"You were once my one companion
You were all that mattered..."

I took you apart to see what made you tick. I disassembled you in loving pieces like a mother caring for her child. I poked about to see what I could understand and I put you back together having learned nothing. The more I sought to understand the more a mystery you became. I came to hate you for it, and yet, I began to understand.

I had never known anything like you before and it didn't take me long to realize I never would again. You were a scalding ice and a freezing fire. You were anger, rage, hate, fear, violence, love and beauty. You were a devil from the lowest pits of Hell and an angel. Before my eyes you grew into a god and I worshipped you with all the devoutness of a child in love.

Like a ghost you came into my life. I had no idea that when I awoke that morning six years into my life I would be greeted with the sight of an angel. Locked as you were in that cage, ragged, dirty and with clothes tattered my heart wept, but I dared not get too close. No one needed to tell me that Javert believed you to be his and, while I might not have been afraid of the pompous ass, I avoided him as much as I could. He was as like to whip me as he was to look at me, simply because I was the only child in the camp who didn't cower at the sight of him. He used fear to get what he wanted and I didn't like being told what to do. I didn't fear him and he didn't get what he wanted from me, so he didn't like me to be anywhere near him. That was the one and only thing he and I agreed on.

I could see that you were kept in conditions that many good men would balk at putting animals in. The cage had a thin covering of hay that I assumed was for your bed. Rusty bars restrained you while allowing the curious onlooker a good view of the new capture. I don’t think Javert even left you water.

Javert was an outsider to our band as well. A gorgio. He was a fat, disgustingly greasy man who had shown up one night, long before I was born, and hadn't left again. He wasn't looked at as one of us, but he was tolerated as a man who wasn't to be crossed. He had a foul temper that was likely to leave someone injured. The only reason he hadn't been thrown out yet was because he seemed to know exactly what people wanted to see. He made us good money with his sideshows. He could bring in good-sized crowds willing to pay decent money for whatever little displays he had set up. I despised him horribly. Nothing he ever did was decent. He was horribly cruel, not only to whoever he thought he had control over, but also to everyone else in the camp. He was a liar, a sneak, a thief and a pervert with wandering eyes. He was one best left alone.

My dislike of whippings kept me sufficiently far enough away that I never got a good look at you. I just sat and watched you from a distance. I watched you, hidden away someplace, every chance I got. When it rained I got wet, when it was sunny I got brown. Sometimes even to the point of missing meals so I could keep watch over you. I felt compelled to protect you from the cruel world that was Javert's sadistic tyranny. It mattered not that you were older than I. Your presence radiated out to me, called to my very soul.

The camp was very small, no more than twenty or thirty people. It looked like a brightly coloured quilt if one looked at it quickly enough. Everything looked like it had been thrown into a big pile and just ended up the way it did. The tents were set in random locations, and nothing looked like it should go where it was. It had a very appealing quality to it all. Everything was in perfectly organized chaos all the time. Nothing ever stayed where it was since the camp almost never stayed where it was for more than a week. It had a cozy, well lived in look, the kind that a child’s blanket might have. It was a good feeling to never have to worry about where something went as long as you could find it when you needed it again.

The only way I couldn't have heard the stories being told about you was to have been deaf, which I tried very hard to be. I heard them talk about you as not even human. They spoke of you like a beast because of some deformity to your face that I had never seen. To hear them talk you had no nose, or no face at all, depending on whose exaggerated version of the story I listened to. I chose not to listen to any of them. What did it matter what your face looked like? Just talking about it drove them to a hysteria that made me sick. It couldn't be that bad. A face was just that, a face. Despite my attraction to you I couldn't bring myself to come close enough to your cage risk the sting of Javert's whip. That biting whip had fallen upon my bare flesh often enough that I never wished to repeat the experience. I grew to despise them all for what they said about you. Still, I continued to watch from a distance, in silence.

When I woke one morning to find the camp children surrounding your cage with sticks in hand, poking and prodding until they drew blood I cried inside for you. Watching Javert force food upon you when you wouldn't eat I felt rage and hate on your behalf. I prayed no one heard me when I cried out loud when the bastard began to whip you for the first time. With your back marked by bloody tears that I knew you would never allow to fall from your eyes I was surprised to find you stood your ground against him. It was a cold, starless night, but I think it was just a little darker, a little more frigid for Javert after that. I saw you gather yourself together once he had left, moving slowly from the wounds on your back, but you hadn’t given in and I cheered silently for you. Without even realizing it you had become my world. There was hardly a time when I wasn't watching you.

No one wondered where I disappeared off to. I wandered all day in and out of the brightly coloured tents and around people without anyone ever really seeing me. They didn't care. I could take what I wanted from the wagons of pots and pans and little gaudy trinkets that the adults of my little gypsy band sold to the gorgio who came to see what shows Javert was putting on at the time. The overly friendly, cheerful people who had once called themselves my family had become so good at pretending I wasn't there I almost wasn't anymore. I could practically claim to be invisible until I did something wrong... or someone else did something wrong. They were quite willing to punish me for crimes, regardless of whether or not I had committed them, and I had been whipped for it more often than I ever cared to think about.

The hateful day finally came when I realized that these people were not my people. I couldn't bring myself to belong to a group of people who could subject another human being to the Hell they put you through. I had no family. I had no friends. I was not one of them. That was the day I found out they planned to put you on display.

It was a bright, sunny day when I overheard that bit of news coming out of Javert's mouth as he passed by my hiding place, undoubtedly to beat you for some imagined crime. I was sitting on a tree branch and he walked right under my feet talking to the leader of our little band. Those words "audience" and "money" made me feel sick. It's a good thing I was sitting down because my legs would not have supported me. My entire body started to shake and I was terribly afraid I was going to vomit. Crying, I sat unmoving for a good part of the suns never ending travels through the sky. Somehow, I knew that, like the sun's path, there was no stopping the events to come.

Javert had placed a coffin in your cage and was calling you the living corpse or something to that gruesome affect. The cage was placed in the middle of the camp so that it could be the center of attention, even though no one but me ever wanted to look at it. The coffin couldn’t have been to scare people since it looked ridiculously out of place sitting in that rusted cage with the straw that had been your bed. Personally I thought him a ridiculous man who was going to ridiculous means to bring in money, and that he deserved to be the show just once in his life. You don't put people on display against their will in the first place, and calling you the living corpse and putting that coffin in your cage was just too much.

Whatever affect the coffin was supposed to have it must have worked, though, because the people came. They came and I fled. I couldn’t watch this. From my hidden distance I could still hear their screams of terror and delight, and I was filled with grief for the sickness of the human mind, and the lengths people would go to for entertainment.

That was the first time since your arrival that you were out of my sight for any length of time. It was almost unbearable, the sense of loss, of being completely alone that came with being away from you. I only managed to endure it because I knew that watching them watch you would have been infinitely worse.

I did not want to share you with these prying, greedy people. I did not want to know that they dared rest their eyes on you. Those eyes that would gawk, stare, fear, scream, cry and be repulsed - and love every minute of it. Your beauty was for my eyes alone. I didn't want to have to share that beauty with the people of the searching eyes who would not understand the magnificence and the magic that was you. I couldn't explain the jealousy that came over me, but I felt its sharp needle of protectiveness in my heart. I came to hate every one of those people who dared to watch you for their own amusement without feeling your power, without knowing just how close to Heaven they had been allowed to come just by setting their eyes upon you, just by being in your presence. You were my angel, my god, and I didn't want to expand my Heaven to allow room for anyone except you and me.

However, that was not to be a choice. My dream shattered on that first day they came and handed over their money to invade us. Every day they came and carried off another broken fragment and replaced it with reality. I watched your spirit slowly breaking and my heart broke with it. My heart wept for you, but my soul wept for us.

"You were once a friend and father..."

The morning I realized just how great my need for you was was the morning I thought I'd lost you. It was a grey, overcast morning, but with none of the usual chill a day like that seems to bring in. I awoke with the sun and went to take up my position watching you. The band had set up camp in the woods and the covering of trees afforded me every sort of possible hiding place. My favourite was up a tree. No on ever looked up to find a pair of feet dangling in their face.

I was fairly certain that you had noticed that I made it a point never to look in your direction if I was close enough to be noticed. I would have done anything to avoid bringing myself to your attention. I didn't want you to notice my watching you and with six-year-old simplicity I didn't think about the fact that having you realize that I wasn't looking at you would be at least as bad.

That morning I resolved not to look away. I would meet your eyes and see just how strong my feelings were. I walked past your cage and looked. The rusty bars stared back at me and the empty coffin surrounded by hay seemed to mock me, as if laughing that I was too late. The pounding of my heart in my chest was almost unbearable. You were gone.

All I could think was that you had escaped and I was very glad for you, but at the same time I found it hard to breathe. I wrapped my arms around myself, rocking, unable to look away from where you should have been. My cowardice made me feel hollow, empty. I was as empty of anything resembling human emotion as the cage I couldn't tear my eyes away from. I bolted from where I had frozen and slammed into someone.

I didn't have to look up to know it was you I had crashed into. I could feel it. Somehow I could feel both the menace and the fear that radiated from you. The aura coming from the person I had run into was far more foreign than anyone else could have been. Heaven had come down to earth and I had the luck to bump into a god. My knees began to shake and the world began to swim before my eyes. I thought I was going to faint.

I raised my eyes to your face and was startled at the presence of a mask. I hadn’t been aware that you had one. However, knowing how the other gypsies reacted to your face I could understand why you would want to hide it. I also noticed that you had real clothing on. In fact, your clothing was in better condition than mine was. I had always had to resort to stealing mine from the older children when they outgrew it. Apparently the one who was making them money was more important than their own kin was.

You looked quite regal, though you were only a few years older than myself. Even right after being slammed into by a little girl who was now staring up at you in complete wonder you came across as completely graceful and in total control of your every move.

You stood a good three hand-spans over me, and yet you were sickeningly thin. You looked like nothing more than fine bones covered in a thin layer of parchment. It made me want to take care of you even more, this appearance of frailty. Still, you looked like an emperor or a king going to court, you radiated such elegance. I felt faintly ashamed of my dirty face and my vibrant silk patchwork skirt, which was almost as full of holes as it was colours.

I couldn't figure out how you got out of the cage and hadn't been caught yet. The only thing I could think of was that you had managed to convince Javert to let you out. If you had offered him something he wanted, like perhaps a way to make more money, you might have been able to persuade him to give you a tent. That was the only explanation I could think of, but I wasn't about to ask you.

You looked down on me, and your eyes flashed. I was terrified. I hadn't been planning to come across you like this and the thought that I might do something to ruin any chance of you even tolerating me held me petrified, staring at your mask. I looked into your eyes and they grew wide. I shivered slightly. Meeting your yellow eyes gave me chills, though not of fear.

You backed slowly away from me, turned and fled. I was helpless, I couldn't move, I couldn't think. My legs took over while my brain shut down. I ran and ran. I fled from the razor sharp edges of my broken heart and shattered dream before I cut myself on the pieces and bled to death.

Eventually my legs gave out on me. I collapsed, my breathing ragged, the sobs escaping my throat no matter how I tried to keep them in. Tears in my eyes blurred my vision enough that I couldn't tell where I was. I was far enough from the camp that I wouldn't have been able to see it had I been able to see. Eventually, once I had stopped crying enough that I could breathe properly again, I realized that I had no idea which direction I had run. All the trees looked the same. There was nothing for me to recognize. I had no idea which way to get back. You had gotten me hopelessly lost. I didn't think about the fact that I had been completely lost before I ever ran.

It would have been a fitting end. I had decided that after coming to the decision that I wasn't going to try and find my way back. If you couldn't accept me than I saw no point in going back. There was nothing left for me there.

As I was concluding that I would rather die out there alone than go back and be denied your presence something moved just inside my peripheral vision. Just a flicker of motion that caused me to snap my head around so quickly I nearly hurt myself.

I couldn't see where you were going, but I didn't care. In that instant that you appeared I understood that I couldn't stay there to die. There was so much left that I had to protect you from. What does a god know of the mortal world? I had to make certain no harm came to you. I also knew how I was going to get back.

I continued to watch you for most of the day. You didn't do much of anything. It looked like you were just there to get away from people who hid their children behind them when you walked in their direction. For one who seemed so lonely you certainly seemed to enjoy your privacy. Of course, after being put on display the way you had, I could understand that. Sometimes while I watched you I saw your mouth moving, but I was too far away to hear what you were saying. Finally you rose to leave, and I followed you. I was very glad to find out that you knew better where we were going than I did. I managed to stay far enough behind you that the trees kept me hidden. The tall trees provided solitude and good cover when I needed to follow you without being seen to come back from my solitude.

We arrived back at camp just as supper was being served. The smells wafting from the fire where enticing, however, I couldn't bring myself to eat. All the crying I had done had made my stomach uncertain and I didn't want to test it. Instead, I just sat there. To my surprise, you also sat by the campfire.

I could feel the heat of the flames dancing across my cheek, but it was little comfort against the frozen, endless darkness dotted with icicles forming sparkling pictures in the blackened sky. Inching closer to the shining heat I huddled down, not taking my eyes from you for a second. You seemed even more magical than usual through the crackling redness and I couldn't make my eyes look away. I stayed that way, staring through the flames, until long after you had gone to bed.

Now that you were free to wander about I had to teach my feet how to move again. I wasn't about to let you out of my sight for an instant. I practically stopped sleeping once I discovered your fondness of the dark. If you didn't need sleep then I wouldn't either. I couldn't lose a single minute of you, of seeing you with my soul and breathing you in with my eyes.

I still fled the horrors of the crowds. One hundred people a day, at least. Grown men whose curiosity got the better of their cowardice. Women with squirming, smear faced children all scrambling for a better vantage point. They all paid their coin to get a good look and a good look was what they got. Javert had you tied to the bars so that you couldn’t hid your face, and there was no way they could have missed it. Ladies swooned, children screamed and mothers muttered about the nightmares their babies were going to have, while the grown men cursed and were sick. All walked out on shaky legs except those who couldn’t walk at all and were carried by those a little more hardy. Nothing made seeing those rapists of privacy and dignity tolerable. I sat in some out of the way hiding place where no one could find me, waiting, in agony, for when the vultures left and I could return.

On one occasion as I sat raging, hurting, the most glorious sound that had ever met my ears came floating to me. At first I thought I had gone completely mad. I could only hear an occasional note and I was certain that nothing from this earth could sound that beautiful. It could only be you, my god. You were a god of music!

I couldn't control my feet as they carried me closer, even while I continued to avert my eyes. I was riding on pure sound. I was more convinced than ever that you were not of this earth. If something as divine as your voice could come from this harsh world there was nothing left that was sacred. There couldn't be.

I never would have believed that I could exist entirely for a voice, but I did. Everything I did, every thought that passed through my head was aimed at getting to hear you sing. I think I truly came to believe I would die if I couldn't hear you. Every waking second was spent scheming how to get you to sing for me... and only me.

Even though you had been freed from your prison you remained aloof. The only contact with other people you allowed yourself, other than the daily performances you were forced to endure, was to take lessons in herbs from the old woman that called herself our healer. You almost seemed to enjoy that, and from what she said you learned quickly.

When the old woman got sick everyone assumed she would die and that would be the end of it. There was no cure. You took it as a challenge to be met. You saved her. The entire camp was impressed even though they would never show it. Then everyone took sick. They were all too afraid of you to let you attend to them. I knew they wouldn't make it. That old woman didn't know the first thing about what she was doing, you had a knack for it. When they started to fall I knew. Nothing that half-wit they called our healer could do would make any difference.

