Raoul waited anxiously beside the mausoleum, staring into the growing darkness and wondering if Christine would come. She had been so terrified to see him the night before, for reasons unknown to him. How had he ever scared her so badly that she couldn�t look at him without going into hysterics?
He had handled himself well two years before when she told him she was going back to the Phantom. Of course he had been shocked and hurt, but he hadn�t forced her to stay with him. She hadn�t been afraid of him then, nor two days after she was married when she asked him--begged him, really, to not reveal her husband�s identity, or even the fact that she was married. He had never told, and never would. He had no reason to discuss his former fianc�e with anyone. The pain was still too strong, even after two years.
He didn�t understand why she had chosen the Phantom over him. He hoped to ask her tonight, as he had wanted to do ever since she made the decision. "I love him, Raoul," was all she had said back then, her eyes brimming with tears. How could she have loved that monster? Raoul had seen his face, had been shocked at the horror along with the rest of Paris. How Christine could care for that hideous creature?
Raoul sighed as darkness settled in, leaving the cemetery completely black, aside from the small light his lantern put out. It was almost like that night two years before...
A movement near the gate caught his attention. He stepped forward quickly, holding his lantern high. "Christine?"
A slight gasp escaped her throat. "Raoul?" she whispered, obviously frightened.
"It�s me. I�m here," he said, reaching for her hand.
She stiffened. "Raoul, please--"
He released her immediately. "I�m sorry."
"What do you want?" she asked bluntly.
"Come over here near the mausoleum. I want to be sure we�re alone."
"It�s too dark over there, Raoul..." She hesitated. "We would be completely out of sight, and--"
"Don�t you trust me, Christine?"
She was silent for a moment. "All right. But you have to hurry. Erik thinks I�m at rehearsal, and if he finds I�m not--"
Raoul was incredulous. "I thought you said you tell him everything."
"I do," she whispered, choking on a sudden sob. "I feel so awful coming here, deceiving him, and..." She burst into tears.
"Oh, Christine." Raoul wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him, and she didn�t resist the almost-brotherly embrace. He held her silently for a moment before continuing. "I�m sorry. But what I have to tell you is extremely important."
"What is it?" she sniffed, then suddenly straightened. "I must get back to the opera house soon, Raoul. Meg might be hungry and Erik will bring her up to my dressing room, and he won�t be able to find me--"
"Meg Giry? Christine, you�re not making sense." Raoul shook his head. How could he tell her his news if she was delirious?
"No, not Meg Giry," Christine said, pulling away from him and wiping at her tearstained face. "My daughter. Margaret Aminta."
Raoul stared at her. "What?"
"Our daughter. Surely you heard--oh. No, how could you hear? She�s two months old." Christine smiled. "She�s the most precious angel, Raoul. She--"
"You have a baby?"
"Yes," Christine said. "What�s wrong with that?"
"Nothing," Raoul said, looking away. Christine had a child. It might have been his, had she chosen him.
"Raoul, what�s wrong?"
He willed himself to look into her eyes, which were only dimly visible by the lantern light. "Why did you choose him?"
"I love him," she whispered.
"You said you loved me."
"Oh Raoul, I did...I do. But not in the way I love Erik. I was meant to be with him, you must know that."
"We were engaged, Christine. I loved you. I dreamed of spending my life with you!"
"I never wanted to hurt you."
"Never wanted to hurt me? Christine, I was devastated for weeks after you left. I�m still devastated! I still love you, you know."
"I know," she whispered.
He sighed. "I guess there�s nothing I can do to change it now."
She shook her head. "I�m sorry, Raoul. I do love you...but only as a friend. Erik is the one who holds my heart." She paused a moment. "Now would you please tell me why you had to see me? I must get back before Erik realizes I�m gone."
"Give me a minute," Raoul said. "This is harder than I thought."
"I don�t have a minute," she said softly. "If I�m going to hear you out, Raoul, it must be now."
"All right," he said. "Please don�t ask me where I got this information, because I can�t tell you. But I knew you had to know what I�ve discovered, before it was too late."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
He sank back against the grave. "You and Erik...and your baby, now that I know about her...are in terrible danger."
*****
Erik furiously made his way through the unseen corridors of the Paris Opera House. That miserable Vicomte. Wasn�t he supposed to be in the middle of the ocean on some expedition? How dare he suddenly show up and contact Christine? What could he possibly have to say to her? Erik was infuriated.
