The Night Will Only Know

A Star In The Darkness

Erik's POV

It was spring again, almost a year after Madame Giry was to return. She came to me the very night she made it back to Paris. She had kept her promise, in her arms were heaping mounds of wild sage, honeysuckle, lavender, and indigo bells. Their frail blooms explosions of color in my dark lair. My favorite was a single red blossom that sat in the middle of the bouquet. I removed it from the other flowers, carefully to avoid it's sharp thorns.

"What is this one called?" I held it up to the light of  a candle, Antoinette smiled. 

"That is a  rose, Monsieur Opera Ghost." The name sounded so elegant, Rose, I thought to myself, so lovely and so dangerous.

"They say she is the queen of all flowers." I gently placed it back among it's floral counterparts.

"You promised to be back last spring." I said, hating how childish I sounded. I was seventeen, far from a child.

"I am sorry Erik, but Gustave was in grave condition. His daughter, Christine, had to wait a customary mourning time, even then she did not want to leave. She is practicing with the chorus girls I believe." My ears perked up at the news of a new chorus girl, a new voice to listen to in the practice room.

"How old is his daughter?" I asked as I turned slightly away from Antoinette, I didn't know why but my hands couldn't stop shaking.

"She is a few years older than Meg, fourteen, too young to lose her father." Antoinette grew somber, "Her father was a good man and  an exceptional violinist, she is much like him. She inherited his love of tales and music-" I inhaled sharply, but quickly coughed, motioning for Antoinette to go on, "-She has his caring heart. She has her mother's beauty and her mother's sharp mind, but she is terribly lonely."  I told Antoinette that my head ached and I wished to rest in peace, she left quietly and with no argument.

After Antoinette left, my mind whirled around this new chorus girl, I stopped focusing on the world around me for awhile. I just thought of her, and I felt as if I already knew her. I felt as if we had the same agony from an aching, lonely soul and that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't truly alone.

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It had been a week, till I saw her. She was timid, sad, but beautiful, a shining star to my world of darkness. Long brown hair curling wildly, blue eyes hiding a hint of mischief under blankets of sorrow. I soon learned that the reason I did not see her at nights when I usually came up from my lair, was due to the fact she would pray in chapel every night for her father to help her. 

During the days I waited in the practice room rafters, I begrudgingly listened to aria after aria from once beautifully voiced sopranos and rich tenors. Now, I found  them all with flawed voices. I listened only for her private lesson, once a week she would enter the room. Her poise tall and proud, but with eyes that held far too much sadness. Her voice was empty but beautiful, it lacked luster and enthousiasme. 

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One night, I waited for her in the chapel. It felt odd being in the same room which saved me so many years ago. I was going to confront the young beauty about her voice, when I heard her timid steps I suddenly couldn't move, paralyzed by one thought.

What if she would be horrified by my face?

I sat immobile, dread coiling in my stomach. I didn't move from my hidden spot in the alcove, I watched her gently light a candle, coaxing the small flame to life. She bowed down and in a soft voice began to pray,

"Father,

You promised to send me the Angel of Music when you had reached Heaven's gates, but I am still alone in this cold world. Please, tell the Angel to hurry-" I couldn't stand it, seeing the beautiful girl cry.

"He is here." My voice carried like a thunderclap in my ears, but it was gentle as a butterfly. The girl stumbled,

"Who is there?" Her voice, half sobbing, half anger.

"It is the Angel of Music. Your father, Gustave Daae, sent me to you, his beloved daughter Christine. He misses you, he misses telling you stories and playing his violin. He said you were lonely, so lonely, but you are not alone anymore child, for I am here." The girl began to weep,

"Oh Angel! You know things that I haven't told anyone here!" Her tears were heart wrenching, especially when I knew the depths of loneliness from which they poured out of.

"Please." I said softly, my own voice becoming thick with emotion, "Let me help you." She looked at the picture of her father on the remembrance altar.

"How?" 

"Let me teach you to become free of the agony you endure by yourself, let me take some of your burden, Christine."

"How will you do that, mon ange?" I shivered at her French, it was smooth and free like the whiskey in the Manager's office, burning my heart with every word she spoke.

"Let me teach you to sing, Christine, let me teach you to soar to high with your voice, you will scrap the bottom of Heaven and for a moment, hold your father's hand again." It felt like an eternity before she answered, her watery blue eyes tugging at my heart.

"Please Angel," her voice at first soft, then growing in strength, "teach me to sing, truly sing."

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It's a strange feeling for one to be in love. You forget what is going on around you and you are absorbed into the chasm of emotion that love is. It felt like drowning and being burned alive at the same time. It felt like you were being starved and being fulfilled; it felt like surreal. 

When you are alone for so long, your heart begins to die. Slowly at first, a shadow that just dances across the surface until it seeps deep into your soul and you become a monster. Without love a heart grows cold and hard like stone, but when you have love, your heart is filled with life, the joy of rekindled life.

This was the joy brought to me by Christine Daae.