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Rossignol	By : Savaial Category: M through R > The Phantom of the Opera > Het Views: 5240 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Phantom of the Opera, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Rossignol
- 2-Two
- 3-Three
- 4-Ch 4
- 5-Ch 5
- 6-Ch 6
- 7-7
- 8-Ch 8
- 9-Ch 9
- 10-Ch 10
- 11-Ch 11
- 12-Ch 12
- 13-Ch 13
- 14-Ch 14
- 15-Ch 15
- 16-Ch 16
- 17-Ch 17
- 18-Ch 18
- 19-Ch 19
- 20-Ch 20
- 21-Ch 21
- 22-Ch 22
- 23-Ch 23
- 24-Ch 24
- 25-Ch 25
- 26-Ch 26
- 27-Ch 27
- 28-Ch 28
- 29-Ch 29
- 30-30- Epilogue
- 1
- 2
Posted in various places. Finished.

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The smells seem stronger today. Perhaps that is because I feel heavier than normal. Even the air presses me down into this mattress, laden with the scent of heavy metals. The copper of blood, the iron of the manacles, the lead in the paint…

If not for these wretched smells I could imagine myself elsewhere. I close my eyes, and I stuff my ears full of wax to keep from hearing the screaming, but these odors are inescapable. Even breathing through my mouth doesn’t help; I taste the gory mist coating my throat with every inhale.

I don’t remember when I came here anymore, but I remember why…

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My hands itch. I hate him. I want to strangle him with my bare hands. Most moments I am content to let the suffering ride over me like an ocean wave, but the moments with him are filled with bloodlust.

If only I was free!

Content, he sleeps beside me. If the cursed night watch would only move on down the hallway! The iron chains that keep me bound could so easily liberate me. All I would have to do is wrap them around his fat, sweaty neck and pull.

God, it hurts so much. I know I won’t walk in the morning.

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How can I be this cold and not be dead? How can I be so cold in all this bright sunlight? It teases me, warms only the barest layer of my flesh. The wind abrades my face and hands like sandpaper. I know if I open my eyes I’ll go blind.

I’m dead already and they don’t know it. I’m a corpse, my fluttering dress a tattered burial shroud, my skin covered in the dirt of the grave. How warm the earth must feel. I imagine it piling on me, shovel after shovel of warm, nurturing earth. It stops up my ears like moist velvet…

I’m going mad.

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I heard someone mention the date today, by accident. It seems I’ve been here not quite as long as it feels. Just ten years…

I wonder what I look like now. I must be twenty five.

When was my birthday?

I can’t remember my own birthday.

Well, what does it matter? The only thing I’ll ever celebrate here is my own death. It will be a grand party, simply everyone will be there. I hope someone remembers to put coins over my eyes.

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They forgot to drug me today.

I sat up on the straw mattress and breathed deeply. They hadn’t missed a dose in years, I was sure of it. What could have happened?

No sounds came from behind my door. That was odd. Nearly every minute of every day had some kind of screaming or moaning in it. The cacophony was constant! But now there was silence… No groans echoed down the corridor, no damned souls begged for release…

This was my chance to really think. I had to get out of this place. I had to think of something while my brain was clear, something so simple I could remember it when they came to give me the syringe full of nothingness.

If only I could get some paper and a pencil! I could write a letter to my brothers. They would come if they knew what Pierre Lescot had done with me.

Well, maybe not. My heart sank a little as I thought of how my brothers treated me. They thought I was stupid. Either one of them would just think I’d taken a brain fever or something, they’d never believe I was captive in an asylum.

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"She's waking up."

The voice reverberated off my throbbing skull. Memories both old and familiar clashed together. I knew that voice.

I opened my eyes. I recognized my youngest brother instantly, though time had changed his youthful beauty into rugged manliness. His blue eyes searched me, judging my state of awareness.

"Celeste, it's me. Do you remember?"

Nodding, I made an attempt to sit up. The dull ache in my arm shot to an excruciating level. I collapsed back onto the bed.

"I think her arm is broken," a soft, sweet voice spoke from my left hand side. I looked toward it wearily, spying a beautiful blonde woman. Her blue eyes met mine and she smiled kindly. "My name is Christine," she said, reaching behind me to fluff my pillow. "I am your brother's wife." She glanced at Raoul warmly, but her expression seemed grave.

"Can't we fetch a doctor? I'm afraid if her arm is broken we won't be able to set it properly."

