Page 99 of Our Strange Duet

The voice seemed to come from the very mist itself. It was everywhere, all at once, surrounding me.

“Father?” I gasped, though even as I called out for him, I wasn’t entirely certain I’d guessed right. It sounded very nearly like Father, but also like my Angel…my Erik…the Phantom…“Who’s there?”

“Have you forgotten your Angel?”

My earlier words echoed in my mind.

When it was just the Angel and me, those moments were so beautiful. I wish I could stay in them, stay in that music—our music—forever.

And here he was, Erik, my Angel returned.

Had my wish been granted?

“Angel?” I called out, every part of me longing for it to be true. Why couldn’t everything be that simple? Why shouldn’t it? I closed my eyes, feeling faint. My head spun as I fought back a swoon. Too many things had happened today. Hopes and disappointments swirled inside me, fighting for dominion. They pulled at my thoughts. They wounded my heart. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I wasn’t—

“I’m here, Christine. Come with me now, darling girl. You don’t belong here,” he said, his voice rising from somewhere on my left. “This is not the place for you. You belong in sunlight. You should be surrounded by music, by life. Not…not this.”

The fog was a little lighter now, and I could almost make out his figure. But when I hurried over to embrace him, I startled back in fright.

An angel did stare down at me, but it was carved of marble. Its eyes were downcast, filled with pious sorrow. I reached out to touch its hands, raised in prayer, then thought I felt the trace of a finger across my back, a quick caress that made me turn to find only more fog, more mist.

Not him.

“Erik, please. Where are you?”

“Do you really want to see?” he asked, and I felt more phantom fingers run down the length of my arm. My thoughts felt heavy and slow, my mind as muddled as the fog surrounding me. “Do you truly want to come to me?” A small part of me wanted to run, wanted to beat back the lulling waves of his voice that threatened to drown me, but then he spoke again, and every urge to flee retreated. “Come to me, Christine. Come to your strange Angel.”

Father had once taken me to a small theatre to while away a rainy afternoon. We watched a variety of acts play out. There’d been dancing dogs and ventriloquist dummies, and I’d laughed and laughed, happy to be there with Father, sharing in the wonder.

But one performance had left me reeling in a cold sweat.

A man had come out on the stage, all by himself. There’d been no props or silly costumes. Just him. He’d explained that he was a mesmerist, a doctor who was able to cure patients by controlling the magnetic fluid within their bodies. He could lull anyone into a trance and fix them. He’d demonstrated with people in the audience, using only the power of his measured voice to subdue them. Their eyes had turned glassy and listless as the man had them perform increasingly astonishing acts to prove his command over them.

When he’d asked me to join him onstage, I’d cowered under my father’s arm and cried.

I felt like one of those poor souls now, hypnotized, compelled, and ready to do whatever my Angel bid me. I could feel my soul reaching out for Erik, reaching for his music and the peace both would give. “Come to me, strange Angel,” I begged, my voice low and almost slurring.

Had I said that? Had he made me?

“Christine!” A new voice broke through the fog and my mind’s beguilement. I heard the thud of hoofbeats on soft ground, the whinny of a charging horse.

“Raoul?” What was he doing here? Couldn’t he see that I—

I blinked, suddenly unsure of what I was doing. I’d begun to take faltering steps back toward the large monument with the stone angel. I’d been drawn to it, seduced by it, like a sleepwalker caught in a heady dream. My actions had not been my own. My thoughts had not been controlled by me.

Raoul emerged from the swirling fog, riding a large black stallion. Its velvety lips were frothed white. They must have raced here at a breakneck pace. But why? Why was he here now?

“Leave her!” Raoul exclaimed as he dismounted and immediately crossed between me and the tomb.

I blinked again, hard, as if trying to clear sleep from my eyes. It was like a veil had been lifted, a reverie broken. All at once, I could see what I hadn’t been able to before.

There, up on the monument, crouched behind one angel, was another.

He was hidden in the swell of a full black cloak. A wide-brimmed, plumed cavalier hat helped to conceal the mask, but it was impossible not to recognize him.

Erik.

His lip curled, part smile, part sneer, as he stepped from the shadows. “Monsieur le Vicomte, what a surprise to find you here.”