And I awoke, shivering.

Christine sat up quickly, her hand clutching at the blanket. It had been just a dream, nothing more, the product of a strained imagination. Only a dream. It couldn't touch her here.

But where was here? Not her cold, lonely apartment. Instead she lay on a chaise lounge in an elegantly appointed bedroom, with a mahogany bed in its center and cretonne hangings on its walls, illuminated by a lamp which sat on the marble top of an old Louis-Philippe chest of drawers against the wall on the far side of the bed. Surely this had to be another, better dream...except that the blanket clutched in her hands was soft and slightly fuzzy, the wood of the chaise's frame hard, slightly cold and carved into fantastical shapes under her exploring fingers, too solid for any dream. Pushing the blanket aside, she swung her feet down to the carpeted floor, then remembered...the night before.

The voice, luring her out of her dressing room. The horrible discovery that her Angel and the Phantom were one and the same, and both nothing more than a man named Erik. His declarations of love...

She shook her head violently and rose to her feet to explore the room.

She hadn't expected such luxurious comfort. A soft carpet under her bare feet, drapings and blankets of warm wool and satiny silks...it didn't fit with the Phantom who supposedly stalked about the Opera House with his head aflame. And beyond the bedroom, a bathroom of utter decadence. She twisted a handle on the faucet of the sink; warm water came out, splashing her hand. She leaned forward to rinse the sleep out of her eyes. "All the comforts of home," she murmured under her breath, turning from the sink and discovering thick cloths to dry herself. "Except home cannot match this for comfort." The mere thought of long hot bathes in the sunken bathtub behind her, without fear of interruption from other tenants of her boarding-house, was delicious -- but. "What in heaven's name does Erik truly want from me?"

She hurried back into the bedroom before the comfort of the bathroom could seduce her into gratitude -- or sympathy -- for her kidnapper. "I can't trust him," she told herself. "It doesn't matter, what his house is like, or what his voice sounds like, nor what he says his feelings are." She sat on the chaise, drawing up her knees to wrap her arms around them, then stood again and began pacing. "He still spied upon me -- my God, the man deceived you for months on end, pretending to be the Angel of Music...fool, double and triple blind fool that I was, believing in a children's story like that, letting a man lure me out of my room and kidnap me without protest --" She threw herself down on the chaise again, feeling a pang of longing for safe, secure, predictable Raoul. He wouldn't have left her without so much as a...no, wait, there on the dresser, a piece of paper with her name written on it in red ink.

She unfolded it, scanning the spidery handwriting. My dear Christine, it ran. You need not waste away worrying over your fate -- I assure you, you have no better or more respectful friend in the world than I. Forgive me for leaving you alone thus: I have had to go out to do some shopping. You may consider the house your own until I return. I shall bring back all the (here there was a blot, as though he had hesitated in choosing the word, or had chosen a word and then tried to change it) clothes and such like you may need when I return. Your servant, Erik

Unfortunately, Erik's note succeeded not at all in calming me. I had already prowled the room enough to discover, or rather fail to discover, any way out of this room -- at least any I could find -- and what use was 'considering the house my own' if I couldn't even get out into it, much less leave it as I wished? My servant, he called himself. I scarcely need tell you with what bitter mockery I regarded those words, and reproached myself again for my own blindness. 'No better or more respectful friend'? I nearly laughed. Oh, of course, it was all clear now! Out of friendship he had tricked me with my own superstition; out of respect he had watched me like a voyeur, then kidnapped me and locked me in a room so he might do God-knew-what! How foolish of me to have thought otherwise!

By the time Erik returned I had worked myself into a near-frenzy...

Three taps on the wall startled Christine out of her pacing. She turned and started as part of the wall swung into the room, and the man with the mask -- her Angel, her kidnapper, whatever he called himself -- still in evening dress, stepped in, carrying an armload of boxes and packages. Without even looking at her, he moved to the bed and carefully set them down: against her will, Christine noticed he moved like a cat, graceful, light on his feet.

