#wtlr

For years Erik had been the listening ear to whom Christine had bared her soul, while Erik himself had no similar confessor. And... if he could not confide in Christine, then who else would ever hear him? Did he have any choice but to go down on his knees and pray that she would have the strength to forgive all the things that he'd done?

It seemed so wrong to burden her with the afflictions of a loveless childhood and the crimes of a Godforsaken youth in the middle of a dark, damp tunnel.... Yet she knelt with him, held his hand with such an attitude of attentive sympathy! So ready to listen, to hear him...

That nameless sensation spread through his limbs and up to his head, bringing with it clarity. He looked down at her knees where they rested on the floor of the tunnel. Now he could feel the chill of the damp stone seeping into his own legs, and he could only imagine how cold it was for Christine in her thin cotton nightdress and negligée.

Christine was startled when he suddenly righted himself and made a decisive motion to stand and bring her up with him. With wide eyes, she watched as he unclasped his cloak, swept it off, and brought it around her shoulders. She hadn't realized how chilled she was, even with her shawl, until she felt the garment envelop her in its warm, heavy folds, the sudden shift in temperature eliciting a delayed shiver.

Erik's expression was inscrutable as he gathered up his gloves and the lantern with its two broken panes, setting it down next to the bottom of the staircase. He then took her, very gently, by her upper arms and guided her to sit on the steps, the thick woollen cloak protecting her from the chill of the stone.

Erik knelt on the floor to one side of her, his eyes fixed on her knees. 

"How much did your—" he paused here, with a sigh—he did not want to offend Christine again by mocking the boy to her face—before resuming, "How much did the Vicomte tell you of what he learned about my past from Madame Giry?" he asked. His voice was strangely even and detached.

It galled Erik that he even had to ask her. No doubt, he thought, that the simpering jackanapes had taken great pleasure in painting Erik's history to further condemn him in Christine's eyes; a murderous imp locked in a cage—a mere child, but already more monster than man. Much good it had done him, he thought, with an internal smirk.

Erik knew that some conversation had passed between the two. The Vicomte had found Christine huddled on the front steps of the opera house with little Meg, following his little tête-á-tête with the latter's mother.

Erik had seen it all, but from the rooftop; and even his superb hearing could not cut through the din of New Year's Eve in Paris to capture what was being said in hushed voices ten stories below. Erik strove not to remember the surge of jealous rage that had overtaken him as he had watched the Chagny boy put his dolman around Christine and hold her as she rested her head against his shoulder.

Christine was a little surprised at Erik's question. She had always thought of him as being absolutely omniscient. She had assumed that, somehow, he had heard all that Raoul had related to her. But then, she supposed even the Opera Ghost might not hear what was said outside of the Opera house's walls.

"Only that you were kept in a cage in a travelling circus, and Madame Giry helped you escape," she replied. "And that she hid you in the opera cellars, and you've never known anything outside since..."

"Is that truly all he told you?"

So the Vicomte hadn't spoken of the murder at all then?

"Yes. That's all," she confirmed, now certain, from Erik's response, that Raoul had withheld some details of importance. A twinge of irritation passed through her. "There's more he didn't tell me, isn't there?" she asked quietly, an edge to her voice.

Erik could not help the little sound of dark humour that escaped him. "Yes, Christine... yes, there was more..."

A moment of silence as Erik gathered his thoughts, steeling himself against the heavy sense of trepidation that threatened, like a disease, to take hold of his tongue.

Doing his level best to shake it away, he said, "I will tell you all, Christine," his even tone trembling a little. "I only ask that you.... that you try to be gentle in your judgement of me."

He chanced to look up at Christine, dared to meet her gaze, and felt a profound sense of nudity; as though her rich, dark eyes would draw the truth out of him and into their depths with an irresistible gravity. Hers was not a piercing gaze, but a haling one. 

Once caught by that gaze, he found that it held him, and he could not look away.

"I was born in a village near Rouen," he began simply. "My father was a very skilled masonry contractor. He was much away from home because of his work, which was just the way he preferred it after I was born. He never saw me; and my mother," his mouth twisted around this word with an unnatural degree of both anguish and distaste, "gave me a mask so that she would not have to, if she could help it. I don't remember a time when I didn't wear one.

"I told you she resented me, but that was not the extent of it, Christine; she feared me—loathed me, even. I think she viewed me as her own personal demon; a curse sent by God, which she endured for some sin she felt she had committed. I couldn't tell you for certain, for she never told me.

"I was kept hidden—no one else but the priest, her confessor, knew that I existed; she had let it on that I died after the birth."

