Page 83 of Angel's Mask

Returned

Erik’s joints achedfrom sitting so long on the cold stone in the cellars. He had barely made it a few steps after letting Christine go before collapsing, fresh tears and agony stealing his breath and his very will to move. How could everything have gone so wrong so quickly? How had he ever thought there was a chance it could go right?

It was in moments of self-loathing like this that he saw himself the clearest, unmasked, and undone. He was not some ghostly genius; he was a fool who never thought beyond the next second. From the moment he’d seen her, just yards away from where he wept now, he’d acted on every impulse and desire. For three months he had thought of nothing but her and look where it had led him. He was pathetic, humiliated, broken in every way. All because a lost girl had stumbled into his path. Because he had seen her kindness and pity, and in his heart, hoped it would extend to a monster like him.

That had been his dream all along, hadn’t it? To steal the light of her kindness for himself. Had he thought she would love him if she knew he was a man? Maybe. But now the thought made him laugh bitterly into the dark.

He sounded like a madman. Perhaps he was one and always had been. He’d gone mad when she tore off his mask. He’d died when she screamed at last.

Erik shrank, curling into his body and making himself small. Safe. He did not know which had hurt more: her heartbreak at the truth or her horror at his face. But those he had expected. Those made sense. Her rage though...he had not been prepared for that. He wished he could erase the memory of her raised fists and furious accusations. But he had deserved it. He was a villain and a monster.

Around him the shadows swayed, restless and haunted, as the lantern flame danced. And they whispered, as they had since he came here. They wept. It had only been since he met her that he had been able to drown out the sound of their suffering with her voice. There was part of him that could admit it now, that he hated his prison down deep in the dark. This was a place for ghosts, for the monstrous dead. Christine would do well to never return to his world again.

But he wanted her to. He had begged her to. And he had to believe that she might. Erik roses slowly, lifting his lantern to drive the shades away. He would not go back to a world without her light, not now. A seed of hope, planted by the compassion he had seen in her eyes, waited in the dark. And he would hold onto that. There was no other choice if he was going to live through the next few days. So that’s what he would cling to in order to fill the hours. He would work and build, for her. He would remember that she was kinder than him.

And if she is not?The ghosts around him asked.What if she does not return?

Why then, another shadow deep within him answered, he would have to convince her.

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Christine wasn’t surehow to move now that she had finished crying. She had cried until she couldn’t anymore, rocked in Julianne’s arms. Julianne had been the one to summon the carriage and guide Christine home. Adèle had gasped and clucked over her when Julianne had led her in their door, but Christine hadn’t spoken. She was numb and frozen, unable even to comprehend the events of the last night and day or how she had survived them.

There were soft voices outside her room.

“What happened to her?” Adèle demanded again in a stage whisper.

“I don’t know! She won’t say!” Julianne hissed back. “She won’t even let me take the thing off her she came home in.”

Reflexively, Christine pulled the cloak closer around her shoulders. She didn’t know why she was holding onto it. It was fromhim, the one who had lifted her to heaven then cast her back into this hell. But the feel of it wrapped around her was comforting. It reminded her of the angel that had protected her, and not the terrifying man who had lied to her. Or the hideous thing that said he loved her and begged her to return to him.

“Come on, you’re going to help me,” Adèle ordered and a moment later the door opened.

Christine opened her eyes. She hadn’t realized they were closed. The fragment of sky she could see from her bed had faded from gray to gaslit orange. The sun was gone and when it set tomorrow, he would know she was gone too. Forever.

The last time she had felt this way had been after Papa’s funeral, when there was nothing left to do after he had been sealed away in the cold ground. Once those tears had ebbed, she had not cried again for months. She’d just been a ghost; listless, lifeless, and empty. And she’d stayed that way, untilhim. Now the angel she had loved was dead too.

“Let’s wash you up,” Adèle said gently as she and Julianne came close. “You look a mess.”

Julianne touched her first, just her shoulder and Christine recoiled, pulling the cloak tighter. “It’s alright, we’ll give it back,” Julianne whispered, finally catching Christine’s eyes. She breathed deep, glancing towards Adèle.

“I...Can you get me some food?” Christine asked. She didn’t want Adèle to see. Not yet.

“Alright. You take care of her,” Adèle replied and left Christine and Julianne alone. Once the door was shut, Christine loosened her grip on the cloak and let Julianne pull it off.

“There’s a girl,” Julianne said with a smile. “Wait, are you...” She was staring at the costume Christine still wore. “Christine, how?”

Christine swallowed and finally stood on shaky legs. She let Julianne undress her just as if it were after a performance. It was careful, gentle. She put Christine into a nightgown before she could be exposed to the cold air. She was almost safe until Julianne looked at her wrists.

“There are marks here,” Julianne said. It wasn’t a question. “Christine. You disappeared in your costume. I heard a voice in your dressing room. His voice.”

“He took me,” Christine whispered. If there was one person in the world she could trust, it was Julianne.

“How?” Julianne asked and Christine shuddered.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it,” Christine replied, tears threatening again. She didn’t know how she had moved from her dressing room to the cellars. She didn’t know how a man could pretend to be a ghost and convince everyone. The only one who knew those answers was Erik.

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