"You've decided to return at last," she said, forcing her mind away from admiration. "Dare I hope you've tired of this game? Or are you going to keep me prisoner?"

He didn't respond, arranging the boxes carefully on the bed.

Christine waited a moment, then tried again. "Is the mask part of this charade? Or do you wear it for another reason? No honorable man would need a mask, I should think."

"You will never see my face, Christine," Erik said calmly, straightening and looking back at her. "My reasons are my own. However, I must doubt your knowledge of honorable men if you are in the habit of dressing thus."

Christine felt his gaze run down her body, glanced down at herself, and flushed. She'd forgotten she was still dressed as Siebel -- tight breeches and a loose shirt by now nearly falling off her. She grabbed the collar and pulled it close, trying to pretend it hadn't fallen that far.

"However, I shall assume last night's events unsettled you, and left you unaware of the time. It is nearly two o'clock in the afternoon; I shall return for you in half an hour, and bring you to my dining room. Lunch will be prepared by then." He had gone to the dresser, picked up her watch and wound it as he spoke. He turned and handed it to her. "For both our sakes, mademoiselle, I beg you: be dressed when I return." He bowed slightly, then left through the door.

I bathed and then dressed, with a pair of scissors by my side the entire time, determined to kill myself if that door in the wall opened again...I fear I was still more than a trifle hysterical. But the normal, everyday activities of grooming myself calmed me, and by the time I rejoiced Erik, I had even decided not to offend him in any way, to flatter him in order to win my freedom -- well, as I said, I was still hysterical: I suppose I didn't remember his offer to show me the exit if I wished.

All my fears were for nothing. Erik played the perfect gentleman, reassuring me by telling me his plans.

"I enjoy your company too much to deprive myself of it immediately, Christine," Erik said. "Besides, you have no reason to fear my presence."

"No reason?" Christine ventured. "But you said --"

"That I love you?" His voice was soft and intense, tugging at her senses.

Christine looked away, feeling her cheeks heat in another damnable blush.

"I cannot change my heart," he said his voice calm once more. "But if it pains you to hear, I shall be silent, and spend the rest of the time with music instead."

"The rest of the time," Christine echoed blankly. "How long is that?"

"Five days."

"And then I may go?"

"Of course, mademoiselle. After five days, you'll have learned not to fear me, and will come back to see me once in a while."

His tone shook Christine. Both her Angel and the Phantom always seems utterly sure of themselves. She'd never heard this wistful loneliness, this vulnerability, from anyone, much less that perfect voice. She looked over at her captor curiously: shadow hid his eyes, but a few tears ran down from the edge of his black silk mask.

He looked up suddenly, catching her staring. Christine blushed again, but he said nothing, merely rose to his feet and invited her to precede him with a gesture. Cautiously, Christine did so, and found herself back in the common-place parlor she'd first arrived in the night before. A dark wooden table stood in the middle of the room, two chairs of the same wood drawn up to it on either side, and a platter of food arranged in the middle of its polished top.

Erik seated himself facing her, but neither ate nor drank while she had lunch. Instead he watched her. Christine couldn't help feeling self-conscious, unsettled, under his steady gaze.

"Where do you come from, monsieur?" she asked, to break the tense silence. "With the name Erik, I would think you a countryman of mine."

"I can claim no such kinship, mademoiselle," her companion answered. "I have neither name nor country, and took the name Erik by chance."

"Then you cannot claim it is your country's custom to prove one's love by kidnapping the beloved and imprisoning her underground," Christine said, surprised at the sharpness in her voice. She tried to gentle her tone. "I've never heard of anyone who could fall in love in a grave." She gestured vaguely around her, feeling a trifle silly. The parlor could hardly have looked less like a tomb. "Was there no other way to speak to me than to deceive me and kidnap me?"

