The Secret Door: A Phantom of the Opera Novel

by J. Smith

  By this point, a large group of staff members had gathered around the two, to check on the commotion, but that didn't stop Charleson from looking the younger doctor directly in the eyes and, sneering, “Oops!”

  The first swing sent Charleson hurtling to the floor, his jaw dislocated, his teeth rattled. The younger doctor landed on top of him, and the second swing broke his nose. “How could you, you bastard?!” he shouted, as he let his fists fly again and again. “Does she mean nothing to you? You could have killed her!”

  Charleson's face was a bloody mess before security was able to separate the two. “I'll have your license!” he screamed, spitting out a tooth as the younger doctor was carted off the Dr. James's office.

  “What in the hell is wrong with you, son?” James bellowed at him, when the door was closed.

  “Charleson could have killed her!” he spat. “He took her off Zolpidem cold-turkey and caused her to have a severe Grand Mal seizure. He could have killed her! And he doesn't even care!”

  “So file a grievance!” he shouted. “Report him to the ethics committee. But you do not throw punches in the hospital.”

  “I couldn't help myself, Dr. James,” the young man answered. “He did all of this because of me—just to get the better of me in some imagined rivalry. And Jenna …” he paused a minute to catch his breath. “Jenna paid the price.” He slumped into the chair across from Dr. James' desk, raking a hand through his disheveled hair.

  “He could sue you, you know!” Dr. James said nervously, taking his own seat behind his desk, and huffing loudly. “He could sue me!”

  “I love her,” the young man said. “I don't care about lawsuits.”

  “And that's exactly why I am going to have to take you off of this case,” he said, trying to make his younger charge understand. “You've lost all objectivity. You are not thinking rationally.”

  “Dr. James, please,” he said panicking at his superior's words. “You have to let me continue to help her. After we get her weaned properly from the Zolpidem, I'll be in a better position to continue the sensory therapy and—”

  “Doctor, when are you going to face the fact that it's over?” Dr. James asked, interrupting his rambling. “You have tried the sensory stimulation, and it didn't work. We've tried the drugs, and nothing. Sooner or later, Doctor, you have to accept that Miss Wilson simply is not coming back!

  Monster, he heard the long ago echo, the sibilant, crackling hiss still thrumming loudly in his ears. Your touch is poison. He sat alone on the settee, staring at the fire. Reverberations from his past, flared and popped, taunting and jeering at him with the same fervor, the same wicked lack of mercy as they had years ago. But there was a difference this time. This was no nebulous future of which they warned—some unnamed horror that may or may not come to pass. This nightmare had already happened, and he knew now that those voices spoke the truth. Did you really think you could love her, Erik? asked the mocking specters, whose laughter dripped with derision. That she could love you? Did you actually believe that she wanted you to touch her—that she would allow the monster inside her? She told you she could die in your arms. She would rather DIE Erik, than to have you love her.

  Still Erik stared, unseeing, at the flames. The drama of the night before played and replayed in his head. He had carried Jenna to her bed after his cowardly tears had stopped falling. He was careful only to touch the blanket, never allowing his malignant fingers to graze any more of her skin, not wishing to contaminate her with any more of his peculiar toxin. He had done this, he knew. HE had poisoned her—when he dared to kiss her, to touch her, to… love her. He had not believed the truth. He had foolishly dared to hope, dared to dream, but reality was that his touch was poison…and Jenna had paid the price.

  This was his fault. He was the one who had allowed himself to get so absorbed in his lessons with Christine that he had not searched hard enough for a way to send Jenna home. He had then used those same lessons with Christine as an excuse to beg Jenna selfishly for two more weeks because he was too cowardly to go back to living without her. He was the one who made her a part of his life, allowing her to travel with him through the opera house, causing her to feel enough a part of his world that she had endangered herself by setting out in the tunnels alone and meeting with Joseph Buquet. And when he had successfully defended her, and protected her virtue from the drunken fiend, he himself had damaged her—soiled her—with his demonic kiss. His mother had warned him. But he had not listened to his mother.