I finally took ill. It was bound to happen. When it did I decided that that woman would not touch me. Even if it meant I would die because you wouldn't help me I was not going to let her near me. Had I been thinking clearly I would have gone to you as soon as I could tell I was getting sick, but I was too afraid of scaring you off. I waited.

I felt like I was a fire set on a chink of ice. My head was going to explode and it hurt to breathe. I waited. Then came the coughing and the aching. It was agony to move and even worse to try and breathe or talk. Eating wasn't a choice anymore. Still I waited.

I waited until I could hardly support my own weight, then I stumbled my way into your tent not even really knowing what I was doing. I crumpled to the ground just inside the flap and looked up at you with eyes that hurt to be open. I was going to die. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't work up the energy. I was upset, not that I was dying, but that I would do it without ever knowing you, without ever speaking to you, and, worst of all, without ever seeing your face. The thought of never seeing you, never being a part of your life as anything other than a shadow was painful. I wanted to be a real person to you, but it was too late for that. I was going to die a shadow.

Needless to say, I didn't die. When I awoke you were hovering around me. I'm pretty sure it was only because you couldn't get me out of your tent until I was either better or dead. It didn't matter; you weren't running from me.

"I... you... I'm..." You put a finger to my mouth to quiet me. Safe. I finished in my head. You're here. I'm safe. You'll keep me safe.

Your hands were cool against my hot face. In fact, they were cold, but I didn't care. I was too light headed to care about much of anything. I wasn't certain if it was the weakness of being ill or the touch of your hands on my face that made my head spin like that.

You put me on a pile of pillows that I would discover later to be your bed. The rest of the tent was cluttered with the strangest things I had ever seen. Things I could only assume you had created. One looked like a tangle of sharp, shiny metals while another looked as delicate as a summer blossom. I wanted to reach out and touch things, to see how they worked, what they did, but even if I had been able to move I wouldn’t have dared.

You wrapped a blanket around me before pulling out small vials of strange looking liquids. Combined in a glass they took on a dark amber colour and the consistency of thick molasses. After dosing me with it - it tasted like a summer storm, dark and wild, yet somehow pure – you went and pressed something on one of your devices and it gave off a sweet, tinkling sound, like the wind through the trees, or drops of water turned to music. It was a quiet, relaxing sound that I quickly fell asleep to.

I was there for another two days, but it seemed you wanted me out of there as quickly as possible. We never spoke in that time. Every time I tried to speak to you a look or a touch silenced me. Never cruel to me you managed to make me behave exactly as you wanted me to without having to be. And the one thing you wanted from me was silence. If I was well enough to talk I was well enough to leave. It was better to be near you than to try and talk to you and be made to go.

On the third morning when I woke completely recovered you put me out. You were very nice about it, just gave me one more dose of the amber storm, checked me over one last time, got me up and shooed me out. When I left your tent eyes followed me all over camp. I wasn’t invisible, but no one acknowledged my presence. I heard them whisper about me, about my being allowed inside your tent, speculations about what might be inside, but no one asked. No one was that curious, to actually talk to me. By the next day they had forgotten all about me. I continued to watch you.

When Javert, in his ignorant fury ripped your mask from your face and sliced it to shreds I was there. I didn't know what you had done to anger him so, but I highly suspect it had more to do with what he had been drinking than with anything you had actually done. I couldn't see your face since you had your back to me, but I could still sense your rage. Javert couldn't see it, but I could. I held my breath fully expecting you to attack back. Retaliation seemed in order, but you didn't do anything. You sat there growing more and more upset. I watched. Seeing he would get no response out of you Javert stalked off. You sat for a moment before disappearing as well. For once I thought I'd give you some privacy. Actually, I didn't even notice you leave I was so lost in my own thoughts. When I finally snapped out of it the only thing to show that you had ever been there was the pieces of your mask.

I had a habit of watching the older gypsy women dance at night. I loved the dances and I wanted to learn everything I could. Even at eight I was starting to dance. Sometimes they laughed at the child who wanted to dance like a woman, but no one could withhold their amazement. I was good, even that young. I learned quickly.

Dancing was relaxing, even when I was that young. When the other women finished they near collapsed from exhaustion. I would never end like that. I could go on forever. When I danced I forgot the world around me. Nothing existed except my breathing and the pulsing of my body. Nothing else had to exist because I didn't need anything else.

On one of those nights I sat watching the dancers I noticed that you were there as well. You sat apart from everyone and watched with a refinement that I held in awe. Everything you did was something new for me to work towards knowing.

Eventually I gathered up my courage and got to my feet planning on talking to you. If nothing else I had never gotten the chance to thank you for saving my life. As I got my feet under me I saw you rising as well. Rising and leaving. I was finally ready to talk to you and you seemed to sense it and you fled. Was I so low in your eyes that you couldn't even allow me the privilege of getting to speak to you? Was I that unworthy? What could I have done to offend you that much? Every thought I had ever had about my own worth, about my inability to be or do anything came back to me in a great flood of fear. You had that kind of power. You held the power to reduce me to nothing simply by walking away.

I followed you, even the dancing forgotten for the time. You weren't going to leave me behind now. I was determined to know why you hated me so. I followed and then I ran and then I was next to you. The sheer power of your presence, of you, overwhelmed me and I had to stop. You were going to escape after all because I couldn't make my legs work. In fact none of my muscles seemed to be working. You were going to get away without my ever even learning your name. In the two years since you had come to the camp I had never gotten to speak to you to ask you what it was, and I didn't dare ask someone else. My luck held, though, and you stopped, turning, surprised, I think, to find me beside you.

"What do you want?" Your voice. Even the frustration, the anger in it was beautiful. I was so lost contemplating every musical pitch, every swirling, spinning, shining nuance of that sound that came out of your mouth that I didn't understand what you said. "What do you want?" My head snapped up and I looked right into those yellow cat-eyes. My knees went weak, but I managed to stay upright.

"Where are you going?" I countered; hoping my voice remained calm.

"Away from people."

"You don't like the dancing?"

"Not particularly, no." I was a little disappointed. I wouldn't be dancing for you after all. "I like people even less, though, and I would like to be alone now." You walked off and I followed. Some distance away you stopped and sat, I sat beside you. "What do you want?" you asked for the third time. I had to take a deep breath to calm myself.

"Sing for me?"

Your eyes got wide and you seemed to stop and truly look at me for the first time. "What?"

"Sing for me." This time it wasn't a question. I had grown bold when you hadn't sent me away.

"No." My face fell and I turned the full affect of my eyes on you. I opened them as wide as I could and filled them with tears, a trick I had spent a long time perfecting. You looked away.

"Please."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to."

"I'm not leaving until you sing for me." I sounded childish even to my own ears, but I didn't care. I was tired of being told no. I was tired of being sent away. Just once I intended to actually get what I wanted.

"That's fine, but I'm not singing. If you want to hear me that badly you can pay your coin like everyone else." I couldn't believe you could say something like that to me, that you could classify me with those vultures, those rapists, those blind people with the prying eyes. It was an insult beyond any I'd ever received before.

"How dare you!" I snapped.

"How dare I? You're the one who invaded my privacy, making demands of me for your own enjoyment."

"But I'm not... not... I can't even come up with words for what you just did. I can't believe you think I would pay to invade someone's life, strip away their dignity and leave them with nothing but their loneliness. I would never be a part of something that sick. If that's all you think I am than you truly are ignorant." It was a hard thing to discover that the god I had worshipped so devoutly for two years could be so cruel without even thinking about it. I started to cry softly, trying not to let you see. "All I wanted was to let you know you had a friend. I could tell you liked to sing from what I had heard and I thought you might like to sing for someone who would actually appreciate it. That's all." I do believe you actually managed to look a little embarrassed beneath your mask

"What shall I sing?" The tears stopped and I smiled at you then, feeling shy for the first time in my life. You really were a god to humor such an annoying, bratty little girl when that certainly wasn't how you had planned on spending your time. Suddenly I was very thankful to you for being there and not sending me away, for allowing me to sit in your presence.

"Anything." The word barely came out of my mouth.

When you lifted that glorious voice of yours and began to sing I thought I had died. It was like a cloth had been lifted from my eyes and everything became much clearer, much more real. The night was a little darker, crisper; the stars sparkled a little brighter; the air tasted a little sweeter. Everything was growing into magical proportions, but nothing could compare with the magnificence of your voice.

I had heard you sing before, but always from a distance through a clamor of other noises. Nothing I had ever known could possibly have prepared me for you. Your power, magnified by just how real you were when you were this close to me, left me in total awe. I feared my muscles would give out. I leaned my head against your shoulder weakly hoping it would keep me from completely collapsing. You stiffened as soon as I touched you, but I showed no mercy, only snuggled a little closer, closing my eyes.

Eventually your voice faded away, but I refused to move. I couldn't support my weight. Your singing had left me entirely weak and helpless. You could have done anything to me then and I wouldn't have been able to do a thing to stop you, but you didn't. You just sat rigid, giving me time to recover. You didn't move me, even though you seemed like you really wanted to. You were too much of a gentleman, even after the Hell you had been through.

"How was that?"

"Perfect." I sat, but it took every ounce of control I had over my muscles.

"Goodnight." You stood to leave, but I couldn't let you get away yet. It had been too much to end that quickly.

"Teach me to sing?" The words were out of my mouth before I had thought about them. I hadn't been planning on asking you that so soon.

"What?"

There was no going back now. "Teach me to sing?"

"I don't know the first thing about teaching someone to sing."

"You can sing. Just teach me what you know."

"Why?"

"Because I want to sing like an angel too."

"An angel? More like a devil." Your voice was so full of self-mocking that I nearly wept again.

"No." I smiled up at you. Never a devil. An angel, a god, but never a devil.

"An angel?" Your voice was soft and I nearly swooned again.

"An angel."

"All right, I'll teach you what I can, but not tonight. I would like to be alone for a time." You paused and gave me a funny look. "Actually alone." I felt a little foolish and cast my eyes down, but it couldn’t stop the thrill of anticipation. What did it matter that you knew? You had agreed to teach me.

"What's your name?" I called.

"Erik."

"I'm Angelique." You smiled briefly and then disappeared. I was finally yours.

When I woke in the morning I was flying, at least, until I stood up. Then I was swimming. I hadn't been this light headed even when I was sick. It may have been from lack of sleep, but I think it was you. Just thinking about you made me dizzy. I dressed myself quickly and staggered out of my tent into the blazing sun. It was still early morning and it was already incredibly hot.

"Why should you care? He's a monster." I looked up to find a group of bigger, older boys walking passed my tent. The ringleader of this little group was an especially brawny boy of about thirteen, named Riska, known for his violent temper and his ego that was bigger than he was. I always avoided him if I could help it. That day he was followed by a group of his cronies, other bullies like himself who liked to help him pick on smaller, weaker children.

"I know that, and I don't care. I just don't want to be a part of it. You know I don't like fighting." It sounded like one of his flunkies had gone chicken.

"It won't be a real fight. He won't even know we're coming. There's enough of us that it'll be over before he even realizes we're there." There were six of them and I was not about to let them get away with attacking you. I couldn't let them do that. I stood up, putting myself in plain view of them.

"You had better be prepared for a real fight. I'm not too fond of the idea of you mobbing someone." They all turned to face me. They were all a good deal bigger than I was, but I wasn't backing down now. There was no way I was going to allow them to hurt you.

"What are you going to do, little girl? Cry on us?" After that my pride was involved as well as my concern for you. I hit him. I hit him hard. The fight erupted from there. I had always been good at fighting. Being a poshratt, a half-breed, gypsy and French, I was looked upon with contempt. None of the other children would tolerate me and none of the adults would defend me so I had to either learn to fight or put up with the beatings. I learned, and I learned well. There was no one I couldn’t protect myself against, and even most groups weren’t a problem anymore. I had never started a fight, and I didn’t like fighting, but I had never had a good reason before. I came out of it bruised, bloody and with my clothes in tatters, but I came out the victor. You were safe for now.

I turned to go clean myself up after the older boys had fled and bumped into you. You sighed and smiled faintly, I could see that even through the mask. Taking a step back you looked me up and down.

"Angelique! What happened to you?" I tried to smile, but blood ran into my mouth and I ended up grimacing.

"Some of the other kids and I had a bit of a disagreement."

"About what?"

"Umm... people?" You groaned and dropped your head into your hands.

"You were fighting about me." It wasn't a question.

"I never said that," I denied quickly. You weren't supposed to know that.

"But you were."

I lowered my gaze and crossed my arms in such a contradiction of attitude that I was tempted to laugh at myself. "Perhaps I was."

"Why?"

"I wasn't about to let them mob you."

"I can take care of myself. I'm not as frail as I look."

"I could've taken care of them, too."

"And you did."

“Yes I did."

"And ended up broken in the process."

"I'm not broken. I'm perfectly fine." I was lying of course. Everything hurt horribly, but I wasn't about to let you know that.

"You're bruised, bleeding from multiple places and your clothes are shredded."

"I heal. I wasn't going to let six of them jump you from behind when I could do something about it. You don't deserve that."

"You mean, no one deserves that, no matter how horrible and pitiful they might be?" you snarled at me.

That was something I hadn't counted on, your temper. Still, when I responded I smiled, looking you right in the eye. "No, I'm pretty sure that if Javert were jumped by six men who were all older and bigger than him I wouldn't mind." Your anger seemed to vanish as quickly as it had come and I knew I would never have anything to fear from you.

"Go and clean up." I obeyed, running off to my tent to find some clothing without too many holes, a rag and some soap.

Once I was clean and dressed again I headed over to your tent certain that I would find you there. I was right. I slipped inside and sat down to watch you. You looked up from whatever you had been tinkering with and I could see the disapproval shining from your eyes.

"I thought I told you to go clean up."

"I did. Some of it's just still bleeding." You set down whatever it was you had been doing and got a rag and a small bottle of something that smelled terrible when you opened it.

"Hold still."

"For what?"

"I have to fix you."

"I'm not broken."

"You're still bleeding, your lip is swollen and you have a black eye."

"And you're going to put that stuff on my face?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to smell like that?" As much as I trusted you I didn't trust your sense of what was going to make me sick to my stomach.

"Not for long, but if you don't hold still I'm likely to spill it all over you and then you really will smell like this all day. Now stop squirming. This is going to sting.”

"I doubt it." I was wrong. Not only did that stuff you put on my face smell it burned like you had set me on fire. I wanted to cry out, but I held myself rigid, refusing to let you know that I was in pain. If it could be helped you would never see me suffer.

You finished cleaning me up and turned back to what you had been doing before I came and invaded. I sat unmoving, watching.

"We won't be starting your lessons today, Angelique."

"Why not?"

“You're hurt. We'll not sing today." I pouted a little while I watched you. You didn't notice me.

Allowed to stay I sat watching, unmoving, until long past sundown. I marveled in every move you made, looked upon your grace and beauty in wonder. The day ended all too soon.

"All right, Angelique, I'm going to sleep now. You should go do the same. Perhaps if you can keep from getting broken again tomorrow we shall start your lessons then." I left your tent floating on pure joy. Never before had I been able to observe you from that close without having to hide. I never thought you would trust me enough to allow me to watch you like that.

I couldn't get the sight of you out of my mind. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. There was nothing I could behold that would ever compare to your beauty. Finally I fell asleep with your perfect image floating behind my eyes.

When I left my tent the next morning I headed straight for you hoping to find you awake. Imagine my surprise when I found Riska and his group of boys lurking outside your tent waiting for you to wake up. They saw me coming and the fight started. Not a word had been spoken, nor did there have to be one. As soon as they set eye upon me they were preparing themselves for the attack. I didn't disappoint them.

