Christine jumped in her sleep and cried out, a sob of terror that ripped through Raoul’s own peaceful slumber like a dull blade. Her dreams often frightened her, and though he had grown accustomed to gathering her into his arms and comforting her back to sleep, he had never been able to become used to that sound. It was as frightful as it was frightened, almost inhuman. He often asked her what her dreams were, but she could never answer him; she claimed she could remember only a feeling of intense terror. His offers of a hypnotist she bravely declined, but recently her neglect of this problem had begun to grate on his nerves. Raoul was sure, though he was careful never to mention it, that these nightmares were the vestiges of horrors she had experienced at the hands of that fiend at the Opera. Christine would never answer his questions about that either, but her eyes would fill with tears and he was convinced she still harbored dreadful memories. Why she would not submit herself to a doctor’s care to rid herself of them was beyond his understanding and, lately, his patience.

He touched her shoulder and she tensed; leaning closer, he whispered in her ear. "It’s all right, Christine. You’ve been dreaming again." He pressed a kiss to her temple, perhaps more for her comfort than his pleasure. He loved her, of course. But being woken in the middle of the night made him cross; and though the whole affair at the Opera was three years in their past, the dreams seemed to be increasing in frequency and severity.

Without opening her eyes, his wife sighed; once his arms were around her, her body began to relax. Smoothing back the voluminous hair that always managed to spill into his face, he took a calming breath and murmured, "I’m here, darling. You’re safe."

She, still half-asleep, cuddled closer into him. "Erik," she whispered, the corners of her mouth curling into a drowsy smile.

It was the Vicomte’s turn to go tense, and after a moment of shocked powerlessness he regained himself and shook her. "Christine, wake up," he insisted, perhaps a little too firmly. Her eyes snapped open to reveal an expression of fear.

She sat bolt upright. "What’s the matter?" she worried, clutching her nightgown closed at the neck. He had woken her in the middle of the night before, and this reaction had become almost a reflex.

He sat up too, and seethed through clenched teeth, "Who is Erik?"

Her eyes went wide with shock. "What?" was the only dumbfounded reply she could muster.

"You heard me," he replied, his tone becoming steadily more menacing. "Who is he?"

"Raoul, honestly," she sighed, reclining against the bed’s cushioned headboard and smoothing the sheets back over her lap. "If you don’t know who Erik is by now, it’s yourself you should be upset with, not me."

He lunged at her and, taking her by the upper arms, gave her another shake. "Why you..." He pushed her from him roughly, and she gasped as her shoulder crashed against the headboard. "I can’t think of anything vile enough to call you ..." he spluttered, burying his head in his hands. "You evil, wicked woman!"

He was frightening her. "Raoul, for heaven’s sake, what’s the matter?" Her fingers were clutching mechanically at her nightgown sleeves, and her voice trembled.

"What’s the matter?" he raged, and for a moment she feared he might finally strike her. He had done nearly all but strike her in the past twelve months. "I can’t believe you, Christine!" He raked his hands through his hair, making it stick up crazily at all angles. "You’ve taken a lover and you ask me what’s the matter?!"

"Raoul, what are you talking about?" she cried, latching her fingers to his shoulders. "Erik was never my lover - Raoul, don’t you remember?" He stared at her, his eyes enraged and empty. He did not remember. "Don’t you listen at all, Raoul? Erik is ... Erik was ..." Her voice trailed off and she dropped her hands and her gaze into her lap. "The Phantom of the Opera," she finally whispered.

A silence. After a few moments Christine raised her eyes again, expecting to find Raoul looking apologetic; but his expression was unchanged. "God in Heaven, Raoul," she cried, beginning to get cross herself. "What on earth is this all about?"

"You said his name just now," he replied, managing to keep his voice low and steady only for one sentence. In a moment he was shouting, "I was holding you, in our bed, comforting you after one of your nightmares, and you said that creature’s name instead of mine!"

