Two Souls
Chapter 7- Into the Stars
"You've heard from him?" I say excitedly, as I scuttle into the room.
Christine is sitting on her vanity chair, nodding so exuberantly that her curls are bouncing all over her face. She giggles as I rush over and kneel in front of her.
"He's written again!" She says, breathless as she hands the letter to me. I open it carefully so as to not hurt the sealing wax. It's very ornate; a rose stamped into it. The creases where the letter was folded are worn; she has opened and read it many times before.
I scan the page. My! How wonderful his handwriting is! I always admire a man with wonderful handwriting.
"My dearest Christine," I say, pronouncing each word as aristocratically as I can. "I have to decree how much I enjoyed your performance as Elissa in the newest production of Hannibal…"
Come on, get to the good stuff.
"Skip over that, Meg." Christine says, almost jumping up and down in her seat in excitement. "Go to where he says 'and good fortune'."
I happily skip over the fawning over Christine's musical talent and how she sings like the very archangels themselves, and find the place where she wants me to start again.
"and good fortune. I hope that you will remember our engagement- six thirty at the foyer de danse-,"
I pause. "The foyer? But Christine-," The foyer de danse is a place of mischief, and well… sexual gratification- and I can tell that Christine is blushing. Why did she want me to read this?
Was she telling me that she was…
I don't want to think of it. I break off and give the letter back to her. "Respectfully yours, etcetera, Raoul, Viscount De Chagny." I end on a very un-aristocratic way.
"Meg, we are just meeting to go to dinner." Christine says. She is making excuses.
I glare at her. She looks upset.
Well, she can just go jump off of a bridge. She knows that I enjoy reading her letters, and that I pretended that he was writing those words to me in that perfect, flowing handwriting.
"Stop lying," I say, getting up to leave. "You both are just going to a hotel."
"Meg! That's not true."
"Why did you give me that letter?" I say, feeling like I'm about to cry. "WHY?"
She did it to torture me! I love him! I love him and she knows! She's parading her relationship!
I hear cry surrounding us—a cry that I agreed with— stunned jealousy mixed with hate. I scream as well and run out of the room. The din is so loud that Christine covers her ears.
I hope she dies.
"Meg," My mother says, shaking me awake. I moaned pitifully and looked around to see where I had fallen asleep through half-closed eyes. The couch, as per usual. "Meg, I'm late already. You have to get up so we can say goodbye."
"Goodbye?" I said, groggily, but now I was awake.
Time to say goodbye.
Paesi che non ho mai
Veduto e vissuto con te,
Adesso si li vivro
Con te partiro
Su navi per mari
Che, io lo so,
No, no, non esistono piu,
It's time to say goodbye.
"Yes," My mother said, plopping her suitcase down on the couch so hard that I bounced up. "My firm is sending me to America for a week and a half."
Now I was DEFINITELY awake.
"They gave me no notice, Meg, I have to go or I'm fired."
'That's ridiculous. Doesn't the Union, like, forbid that?"
My mother gave a groan like I had said something stupid again and shoved a tie in her briefcase that was, for some odd, strange reason, on the lampshade. We aren't really the neatest people in the world, here.
"You're going to stay with Aunt Antoinette for the first seven days and then with Christine for the rest. I just called them. Thank God they had enough room to take you.
"Now go and pack some stuff. I've got an hour to be on that plane."
And that was how I ended up at my batty old Aunt Antoinette's house.
"Sit down, Meg," My aunt said, gesturing like a dancer to her overstuffed sofa. She adjourned for the kitchen
I sat down.
Her cat, Ayesha, snaked onto my lap, demanding to be petted. I scratched behind her ears half-heartedly, but whole-heartedly hating the whole idea that I was here.
"Margeurite," My kooky aunt said, coming back from the kitchen with tea. Ayesha dug her claws into my thighs, and then satisfied with my screams of pain; she snaked away, disgusted with my petting-skills.
"OW! GOD DAMN IT! STUPID CAT!"
My aunt blissfully ignored Ayesha, and my screams of pain.
