Page 66 of Angel's Fall
“That’s why we must hold on to the ones we have as tightly as we can, while they are here,” Erik added, squeezing her hand and wishing he could indeed just keep her close forever.
“He spent his whole life after Mama died grieving her and refusing to let her go. I was supposed to do the same for him,” Christine went on. “But I don’t want that. I don’t think he wants that for me anymore either. Or he shouldn’t. I don’t know.”
“It’s hard, letting go.” Erik pushed the moisture from Christine’s cheek with his thumb. “Even for ghosts.”
“I think that’s what love asks of us: to be brave.” Christine echoed his gesture, her hand against the mask. “Are you still scared now?”
“Yes. I’ve been in terror since last night when I watched you leave,” Erik confessed. “But it’s been many different sorts since then. Getting on a goddamn train to get here was a unique kind of torture. I preferred the coach I had to take from Rennes.”
It was a relief to see Christine smile, then laugh, even if it was at him. “I can’t even imagine.”
“At least I had this,” Erik offered and fished his hand into his cape as Christine looked on in interest. She chuckled again when he produced his alternate mask – bearded and bespectacled, but passable as the face of a ‘normal’ person if one did not look for too long.
“You actually made it,” Christine said. “Do you wear it over this one or on its own?”
“Two masks at once would be more discomfort than even I am prepared to endure for vanity.” Erik was surprised to find himself smiling too. How was it so easy with her when they were so exposed and far from home?
“Would you like to put it on, for the walk back to town?” It was a kind question, but it assumed several things that Erik had not considered, and his bewilderment must have shown in his eyes. “You’re coming back to the inn with me. We’ll walk in together and it will be fine. Where else would you go?”
“I came to take you home,” Erik said. It was obviously the wrong answer. “Do you not want to go?”
“I don’t know. Everything back at the Opera is such a mess,” Christine sighed.
“Your career is there,” Erik protested, and it only served to make her look sadder. “The career you... don’t want anymore.”
“I wanted it because he told me to.” Christine glanced towards the cemetery and the grave Erik had found her berating. “I don’t know if it’s what I want. If I did, shouldn’t it be a career that I earned on my own?”
“You did earn it.”
“I know you think thatyougiving it all to me is the same and that I deserve it, but it feels wrong. Empty.” She looked as if she were going to weep again. “Can’t we just stay here? Forever?”
“You know I can’t. We can’t.” Erik hated the truth of it.
“Then I just want to stay here and be free of it a little longer. Would you let me? Please?” She looked at him with pleading eyes.
“There will be so many people there. If I change masks, someone could see...” Erik stammered, noting that the tips of his fingers had started to go numb in panic.
“Are you scared right now, out here in the day with me? Even all alone?”
“Terrified,” Erik nodded. “It hurts less than I thought it would at least. The sun. Thank God for the rain, I guess.”
“It’s not raining anymore.”
Erik glanced to the horizon where a few shards of blue were visible. “Oh.”
“Don’t you want to feel it? The wind and the sun on your face?” Christine’s fingers strayed to the edge of the mask and Erik caught them, his whole body tensing. “It’s alright. I’m here.”
“I know, but...” There it was: the fear. The fear that kept him a ghost, always halfway out of her grasp. Erik was so tired of it. “Alright.”
He braced himself as Christine removed the mask and the fresh air finally touched his desiccated cheeks. He fully smelled the sea with the abbreviated gash he called a nose. His scars smarted as the sun found them, but he kept his focus on Christine’s eyes and how bright green the daylight made them.
“There you are,” Christine breathed and pressed a gentle kiss to his withered lips.
Maybe it was the retreat of her shadow. Maybe it was that moment that the sun chose to break through the clouds. Either way, when Christine pulled back, the full light of day hit Erik at last, searing his eyes with brightness as it warmed his skin. Erik fought to open his eyes, to experience the light of the sun for the first time in over six and half years and it hurt. But not when he looked at her instead; this angel who was brave enough to look at him in the light.
“You are the greatest of fools if you think you are nothing without me or your father, Christine Daaé. You are strong and brave and good and kind and so many wondrous things. You need to know that.”
“Thank you,” she said, eyes unreadable as the sun dipped once more behind a cloud. Even the brightest light didn’t last.
