Page 22 of Angel's Kiss
“Don’t worry! Like I said: I’ve never been caught here.”
“And if that changes tonight?”
Erik grinned and looked her over. “Then I hope you can run in those skirts.”
Christine found herself laughing in awe again. They began to move slowly through the maze of forgotten works of art spanning centuries and, of course, Erik knew all of them.
Her mind reeled as Erik spoke of how the Dutch masters could paint light, how the Chinese had mastered landscapes in ink, and how the Greek statues had been stripped of colors that had made them look alive. When he explained to Christine how the ancient Pharaohs had filled their hidden burial chambers with art and trinkets to carry with them into the afterlife, Christine was sure he was thinking of his own tomb full of treasures, far beneath the ground.
“I’ve seen them, the Pyramids,” Erik told her, wistful. “They’re incredible, even at night.”
“I would say I can imagine, but I truly can’t,” Christine replied as they stood before an ancient statue in black stone of a seated woman with the head of a lion, a strange sort of cross in her hand. “I would love to have seen even a fraction of what you have.” Erik met her eyes, and she stopped herself from saying that he would have to show her one day. It was too absurd an idea to voice aloud, but for a moment, she wished it could be true.
“Come, it’s late enough to go up,” Erik said, inclining his head in the direction they were to move. “One could spend months down here or above, and not see it all. I’ll show you my favorites.”
His favorites turned out to be the Da Vincis. Did Erik feel a kinship with the man, an inventor and artist like himself, so far ahead of his time? (She kept the consideration to herself, not wanting to encourage her guide’s ego too much). How many places he had wandered, admiring beauty that he could never touch? How many times had the Mona Lisa smiled back at this ghost through the dark?
“I do wish I could see her in the light,” Erik sighed as they stood before Da Vinci’s great masterpiece. “Though I feel that way for all of them. You must come some day in the sun and tell me if you notice more.”
“I don’t think it would be the same without you,” Christine said, another thought she should have kept in finally slipping out. It made Erik smile – another treasure she could see in the dim halls.
“You should still go,” Erik said softly. “A place like this...it’s magic. This temple, full of glorious things that have come down to us through time, little fragments of divine beauty that endure long after their creators have passed to dust. It’s so different from music, this sort of art; these solid things that can survive.”
Christine had no idea how to reply or explain the way his words made her want to cry.
It was late when Erik led them back into the cellars storing more beauty and rarities than Christine could conceive of. “It is sad, you’re right,” she mused, touching the cool marble of a Roman bust, “that so much is hidden down here. What you said, about art enduring. It only does that if we remember it, I guess.”
“I like to think it still matters,” Erik replied as they came to the door and he looked wistfully back at the paintings, statues, and more that Paris would never see. “When we make art, the point is to capture a moment, or a feeling, or a story, and express it. It will have always existed for the artist, even when the world forgets it. Or if they never see it. Or hear it.”
Christine wanted to grab his hand and tell him she heard him. That his music – that wondrous music that had sung to her soul for months –mattered, even if she was the only audience he would ever have. But he didn’t linger long enough for her to say it. She followed him back into his underground world wishing she could summon a sliver of the poetry that came so easily to him to tell him that he would not be forgotten in a cellar too.
It was like a dream, coming back to the lake, and she listened to the drip of water and echo of their breath as Erik poled them over the still, inky water. They came at last to his little dock, where Erik led them to the wall and lifted his lantern.
“I am going to show you exactly how to find my door and unlock it. That will make things far more complicated, should you decide to reveal me,” Erik said, breaking the silence that had crystalized between them.
“Why would you do that?” Christine squinted at him as he traced his long fingers over the wall.
“I am handing you a loaded gun to point at my heart, Christine. I hope in giving you my further trust, I can continue to earn yours.” He fixed her with his preternatural eyes and her heart stopped. He had shown her who he was behind his mask and now trusted her never to reveal it. And in a way, he had shown himself to be the angel she had known and yet so much more.
“Show me your door, Erik,” she said uneasily.
“Here.” He lifted his hand to the wall and brought the lantern close, revealing that there were grooves in the surface. Five long lines, in fact. “It’s a stave,” he explained just as Christine realized it. “The secret of this lock is not a key, but a rhythm.” With that explanation, he pushed below the lowest line once, then paused as if measuring a beat in his head. He pressed again, higher on the hidden musical staff by a third interval, twice this time. Again, he waited several beats, then moved up another third for two more taps. And then the wall opened.
Christine smirked. “The Overture toThe Magic Flute. The ‘knock’ motif.”
“What else?” he replied with a gentleman’s nod. Of course Erik had a lock based on an overture full of masonic secrets.
The house on the lake embraced them with its warmth as they entered, the dim golden light of the lamps and candles casting a spell all its own. Christine took off her cloak as Erik stoked the fire and lit more candles, drifting to the piano.
“Would you like me to play for you?” Christine spun at the voice right behind her and Erik stepped back immediately. He had once again transformed without his cloak and hat. He was just a man once again. An extraordinary man who was staring at Christine like she was extraordinary too.
“Will you sing for me?” Christine asked without thinking, and the request seemed to surprise Erik as much as it shocked her to say it. “I haven’t heard you sing since...”
“I didn’t think you’d want to hear my voice that way anymore.” His voice had once had the power to ignite in her the greatest bliss and profoundest longing she had ever known. Of course he would assume she wouldn’t want him to use that power or remind her of what her angel had been.
“I do. I miss it,” Christine confessed. “And as you taught me tonight, it’s not right for a treasure to be kept in a cellar for no one to appreciate.”
Erik stared at her, long enough that a blush began to rise in her cheeks. “What shall I sing for you?” he asked softly at last.
