Epilogue

On the street outside the modiste's shop, I locked the front door and pocketed the key in my winter-weight dress. The back door that lead to the tiny walled garden where I liked to take coffee on my lunch break should have already been locked, but I walked down the alley between my shop and the milliner next door and entered through the gate to the little garden and gave the knob a testing jerk. Locked up tight and the lights in the storage room there were off. It was a small indication that the new assistant I had hired had listened to me when I'd asked her to close-up the rear of the store for me while I had handled the last customer of the day.

The days were growing much shorter now and dusk came on quickly. Both of my employees had husbands and children to get home to, so letting them leave a little earlier only seemed fair.

The small town of Provins had become my home after leaving Paris last winter. Built in the medieval period, it wasn't the tiny, seaside village that I had once dreamed of, but it was a charming place, the twelfth century architecture drawing scholars and tourists alike to our streets and their wives and daughters to my shop.

As the dark deepened with the evening, I stopped in the post office and was thrilled to find three letters from Paris. One was from my parents and I knew that it would likely contain all the news and gossip from my mother, who had once again been welcomed to the bosom of her friends, as had my father been similarly asked to re-join his club. The scandal of last New Year's Eve had not damaged their reputation, but instead enhanced it and my parents were all too eager to speak of the drama. The death of their former son-in-law at the hands of their own daughter had been overshadowed by the fact that Armand Bouvieux had tried to murder the Vicomte de Chagny and his viscountess. Everyone in Parisian society had suddenly wanted to talk to my parents.

I would read that letter later.

It was the other two letters that I was eager to tear open. One was from the Vicomtesse de Chagny herself, the other Madame Amelia Rouchard, Head Costumer of the Opera Populaire.

I ripped open the letter from Amelia first and as I began the walk to my little house, I pored over her loopy, dramatic handwriting. Hugh, principal baritone, was still slaying the hearts of the audiences and critics alike. She was tired of Carlotta complaining that his voice was far too loud, and that her costumes took far too long to get done. Marie was engaged and talking her ear off all hours of the day about the upcoming nuptials and Jeanette had recently gotten her heart broke and was annoyed that her sister didn't spend enough time consoling her.

I suppose it's not a convenient time for you to come and knock their heads together?

I laughed out-loud, then sent an apologetic look to a scowling elderly woman taking an evening walk with her dog.

And oh, God…she was pregnant! My hand came down to rest on my own stomach as I read that Amelia thought perhaps, she might be a couple months along and that if she became as big as a house and the twins were still driving her mad, she might just come apply for work at my shop. I shook my head with a faint smile, wishing it could be so. I missed her, but I knew that despite all the grousing in the letter, she was happy in her work. Probably as happy as I had been when I had once held the same position.

I folded and tucked away the letter, already writing the return letter in my head.

The letter from Christine fell open after I unfolded it and a small photograph tumbled out, which I quickly bent and swooped up. Turning it over in my fingers as I crossed the street and left behind the shopping district, I stopped in the glow of a streetlight and stared down at the small square of paper.

The Chagnys posed in a garden. Christine sat in a chair, the folds of her high-necked, lace-covered gown spread out around her legs. Her hair was pinned in an elegant upsweep, her delicate features forming a joyful smile. Raoul stood behind her, upright and proud, his youthful face austere and sober, but his eyes were alert and happy. And in Christine's lap sat a mostly bald, plump baby, whom despite the refined appearance of his parents, was giving a toothless, laughing grin, his plump fingers curled tight in the ruffles that fell down the front of his mother's dress. I traced a nail over the baby boy's sweet, shining face and couldn't help the nervous, little clutch in my heart. Despite that anxious, little pang, I was so happy for them. I had been able to hold the baby and kiss his sweet-scented brow when I had traveled to Paris briefly for the wedding of Meg Giry and Duncan McInery.

I tucked the picture carefully into the envelope and held the letter open in the glow of golden light from the streetlamp, reading Christine's careful and elegant handwriting. Little Philippe was doing well and had been sitting up on his own and was now starting to crawl in fitful starts and stops. As such, Raoul had sent the maids on a tear around the house, plucking up anything that might possibly be within range of those sticky little fingers.