"One takes whatever rendezvous one can get." Erik's tone had a bitter twist to it that Christine didn't recognize or understand, but he rose to his feet and offered her his hand before she could say anything. "If you are finished, mademoiselle, I would like to show you my apartment."

Christine reached out to take his hand -- and remembered how cold and clammy it had been against her skin. She hesitated for just a moment, trying to steel herself for the moment of contact, and in that moment Erik dropped his hand.

"Forgive me," he said, his golden voice surprisingly harsh. "I do not go out in society, and so forget that well-brought-up young ladies are not accustomed to touch such as I."

Christine opened her mouth to protest, but he had already turned away and moved to another door. She sighed and followed.

She stepped into a room hung with black and red...like a mortuary, she thought, then: no, more like the antechamber to Hell. "What is this?" she murmured.

"My room," Erik replied from behind her.

She moved in slowly. Carpeting as thick and soft as before caressed and warmed her bare feet -- a warmth especially noticeable because of the slight chill in the air. The other rooms had been almost too warm. Here, such a chill was fitting in a room draped with black fabric patterned with red musical notes, in a room where Erik slept under a canopy of red brocade in a...coffin? She turned and looked at him.

He looked back, the mask expressionless. "Indeed I sleep in it. One must get used to everything in life, Christine. Even eternity."

She turned back and moved farther into the room, trying to ignore the dark pit of the coffin. On the far wall -- taking up the entirety of the wall, in fact -- stood an organ. Musical paper lay scattered across the music stand above the keyboard, paper covered with notes like drops of blood. Christine moved closer, hesitated, looked back at Erik. "May I?"

He nodded.

She looked back at the sheets of paper. At the top of each was scrawled DON JUAN TRIUMPHANT. "Your work." The words came out half-question, half-statement.

"I compose sometimes," Erik said, his voice closer than she'd expected. "I began that twenty years ago...and when it is finished at last, I shall tuck it away into the coffin and rest at last from my life's labors."

Christine opened her mouth, then closed it, searching for something to say. "You must work on it as seldom as possible then," she said at last, suppressing a pang of -- something -- at the thought of this man dying.

He smiled (at least, Christine thought he smiled: how could one be certain, when he wore that mask?) and shook his head. "Sometimes I work on it for weeks at a time, day and night, living on music alone." He moved past her, one hand reaching out to touch the pages for a moment, then turned to face her once more. "But then I leave it be for years."

"Will you...play me something from it?" The notes nagged at Christine's memory, their patterns somehow familiar. She couldn't imagine Erik stealing from another composer, but how else...unless. If it matched the melody that had haunted her dreams for months, then perhaps, perhaps --

"No." Erik's eyes flashed behind the mask. "Do not ask me that, Christine. The only Don Juan you know is Mozart's creation, preoccupied with drink and love affairs and all the pleasures of the world, and at the last dragged away to eternal judgment. I shall gladly play Mozart for you if you wish to hear the story: you might weep, but you would remain yourself. My Don Juan burns the soul, Christine, and not with the fire of heaven, but --" He broke off abruptly, turning and going back into the parlor.

Christine followed, bewildered, wondering at the strength of emotion. Surely this 'Don Juan Triumphant' was only music.

Her Angel had often told her there was no such thing as 'only music'.

Erik seated himself at the pianoforte and turned back to her. "You see, Christine," he said conversationally, as if he'd never stopped, "some music is pure and sweet, refreshing anyone who hears it. Other music, like my Don Juan, consumes those who dare sing it like a forest fire, and you are not strong enough yet to withstand it: if you sang it now, no one would recognize you when you returned to Paris. No, Christine Daae..." His voice grew darker, with the same edge to it Christine had heard before, "let us sing music of the Opera instead."

