5There had been no priest, no northern railway station. Not yet. There was no guarantee that the Époque would be able to find its way across the North Sea to Sweden, where Raoul had first offered to take his intended bride. Better to focus on happier times, happier memories, he had said, but for Christine there could be no happiness while her promise still bound her to that living corpse below the Opera…a promise she intended to keep.
She remembered the result of losing Erik's ring under Apollo's lyre, how he had been true to his end of the bargain and withdrawn his "protection" the moment the band of gold had slipped from her finger. She did not want to risk his wrath, even from beyond the grave, by reneging on yet another vow. And so she insisted that she and Raoul remain within a morning's ride of Paris, at one of the de Chagny family's homes in the country. Insisted that one of the servants fetch the paper each day. She needed to know the moment the news was published.
Christine had not slept well since Erik had placed her hand in Raoul's with his blessing, giving as a wedding-present that ring which had nearly damned the young couple. She had tried, but each evening she would awake in cold sweats, pulling aside the covers to reassure herself that she was still in her bed and not the wormy earth of a grave. After a week she gave up trying, seeking out whatever distractions were available to avoid sleep. But despite her best efforts, inevitably she would collapse into bed to dream of bony fingers tugging at her ankles, drawing her down into the abyss.
Raoul began to despair at the sight of his fiancée's ghostly figure stalking the halls. She looked as she had that night at the bal masqué, her eyes shadowed and cheeks drained of color. It was as if she had spent the past weeks still underground with that creature, not with him in the fresh air of the countryside. She had not wanted to tell him the night they escaped what exactly had transpired during the hours he had been either half-drowned or chained unconscious in the Communard's dungeon. It was not until several days later that she had confessed the oath she had sworn to Erik, to be his living wife, in order to secure Raoul's own freedom and the lives of the opera-goers above them.
At first Raoul had given no deep thought to the wording, accepting her explanation that she was assuring Erik she would not kill herself, but the sight before him belied her words. Christine had left her soul in the house on the lake, for it was a dead bride who sat silently across from him at dinner, who wandered the grounds with her hair veiled in black instead of white.
She was a proper ghost, making scarcely any noise at all, save the padding of her slippered feet at night when the rest of the house was abed. It served as a sorrowful reminder that it had not been for her sake only that he had wished to flee North, that hers was not the only spark of life extinguished below the Opera. His dear, well-meaning older brother had also charged down into the cellars in a rescue attempt…but while Raoul had been snatched from the waters at the last breath, Philippe had been dragged under.
Despite his own grief Raoul still occasionally reached out to his fiancée in hopes of comforting her. She would accept his affections, her hand resting limply on his hair when he knelt beside her chair to rest his head on her knee, but there was no warmth in her touch. Each time he took her hand the flash of gold from her fourth finger sent him further into despair, for he longed to see his own ring in its place. Yet, he knew she would not allow it until she was certain the monster was dead.
The only hints of life she displayed were when she was presented with the Époque each evening. She would snatch it from the valet's hands, waiting for the young man to excuse himself before flinging herself to the floor and laying out the pages on the carpet to search for some sign of Erik. Raoul left her alone in those moments. It was difficult to watch, but what was nearly worse was the disappointment which followed. Nearly, but not quite—for although her frustrated tears pained him to see, they were a sign that there was still feeling below her chilly exterior.
One night, Raoul's dreams were also filled with visions of death. His mind conjured up the image of the two glowing eyes that had been outside his bedroom window in Paris, those twin balls of fire now hovering above him and pinning him in place as skeletal hands closed around his throat. He sat straight up in bed, clutching at the collar of his nightclothes.
The following evening he could not hold himself back any longer. He peered into the sitting room from the shadows of the doorway and watched in sad silence for a moment as Christine nearly tore the pages of the Époque in her frantic searching. She was oblivious to everything but that paper. When Raoul came up behind her to place his hands lightly on her upper arms, she startled and wriggled out of his grasp. He felt the sting of tears at her rejection and lashed out after weeks of restraint.
"Christine, it has been almost a month! How do you know he was even telling the truth? Perhaps there will be no news, perhaps he means it to be like this—to keep you constantly on edge, under his infernal influence forever!" He found himself huffing for breath, waiting for some kind of response.
"You mustn't say that, Raoul," Christine replied softly from the floor. He took a half-step forward, encouraged by the fact that she did not simply continue to ignore him. "There will be news, I know it—there must be! Then this can finally be over…"
He dropped to the floor beside her, and when he reached for her this time she did not shy away. Something had broken within her, as well, for after weeks of silence she finally revealed her fears to him. "Don't you see? He haunts me, and will continue to haunt me until I do as I promised. But in wishing for this to end I am wishing for a man's death!" Raoul stiffened, and she took his face in her hands. His eyes closed at this unexpected show of tenderness.
"Oh, Raoul, I know I can never make you understand that even now I do not hate him…but I could never be the wife he desired, trapped deep below the earth, and he knew it. He knew, and let me go…yet there is one oath I swore to him which I can keep, after breaking all the others." She was crying now, and did not object when he pressed a light kiss to her tear-stained cheek, or when he folded his arms about her. The Époque lay forgotten on the rug next to them.
That night, Christine slept soundly for the first time in weeks. Raoul lay in bed awake, pondering everything Christine had confessed. His thoughts turned to the paper on the floor of the sitting room. She did not finish looking through it, after all, he told himself. Perhaps there is something she missed. With trembling hands he lit the lamp on the nightstand and did not bother with a robe before venturing out into the house. Gathering up the discarded pages of that evening's Époque, he scanned each word…and there, buried in the advertisements, were the three little words that would spell the end of their waiting: Erik is dead.
A/N: Many thanks to the talented VeroniqueClaire for her suggestions and help with this story! She captures Leroux E/C *and* modern E/C so brilliantly; I highly recommend anything she writes. The title is from a quote that's often misattributed to Poe or Longfellow, usually as some variation of "Sleep, those little slices of death, how I loathe them!". I've discovered that the actual source is a quote from the 1959 film version of Journey to the Center of the Earth. Count Saknussemm says, ""I don't sleep. I hate those little slices of death." Less poetic, but I still love the imagery, so I kept the title! Credit for the characters goes to Gaston Leroux.