Page 12 of Angel's Kiss
“I didn’t follow you or plan to be in the theater that night, I swear,” Erik replied, surprisingly contrite.
“Fate put you in my path,” Christine echoed his earlier words and recalled what Raoul had said to her: how even a strange angel could be sent by heaven.
“And you sang. You took the music of the composer dearest to my heart and filled it with more passion than I had ever heard on my stage. Just like you did today. Christine, you were not a broken instrument. You were and always will be a miracle. You were a prayer I could not let go unanswered if it was in my power.”
Christine shut her eyes, hoping to hide her tears, but she could not hide from the love and wonder in his voice. “So you are a poet too,” she whispered.
“Far from it,” Erik said, resigned. His eyes were on his book when Christine dared to look at him again. “Homer is far better.”
“Will you read to me?”
“In...Greek?”
“I have no doubt you can translate as you go,” Christine replied, hiding behind false haughtiness. “And I would not mind hearing any passages you deem of note in the original language.”
Erik regarded her for another long moment, then nodded. “As I said, I cannot refuse you.” He opened the book and read, his voice as beautiful and comforting as it always had been when he was an angel. “‘Sing, goddess, of the anger of Achilles, son of Peleus.’ The Poet is invoking a Goddess to start, probably the muse of epic poetry, Calliope. The nine muses, as I’m sure you know, watched over all kinds of art.”
“So, they were angels of music, you mean,” Christine said and caught Erik’s soft smile. “It seems one can find them anywhere.”
“So it seems. ‘Achilles, son of Peleus, accursed, who brought countless pains upon the Achaeans, hurled to Hades many strong souls of heroes, served them up as carrion for the dogs and all the birds...’”
She relaxed as Erik read, savoring the music of his words when he switched to the Greek for a few lines. She moved to the couch when she was done, resting her head on the arm nearest to Erik and watching the fire as she imagined the battles of the Achaeans and their foes. It was not long before she closed her eyes entirely, and the story faded away. Like so many times before, sleep took her gently as she listened to her angel’s voice.
The fire was low when she opened her eyes again. There was a complicated clock on the mantle above, with rings of symbols and illustrations of the cosmos, as well as a sun that rose and set. It told her that it was four o’clock in the morning. Perhaps the chill had woken her. Or perhaps the man in the chair next to her had made some noise as he slept.
Christine sat up, at last able to look her fill without scaring Erik away. How strange it was, that a man whose life was spent cultivating terror could be so easily unsettled by the eyes of a foolish girl.
Erik’s head lolled to the side, making his pale neck look even longer. Even in sleep there was tension in his body, with one hand in a loose fist on the open book in his lap. Christine watched him as he breathed, recalling the first time she had seen him asleep, when she had woken in his bed. It had been his breath that had finally broken her illusions and revealed his humanity to her. And it was his breath that strangely comforted her now.
Erik was not a ghost, or an angel, despite all his masks. He was simply a man, though one unlike anyone else she had ever known. He had lived with an inhuman face, and no doubt endured pain and suffering the likes of which Christine could not even imagine. Would Erik ever share those tales with her? Did she truly want to hear them?
Christine shivered as the fire guttered to embers. He had to be cold too, and so tired to fall asleep like that. Christine recalled her own first night in the Opera, when she had fallen asleep uncovered on the floor and woken with a makeshift blanket over her.
She moved as quietly as she could to the hook by the door to retrieve his heavy black cape and was careful not to touch him as she placed it over his body. She stared down at him when she was done.I saw your pain and I didn’t want to cause you more, he had said of sparing her that night. But he had also offered her comfort, in his strange way. A simple, human instinct.
“I see you too, Erik,” she whispered to the sleeping man.
