Chapter Text
PROLOGUE.
Just outside Paris, France. 1882.
Christine was whisked away to the Vicomte de Chagny’s country estate even before the Paris newspapers could print the first bylines on the scandal at the Palais Garnier . She watched the sun rise from Raoul’s carriage, nestled into her cloak against the morning chill. Tendrils of light crept tentatively over the horizon. Mist lifted slowly, winking in the fresh, pink light as the carriage rushed by. Christine passed the ride in a sort of trance, her dark eyes raking over the picturesque countryside, drinking in the light and warmth and hope of a dawn spent aboveground . Though she knew it to be a daydream, she imagined she could hear faint voices calling for her as the horses beat time on the dusty road.
Christine…..Christine…..Christine…..
(what was that?)
The miles rushed by and Paris slowly disappeared into the brilliant morning behind them.
Upon arrival at Raoul’s chateau, Christine was put up in her own suite of rooms and appointed her own small household staff. A wardrobe was filled with the finery befitting of a future Vicomtesse . There was a small washing room with claw tub, a writing desk stocked with stationary, quill, and ink, and a towering four-poster bed made out in the softest covers and sheets. A shelf with books lined one wall, for Raoul knew she loved to read. For a time, Christine tried to lose herself in the otherworldly luxury of the chateau. Every morning, she ran her fingers over the cool silks and furs of the gowns as her maids dressed her, trying to imagine herself a Vicomtesse. Every evening she sank into the deep tub, trying to drown her memories of the past year in the sweet-smelling water.
Christine did not let herself look in the mirror in her room.
Raoul, ever the gentleman, held no expectations for Christine. Those first weeks after her abduction and escape, he treated her as a porcelain figurine that might shatter at any moment. She had frequent nightmares and woke screaming, clawing at herself, images of ghosts and labyrinths dancing in the fading firelight from her hearth. Even during these outbursts he was so gentle–he rushed into her bedchamber and held her softly, letting her salty tears spill against the silk of his nightshirt. Though she was sure he could feel her heaving breasts from beneath her nightgown and discern the supple curves of her hips and legs, he never moved to touch her. Sometimes after these nights he would stay with her, but he always slept above her coverlet, and his hands never strayed. When he came to her in the day, it was to read, or talk, or to invite her on long walks through the sunlit gardens of the vast estate grounds. His whispered love promises were as chaste as a nursery rhyme, and when he held her hands in his, they crept no farther than her slim wrists. He spoke of their impending wedding–oh, how grand it was to be!--but never of the wedding night. He blushed when he kissed her.
She could be happy here, Christine thought. She would make herself be happy here. She had made the safe choice, with Raoul. And if she sometimes found herself standing at the piano in the drawing room with no memory of how her feet had carried her there? She buried the longing deep within her breast and turned back to the light. For in the world outside the palais , the dawn always broke after even the blackest night.
Christine Daaé’s undoing was swift. And cruel.
It began with nausea. For a time, Christine told herself it was exhaustion. After all, her evenings were increasingly filled with dinners, dancing, and parties as Raoul threw open the doors of the chateau to celebrate his young fiance. She was shy, and though she enjoyed Raoul’s company and the lavish attention paid to her, she would have preferred quiet evenings lost in book or in song. Christine could tell that Raoul was increasingly sick with worry for her. His eyes shone with a concerned brightness, glinting softly like pennies as he rubbed her back and whispered soothingly to her. He brought her little ginger cakes and tray upon tray of tea. He read to her on those mornings she could not bring herself to throw back the bedcovers. She continued to refute his insistence they call a doctor, swearing that it was nothing but a nervous stomach brought on by the fading memories of the terror she had endured. But the cakes and teas did not work, and Christine’s beautiful face slowly blanched to white: A gleaming mask in the dark mornings before dawn.
And in time, her belly swelled: First with soft bloat, and then with the round hardness that she could no longer ignore. And when her corsets and skirts and petticoats finally failed to provide camouflage for her changing body, when she finally approached Raoul with tears in her eyes, the world crashed down around her. Raoul’s once-gentle eyes blackened with despair, and he turned to drink. He spent many days away from the Chateau, and Christine would often hear him coming home late and stumbling drunk into his rooms.
Their ultimate confrontation came suddenly. Raoul burst into Christine’s room one nondescript fall morning, no longer able to ignore that Christine Daaé was with child. And that the child was not his.
“He forced himself on you!” Raoul slammed his fists against Christine’s wardrobe. Pictures on the wall clattered like teeth in a cold face. “I should have killed him when I had the chance!”
Christine sat in the armchair by her window, looking out at the gravel driveway three stories below. The head butler was overseeing a delivery of apples from a cart drawn by a chestnut horse. He looked like a little toy soldier, marching about and barking unintelligible orders at the delivery man. The apples in their wicker basket winked like rubies in the bright, September sunlight. It was four months since she had fled Paris and into the dawn. Her hands cradled her belly instinctively.
“Christine!”