  And now he did not know if she would ever wake up.

  The sound of footsteps near the kitchen vaguely registered within his mind, but Erik didn't care. He continued to sit there, staring without seeing, hearing without listening, breathing without living. He wondered, what would it feel like to be consumed by the flames.

  “Erik?” The Persian called, almost afraid to enter his friend's sitting room for what he might see. If things had gone according to plan, last night could have been a very pleasant evening for his stubborn friends, and perhaps even a better night, and there were certain things that he did not want to see. Of course, if that sort of thing was still happening this morning, he'd imagine there would be more noise. They weren't exactly quiet types when they were alone together. Sigh…he should have been a little more emphatic when he had told Erik not to ruin things. Perhaps he should have underlined his command?

  Omid walked in expecting to find Erik irate at his apparently unsuccessful attempt to make a match. What he did find, however, took him by surprise. Erik was sitting alone in the dark, practically catatonic, staring into the hearth. His normally impeccable hair was wildly disheveled, his shirt open and un-tucked. The right side of his face was as exposed as the left, while his mask, his most consistent article of clothing, lay, discarded, beside him on the floor. Omid called his name again, but Erik still did not answer, and a cold chill began to run down his spine. He walked slowly over to his friend, who was still staring, transfixed, at the flames. He knelt down and retrieved the mask, holding it out toward Erik's hand.

  Without looking away from the fire, Erik's hand closed around the mask, and he asked in a faraway voice, “Shall I wear the mask for you, old friend, with my wickedness already laid bare? For I am a demon, evil my soul; it matters not what clothes I wear.”

  “Oh dear,” Omid sighed to himself. “He is speaking in verse again.”

  “Why have you come here, Daroga?” Erik asked, still staring straight ahead of him.

  “Well, I had hoped to see something that would make me blush, like the other morning when the two of you were cuddling so sweetly on the couch,” he said sarcastically. “But it appears I am destined to be disappointed.” When Erik made no answer, no snide remark, Omid asked him directly, “Erik, where is Jenna? Why is she not with you?”

  “She is in her bed,” Erik responded in a monotone voice.

  With a huff, Omid decided he needed to try the direct approach. “And why are you not with her?”

  “Because, Daroga,” Erik smiled a mirthless grin, “My touch is poison.”

  Omid's blood ran cold at Erik's comment, so much so that he dashed into Jenna's room, prepared for the worst, only to find her sleeping peacefully in her bed. When he returned to the sitting room, he had had enough of his friend's cryptic game. “What happened, Erik?” Omid asked directly, pulling a chair over from the dining table and placing it directly in Erik's line of view, so his friend had no choice but to look at him. “What did you do?”

  Erik finally looked up and met Omid's gaze, and Omid noted that his friends eyes were red rimmed and puffy—almost as if he'd been…crying? “I touched her, Daroga,” Erik said plainly. “And my touch is poison.”

  “Erik,” Omid shook his head, “stop being ridiculous!”

  “Ridiculous, Daroga?” Erik asked, raising an eyebrow. “As I said, I touched her. And I finally got the kisses I had been waiting for my entire life.”

  “So what's the problem, Erik?” Omid asked, conf
used. These were things to be happy about. Surely even his blind friend could see that.

  “Because while I was kissing her, Daroga,” Erik's voice darkened with emotion, “she began to have convulsions. She has been unconscious ever since.” Erik buried his face in his hands, groaning once again, “What have I done?”

  Omid was pained to see Erik so upset. He knew his friend was in love with Jenna, and he knew that this medical episode must have been terrible for him to behold. He could still remember the agony he felt at watching his own beloved wife slip away from this life. But Erik, in his emotional state, was forgetting the big picture. “Erik,” he said, keeping his voice gentle, “all you did was fall in love.”

