Chapter 42
Erik’s home had changed.
I sensed it the moment he forced me from the boat and all but shoved me onto the shore.
The automatons were still and covered in shrouds of dust and neglect.
Nothing whirred or buzzed. They lay in motionless bits throughout the room.
The figure who had jumped out from the mirror, scaring me during my first visit, was still in the corner, but her body was all extreme angles and broken joints.
The tip of her chin rested on her collarbone, as if she’d been hanged. The white dress she’d worn was gone.
And the music…
It had grown in my absence to a ridiculous magnitude, doubling in size—tripling, even. Hundreds of pages, thousands of them, were scattered across his work areas. Some were arranged in stacks so high they looked close to toppling. A quick scan of the Persian rug showed many already had.
I caught snippets of melodies tested then discarded, of lyrics written then crossed out with angry blots of ink.
Were these compositions for Don Juan Triumphant? I couldn’t begin to imagine the focused frenzy needed to create such a prolific mess. How had he accomplished it? I’d been gone only months, not years. What kind of man was capable of such zealous, single-minded devotion?
A mad one.
It was the only answer that made sense, and I froze, the hairs at the back of my neck prickling as I realized that I was here now, trapped and alone with such a man. No one knew where I’d been abducted to. No one would be able to find me. I was on my own.
Slowly, I turned around to face Erik.
“What’s that?” I asked softly, seeing a length of white satin in his hands.
“This?” he asked, holding it out for closer inspection. A series of pearl buttons glowed warmly in the candlelight. I recognized it as the automaton’s dress. “This is your wedding gown.” He cast it toward me without reverence or care. “Put it on.”
In disbelief, I looked around the room. There was no place to change, no spot where I could hide away, buying myself a short reprieve while I racked my mind for a way out of this nightmare.
“Here?” I hated how small my voice sounded, how it squeaked.
In response, Erik only gestured toward the large mirror in the far corner. He took a step away from it, keeping his face blessedly pointed away from me.
I turned the gown over in my hands, trying to make sense of its bustle and bows. I wanted to toss it away and refuse, but one look at Erik, noting the rigid lines of his shoulder blades, told me he was in no mood for arguing.
Hurriedly, I removed my stage costume, grateful for all the ties and snaps built into it to easily facilitate quick changes. In only my underclothes—a strapless corselette, bloomers, and gartered stockings—I fumbled for the gown’s opening, shivering.
The air in the basement, always chilled with damp, felt especially cold now.
The brazier was unlit—an impossible sin Erik would normally have never overlooked.
Our music lessons had always been filled with admonishments to keep my throat warm and free of congestion.
Such absentmindedness filled me with a greater dread than even what this dress implied.
I stepped into the puddled satin and pulled it up, covering myself quickly. I shoved my arms through the lace-laden sleeves, then froze, unsure of how I was meant to fasten the dress. The long row of pearl buttons mocked me.
“I can’t…I can’t close the back of it,” I admitted.
Erik was still for so long I feared he hadn’t heard me, but then he turned, and I saw the look of surprise warming his expression. His eyes rounded in wonder.
“Christine…” His lip trembled as he struggled to form words. “You look radiant.”
My gaze fell to the carpet, picking out patterns in the colorful knots. “I can’t close it,” I reiterated, my voice louder now and flat. I was not going to beg for his assistance.
He hesitated. “Should I…”
When I did not answer, he crept around me. His breath audibly caught.
I felt a stir of air sweep over my exposed skin, as if he’d reached out to trace his fingers along the length of my vertebrae but, at the last second, decided against touching me.
My heart pounded as I wondered what it would have been like if he had.
Seconds ticked by in silence as I waited for whatever was meant to come next.
I wasn’t a particularly modest person. Frantic costume changes done backstage in front of the entire company had hammered out any embarrassment I’d felt over my naked body.
But I’d never stood like this before, still and on display.
I’d never had a man examine me so intently.
And I knew he was.
I could feel his eyes running down my spine with tangible heft. It made me feel lightheaded and overheated, and I was suddenly far too aware of every one of my lines and angles, the sharp jut of my collarbones, the swell of my breasts.
When I could stand it no longer, I reached up and swept my curls aside, bringing them over my shoulder so that he could work more freely.
