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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
- 7
- 8
- 9
I opened my mouth, but no words would come out. I tried again. Nothing happened. I dreaded to look into Erik’s eyes and see his disappointment. Bowing my head, I blinked back persistent tears. Erik couldn’t fix me. I was the only person who could fix me, and I didn’t even know where I was broken.

I knew what he had done. Other people had tried to mesmerize me, but no one had succeeded. No one but Erik… I was grateful I could even remember our conversation, for most people I’d seen were instructed not to remember. But he was not one of the evil doctors in Hamlin; Erik was actually helping me.

I did not want to fail him. I felt indebted to him.

A cold but gentle hand slid under my chin. Erik drew my gaze to his. I saw no disappointment in his yellow eyes; compassion and tender regard met me instead. My insides melted away at such a look. I’d never seen that kind of gentleness before.

“Don’t be sad Celeste,” Erik murmured. “It has taken years for you to forget how to speak. Even if you were wild with enthusiasm to relearn you would still have difficulty.” He let go of my chin, leaning closer. His sympathy was so real I could feel it. “I’ll help you to remember your words,” he went on quietly. “But I’m not in any hurry and neither should you be. There is something magnificent in silence else we would not appreciate the contrast between it and sound. When this problem ceases to be a problem, you will then find your words.” He released me, his fingertips sliding over my skin unhurriedly. I felt the calluses caused by stringed instruments and shivered.

I shook my head. That sounded backward to me. If I couldn’t find my words I would never speak.

“You don’t believe me?” Erik seemed to smile as he drew away from me. From within his inner vest pocket he produced a small notebook and pencil. Handing them to me, he leaned back into the couch. “Tell me how you feel then, in your own words.”

I stared at the blank foolscap. My mind raced to obey him, yet my hand only hovered over the paper. I heard the pencil creak with the force of my grip.

I had a thousand things to say and no way to say them. I wasn’t used to anyone caring what I thought.

“Relax,” Erik bade softly. “You aren’t under some sort of time limit. Just write whatever words come to your mind; your words don’t have to be correct sentences. I am not a grammaticist, just a musician.” He laughed gently and winked at me. I felt my lips pulling back into an answering smile.

I feel as if I will never speak again, I wrote slowly.

“It will happen,” Erik answered me mildly. “Go on.”

I feel as if everyone I ever loved abandoned me, I scratched out, my pencil tearing the paper. Where have my brothers been? Did they never think of me? My tears started again, to my shame. I wiped them away. Where is Philippe? Why did Raoul come alone?

“Celeste,” Erik rumbled. “It is late and I don’t want to tell you about your eldest brother tonight.” Erik looked away from me.

He’s dead, isn’t he? My hand trembled on the paper.

Erik sighed. “Yes, he is, I’m sorry. He drowned in the lake outside my home. I didn’t get to him in time.”

I threw the notebook and pencil across the room. I knew it! My mind screamed but my throat remained closed, sealing in my grief.

“He came here looking for Raoul and Christine and he slipped into the water,” Erik went on almost inaudibly.

My hands flew to my hair and I began to pull it. Philippe is dead, Philippe is dead, I chanted inwardly. I would never see him again! He was my brother! I loved him no matter how he ignored me.

Cold, slender fingers wrapped around my upper arms, dragged my hands from my hair. “Stop Celeste,” Erik said shortly. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

I thrashed in his grip, fought him like the madwoman I was, but his strength afforded me no gain against him.

Picking me up, he tucked me under one arm. Ignoring my one good fist and my wildly kicking feet, he carried me easily down a long hallway. I saw him grab a heavy iron candelabrum from an end table as we rounded a corner. Suddenly we stood in front of a metal door. Erik set me on my feet before it. I pushed away from him and pressed my back to that door, glaring and panting in the dim light.

The candelabrum dropped into my trembling hand. Erik pushed open the door behind me. “You can destroy this entire room Celeste,” he said lightly, backing away. “I won’t stop you. Go ahead. Smash it all.”

Whirling from him, I plunged blindly into the room. I stumbled on a short staircase, but righted myself quickly, my eyes taking on the surreal décor. Though the only light source was the crack of gaslight from above me, I could see I was in a room made of mirrored walls. Tears of sorrow warped my muted image every which way I turned.