He paused, but he was still unable to look away from Christine's eyes—still felt their irresistible pull, and soon yielded to it.

"She would often sing while she worked in the house, my mother," he continued. "She would sing to fill the silence... And I would hear her every day, and listened to all that beautiful music, and learned, in quietness, every word of every song. Because, you see, I learned very young that she did not like when I called for her; and I hoped that if I could sing to her, that she might then hear me a little more willingly. The first time I sang, I think, was the first time she ever voluntarily looked at me. I have to think, to hope, that if my mother ever felt some kind of tenderness toward me, it was when I sang to her.

"Oh, she never looked at me without my mask. She would glance at me, constantly, with terror, checking to ensure that it was still in place. And she never kept from me the reason why I had to wear it, or why I couldn't go outside during the day. She told me it was for my own good, and that people would hate me if they ever saw me. I had no reason to disbelieve her.

"But... I think that my singing was what made it possible for her to endure raising me as long as she did...

"And one day I was singing as she did needlepoint, and she let me come so close to her chair... I thought... that she might allow me to give her a kiss...

"I was sometimes taken to looking through a little gap in the curtains, and I had seen other children out with their mothers. Little boys my age who would pick the yellow flowers that grew by the well and give them to their mothers with a kiss on the cheek. But my mother... I stood by her chair, and I lifted my mask... just to my lips, Christine, just to my lips..." he demonstrated by holding his hand level to his upper lip “... Just to give her a small kiss, and she..." Erik shook, his head falling forward, near to Christine's knees, as though he might rest his forehead against them. But he did not. He held his head at that stiff angle, shaking, and Christine could not tell if it was rage or sorrow which caused him to tremble. Then she wondered if the emotions had not so long been mingled for him in these memories as to be indistinguishable from one another. Christine felt tightness beginning to choke in her throat, her face tensed with emotion as he continued.

"She threw me away from her," he forced the words out and they fell from his mouth, as if they were bitter food he could not bear to swallow and must therefore spit out. "And she screamed," he ground this out through his teeth, "so loudly, and told me never to touch her. It was not the first time she had told me this, but it would be the last.

"A neighbour had heard that scream, and my mother hid me while she told the neighbour that it was because there was a rat in the pantry... in the pantry where she had hidden me."

His head rose now, and he looked at Christine again, his eyes steely and fierce.

"And as I was crouched in that pantry, I knew that I could no longer endure it. I could no longer stand to be the burden of my poor, unhappy mother, and it was that same night that I broke the locks and ran away.

"It was late summer. I think it was near the time of my birthday.... I had gradually come to realize, not the exact date, but the time of year when I was born, because of the way my mother behaved.

There was always a week in early August when she... was worse than usual... and I came to assume that these bouts must mark when I was born. I don't know for certain how old I was. Seven, perhaps eight."

Now his expression softened slightly, and his eyes seemed distant; still looking into hers, but seeing past them also.

"I had practically never been outside before, Christine," he whispered. "I hardly knew what it was like to feel a breeze across my skin. Or grass between my toes. And that night... that night when I ran away, I was full of pain and anger, but the night that I ran out into was so full of beauty. Outside, the air was sweet, and cool and fresh. Everything smelled... natural. And the stars, Christine," he breathed, eyes filled with a ghost of some long-ago wonderment as his hands suddenly came up to lay upon her knees. "So many stars.... Do you know what it's like to see the expanse of the sky, and all the real stars, and understand for the first time that they truly twinkle? There was so much beauty around me in that darkness..."

Christine's heart swelled with the melancholy beauty of Erik's recollection, her hands inching close to his where they rested on her knees as a sad smile pulled at her lips.

"I wandered along the road for days. I would walk during the night, and hide during the day, sleeping in hedgerows and ditches. After days—I lost count of them—with no food, one evening I found I had not even the strength to move from the hedge I'd been sleeping in.

"That was how the gypsies found me. A traveling circus; tumblers, conjurers... human oddities.... One of them took my mask off. I expected screams, but they laughed. They gave me food, and when they packed up the camp, they packed me up with it.

"I didn't know, then, that making men laugh—and women scream, and children cry—was the price I would pay for every subsequent meal, no matter how pitiful, for years to come.

"As you know, I was kept in a cage. My handler billed me as 'The Devil's Child'. I came to find a certain unintended irony in that moniker, for I belonged to my handler; and he, as far as I was concerned was the devil.

"I was fed, of course, but only just enough. If the paying was good, I was fed better, if not.... For a time, I hardly ate at all because my keeper had the idea to increase the spectacle of horror by giving me a more skeletal appearance. I nearly died. He abandoned the scheme then. He couldn't afford that; I was too valuable.