I was picking myself up from off the ground, once more bruised and bloody and once more the victor when you came out of your tent.

"Angelique!"

"What?" I turned my face up to look at you, proud and defiant.

"Come inside," you sighed. You went back in and I followed.

Without a word you pulled out the bottle of that vile smelling liquid and began to apply it to my face, ignoring my protests. There would be no lessons again.

"What happened this time?" you asked once you had attended to my cuts and my eye which I was certain was turning purple. If it wasn't it should have been for how much it hurt.

"They were waiting outside your tent for you when I showed up. I guess they figured I'd be almost as much fun." Not another word was spoken for the rest of the day until you threw me out that night. I spent the day in perfect happiness just being allowed to sit there and observe you.

The next morning when you once again found me bleeding by your tent you didn't even ask. You just held open the flap for me and then cleaned me up. Then you sent me away. Nothing that could have happened to me in those fights could have broken me like being told to go away did. After everything I had gone through for your sake that seemed a poor thanks.

I fled to someplace I wouldn't be found so I could let out the tears that were trying to embarrass me by escaping in front of other people. Alone, I cried myself to sleep and didn't wake again until morning.

The sun came up and I opened my eyes where I had fallen. I heard the shuffling of feet that were trying to be quiet before I actually saw the boys. They all carried large sticks and they were talking together quietly. I crept closer to listen.

"If we hurry he won't even wake up. It'll be over before he knows what hit him," I heard Riska say.

"Won't Javert be angry when he finds out someone killed the monster?"

"He'll be angry about the loss of the money, sure, but he won't know we did it. What can he do, whip the entire band?" My heart was pounding. They were going to kill you. It didn't matter how little you appreciated me; I couldn't let them kill my angel.

I launched myself at Riska hoping to take him down by surprise. It worked. He hit the ground while the others turned on me. None of the fights before had been fair, but now they were armed.

Fists flew and sticks went whizzing through the air. Somewhere, during the course of all that, I took one of the sticks to my arm. It had been coming at my head and I tried to block it. My arm caught fire and I screamed. They just laughed, at least, those who weren't too hurt to laugh.

With my good arm I grabbed the stick the nearest boy was holding. Using all my force I wrenched it out of his hands, throwing him off balance and embedding my hand with shards of wood. Once I was armed the fight only lasted a few minutes, even with only one arm. They limped off to lick their wounds and I headed for you. This time I couldn't claim I was all right.

You were still asleep when I got there. I went and cleaned myself up as best I could with the limited use of my hands and then went and sat inside the door to your world to wait for you to wake up.

Apparently you had fallen asleep doing something because you were still fully clothed and you had your mask on. If you hadn't been in that state I would have left you alone, but as it was I hurt too much to care.

You did eventually wake up and when you saw me you looked like you wished you hadn't woken up.

"Did they break anything?"

"Wake up a little more and then ask me that." Even I could tell that arms weren't supposed to hang at that angle.

"Aw shit." You managed to get yourself in a standing position. Taking my good arm you led me away from the camp. "Come with me."

"I thought I was. Where are we going?"

"Away from people. I don't want them to think I'm trying to kill you while I'm setting that for you. So what exactly happened to your arm?"

"It had a little run in with a big stick."

"Someone had a big stick?" You sounded angry which I could understand. If someone had been planning to attack me with a big stick I'd be angry too.

"Actually, all six of them had big sticks."

"And you're not dead?" Then you did something that made the arm worth it; you hugged me. Searing pain shot up my arm, but it didn't matter. You hugged me. It was a very brief hug, but I knew I'd be able to feel it for the rest of my life.

Almost before you had hugged me you were back to your normal unfeeling state of being. I realized I had been allowed a glimpse into something rarely seen.

"This is going to hurt."

"It doesn't already?"

"It'll hurt more." And with no more warning than that you took hold of my injured arm and shattered it. That's what it felt like, at least. I think I screamed, but I'm not entirely sure of that, I was in too much pain to hear. I didn't pass out, but I didn't notice anything going on around me, all I knew was pain.

You took me back to your stores of awful smelling and tasting liquids and powders that were supposed to make me better. Only after I had drunk whatever it was that you gave me did I notice that you had splinted my arm and removed the splinters from my other hand.

That stuff you gave me must have made me sleep because everything after you took the cup away from me is gone.

I woke in the morning in my own tent. You must have carried me there because I had no memory of going there on my own. I had a tent to myself because my mother didn't want anything to do with me, and her husband refused to look at me.

I sat up and found a bouquet of red roses that were resting next to where I had been sleeping. I didn't know where you could have gotten roses. None grew in the area. Finding roses at all was impressive, but finding them in the blood red colour these were amazed me.

Reaching out one finger I touched the velvety petals lightly before picking up the whole bunch, breathing in the beautiful scent. From that moment on red roses would always be a symbol of you.

I dressed quickly, the pain in my arm definitely making itself known, but its screaming was significantly quieter than it had been the day before, telling me what a miracle worker you really were. I went to you, leaving the roses on my pillow.

As I wandered my way to you I listened to the people in the camp talk. It was a habit of mine. I liked to know what was going on and I knew that if I asked no one would answer me. Listening carefully, hearing only what I deemed important I managed to overhear that six of the older boys had mysteriously taken ill the day before and could now hardly get out of bed, one being Riska. I had to work very hard to hide the smirk that was forming on my face as I entered your tent.

"Angelique, you appear to be in the same condition I left you yesterday. I'm impressed."

"I was just marveling at these new illnesses and how quickly they strike. Did you hear that we had an outbreak?" I grinned.

"Oh really?"

"Six yesterday alone. Can you imagine that?” I could see the amusement in your eyes and I couldn’t help but laugh. You laughed too and the sound caused my knees to give out. Hearing that sound, that raw, liquid power I couldn’t support myself anymore and I sank to the ground. Stopping, you looked at me funny.

“Don’t stop,” I whispered, but I don’t think you heard me. “You should laugh more often. It makes you sound…” perfect, I thought, divine, “lighter.” Smiling up at you from where I had fallen I shifted myself into a more comfortable sitting position.

"How would you like to start your lessons today?" Not trusting my tongue at that point I could only nod. You sat down in front of me. "I have to hear you sing before we can really start anything. I have to know what you can do, what I'm working with." My stomach turned over and my throat seized up. I had been expecting to have to sing for you, but this was a surprise. I wasn't expecting it so soon and I wasn't ready.

I sat up straight, took a deep breath, opened my mouth and nothing came out. Instead, I started coughing. You looked at me kind of funny, but you didn't say anything. Once I could breathe again I readjusted myself so I could try again. This time it worked.

I had never sounded so good in my life. I sang something that I had grown up knowing so I wouldn't have to fear making mistakes. Not thinking about what I was doing helped. If I thought about it I knew I would mess myself up and I didn't want to do that.

When I finished I hung my head in shame. Your ears should never have been assaulted by the screeching I was making. You were better than that and should not have been made to listen to one as unworthy as myself pretending to be worth something.

I chanced to look up at you and was surprised to find that you didn't look upset or even disappointed.

"You have a beautiful voice. I don't think you quite know what to do with it yet. Not that you're doing anything particularly wrong. You're just untrained."

I turned wide eyes up at you. "I know I'm not any good."

"That's not true. Why don't we start with some warm-ups?" I felt as though my stomach had taken a permanent vacation and taken my backbone with it. I started to cough again. "Are you all right?"

"Fine. I do that when I get nervous."

"What are you nervous about?"

I looked into your eyes and tried to find my tongue to ask what I had wanted to ask for so long, but I think I lost myself along the way.

"Will you take off your mask?" I managed to get out between coughs.

"What? No!" The panic in your voice was very clear and I feared that I had very neatly shut myself out of your life forever. "That's asking too much. Why my mask?"

"Because I want to be able to look into your eyes without looking through that awful mask first. I want to be able to watch your mouth move. I want to learn everything." Your hands went to your mask defensively and I could see you shutting me out.

"You'll learn too much." I knew you didn't mean my singing.

I tried to look comforting. "You can never learn too much," I said quietly.

You were struggling with yourself, that much was evident in everything you did; from the way you were clutching the edges of your mask with those thin, cold hands. I wanted to say something, to do something that would help, but I knew that if I were to even breathe the wrong way you would decide and shatter me, so I held myself still.

Finally you ripped the mask from your face with what seemed to be almost the hope that I would run screaming and end it all.

You were tensed to flee, to escape me and my fear if need be. I reached out a hand and you stiffened. My fingers brushed up against your face lightly, stroking that yellow, parchment paper skin. Careful not to miss anything I caressed your face, running my fingertips over your cheeks, your closed eyes, your lips, the place where your nose should have been, everything. Finally, satisfied I had missed nothing I drew my fingers away.

"Thank you," I breathed. "Now we can start."

You sat for a long time without making a sound. A fine tremor ran through your body. You sat that way for so long I became frightened. I began to fear there was something terribly wrong with you, something I didn't know how to fix. Just as I was about to really start panicking you gave a huge sigh, seeming to breathe the life back into yourself and wake up.

You began to teach me warm-ups without a word. Nothing needed to be said. The look in your eyes said everything. You were mine, but more importantly, I was yours.

Tradition was born in that instant. I had lessons every day, but I wouldn't sing while you wore that mask and you wouldn't remove it unless I asked. Some days I would make you sit there for a long time before putting forth my request. Once asked you would remove that dreadful second skin of yours and allow my fingers to see your beauty through your face before we began. Then we would sing for however long you thought we should. I never tired of singing or listening to you. We went on that way for two year. Two years while we grew closer, came to trust each other more.

Your voice sent me flying day after day as my voice mingled with yours, intertwining with that divine instrument of yours. I gave myself to you time after time, every day. There was no way I could show you what you meant to me; there were no words for it.

One night while I was watching the dancing I happened to see you wander off. Knowing you were not too fond of the dancing I let you go. Settling back I watched for a while, sometimes joining in, listening to the music.

It was a long time before I saw you slinking back into the camp. Most everyone was asleep and didn't see. Then I heard the scream I stood frozen in place, not knowing which way to go; to find you or follow the people who went to see what happened. If I went to you they would find you, and I was pretty sure that was the last thing you wanted to happen, but I didn't want to know what the screaming was about. Scared and confused I stayed where I was and so I saw you come out of your tent looking very different, changed in a way I couldn't understand.

"Erik," I cried, running over to you. "What happened?"

"I'm leaving."

I went numb. You couldn't leave me behind; not after everything I had gone through for you. My stomach lurched and quavered. "Why?"

"Because I don't want to stay anymore. I don't need the confinements of the camp any longer. It's time I move on."

"Take me with you."

"No. I don't need them thinking that I kidnapped you and coming after me."

"They won't even notice I'm gone. They don't notice me at all."

"No."

"I'll die if you don't take me with you." I had no control over my tongue. The words had come out of my mouth before I had even realized I had thought them.

"You won't die if I leave you here, Angelique. It's impossible." You walked away from me without even saying goodbye. Sobbing, I stumbled into your tent. I nearly tripped over the body of Javert, but I hardly noticed it. All I knew what that you were leaving me alone.

I began pulling bottles of what I hoped was poison from your stores of liquids and powders. Determined not to live without you I began mixing everything I could get my hands on in a cup.

My concoction tasted terrible, but I hardly noticed. I just kept your voice in my ears and your face in my mind until everything went black.

When I opened my eyes I could hear the men of my band all doing something. That was unusual since they almost never all worked together on one task. They were all too busy with their own little tasks to concern themselves with helping each other, friendly though they all were. It took me a minute to realize I was lying on the ground outside. Sneaking over to the men I saw that they were digging what looked to be a grave.

"She was kind to him and he killed her," I heard someone say.

"At least he didn't do to her what he did to me. I'd rather be dead," I heard one of the young girls say.

"I know, darling. It's not your fault. We all knew he was a monster, we just didn't know how sick he was. None of us thought he would rape one girl and kill another or we wouldn't have let him in our camp. We would have just killed him and moved on."

I was shocked. They thought you had raped her and killed me. That would explain the scream. She must have met with a lover who had left her, and rather than take the punishment she cried rape on you. That was the only thing I could think of because I knew you wouldn't do that to anyone. No wonder you left.

They continued to dig my grave. The only problem with that was that I wasn't dead. Slipping away as quickly as was possible without being seen I gathered up as much food and water as I could, and a few changes of clothing and packed it all onto a horse. Everyone was so used to ignoring me that no one noticed the little ghost moving through the camp coughing.

Once everything was carefully secured to the chestnut mare I had stolen I set out, away from the camp, never looking back. I would find you if it took me the rest of eternity. The world wasn't that big. My world consisted only of you.

"Then my world was shattered..."

I shattered you. Every time I thought about you I shattered you again. I smashed your beauty, your grace, your elegance into thousands of little pieces. You always seemed so gentle to me, but in the end I discovered just how cruel you could be. I picked up your pieces and cut myself with them. I wanted to bleed, wanted to slash every memory I had, to never have to think again. Then there you were smiling at me with that smile that only I saw, showing me, teaching me. I could taste you in my mind and breathe you in my thoughts and I couldn't take being alone any more, so I shattered you. Now the only thing left is your voice. I can't bring myself to break that, too. Destroying that which made you divine was beyond me. My ears would cherish that sound forever, even while my heart weeps at your memory broken and put back together so many times in my mind.

How I worshipped you. Had I held you up to the sun you would have been brighter, would have been more. You were what made it day, not the cruel heat and unrelenting glare of the sun. I didn't want to hold you up to that blinding brightness, though. I wanted to hold you up to the moon to prove to you the beauty that you could never see in yourself. I would have held you up to the moon, too, but you wouldn't let me. Every time I tried you fled. You feared to fly, so I had to fly for both of us. I would have flown for you if only you hadn't taken my wings. I could have flown for you if only you would have sung for me. You wouldn't sing for me anymore, so I shattered you.

Time and space don't exist in that which is my mind. All that is left in there are the broken fragments of my dream, of you. I took the glistening shards out and tried to piece them back together, but they wouldn't fit. There were too many pieces to make one dream. I needed your voice to put them back where they belonged, but all I had were vague echoes that bounced through the caverns of my broken dream.

Then I was dancing. Dancing to forget, dancing to lose the world, but most of all, dancing to remember. When I was dancing the dream became solid again. As I spun it spun, as I swirled it shimmered to life. All I had to do was dance and all the pieces fit, all the jagged edges smoothed together to form my world. The gyrating, spinning, swirling of my feet and the beating, pulsing of my body stopped and I shattered you.

I shattered you a thousand times over without meaning to. I didn't want to shatter you; you were my dream, my world, my angel, my god. You were the only thing that made me real in the crying deceitfulness that had been my life. All that kept me going were my memories, broken and bleeding though they were. No matter how many times I shattered you in my mind I will never hurt you like I hurt when you shattered me.

“...Wishing you were somehow here again
Wishing you were somehow near
Sometimes it seemed if I just dreamed
Somehow you would be here...”

Days faded to nights and back into days again. The only notice I took of the passage of time was that fading of light into darkness and the change of warm to cold. The turning of seasons was the only way I kept track of the passage of years, most of which slipped by uneventful.

I wanted your dragon. While in the camp the gypsies liked to tell stories about you. Yours was the name they frightened their children into obedience with. Your face was what haunted their nightmares. The most told tale, and I think some of them thought it to be true, was that you spent your nights riding through the air on the back of a dragon and that you had a cauldron that boiled thunder. I had always laughed at such fairy tales, but after many years of walking from country to country by myself I wanted that dragon. I didn't want to walk anymore. I wanted to be carried away to the land of the gods so I could find you, my god of music, and the only way to get there seemed to be on the back of that dragon.