I hefted the candlestick and brought it down.

The sound of breaking glass went through me like dark tidewater. Again and again I lashed out, tiny pieces of glass exploding all around me. My arm became numb from swinging the heavy iron, and my heart pounded in my chest, but still I kept on. My eyes saw nothing but the red of fury and the shattered silver of grief.

It was an accident! My mind hurled the thought at me.

But Philippe is dead!

Stern, proud Philippe, drowned in a subterranean lake with no one to help him. His last moments had been cold and terrifying. I could see him in my mind, gasping out icy water only to suck it back down into his lungs.

Choking on silent pain, I dropped to knees underneath a sculpture of a twisted metal tree. The faraway door revealed Erik’s waiting silhouette. He crouched there, a lean figure of blackness exposed only by profile, his mask a sharp caricature of a face. At the sudden calm he stood and looked down at me.

The breath caught in my throat. Streaks of light like dying comets filtered through my vision. I was about to faint. Stubbornly, I held on to myself.

Slowly, Erik came down the stairs. I watched him approach me as if from a great distance. It seemed like I only blinked and he was right before me. Without a word he bent down and picked me up. I clung to him desperately, wrapping my arm around his hard shoulder and twisting my fingers in his silk shirt. His dark scent and strong arms became my refuge in the space of a heart beat.

Erik would take care of me.

I floated in those arms, listening to his heart…

*************************************************************************************

One hundred and one, I counted silently.

One hundred and two.

One hundred and three.

She only had two left.

At the end, when silence reigned supreme, I turned to look at her. Kneeling in the splintered glass, Celeste cried her noiseless tears. My heart ached for her.

Raoul de Chagny should have told his sister, not I. The knowledge would have been far gentler from her brother’s lips. But no, the cruel truth had been left to me.

Even worse, the youngest brother hadn’t claimed the body of the eldest. I had buried Philippe De Chagny myself, here in the bowels of the opera. I had wondered every so often how Raoul explained his brother’s death, how he explained to everyone his brother was buried somewhere other than the family cemetery. And I would have heard him coming to visit the grave, I had tripwires everywhere. Raoul didn’t even know his brother’s body had been properly interred; he’d never come to see.

I approached Celeste carefully; uncertain she was finished with her mourning. The water leaking out of her eyes ran in streams to the small cuts on her bare arms. Blood and tears now stained her nightgown, making it match the ruined shirt on my bedroom floor.

When she looked at me I thought my pity would just consume me.

Once more I lifted her into my arms. She did not fight me now. She held onto me like a drowning man clings to a log.

I carried her into her bedroom and stretched her out on the bed. She was so tiny. How could she hold all this misery in such a small body?

It didn’t take me long to gather a bowl of warm water and a washcloth. I washed her face, arms, and knees, stopping every few minutes to pick out a sliver of glass.

I’d never touched a woman like this. It felt bittersweet to have Celeste’s trust during her journey of pain. She was awake and yet she wasn’t aware of what I was doing to her. Her eyes drifted around the room, only resting on me briefly at every revolution.

I knew her inward travels well. Her misery was finally catching up to her, the catalyst for it all her brother’s death. My deep familiarity with pain told me she wasn’t finished spilling out all her heartache. I had barely touched the surface of the things that made her mute.

When I finished clearing her skin of glass and blood, I pulled the blanket over her and sat back. The bowl of bloody water on the floor drew my eyes from her tense stillness. It was unseemly to witness her ordeal. Had it been me lying in the bed I would have died from shame to let another see me.

I turned the gaslight down to a minimum and sat with her. I could think of no melody that would help wash away the blood she shed inside, and I was too afraid to even give her my voice anyway. I did not know the extent of her illness; it would be foolish to sing like a lark and hope for the best. Until I better knew her frame of mind I didn’t dare sing to her.

I stroked her hair until she fell asleep. Satisfied she might stay quiet the rest of the night, I went back into the parlor and sat on the hearth. The fire needed tending, so I built it up and brought a stack of firewood closer. The poor child in Christine’s room might be cold when she awoke.
- 7
- 8
- 9
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Rossignol