Beneath the Porcelain Mask

27. Quite Hopelessly Lost.

  "One can get quite hopelessly lost if one does not know the path."

~ Erik Carriére (Charles Dance)

Arthur Kopit, The Phantom of the Opera (1990)

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If the tapping of my pen against the edge of my writing desk was annoying Erik, he wasn't saying anything about it.

I still wasn't completely happy with the fact that Christine had come back last night, especially with news that the ballerinas were wild with stories of dangerous murderers and phantoms. Erik had tensed and glanced in my direction, and when I'd frowned he'd taken Christine's hand and changed the subject, insisting she sing for him, just for a little while.

Even after she had long since left, an air of silence remained. We both sat - I awkwardly and maskless, Erik quite happily and masked - composing. Or at least, I was trying to. I eyed my violin under the table, wishing a rush of music would just slap me right in the face so I could write it out.

"Why so tense?" I jumped at Erik's voice, knocked from racking my brains, and caught him watching me curiously from the other side of the organ.

"No reason," I replied, hunching over my blank pages and gnawing at my lip again.

"No one will want to kiss you if you have chapped lips, Nikki."

I resisted the urge to point out that I, at least, had lips to kiss with.

But as I ran my hands through my hair, free from its usual tight bun and sprawled over my shoulders and back, and sighed, Erik only glanced up more often, regarding me for longer periods each time.

"Shall we go for a walk?" he said at last.

I stared over the organ at him. "Since when did the Phantom of the Opera go for a walk? Do you mean to take a turn with me about the room?"

But he was already on his feet, bundling his music on top of the instrument with a knowing grin. I watched with an open mouth as he pulled on a tailcoat and moved to the little cupboard in the wall behind me, which he'd fashioned into a cloakroom. His hand paused over a top hat.

"Hat, do you think?" His sudden attitude of a gentleman, enough to rival Raoul or Jeremy, left me speechless. "Kitty?"

I snapped myself out of the shock to watch as he put it on anyhow. Did Erik have a fever suddenly? Was he quite well?

"I know a place in the woods," he was saying, putting the hat on regardless, pacing back into the parlour and around the instrument to my little nest where I had burrowed myself against the wall. He beamed as he offered me his hand, even more so when I gingerly took it, and pulled me to my feet. "It's pure peace and quiet there. No one need find us."

Taking my astounded silence as an agreement, Erik smiled, taking off his mask. "I shan't wear this, but you needn't feel pressured to take yours off." Pressured? It was Sunday, and I hadn't been planning to go anywhere anyhow. Why would I need my mask in the first place?

"Erik," I began as slowly as I dared, following him as he walked out to the hallway and down to a door I'd never been through and never found unlocked. Even in my own home, Erik had banned me from certain rooms, a Bluebeard to his wife. "Are you feeling alright?"

He continued to smile just as broadly as he looked over his shoulder at me and drew me to his side, unlocking the door. "Absolutely! I couldn't be happier, even!"