“Not according to Madame Giry,” she countered, dropping her ballerina posture to a slouch. “Yet again, I was proven the worst dancer during her mid-rehearsal tirade on my every flaw. She says I lack grace.”
“That is not true,” I quickly insisted. “You have all the grace of a proper ballerina, but you spend too much effort second-guessing and comparing yourself to the others to notice.”
“Have you seen the other ballerinas?” she retorted as if that were proof she was right.
“Not really,” I admitted and did not shy from honesty this time. “I’m always too engrossed watching you to notice anyone else.”
“Oh…” Pale skin quickly grew pink as she lowered anxious eyes, and I was intrigued by such a response. A blush… I’d caused her to blush, and I savored the achievement as her flesh tinted the same hue as her rehearsal attire. It was charming and delightful to behold.
Before I could consider every ramification that could come, I bid, “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
She peeked up with curiously arched brows but never questioned as I gestured for her to follow. No, she obeyed with the softest whisper of her toe shoes behind my leading path. Ballet might not be a passion to either of us, but I needed her to realize that she was good at it. I wouldn’t let tutus and toes shoes be the thing to shatter any confidence I was building because I needed a diva in the end. Confidence was a necessity.
Without a word of explanation, I led her into the wings and toward a darkened corridor, and though I heard the nervous skips in her breath, I did not turn to her or break our course. I was about to show her something no one knew about, and I bore faith in her to keep it as another secret only we shared.
At the far end of the corridor was a wall…only it was no wall at all. It opened to a passage, one of many I had about the opera house, and without a thought, I showed her its threshold and heard her follow me inside with nothing but a soft gasp to announce her fear.
I had a penchant for seeing in the dark. Too long living below the earth adjusted my eyes to shadows with barely a thought, but she would be lost without light. Thinking only of her and the fear I felt from her but did not look to observe, I lit a lantern I kept in the passage, and though the flickering flame was meager, I heard Christine’s sigh of relief and only then regarded her. I hadn’t wanted to see fear, knowing fear would hurt even if I were not its inspiration. Now…I saw a bit of anxiety but also a trust I adored her for.
“This way,” I bid with the tinge of a grin and continued our path. Up a steep staircase, and when my chosen routes were usually down, this was foreign to both of us.
At the top of the narrow passage was a heavy door, heavy because on the opposite side, it looked like a stone wall. I pushed hard against its boundary and felt it give and part.
The rooftop. As we emerged into the cold night air, I savored the gasp of wonder she gave. Snowflakes were falling from the clouded sky, strikingly white against the dark of night. They had already formed a thin layer over the stone statues, masking their distinct features in white blankets. Being confined to rehearsal all day and as trapped indoors as I typically was, Christine wouldn’t have known that it had started to snow, but I’d caught glimpses during my perusal of an empty opera house and knew I had to show her simply for the awe I now received.
Her gaze was transfixed on the tumble of white, lacey flakes, all the amazement of a child upon her beautiful face. She gazed at the snow as if it were all she longed to see, the same way I gazed at her.
Without a thought, Christine tiptoed out from under our rooftop awning until she could stand within the embrace of the snowfall, extending open palm and fingers as if she could catch a flake to keep forever. But as was inevitable, every one that touched her skin died a noble death, melting to nothing but droplets that trailed her fingertips and tumbled free.
In the midst of her enchantment, I gently commanded, “Dance, Christine.”
“Dance? But I’ll slip…and fall.”
“No, you won’t,” I corrected with unwavering adamancy. “You need to find something passionate in the dance, and I’m giving it to you. Now every time you dance onstage amidst Madame Giry’s chastisement and the other ballerinas’ nonsense, you’ll have this moment in your head: when you danced for me in the middle of a snowfall. It will be your muse of inspiration.”