"This, then, was my life, Christine. For five years I was starved, and exposed, and beaten."

Christine flinched at this last word.

"Yes, Christine," he said, his voice low and dark. "I was beaten.

"I survived out of spite. It was all I could do... until an idea came into my head. Someone had dropped a piece of rope outside my cage, just close enough for me to reach. I kept it tied to one of the bars for weeks. And then, that night..."

He paused again, and his hands clenched at his sides. Dread filled Christine's stomach as she watched his jaw tensing in the gloomy silence of the tunnel.

Erik was seized with apprehension as he perpended the approaching admission of his first crime.

It had been, in his opinion, justified, and he still felt no personal guilt or regret for his first murder; yet confessing it to Christine filled him with cold dread. Surely she would find it unutterably perverse, the idea of a child wilfully taking a life.

"I was perhaps twelve when I first committed murder, Christine," his voice was a leaden whisper, sombre, and heavy, and fearful. "I killed my handler. Madame Giry witnessed it. I strangled him with that piece of rope as he counted his money."

He remembered vividly how the coarse fibres of the rope had chafed his hands as he pulled it tight with every ounce of strength his malnourished little body could muster. That he, in his condition, had conjured the strength and endurance to strangle a full-grown man more than twice his own size was a feat that Erik himself had never fully been able to understand. Perhaps it was rage which had given him the strength, and desperation the stamina.

Erik’s eyes were downcast. He could not look at Christine, though he could feel her eyes on him, pulling him. He was terrified to give into their influence now; he could not bear to think what horror he might find there, so he was entirely unprepared for the sudden impact which followed.

Nearly knocked backwards by the force of it, it was several moments before Erik was able to process what the cause of that impact had been, or what was the source of the tight, warm coil which now squeezed his shoulders and waist with such pressure.

It was Christine, who had thrown herself from her perch on the step and wrapped her trembling arms about him, pressing her face into the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

She wanted to say something; to speak some sentiment of sympathy, but she had no words. She did not know what she could possibly say. What words in any language could counterbalance such a degree of suffering? An exigency so terrible that it had driven a boy—just a child—to commit an act of such monumental desperation in order to escape it?

And so, unable to speak comfort to him, she simply held him. She pressed herself against him, into him, around him, her chest so full of violent compassion that releasing it in the form of exertion to engird his hunching frame with her arms seemed absolutely necessary in order to keep herself from falling apart.

There was no possibility of misinterpreting Christine's action; even Erik could not misattribute this strength with which she crushed herself into him to revulsion, fear, or reproach. He yearned to lift his hand and cradle the back of her head, to turn his face into her soft, fragrant hair, but was too stunned at her reaction to move.

"Oh, Erik..." she whispered, sounding heartbroken as she shook against him.

This, then, was the extent of what Raoul had learned from Madame Giry? These were the details that he had kept from her? Christine had much to think about on that regard, but she couldn't. Not now, overwhelmed as she was with loving pity for Erik's dark fate.

She felt Erik's mass in the iron bands of her hold. He had not moved at all as she embraced him, except to steady himself at the moment of impact, and she wondered—worried—whether this had, perhaps, not been the right thing to do.

A little timidly, she lifted her face from his shoulder to look at him, her eyes swimming, and Erik, still frozen in his shock, realized that Christine was crying.

Crying for him.

And upon this revelation, he, too, began to weep. Tears stung, and gathered, and fell from his eyes; and Christine whispered his name again, rising higher on her knees so that she could take his head in her hands and bring her lips to his forehead as they cried together. Her tears, warm and sweet, dripped onto his skin and trickled under his mask.

She, Christine, the true angel—who had sought after his kisses, when his own mother had never even tolerated them—she was weeping for his sake.

Her blessed tears mingled with his under his mask, and they flowed down to his lips. He tasted them, and it seemed to him as though their salt water was life-giving.

He wished that he could stay in this attitude forever; not move, not tell her the rest of his tale. But more and more of her tears flowed down, seeping under the edges of the covering, which he felt beginning to slip from its place.

His head suddenly jerked from her gentle hold. Christine no longer felt Erik's skin against her lips, and she saw that he had turned his face from her, with his hand on his mask.

"Do not look, Christine," he said, his voice shaky.

In a heartbeat, Christine understood and obeyed, turning her face away and looking up into the dark well of the stairs. Not because she did not want to see his face; not because she feared to; but because he asked it of her.

Erik wiped the inside of his mask dry, then dabbed his sleeve over the misshapen plains of the right side of his face, though he was loathe to lose even one of her precious tears. His chest felt tight as he replaced the device and gathered himself.