A pause, in which Christine hardly dared to blink. Raoul shook his head and muttered, half to himself, "I’d forgotten the beast even had a name."

"I’m sorry, Raoul," she finally whispered, hoping against hope that his tirade had passed. In the three years of their marriage, she had learned that Raoul’s temper could be just as bad as Erik’s - if not worse when Raoul had had too much brandy.

The look he shot her was as cold as ice. "I was asleep," she stammered. "I didn’t know what I was saying ..."

"You were saying what was in your mind," he growled, and his face contorted until he hardly looked human. "You’ve been thinking of him - when else, Christine? When else besides when I embrace you?"

She shook her head, confused. He grabbed her chin and forced it closer to his. "You lied to me, Christine," he said softly in a tone steeped with only-thinly-veiled violence. "You told me that you didn’t love him, that you only kissed him to save me and that I was your choice. But you lied, didn’t you?" He gave her chin a jerk. "You would have let him send me away, and stayed with him ..." Her eyes had filled with tears of confusion and fear, but seeing them only served to make him mysteriously angrier. He brought his fingers swiftly against her cheek - not a sharp blow, but enough to startle. "Wouldn’t you have, Christine? To fornicate in that cellar - that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?"

She was trembling, embarrassed and angry that he had struck her, frightened that if she said something wrong he might not be so gentle a second time... "No, Raoul," she pleaded; the words tasted sour, like a gorge in her throat. "I wanted you ..."

"Well, I don’t want you, Christine." He threw her from him and she tumbled into an artless pile on the bed. Rising, he ripped the coverlet from over her and tossed it to the floor. "I don’t want a wife who has never been faithful to me in her heart." A pillow joined the blanket on the carpet, and he grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her from under the sheets. Her foot lighted on the pillow and she stumbled; he jerked her roughly upright and said, "Come on then! Take these things and go sleep in the guest room - far better than you deserve! Let him comfort you after your nightmares - I’m sure he lurks in the shadows yet, stalking us!" He cast a wild glance about the room.

"Raoul, please ..." Her tone was abject.

He set his jaw. "No, there’s nothing left to say."

"But Raoul, it was just a word in my sleep!"

"Christine," he threatened, his hand raised again. "Tomorrow you will remove your ungrateful, unfaithful person from this house ... and I will go see my lawyer, yes, about a divorce!" He urged her, far from gently, from the room. "I can’t believe the time I’ve wasted trying to make you forget him - and you were dreaming of him all the while. You really are nothing but a gutter-snipe chorus girl. Get out of my sight!"

The next morning, as promised, Christine the Vicomtesse de Chagny was unceremoniously ejected from her home. As she tried to muster what dignity she still possessed, she realized she would not retain that title long. Her version of events would not be solicited in the drawing up of papers, and with all the money and social influence he had at his disposal Raoul could make up whatever lies he wished. She hated this "man’s world" and she hated Raoul especially; so she could not understand the tears that spotted the smart veil of her hat as she struggled to the curb, hampered by her trunks, to hail a cab.

Luckily, she had a bit of the money with which Raoul routinely showered her; the train to Paris was well within her means. So was the wire she sent to Meg Giry care of the Opera; she hoped her sweet little friend would be able to help her, despite the irregularity of their correspondence. Her last letter from Meg had been months ago, but Christine had not been able to answer it. This had happened before, unfortunately, and Meg must have been cross for she did not write again. Still, Christine remained as fond of the younger girl as she had always been, and hoped she would forgive Christine’s faults as a letter-writer upon their reunion. It would be comforting, she thought as she leaned her head against the train seat’s cushioned back, to be with Meg again. A few moments later she was asleep, lulled into shallow slumber by the motion of the coach.