I spent far too many lonely years wandering from place to place. Some nights I slept in caves with small fires burning to keep back the rain and cold, some nights I slept under the trees enjoying the stars and some nights I hid in abandoned buildings or people’s barns. I had become quite clever at opening locked doors. I also became quite good at thieving. Having no way to acquire money left me precious little choice. I had to eat somehow.

I lived alone for so many years I nearly forgot what it was like to be around real people. The only company I had for fifteen years was my memories of you. I could still see your face in every beautiful sight, still feel your beauty and your magic in everything I touched and I could hear you in every sound that came to my ears. I was deaf to the world for fifteen years, and all I could hear was hypnotic beauty.

Then, after all that time someone came along and shattered my silence filled with song and opened my ears to the harsh sounds of reality. But for fifteen years I never spoke or sang, I just danced my way through time, dancing to your voice in my mind.

“...Wishing I could hear your voice again
Knowing that I never would
Dreaming of you won’t help me to do
All that you dreamed I could...”

I opened the door to the barn as quietly as I could. I didn't want to wake anyone in the nearby house. The door swung open to reveal a faint light. I tried to duck back out quickly thinking it might be one of the owners, but the girl sitting by the light saw me. She looked just as startled as I was so I figured that she was just another traveler looking for a place to spend the night, in from the storm that was just starting outside.

Closing the door behind my horse and myself I went and sat by the other girl.

"Who are you?" she asked cautiously. I ignored her question and began digging through my packs for food, some of which I offered to her. She took what I handed her, but didn't eat. "Who are you, little girl?" Startled, I looked up from my food into her face. She didn't appear more than eighteen or nineteen and I was twenty-five by then. What was she doing calling me little girl? It was true I had only started getting my blood flow a few years before, but I was just slow. Besides, she didn't know that.

I got up, went outside and looked into one of the puddles that had formed. She was right, I looked like a little girl. I didn't appear to be any older than perhaps fifteen. I couldn't be that young. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized I probably could be. With my blood flows being so new and having just really finished growing it seemed that I really was that young.

I couldn't figure out how it had happened, but apparently something had slowed my aging down. Thoughtful, I went back inside, heedless of the water running down my face, trying to remember something that could have done it. The only thing I could come up with was the stuff I drank the night you left me alone. Somehow I had managed to slow my own aging process.

"What's wrong with you?"

I closed the door behind me and sat down. The food I had taken out went completely unnoticed as I thought about what happened. You were almost thirty and I was barely fifteen. If I ever found you again you wouldn't know me. It was bad enough my hair had gone from really light brown to dark auburn and my eyes had gone from grey to green. Both things I had also noticed when I looked at my face in the water.

"Can't you talk? Are you dumb?"

"Of course I can talk!" That's what I tried to say. However, the fifteen years I had spent not speaking had affected me and I couldn't get the words out. I had no voice, which meant I couldn't sing. After fifteen years of not singing that shouldn't have bothered me, but as soon as I realized that I couldn't do it I felt the need like the need for food for a starving man. The longing to sing pressed down on me, crushing me with the weight of my loneliness. I began to cough.

"Are you all right?" asked the other girl. I nodded, but I couldn't stop coughing. "You don't sound all right."

"I'm fine." I just barely managed to croak the words out. Once I realized I could make some sound, though, my coughing lessened. As well as I could considering my lack of voice I began to run through some vocal warm-ups you had taught me. The girl sitting next to me watched me like I had gone mad, but I continued, ignoring her, hoping to loosen my voice.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, but was probably no more than an hour, I began to feel better. Opening my mouth I chanced a few notes. The came out clean and clear. I sighed and smiled.

"I'm sorry. It's been a while since I've spoken with anyone, and it seems my voice had forgotten how. I'm Angelique." After even that small amount of speech my voice hurt.

"I'm Tali." She looked again at the food I had given her, but she still wouldn't eat it. Sighing I picked up a stick and scratched "it's safe" in the dirt.

Along with teaching me to sing you had taught me to read and write, a fact for which I was very grateful quite frequently. Tali looked at me like I might pounce on her at any second, but finally her stomach won out and she nibbled on the bread. After a few minutes in which nothing happened to her from eating it she took a real bite. I did the same, letting the food sink down into my stomach and warm me a little. It had been a while since I had really stopped to eat.

"So, what is someone as young as you doing traveling all by herself through this part of the world?" Tali asked around a mouthful of cheese.

"Just wandering," I mumbled. I didn't want to ruin my voice. All I wanted anymore was to sing. If I couldn't sing for you, at least I would sing for your memory. Tali continued to plague me with questions that I couldn't help but answer until my voice started to come more easily. By the time we slept I felt like I was whole again. In the morning I would try a song.

When the sun came up Tali was already up and was making breakfast. While she was serving me the first hot food I had had in weeks she told me that she had decided that we should travel together for a while. How this conclusion was come to without me still puzzles me, but since the decision was made who was I to argue with logic? All right, so I was one to argue with it, and argue with it I did, but to no avail. She still insisted that she was coming with me and that was the end of that.

There was only one horse between us, and since I was riding I could have easily left her behind, but as much as I complained about having a shadow I didn't mind all that much. It had been fifteen years since I had spent any time with people and if I wasn't careful I was going to end up like you. I might have loved you, but I didn't feel the need to have your social skills. So I didn't run her off, but instead kept her company with constant complaints, which soon lead to bickering. We did okay, in the end, but we probably would have been better had we not kept company. I wasn't too fond of her theories on decision making, which were she made them and then I agreed or she would make me agree. She wasn't too happy with my methods of procuring supplies. When one has no need for people one has no need for their laws, but for some reason she didn't see it that way. Our constant squabbling, however, gave us both something we sorely needed, companionship. We both gladly put up with each other just to avoid being alone again.

Some nights we were even friendly. She would cook a hot dinner and I would sing for her. Sometimes I would even dance for her, but not like I would have danced for you. I had perfected my dancing in the fifteen years I been alone and practicing, but I would do that for no one but you.

One night a few months after we had started traveling together we were taking refuge in an abandoned barn. Parts of the roof were caved in, but it was a dry night, so we didn't mind too much. It kept us out of the wind and kept most of the bugs off while we slept. The dirt under us was hard packed and full of stones, but we had grown accustomed to harsh sleeping conditions. There was a faint light and we sat talking well into the night. It was nice to have someone to talk to again, so I looked for anything to talk about, just to keep talking a little longer. The air was crisp and we huddled around the small fire we had built. It wasn't too bad a night. I was just working up the nerve to tell her a little about you when there came noise from outside. Fear that maybe whoever had owned this barn was out there and would find us borrowing the sleeping space held us still. With our tongues frozen and our hearts pounding we slipped to the door to see if we could catch sight of who was out there.

Through the crack in the doorway we heard not one, but the voices of many. Perhaps a traveling gypsy camp passing through. Tali's eyes went wide and she put a hand to her throat.

"What is it?" I whispered a hint of panic sneaking into my voice.

Stepping aside so that I might look she pointed to what appeared to be the leader of this not so small band of gypsies. "Isn't he beautiful?" she breathed. What I saw made my heart freeze. He was beautiful, all right. His dark hair was thick and his face all angles. The muscles in his arms were prominent through his shirtsleeves. He stood with the lounging grace of a man who knew what he was about, and liked it. His confidence, and conceit, carried through the air like a scent that was beginning to foul, or a strain of music that had gone slightly off key. I had to tear my eyes away before they betrayed me. I knew that face too well. It had haunted my every nightmare. That was the face of death. That was the face of a little boy who killed innocent people if they weren't pretty enough, the face of a young man who had grown in power such that none could challenge him again. The last time I had seen that face it had been laughing as a large stick came crashing down to shatter my arm. These were my people, and these were the ones I feared most in the world.

Shuddering, I crashed back into the barn, away from the door. I tipped over a rusty bucket that had been placed next to the entranceway and forgotten along with everything else in the place. The clatter it made as it fell to its side was like some unleashed demon trying to ruin me. If I were caught, if I were seen, that would be the end of everything. There was a chance, they were all so used to overlooking me, and now they might not even recognize me, so perhaps I could get away safely, but it was too much of a chance to risk it. I went and sat by the fire again leaving Tali to listen at the door, her eyes never straying from the monster that sat out there.

"Why don't you come back in here and leave them alone," I pleaded, but to no avail.

"Shhh, he's about to start telling stories."

I wanted to hear what he had to say as much as she did. His stories had never been more than puffed up accounts of his bravery, and I wanted to see if he had changed any over the years.

"This happened long ago, must be fifteen years by now, when I was just young. In our camp there was a man named Javert, and he had a nose for money like none of our kind ever did. He was gorgio, and I never knew why no one killed him, that was all fought out before my time.

"Now, Javert had taken over the job of making us money from all the other crawling gorgio. He always had some sideshow or another living in our camp to draw in the paying crowds and they always came. One time he out did himself by far. He brought a living corps to the camp and kept him locked in a cage. People from all over paying to see this monster.

"This demon child had no nose, and his skin was so thin and yellow that he looked like he had been dead a week. He was thin enough that I could have snapped him in half with my bare hands, and he was taller than anyone his age should have been. When he came he wore a mask of white leather to hide his evil face, but we all knew him for the devil that he was. He was kept in a cage and fed from a bucket. Javert, who knew his audiences, had a coffin placed in the cage with him to heighten the effect, and it worked. The crowds flocked in and the children screamed, and the women swooned. No one could stand to look upon his foul face, and Javert was the only one who wanted to keep him around. Javert was the only one who thought the money more important than the safety of our band.

"This foul creature sent from Hell was able to do one thing, he could sing. His voice came straight from the darkest pit in the evilest corners of Hell because there was no other way for such an abomination to have a voice that seductive. It could have sung the sun down in to his hands if he wanted to, and he wanted to. Using the evil magic of his voice he seduced one of the little girls of our band, some of you might remember her, her name was... was... no one can remember that now. She never wanted anything to do with us once he had taken control of her, and she spent her time trying to free the monster. None of us could stop her, and in the end she succeeded in releasing him, and for her trouble he killed her. Once she was dead and he was free he killed Javert, stole a horse and fled.

"I couldn't let such an evil creature loose on the world, not after it had proved it could kill, so I took a horse and chased him down. He put up a good fight, but in the end I killed him. Used his own knife to pierce his black heart. That is how we came to be a free band again, not under the fear that he may someday return and kill us all in our sleep." The gathered group of gypsies were all motionless. The horror must have held them there, because it certainly wasn't his story telling abilities that did. Finally someone coughed and the mood was broken. Then the instruments came out and the ladies prepared to dance. I withdrew from the doorway once more, this time careful not to knock into anything, and huddled down into myself.

What if what he said was true? What if you really were dead? I couldn't stand not knowing. He might have done as he said and then all my searching would be in vain. There was no way to know for sure, but I couldn't let his words go unanswered. Someone had to let him know they heard what he said - and didn't like it.

"How brave he must have been, to face a killer like that when he was that young," Tali gushed. "And that poor little girl, under an evil spell and killed for her efforts. What an amazing man."

"If you like the lying, cowardly kind," I blurted before I could stop myself.

"What do you mean by that? How dare you, going around throwing accusations about something you know nothing about."

"Why don't you keep your nose out of things that don't concern you! This has nothing to do with you, and you don't want it to." I began digging through my bags for something I had picked up on a whim. I knew I would never do the drugs associated with it, but for some reason I had bought the syringe anyway, and now an idea was forming in my head. It would probably be better if Tali and I parted company after tonight, so perhaps this fight wasn't as ill timed as I thought.

"You say things that you know nothing about. He sounded like a gentle man who killed a monster to save his people."

"He is not gentle, and nothing he says is true. He beat the little girl for wanting to help a child locked in a cage, and took six boys with large sticks to try and kill the poor boy, and then murdered a little boy with the voice of an angel simply because he didn't have the face of one. How dare you accuse me of insensitivity, I was there!" I found the syringe and tucked it up my sleeve. It wouldn't be of any use until everyone was asleep.

"You couldn't have been there, you're too young to have been alive that many years ago. You're just a heartless witch who can't stand to hear a tale of heroics because you're such a coward."

"So be it. I'll be gone when you wake in the morning... if you wake in the morning." And with that I slipped to the back of the barn to gather my things together. I would be gone with first light.

Once Tali and everyone outside had fallen asleep I crept out of the barn syringe in hand. It would be so easy to kill him. All I had to do was inject him with some air and it would kill him. Fatal heart attack. I had no idea why it worked, but somehow I knew it did.

The needle slipped in his arm with no effort at all, and within minutes he would be dead, and I would be gone. My horse was waiting and I wasn't going to stay there just to see my handiwork. That was the path of fools. I knew I had done what I could, seeing the rest out was pure folly. I was on my way again before the sun graced the campsite, all alone.

Very quickly I found myself in the company of a traveling fair. It seemed that my time spent with Tali had taken its toll. I wanted companionship. The fairs were small and in a state of disrepute that would have made even Javert shudder, so I never stayed with one for long. Passing from fair to fair, dancing, I made my way through most of the countries in Europe.

Eventually I found a semi-permanent situation. The show I was traveling with was larger, cleaner and more respectable, so I felt much less of a need to move on. I danced two shows a day for groups of gawking men and only sang for myself, at night when everyone was sleeping. Months passed this way and finally we settled in Rome. We were to pause there for three weeks knowing that the crowds would be good.

Something about the streets of Rome called to me, as if they had a secret they wanted to share. I knew I wouldn’t have the time to explore before my first performance, but the second wasn’t until late, and the next day was my day off. I spun through my dances hardly aware of the slobbering attentions I was getting, and hardly before my feet had stopped spinning I was off and lost in the throngs of people wandering the streets.

I traversed the city with my eyes on the buildings. The architecture here could have drawn even your eye for beauty. It was nearly nightfall before I could tear my eyes away from the structures that just kept appearing before my eyes. I hadn’t noticed that I had missed my second performance, but had I noticed I don’t think I would have cared. My feet took over and carried me wherever they wanted to go. Just as the sun sank into slumber allowing the moon to fully wake I had walked into a graveyard. The headstones where ghostly in the pale light and it was very still. I sat against the base of a tree to sit and think, but my musings were interrupted by the one other figure there. He was a very old man, nearing eighty, and he was bent over the headstone of what I assumed must have been his wife. When he looked up his eyes met mine and I started. This was a man who had known you.

I stood slowly, my cream dancing dress fluttering around my bare legs, my hair falling in curling wisps around my face. He stood watching until I had crossed the space between us and could look him full in the face. There was no good reason for why this man wasn’t dead yet. The years had caught up with him and passed him by and still he stood. I touched the little vial I had taken to wearing around my neck. If anyone needed what was in it this man did. It wasn’t going to do me any good.

“You knew him, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Knew who? Who are you?”

“I’m Angelique.”

“I’m Giovanni.”

“If you had met him you would know who I referred to.”

“Erik?”

“Erik. I could see it in your eyes. When did you see him? How is he? Where is he?” I was positively bursting with the fact that you weren’t dead, but in fact still out there for me to find.

“Are you a ghost?” he asked, suddenly.

“No, just a memory.”

“You look so like my daughter. Her hair was darker, not so curly, but she had the same look about her face, the same eyes.”

“Is your daughter back at home?” I asked politely.

“She’s dead. I killed her.”

I started. Surely he didn’t mean that.