She snapped back into the present to find Raoul crouching in front of her, hands gripping the edges of her chair. His face was crimson. Christine thought of the apples.
“When did he do this? When did he touch you?”
She tried to answer him. Her voice was soft. “Raoul, I–”
“Damn him!’ Raoul shook the chair. Christine’s teeth snapped together with a loud crack that rattled in her bones.
“I’ll rip the skull from his shoulders! I’ll tear out his throat! I’ll burn the entire damned palais to the ground!”
“Raoul-”
“The thought of those claws on you makes me sick. No wonder you have been so ill. I can’t even imagine the monster he’s put inside of you. It must be tearing you to pieces from the inside out. His lips on yours, that ghastly eye raking you in. I will rip him apart!” Raoul’s face was only inches from Christine’s, and though he railed at her, he did not look at her, not truly. His eyes bored into the base of her skull as if willing her head to crack open and the truth to spill forth. His spittle landed on her lips. It tasted of whisky.
“Raoul-”
“Tell me, Christine! When did he hurt you? When did he take you? To think you’ve had such a weight for so long, I blame myself for not seeing it sooner. Oh, my poor Christine–” Raoul reached out a shaking hand and buried his fingers in Christine’s dark curls. He stared at them reverently, running the soft, silken strands through his fingers. The rage momentarily melted from his face, and a mask of sorrow was left in its place. “Oh, my beautiful little fiance, I am so sorry that I did not protect you.” His voice was soft.
“Raoul, he--”
Raoul suddenly let go of her hair and pushed himself up from Christine’s chair. He started pacing about the room, gesticulating wildly. His voice was manic and his words tumbled out quickly. He babbled. His hands punctuated every sentence with sharp stabs of his fingers. He did not look at her.
“But I can still protect you…us….there are things we can do. I’ve heard the whispers from the ballet corps girls, I’ve seen the maids come and go at night. We’ll ring the midwife, and she’ll bring the herbs and teas to make this… thing ….go away. And we will move on and be married and you won’t be spoiled because it wasn’t your fault, he took it from you . And you can still be mine and be safe, and pure, and we’ll tell no one, not ever–”
“Stop!” The word did not echo, but hung unsteady in the space between them. Raoul’s head swiveled towards Christine. His eyes bulged.
“He didn’t force me, Raoul.”Christine’s voice was slow. She picked carefully around the words, as a child investigating an unfamiliar plate of food.
“What are you saying–”
“Raoul. He did not rape me.” Christine looked down at her hands. Her engagement ring strobed. She spoke again. “ Erik did not rape me.” His voice felt foreign on her lips. It had been so long since she had last dared to utter it. “Erik did not rape me,” she repeated, more for herself than for Raoul’s benefit.
Raoul stared at Christine, his mouth hanging slightly open. His hands balled and un-balled at his side. Veins arched across his throat and forehead. Christine imagined she could see them pulsing. He worked his jaw in slow circles, as if he was chewing and swallowing her words in order to digest their meaning.
Silence dropped like a curtain between them. The pair watched one another, warily. They were jackals circling the corpse of their love affair, both waiting for a moment to strike. Christine broke first. It was her turn to babble.
“It was the night before Don Juan. I was so scared! I know that he murdered those people but I cared for him, despite it all. He was my teacher, my savior, my Angel , and I knew you were planning to kill him. I went to warn him, just to warn him, to beg him to flee and to leave us so that I could marry you. But he asked me to sing for him, with him, and I….I forgot myself, Raoul. The music took me over it bent me. Into something else. I…I could not help it. I could not help myself.”
Christine’s voice trailed off into a wave of silent sobs. Her shoulders shook with despair. Salty tears streamed from the corners of her eyes, tracing long spiderwebs down her cheeks and chin. Where Raoul once would have gently caught those tears with the pads of his fingers he now stood, watching her. Silent.
“I stayed with him that night. It was just once. Only once. I swear it on my father’s grave. And after, he swore to leave us alone if I performed in Don Juan. He was so sad. He swore it. I wanted to save you from each other. He promised to leave us alone if I performed and so I went ahead with it. I knew he would be watching but I didn’t know he’d be there …”
Raoul did not speak. His face was a blank mask. Christine pushed on.
“I was so confused. Everything that happened was so terrible. But the music….it felt like home.”
Christine looked up. Her eyes were dark pools of sorrow.
“And I didn’t know about the…the…” Her eyes dropped to her swollen belly. She wrapped her arms across it protectively. She hadn’t yet felt the quickening, but she tried to imagine what it would be like. Would it pound at her from within as Raoul pounded his fists against the wall? Or would it be sweet and cautious as Erik, his fingers cold on her spine? She shivered at the memory and looked back up at Raoul.
For the first time with him, her eyes narrowed in defiance.
“And I am not…I am not going to drink the tea. Or take the herbs. Or whatever it is the midwife gives to the maids in a…in this…condition. I could not bear to kill it.”