  “It is not for me to be in love, Daroga,” Erik said sadly.

  “By Allah, that is nonsense, my friend!” Omid exclaimed. “Have you seen the way Jenna looks at you? She loves you too, Erik.”

  Scenes from the previous evening replayed in Erik's mind. He recalled Jenna's smiles, her kisses, her touch. He remembered her sighs and moans of pleasure, and the way she kept pulling him closer, when the immediate reaction of almost every other person he'd encountered in his life had been to push him away. Make love to me, Erik, she had purred, with fire in her eyes. Make us one. She had wanted him as much as he had wanted her. But before he could join them, one body, one soul, she had been taken from him by the violent convulsions that seized her—her body rebelling against his touch, even if her beautiful spirit had not.

  Erik shook his head sadly at the memory. “My love is poison, Omid. And because of it, I have lost her.”

  “Erik,” Omid began gently, trying very hard to be patient with his friend. He knew all about the abuse that Erik had suffered in his life, beginning at the hands of that witch who was his mother. “Your touch did not harm her.”

  “Are you sure, Daroga?” He retorted miserably. “Are you so sure?”

  “Are you so sure that it did?” Omid asked, somewhat exasperated. “Have you forgotten that when she arrived here—by whatever means she did—she had a head injury? You sewed it closed yourself.”

  Erik's head shot up, suddenly looking very alert. It was true, he had forgotten about the gaping wound that marred Jenna's forehead on the night she first arrived. That seemed so long ago, and so much had happened between them. But he recalled now, that while he had stitched closed Jenna's wound, he had not removed the stitches. And yet, one morning, they were simply gone.

  Erik suddenly rose from the settee, and if Omid had not quickly leaned back, he would have been knocked off his chair by Erik's haste. Erik began pacing the floor, one hand covering over his mouth, the other arm crossed over his chest. “I did sew her wounds, Daroga,” he stated as he paced, “but I did not remove the stitches.”

  Omid now remembered the morning Erik had been so distraught about her stitches being gone. His irritability had led to Jenna accompanying Omid on an outing in Paris. It had been shortly after Erik had given up on the outrageous idea of Jenna being a mental patient, replacing it with the much more sound notion of her being a time traveller. The disappearance of her stitches had spooked him, because it was one more thing that he could not explain.

  “Erik,” Omid began, “I did not mean to imply anything about her stitches, simply that her seizure was more likely related to her head injury than to your…romantic ministrations.”

  “But what if it's all connected?” Erik responded, and it was clear to Omid that his mind was rapidly making connections between the many and varied strange events that had occurred since Jenna first appeared. “What if her being here is somehow directly related to her head injury? After all, Jenna herself said she received that injury in a terrible accident that happened in her own time. What if her stitches disappeared due to something that had also happened in her own time? And what if her convulsions…” Erik's voice trailed off suddenly as he felt a chill run down his spine.

  “Erik,” Omid began, finally finding a moment to get a word in edgewise. “The only problem in your theory is that Jenna is no longer in her own time. She is here.”

  Erik looked back at the Persian, and his usual pale face had taken on an even more ghostly pallor. “What if she somehow exists in both?”

  34 WHISPERS THAT SCREAM

  Christine quietly turned the handle to her bedroom door and carefully pushed it open. The hour was early, and she desperately hoped Meg was still asleep. She did not wish for anybody to see her right now—she did not wish to talk; she did not wish to explain why she was returning to her bedroom in the wee hours of the morning. She had spent the night in her dressing room, waiting for her dear angel to arrive—but he had not come. At some point, her eyes had drifted closed, and she had given in to sleep. But her slumber had not been restful, and she woke this morning with tired red eyes and a spirit crushed by disappointment. To have anyone see her stealthily returning to her room after a night not spent in her own bed was more than Christine could bear. The opera house was already talking about her sudden rise to the status of prima donna. She did not need to add to the gossip by providing reasons to question her reputation.

