A Phantom Christmas Carol - *Phantom of the Opera*

Chapter Eleven

A/N: Video story - Some variances from written chapter and video chapter. Asterisks (*) denote unspoken thoughts. clips used: Phantom of the Opera movie (2004), Phantom of the Opera 25th stage, Phantom of the Opera, (1989), Love Never Dies Australian movie, Love Never Dies London stage show, It's a Wonderful Life, The Little Match Girl, The Company of Wolves, The Secret Circle, Smallville, Scrooge, A Christmas Carol, The Gospel According to Scrooge, Once Upon a Time, and The Paradise ... music used (and mixed): The Day After Tomorrow (main theme soundtrack), The Red Violin (main theme & Anna's theme), and "Dark Music with Beautiful Chorus"

Then My World Was Shattered

XI

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The mysterious woman walked as if engaged in a death march, oblivious to the headstones that materialized from the mist all around them. The Phantom gave the last, piteous testaments to the departed little heed as he followed her over snowy ground to a shadowed corner of the legendary cemetery, where a small, roughhewn stone leaned at a tired angle.

As she knelt before the monument, the scarf slipped from her head, the coarse wool falling about her shoulders; nor did she replace it. Flakes of snow caught in her bright copper hair and he recognized the little crippled girl's mother. She stared at the stone with tender dismay, and it was then that he saw the name inscribed there. Twin carved angels flanked the scant years from birth unto death.

"I scarce can believe it's been two months, Mon Poppet," the former seamstress murmured, brushing particles of snow away from the headstone, as if in a futile effort to remove the chill from one who no longer felt it. "... Not when it feels like two years since you left. You would love how the holly's now bloomin', beneath Widow Sayer's window. It was your favorite flower, in spite of the sharp leaves." She brushed her bare knuckles against her cheek, whisking away a tear. "You always thought the berries was bright beads, cheery-like; and it might seem foolish, but I brought you the necklace you'd strung together ... before ..." The woman ceased speaking, as if unable to continue.

So the little moppet had died. The Phantom felt surprise at the brief swell of pity that coursed through him. Yet what could he have done for the child, and for what purpose did the Spirit inflict upon him this sense of guilt by showing him such a dismal portent of the future?

Before he could direct his annoyed query to the shadowed skies, he noticed a well-bundled figure walk toward the woman and lay her hand upon her shoulder.

"Come, Dulscia. There's nothing you can do for her any longer."

"I don't care what happens to me, Maman," she rasped. "She is the only joy I had in this wretched life."

"Non, you must not speak such things." The woman put both her hands to her daughter's shoulders and squeezed. She cleared the catch in her throat. "You did everything a body could. Do not also deprive me of a daughter by letting death have you too. If you stay here any longer, you'll take a chill, and you've not been well. Always taking care of her at the last, keepin' watch by her bed, till you were bone weary and your own health suffered."

"My own troubles weren't important. All that mattered was Tina."

"And you're my daughter and matter to me. Come now. I won't be losing you too."

For a long moment the woman sat, unheeding of her mother's pleas, and continued to stare at the grave. Wells of inconsolable sorrow rimmed her eyes. At last, she pulled from her cloak a necklace of berries and laid it against the grave, then lifted her fingers to trail them over the name inscribed there.

"I know your name, Spirit of Death Incarnate, the name you withhold from me." The Phantom spoke quickly, hoping his admission would release him from the distressing sight, though the spirit stood nowhere. "It is Sacrifice."