She had tossed and turned until daybreak following the row with Raoul; though she had bolted the spare bedroom door behind her she was still unable to sleep easily. This argument, though hopefully the last, was far from the first; Christine’s three years with Raoul had not exactly been a picture of wedded bliss. Of course they had been happy at first, playing at their game of fairy-tale marriage; but fairy tales always leave off just before reality begins. Raoul remained attentive in company, the model of an ideal husband, and always rendered Christine the object of socialite jealousy; but behind closed doors he soon became something of a tyrant, gradually taking more and more control over Christine’s life. She was soon to learn that this despotic behavior was not uncommon among aristocrats. Just months after her own honeymoon tour she had had a hushed and horrible conversation with the nervous wife of one of Raoul’s acquaintances, who confided that her husband was not adverse to punishing her with his dress cane if she failed to heed his word. "But of course," the younger woman had whispered tearfully, stirring her tea with vigor, "I do provoke him most shamefully. He takes such care of me and I can be so ungrateful ..."

Raoul had never struck Christine before last night, but he was not above fits of temper which had spelled doom for various drinking glasses and ceramic lamps in their home. At first these tirades were only an extreme and rare occurrence, but as time passed they became more frequent. And as his temper worsened, so tightened his control on his wife. He bought a new house in the south of France and moved them from Paris without so much as consulting her first. He discouraged her correspondence with Meg and would often hand her friend’s letters to her already opened and read. He had even begun to choose Christine’s clothes and instruct her maid in the dressing of her hair; once he had ripped her bodice in a tussle that resulted from her choice of a dress he did not like. "I won’t have my wife seen in public looking like a common trollop!" he shouted, almost shoving her back into her closet to change. Her requests to be permitted to sing at church met with the same response; eventually she had topped asking.

So although she felt weary upon stepping off the train at Gare d’Est, Christine was not terribly sorry to be on her own. The indignity of Raoul’s slap still tingled on her cheek, and she was angry to think what a possession she had become; but remembering that young aristocratic wife, she wondered whether she was not in luck to have escaped so unscathed. Her heart was almost light as she checked her trunks and set off towards the Opera.

Upon reaching it, however, her hopes came crashing down again. The concierge returned the telegram to her apologetically. "Mademoiselle Giry has not been here for some time, Madame," said the older man, whom thankfully Christine had never seen before.

"Can you tell me where she’s gone?" Christine inquired, straining to keep desperation out of her voice. Abandoned by her only friend in Paris ...

"I’m afraid I don’t know," he replied; "she left to be married, to a man of considerable fortune I might add."

Christine, all too knowledgeable in that respect, silently mourned her little friend’s fate. "And her mother?"

"Gone with her. If you are indeed acquainted with them, Madame," he offered, "perhaps you would like an interview with the managers, Messrs. Firmin and Andre. They could tell you more than I; I began work here only shortly before Mademoiselle Giry took her leave."

Christine shook her head - surely that would never do, to allow those two to see her in her humiliation. "No, I thank you - I don’t wish to disturb them today ... I shall write them inquiring after my friend."

The concierge bowed briefly. "Madame." He turned to go, and his tailcoat resounded in her head like the pealing of the bells of Notre Dame.

"Oh, Monsieur, I beg your pardon ..." The words came tumbling out so quickly, she barely knew what she was saying. "But one more question - a matter of ... pure curiosity."

"Yes, Madame?" He raised his abundant eyebrows.

"There was a legend ... a rumor of sorts ... about, well, an Opera ghost." She shocked herself, but her mind raced to justify the enquiry. She had no other acquaintances in Paris ...

"Yes, Madame, I have heard the stories - but they are nothing but nonsense, of course."

"Really? He was rather active several years ago - surely you are familiar with the chandelier?"

He bristled. "May I ask who you are, Madame?"

She lowered her eyes and cast for a lie to tell. "Forgive me, Monsieur, I was ... a patroness of the Opera years ago, along with my late husband. I was only curious if the Ghost has been up to any more mischief, since I left Paris shortly after the incident with the chandelier."

He regarded her for a moment, but finally seemed to accept her story. "I have seen nothing since my employment here, Madame; misplaced shoes or toppled scenery are often blamed on a ‘Ghost,’ but these are common occurrences and Opera folk are very superstitious."