  “Christine, where have you been?” came the concerned voice of the blond dancer. Meg was standing in the center of their dark room with her arms folded across her chest. “I was worried sick when you did not come back last night after your lesson. Are you alright?”

  So much for not having to see anyone, Christine sighed as she answered, “I'm fine, Meg. I just fell asleep in my dressing room, is all.” She went to her small wardrobe and began to search for a new dress to wear to rehearsal that day.

  Meg eyed her friend closely. Christine was acting suspiciously. She looked drawn and depressed, and Meg knew that there was absolutely no way that her friend could have simply fallen asleep after a visit from her angel. It generally took her hours to come down from the ceiling after a lesson with him. Something had happened to Christine during the night, and Meg was not going to let the matter rest until she found out what.

  “Christine,” she asked. “What happened?”

  “I told you,” she asserted a bit irritably. “I am fine. I simply did not rest as well in my dressing room as I would have here, and now I have to hurry to get ready for rehearsals…”

  “We have plenty of time before rehearsals!” Meg insisted, as she walked over and grasped her friend's hand. Christine looked at her, and Meg could see the exhaustion and sadness in the singer's eyes. “Come,” she said, pulling Christine toward the beds where they could sit. “Tell your best friend what's wrong.”

  Christine heaved another deep sigh. So much for not having to talk. She allowed herself to be dragged over to her little bed, where she obediently sat down. Meg sat across from her, expectantly, and said, “Well?”

  Christine looked down at her hands which were wringing in her lap. “My angel, Meg.” she finally admitted. “He did not come for our lesson last night.” When her friend made no reply, she continued. “I waited and I waited, but still, he never arrived. He promised me that he would be there, Meg. And he wasn't.”

  “Oh, Christine, I'm sorry,” Meg answered sympathetically, seeing the distress in her friend's eyes.

  Now that Christine had begun her tale, it was as if floodgates had opened, and she could not stop unburdening her soul. “That's not all, Meg,” she continued, her voice sounding sad and forlorn. “The night before, he was upset with me. He said I was not interpreting his music properly—not feeling it the right way. He was cross with me. He has never been that way before.” Sad tears began to well in Christine's eyes, as she stated, “I have angered my angel, Meg, and now I fear that I have lost him. And none of this—none of it—matters without my angel.”

  “Oh, Christine,” Meg began, trying to sound soothing and handing her friend a tissue. “Don't say that. It will be all right. Perhaps he was just…detained…last night.”

  “What could detain him?” Christine blurted. “He is an angel, Meg!”

  “Is that why you wore yo
ur best dress to meet with him?” Meg inquired, an eyebrow raised.

  Christine looked up at her friend in confusion. It was true that she had returned to her room yesterday after rehearsals to change into her rose colored frock—the one that hugged her figure just a little tighter, and brought out the pink tones of her cheeks—but she failed to see what that had to do with her angel being upset with her. “What does that have to do with anything, Meg?”

  “Well,” her friend began gently, “I would think it would not matter what one wore for a meeting with an angel. And yet,” she smiled sweetly at her friend, “you always strive to look your best, sometimes even skipping dinner to give yourself enough time to get ready for your lessons.”

  Christine felt her cheeks redden at her friend's implication. “He is a heavenly being, Meg!” Christine asserted. “It is out of respect, that I strive to look my best. Do you not wear your very best to Church?”

  “Alright,” Meg conceded, holding her hands out and nodding a bit, “I see your point. But why,” she continued to probe gently, “do you need to meet him in your dressing room, and before that the chapel? And why at a set time?”

  “It is so we can have privacy to focus on the lesson,” Christine answered, looking a bit confused. “Is that so strange?”

  “I would think that an Angel could meet with you anywhere, at any time,” Meg mused. “He would know when you were not busy. He would know when you were alone. Why could he not simply appear when it was convenient? Hasn't he said he was always watching over you?”