Christine was still gently sobbing, her body twisted away from him at the waist, when he turned around. He reached for her, touching her arm, and she turned back to him, brushing her slim, white fingers across her eyes and cheeks again and again, unable to keep the tears from gathering.

The sight made it difficult for Erik to continue. He pressed his lips together, bowing his head, like an ashamed child.

After several moments in this attitude, Christine's stomach began to twist uncomfortably. She knew he had not finished with his story, and he seemed to be struggling. She inched closer to him, fitting herself to his side, and stretched her arm across his shoulders, wrapping him with her in the warmth of his cloak before drawing him with her toward the stairs.

"Come sit with me," she whispered softly, an earnest plea.

Once again, he obeyed and allowed Christine to bustle him along to sit next to her on the step where she huddled close to him, her warmth inescapable. Yet her caring sweetness filled Erik with apprehension; he had never before known what it was like to have someone whose opinion of him mattered enough for him to care whether he might disappoint them, and he feared disappointing Christine now. But, he reminded himself, he had already confessed the quantity of his crimes to her; now, she was owed the details.

Christine’s hand drifted uncertainly near his, where they rested on his lap. Twice since they had begun this fraught interlude he had tried to pull his hands from her grasp, and both times she had refused to release them. She wanted to hold them again, to assure him, yet she also feared that if she attempted to do so now, shame might overcome him and compel him to flee her touch again.

She wrapped her hands cautiously around his arm, and looked up at him, her expression mild.

"What happened then?" she asked as evenly as she could, her gaze fixing on his face as she gently squeezed his forearm in a reassuring gesture.

He closed his eyes for a moment. She was clutching his arm, yet the comforting pressure seemed, rather, to be closing around his heart, overwhelming in its gentleness. It disordered his thoughts, and his jaw clenched as he attempted to focus them again; to remember where he had stopped in his grim history.

"Then... it was just a few moments before the crime was discovered. To be truthful, I don't remember much of what actually happened. Only that Mathilde... Madame Giry, that is..."

Christine nodded, though it struck her that, in all her years of being raised by the woman, she'd never actually heard anyone call Mme. Giry by her Christian name.

Erik continued: "Mathilde must have acted very quickly. All I really recall is her taking my hand, and then the grate into the chapel creaking as it opened, and I jumped through.

"I don't pretend to understand why she helped me, nor do I question it. She provided me the materials necessary to finish my education. I learned very quickly; and in the meantime, I became familiar with the complex inner workings of my new home. This building...” his gaze drifted up, to the arched ceiling of the tunnel, as if he could see through it to the Opera above, “it fascinated me. I remembered all of the sketches and blueprints in my father's office that I had perused as a young child. My mother had been... disturbed that I seemed to understand them at such an early age. She'd tried to lock them away, but I always found them again. Architecture became a passion for me, and this building was my first and best master in that discipline. Fitting that it was, itself, a monument to my truest and greatest passion; that of Music.

"Six years passed, and in that time, I gained a knowledge of the Opera house that I daresay not even its architect possessed, and wrote more masterpieces than most composers hope to in a lifetime. And yet my creations weighed on me. As much joy and fulfilment as I experienced in creating them, once each was finished, I was faced with the increasingly painful truth that no one, save for myself, and perhaps Mathilde, would ever hear them. It was impossibly confounding for me, Christine. My fear and general hatred of mankind, I'm sure you can understand, was deeply entrenched. And yet, I could not abandon the idea, the hope, that my music could move the hearts of men, though it was poisoned with the horrible certainty that, just as with my mother, even the beauty of my talents would not be able to spare me their rejection and scorn.

"In all those six years, Mathilde was my only direct human contact. And though she kept me in all the necessities of life, it soon became clear that whatever pity had motivated her to feed and clothe me was rivalled by an instinctive fear. Whether because of this," he gestured vaguely to his face, "or the murder I haven't any idea. I believe she felt a sense of," he chuckled darkly, "responsibility for my actions in addition to my general well-being. I was a dark and well-guarded secret. She could easily have washed her hands of me and yet she did not, even as her time became continually more consumed by the demands of her career.

“At sixteen she was, without doubt, the finest ballerina this Opera has ever seen, before or since, and the management were not blind to her merit. By eighteen she was made a principal dancer..."

Erik paused for a moment, considering how best to handle the next passage in this story where Mathilde was concerned. He disliked the idea of keeping details from Christine, as the Vicomte had done. But these details were not precisely pertinent to his own story, and were not his to share.

"Two years later, though," he resumed, "she left the stage and married.

"Despite my distaste for mankind and my preference for solitude, her company, scarce and fraught as it was, was missed.