I am still working on Raoul, trying to convince him that a visit to Provins when Philippe is a little older might be a short, pleasant holiday, but…he isn't quite to that point just yet. I think time will indeed soften some of these wounds. He promises, however, that you alone are more than welcome to pay us another visit and stay for as long as you like. When you are up to it, of course.

The letter went on a little longer, describing the near constant visits from Meg McInery, who was only more than happy to use her own status as an 'rich, old married lady' to bridge that gap between Christine and herself. In a happy coincidence, Duncan had inherited quite a landfall from a wealthy Scottish relative, including the passing of a minor title and a drafty, crumbling castle.

Meg took the title, but outright refused to move into the castle. The fortunate couple remained in Paris.

At the bottom of the letter, added as a postscript, were the words:

Give Maestro my love. And make sure he's taking good care of you.

I smiled and tucking the letter away, I walked home in the quiet night that was turning cold with the promise of snow and reflected on all that had happened since my last evening spent within the Opera.

Long before the authorities were summoned to the scene of Armand's death, Erik was transported to the surgeon's office. Aided by two assistants that were sworn to be well-paid for their ability to be discreet, the surgeon was one frequented by Parisian nobility, many of whom did not want their maladies and injuries to be spoken of beyond the hospital's doors.

The bullet wound was, mercifully, through and through, but the proximity of the shot had torn through the space between Erik's left pectoral and shoulder, damaging muscles and nerves alike. The height difference of the two men and the angle of the pistol had sent the bullet on an upward trajectory, doing far more damage to the shoulder than if it had been on a horizontal path.

If he could avoid the ravages of infection, Erik was going to live, the surgeon had promised, as he stared down with a bloodless expression at the unconscious face on his table, but there was more than likely going to be permanent damage.

The damage meant little to me at the time…I just wanted him to live. After hours of waiting while the wound was cleaned and packed and dressed, I had sobbed into my hands in front of the surgeon. When I had been able to speak, I had asked how we might avoid the dangers of infection.

Several times, I had been forced to leave Erik's side during those frightening first days of his recovery. Christine had convinced Raoul to let him convalesce in one of the rooms of their home while the inquest to Armand's death was being carried out. As much as I knew the younger man and Erik alike disliked the notion, they both relented, acknowledging that it would make things easier for everyone if the surgeon should have to be summoned once more. If the dreaded signs of infection began to manifest, the wound would have to be treated immediately.

I was essentially on trial, in the most basic sense. There would be no jury or courtroom, but there were interviews with me, Raoul and Christine. Erik's name was not mentioned. The three of us had decided, as Erik lay on the surgeon's table in the first hour of the man's care, that his presence would not be spoken of. I knew that the young nobleman could have taken this as his opportunity to be rid of his enemy for good, but throughout the length of the inquest and the many inquiries put to Raoul in particular, he didn't betray Erik. I would forever be grateful to him for that alone.

When Raoul, Christine and I testified that my former husband had beaten me, pistol-whipped Raoul and leveled that gun at the viscountess, the authorities were skeptical of such a dramatic occurrence and from such a respected member of the peerage. But when Armand's solicitors were called to speak, and it was revealed that not only had the Comte de Bouvieux taken on some very deep and dangerous debts, but that he was also being sued by creditors, those facts put a tarnish on his reputation. And when the inheritance from his aunt came to light, the very one that hinged upon his taking me as wife again, and that inheritance was found to be of such an exorbitant amount as to pay off all those debts, it added a layer of desperation to that tarnish.

After ten long days, the inquest was over, and my name was cleared.

We were married in a private ceremony, with only Madame Giry serving as witness. Erik didn't know his last name, but he had investigated Nordic and Germanic surnames and so on our marriage license, he signed 'Erik Reinholt.'

Erik had recovered well from the ordeal. No infection arose, but there were ominous signs of the permanent damage the surgeon had warned us about.