He made a sound that was neither whimper nor groan but somehow both, and set about the task, hooking the dozens of buttons far more deftly than I would have given him credit for.
When he finished the final pearl, his fingertips brushed over the nape of my neck, the barest whisper of a touch, and my heart stopped.
I did not want this. I did not want him. And yet, I couldn’t deny the thrill that shivered through me at such a small caress.
Without thanking him, I stepped away, letting my body, full of treacherous impulses that were not to be acted upon, betray me no further.
I had to do something, had to place a firm barrier between us.
I could not control my physical surroundings, but that did not mean I had to be at the mercy of my emotions.
“Joseph Buquet,” I said, bringing out a name I’d never thought I’d have cause to say again.
“What?”
When I looked back, his brow was furrowed in confusion, and I felt a shimmer of triumph for so setting him back on his heels.
“They said his death was an accident, but I never believed that. You killed him. Didn’t you?”
He had the decency to look uneasy, and I pressed on, wanting to twist my only weapon as hard as I could.
“Have there been others?” I demanded fearlessly.
“I…Yes.” It was a ghost of an answer, a vapor puffed out on a cold winter’s day, there one second and gone the next.
“Are you going to kill me?”
Erik looked horrified. “What? I’d never! The others…they knew too much. They were in my way.”
“I know you,” I pressed. “I know all the secrets of the Opera Ghost. I know where you live. I know your name. Will you kill me because of it? How will you do it? A noose? A knife? Your bare hands?”
He raked his fingers over his scalp. “Christine, no! Never! I…I love you.”
The wedding dress encircling my frame seemed to shrink around me, squeezing as tight as the aforementioned noose.
“So now that you’ve gorged your lust for blood, I am to become prey for your lust for flesh? Is that it?”
It was the wrong play to make. I saw it the second my words fell.
Erik straightened, his posture as sharp as a blade. “You truly think so little of me, mademoiselle?” His clipped syllables were like shrapnel.
“I don’t know what to think of you,” I admitted. “Who are you, even? The Angel of Music? The Opera Ghost? Erik? The Phantom of the Opera? You cover your true self with all the efficiency of the mask you use to hide your face.”
“My face?” he echoed. “You had no difficulty knowing who I was—who you wanted me to be—until you saw this face.” He gestured to it with an angry jerk of his wrist.
I shook my head, sensing the turning tide. I was no longer on the offense, swinging my rapier with skilled aggression. I’d slipped and he’d pounced, putting me on a struggling defense. “That’s not true. That’s not—”
“This face,” he roared, and I could feel waves of fury radiating from him, “has altered every part of my life. It condemns me to wallow in blood. It denies me the joys of the flesh. This face! This face has ruined everything!”
He turned and slammed his fists upon the piano, causing a discordant noise as ugly as the tension between us. The silence which followed was broken only by the shaking rasps of our breath.
Abruptly, Erik smoothed his hands over his scalp, pulling himself back together. When he turned to me, the rage which had seized hold of him was gone, and, for a moment, I felt as if my old friend had returned.
“This face,” he murmured, “is an infection, poisoning every hope I’ve ever had for life, for love…From you…from my mother…Did I ever tell you what the first piece of clothing she made for me was? Not little knit booties or a darling bonnet. No.”
“A mask,” I guessed, cringing, despite myself, at his mother’s cruelty. What could have been if not for that one hateful choice?
“I do not desire your pity. We’re past all that. This.” He turned in a slow circle to gesture to the room around us. “This is your life now,” he said. “Our lives now,” he corrected, giving added emphasis to his change of phrasing. “A lifetime, an eternity of this face.”
“I would not have minded,” I began, unsure of how much truth my words held.
“Your face is not nearly as haunting as you believe it to be. But your soul…your capacity for brutality…” I let out a laugh, even though there was nothing that amused me.
“You kidnapped me. You’re holding me against my will, forcing me to wear a wedding dress, so that I can—what?
Marry you? Erik. Do you think I’m going to marry you? ”
Our eyes locked, and I could not believe the hope which burned within him. He did. He truly thought that all his schemes, all the things he’d done, could be overlooked. He really believed I would forgive him, that I would pledge my life to his.
He was a madman.