What did we sing? Something terribly dramatic: the final duet from Otello, if I recall correctly. God knows it seemed appropriate enough. I dare swear I never sang the part of Desdemona as convincingly before or since in my life! I was frightened -- and yet exhilarated, excited as I'd never been on stage. With such a partner as my Othello, how could I not sing my best? And yet...and yet. The images from my dream returned to my mind: the black mask lent itself to the image of Othello, and so I found myself dwelling, as I sang, upon what Erik must look like behind that mask. Such music could only come from an angel -- but what if he were merely some bored nobleman, using me for a jest? Or worse, what if he were some demon, come to corrupt and damn me like Marguerite in Faust -- Death himself come to punish me for daring to love one whom I thought an Angel?

Curiosity and fear fed upon each other. And so I reached out and snatched off Erik's mask.

Oh, God -- !

"Damn you! Give me my -- damn you and your infernal curiosity!"

Christine shrank back, trying to look anywhere but at that face. Before she could summon the courage to run, Erik caught her shoulder in an ungentle grip.

"Oh, no, Christine, you wanted to see your Angel and by god you'll see it! Look at me -- look at me, damn you! Feast your eyes on my accursed face!"

He flung her shoulder from his grasp. Christine fell to her knees, helpless to look away from his face now. This couldn't be happening, it couldn't be like this--

"Truly something to be proud of, to boast of to your friends in the ballet chorus, won't you?" His voice had dropped to a soft, sulpherous hiss. "They boast of this comte and that duc paying them court, while you have a corpse that loves you and will never leave you, nor you him. Are you not proud of it, Christine?"

Chrisatine shook her head, as much as his voice as his words, unable to look up at Erik looming over her any more. Please, God, no!

"Look at me, damn you!" His hand on her chin forced her head up again. "You were terribly curious a few minutes agao -- but perhaps you think this is another mask. Come, I'll help you pull it off the same way you did the other one." He dropped to one knee, snatched up her hands and brought them up toward his face.

"No, please," Christine begged, pulling at his grip. "No, it isn't a mask, it isn't..."

Erik let her hands fall. "No."

The silence following those words hung there, worse than his anger. Christine dared look up again, and saw him standing a step away, watching her, his cheeks streaked with the tracks of tears.

"Why couldn't you leave well enough alone?" he murmured. "Even my own mother gave me my first mask so she wouldn't have to look at me. Before, you would have returned...but now you wouldn't return at all, and so I cannot let you leave..." He turned and vanished into his own room.

If only he hadn't been right.

Therein lay my problem. I had loved my Angel of Music, loved him with an innocent's quick passion. But the Angel of Music was a story for children: in His place stood a man named Erik, a man with a face like death, the Phantom of the Opˇra indeed. If only I'd not pried...I would indeed have returned of my own free will, learned to know this man with a voice like an angel's, before being confronted with the contradiction of Angel and Phantom. Perhaps--

Perhaps. The might-have-beens crowded in, and I sat on the floor and wept like a child, impotently furious at my own curiosity.

Then, through my tears, I heard music.

Not The Music that had called me to a rehearsal room in the basements, months before, but it held the same uncanny magic in its notes. Wistful, haunting music: the melody of hurt and anger, learning at last to love, daring to look up and be loved in return. Erik's music.

I took a deep breath, gathering courage from the music to pick up the mask, rise to my feet again, and go to his door...to step inside, even. But no farther.

The music fell silent as Christine stopped, just beyond the doorway. Erik rose to his feet, but did not turn around.

Christine looked down at the mask in her hand. "Erik, I--" She what? What could she possibly say? "I beg your pardon for the intrusion." The words fell, stiff and formal, into the silence.

"I bade you consider this house as your own," Erik said, still not turning around. "You need not apologize. Was there something you wished?"

Christine looked down at the mask in her hand, then let it fall to the floor once more. She crossed the room, moistening lips gone dry. "Please..."

At last Erik turned to face her. Somehow the face didn't shock her as it had the first time, seemed less the face of a demon and more the face of a man. "Yes, Mademoiselle Daae?"

Christine took a deep breath, met his golden eyes. "You spoke of spending time with music."