I could see how much my idea appealed to her as she cast glances between the cascade of white beauty and me. As she hesitated still, letting her fingers catch flakes and engulf her as another of their fragile brethren, I stepped behind her. One last detail to make this utter perfection. Never an explanation or request did I give; I slid my fingertips into her cloud of curls, feigning less nervousness than I felt as I found the clip holding them captive and released their curtain.
She’d gone stiff with my bold action, but she permitted with never even a dubious glance, certainly feeling the added weight upon her shoulders. I took such acquiescence as unspoken encouragement and dared to delicately caress her curls with shaking hands, thrilling as they coiled about my knuckles as if caressing me back.
But…this wasn’t about me, and bending close to her ear, I again commanded, “Dance, Christine.”
She shivered, and though sense longed to claim cold, I favored the idea that I affected her as much as she affected me. This time she obeyed, creeping more steps into the snow layer and imprinting its blanket.
Blue eyes closed as she took her first stance, and then to my mesmerized hypnosis, she began to dance. I thrilled with the first movement. It was beautiful and saturated in grace. She let go in that moment with no one to judge her but the man who adored her every breath, and she simply felt. Music was the silence of the snowfall, the peculiar stillness that came in a perfect moment, and as she spun, her curls echoed the dance, rippling and suspending upon the air as snowflakes caught in the web and lingered in their brief life.
Her eyes fluttered open, white tangled in her lashes. She was an integral part of the snow shower as though her motion propelled the cascade onward and made flakes giggle and skip in their typical pattern. I was riveted to the choreography in her body, the way she became as graceful and elegant as the flakes about her, their equal and sister, dancing with them in a portrait of purity. Beauty personified. Here it was, and it was mine.
Christine’s pirouettes left twisted shapes in the snow bed beneath her toe shoes, every leftover imprint etching her dance into temporary permanence, and I scripted the connection of one move to the next, reading every footfall and equally every space between of untouched white. It felt like an evolving story, and as she lifted a graceful leg and snowflakes coated its curves and circled the crinoline of her tutu, I was unable to quiet a blaze of desire. It urged me to trail my hand from one murdered snowflake’s remnants to the next, follow the path up the length of her calf and become as important to the scene as she was.
But…before I could give in with fingers that tingled and burned their yearning, I had to abandon every endeavor. Christine’s foot came down to the snow, and I saw it slide. I never gave a second thought as I leapt forward and caught her tumbling shape in my arms before she ever grazed the ground.
She gave nothing but a whimper, but her hands grasped my forearms and dug tight in the material of my jacket while she sought to find balance.
“I suppose I was wrong,” I gasped out, needing words for concentration when her body so close was threatening to overwhelm. Instinct begged to press her to my length, to force every curve to the corresponding hard plane in my shape and mold her softness into me, but…I shivered and allowed nothing beyond the fists I’d formed in her curls.
“No,” she breathlessly bid, and I was terrified it was a refusal of my unacceptable hold before she finished, “you were right. I didn’t fall.”
“I’d never let you fall.”
“I know.” She vowed it without hesitation, and I couldn’t keep a smile from appearing.
“Your dance was exquisite, Chri
stine,” I told her as she met my gaze with that blush painting her skin. “I saw passion and grace, …and my God are you beautiful!”
She lowered her eyes, hiding their telling orbs behind her snowflake-coated lashes, and without permission, I lifted her off her feet and cradled her to my chest. She did not refuse or struggle; no, she kept her fists within my jacket material and set her temple to my shoulder, and I had to stifle the urge to crack my walls and falter to tears. But to hold her like this… It was a blessing I’d never known.
I carried her back within my secret passageway, my attention fixed on the white flakes tangled in her loose curls and their immediate demise once we were back indoors. They transformed from something so beautiful and ethereal to something ordinary in water droplets and lost their magic because of my actions. There was some realism in that.
As the flakes on her bare arms melted as well, goose bumps were left behind, raising and reminding me that I’d been careless to have her outside without proper layers. For the first time, I was aware that she was as fragile as the snowflakes dying in her curls, and I must be delicate with her. …Always delicate.