"I was a youth—perhaps eighteen or nineteen, then—full of energy I could barely contain, with an intellect that was, though I say it myself, already vast, and hungry to expand still further. I lusted after knowledge and practical experience, and while I had made what I could of my home, it was not enough.

"And so, after months of struggling with my own mind, I left my home. I left the Opera Populaire and I left France."

"Madame Giry told the Vicomte that I have never known life outside of this Opera house. Well, as far as she knows, that is the truth. But I have already told you, Christine, of my work for the Shah of Persia..." his voice faltered as he caught the dull glint of his ring on Christine’s finger and an impulsive hand reached out to brush a fingertip over the stone.

Christine held very still as he initiated this pensive contact, breathing carefully, as if frightened of disturbing a butterfly that had landed on her hand.

"And now... I will tell you how it was that I found myself there...” he said in a soft tone,  before continuing bitterly, “and how I left.” Erik paused, gauging Christine’s expression.

Anxiety shot through her now, for she sensed, from Erik’s gravity, that the worst of his tale was quickly approaching. She feared what she may hear, but determined that she would not make any judgement or comment until she had heard all that Erik had to tell.

She swallowed and nodded, as if to say that she was ready to listen.

Breathing deeply, Erik recommenced his narrative: “For two years I travelled; first throughout Europe. Even setting aside my... disadvantage, I was too old for anyone to consider taking me as an apprentice. I gained experience through contract work. Masonry, carpentry, joinery, metalwork; whatever I set my hands to seemed to come naturally, and so skilfully. No one who saw my work could question my competency, and yet it usually paid for less than half what it was worth and was rejected often for reasons... shall we say, 'superficial'.

"Fortunately, I discovered that sleight of hand came as naturally to me as honest skill had, so when the latter could not provide for me, I resorted to the former.

"After a year of—forgive my use of the term—prostituting my craftsmanship and struggling in polite—” he sneered this word—"European society, I turned my attention to knowledge and antiquity and found myself traveling as far East as India. During this time, I expanded my knowledge of medicine and the sciences, and merged those talents to become a proficient magician, the likes of which had never been seen in either Asia or Europe.

"I displayed these talents in fairs throughout Eastern Europe and Russia. I found a certain cynical humour in the fact that sleight of hand paid better than honest craftsmanship had. And it was my remarkable talent for legerdemain that brought my existence to the attention of the Shah-in-Shah.

“I was brought down from Ninji-Novgorod, in Russia, on the testimony of a Samarkand fur trader; at first purely as an entertainment for the Shah's favourite who was 'withering away' of boredom. She delighted in entertaining deceptions, the 'Little Sultana'," he said, his voice tinged with contempt.

"But it was not long before the Shah discovered that I also possessed genius in areas that would be useful to himself.

"Of course, my hidden face was of paramount curiosity to both of them. The Sultana I never did indulge, despite her frequent insistences that I show my face to her.

"But the Shah, despite that devouring curiosity I could see in his eyes whenever I was in his presence, surprised me by never demanding that I reveal it. It was astonishing to me. Every day I waited for that order to come, and every day, to my growing relief, it did not. The only subjects he ever broached with me were pleasantries regarding my satisfaction with my accommodations, and the architectural endeavours he wished me to undertake. After a while, the Little Sultana even stopped her incessant pouting and begging, I discovered, on his solemn orders.

"He commissioned me to make alterations to his Palace at Mazenderan. I was given immense power, and, for a time, my word was law. Those who defied my authority or who were heard to insult me behind my back were punished as severely as if they had insulted the Shah himself. And it soon became easier than ever to discover when such insults were being uttered, with the alterations I made to the palace.

"At the Shah's request, I devised secret passages, made use of hollowed bricks and trapdoors... hundreds of them. By the time I had finished, the Shah had given me a nickname: 'Derb Mekhefa Met'eseb' which, roughly translated, means 'Trapdoor Lover'.

"Soon there was scarcely a room in the entire building where a word could be uttered without being overheard. I daresay I was responsible for numerous little tragedies through my trapdoors alone. I was extremely receptive to all of the Shah's commissions."

Erik lifted his eyes, which, thus far had been fixed on Christine’s hand, to her face. Her expression was intent, as though determined to retain every word he spoke to her. His hand still rested next to hers on her knee, and he feared to move it.

Christine, meanwhile, fixed her gaze on his face while it was turned to her and memorized each line in his brow which was furrowed over his anxious, pleading eyes.