The bullet wound that had left muscles and nerves permanently damaged. His left hand trembled and shook, sometimes went numb for hours or days at a time and often pained him viciously, as did the shoulder. He was ambidextrous and therefore could still write and draw up plans. But never again could he truly play music. Neither his violin or a piano could perform his bidding when his left hand was so damaged.

It was a steep price to pay for the future that we had finally found ourselves able to enjoy. We were together, and I was forever grateful that our love of each other had not diminished, but it was another sort of love entirely that Erik mourned for.

We found a small home in the village of Provins. Constructed of pale stone and just one story, I had used the funds from my inheritance and had outright purchased the cottage. And despite being promised that I was getting quite the deal, I knew better.

It was a damned mess! A crumbling roof, windows that let in cold, a fireplace that had been falling in on itself for many years and a foundation that was cracking. Erik had taken one look, given me a long-suffering sigh, then rolled up his metaphorical sleeves and dived in.

My husband needed a distraction from his devastating loss and working on the house alongside the contractor that some of our remaining funds hired was a perfect one. In one of the flesh-colored masks that we'd commissioned before leaving Paris, he stood side by side with the contractor and his men, going over the floor plan that Erik himself had drawn up. The repairs would all be made, indoor plumbing added and the doll-size bedrooms inside the cottage would join to make one generous master. A small addition would be added onto the back of the cottage that would give Erik a workshop.

During the two months that it took to complete the necessary work, we stayed in a small flat and I found work in a shop that offered alterations and ready-made ladies' clothing, delivered from Paris. The flat and my position were only temporary as I made inquiries and learned that there was not a modiste in Provins, or the other nearest village. The eight weeks gave me the time to hunt for space to lease and it gave Erik the chance to accept his own new circumstances. To accept that while Armand might be gone for good, he left our lives forever changed.

He didn't want a piano in the little flat and for those two months, he tried to avoid catching the strains of a church organ, a street musician strolling by or the performances held by a passing theater troupe. If he failed and music reached us, his mouth would tighten with pain and his eyes would dim. He would disappear into the bedroom, to pretend to read or to pore over designs for things he wanted to make or have another look over the plans for the cottage. Many times, when I would wake in the night, my limbs still entangled with his from our passion, I would find his pillow damp. I didn't know how to begin to help him.

Near the time that the cottage would finally be ready, I had secured a space for my shop. With the signing of the lease, an hours long visit to Paris to purchase material stock and the setting up of a vendor account, I became a businesswoman.

Once we were settled in our own home and out of the flat with its thin walls and nosy, noisy neighbors, Erik became more content. The workshop he outfitted with a wood-burning stove, shelving, a long work-bench and tools. With his arm in a sling to give stabilization, he could use his left hand to help him fuse wiring, carve wood and melt down scrap metal. From there, the workshop came to be filled with a variety of strange and fascinating toys. Here was a man who had been denied the basic joys of childhood. It didn't seem odd at all to me that now that he had true freedom, he might indulge the curious, brilliant mind with the playthings he might have always dreamed up or coveted but been denied.

When we were certain that his inventions wouldn't poke the eye out of some hapless child or cause one to lose a finger, or burn down their house, I put some of the finished creations on a shelf in my shop. Women shopping with their children in tow would find themselves with their son or daughter so fascinated that they often had no choice but to take the toy home. The enjoyment that the children – and sometimes adults – took in his work seemed to buoy Erik and his mood. I soon had to clear a small section of shelves for the toys.

We had lived in the stone cottage for a few weeks when a thought had struck me, a way in which Erik might be able to once again play music, after a fashion.

My own skills on a piano were rudimentary at best, helped along by Erik's patience when he would give me lessons on the organ. I had never truly improved, but I had learned enough to no longer be considered a beginner. I wanted to learn to play, not for myself, but for my husband.