Her every breath was syncopated with mine, her heart a counterpoint with my own layered on top, so many rhythms that meant joined lives. I savored every detail as I brought her back into the theatre and to our usual place on the stage.
I longed to keep her, but memorizing in frantic desperation, I only paused a second longer before setting her upon her feet. I didn’t want to lose this closeness yet, not when her eyes fluttered past mine as if to say the same. She gave no doubt in return, and I clung to that as permission as I slowly knelt before her.
My hands shook. I couldn’t have stopped their quivering if I tried, so I let them tremble and give my insecurities away as I extended one and delicately caught her ankle in my palm. Oh God, I was so careful with her! Terrified a touch too intrepid and insistent would have her running. No, not yet, Christine.
I met the uncertainty in her blushing stare with my own, but I did not stop as I brought my free hand to the laces of her toe shoe just behind her knee. I’d never imagined a touch like this and couldn’t know how it would overcome me with a tremor so vicious that I shuddered and nearly lost my grip. No, no, her shoes were wet with snow; I had to take care of my girl…
With attentive care, I untied and unwound, guiding the ribbon free and exposing the gentle shape of her calf as I’d enviously watched her do every night. This was much better than being the observer in the background; this was living the moment with her.
One shoe coaxed free, and then the other, and I glanced between my intimate task and her fear-fringed eyes. Fear… But what was I truly giving her to fear? I took no more than what I felt imperative.
…All right, that wasn’t exactly true. I added two extra caresses: one to the delicate spot behind her knee and one to the arch of her foot, tender and overwhelmed. I ached for more, but…fear was not only hers. I was stoking desire’s flame, and I didn’t know how far I could steer it before it encompassed and swallowed me in its tidal wave.
As if I’d done nothing wrong, certainly nothing worthy of guilt, I drew away and rose on unstable legs that rushed me toward my preferred place at the piano before I could think better of it.
“Let us begin,” I curtly decided, pounding out a ferocious chord with fingers that still tingled from stolen caresses. I couldn’t look at her beyond a passing glance as regret began to well.
I’d pushed without a pull, and that was inconsiderable. One couldn’t take without giving. It had to go both ways, and I’d only taken. Where was the give? I couldn’t very well state it plainly and tell her that she was allowed to touch me in return if she so wanted. That was ridiculous, but…I felt she should have something, something in her control instead of mine, something to assuage fear I didn’t want her to know. How could I give something back when I was still yet unsure she wanted anything from me?
My mind was tortured with thought, but I launched us into our lesson, hoping distraction would mend the broken threads in my head. It was not our best rehearsal, not by far, but when she seemed as shaken as I was, it was no wonder. She was addled and meditative. I had to call her attention back more than once, but I was no better. Every time my gaze landed on her, it inevitably was drawn to her legs with a magnetic pull and memories of an intimacy that I didn’t want to call a sin. Was it a sin? …It depended on her interpretation of the same scene.
As we both finally gave up a lackluster lesson and minutes wasted, I decided I could not bear to suffer the agony that would come once I was beyond blue eyes. Straightforward and blunt, I stated, “I need to give my apologies for my earlier brazen behavior. …I should not have touched you. The last thing I wish is to establish fear between us, and…my actions were forward and improper. I will not breach etiquette again; you have my word.”
I watched her brow ruffle and a nervous bit lip as she seemed to debate pressing the issue. Perhaps her own sense of guilt would convince her to take the blame on her shoulders and free me of its weight…or perhaps she was just relieved that it was over and done.
As I started to rise, she suddenly lifted stopping hands and bid, “Wait. Don’t go yet, Erik. Please…”
I halted every motion and sat back upon the piano bench, still overcome every time she used my name. Another secret between us, only she would not see it as the same intimacy I did, not when in her world, names were commonplace. She couldn’t know that I’d grown accustomed to ‘Opera Ghost’ and chose not to lower my semblance with a mortal title. But gods fell from their thrones only for her, and a mortal name no longer felt demoralizing when she spoke its letters.
