re frozen! We should go home.”
“No... No...” she murmured, eyes fixed upon something out there in the shifting shadows, beyond the pool of light from the lamp which grew steadily smaller as the candle burnt itself out. “Can you not hear it?”
“Hear what?” Erik listened, hard, but could hear nothing but that steadily tolling bell.
“A violin... someone is playing a violin!” Christine turned her startled gaze upon him. “I know that tune, and I know that violin!”
“What... Christine, whatever are you talking about?” he asked, grasping her by the shoulders and staring deep into her wide brown eyes as her lip wobbled and they began to fill with tears. “How can you possibly - ”
“It is my father’s violin, Erik!” she cried, a sob breaking up the words. “I would know it anywhere. He has come to me, playing The Resurrection of Lazarus as he promised!”
“Christine, I don’t... Christine!” She pulled away from him, stumbling to her feet, just as the wick inside the lantern finally died, plunging them into complete blackness. Erik cursed, struggling to rise and becoming entangled in his own cloak. He heard the grass rustling as Christine moved and he called her name again. She did not appear to hear him, her voice retreating into the distance as she ran, crying out for her father.
“Papa! I’m coming, Papa!”
“Christine!” Frantically, Erik tried to strike a match and relight the lamp; his fingers shook from a combination of cold and desperation, and he burned them twice before an orange glow illuminated his surroundings once more. He lifted it high, cracked tombstones and leaning marble angels looming out of the darkness at him, but there was no sign of Christine. The chapel bell tolled for the twelfth time, and it was then that he heard it: the lone, melancholy voice of a violin, drifting across the graveyard. The musician behind it was a virtuoso, the notes soaring in a complex pattern, swirling around and around, drawing him in.
The sound was hypnotic. Erik, knowing more than most of the mesmerising potential of music, found himself stepping forwards, towards it, pulled by some power beyond his own volition. As his feet touched the gravel of the path with a loud crunch he quite suddenly became aware of a presence, a kind of mist that was trying to insinuate its way into his mind. Shaking his head he attempted to dislodge it and it retreated as if realising that it had touched something darker and more powerful than itself.
Erik would rarely admit to being afraid, but icy fingers took hold of his spine, filling him with foreboding. Something was out there, calling to Christine, and it wasn’t Gustave Daae. Taking a stronger grasp upon the lantern, he ran hell for leather into the night.
________________________________________
Where was she?
He stopped, listening, trying to gain his bearings, but the music seemed to come from all directions at once, echoing impossibly around him. The clouds ensured that the darkness was absolute; he could see nothing beyond the protective circle of light which surrounded him. Swinging the lamp this way and that he advanced, carefully treading between the graves, stumbling as he caught his feet on fallen masonry. His quest had brought him into the oldest part of the cemetery; he shouted in surprise as he turned and came face to face with a huge, crumbling Christ stretched upon the cross, what remained of its face twisted in the agonies of a drawn-out death. Erik’s heart was beating so hard he could hear nothing for several moments but its thumping in his ears. He struggled to bring it under control, only to start once again when the veiled figure of a mourning attendant seemed to leap out at him; spinning around he tripped, falling into her arms, his unmasked cheek hitting the freezing marble from which she had been carved.
The shock of the cold against his skin caused him to jerk away once more and quite suddenly he was falling, the lantern flying from his grip and his hands clutching nothing more than empty space. He landed so heavily that the wind was entirely knocked from him; he lay there for some time, trying to catch his breath. Above him the branches of the trees which lined the main drive reached into the sky like the struts of a ghostly cathedral nave, black and skeletal as though they had been sketched onto the clouds with charcoal by some great celestial artist. Recovering himself, Erik sat up, hands pushing against the ground. He froze when he realised that the surface beneath his fingers was not mud or stone but rather polished wood. Slowly, hesitantly, he moved his hand backwards, encountering a large metal pin screwed into the oak, and he felt his gorge rise. There was just enough light left from the now broken lamp for him to see as he stood up on his knees the brass plate at the level his head had been resting:
Georges Henri Lacoste
1836-1884
If Erik had been prone to screaming he would have done so now. Backing instinctively away, his feet sliding on the slick lid of the coffin, he fell against the damp earthen wall of the open grave. Cold sweat started on his forehead, running down beneath the mask and chilling him to the bone. He scrabbled at the grass edging the hole, searching for a handhold, a root strong enough to bear his weight. Seconds ticked past, so slowly that it seemed time itself was coming to a halt like an unwound clock, before he grabbed onto something solid and was able to drag himself, inch by interminable inch, away from the horror into which he had tumbled.