He wouldn't allow a piano into the cottage, so I began to take intermediary lessons from an instructor whose music shop was a few storefronts down from my own. A half hour before my own business would open, or sometimes a half hour after. Once I had hired a shop assistant, I would use a lunch hour to sneak in practice time. I was never going to be a master like Erik or even my instructor, but the near daily lessons over a few months' time improved my skills immeasurably.

When the piano was delivered to the cottage that hot and humid July, Erik was furious.

"Why, Genn? Why would you do this? I can't play!" His left arm in the black sling I'd made for him, he stared at the innocent-looking instrument with anguish in his beautiful eyes, his right hand pressed over the flesh-toned mask.

"Not now. But I can." From a bookshelf, I wiggled free the manuscript that I had hunted for amongst his things a few days earlier. It was the piece that he had written in that season below the Opera, when our love affair had begun. I carried it over to the piano, spread it carefully open over the stand and clipped it into place, then sat at the bench.

"I don't want to hear it, Genevieve! And we both know you can't play worth a damn. Maybe if I'd actually had time to teach you…" He gave a pained sigh, raking his fingers through his dark hair.

"I'm going to ignore that jab. Now, just come here. Sit with me, husband." I tilted my head over my shoulder, giving him a small smile. We both knew how much he loved to hear me say the word. With a grumbled growl, he slid onto the bench beside me.

When I began playing his music, he only sat there for the first few minutes, his gaze moving between my hands moving across the keys and my face as I sucked at my bottom lip in concentration. Over the length of my lessons, it had become so satisfying to listen to my playing become smoother, easier and finally almost effortless. I might have stumbled over a note or two as I played for Erik, but when the piece concluded, he sat next to me in stunned silence.

"Where did—"

"The music shop down the street from Reinholt Designs. The woman who owns it has been teaching me, a half-hour every day, sometimes an hour if I can spare it. For about three months now." I rested my hands down in my lap and turned on the bench towards him. "If you could write music again, Erik, I could play it. Or…you could separate the treble clef and bass clef on the sheet and we could perhaps play together." I found myself working my fingers anxiously into my skirts, waiting on his reply.

He stared down at the keys, his eyes pinched at the corners, his mouth tight. I knew that the loss he had suffered was devastating and even this solution might not ever ease the pain, but I hoped that he would at least try.

After what seemed an endless wait, he let his right hand drift down to the keys and a quiet melody drifted up from the flow of his long fingers across the ivory.

"I'll think about it," he murmured quietly and then let his head come to rest on my shoulder.

By the next day, he was furiously writing, copying music down onto two separate sheets of staff-lined paper.

July slid into August and when we finally felt at ease enough to let our direction be known to that very small circle of people that we considered friends, the letters began coming. Amelia wrote with regular frequency and the twins sent long, babbling letters. Meg sent her wedding invitation. Christine sent occasional updates about young Philippe. The only visitor that was allowed was Madame Giry and with her ailing hip, she only stayed for one day before taking a coach back to Paris.

It was during my own visit to Paris in September to attend the wedding of Meg Giry and Duncan McInery that I began to feel ill. Erik had not come with me to Paris, so I suffered through it alone. Churning nausea, a sharp aversion to certain foods I'd enjoyed before, dizziness that often plagued me at all hours. When I nearly passed out one night at dinner with the Chagnys, Christine had insisted I attend her own doctor.

It was there I learned that I was three months gone with child.

Throughout my first marriage, my menses had been highly irregular due to stress. After the loss of my one and only pregnancy, I had been told that I shouldn't ever expect to carry another child. Though my own doctor at the time hadn't been entirely sure, he had suspected I'd suffered a rupture and that my body would perhaps never conceive again.

During my time at the Opera, my cycles had also been irregular, but after leaving Paris, they had seemed to become more dependable. Suffering through cramps, nausea and feverish chills had not seemed quite a fair trade for a healthy body, but Erik would bring me hot water bottles to press over my belly and hold me close and well…that wasn't so bad.

Because of my previous doctor's predictions, I had never expected to become pregnant. Sitting in that exam room, with Christine clutching my shoulder, I was stunned. Emotions tangled inside me like writhing snakes: joy, shock, terror and an awful fear of what Erik would say, what he would think.