"Yes, of course," she answered lightly, not wanting to arouse any more suspicion. She dipped a shallow curtsey. "I thank you for your time, Monsieur." Turning, she made as leisurely and inconspicuous an exit as she was capable.

Minutes later, she was standing before the door on the Rue Scribe fingering the key she had found in the bottom of an old jewelry case in assembling her luggage. Thinking it might be to one of her trunks, she had slipped it absently into her cloak pocket; now she remembered what it in fact opened.

As she stood facing the door with her heard in her throat, she admitted to herself that she had thought of Erik since that night in his home beyond the lake. She had concealed her occasional fond remembrances from Raoul, knowing they would make him angry; it became clear almost immediately that her husband could understand or tolerate her thinking of her former teacher no more than he could stand her maintaining the skills Erik had imparted. She had tried to put him from her mind; but as Raoul became crueler she found it more and more difficult to keep Erik from creeping into the edges of her consciousness, reminding her that his anger had been quick to rise but quick to dissipate, and that his touch was always gentle and never uninvited.

She had pushed these thoughts aside as best she could, for Raoul’s increasing roughness had given her more than enough to occupy her mind. She did not know what had prompted her to murmur Erik’s name in Raoul’s arms last night, but she suspected it had something to do with her recurring dream: she had been sitting at her dressing table combing out her hair when their butler brought a letter to her on a silver tray. The black-edged paper and bold handwriting that emblazoned her name across the envelope were familiar, but as she reached for it Raoul burst through the door, his dress cane in hand and a look of madness crackling in his eyes. Each time she dreamed and woke to Raoul trying to calm her, she lay tense in his arms, sometimes for hours, before being able to sleep again. When he asked her about the dreams, she thought it best to reply that she could remember nothing of them. His recent insistence that she see a doctor about the dreams alarmed her, for she knew there would be no helping a confession of her true fears under hypnosis. And for the news to escape that the Vicomte de Chagny terrorized his wife would surely have had worse consequences than last evening’s slip.

She had not come to Paris to see Erik - the thought of seeking his help, oddly, had not occurred to her until the concierge had given her his shoulder in the grand foyer. Now she felt nervous and yet relieved; their reunion would be awkward, of course, but she did not doubt he would help her. Perhaps he would put her up, allow her to sleep in her lovely boat-shaped bed.

And perhaps he might tell her again that he loved her, offer her the protection of his dark embrace ...

She shook her head - surely she was getting ahead of herself. But he would help her, give her money at the very least. She fitted the key into the old rusty lock, but it would not turn. Leaning her shoulder against the door to exert her whole strength on the key, she was surprised when the door gave way. It had not been locked after all.

"How strange," she murmured as she slipped through the doorway - and almost repeated it when she found the interior space brightly lit by a torch on the wall. Light had no place in Erik’s dominion ... but taking it down, she picked her way around the lakeshore towards Erik’s house.

The hinges remained in the rock face, but his front door was no longer there; it was as if it had been ripped away by violence. Shuddering, she put aside the thought of the angry mob descending into the cellars after the murder of Piangi ... She thrust the torch through the opening and peered in, seeking the familiar rich carpets and furnishings.

Blackness and nothing more.

"Erik?" she called, stepping gingerly across the threshold. The torch illuminated the foyer of Erik’s home, now nothing more than an empty cavern. She cast a puzzled glance about, then pressed onward through the next door.

Room after room echoed back her voice from its bare walls; nothing of Erik’s house seemed to remain. By the time she reached the hidden door to her own chamber, distracted tears were slipping down her face and she was mouthing, "He will be there ... hiding from intruders, safe in my room ... he will be there ..."

She touched the spring and the door swung wide, revealing the glow of burnished wood beyond. She rushed into the room and beheld it exactly as she remembered, her old things surrounding her like an attic of memories; but she sank to her knees on the dusty carpet in the very throes of disbelief. The impossible had occurred ...

Erik was not there.