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It started with a mention, a mention that slipped out one time that Raoul would touch Christine’s ever-flowing hair as she brushed it, as if she was preparing for the stage all over again.
But she hadn’t sung on stage in months, now. They hadn’t discussed that, had simply retreated to Raoul’s lovely home and lived, or rather hid, there. Away from all of the questions, away from all of the rumors.
It wasn’t spoken of until, as Raoul was running his fingers through Christine’s hair, she turned her head and mumbled, “Do you think there’s a chance that he made it out, after all of that?”
Raoul paused, looking back at her. At first, it seemed as he was going to ask her to repeat herself, to make sure that he’d understood what she had asked.
Then he said, “Most likely. I mean, it seemed as if he was able to work his way out of anything. Why?”
“Do you think he’s still back there, somewhere? Or do you think he left and went somewhere else?”
“Christine, Christine,” Raoul said, putting his hands on her shoulders now. “Don’t worry about things like that. That’s all in the past. It’s time for the future now.”
“Stop with that ‘Christine, Christine’,” she grumbled, “I feel like sometimes you don’t listen to me and you just want me to be… ‘okay’. Whatever that is. Like I could be okay after all of this.”
She didn’t know why she was complaining like this. She normally never brought any of this up, and that usually made her seem so much happier, made it seem like the chase and the deaths had all been part of an opera. But was she happy, or had she simply repeated it over and over to herself to try to make it true?
Raoul looked slightly aggrieved, but then let out a small sigh and said, “I’m sorry. I guess I want to… I want to fix all of this. I want you to be happy, and I don’t always know how.”
“I just need to know what happened to him. If I know what happened, then maybe I’ll be able to… place it in the past and step past it.”
She wasn’t sure if she even believed that. She had passed the point of no return, after all, and she had said it herself.
“We just need to go back.” She allowed no room for argument.
***
The ruins of the opera house emerged as the carriage got closer and closer; it seemed to grow, even though it was only rubble. How could anyone have survived in this mess? Maybe this had been a mistake. Maybe all that was left of the opera house was memories, just like all that was left of her parents were stone gargoyles and tears.
But as she stepped on the grounds, she could have sworn she heard it, just like it was yesterday.
“Christine, Christine…”
The words whipping through the wind, sliding over to her ears, and then gently through. She shivered.
Maybe she should have stayed with him? Had she made the wrong choice when she’d climbed into that boat, with only a quick gaze back as she rode away with Raoul? Maybe there had been something there, all along, even if it had only been the music.
“Christine, Christine…”
There it was again. She whipped around, sucking in a breath. Did she hope to see him, or for him to have faded away like the opera ghost he said purported to be?
“Erik?” she called. It seemed bad, forbidden almost, to say his name out loud. Maybe she was conjuring him – and maybe she wanted to.
Because as happy as she was with Raoul – and she was happy, truly, feeling like a princess dressed in pink and white – she was here digging up old ghosts. What was wrong with her? Why could she never just allow the past to die?
“Christine.” She definitely heard it this time, and whipped around to catch Erik standing there, dressed in his usual all-black, even his cape.
“Isn’t it a little hot out for all of that?” she inquired, trying to keep the shock out of her voice and failing.
“I don’t really notice, much,” Erik replied. His voice sounded the same, though the tone was difficult to put a finger on. Did he sound lighter, or did he sound resigned?
“I was looking for you,” Christine told him. She might as well simply get right to it. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted in that moment, other than that she still wanted him. Even if that didn’t make sense. Her life had never been logical, anyway. When given the opportunity to turn grasshopper or scorpion, she often tried to grip both and hang on for dear life.
“Why?”
Christine didn’t quite look at him. What if he rejected her overture? And there was no reason why he shouldn’t. She had run away and now, here she was, running back all over again. Wanting it all.
“To find you,” she said, “To bring you home.”
“You’ve left the boy?” he inquired.
Christine ran her fingers through her own hair.
“No,” she said. “I think I’ve found him.”
***
Raoul, for his part, didn’t say much of anything as Erik walked through the front door of their home. That didn’t stop Christine from wondering if this was a mistake. Erik, still all done up, seemed too tall, too grand, too foreboding for this simple homestead.
“Did you want something to eat?” Raoul asked. “I cooked… something.” He walked over to the kitchen and emerged a moment later with a covered silver dish. “You should… probably change out of… that… into… something.”
Erik cocked his head to the side.
“Seriously, Erik. You’re home now. You don’t have to walk around as if you’re in a production. Otherwise, we’ll both feel under dressed.”
Erik leaned forward, visibly sniffing the dish.
“What is this?” he asked.
“It has pasta in it,” Raoul offered.
Christine rolled her eyes fondly.
“You didn’t cook it,” she said.
“I seasoned it,” he replied.
Christine rolled her eyes.
“One of these days, you’re going to cook something for real.”
She looked over at Erik.
“You don’t happen to know how to cook, do you?”
Erik smiled, lifting off the cover of the plate.
“You may feel I have exotic tastes, though.”
***
Over the days, the bed went from feeling too small, too cramped, to somehow just right. Raoul always took the spot over to the left, his fingers stretched against the headboard, always on his back.
Next, Christine, curling to her side against one, then the other. Her hair unraveled and stuck and tangled everywhere, every night, before she would wake early in the morning and try to put it back to rights.
Lastly, Erik, laying beside the candles that were set across the mantle, blown out for the night.
He always seemed to feel safer when he was around candles. Low light, he’d admitted to Christine once, that was comforting to him.
It had taken them weeks for him to sleep with his mask off, despite Christine’s concern for the way it must dig into his face.
Finally, she’d pulled it off and thrown it to the side one night, holding herself back just barely from stomping on it before barking, “What are you playing at? We’ve all seen it!”
Christine was the only one who could get away with talking to him like that, of course. Raoul wasn’t eager to try. He confided to Christine that, as much as he would like, it was hard to forget the feeling of the Punjab lasso around his neck.
***
And then, slowly, he seemed to.
It started when Christine came home from an audition to find Raoul sitting across from Erik at the dinner table. They were in mid-conversation, it seemed.
And then, with her toes still pointe-quiet at the door, she watched Raoul pick up the chair and move it closer, ever closer…
And then sit beside Erik, reach out to move the mask, stubbornly replaced, out of the way, and kissed him.
Maybe, Christine mused, this was a point of no return. But a good one, like the moment the lights go down in the opera, just before the first note is sung, and the only thing that anyone can see is their future – good or bad as yet unknown.
It makes her want to sing.