"You cannot understand what this time was like for me, Christine," he said earnestly. "I had been rejected by my parents, scorned and mocked across Europe; but here... here, it seemed, I had a patron who saw beyond my face; who appreciated my genius and skill for all it was worth. For the first time in my life, Christine, I felt that I was valued for myself; as a thinking, intelligent man, and not merely a freak or a sorcerer." He dared to take her hand now, raising it and holding it tightly.

"This ring was the first payment I ever received from the Shah for my first project: a hall of illusion he had commissioned to celebrate the anniversary of his marriage to the Little Sultana. He had brought a selection of his personal rings for me to choose from. I was stunned beyond speech. I couldn't imagine choosing one for myself, so he ended by ordering his Chief of Police to select one for me.

"Not only valued, but I was extolled. Think of it, Christine—barely twenty years old and my talents had made me very nearly the most powerful man in the court of the Shah-in-Shah. I was afforded power, wealth...

"I did not endear myself to anyone but the Shah and the Little Sultana. Numerous attempts were made on my life. Assassins were commissioned by various players at court whose noses my seemingly omniscient presence had put out of joint. One assassin was audacious enough to attack me even as I was entertaining the Little Sultana and her ladies in the garden.

"I was no stranger to killing by that point, even setting aside my... early experience. During my travels, I had often been beset on the roads by bandits. It was in India that I had discovered my particular skill with the lasso. It had saved my life on many occasions, and so I took to carrying one on my person at all times; and on this occasion it saved my life again.

"The Sultana was..." Erik struggled to find a word that could convey that woman's hideous delight at his talent for murder without being forced to expose Christine, even anecdotally, to that particular brand of obscenity. His skin crawled at the very idea. He had sworn himself to be truthful, but did not see that it would benefit Christine to be gratuitous. "She was impressed... most favourably impressed... by the proficiency with which I dispatched my assailant. In fact, soon after this episode she quickly began to tire of my usual exhibitions of magic and illusion. She, instead, began to ask for further demonstrations of my skill with the lasso. And I obliged her."

Erik paused, feeling hot waves of shame engulf him, and, realizing that his hands were shaking, gripped his knees to conceal their trembling; but Christine had already noticed.

"She would have prisoners brought to a locked courtyard, whence she and her ladies could observe, and arm them with a pike and a sword. She would then have me, armed only with my lasso, enter the courtyard, and battle them to the death. It became her favourite entertainment.

"Most of the men sent to face me had already been sentenced to death—my skill was such that this was simply the chosen manner of execution.... Most, not all; but that was not something I considered until later. At the time... at the time, I simply did not care. 

"The Shah, recognizing the efficiency of my chosen methods, and discovering that I had considerable knowledge, too, of poisons, soon engaged me as his own personal assassin. I unquestioningly participated in a number of political assassinations.”

Erik's voice felt heavy and thick as he spoke, filled with distaste and shame. He felt a horrible sense of unravelling at how still Christine was beside him. Throughout she had not moved or made a single sound, and Erik did not know whether, if he chanced a look at her now—even just a glance—he would ever be able to finish his confessions. And now that he had begun, he could not bear to stop until all had been laid out for her judgment.

"Christine, I..." Erik's voice trembled, struggling to know whether to look at her, or away. He settled on looking away, and then immediately felt like a coward. How could he ever hope for her trust if he could not look her in the eye while he confessed his sins? Swallowing hard, he forced his head up and met her gaze, which was baleful but otherwise unfathomable. Erik was unsure whether that was more terrifying to face than overt disgust, or less.

"I will not lie to you and say that I did not derive a... well, a certain... satisfaction from these murders. It was not the same... pleasure that I believe gratified the Little Sultana as she watched me strangle convicts in her courtyard,” he insisted desperately, in the manner with which a man facing a death sentence might plead his case before a magistrate. “But every successful mission was congratulated, praised, and rewarded. I had no love for mankind. The human race had never given me reason to care; it had rejected me, shunned me, exploited and trampled me. I was angry, and I was hateful, and I was good at killing. I had become so acclimated to it in so often defending myself that it had seemed almost a skill like any other I set my hand to. It simply came... easily. I imagine it comes less naturally to those with incentive to value the lives of others. But for one such as myself... it took almost nothing for me to separate myself from the act. I found little difference between those men and the animals I had killed for my supper on the roads. I felt that I owed nothing to the human race, because it had denied me as one of its own.”

All of this was spoken while Erik gazed, transfixed, on the smooth, sorrowful mask that Christine was wearing. Unable to endure it any longer, Erik looked away again, fighting the impulse to simply hide his face in his hands.

"I believe the Shah recognized all of this. Politically he was—is—rather weak, but he was capable of being highly perceptive when he wanted to. He fostered and fed my worst proclivities for his gain, the same as the Sultana did for her pleasure. And I was so blinded by his apparent acceptance of me that I was unable to see this.