And he was hurt. Christine had betrayed him.
He could not allow himself to give into his emotions. He would let the pain of Christine�s apparent rejection be used to fuel his fury toward Raoul.
Erik didn�t allow himself time to think. He left the opera house and made his way toward the graveyard without formulating a plan of any kind. Who knew what he would find at the mausoleum. Perhaps Raoul was a murderer and had only wanted to kill Christine, as revenge for leaving him. Or perhaps...
He didn�t want to think about any other possibilities. He hated the thought that Christine was with her former fianc�. What if she had been seeing him all along? Erik wasn�t really sure he wanted to know, if that was the case.
Just before he reached the graveyard, he stopped. Raoul�s note had said "at the mausoleum." If they were near the large grave, Erik would be able to overhear them from atop it, as he had heard Christine two years before. It would probably be better to know what he was dealing with before he stormed in and attacked the Vicomte. He headed in the direction of the entrance to the graveyard behind the mausoleum, being careful to stay out of sight. He didn�t want Christine and Raoul to see him, and while there were few people on the near-deserted street, he wasn�t going to chance being seen by someone who would scream at the sight of his face and alert Christine and Raoul of his presence.
The rear gate swung quietly open, and Erik went inside. He hurried up to the mausoleum and stealthily climbed to the top, then stopped behind the cross and listened. All he could hear were whispers, not loud enough to make out words. He could tell was that Christine and Raoul seemed to be in a heated argument, the way they kept interrupting each other. He crept from behind the cross and looked over the edge of the grave. Christine was shaking her head, and tears were barely visible on her face by the lantern light. Erik resisted jumping down to grab her and instead strained to hear.
"It�s not true! I don�t believe you," Christine said, in a voice louder than her previous whisper. "You�re wrong, Raoul! It�s impossible. It�s crazy. It�s--"
"It�s true," the Vicomte interrupted in a frantic tone. "I told you, they said that--"
"I don�t care what they said!" she shouted at him. "It�s not true!"
Raoul clamped a hand over her mouth and Erik nearly yelled at the Vicomte to get his hands off her. But Raoul continued before Erik could voice his protest.
"Are you trying to tell the world, Christine?" He looked around anxiously before continuing in a quiet tone. "I told you this for your sake, for Erik�s sake, for your daughter�s sake! Are you telling me that you don�t want to be safe? You want your family to be in danger?"
She shoved his hand away. "I have to go. Leave me alone, Raoul."
"Christine, you have to believe me!"
"I won�t. It�s not true, I tell you. No one knows enough about us to do what you say they�re doing. No matter what you say, I don�t believe you." She turned and ran from the graveyard. Raoul�s sigh drifted to Erik as he climbed back down the grave and crept around to the front. Raoul was slumped against the grave, shaking his head.
"Bravo, monsieur," Erik said, watching Raoul�s head jerk up in surprise, "such spirited words. Would you care to inform me what Christine was so hesitant to believe?"
*****
Christine ran toward the opera house, afraid that Raoul would pursue her at any moment. The things he had told her... They were too horrible to be true. They couldn�t be true.
But at the same time, she knew they must be. Raoul had never lied to her. He had kept his promises. He wouldn�t lie to her now, would he?
She shuddered as she finally reached the opera house and slipped inside. The rehearsal was not going well, from the sounds coming from the stage. There was no way she could concentrate on rehearsing, but she must. She could only hope Erik hadn�t been up to her dressing room yet.
She hurried down the hall to her dressing room and went in. She pulled off her cloak and went toward the closet, then suddenly froze. She must be seeing things. She willed herself to turn.
The mirror was open.
Only she and Erik knew how that mirror operated, and she hadn�t opened it. That must mean...
"Oh no..." she moaned. "Please, say I�m dreaming..."
She would just have to go on as if nothing had happened. She went to the mirror and closed it, then changed into her costume for the opera--which took awhile, for it had a long row of buttons down the back. After glancing in the mirror and taking a deep breath, she willed herself to look natural and went back into the hall and toward the rehearsal area.
She had been right--rehearsal was a chaotic disaster. Reyer was trying to tell everyone what to do and where to go and when to sing, but no one appeared to be listening. The ballet girls stood to the side, in animated conversation. Madame Giry was nowhere to be seen--the girls had undoubtedly been instructed to rehearse, but Christine knew from her own experience in the corps de ballet that rehearsal without a leader was not a reality.