It took some time for his breathing to return to normal as he collapsed into the pile of earth left by the gravediggers, his legs lacking the strength to support him. Graves had always terrified him, his time in the carnival billed as the Living Corpse only serving to increase that fear. Ever since four of the gypsies, intent on some fun at his expense, had grabbed and subdued him with a blow to the head, shoving him into a narrow wooden chest and hammering down the lid, he had suffered from repeated nightmares of being buried alive. Only the intervention of Dumitru, the man who had taken him prisoner in the first place, yelling about the loss of his investment, had saved Erik’s life; the huge, black-bearded lout swore vehemently and cracked heads as Erik, stunned and sick, was dragged back to his cage and locked in once more. It was an experience he never wished to repeat.
Gradually he came back to himself, and as he raised his head he realised that he could hear the violin, louder now than it had been before. It was accompanied, too, by a pure soprano voice which carried on the still air like the song of an angel. It was this sound which forced Erik back to his feet and, reeling and staggering like a drunkard, he hurried as fast as he could towards it, driven entirely by instinct now that the candle had gone out for good.
There was a huge mausoleum at the far end of the cemetery which he remembered from his previous visits with Christine, an enormous ugly structure surmounted by a cross which had been almost completely engulfed by the ivy that covered the tomb. At the top of a flight of steps and behind an elaborate wrought-iron gate sat a large lead sarcophagus, squatting there like an overgrown beetle. As he approached he became aware that the music was coming from that imposing edifice; a moment later he was forced to throw up an arm to shield his eyes as light suddenly burst from inside the building, blazing with an unearthly brilliance. It threw Christine’s small figure into perfect silhouette, a bundle of clothes kneeling upon the wet ground, her arms outstretched in supplication.
Erik’s eyes adjusted, and beyond Christine he could make out someone else standing on the steps of the mausoleum, a shadowy form which seemed to solidify as the music built to a crescendo. His stomach lurched and the chill ran down his spine once again. Starting forwards he all but fell to the floor next to Christine, taking hold of her arm and enfolding her hand in his.
“Christine,” he said urgently, trying to draw her gaze from the scene before them, “Christine, listen to me. Whatever you may think, that is not your father.”
Her beautiful face was blank, her eyes glazed as though in a trance. Horrified, he searched for some spark of recognition; she had never looked this way when under his spell.
“I don’t know what that thing is or where it has come from, but I do know this: it cannot be your father. Gustave Daae is dead, he died more than six years ago and though I know you wish for it more than anything there is no way to bring him back. I’m sorry, my dear, truly I am, but there is nothing to be done. Your father is gone.” She blinked, and his heart leapt in hope. “Christine, can you hear me?”
“...Erik..?” Her voice was small, confused.
“Yes, Christine, it’s me. Look at me, my angel, please. Look away from the light.”
“I... I can’t...” She tried, her hand gripping his so hard that her nails dug into his skin even through her gloves. A frown touched her brow and her lips parted in frustration. “Erik, I can’t!”
“Yes, yes you can.” On an impulse he cupped her face with his free hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. As her gaze shifted, like the prince in a fairytale he lowered his lips to hers, capturing her attention as no one else could. Behind him he heard a scream of rage and the sound of a hundred violin strings snapping. There was a thunderclap and a blinding flash of light which seared his eyes even through closed lids, and the darkness descended once more.
Christine clung to him, face buried in his waistcoat, as he slowly stood up, gently pulling her to her feet. He held her close, stroking her hair, for what felt like years, before she raised her head; as she did, the clouds finally parted to allow a sliver of moonlight through, and her eyes widened as she took in his dishevelled appearance. Erik groaned inwardly, knowing that he must look as though he had been dragged through a hedge backwards.
“Oh, my... you’re filthy!” she exclaimed, fumbling in her sleeve for a handkerchief, which she wetted with her tongue and applied to his face, scrubbing at the dirt. He tried to pull away, feeling like a small boy being cleaned up by his mother, but she wouldn’t let go. “There’s mud all over your mask. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” he said wearily, eager to put the night’s experiences far behind him. “In the meantime, a hot bath and a large cognac are calling me. Let’s go home.”
She stared at him for a moment before nodding. Ever the gentleman, he offered her his arm and she took it, holding on tightly as they turned and began to walk away from the mausoleum. The sky was clearing, revealing a bright full moon and a dusting of stars on a blanket of rich, dark blue. Almost unconsciously, Erik stopped to look up at it, grateful for the reassuring presence of his old companion. He and the moon had had long conversations during many nights spent on the Opera House roof beneath Apollo’s Lyre.
“Erik...” Christine said at last, and he glanced down at her. She was pale, her eyes haunted. “I... I don’t think I want to do this again.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “I am delighted to hear you say that, my dear.”
Sweeping an arm around her shoulders he enfolded them both in his ruined cloak and together they hurried down the long drive, back to the land of the living.