"I hear that you are being tutored in science and voice by a student at your school?"
My aunt never said the name of my school... always 'your school'. Like she couldn't bear to say that.
"Yes," I said, not really paying attention. "He's coming over. Is that alright?"
"Of course, darling," she said, after a few minutes of awkward silence.
"Are you alright?" I asked my aunt, who suddenly went very pale at the sound of 'Bolero' echoing from the door.
My aunt, instead of having a normal doorbell like any self respecting Parisian, had a doorbell that sounded Bolero. She said as not to scare the cat. But I think she's just batty.
"Yes, quite. Meg, dear, why don't you answer the door?"
She said it more like a command than a request. But I answered it anyway, just to be nice.
There was Mr. Senior, looking like a train just hit him while the last bit of Bolero bellowed out of the doorbell.
"Please don't ask." I said, mortified. I moved out of the way for him to come in, which he did. He was looking around warily, like he was expecting my aunt to come out of the closet dressed in a suit of armor, swinging a battle ax and screaming bloody murder at him.
He simply looked at me, then looked around the house, and then asked where the piano was. It was very convenient for my aunt to have a Steinway in the house.
"JUST DON'T PUT ANY DRINKS ON IT!" My aunt yelled every so often at us, protecting her precious grand piano. I rolled my eyes.
"Barking mad,"
Mr. Senior, showing great patience, ignored all of this and simply set up the sheet music on the stand.
"I took the liberty of adjusting the music so the lady's part will be an alto. I hope that is acceptable to you."
I looked at the title of the piece… 'Point of No Return' from the opera Don Juan Triumphant…
Wait a second; he wanted ME to sing opera?
"Yeah." I said, simply. "Hey, Mr. Senior—I mean, Erik—I've never heard this song before." I flipped through the pages. Three pages of sheet music! "How am I supposed to practice if I've never heard it before?"
"You have heard it before. It will come back to you." Mr. Senior dismissed. He started to play, but then broke off, like he had just processed something. "Did you just call me 'Mister Senior'?
"No." I said, a little too quickly. Erik backed off of the subject and started to play the piano.
And then he started to sing.
Dear God.
I had doubts, early on, about how this singing thing would work out. But once he had opened his mouth and sang, I completely took all of my thoughts back. This man could sing like an angel from heaven!
It was a miracle! I closed my eyes, wrapping myself around the lovely aura of his voice. What kind of a man… what kind of a man was this?
The piano trailed off. "That was your cue, Meg." He said, sounding rather sad.
"I'm sorry." I said… for two reasons. Why was he so sad? Was he sad to be singing it to me, instead of Christine?
"It's alright."
It wasn't. He was somewhere between annoyed and depressed. I felt a sort of compassion. For Erik.
"Try again," Erik said, hitting the notes on the piano.
"You have brought me, to that moment when words run dry, to that moment when speech disappears into silence, silence. I have come here, hardly knowing the reason why. In my mind, I have already imagined our bodies entwining, defenseless and silent…"
I gasped.
This song…
This song…
This song was immoral!
"Keep going," Mr. Senior growled.
"And now I am here with you, no second thoughts. I've decided… Decided…" I was blushing while I was singing those words. Why was this cleared by the staff of the talent show?
"Past the point of no return, no going back now! Our passion play has now begun. Past all thought of right or wrong, one final question. How long should we two wait before we're one? When will the blood begin to race, the sleeping bud burst in to bloom? When will the flames at last consume us? Past--,"
"That's enough for today." Erik stood up. "You did well." He gathered the sheet music and got the heck out of there.
…
Did I do something wrong?
Author's Note -
Hi guys! So sorry it took so long to update. And, alright, I lied. It's Meg's POV. XD. I'm so sorry if Erik is OOC. PLEASE REVIEW AND TELL ME IF HE IS! (I'm quite anxious about it.)
ALSO!
The song that Meg thinks of when waking up is called TIME TO SAY GOODBYE, and is sang by Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli.
POINT OF NO RETURN belongs to Andrew Lloyd Webber (that darling man).