Chapter 1

"Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world? May the liar's vile tongue be cut out! Follow me, my reader, and I will show you such a love!" ― Mikhail Bulgakov, 'The Master and Margarita'

Music for this chapter: Violin Concerto No 1 by Edgar Meyer; Adagio in G minor, Remo Giazotto/Tomaso Albinoni

It is imperative that I speak to you without delay, the note from Madame Giry had said. Come to my appartement at the earliest possible opportunity.

Erik was not in the habit of taking orders - certainly not when it would cost him a chance to see Christine, who would be waiting for him after her performance - but this one piqued his curiosity.

He waited until he knew it would be dark out - darkness was his guardian angel; in the darkness he was the same as other men - and then emerged from his lair onto one of the chaotic boulevards that surrounded the Opéra. This part of the city was always crowded, but he managed to pass unnoticed. Unfortunately for him, even when he covered the mask with a hat and scarf, his height and something about his presence seemed to draw people's eyes to him. But he had managed to counteract this by procuring a ragged, filthy-looking cloak and hat; this invariably made people, even young children, draw away from him on the street and avert their eyes. It was a sad truth that poverty disgusted people almost as much as his deformity had.

When he knocked at Madame Giry's door forty-five minutes later that evening, she opened it immediately.

"What has happened?" he said at once. "Are you well?"

"Yes, yes." She waved him inside and hastily the door. "But there is something I must speak with you about."

"So I gathered. Well?"

"Well-" Madame Giry stopped abruptly. She looked suddenly uncomfortable, as though an awkward conversation lay ahead of them.

Erik's curiosity grew.

"Sit down," she said at last.

"No," Erik said.

"Why not?"

"I do not like to stay long; it is too risky. You must not be seen with me."

"Very well. But this may be a lengthy conversation, so you ought to make yourself comfortable." Madame Giry gestured for him to sit. "Will you, er, take some coffee?"

"No," Erik said. "I really must insist on knowing why you have summoned me here, Madame." He draped himself into a chair, trying his hardest to make it look as though this arrangement had been his idea. "Is it urgent?" he added dryly.

"Yes," she said, lowering herself into the chair across from him. "I must speak to you about Christine. Few subjects could be of more importance to me."

"Christine?" Erik's face assumed a hunted expression. It looked as impenetrable - and as frightened - as a fortress on the alert, with a dropped portcullis and a hundred archers standing at the ready. But the moment was soon over. He rearranged his features into a reasonable impression of nonchalance. "What about her?" he said, trying to sound as though it were of no importance to him. "She, er, she is well, I trust?"

"Yes," Madame Giry said, "But-"

He relaxed slightly. "-Has Buquet been bothering her again? I was under the impression that I had successfully, er, persuaded him to leave her and Meg alone- but I should be more than delighted to threaten him again." His eyes brightened at the thought.

Madame Giry shook her head. "Great Heavens, Erik. No wonder that imbecile is so obsessed with the 'Phantom'. How many times have you scared him?"

Erik merely grinned.

Madame Giry squeezed her eyes shut. "You are certainly welcome to menace him again, with my blessing, but that isn't what I have called you here for. My concern for Christine comes from another quarter." She opened her eyes and fixed them on him. "You see, Erik, I understand that after the Vicomte de Chagny visited Christine, her angel of music suddenly told her he will have to leave her if she ever marries. He said that if she bestows her heart on earth, there will be nothing left to do but for him to go back to Heaven."

"Did he?" Erik said. "Well, I suppose she had better do as he says, then. One ought not to trifle with heavenly beings."

"You should not trifle with me!" Madame Giry's voice was so thunderous it frightened him. "Particularly where Christine is concerned!"

"Trifle with you, Madame? I wouldn't dare!"

Her eyes could have shot flames. "Did you think I would not guess your role in this? I have known for over a decade. Do you take me for a fool? Next I suppose you'll try to tell me there is another man with a fine tenor voice and an uncanny knack for music who is intimately familiar with the secret passages of the Opéra."

"Baritone," Erik said.

"What?"

"I am a baritone with a high upper extension - not a tenor. Surely after working at the Opéra for twenty years, you ought to be able to tell the difference-"

She silenced him with a look. "-Do not mistake my deliberate oversight in this matter for blindness," she went on. "Until now I have chosen to let it go on- I even encouraged Christine not to tell anyone else about it- because I regarded it as relatively harmless. In other words, I trusted you."

For once, Erik was without words. For the most part, he wasn't a man of strong principles. After the life he'd endured, it was impossible to be. But he was acutely conscious of how deeply he was in Madame Giry's debt - the fact that she would never have dreamed of alluding to it only made him feel it even more strongly. When he felt he'd failed her, it cut him deeply.

"In addition, I should like very much for Christine to achieve the musical success she dreams of, and I don't see any other way for her to receive lessons for free," Madame Giry said. "But I begin to see that I was mistaken. You have gone too far this time. I will not allow you to spoil her chances of making a respectable match!"

"A respectable match? You... you would see her married to the Vicomte?" Erik roared, his brief attack of guilt subsiding at once. "That ridiculous-"

"-I need to see her well taken care of. It is my duty to her. And to her father. I promised him."

"She does not need a husband to support her," Erik said. "Let me remind you that I have told you before I will always see she is provided for-" Realizing how this might be construed, he hastily added "-As well as you and Meg. And you know I have the means to keep that promise. I would never abandon any relation of yours, Madame. Not after what you did for me."