"For nearly two years this epoch of decadence and death continued. Early in the second year, the Little Sultana had me make alterations to her palace of illusion, of which she had begun to grow bored. No longer interested in the mere illusions of my creation herself, she decided that instead she should like it to be converted into a torture chamber; her little gladiator matches, too, had begun to lose their interest. I arranged it so that the roof over one of the rooms could be retracted, allowing the sun to super-heat the mirrors that lined the room. The heat and the illusions combined to make the subjects of the torture completely lose their senses, until they either perished of the heat or took their own lives. The idea was the Sultana's, but the methods I devised myself. It was the most abominable feat of genius I had ever constructed. Thus far."

Here, Erik paused and did, for a moment, press his forehead into his hand, his elbow resting on his knee. Then he gathered himself, and, with a deep breath, straightened his back and looked forward into the darkness.

"The Shah was pleased that the Sultana now had a method of... entertainment... that no longer required my presence. It was around this time that I devised a blueprint for a palace on the concept of a trick box, which I knew would please the Shah. A whole palace designed to allow him to move freely within the walls without ever being seen or heard. He immediately commissioned its construction and was glad to know that I would be able to entirely devote myself to the project.

"I, too, was glad of it. I had begun to feel that the talents I wished to grow, my talents of creation, were beginning to stagnate, and the senseless brutality that delighted the Sultana had begun to grow... wearying. I had felt myself, for some months, becoming ever more restless. I slept less than usual (which had never been very much to begin with) and lost nearly all of my already infrequent appetite; I felt that this new palace, a project of construction, something to build, would be the thing to bring me back to myself... or as close to 'myself' as I had ever felt.

"I became consumed by it. Enslavement to my work seemed to free my mind, and I entered into a period of manic creation. I went many nights without sleep, continuing to build even after all the workers had retired to bed. Had I been less absorbed, I might have been better able to see the changes that were taking place around me.

"You see, I had also failed to understand that, in speeding along the construction of the trick box palace, I was hastening my own fall.

“When the palace was nearly complete—in almost half the expected time—the Shah invited me to have supper with him, to congratulate my latest feat of genius. All was as usual, jokes, jovial conversation, praise for my artistry...

"And then came the order that I had feared since my arrival; which I, like a fool, had only just ceased to anticipate. He 'requested' that I show him my face. And I knew, from the look in his eye, behind that mask of avuncular good humour, that this was an order. And one that I was not in a position to refuse."

Erik's face became very dark now, and when he next spoke it was so soft that Christine, her stomach clenching at the shadow that had passed over his countenance, had to lean close to discern the words.

"I shall never forget what that man said to me," Erik whispered. "First he grimaced, then laughed. Both reactions I had long since grown accustomed to, though they seemed to sting in a way they never had before. But then... then he said—" here, Erik assumed a singularly mocking tone, made all the more terrible by its mean-spirited jocularity—“'There, now! you are quite the Don Juan I would say. Any woman that ever saw you would be yours forever. She'd never be able to get that face out of her head.'”  And then he laughed again and told me to cover myself."

Christine sat paralyzed, haunted; for the Shah's cruel humour seemed, to her, a terrible foreshadowing of her own hateful words.

Can I ever escape from that face?

Guilt pooled sickly in her stomach, and she crossed her arms over her abdomen, leaning into them in an attempt to ease the discomfort. Erik was not looking at her now; he was lost in the bitter memory, and she thanked God that he seemed not to notice her reaction, for after a brief but most  grievous silence, Erik pressed on with his recollections.

"I then finally began to realize all that I had wilfully ignored for so long. I began also, to realize what the Shah's request meant: that he had always intended to have his curiosity satisfied, and had only waited until such a time as he would no longer need to appease me.

"The Daroga, that very Chief of Police who had chosen my ring for me, had seen all of this with the clarity of experience. He was often in company with me. Not of his own will, of course. He had been assigned as my shadow from the beginning. I did not look askance at this, as I soon learned that everyone at the Palace had a shadow. Even some of the shadows had shadows. But though he had no choice in how he spent his time, we built a kind of rapport with each other. He was not much older than I. Though he lacked much of a sense of humour, he did not want for wit, and I recall him procuring a hearty laugh from me on more than one occasion.

"I was, it transpired, fortunate that he had been assigned as my watcher—perhaps the one individual in the entire court with a sense of scruple. He had tried many times to warn me of my folly, and went unheeded at every turn.”