He had made it very clear that he didn't want children, that he couldn't stand the thought of passing his deformity onto someone else.

I went home from that trip with a jar of vitamins from Christine's physician and a promise from her to secure a doctor of my own in Provins as soon as I was able.

Erik was horrified by the revelation of my condition. Torn between concern that I might die in childbirth and that our child would be born with his condition, he spent several weeks watching me vomit in the mornings with a look of dread upon his unmasked face. When I tried to speak to him of names, of plans to perhaps add on another room to the cottage, he would shut down and simply shake his head, unable to speak on an event that he felt could only end in tragedy.

Things changed one night when we were making love. Erik had already pulled my night robe away and he was lying between my thighs, his mouth making a slow, heated trek down between my breasts, which were already fuller and heavier. My hands tangled in his hair, I felt him pause when he reached my belly.

I was six months with child and my stomach was now a steadily growing swell beneath my gowns. As Erik stroked his slightly trembling left hand over my thigh, he turned his head and after a long hesitation, pressed his unmasked cheek down over where our child grew. I held my breath, tears hot and burning in my eyes as my husband took a sharp breath, then exhaled it in a quiet laugh. "She's moving," he murmured with quiet wonder. "I can feel her moving."

"Oh?" I asked, the sound watery with my tears. "Are you sure it's a girl?"

"Well, no. But she feels rather annoyed in there. Impatient, demanding little kicks. I think she must be female." And then he had lifted his head and grinned at me before continuing his slow trail of kisses down the length of my body.

That night was only a few short weeks ago. At seven months along, I was awkward and ungainly, but still working, much to the shock of my employees and to the aggravation of my husband. I knew that would soon need to end and that my confinement would begin. I had plans in place, knew my assistants would manage fine without me and that my doctor had engaged a very experienced midwife in the case that he couldn't attend the birth himself. He knew about Erik's deformities, had examined my husband and though the doctor had never seen such a condition before, did not think it likely that such a face would be passed on.

I had reached the conclusion, and so had Erik, that it didn't matter. Even if our daughter, or son, was born with that face, we wouldn't let it matter. They would have two parents that loved them. They would never know a father's absence or a mother's hatred. They would be raised in a house with warmth and laughter, music and magic. Erik's legacy would continue in our child, but the life he had been forced to endure would never be our child's life.

Ahead, beneath another street lamp, a tall, dark figure in a long coat and hat prowled towards me, the brim pulled low over the flesh-colored mask. As he drew closer, he scowled and pulled a scarf from his pocket, then wrapped it around my throat and face. "What have I told you about wearing a damned scarf?" He tucked the ends down into the collar of my cloak and then kissed the only skin left available; my brow.

I grinned beneath the layers of cashmere and took the arm that he offered. This had become our habit in the last several weeks. He would meet me in town, or at the very edge of it and walk me home. He was worried I might be hit by a carriage, take a slip on the road or any other varieties of harm that could befall a pregnant woman.

I showed him the photo of little Philippe and he scoffed. "That child is bald. Raoul must be horrified after how proud he is of his own hair."

I rolled my eyes, gave him a jab of my elbow and told him to hush, then recounted Amelia's complaints about the Opera these days. He gave me his own day's events, telling me of the new prototype for a toy dog that actually barked and the piece of music that he had worked up for us to play together.

And so, it went as we walked towards our home together in the deepening night.

The End

Thank you all for reading, no matter if you began reading back all those years ago or just recently. I appreciate all of you, including the reviews and constructive criticism. Special thanks goes to Mominator, who has given me wonderful edits and advice for the published version and Musique, who has been my very encouraging friend, even when I didn't deserve it.

The published version of AEoT, which is Leroux-inspired, will be out on January 1st. It is available now for pre-order on Amazon. The links can be found on my various social medias: Author Amanda Osborne on Facebook, mandytheo on tumblr - where I post blogs and updates - and I also have a Goodreads under Amanda Osborne.