His Wandering Child (Rewritten)

Chapter 3 - Like Mother Like Daughter

Little Christine was asleep in her room. They had dined without a word. Erik sat in the love seat in the parlor, playing a violin. It was the violin he had taken from the Opera Populaire. He was playing a lullaby. His thoughts focused on the small girl and the rose.

It had started raining outside. As Erik played, he stared mournfully out the window, watching as dainty droplets of water slid down the glass. He could not lift the weight of Christine's death off of his mind. He had considered asking the girl, but he didn't want to hurt her with memories of her mother.

Erik set down the violin. Maybe it would be easier to rest. He stared into the fading fire as it crackled ferociously.

"Why?" he asked. "Why are you here? You are only a child... you know nothing of my past, just simple children's stories. They are nowhere near the truth. Why would your mother send you to me? I am a monster... I could do something terrible to you. And how could you remember me? That was two years ago... you were barely a girl! Tell me, why?"

He knew no one could hear him. Erik laid across the cushions of the love seat and sang softly to himself.

Shamed into solitude...
Shunned by the multitude...
I learned to listen...
In the dark, my heart heard music...

I longed to teach the world,
Rise up and reach the world,
No one would listen,
I alone could hear the music...

Then at last,
A voice in the gloom,
Seemed to cry, "I hear you! I hear your fears, your torment and your tears."

She saw my loneliness,
Shared in my emptiness,
No one would listen...
No one but her...
Heard as the outcast hears...

No one would listen...
No one but her...
Heard as the outcast hears...

*****

Erik awoke to shaking. His eyes opened and found Christine's chocolate irises staring at him through the darkness. Without thinking, he grabbed her wrist, anger flashing in his eyes.

Christine gasped. "Erik, i-it's me! Please, the thunder woke me up..." she struggled against his grip. "I'm... it scared me."

Erik's eyes widened when he realized what he had done. He released Christine, shocked. She backed away a few steps.

He tried to explain. "Christine... I..."

He watched her wince as she touched her arm.

He had hurt her.

Erik turned, and grabbed a nearby vase, and cried out, hurling it across the room with such ferocity that it shattered into several pieces when it hit the ground. He walked over to the wall and hit his head against it over and over again. Then he looked up. Christine watched fearfully several paces away from him. He tried his best to compose himself.

"I'm sorry." said Erik quietly. "I don't know what came over me."

He had hurt her. If not before, Christine most definitely feared him now.

Christine stared at him for a moment, then started to back away. Then she turned and ran out of the room.

Erik watched her leave. Hot tears surged down his cheeks. He had hurt a child. Christine's child.

*****

Wishing you were somehow here again...
Wishing you were somehow near...
Sometimes it seemed if I just dreamed,
Somehow you would be here...

Christine curled up into a little ball, her tears soaking the fabric of her dress. Why couldn't her mother be here? Why did she have to die? She wasn't going back to her father, that was for sure.

Erik had been so kind to her. He had seemed like a good person, until now. The fury in his eyes when he lashed out and clasped her arm in his fist frightened her.

Christine's wrist ached as she massaged it gently, tears still sliding down her cheeks. Why would he do such a thing?

After all the stories her mother had told her about him, she had expected him to be very, very different.

*****
Two Years Ago

"Mother, please tell me more." little Christine begged.

Her mother sighed. "There isn't much to tell, darling."

"She's right, my dear." Christine's father entered the room. "Your mother and I need to talk for a little. You go on and play."

The girl sighed and pecked her mother on the cheek before leaving the room.

Raoul turned and looked at his wife, upset. "Why must you tell her those stories?"

Christine sighed. "Raoul, she needs to know about our past."

"But why must you tell her about the Phantom?"

"He's the Angel of Music to her, as he once was to me." Christine replied.

Raoul narrowed his eyes. "You still have feelings for him. After all these years-"

She shook her head. "I'm not thinking about abandoning you, Raoul!"

"Yet you fill our daughter's head with childish fantasies about him-"

"No, Raoul, I-"

"-as if you want to take her to the monster himself!" Raoul glared at her. "He's not her father, Christine! I am! And I will not allow it!"

"F-father?"

Raoul composed himself, and turned to look at his child.

"Why are you so angry?" Little Christine asked, standing innocently by the doorway.

He sighed. "It doesn't concern you, my dear. Go back to your room."

*****
Present

Christine sighed, wiping away her tears. She shouldn't have awoken Erik. Things would have been so much better if she could have just waited out the storm.

Thunder rumbled outside. Christine whimpered and scurried over to her bed, diving under the covers and wishing for morning to come.