“Oh, I didn’t push her off the roof, but it was my ignorance that killed her in the end, anyway. Do you have someplace to stay? I would like very much for someone to talk to.”

“I dance with the fair, but I don’t really feel like going back right now. If you would have me I would be delighted to talk with you.”

Nodding, he walked off and I assumed I was to follow. He led me to a lovely house with a garden growing upon the roof. I was brought into a small sitting room where he sat and waved a hand at me to do the same. Silence sank into the room as I politely waited for him to speak.

“I used to sit up nights in this room and listen to him play the old spinet. That was one of the things that drew my daughter to him, the music... and the mask. Throw in his seeming indifference to her beauty and she was obsessed with making him notice her. She did everything in her way to be cruel to him.” My hands clenched, but I was not about to speak out about a man’s dead daughter in his own home. “Finally it came down to the mask. She had to see what was underneath, and I couldn’t let things go on any longer. He loved her as much as she loved the mystery of him, but he was too much the gentleman, and too afraid, to ever show it. I asked if he would show her. I think something in him snapped. He showed her, and the sight panicked her and she fell from the roof... so you see, in the end it was my insistence that killed her, since he would never have removed the mask had I not asked. After that he fled, and I never heard from him again.” He paused and buried his face in his hand for a minute. “He had such a love for beauty, and such a good soul. He should have been my son.” This last was whispered to himself, but I heard anyway.

“Erik stayed here?” I paused to let that sink in. You had been there. “He always had a love of beauty and fine things. He had endless patience for something that was worth something to him, and he would do anything for the people who made sure the mask didn’t matter. When he was younger he was captured by a traveling gypsy band and put on display in a cage with a coffin and a bed made from a pile of straw. They called him the living corps and tied him to the bars so he couldn’t hide his face when people came to see. Finally he had to kill one of them to escape. He feels he has no dignity without the mask. He will never believe that the sickness lies in others, not himself.”

“I see you knew him well.”

“I was a child in the gypsy camp. He taught me to sing.”

I couldn’t say any more after that. There was nothing left to say. We sat in silence remembering together for a time, then he rose and showed me to a doorway.

“You may stay down here. It’s all fixed up, and I’m sorry to say there are no other rooms you can use. I’ve long since closed up Luciana’s room.”

I nodded and let myself down without making him climb down the stairs. The room at the bottom of the stairs felt so much like home that I considered not getting up in the morning, not going back to the fair, and not ever leaving again. The walls were lined with shelves, all full of strange contraptions I could never hope to figure out. I knew where you had stayed, and as I slipped into the bed that had once been yours I strengthened my determination to find you, not just for myself anymore, but for the man who would have been your father.

In the morning I rose before the sun had come up. Removing the vial I had strung around my neck I placed it on the table with a note.

I’m sorry I had to leave in such a hurry. You were more than kind to me last night. However, if I hadn’t left when I did I’m not sure I ever would have again. Don’t blame yourself for the death of your daughter, no one could have predicted the series of events that came about. Just remember that you were loved.

Angelique

PS In this vial contains something that Erik gave me. It will help with the pains of old age. Take it and remember him for a long time to come.

Then I fled as quickly as I could; leaving behind the last of my potion that had slowed my aging to what it was. Maybe he would live to see the day when all guilt could be left behind, not just for his daughter, but for his son.

When I rejoined the fair I had every intention of finishing out the week and moving on, but something kept me from leaving. In fact, I continued to dance with them for many years to come, never quite able to find an excuse to leave. It was twenty-seven years before I finally left them.

“...Passing bells and sculpted angels
Cold and monumental
Seemed for you the wrong companions
You were warm and gentle...”

I woke that morning with a shudder. It was all I could do to make myself get out from under my blanket. When I looked outside the snow was falling in soft white boulders that looked like one would want to avoid getting hit in the head with them. In short, I did not feel like dancing in a sleeveless dress that only hung to the bottoms of my knees for a crowd of insolent young men who would all be dressed warmly and would be looking to warm me up when I was finished. But rather than lose my job - and my source of regular meals – I got myself up and dressed in my not so weather appropriate costume.

The crowd was waiting for me when I emerged into the frozen world of spectators. Even snows wouldn’t keep over enthusiastic boys from my performances. Removing my shawl and handing it to a rather handsome, but far too eager young man I took up my position and began to dance.

Normally, when I dance I shut out everything else and let movement take over. However, this time someone caught my eye. Standing towards the front of the crowd bouncing up and down and clapping her gloved hands together to keep herself warm was a young girl who couldn’t have been any older than thirteen. She wore a wool coat over her dress, wool stockings in ankle boots and a wool scarf wrapped around her head and neck. Her eyes were wide with wonder and she appeared to be alone.

When I was finished with my show for the day I collected my shawl and headed her way.

“Hello,” I said casually.

“Hello. That was amazing. I’ve never seen dancing like that before. I’m a dancer, but I don’t dance like that.” If she had spoken any faster I don’t think I would have understood a single word. Since she was young I was willing to overlook things like rapid speech and babbling to fill my need for talk. Somehow, once I had abandoned my life as a lone traveler I had never been able to reclaim it and I craved conversation.

“What kind of dance do you do?”

“I’m a ballerina at the Paris Opera House. My mother is box keeper and... Oh no! Mother! I was supposed to meet her.” A look of dread flickered across her face and I smiled.

“I’ll walk with you, I’d like to hear about this Opera House. I might be looking for a new job.” We walked a bit, crunching through the snow and I stopped at a vendor and bought us both some hot bread and some mulled wine for myself. I was definitely interested in a job that didn’t insist I get up on cold mornings and dance outside half-naked.

“I don’t think they need dancers like you there. I don’t know what they would do with you.”

“Oh. Well, in that-”

“There’s Mother,” She cut in, pointing a finger at a plane faced older woman who was looking exceedingly put out at the moment.

“Meg Giry, where have you been?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry, Madame,” I cut in before Meg could open her mouth. “I detained your daughter. I happened to find out that she danced at the Paris Opera House and I wanted to know more. I happen to be a singer in desperate need of a new job. Waking up to weather like this does not put one in the mind to perform outdoors at a traveling fair for much longer.” Mme Giry looked me up and down, her eyes plainly stating that she didn’t approve of the amount of leg I was showing. “It’s just a dance costume,” I hastened to assure her. “I don’t usually run around half-naked.”

She nodded curtly. “If you’d like I can get you in to see the managers, but I can promise nothing beyond that.”

“I would greatly appreciate that,” I said, flashing my sweetest smile. Even someone with as minimal influence as a box keeper on my side would be better than nothing would.

“Meg, why don’t you take your friend to the Opera House and show her around. I have some errands to run and I will talk with the managers when I return. Wait for me in your dressing room.” With that Mme Giry walked away leaving me with her daughter.

“Let’s go,” Meg said, taking my hand and leading me off, leaving me no chance to change. Instead I was forced to run through Paris freezing. The entire way there Meg kept up a constant stream of babble that I paid no attention to. Fortunately, it wasn’t far.

My first thoughts when I saw the Opera House were of you. As Meg brought me through the doors into the inner sanctum of this monument to music of the greatest kind, yours, I could see your mark upon everything. Your gentle touch was in every stone like a handprint. If you hadn’t built that place I was going crazy. I could feel you in it.

First my little guide took me into the theatre proper. It was a beautiful room and I wanted to walk around and touch everything, knowing you had been here, had touched it all, but I didn’t think that would look right with Meg waiting for me. Settling for running my hands over the walls as we left the room I followed Meg in the direction of her dressing room.

“I can’t show you everything. This place is too big. We should just go wait for my mother. I’ll show you the more interesting stuff if you’re here permanently. I have to get ready for rehearsal, anyway.”

I just nodded, but as we passed through a hall of dressing rooms I saw a timid young girl disappear into one of the rooms looking as if she were late for something.

“Who was that?” I whispered.

“That was Christine Daae, a chorus girl. She seems to have caught the fancy of the Opera Ghost.”

“Opera Ghost?” I asked, startled.

“Of course you wouldn’t know about the Phantom. He haunts the Opera House. Box five is for his personal use, and when he gets angry truly terrible things happen,” she said, smiling.

“Like what?”

“Once the floor of our dressing room ran with blood. Disembodies hands crawl across the stage. People disappear and sometimes, if you’re very quiet, you can hear him sing. He appears quite taken with Christine. Sometimes she disappears for days on end. She could only be with him.”

As we crept closer I discovered she was right. You could indeed hear the voice of this mysterious Opera Ghost. Meg opened her mouth to tell me more, but I silenced her with a sharp gesture. Cracking open the door to Christine’s dressing room I peered inside, much to Meg’s horror. From inside that room came the most glorious sound I had ever heard in my life, singing a song so achingly familiar it tugged at my heart. I wanted to join my voice with it in the counterpoint I knew to be waiting to be released. That song wrapped itself around every memory I had of you and squeezed until they exploded into thousands of colourful pieces. When you had sung for a little girl in a gypsy camp you gave her a child’s voice. Now, this insignificant piece of nothing got the voice of the man you had become, a voice that had the power to bring me to my knees, and I let it.

In the same instant I knew that I had found you I lost you. You had given your heart to someone else. My eyes stung, but I refused to let myself cry. You weren’t worth my tears. You gave her my song. I couldn’t believe that you would dare sing that for her, that you would give her the same song that was the first thing I had ever heard you sing, that night I had followed you to the edge of the world and asked you to sing for me once upon a time ago. Were the memories of me that insignificant to you?

Still watching I saw Christine vanish through the mirror and heard the last haunting strains of your voice fade away. I remained sitting, empty, on the cold floor until Meg’s hand touched my shoulder.

“Are you all right?” she asked. I nodded, forcing myself to my feet, hoping that nothing showed on my face. I would make you pay for that insult. “Doesn’t he have the most magnificent voice? I suppose it’s to hide the rest of him. He’s quite ugly. No nose, yellow skin, eyes that don’t match.” She spoke with a surprising enthusiasm for her subject matter, but before I could respond her mother came storming down the hall, and she looked livid.

“Meg Giry, you were supposed to wait for me in you room.”

“I’m sorry, Ma, we were listening to the Phantom.”

“And don’t you go angering the Phantom or you’ll be all the sorrier for it. Now get yourself off to rehearsal while I take your friend to the managers who have graciously agreed to hear her sing.” Meg ran off and her mother took me to a large office room with two men sitting in it. She showed me in and left.

They looked me up and down with undisguised interest. “I hear you’re looking for a place in our opera. What makes you think you’re worthy of our attention?” one of them asked, his eyes not quite on my face.

“Because I can sing better than anything you’ve got,” I said flat out. There was no point plying them with modesty since I had none. They would hire me or they wouldn’t. Either way it wouldn’t be based on my personality.

“I should like to hear that!” exclaimed the second man.

I nodded once and hit them with the full power of my voice, showing off the dexterity of my range, which was significantly more flexible than most since it had been pulled and stretched from an early age. I flooded their ears with crescendos and decrescendos, with embellishments and perfect pitch, with a sense of rhythm and style that was uncanny. I wasn’t one of their sopranos; a painted bird kept in a cage and trained to chirp on cue. I was a hunting hawk and I tore into their souls with my song. I had had a wonderful teacher once.

When I stopped they looked at each other.

“Not a chorus girl.”

“Certainly not. We’ll have to make her prima donna. Slowly, of course. Start her on small roles; give the audiences a taste of her first. We can’t just unleash her on the world with no warning.” I waited patiently while they decided how to best get their money’s worth out of me. “Of course, Mademoiselle...”

“Angelique,” I supplied.

“Mademoiselle Angelique. We’ll work you into the cast first thing tomorrow.”

I smiled and left the room. Trying to find my way through the maze of halls I passed back through the hall of dressing rooms that I had first seen Christine in. It seemed almost fitting that this time I should find her on her way out. As she disappeared around a corner I peered into her dressing room. It was empty. I let myself in, my eyes settling on the full-length mirror that was your portal into the world of Christine Daae. Finally, turning my back on a reflection I could no longer stand to look at, I sank to the floor crying.

“How could you?” I asked of the walls. “How could you forget? Am I truly that insignificant? How dare you insult me like this, make me break down? You aren’t worth my tears!” I spat, but inside I had to wonder, if you weren’t worth my tears why was I crying? Because you still had the power to hurt me, and I still had the pain to feel. I hated you because you could still make me cry.

“Damn you!” I cried and I would have gone on to yell and rage if I hadn’t heard the mirror swing open. Standing, I turned and found you standing before me. You had grown. I knew you would, but I wasn’t prepared for what you had grown into.

Beautiful angel.

“Beautiful?” You snarled. I must have spoken my words aloud. “Beautiful? You want to see beautiful?” You advanced on me until I was backed against the wall. Ripping the mask from your face you glared down at me. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Reaching up a hand to your cheek, brushing aside your anger, I smiled. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Your eyes went wide and you caught my hand in your fierce grip. I winced. “How dare you,” you growled.

“No. How dare you. I will not stand for being insulted that way. Take your hands off me now. If I bruise you will pay for it.”

“This is my theatre, and the managers listen to me unquestioningly. I could have you thrown out of here any time, so I’d be careful if I were you.”

“I doubt even you could make them get rid of me after the performance I just gave. I had the best teacher there ever was.” I looked up at you to see what that would do.

“You insolent child!” Your grip on me was quite painful at that point and a small whimper escaped my lips before I could stop it. “You don’t know what a real teacher is!”

“I had the best teacher to ever exist!” I cried. “You don’t know what I had once!”

“You ignorant little fool! You know nothing about real music. There is not a teacher in the world that can compare to what I know, and still you say you had the best. You’ve never heard real music!”

“Than show me real music. Sing for me, Erik.”

“How do you know my name?”

“You’re being terribly dense tonight, Erik dear. You told me your name a long time ago.”

For a moment a look of complete irrationality crossed your face. “Luciana?”

I sighed, tears forming in my eyes. It seemed you really had forgotten me. “No, Erik, I’m not Luciana. I guess I should go. I shouldn’t be alone with a man. It wouldn’t look good, even if they do think you’re a ghost. I don’t need to develop a reputation my first day here.”

“I hardly think anyone would come to that conclusion about you with me.” You went to put your mask back on, but I snatched it out of your hand. Your eyes flashed, but I held it away from you.

Reaching out fingers shaking with longing I ran them gently over your face, feeling you shiver under my touch. “Sing for me, Erik?” I asked softly.

“Angelique?” Your voice was full of wonder.

“I’m here Erik. It’s me.”

“How...?”

“I don’t know, but I’m here now.”

You reached out a hand to brush a stray curl from my face, but stopped yourself, as if touching me would cause me to vanish. Smiling, I handed you back your mask and turned to leave.

“I should go. I shouldn’t be here alone with you right now. I have rehearsal in the morning.”

“Where are you staying?” you asked quickly, before I could get to the door.

I hesitated. “...I don’t know.”

“Follow me.” I obeyed, following you through the mirror and through more passageways than I could comprehend at that time, until finally you led me into a suite of rooms. “These can be your rooms now.” I nodded and tumbled into bed, not even bothering to remove my dancing dress. The last thing I remember is falling asleep to the sound of your voice singing softly.

When I got up in the morning everything I had left at the fair was in my room. I was no longer in my dancing dress, but in my sleeping gown. My cheeks grew hot a the thought of you changing me, but when I pictured you trying to undress me without looking or touching me I started to laugh. Maybe I had done it myself during the night and didn’t remember. You wouldn’t have done it.

I looked in the closet and all of my clothing was hung nice and neat. I selected a gown at random and slipped it on before heading down to rehearsal.

