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Destiny Takes Time	By : GueritaSalome Category: M through R > The Phantom of the Opera > Het Views: 19824 -:- 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
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For those of you who might be curious, the word "gadjó" is as close as I can get to the Romany word for a non-gypsy male.

Chapter 2 – Memories

After Christine had gone to sleep, Erik found that he felt rather lonely with just his thoughts to keep him company. He sat at his desk in the main quarters of his home with his precious monkey music box in front of him. Whenever he was upset he liked to take it out and listen to it. Tonight, he had a lot on his mind and hoped that the music would help him to put things into perspective. As the sweet tune started to play, he sat back and closed his eyes, pondering the events of the evening.

Overall their first meeting had gone very well. Had she become angry with him, he would have understood. She had gone from perceiving him as a heavenly being to finding out he was only a man, and incredibly, she had not reproached him for lying. Perhaps Christine understood that he’d done it at the time so she would feel protected, and to that end he had succeeded. However, as grateful as he was that she had accepted him, Erik couldn’t help being agitated by her questions concerning his past. He only hoped that his inability to answer her properly did not make her lose faith in him. The things she had asked stirred so many memories, most of them living nightmares, but not all.

It had been many years since Erik had wandered the streets as a runaway, but what had happened to him after he was found by the gypsies was still very fresh in his mind. Branko, one of the men, had decided that he would be useful and took him into his home, a tent, where he proceeded to treat him like an animal, binding him with a rope so that he couldn’t run away.

Only one person had made his life with the gypsies bearable – Branko’s wife Jovanka. She was a beautiful young woman with her curly, black locks and shining dark eyes. Erik remembered her well. He would surely have died of misery were it not for her help. When her husband was out, she would untie him and allow him to move about freely in the tent, trusting him not to run away. About a week after he’d been brought to live with them, he overheard Branko and Jovanka discussing something outside the tent.

“Branko, you can’t be serious?” she asked in a very upset tone of voice.

“Of course I’m serious, woman. Why wouldn’t I be? His face is perfect for it!” he answered. There was a slight pause, and then he added, “Just think of the money we could make!”

When Erik heard the words “his face” he had no doubt that they were talking about him, and it couldn’t be anything good.

“No…no, Branko. What would you have done if our son had been born the same way?” Her voice was rising.

“That doesn’t matter. Fardy is fine! Anyway, why do you care so much about the gadjó?”

Branko seemed to be very unconcerned with anything that she said. It was useless; she was a woman and had no authority to stop her husband.

“Well, whatever money you make off of him, I don’t want any part of it!” Jovanka retorted and stormed back into the tent.

Erik was clearly perplexed, but he didn’t dare ask her any questions. Later that evening when he was taken to the barred ring which was to be his prison, Jovanka could barely stand to watch Branko lead him away with the sack over his head.

The beating that he took was horrendous. He was kicked and whipped to bring him to his knees, but worse than the beating was having the sack yanked from his head and hearing the laughter of the crowd when they saw his distorted face which was even more twisted from the pain he felt in his entire body. When he tried to cover his face with his hands, he got another lash of the whip, cutting into his skin more each time. Erik had to endure this again for the subsequent groups of curious people that gathered around to see the “Devil’s Child” as he was labeled.

He recalled practically being dragged back to the tent afterward because he was barely able to stand. Branko tossed him inside as if he was just an object, only to turn and leave again. Jovanka had been sitting sewing by the light of an oil lamp when he was thrown to the ground almost landing at her feet. She was startled and quickly knelt down beside him.

“Branko, how could you? He’s just a child!” she shouted, cradling Erik in her arms, but her husband was already leaving and didn’t answer her.

She got him to his feet, her arm firmly around him so that he wouldn’t fall, and walked him to her bed where she let him lie down to tend to his bruises and lacerations. He noticed when he was lying there that her cream colored dress was stained with his blood where she’d leaned him against her.

Beginning with his face, she cleaned his cuts with a wet rag and spoke to him. “My God, Erik…what did he do to you? This is going to hurt, but it must be done. Shhh, there now…”

Knowing that the boy was stinging all over, Jovanka hummed him a sad lullaby. He was without anything over his face at the time and could see her every move and expression. Her dark eyes were deep with sadness and pity, her tears falling on his skin as she had to prod the already tender spots to clean them, inflicting more pain. When he winced or moaned she would stop humming only for a second to mutter something in Romany, no doubt cursing her husband for his atrocities.

Her mother was the tribe’s healer, and Jovanka herself knew quite a bit about the herbs that they commonly used as medicines. She took something that she’d mixed in a bowl and dabbed it over all of the raw skin, first on the front of his body, then after gently turning him over, she applied it to his back. Some of the gashes made by the whip were going to scar; Jovanka knew that, but at least she could help lessen the damage done. When she was finished doctoring his wounds, she gave him something to drink that helped him sleep; for that he was grateful.

Erik didn’t wake up until at least noon the next day, and when he did, he didn’t want to think about moving.

“Come child, you must eat,” she urged him when she came in and found him awake and sitting up.

“I’m not hungry,” he muttered, hanging his head.

Seeing his understandably low spirits, she came over and sat beside him on the bed.

“Erik, how are you going to grow into a strong man if you don’t eat?” Jovanka insisted.

She was the only person in the tribe that called him by his name. Seeing her determination, he decided to obey her.

As Erik sat listening to his monkey music box, he smiled a little. Living among the gypsies had been one of the most frightening and shameful things he’d ever experienced, but at the same time it was where he’d met the person who had shown him more kindness than anyone else. What he wouldn’t have given to have had Jovanka as his mother.
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