"Thank you," Madame Giry said. "I do not doubt your word. But you misunderstand me. It is not money I am concerned about. It is something else entirely. Christine has spent her entire life virtually alone. She wants the love and companionship of a husband - she confided that to me. Why should you object to that?"

"Oh, yes, why should I object to her giving up her art just as she is on the brink of a brilliant musical career?" he sneered.

"But Erik, I do not think she will have to sacrifice her art for the sake of companionship. Not if the right gentleman-"

"-But don't you understand that is precisely what she would have to do if she married that damned Vicomte?" Erik roared. "Those aristocratic families would never tolerate one of their members taking the stage! And yet you say I am the one who has tried to force her to make sacrifices?"

Madame Giry held up a hand. "It is not your place or mine to decide the matter- it is Christine's. However, I agree that if she were to marry into a family like that, she would certainly have to leave behind all thoughts of a career onstage. In fact, I intend to express my concerns on that very subject to Christine at the earliest possible opportunity - and that is not something I would do lightly."

"Aha." Erik folded his arms and narrowed his eyes smugly. "Then what harm would my trying to keep her away from him do? Why have you called me here to lecture me?"

"Because the 'Angel' did not just say no Vicomtes, Erik- he said no young men in general." Madame Giry's gaze was piercing. "Would you care to tell me why that might be?"

Erik's flippant demeanor faded away once more. It was a transformation Madame Giry had often witnessed- from bravado to intense vulnerability- and it always happened with dazzling speed.

She watched as he glanced away, laced his fingers nervously together, cast about for an answer. "She's much too young to be married," he came up with at last, clinging pathetically to what little was left of his composure. "No good can come of rushing into matrimony at her age."

It was a weak argument, and they both knew it.

Madame Giry found she had to hide a smile. "She is not. Twenty is a very appropriate age to be married at. Many of the girls her age in the corps are soon to be married. I can only assume you are aware of that, as you seem to be aware to an unsettling extent of everything else that goes on at the Opéra," she added wryly. "What, then, is your real objection?"

Erik squirmed. "I- I-"

"Ah," Madame Giry said, smiling as her statements at last found their target. "We now come to the point, don't we?"

"I don't like what you're insinuating," Erik blurted out defensively, with the look of a cornered animal. "What you are suggesting is foul and disgusting, and- and I call it unfair of you to make such assumptions, and I never said-"

"-What do you imagine that I am 'insinuating'?" Madame Giry was determined to make him acknowledge it.

"You're trying to make out that…" Erik couldn't say it. "That... that I am in love with Christine!" he at last managed to gasp out, the shameful words crashing up against one another so they were almost unintelligible.

Madame Giry lifted her eyebrows. "Well, are you, perhaps?"

Erik couldn't stand it any longer. The shame was eating away at him. Besides, denying what he felt for Christine Daae, his only angel... that was nothing short of blasphemy. "Very well!" he roared, leaping up so violently his chair and the table beside it fell over. "You have me! Yes, I dared to raise my eyes to her! Me, of all the lowliest, most despicable creatures on earth! I've tried to make myself stop loving her, as God is my witness I have, and I cannot! There!- You've found out my filthy secret! Well done! My shame is complete. Are you satisfied?"

"No," Madame Giry said gently and solemnly, her grey eyes fixed on him.

"Then do you mean to tell her?" he asked in horror.

"Certainly not."

"Then what do you want from me?" Erik cried. "What would you have me do now? Why did you drag it out of me? Do you mean to humiliate me as much as possible?"

"I do not want to see you humiliated." Madame Giry looked wounded. "Surely you know me better than that."

"Yes," Erik admitted slowly. "But... I don't understand."

"You have told me nothing you need be ashamed of. Of course you love Christine. And it does you credit. It is a mark of your discernment."

"Others would not see it that way," Erik said bitterly. He had dared to love someone once before, in a childish way, when he was about seven. One of the little girls in the gypsy camp. To his endless astonishment, she had said she liked him back. But then, in her innocent happiness, she had told her father of their affection. He had beaten Erik almost senseless, and then he had beaten her far worse, in front of Erik. And that was only over a stupid childish crush. God in Heaven, what would people do to him if they knew of the grand operatic passion he felt for Christine, as far greater than that childish inclination as the sun was greater than the moon? Worse, what might they do to her?

"But we must face facts," Madame Giry said. "I thought that your forbidding her to marry was not only for her sake, but for yours as well. I know now that I was right. You have wronged her, Erik. It was wrong of you to use your influence over her this way."

"I did not mean to. I only meant that if she formed an alliance with the Vicomte, it would be too painful for me to remain. I did not know I had such a hold on her."

"Be that as it may - you cannot keep hold of her like this," Madame Giry said, "Either you tell her she is free to marry, or you give up this deception. In fact, I think eventually you must give it up either way."

Erik regarded her through narrowed, defiant eyes. "Why should I do that?" A horrified look leapt onto his features. "Are you threatening to tell her?"

End of Chapter 1

Note: Given that this is a story about a great singer and a musical genius, it's just not complete without music! So I am including 'soundtrack' suggestions. I hope the songs I suggest can introduce you to some gorgeous new music and enhance your experience of the story, if you wish. I strongly support streaming/buying music legally (most of the songs are readily available on iTunes, Amazon, Apple Music, etc). That's how we support artists, ensuring more gorgeous new music can be created in the future!

Some French words:

Madame = Mrs., ma'am

Vicomte = viscount