"No dear, we can't." Raoul favored me with an apologetic look, his hands gently probing my injury. I gritted my teeth against the pain he caused.

"No one can know we rescued Celeste,” he went on. “If her husband catches wind of where she is, he'll either put her back in that god-awful madhouse or she'll meet with some kind of 'accident' as he drags her back to America." He sighed, his eyes flickering shut as he carefully felt the bone above my elbow. It hurt terribly. "Yes, this is broken."

"Oh Raoul, if you hadn't found her when you did-"

"I prefer not to think about it,” Raoul cut his wife off shortly, giving her a meaningful look. When he finally looked back toward me I felt he’d been warning her not to speak of the asylum. "Celeste, are you still...” He trailed off, his expression grave.

I nodded. How fitting he couldn’t give voice to my malady.

"I had hoped you would outgrow it somehow," he said softly, his eyes sad. "The doctors gave me that hope." He smiled suddenly, donning a false mantle of cheer. "But it doesn't matter, you are safe anyhow," he declared.

"No she isn't Raoul.” Christine interjected, though not harshly. "If our own home isn't a safe place for her to receive medical attention, what shall we do?"

"I don't know damn it,” my brother jumped up and began to pace restlessly, casting us both a rather despairing look. "We need a place he would never know about, somewhere we can leave her and not worry about people snooping around."

"I wish-” Christine cut short and sighed. "Erik’s home would have been the perfect place for her to recover and hide, and he would have been able to set her arm."

Raoul halted his nervous movements in an instant, his whole body going rigid. For a moment I believed him angry, for his eyes flashed hotly, but he relaxed soon enough. "You're right of course my dear, his house is well hidden,” he replied with a peculiar twist to his mouth and words. “Do you still have the key to it?"

Silence fell. I looked to the beautiful woman as she seemed to fight for words. Her eyelids fluttered as she tried to make sense of her thoughts.

"What? Do you mean to take your sister down there Raoul?" Christine's eyes finally went wide with disbelief. “Erik has been – I mean, it’s been two years. The place is probably unlivable!" She clasped her hands to her chest and began to wring them violently. “It’s so damp, so dangerous! It’s probably infested with vermin!”

"I rather doubt it,” Raoul countered smoothly. "I noticed it was well made, I daresay it's stood up to time and rats rather well." He looked at me, then back to Christine. "In any case it would do for a very short period of time, wouldn't it?"

I smiled inwardly. Raoul’s tone told me who made the decisions between them. He talked well, but he always needed guidance to accomplish anything.

"I- Raoul...” Christine closed her eyes, her hand fluttering up to her throat. "I don't know. Erik had a fondness for traps and such. What if he set up something down there before he-” She sighed, shuddering. "He was going to detonate gunpowder under the opera. All that could still be there. It would just be like him to make it so anyone who tried to get into his house would bring the entire structure down."

"I don't think so." Raoul sat in a wing chair, his eyes going soft. "Christine, I've had a few years to think about what happened. Do you really think he'd have blown up the entire opera house?"

"I can't believe I'm hearing this." Christine shook her head. "Are you defending him Raoul?"

"No, I'm not, but I think that it's worth the risk to take Celeste down into the cellars, no one would ever think to find her there."

I heard the sound of stubbornness sink into Raoul’s words. I was starting to feel dizzy listening to him and his wife. They exchanged more words without saying anything than any two people I’d ever known. Why couldn’t she just say she was scared, and why couldn’t Raoul just assure her everything would be fine? They were both being silly. Christine was actually afraid of a dead man lighting a fuse? Raoul was pandering to that?

"There is that,” Christine replied grudgingly, with a deep sigh. "I think I may still have the key, but I'll have to look in my old trunks. I never went through all that clutter when we moved in here."

I listened to them speak for a few minutes more, but I was so tired I couldn't concentrate on the things said. After a time I began to hear their voices as a simple droning, and I shut my eyes. I wasn't really sure of where I was anyway; my brother and his wife could easily have been figments of my imagination. All I knew for certain was that my arm felt shattered.

"Celeste?"

I forced my eyelids open. Raoul was bending over me with a glass.

"I'm going to give you a little laudanum; it will help you feel more comfortable until we have to move you." He handed me the tumbler, his face creased with worry. "I'm so sorry I failed you Celeste, I didn't know what had happened to you. Please forgive me."

I patted his hand while accepting his drugged drink. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't anyone's fault but Pierre Lescot's.
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Rossignol