The practice room was full when I got to it. Even the managers were there to introduce me to the rest of the performers. I got a very poorly concealed look of hate from one of singers, a woman named Carlotta. I hardly paid attention and sat after having received a copy of the score. Laughing, I noticed that my part was of a fairly significant size. The look on Carlotta’s face when she heard who this new girl would be playing was priceless. I knew who the prima donna here was.

Rehearsal was running smoothly with only the occasional death look from Carlotta. The real low point of the day was when I got to hear Christine sing. She had a flawless technique, I could find no fault with it, but she lacked any sort of emotion. She was a well trained machine, doing what she was trained to do perfectly, but mechanically. She was more of a zombie than a singer. I suppose the technique appealed o your sense of music, but she had no life in her. Hardly a match for your passions, your genius. There must be something about her I couldn’t see.

By the time rehearsal was over I was thoroughly convinced I had imagined seeing her with you. There was nothing to her but faultless skill. She was a piece of fluff! She wasn’t the kind of woman you deserved, but, then, who was I to say? I knew nothing about you anymore. You were as much a ghost to me as you were to any of these foolish believers. We were total strangers. She was the only woman who would ever know you. My eyes began to burn, but I hardened myself. Never in front of Christine!

Finally, she got up to leave, but the managers called her back. “Christine, would you be so kind as to teach our newest member the part of Margarita? She will be understudying from now on.”

“Of course,” she said smiling faintly at me.

Before I could think about what was happening everyone had left for the day and I was alone with the woman I hated most in the world.

“I will begin you on the fundamentals of the part, but I am supposed to meet with my teacher now and I don’t want to make him angry by being late.” Her eyes went a little wide at the thought and I started to laugh at her. “You find something amusing?” She sounded insulted.

“Just the fact that you’re so timid as to be afraid of your own vocal instructor.”

“If you had met him you wouldn’t laugh.”

I smiled indulgently, like I would at a small child. “Just because someone isn’t handsome doesn’t mean they’re horrible monsters.”

“How do you...?”

“Oh Dearie, everyone knows the Opera Ghost teaches you, and there are more gruesome descriptions of his face floating around this place than I could possibly believe in.”

“Don’t believe any of them,” she whispered and I shot an eyebrow up. “It’s much worse.”

“Tell me, Dearie, what does he look like? Tell me just what it takes to frighten the poor little mouse?”

“Don’t laugh, he looks like a man been dead a month.”

My mannered softened briefly. “He doesn’t treat you with the utmost respect?” I asked softly. “He isn’t a perfect gentleman?”

She put a hand to her cheek and looked away. I leaned back in my seat, almost lounging, and waited for her to respond.

“He’s very kind, but his temper is quick and violent. Sometimes I’m...why am I telling you this? He would be very angry with me if he knew I was speaking about him like this.”

I smiled at her. “Are you sure he doesn’t?” The look of terror that collided with her face was worth everything, even the possibility of your anger later. “And don’t worry about me, Dearie, I already know the part of Margarita.” It didn’t matter that I didn’t know the part, I would find a way to teach myself soon enough. It took her all of half a second to flee the room in tears, presumably to her dressing room to meet with her teacher of the violent temper.

As soon as I was alone in the room I started to laugh, the tears running down my face. She was so easily frightened; it wasn’t even much of a fight. She was so easy to upset, yet it was she who won. If I troubled her she would run to you and the thought of her doing so left me to cry alone.

Rising mechanically I stumbled back to my apartments, half blinded by pain. By the time I got my door open I had gotten my tears under control and composed myself a little. My door swung open with a creak to reveal you waiting for me, your eyes dark.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Oh wait, let me guess, the mouse went running from the big, scary cat?”

“What could she have possibly done to deserve your wrath?”

“Who? Your bit of fluff? Plenty.” I sighed. “Oh Erik, she’s not good enough for you. I’m just looking out for you like I used to.”

You stepped towards me, but I didn’t back up or flinch away. “I don’t need looking out for from a girl who doesn’t know me at all anymore. How would you know if she’s good enough for me? She sings like an angel.”

“If you can get enough life out of her to convince people she hasn’t died and become an angel for real. She’s a shadow marring the radiance of your genius and she can’t stop herself from shaking at the thought of what’s under your mask.” Reaching out a hand that was faster than you could stop I snatched that wretched piece of leather from your face. “Would you be able to be in a room with her like this without the fear that she would panic? Could you look at her without this protection and pretend no to see the fear and loathing in her eyes? You deceive yourself, my friend. Do you really want to live in a world of illusions for the rest of your life?”

“All I want is to be left alone to live my life with her.”

“Provided you can pry her away from her handsome, young viscount. Oh yes, I know all about him. In fact, I believe I saw him meeting her last night when she left you. Quite a good looking young man, if I do say so. I can understand why she’s taken with him. Nice face.” I watched as your face contorted with rage and you lifted a hand. “Go ahead, Erik, hit me. It won’t be the first time I’ve been struck, nor the last, I’m sure. Strike me down for the truth. If you can’t hear it you can’t live it!” Not moving I waited for the blow, even raising my face to meet it, but I didn’t come.

“It’s not the truth, she loves me,” you growled, grabbing your mask back and replacing it.

Weary, I sank into the couch and didn’t bother to look up when I spoke to you. “Perhaps she does. Maybe she does indeed love you. But then again, maybe she only loves your voice. Will you ever be sure?” Finally I looked up. “Either way she will never learn not to fear you.” I looked into your eyes and almost wept at the pain I saw there. “I will never think that you aren’t wasting your devotion on her, that you couldn’t do better, but for your sake I will hope that she comes to love you as much as you do her.”

“Thank you,” you said shortly before disappearing to comfort the distraught girl leaving no one to comfort me.

“But for my sake I hope she never does,” I whispered wrapping my arms around myself and wishing with everything in me that the arms weren’t mine.

I went through days of rehearsals with an outward appearance of normality even while weeping inside. What could I do? I had given my word, but that didn’t stop me from hating her. I wanted her to suffer as I suffered, to hurt, as I knew you did. I wanted her to know what it was like to want something more than life itself and not be able to have it. Longing can drive a person crazy after too long and she needed to know it.

Then one morning she didn’t show up to rehearsal. No one worried too much; it wasn’t the first time she had pulled a disappearing act. I worried. The thought of her alone down there with you was destroying me. I went through the day so preoccupied that by the end of it people were whispering about me behind my back. I didn’t care.

I found my way down through the trap doors and tumbled down farther and deeper into the pits of the Opera House. I didn’t know where I would find you, but I knew I would know when I was getting close. The sense of you grew stronger until I opened a door and found myself in a room of mirrors. It was hot, and I didn’t know how to get out. Sitting on the floor I waited to see what would come of my predicament.

I sat in the heat growing ever more certain that I would die in there and you would never notice me. I knew that you wanted nothing to do with me since you had found your Christine, but to let me die after all I had done for you? The metal tree was beginning to look more and more appealing, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t do it, that I would die of the heat before I would kill myself again.

Just as I was starting to doubt my ability to keep that promise the heat shut off and the wall swung open.

"How the hell did you get in there?" you asked as you poured me a glass of water.

“I thought I’d come for a visit. It’s not my fault your back door leads to that thing!” I said getting up and accepting the water, my legs shaking under me.

"Are you all right?" You asked automatically. "This really isn't a good time," you added under your breath.

“I’m sure,” I muttered, still trying to keep my balance. “Fine, I’ll go, if you would just point me in the direction of the real door!” I snapped. “Don’t worry, I won’t come back... ever! You won’t have to deal with me again.”

"Oh, no, you don't!" You replied, deftly catching me as I swayed to one side. "You are staying right here until you get your feet back under you." You deposited me in a chair and poured me another glass of water.

"Erik?" came a voice from the next room.

Erik bit his lip and swore. "Shit."

I knew I promised not to do this, but I didn’t think I could make it back to my rooms now if I wanted to. My legs were shaking something fierce, and my head was spinning. Still, I tried to stand. “I’m not welcome, I’ll go now before it’s too late for you...”

"Christine!"

Christine walked into the room, but stopped in the doorway when she saw who was there. “What is she doing here?” she asked, her voice shaking a little.

"Visiting," you said smoothly, after a moment. "Angelique and I are old friends. I believe she may have mentioned me once or twice in the context of your working relationship."

I smiled at Christine, but not a terribly friendly smile. “I thought I’d drop in and say hello. I haven’t seen Erik since we were children.” I waited to see what Christine’s reaction would be to my having known her Angel of Music since he was a child. “That’s where I learned to sing,” I added as an afterthought.

"Flaunting your talents, as usual," you said, teasingly. You stopped when he saw the stricken look on Christine's face.

“If you have them, why not?” I asked with a little laugh. I couldn’t have you, but I could make her doubt. I wasn’t giving up without a fight.

“Should I leave you two alone, now?” Christine asked, looking like she might be sick.

"No, of course not," you said cordially. "Angelique was just leaving." To me, you said, "You did drop in at a rather inconvenient time." Your tone was apologetic. "But you knew damn well she was here. Come back when she's gone back to the Opera. We can talk then."

“Of course,” I said bitterly. “Whenever is most convenient for you, old friend. Maybe you should warn me when I’m allowed to have a social life and when I can’t talk to my friends, so I don’t mess up again.” I got to my feet a little shakily and tried to stalk off, but my exit was marred by the fact I didn’t know where I was going.

You touched my shoulder gently. "The front door is that way," you said softly, pointing.

I turned and left without so much as saying goodbye. What did it matter? No one would care if I did. Not to mention I didn’t trust myself to speak. I had no idea what might come out of my mouth at that moment, but whatever it was I was sure I would regret it later, so I kept my mouth shut.

I found my way back up to my rooms without thinking, without seeing and without knowing anything. If someone had asked me I couldn’t have told them how I did it. I had no knowledge of me feet moving or of the world going by me. All I knew was that no one wanted me. No one ever would. Who would want a lying, thieving, flaunting old woman in a little girl’s body? There was nothing worth noticing about me, nothing good enough to catch the attention of anyone who mattered, least of all the only person who would ever truly mean anything. What had I done to drive you away so thoroughly? She would win simply because you wanted nothing to do with me, not for lack of trying on my part. How I hated her... and you... for what had been done to me. In the course of a week I had gone from a self-assured, confident, proud young woman to an abandoned child, left alone because she had been bad. I wasn’t a good girl. No wonder no one wanted anything to do with me. Maybe they were all right. Maybe I really wasn’t worth the attention. I wasn’t worth anything. No one could stand me and they were right. I wasn’t good enough to be part of the human world anymore. I had been apart from it for so long I couldn’t rejoin it, I couldn’t even be part of the life of someone who had removed himself from the human race a long time ago. I just didn’t know how to be good enough anymore. Maybe I should just die. The torture chamber couldn’t do it, but one word from you could. One word or look from you and I knew how little my life was worth. Suddenly I wanted that metal tree. It would have been real handy.

All of this went through my head in the space of a few seconds. I started thinking about the same time I got my door open and by the time I had it closed behind me I was ready to run back down all those stairs I had come up and lock myself back in the torture chamber to die. Maybe this time you would even leave me in there for disturbing you twice in one night. I was quite sure that would be the best solution for everyone.

I slumped against the door sobbing, my thoughts running wild. I couldn’t even lift my head I was so weak with shame and rejection. Occasionally I hit my head against the wall to remind myself I was still alive and this wasn’t some bad dream. However, quite soon it was a dream, a very real one as I fell asleep.

When I woke in the morning I was near screaming from dreaming about you with her all the time. I didn’t want to close my eyes because that was all I could see. It hurt too much to close my eyes, but it hurt to keep them open, they were puffy from falling asleep crying the night before. I couldn’t stand at all and my arm hurt from being leaned on all night. I wasn’t sure if it would ever move again.

Finally I gave up all hope of going to rehearsal and curled up on the floor. There was no way I was moving any time soon. In fact, I was still there come nightfall. I hadn’t eaten anything, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about much of anything. My hair was in a big knot from not having been brushed since I got up and my sides hurt from being on the hard floor for an entire night and day. I’m sure my eyes were blood shot still and purple from crying so hard, but I couldn’t be sure since I had no mirror. It didn’t really matter. No one would see me, and at that point I didn’t care if they did. I had gone from a woman who went out of her way to get attention with her appearance to not caring who saw me in the worst state I had been in since I was a child and still getting into fist-fights. All I wanted was for you to come find me, but I knew you wouldn’t. I was nothing now that you had her.

I touched my face and felt it was cold. There were tracks of salt from the tears that I hadn’t bothered to wipe away. The thought that maybe if I cried some more it would wash them away crossed my mind. I think that was the point I knew that I would never be okay again. When I started thinking about washing away my tear stains with more tears. It seemed perfectly logical at the time. Tears were water; they would wash off the salt, right?

All I could see was you with her. She truly wanted to be with you. I saw the look on her face when she saw I was there. How dare someone else move in on her place? Her place with you. Her place. Why? Why couldn’t it be my place? What was so special about her? She was terrified of you, even if she did want to be with you. She would never be able to face you without your mask. I knew that without a doubt. She would never be what you wanted from her, and yet she still was the one who got your time and your devotions. Everything I had done for you, apparently it wasn’t enough. Never enough. I would never be good enough. I couldn’t sing like an angel.

Very slowly I lifted one of my arms until it was in front of my face. I studied it very carefully before dragging my nails across my wrist as forcefully as I could. I smiled a little at the trail of blood. Somehow, that made me feel a little better. I did it again, and that helped a little more. It didn’t take me long to have my arms running in blood, and the thought of starting on my face crossed my mind. Then I shook myself; that wasn’t what I needed to do. Instead I wrapped my still bleeding arms around my head, heedless of the blood that was dripping down my face and into my hair, curled up against the door and fell asleep again, praying to my memories of you that I wouldn’t dream.

I opened my eyes very slowly. I couldn’t see anything. They were crusted over in dried blood from my arms. I shook my head and wiped at my eyes trying desperately to return my vision. After only a moment I could see again, and I noticed you at the other end of my room. I should have known you were there, but I hadn’t. My lack of caring for anything regarding my existence had dulled my sense of you to almost nothing. You were looking at me with what I almost dared hope was concern in your eyes.

“What have you done?” You demanded.

“What needed to be done. Leave me alone Erik, I’m not in the mood for your accusations.” To my great surprise you left. I’m not sure why it surprised me so much. You really wanted nothing to do with me, and I had just told you to leave. I suppose you just did as you were told, and that would probably be the last I saw of you. Of course, it was really better this way. I couldn’t upset you anymore. I couldn’t come between you and your mouse. You were all hers. Oh how I hated Christine in that moment. It was that hatred that probably saved my life. I refused to let her think she had won, so I forced myself to get up and to clean up, and to eat something. It didn’t stay down for long, but I told myself that it was better than not eating at all, and that I would try again later. It took me days but eventually I got myself back in working order. I could eat and my cuts were barely noticeable. They hadn’t been very deep. I was ready to face the world again.

When I left the safety of my rooms and descended into the opera house proper I was afraid of what I might find waiting for me there. It had been over a week since I had been seen by anyone but you. Word of my return ran before me and the managers met me half way to the rehearsal room.

“Are you feeling better?”

“What?” I asked, startled.

“We received a letter explaining that you were ill. There was no other word of you and we feared for your health.” In other words they feared the refunds if I hadn’t returned when I had. Of course, that letter said quite clearly that you were feeling guilty for what you did to me. If I could get you away from your mouse long enough I would have to talk to you about that. What I did was my choice. However, I had to thank your guilt. Because of it I still had a job.