Erik remembered, with an awful, vivid clarity, the occasion when the Daroga had first confronted him with his warnings; how he had ignored him, and the Daroga had grasped his forearm, saying, “You must know that these rosy hours will not last, Erik!” with that pragmatic indignation he wore so well; and how he, Erik, had shaken him off with the hubristic sneer of the power-drunk.

“But it was to him, as the Daroga of Mazenderan,” Erik continued, “that the order for my arrest fell when the Shah was satisfied with his completed palace. In possession of such a gem, he did not want to risk my replicating it for anyone else. At first, as I was told, he had simply intended to have my eyes plucked out, but thinking better of it, he decided that my knowledge of his palaces must be destroyed completely—my sentence was death.”

At this word, Christine finally responded. Her careful mask did not budge, but she, seemingly on instinct, clutched his hand, as if she feared that the recollection of a death sentence which he had quite obviously escaped could still harm him. Erik’s heart could not help but warm at this reaction,  and he took courage from it, returning the pressure.

"Daroga helped me to escape,” he went on, “—I suppose in return for my once having saved his life—but on one condition. 'No more murders.'"

Erik looked at the green tones in the alexandrite stone on Christine’s hand and remembered, with a slight smile, how serious the Persian's jade eyes had been as he had uttered those words with a raised finger.

"I had never believed in making or keeping oaths and agreed to this one without much real intention of putting any stock in it. The likelihood of him ever finding me to hold me to it was very slim. It has been thirteen years, and still, I have no idea if he's even alive. I suspect that his connection to the royal family was just close enough to protect him from execution, and that he was likely exiled, but the devil knows what became of him then."

Christine, observing Erik's expression intently, did not think that she was imagining the subtle trace of regret in his voice. She, herself, wondered where this Daroga was now, and if she would ever have the opportunity to thank him for saving Erik's life.

"I returned, as directly as possible, to Paris. Here, to the only safe place I had ever known. I kept my word, though less out of a sense of obligation, and more simply because I neither needed nor wanted to commit any murders.

“The realization of the Shah's exploitation of my talent for strangling had thoroughly soured any sense of enjoyment I had achieved from it. Only threat of exposure seemed a great enough reason to take lives now, and no one knew enough of the Opera's hidden inner workings to pose a threat of exposing me.

"I was determined to make for myself a proper haven where I could devote myself to music. The Opera house was, at that time, undergoing renovations, making it easy for me to go about preparing a home for myself undetected. I then determined to build  a pipe organ—the only instrument I felt could accurately support the titanic music which I intended to write. That required some funds.

"I had returned to find the Opera Populaire under new management and it was not long before I observed that the new directors, Debienne and Poligny, were far less competent than those who had advanced real talent and taste. Not unlike our present management,” he added under his breath. “In addition to that, I soon discovered that Poligny had, for some time, been defrauding Debienne in their private business ventures, among other... 'indiscretions'. I was fortunate to also discover that he was quite superstitious."

"For years there had been rumours that the opera was haunted—many had begun in those early months when I was still exploring the secret passages and had not yet learned to be so perfectly invisible—and it was this that gave me a singular idea.

"By means of ventriloquism, I let Poligny know, in no uncertain terms, that the Opera was indeed haunted, and that the Ghost knew and saw all—including the skeletons in his armoire. Within a week, OG had sent his inaugural note, and Poligny, sufficiently spooked, needed no further prodding to comply. If he seemed in danger of forgetting, the Opera Ghost would swiftly remind him.

"It was less than a year after I had returned when Mathilde, now widowed with a young daughter, also returned to the Opera seeking employment. She could not return to the stage, but she could instruct. Debienne and Poligny very nearly turned her away on account of her sex, but they were soon made to see reason. She had, after all, been the one of most celebrated principal dancers the Opera had seen in years.

“She knew me well enough to understand who the Opera Ghost was as soon as the stories reached her. We kept our distance, but she was amenable to assisting my scheme. The pittance of a salary she was provided by the opera would have been just enough to live on, but with a daughter to provide for as well, the cut of profits I made available to her was more than welcome.

"Thus, all was in place for me to settle into a, more or less, comfortable isolation; to commence my vocation to music, and to begin what I determined would be my magnum opus: Don Juan Triumphant.

“I worked by fits and starts, composing for weeks at a time, during which I hardly ate or slept and lived only on my music. Then for months I would find I couldn't bear to touch it. And so, it was for almost two years, this angry cycle. I had no expectation of any interruption, and was almost pleased at that idea.

"Until," Erik turned his head and looked at Christine with a most indescribable expression; a sort of blissful mingling of tenderness and agony, "the dearest and most precious disruption, which I never could have imagined, altered my plans entirely."

~~~