As I gazed at her with an unspoken question, I saw her shift nervously on her feet before taking small step after small step closer to me. I froze, unable to breathe with her approach, anticipating and terrified at the same time. She’d never made a motion toward me, never anything I could fully misconstrue, but now her intention was wary but evident as she came to stand beside my piano bench.
“Please…don’t make such vows,” she softly bid. “I never asked for them, and if I hold no blame upon you, how can you ask forgiveness? Don’t make it seem sinful because…it wasn’t sinful.”
“No?”
She shook her head, and loose dark curls bobbed with the motion and reminded me how they had flown free in a snow dance. It was the most beautiful image I’d ever seen on this earth.
Timidity gave that pink blush again, and as if eager to seem less shy, she asked, sweet and quiet, “Will you play something for me, ange?”
I nodded dully, still half-shocked every second in her willing presence. She made it seem she wanted the moment to extend as much as I did. Turning to the keys, I worried I’d falter when my hands shook as much as every part of me, but ivory keys were my native tongue. I was adept at their language so much more than this love speech I attempted with Christine, and as I began to play, I poured my heart through the piano’s belly, letting it permeate the air and say everything I couldn’t in words.
I knew she felt what I did, glancing at her every few measures of a made-up composition and glimpsing the wonder light her features and grow.
We lingered in that pool of pure emotion for a long while without words when words were limited in their capacity. Music spoke infinite and played about both our bodies like a ribbon weaving us together.
Eventually when we quit and I sent her off to bed like a child, I noticed the looks she cast back at every breath, full of realization and awareness. I was doubtless that in one serenade, I’d unwittingly professed my love, telling her the secrets I hadn’t yet shared, and though she seemed awed such emotions existed, I still was unclear if they were returned from her corner.
Could she love me back? Even a hint of such emotion would be enough to settle my throbbing heart. But she was more guarded than I and had no outlet for wordless emotion as I did in a piano’s timbre.
I made my heart a song when language had
its faults and failures, and until she could find a way to do the same, I knew I’d have to wait and take only what she gave this time.
Chapter Six
Christine~
Emotion was addictive. It was a surprise to learn how much. One discounted the actual power emotions could hold when they were felt and indulged every single day. It was like they lost their sharpness with use and didn’t overwhelm as they would if new. I had been privy to more of the bad sort since my father’s death. Sadness, loss, loneliness, mourning. Happiness was a bittersweet memory and shut away when it brought only memories of what could never be again.
I was relearning happiness in singing and in my daily lessons with my angel teacher, and yet I was afraid to feel it to its deepest extent. I only let it graze the surface and never root inside. Except for the instant my lesson finished and Erik played his beautiful music for me. Then I let it free and savored its overwhelming possession.
It was our new pattern. Once work was done, he’d indulge my begged request and give me the key to my growing addiction in lyrical melodies and luscious harmonies. I was no fool. I knew my resurrected emotions were a reflection of his. He played what was in his heart, and I thrilled at its potency. It was so beautiful that I yearned to feel it the same.
In music’s spell, it was easy. I could love him and just feel and not think of the consequences. It was almost simple. And while the idea of truly loving Erik terrified me, when melodies poured from his fingers, I was sure I could do it. …I was sure I already did.
Erik likely perceived my newfound addiction as solely for his music, and I never let on the truth that it was actually his heart I craved more and its every deep-seeded adoration. When he played, love was pure and held nothing worthy of fear, not like a night he’d taken caresses on a stage as he’d discarded my shoes. That was something that only inspired terror. It was consuming and dark, and the memory alone made me tremble and left me unsure if I wanted to feel it again or not.
Scripted in Love's Scars Page 6