Too Dark to Even Try (Beneath a Moonless Sky fanfic)

Letters of Lovers

1863
Paris, France
Christine Daaè
     

He does not have a name.

Will all the charm I possess, I have tried to coax one from his voice, but he does not give me one. I only hear him, never his he seen, nor has my flesh touched his. But he must be beautiful.

He sings to me, his voice seraphic and angelic. Unearthly, as if he was meant to sing in heaven. I wept on the floor of my chambers, begging him to tell me if he was the angel Pader spoke of so many years ago. The Angel of Music.

In return, I received no answer. But he does not deny me when I moan, "Angel," as he sings.

My Angel comes only at night, near the midnight hour. He claims that my voice could become an equal to his, but this cannot be. My Angel is one with heaven's golden music... what little talent I possess is not fit to meet in harmony with his.

Nonetheless, my Angel teaches a poor untrained chorus girl... me. He has become my maestro, I would follow his voice to the ends of the earth if he commanded it. I am mad, completely so, for I have fallen desperately in love with a voice that has no human substance. I have become helpless to an immortal being who will surly not return the next midnight.

And yet, return my Angel does. For three months he has been my secret... and mine alone.

After all, who would believe me?

Gustave's emotions tore at him as he read the words scrawled in ebony ink in his mother's diary.

Once he had left Mr. Y's office, his thoughts began to gather. Perhaps this strange masked man was Maman's Angel of Music? Gustave knew that his mother kept a small leather bounded book with her at all times-- he and Enzo would catch her reading it, weeping.

It wasn't until he returned to the hotel did he realize that it was a diary.

Gustave's father and younger brother were  out and about the magnificent park, but he had declined once he stumbled upon Maman's diary.

He couldn't tear his eyes away as he read another, even more disturbing entry.

1863
Paris, France
Christine Daaè

   My Angel was not himself this evening.

It frightened me, to hear the anger in his voice. Searing and passionate, he began to recite an opera I did not recognize. I began to tremble and begged him to relay why he was acting so.

"You, mon belle ange, should be singing and not those mortals who possess nothing but a few notes and empty souls," My Angel replied, "Your soul is different, my lovely Christine. Your voice is not human."

I did not know what he meant. I do not know. I told him this. He answered---

"But we are of one soul, you and I. Both of us broken, outcasted and unloved. Our souls are incomplete, but together, they surpass even the holiest of powers."

And with that, his angelic voice spoke no more to me.

Gustave could hardly continue. Was this innocent, passionate author his mother? It did not sound like her at all. And this "Angel" was haunting.

Something made him turn the page and read on.

1863
Paris, France
Christine Daaè

    I do not know his name.

But I know his touch now. My Angel is not an Angel at all, but a man.