I walked into the rehearsal room to find a few people, but no Christine. The brief pang I felt at the thought of her with you passed quickly as I forcibly reminded myself that it was better this way. If you couldn’t see her fear you deserved to be stuck with her.

Just as I was settling in Christine came in, her pale blue dress rustling around her feet and looking stunning with her fair hair and skin. There was no denying that she was beautiful. It was easy to see why you would fall for someone who looked like that as opposed to someone like me. Her eyes darted to me and I saw the fear behind them. It was easy to see how you fell for her, but how you continued to love her once you truly saw her was beyond me.

“Hello, Christine,” I said softly. Her eyes went wider, but she said nothing. It was time to rehears.

The days turned to months filled with rehearsals and performances. Despite the efforts of the managers my list of roles was quite short due to your overwhelming control over the opera house and your insistence that your mouse play all the good roles. The only thing that came along to break up the monotony of the days was the holiday season. Although Christmas did little to stir me, since I hold no belief in the Christian faith, New Years Eve morning found the opera house alive with preparations for a grand gala.

I was in my room pulling the dress I had made myself out of the closet when I heard you come in. Shoving the dress back quickly I turned around to face you. We hadn’t seen much of each other since the incident in the torture chamber and what followed. I had tried to stay out of your way and you had avoided me. But now here you were and I wondered why.

“We need to talk.” That was it. No hello, no nothing. Just “We need to talk.”

“About?” I can be rude, too.

“Tonight.”

“What about it?”

“Tonight I am taking Christine with me. I would appreciate if you would do nothing to interfere with my plans. For the sake of our friendship.”

I laughed in your face. “Friendship? Our friendship? That’s what kept you from talking to me for the past few months, right? Or maybe it was what is making you ignore me, no matter what I do. Keeping me from playing any decent roles. Maybe it was our friendship that prompted you to leave me for dead. Twice!”

“I did not leave you for dead. I knew you wouldn’t die, either time!”

“But I did. I’m dead now, Erik, and it’s time you realized that. You killed me!” I know it was a harsh thing to say to you, and I regretted it as soon as it came out, but you had to know.

Your eyes went dark and I saw you go rigid. “Just stay out of my way, Angelique, or I will fix the error in your words.” And with that you swept out of my room. I couldn’t believe it, you had threatened me. Oh well, life was nothing without you, anyway, so let’s see just what you would do for your mouse. I pulled out my dress, got myself ready and headed down to the party.

The room was decorated in gold, black and white. It looked nice. The chandelier was draped in black muting the light and giving the room a darker feel that appealed to me. The white and gold accents were subtle and tasteful. I smiled. It was time to play.

I stepped into the room with a swish of my hips. Not blatant, of course, no one knew I did it intentionally, but half the eyes in the room turned my way. My gown exposed my entire back, very daring, and I had draped black gauzy drapes from my arms like wings, and accented the ensemble with gold beadwork. It was subtle, and tasteful, and eye catching, much like the room. And my eyes, much like the draped chandelier, were glowing darkly. I didn’t need to see them to know that they burned into the soul of anyone with the nerve to look.

Christine looked interesting in a black domino. I’m sure she wore it simply as a way of being certain one of her two men could find her, and I was hoping it wasn’t you, but I had no way of knowing. I watched her drift around the room nervously, her eyes darting back and forth, and then finally she disappeared into a small anti-chamber and I decided not to follow her. I didn’t really want to hear what she had to say to you. I wouldn’t interfere, just as you had asked, but I was going to make things interesting if she came back out. She didn’t. Finally, bored of waiting, I danced my way through the men in the room causing some very unfriendly looks from the other young women in the room, and excused myself. If she came back that night I never knew. I wasn’t there when you appeared as red death, though I heard about it the next morning. I wasn’t there for any of it but my own triumphs with the petty men that all thought they were special to get me to dance with them. And dance with them I always will, but I will never dance for them. That is only for you.

Time passed slowly for me, though none could understand why. I appeared to all who saw me as carefree, bright, and alive. Shining with life’s joys. I was none of that. I was quite dead. I felt nothing but a longing that would go unfulfilled for the rest of my days. A desire to know what I could never know but that no one could ever understand. I knew myself to be simply the illusion that floated through everyone else’s reality, showing one thing while being another. I wore a mask more securely fastened in place than yours would ever be, and it hid something much more terrible than anything you believed to be concealed by yours. My soul was much uglier than any face could ever be. I wanted Christine to die.

The mouse continued to disappear for days on end, and I knew she was with you, while I never saw you, heard from you. You were gone from my life as surely as if I had never found you. I heard word of your supposed terrorizing of the opera house, but I saw none of it. I lived my life in a daze that could not be broken. The day I finally snapped out of it I have Christine to thank for. Her and that Viscount she fancied. Raoul.

I was walking on the roof. It was a pastime I had taken to for it got me away from the fear and hate that permeated every soul that walked the opera house. Humming to myself I was thinking about how it seemed no matter how I tried nothing would change that I would always be a little annoying gypsy child. I couldn’t grow beyond that, for I had died then and there was no going back. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t see Christine hiding with Raoul until I was practically upon them.

“But what if he comes tonight and doesn’t hear me sing? Oh Raoul, I think I should sing tonight,” I heard Christine saying. I was worried at that point. I crept as close as I dared and kept listening.

“But Christine, what if he find some way to spirit you off again? I want to be sure of this. We should leave now. I can have my carriage here in minutes and we can be away from this nightmare.”

They were leaving. They were running away together! I wanted to rush out there and tell them to leave immediately, but I couldn’t. I knew they wouldn’t believe me, wouldn’t understand that I really did want them to leave so that Christine couldn’t steel your soul any longer. But even more important than that, I couldn’t do that to you. As much as I hated her, as much as I wanted her gone and you all to myself I couldn’t allow her to hurt you like that. Your happiness was more important than any want of mine. I fled to find you, to warn you, but in my haste to find you I missed the fact that you were hiding there yourself, and had heard every word.

I searched everywhere, but I couldn’t find you. My sense of you had been dulled by my depression and I had no idea where to even look. The first place I had gone had been to your house beyond the lake, but you weren’t there, and I couldn’t think where you might have gone.

I didn’t have long to worry about it, though. Before long I found myself back in my dressing room preparing myself for the evenings performance. The show went on, and I was simply going through the motions. My mind was spinning out of control with the need to get to you, but I had no way to do so. However, about halfway through the performance I figured out where you had been. It wasn’t hard to guess when the chandelier came crashing down on the audience, the lights went out and Christine disappeared. It seemed I hadn’t had to tell you anything, you had found out anyway.

I almost laughed. It was so perfect. The chandelier was just the perfect touch. I probably would have laughed if I hadn’t been running so hard to reach the house across the lake before you. I knew I couldn’t, but perhaps I could find a way to get down there without you knowing. I needed to know what happened, how this all played out. I knew that this night would be the final act.

It took me much longer than it should have to reach you, because I had to avoid all the people searching for Christine, Raoul and Nadir not being the only ones, although they actually had some idea of where to go. However, even if they did have some idea where to go, I didn’t want to lead them straight to you. I took my time to avoid them and anyone else who might want to find you and Christine. Finally, I did find my way down to you, but I wasn’t the first one to arrive at your little party. Despite all my trouble Raoul and Nadir had found you first, but to their great dismay, they had found their way into the torture chamber. I almost laughed at their situation, but I decided it was in my best interest to remain hidden. So that was what I tried to do.

From what I could see it seemed that by the time I had gotten there Raoul and Nadir were already in pretty bad shape, and Christine had been crying. I smiled. This was all turning out better than I hoped it could have. Christine rose from where she had fallen and walked over to you. I figured she was going to beg for the life of her love, and I wanted to see what you would do. That wasn’t her plan at all. The little mouse was much more devious than I had given her credit for. Instead of begging for his life she removed your mask and kissed you. I couldn’t watch. It burned into me like a brand. No matter how long I lived I would always have the image of her with her lips pressed to yours engraved in my mind. I thought I would die right there. Her plan worked, though. You let her go. You got Raoul and Nadir out of the torture chamber, fixed Raoul up and let them go. They fled, and I watched dispassionately as you led Nadir inside for tea.

Once I knew you were all right for the moment I fled across the lake. I had to talk to Christine before she left; she had to know the full impact of what she had done to you. The water disappeared behind me without my truly noticing it. All that mattered was getting to her before she was gone. As I topped the stairs I saw her fleeing with the viscount. Knowing the hidden hallways as well as the visible ones managed to get in front of them and I caught them alone in the hallway about the escape into the real world.

"Angelique." Christine's eyes spoke volumes. She was afraid of me; she was afraid of you, of being forced to see you again, of never seeing you again, of what awaited her outside that door and what faced her behind it.

"You wretched little monster," I snarled, no longer able to contain myself. "Do you have any idea what you've done? You've destroyed him. He'll be lucky if he lasts more than a few months."

"Why should you care?" Raoul demanded, his arm tightening around Christine's waist. "He's a monster."

"He's not a monster, he's a man. A very lonely man with a lot of pain."

"A man with a voice that can seduce any woman," Raoul shot back. "Look at yourself, you're defending him. Defending him like Christine used to once upon a time."

"That once upon a time wasn't so long ago," his face darkened with my words. Evidently he still feared that she would go running back to you.

"After everything he put us through how can you say he's not a monster? The man is a killer. I bet you didn't know that part. When he was in Persia more people died at his hand than I've known in my whole life. He's told all the terrible things he's done," Christine burst out.

"To make you think, you sniveling, spineless, heartless little girl! He neglected to mention the good parts, he couldn't because he himself can't see them. Did he tell you that he ran away from home when he was nine years old because he feared for the safety of his mother, a woman who hated him, beat him, locked him in the attic and left him alone from the time he was born, in a town that would have killed her to get to him simply because of his face? What about the man who would have married his mother if she would let him be put in an institution because of his face. He left so she could be with him.

"Did he tell you he ran only to end up locked in a cage, reduced to an animal for a fat pig in a gypsy camp to make money off his face as prying eyes paid to strip away all his dignity and gawk, horrified and screaming at him? And not even that was enough to make him kill the bastard. No, he had to nearly be raped by the slimy ass before he would stick a knife in him.

"How about the old man who was kind enough to take him in and never ask what was behind the mask? That man was the only father he ever knew and he would have cut off a hand if the old man had once suggested a need for it. And then he was betrayed and that betrayal lead to the death of the first girl he ever loved.

"What about when he was in Persia and the shah gave him a virgin slave to do with what he would?" I watched Christine slowly flush at the thought of what I was saying, but I wouldn't relent, even at her tears. "And despite his own desires and the knowledge that he would never have a chance like that again when she fell sobbing at his feet he let her go rather than make her do something against her will, and then he was poisoned for refusing to kill her for her disobedience.

"The man who brings him anything he might need for his lonely life hidden beneath the opera house gets paid ten thousand francs a month for the service simply because the man has nine children to educate and Erik wants to see them all well taken care of, even though he doesn't have to funds to pay that ridiculous sum. Did he tell you that part?

"And what about the fact that despite his feelings for you, emotional and physical, and more of it was physical than you would believe, he never touched you against your will? What about any of that? How much of that do you take into consideration when you call him a monster?" A dam inside me had burst and all my rage came pouring out.

"He tried to kill Raoul!" she sobbed.

"But he didn't, you little bitch, because you didn't want him to and he would have done anything for you, though God knows why. And now you kill him. He loved you, and you gave him the knowledge that he might have had you just before you leave him forever to wonder what might have happened if your handsome, young viscount had never existed. You've destroyed him and you should die for such a crime. I would kill you myself if I didn't fear that upsetting him more would be the end of him." By that point I was crying, but I didn't care. I was quite certain that nothing would ever matter again.

"But why does it matter so much to you?"

"Because while you were his Raoul, the one he will love forever, and spend the rest of his life with, if only in his mind I will be his phantom. The one always watching and wondering 'what if.'"

"But his face," she protested.

"There is only so much beauty allowed a person, outside and in. The most beautiful faces are just masks for ugly, shallow insides while ugly faces hide the most beautiful souls. We all wear masks, he just lets the truly fortunate of us see what's under his. His face is just that, a face."

"But you're beautiful," she replied.

"And none of that beauty can hide how truly ugly I am inside." The more I had to look at her the more the urge to kill grew. What was I doing trying to explain something like this to her? She would never understand. No one would. "Flee. Go quickly before I change my mind about letting you leave in one piece." As the hurried off, arm in arm I crumple to the ground sobbing for all the "what ifs” in the world.

“Too many years fighting back tears
Why can’t the past just die?
Wishing you were somehow here again
Knowing we must say goodbye
Try to forgive
Teach me to live
Give me the strength to try...”

It was days before I could bring myself to go to you. I couldn’t face you after this. I couldn’t face myself. I hadn’t been good to anyone in this situation. It was hard to forgive myself for something I knew I had to do to be true to myself, but shouldn’t have done for everyone else’s sake. I was the monster they all believed you to be. Still, I had to face you some time, so I forced myself to put down my fear and go find you.

The first place I looked was your house across the lake, but it appeared empty. I took the chance to look around a little, even though I knew that was an invasion of your privacy I shouldn’t have been making when I was worried about how upset you would be with me already.

However, no matter how I searched I found nothing to give me a clue where to find you. I suppose I could have wandered around the opera house until I found you, trusting on my sense of you to lead me to you, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to do that. I was half afraid of what I might find. Slipping back out of your home I shut off all feeling I had left of you and pretended that it didn’t hurt.

I gave up trying to find you. You walked in and out of my life like one walks in and out of the bedroom, alternately seducing me with your voice and forgetting my existence. As long as you remained gone I would be all right, but as soon as you walked back in I would either beg you to stay, throw myself down before you and beg, or I would kill myself when you left. There would be no more of this in and out, this high low that kept me guessing as to whether or not I was truly flying or just permanently falling, and lying to myself about it.

Without Christine the opera house fell into a routine dullness of allowing Carlotta all the leads. After all that had ensued from attempting to have someone else sing the managers were petrified to try it again without a shove and you weren’t there to give it for me. I didn’t really care, though. I suffered through Carlotta in silence and repaired my injured pride every night after everyone had left.

The stage was empty as I slipped in with my dancing dress on. The only people I was likely to run into was any stage hands who happened to still be around or a ghost, and I wasn’t afraid of the shadows and what they might hide.

Closing my eyes my feet began to move, caressing the polished wood floor like a lover’s hand. I spun and attempted to reconstruct the tatters of my dignity by letting everything but pure motion fade away.

I heard a click and stumbled to a halt, my skirt whipping around my calves. Standing on the stage was a disgusting, fat, greasy stagehand. He reminded me so much of Javert that for an instant I thought it was. Javert was on the stage, between me and the door, and he was leering.

“That was some pretty dancin’ you were doin’ there, girl.” His grin got wider and he reminded me even more of Javert.

“Thank you,” I said coldly.

“I’d like to see you dance more. I think you should dance for me now.”

“I think you’re out of your mind and I think you should leave.”

“Aw, but Pretty, I want to see you dance.” Javert advanced on me. At that point I was completely convinced that this slimy man approaching me with an evil grin on his face was Javert. I knew him to be dead, but I couldn’t seem to make that information surface.

“I’ll scream if you come any closer,” I said.

He just laughed, a harsh, evil sound that was nothing like when you laughed. This sound actually made me feel sick. “And who will hear you, Pretty? The Phantom? He’d probably watch. He’s one who knows what to do with people. Ain’t no one else in the building.”

