Page 20 of Angel's Mask

“Most people are scared when I’m close,” he replied without thinking. “But not you, my brave girl.” It made his skin tingle just to say it, not that she was brave. But that she was his.

“I never considered myself brave before,” Christine murmured, playing with the hem of her dress. “I’ve been afraid of everything for so long. These last few years...I didn’t feel very brave.”

“You survived alone in a cruel world for three years, don’t you think that’s brave?” Erik prodded. There was a part of his mind screaming at him to stop this conversation. If she was just a tool, then knowing her didn’t matter. But it did and so did comforting her as sadness edged her expression. “You kept going, you didn’t give up.”

“No, Papa was the brave one. But when he...left...” New tears were visible in the corners of her eyes, sparkling in the light of the oil lamp. “I did give up.”

“I know you miss him.” What did she expect her angel to know about her father, he wondered? Did she picture them talking about her in heaven? What in Hades had he tangled himself into? “Tell me about him.”

“He was a great musician,” Christine began with visible difficulty. “And he loved stories. I grew up with the sound of his violin and all those stories; of trolls and old gods, thenissaand thetomte, Vasilisa and Little Lotte, and stories...about the Angel of Music, about you.” Erik cringed at the look of joy in her eyes. “It was just the two of us nearly my whole life, from the time I was six; when we left Sweden.”

Sweden. The name Daaé made more sense now, though not entirely. Her features and hair were darker than those he would expect from the North.

“After we came to France, we tried to stay in one place but Papa couldn’t live that way. We went everywhere, singing and doing any odd jobs that would feed us. Sometimes Papa would find work in an orchestra or symphony, but he hated staying anywhere for too long. Sometimes we worked as servants, or we joined in with fairs, and even entertained wealthy families.” The words and memories were coming easier now. Erik wondered exactly what kind of rootless travelers Christine and her father had been.

“There were places we’d return to each year, especially near the sea. We both loved the ocean. Those were the only places where I really had any acquaintances that came close to friends. Well, just one actually. I’m sure he’s forgotten me now.” She smiled at the thought; a secret, sweet smile that for some reason made Erik’s gut twist unpleasantly.

“You haven’t talked about your mother,” Erik stated. He already guessed why.

“She died when I was six.”

“The year you left Sweden.”

“That was why we left. They gave up so much to be together and the home we made in Sweden reminded his so much of her. And yet we went to back to her homeland, to France and the family she left to be with him. Our time with them didn’t last very long.” Christine’s expression darkened. “I look like her, and that made him sad too. Papa wouldn’t speak about her for years. He told me other stories. He kept telling me stories long after most girls outgrow such things, and he told me that he would never lie to me, that all his stories were true.” She paused, more unnoticed tears staining her pale skin. “He was my world. When I lost him, I wasn’t brave. I stopped believing and living. I was just...empty.”

There it was. Erik was a liar and there were no angels, but oh how this girl needed them just to live.

“You think part of you died with him,” Erik guessed softly, reading the story from her beautiful face. “Not just the part of you that was brave, but the part that could feel. And believe. And you wanted to let it die, because if you were dead to the world, it could not hurt you again. If you weren’t even alive, you would not have to miss him.”

Replace a father with an entire world and he might as well be telling his own story. That was why he’d helped her, wasn’t it? He saw in her pain and loneliness like his own. He could admit that, here in the dark with her.

“But you didn’t die, Christine. You survived. And you cannot be dead when you sing. This is what I want to teach you. Singing is breathing. And breathing is life, the conscious act of living. Somewhere deep within when you choose to breathe, you choose to live. Some un-surrendering part of you chooses to continue,” he whispered, surprised at his own words even as a new light began to glow in Christine’s eyes. “When you sing, you are living. You are transforming the very force of your life into something beautiful, even when it hurts so terribly. So, I know you’re brave, Christine, because even after all the pain, you keep breathing.”

She breathed deep, as if on command, closing her eyes as her tears fell. Some of them were tears of joy, he hoped. And Erik breathed too, the need for air so deep and sudden it made him ache. Silently he breathed, moved by the girl before him. And he was reminded, terribly and unavoidably, that he too was alive and no matter how many lies he told himself and her, no matter how many masks he wore, he couldn’t change that.

“Thank you,” Christine whispered. “I know I keep saying it but...I cannot thank you enough for what you’ve given me. I don’t know how these stories of you as a terror can be true, because you truly are an angel.”

“Only for you, Christine,” he said and meant it.

“Angel...” her voice was small and soft and supplicant. “Will you sing for me again? Sing me to sleep?”

“Of course,” he sighed. He knew already that it was going to be quite impossible to refuse her.

He began to sing, his own breath and life transforming into a lullaby thick with longing. He chose a different song tonight, a Romani tune that echoed with windswept roads and yearning for something unreachable. And it made her smile as if she had just seen an old friend. Like so many of her smiles, it made his heart swell and ache.

When he had entered the room, smug with the idea of her as his pawn, this would have been easy. He could have pretended, the way he had pretended to be a ghost and now played at being an angel. But he was a man, and he was alive. He had felt more alive close to her in the last few days than he had in years. She had tempted him from the dark, and with each step he took closer to her, the illusions he had so built so carefully were falling away.

Before her, he had been content, not happy (someone like him would never truly be happy) but he had been pleased with the life he had created for himself far from the cruel, cold light of day. He had learned, finally and so painfully, that the world of the living wanted nothing from him, and he wanted nothing from it, but she made him forget all that. She made him realize that he had never stopped breathing.

He could lie to the world, to Christine, but his breath would not let him lie to himself. He was alive. And the girl before him who leaned back on her bed, her eyes closed in ecstasy at the sound of his voice, her breasts heaving with her breath, and a blissful smile on her face...this damn girl made himwantto be.

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