"Miss Daa�!" Reyer called, his tone relieved and exasperated all at once. "Where have you been?!"
"I�m sorry I�m late," Christine apologized quickly. "I was--"
"Christine!" came a shriek from behind her. She turned to look and saw Meg Giry flying toward her.
"Meg? What are you--"
Meg didn�t answer. She grabbed Christine�s arm and dragged her offstage, ignoring Reyer�s protests.
"What�s the matter?" Christine demanded.
"What�s the matter?!" Meg exclaimed. "Christine, you don�t even want to know what�s the matter!" She pulled her friend up two flights of stairs and down a hallway Christine hardly knew existed.
Christine could hardly keep up in her bulky costume, but Meg was relentless. Christine finally pulled her arm free and sank against the wall. "Meg, I can�t--"
The incessant wail of a baby stopped her. She looked at Meg in horror. "Please tell me that�s not--"
Meg was already pulling her down the hall again. "I told you you didn�t want to know."
Christine, following the baby�s cries, rushed ahead and opened the door to a small unused dressing room. Madame Giry was there, trying to console Christine�s daughter.
"How did she get here?" Christine demanded.
"I don�t think that�s the important thing right now," Mme. Giry said, handing the squalling child to Christine. "We had to bring her up here so the cast and crew wouldn�t hear her during rehearsal."
"But why is she here in the first place?" Christine asked as Meg undid the long row of buttons on her dress. "There, darling, sshhh..."
"It�s all my fault, Christine," Meg said. "I was in your dressing room, waiting for you to come up, and all of a sudden, there he was there and he found the note and left the baby with me, and--"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Christine protested as she sank into a chair with the baby. "I didn�t understand a word, Meg! Slow down!"
"The Phantom!" Meg cried. "He came up to your dressing room because little Meg was hungry, and you weren�t there. He found me instead, and he wanted to know if I�d seen you and I said I hadn�t--then he said you had to be here because you told him you would be, but I told him I hadn�t seen you all day. And then he found the note and he left me with the baby and disappeared!"
"What note?" Christine asked, a dreadful sense of foreboding overcoming her.
"The note from last night, from the Vicomte. I think I dropped it last night or something�but it was there on your dressing room floor, and the Phantom found it, and Christine, I�ve never seen anybody so upset! He stormed out behind the mirror and he hasn�t been back yet. And baby Meg was screaming at the top of her lungs, and I didn�t know what to do, so I went and found Mother and we brought her up here so she wouldn�t be heard. We�ve been up here for almost thirty minutes, Christine, and..." She breathlessly trailed off. "Christine, are you all right?"
Christine was trembling. "He found Raoul�s note? Oh Meg, please say I heard you wrong."
"He found it. I almost died when I saw what it was. I wanted to make something up, tell him it was just a joke; but he was gone too fast. I didn�t know what to do! I�m so sorry, Christine. It�s all my fault!"
"It�s not your fault," Christine murmured as she sank into a chair and began to feed the baby. "I should have made sure we did something with it last night, but I forgot. Oh, what will I ever do?"
"Did you see Raoul?"
"Yes," Christine whispered. "He...he told me the most awful things. Said he�d gotten them from reliable sources, but I couldn�t believe him."
"What did he say?" Mme. Giry asked, placing a comforting hand on Christine�s shoulder.
"He told me...He told me that someone knows about Erik and I. That we�re married. He said this person knows where we live and is sending someone to kill us both."
Meg gasped. "Who would do such a thing?"
"Raoul didn�t know. He said an anonymous source told someone who told him," Christine said. "I can�t believe it�s true. No one knows about us. No more than seven people even know that the �Phantom� didn�t really disappear two years ago. And who would have a reason to kill us? Erik thinks the whole city is out to get him, but I know they�re not. That was two years ago. No one even remembers. Who could possibly want to hurt us?"
"But the Vicomte wouldn�t have told you if he didn�t think it was true, would he?" Meg asked.
"No," Christine moaned, "he wouldn�t. But I still can�t believe it. It�s too awful to be true! And I�m so afraid...if Erik finds out about it, he�ll--" She suddenly looked up at Meg in dismay. "When was Erik here? When did he find the note?"
"A little over a half hour ago," Meg said.
A half hour before, she had been at the mausoleum with Raoul, Christine realized in dread. "Do you think he was going to the graveyard to find me?"
"I would imagine, but--"
Christine moaned again. "I think Raoul is the one who should be concerned for his life right now."