I tried to hit him, but my hand just and into his fat. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to him, planting his mouth on mine. I gagged. His arms had slid around me and his hands were wandering. For the first time ever no amount of struggling was helping. No matter how much I fought back it didn’t make a difference.

He had me on the ground, his hands everywhere, slobbering on me. I heard my dress rip and then all I knew was pain. My scream just made him laugh.

I was crying and I could hardly breathe, but all I noticed was the pain. I was worthless from that point on. In an instant the world had been ripped apart and the only colour was the colour of blood. I was dirty. I was bloody. I was worthless.

Javert disappeared out the door, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I just stayed on the floor wishing I could die and make the pain go away. I cried until I was sick, vomiting all over the floor and myself, but still I didn’t move. I couldn’t. To move simply hurt too much. Eventually, covered in tears and vomit, I passed out from sheer emotional exhaustion.

When I woke I was warm and comfortable. I opened my eyes slowly, trying to figure out where I could be. I saw you dozing lightly in a chair by my bedside and I could feel my heart quicken. Trying not to wake you I looked about for something to distract myself from your closeness. Glancing down I realized that my dress was gone and I was wearing a soft cream robe of some sort. I felt my cheeks grow warm and decided not to speculate on how I had come to be in that.

Your eyes opened and you turned to face me. The first look to cross your face was relief, followed by a slow smile and a chuckle.

“You’re blushing, Angelique. What brought that on?”

I crossed my arms over myself and glanced down at the robe again, not wanting to say what I was thinking.

Your face went serious. “Don’t worry. I didn’t touch you. I came along to find a couple of the ballet girls had found you and were cleaning you up and trying to wake you. They saw me and ran, and I brought you here to rest. When you didn’t wake I was afraid for your health, so I wanted to keep an eye on you myself.”

The colour receded from my face when I realized you hadn’t undressed me yourself, but still I couldn’t speak, I just pulled the blanket a little tighter around me and shivered.

You almost jumped up to hover beside me. “Are you cold?”

“No, Erik, I’m not. Just...”

“Oh.” You sat again looking at me. I knew you didn’t know what to say to that, and I didn’t really want you to say anything, anyway. The only thing we could do was try and put it behind us as best we could.

“How have you been, Erik? I haven’t seen you since...” I trailed off as you visibly flinched from what you knew was coming next. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, trying to stand. “I’m sorry.” You said nothing as I got to my feet. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I kept repeating, running from your house as fast as I could. You tried to follow me, but my nimble dancer feet carried me far out of your reach.

It was days before I heard from you again, but I did hear from you again. You appeared in my room one evening, your eyes soft, but determined. “Angelique, we need to talk.”

“About what?”

“About what has been going on between us lately.”

“And what is that?” I sat and began to unpin my hair from where it had been tightly coiled, trying to ignore your overwhelming presence.

“Every time I come near you you run away. Have I done something to offend you?” I saw a slight flicker of worry flash in your gold eyes before you closed them off again.

“No, Erik, you haven’t.” I barely breathed the words out, but you heard me anyway.

“What then?”

“I thought I had offended you. I couldn’t think of any other reason for you to have put me out of your life as you did. So I just thought... I just thought I would make it easier for you and not come around anymore.” I couldn’t help it, a tear escaped followed quickly by more before I managed to get myself under control. “I just wanted to make it easier for you. You’ve been through enough.”

“And you haven’t?” You almost snarled the words at me, and I looked up, startled by your intensity. “You need someone to look out for you.”

“I couldn’t help myself, I laughed, wiping my tears away with the back of my hand. “And that someone is going to be you? Erik, I’ve watched out for you since I was six years old, I can take care of myself and anyone else who comes along, and I...” The pain in your eyes cut me short. “I don’t need to be taken care of, but I would like to try being friends again.”

“Are you sure?” You asked in what I dared to believe was a hopeful tone of voice.

“Are you sure?”

“Sing for me.”

Smiling I closed my eyes and sang for you that gypsy song that had been the first thing I had ever sung for you all those years ago. While I sang you removed your mask and sat beside me. Just as I finished singing I reached out and stroked your face as I had always done when I was little. “I’m sorry she left you, my friend, but she isn’t the only woman in the world. Don’t give up hope.”

“She is for me.” My heart sank with your words, but I let nothing show on my face. “But I don’t want to talk about that now.”

“All right. What do you want to talk about?”

“How about the new years masquerade?” You had an evil grin on your face and somehow I knew I was going to like your idea.

“No more memories
No more silent tears
No more gazing across the wasted years...”

The plans were set and for the first time in a long time I was nervous. I pulled out my gown, examined it and set it down, my hands shaking. My heart was pounding. I had never been this anxious about anything before, and I wasn’t particularly sure of why I was even nervous. It was a simple enough plan. Perhaps it was the thought of you that did it. If I didn’t do something to steady myself soon I wasn’t going to make it to the masquerade, I would be horribly sick instead.

I pulled out my dancing dress and slipped it on, enjoying the feel of it’s silky fabric against my bare skin. All else forgotten I began to hum, giving myself something to dance to. I didn’t need it for long as my feet took over, my eyes closed shutting out everything.

Allowing myself to dance like I hadn’t done in a long time I lost track of the world around me. I never danced like this at the fairs. I wouldn’t let those gawking, drooling boys in men’s bodies see this dance. Giving them a small taste of my power I left them hungry for more. Never had anyone seen this. I had decided long ago that I wouldn’t only dance like this for you, except that you wouldn’t ever care to see it. This dance was intoxicating even for myself, I couldn’t set it loose upon the rest of the world. Only for you would I set myself free to dance. Until that day I had to keep it caged up, releasing it only for myself.

The whirling, gyrating, spinning motions I went through spiraled down into me wiping me clean of everything except the pulsing, beating of my own body. There was nothing but the heat in my veins and the song in my feet. I was flying. I had wings and, dancing, I circled upwards to the heavens.

It’s a wonderful feeling, not being of this earth anymore. I could have gone on that way forever until I thought of you. You, my god, my beautiful angel, were of this earth and no heaven I may find could compare to that.

My feet stopped very suddenly and I could sense you. I could feel your eyes watching me, despising me. You were gone, but you pulsed through me as clearly as my dance had just done moments before. I could still feel you, still hear you, still breath you m and I could taste your disgust. You thought me loose, lewd, a whore even.

I began to shake and my knees buckled. I collapsed to the ground knowing that my legs would never support me again. How could I face you now? How could I bring myself to stand in your presence, your magnificent presence, knowing how you truly thought of me? My gown, designed to make an entrance, was now just one more piece of proof of how loose I was, how close to being a whore I really was. I wasn’t worthy of having your eyes ever rest upon me ever again. I probably never had been. You saw me dance. You saw me dance and you didn’t care.

Very slowly I got to my feet wiping my tears. As unworthy as I was if I sat there crying like that forever I would waste away for lack of caring. I had to get up and force myself into motion just to keep myself alive.

I washed my face and removed my dancing dress, throwing it in a corner, and refusing to look at it. I stood completely naked for a moment, letting the air turn my skin to goose bumps before lifting my dress and slipping it over my head. The masquerade was only moments from starting.

I turned to the mirror and glanced at myself. Everything seemed in place except my insides. Those felt like I had been through an earthquake, but despite that I was starting to feel a little excited. If I could pull this off it would be one of my greatest triumphs yet, if all went well the look on Carlotta’s face would be well worth all the work.

My gown was perfect. It had taken me over a month to create this outfit, but nothing could have looked better. With a very full, flowing skirt, daringly low cut bodice and a back that consisted of only two crossed straps that were also the sleeves my dress was a masterpiece. It was made of some foreign material that I couldn’t name but it had the effect of having pulled down a but of the night sky to craft a gown out of. The hem just brushed the floor hiding my black shoes, which made me look much taller than I actually was.

I had let loose my hair from its pile of braids for the first time since I had come to the opera house. It was set in a mess of curls atop my head with the rest cascading down one shoulder so as not to hide my dress’s lack of a back. My face was covered in sparkling powder, as was every other inch of exposed skin, so that I practically shimmered in the candle light in my dressing room.

The best part, however, wasn’t the dress or the hair or the star-like powder, but the winds upon my back. They had taken me nearly a year to craft and they were magnificent. Delicate and almost wispy looking they were the added touch that no one else would think of. Done completely in red roses and ferns they would bring tears of jealousy to Carlotta’s eyes, and that was worth anything.

After taking one last look in the mirror to make sure there were no traces that I had been crying I headed for the ballroom. Everyone would be there by now. Time to make my entrance.

The doors were open and I looked through them, taking in what I would be walking in to momentarily. There was a myriad of colours fluttering about the room. The chandelier glittered and the music was entrancing. I walked in.

Everyone who could see the doorway stopped dead. All heads turned to watch me float in. As I drifted through the crowds of brightly coloured people I began to relax a little. It’s hard not to relax when every male in the place was looking at me like he would love to worship the ground I walked on. I was enjoying myself.

I made certain to walk right past Carlotta with my group of followers. She looked as though she had swallowed her tongue and it was all I could do to keep from laughing. I did, however, manage to keep a straight face. And when people started screaming and pointing to a spot just over my head the urge to laugh evaporated quickly. The chandelier just above my head was shaking wildly and my heard started doing the same. You were coming.

I didn’t know how I was going to face you after earlier, but there wasn’t anything I could do and as you appeared at the top of the stairs I froze in place. People were scrambling to get out of your way, flattening themselves against the walls hoping to be overlooked. It was a parting such as two opposing armies facing off with me left in the center, the mediator, watching you descend.

Never in my life had I been afraid of you, but I couldn’t bare the look of disgust that would surely come across your face at any moment. Your disappointment in me was harder to face than any physical pain.

When you passed by me as if I wasn’t even there I couldn’t blame you, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn and face you. Tears were burning my eyes and threatening to set my face on fire. I couldn’t risk you noticing. Eventually I got myself under control and very slowly I turned.

You looked terribly regal, commanding and powerful, an emperor or a king in his court. I couldn’t help staring. There was such a presence about you and I was drawn to it even while flinching from what would come if I went to you.

Carlotta was looking terrified. You had come to a stop directly in front of her and she was practically shaking. I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy it. I couldn’t even smile when you casually tossed a dead rose at her feet and turned in a swirl of cape. In one fluid, graceful movement you took my arm, spun me around and proceeded to escort me out. I hoped I didn’t look as startled as I felt since that would have ruined the entire effect.

My heart felt like it was trying to escape me, and my body felt as though it was pure energy trying to stay in a solid form. I didn’t know what to do, so I followed you. You had to support half me weight because I had gone weak.

As soon as we were out of sight, however, I couldn’t take it. I’m not even entirely sure what happened, but something inside of me snapped and I had to go. As I ran your voice followed me, haunting me.

“Angelique, wait! I have to...” I never found out what you had to do.

“Help me say goodbye...”

As I walked passed Carlotta’s dressing room the following morning I heard voices. Normally I’m not one to eavesdrop but one of the voices was male and it didn’t sound friendly. I paused outside the door and listened.

“Where would I find him?” His voice was like gravel sifting through his vocal chords and it gave me goose bumps. A voice like that sounded like it could do anything.

“I don’t know,” That croaking could only be Carlotta, “but I want you to find him and I want you to kill him. He needs to be stopped. After last night...” she trailed off. There was a long silence before she croaked again. “No one else seems man enough to take care of this Phantom problem, so I expect you to get it right. I don’t ever want to hear from him again.”

The door swung open and a very disreputable looking man stepped out of the room and right passed me without noticing me.

I was in a rage. How dare this worthless piece of trash who sounded as though her voice was squeaking out through a reed instrument threaten the one and only worthy being in the world? No matter what it took I would deal with her. I was not about to let this go.

Stepping into her dressing room I closed the door behind me.

“What do you think you’re doing in here?” Her voice got even tighter when she got nervous.

“You have made a dangerous enemy, Carlotta,” I said quietly. “I would think twice about any threats you made.”

“Who, the Phantom?” She let out a cackle. “That’s all been taken care of. I don’t have anything to worry about.”

“That’s not who I was referring to. I can be far more dangerous than even he can.”

“You? You’re nothing but the Phantom’s whore. What are you going to do to me?”

I was outraged. I couldn’t believe she had called me your whore. That was an insult I wasn’t going to let her get away with. The thought of you doing something as undignified as having a whore was more than I could comprehend. I stopped thinking clearly and just reacted.

The proper thing for me to have done at that moment would have been to slap her, but I’ve never been much of one for proper. I hit her full out. She let out a squeal much like a pig and fled the room.

I turned and happened to glance at her dressing table where I saw a small knife. She had left it behind when she went running. Tucking it into my dress I left the room and went to my own dressing room.

Once there I dug through my dressing gowns until I found one I could do without. My intention was to make sure Carlotta never sang again. “Ruin you,” I whispered. “I’m going to ruin you.”

Taking her knife I proceeded to cut myself. I couldn’t feel any pain. I had gone completely numb with emotional overload.

Finally, very bloody and sufficiently mangled I dropped her knife in the middle of my floor, started crying hysterically and went running to the managers.

Between her knife on my floor, the blood I managed to get on her dress when she came in and my tearful explanation of my wounds it didn’t take long to convince them that Carlotta had attacked me in a fit of jealousy and tried to kill me. With their love of publicity I was sure that by the next morning the papers would be full of how the “great diva” had snapped. No place would ever hire her again.

While the managers ran off to find someone to escort Carlotta out, (leaving me alone with her, I might add, just going to show how intelligent they are) I stopped crying.

“I told you not to cross me,” I said darkly. She couldn’t even respond.

Finally I was allowed to go back to my dressing room. I hadn’t been there for very long before I started to get dizzy and everything began to look fuzzy. I had to catch the edge of my dressing table to keep from falling. Trying to sit in a chair I missed and crashed to the floor where I couldn’t move. Not wanting to fall anymore I curled up on the floor and closed my eyes. I guess I had cut myself a little more severely than I thought.

I felt funny. I was floating and singing all at once and I didn’t like it. “Erik,” I whispered faintly, “come save me.” After that I don’t know what happened but I didn’t it for you. She insulted you and she tried to have you killed. Something had to be done. I did it for you, my angel. Everything I do is for my god, is for you, Erik. It’s all for you.

“Help me say goodbye.”

Angelique rushed down flights of stairs made longer by her urgent need to reach the end of them. AS soon as she had realized that she had left her journal in that room which had been her prison for the last three weeks panic hit her with such force she almost couldn’t move to retrieve it. Her soul was down there stripped of any protections, practically waiting to be discovered. If Erik found that... if he saw it and read it, she couldn’t bare that thought. Trying to keep her vision from blurring she fled.

As she burst into her room her heart nearly stopped. Sitting on her bed was an angel and in his hands was her journal. She let out a little sob and he rose to look at her, pages scattering to the floor.

Certain that her heart would explode all Angelique could do was watch while he approached her. She went couldn’t feel anything, and felt everything so much more clearly than ever before. Everything hurt. She had never really known pain until this instant when everything she had ever known came crashing down, all sharp shiny points slicing her to emotional shreds.

Erik flung his mask off and continued towards her until he was standing in front of her. Without even realizing what she was doing Angelique reached p a hand to stroke his face. She felt his hand cover hers and his other hand rest on her cheek just before their eyes met.

They stood that way for an eternity and never. Time stopped and all that existed was their new discovery. The world had stopped its turning and the moon and stars were there for the sole purpose of their enjoyment. Neither of them cared. Erik kissed her and both their worlds exploded into each other leaving them both weak and trembling. Angelique’s knees gave out and all she knew were the arms of a god.