Raoul stared at Christine. His face melted from one emotion to the next: First it was confusion, his eyes squinted and puzzled at her, as if her words were uttered in some foreign tongue. As slow realization crept across his stony blue gaze, the mask of confusion gave way to surprise. He took a step backward as if she had pushed him, his mouth agape. And finally his features contorted into blind rage: His entire face flushed scarlet.
(like a single red rose)
Raoul’s beautiful, blue eyes, those same eyes that had held so much promise of love and hope faded into dark, black pools of poison. He sneered at her then, his teeth like daggers and his tongue lashed like a lance into her heart. All pretense fell away as he shed his scales of decency.
“You….you whore!” Raoul rushed forward and grabbed Christine’s shoulders. He shook her. Her teeth clicked together again and again, more violently this time. She bit her tongue and tasted blood.
“I have done nothing but worship at your feet! I saved you from that monster! I gave you this beautiful life,” at this, Raoul let go of her left shoulder and gesticulated wildly at the room around them. Christine’s eyes followed his hands, taking in the flowery yellow wallpaper and sunlight-streaked floor. “And this is how you repay me.” Raoul pushed Christine back and she stumbled against her armchair. She pressed back, cowering before him, shrinking inside of herself.
“What would you have me do? Raise that monster’s bastard child as my own? Knowing that he touched you before I ever could? Every moment of my every day will be haunted with the thought of that thing moving on top of you, inside of you!” Raoul broke then, his entire body vibrating with anger. Christine’s thoughts drifted to those long nights after her nightmares. She thought of the feeling of his weight beside her in her bed. She knew the want he must have felt for her in those moments. She felt ashamed of her lack of restraint in the face of his own and looked down.
Raoul laughed. It was a cruel sound, cold and empty, a far cry from his usual gaiety and charm. He advanced on her. “ Embarrassed ? Now? You gave yourself to that thing . To think I loved you.” Raoul fell on her, and at first Christine thought he would beat her. She raised her arms to protect her face, but he grabbed them and pinned them to her side with one hand.
“Did he touch you like this, mon cheri? What did it feel like with him inside of you?” Raoul smothered her mouth with his, sucking at the scream that had begun bubbling in her throat.
“Raoul, no, please, stop–” She struggled against him but could not move. Her breath hitched in her chest and her words were muffled, indistinguishable from her sobs. His other hand ran along the boning of her corset.
He pushed her hard against the chair. Christine’s spine arched in an unnatural halo as the upholstered backrest dug into her. She could feel his angry hardness even through her many layers of skirts. He began to grind his hips into her, his tongue shoved down her throat.
She was terrified of him.
“I waited so long for this.” Raoul pulled back from Christine’s mouth to mumble the words against her neck. He let go of her hands long enough to fumble awkwardly for his belt.
“No, Raoul, I–”
“I’ll have you now,” Raoul said. His voice was coldly matter-of-fact. lHe came at her again with a fury that Christine had never known. His hands groped at her skirts, vying for purchase in the sea of petticoats. Christine’s eyes went wide with panic. She fought hard to push him away. She battered at his chest, his biceps, his sides, but it seemed that he felt nothing, for his hands continued to run drunkenly up her body.
“Please stop–” She gasped, but Raoul’s mouth was on hers again as he found the edges of her skirts. Her yanked at her undergarments. Christine heard fabric ripping.
“Is this how he took you? Like an animal?” He growled into her mouth. His words were slurred. Gone was the little boy who had rescued her scarf from the sea. Gone was her friend, that lovely young man who had held her hand as her father terrified them with haunted stories of the North. Gone was the gentleman who had so tenderly and bravely rowed her across that dark lake. In his place was a madman whose eyes shone red with the desire to hurt her, to punish her, to take her: A creature more terrible than any she had ever known. His outer beauty had bloated into an ugly and twisted mask of hate and his real self spilled forth like a stinking pool of putrid water. Her Raoul was gone.
Christine did the only thing she could and bit down on his lower lip, hard. She tasted blood again, but this time it was his.
Raoul screamed in pain and stumbled backwards. His right hand flew up to his face and when it withdrew, it was stained red.
“You…you bit me!” His shock surprised her. Had he thought she would let him take her like that? “You bit me!” He spit blood on the floor and took another step back, staring at her in disbelief.
Christine’s heart broke. She took one tentative step forward and reached out for him. “Raoul, please-”
“You whore .” His voice was soft now. And dangerous. He spit flames from between his lips. “Get out.”
“What?” Christine blinked, uncomprehending.
“Get out of my house.”
“What?”
“Get out! Get out! Get out!” Raoul had been turning away but he whirled on her in uncontrollable rage. He slapped her, hard and her head snapped to the right like a door flung open.
( or flung closed )
Before she could come up for air, Raoul shoved her, hard enough to slam her backwards into the wall. A picturesque oil painting of the french countryside crashed to the floor, its delicate gilt frame shattering on the hardwood. Christine’s head snapped back against the wall this time, and white-hot stars exploded in front of her eyes. She thought she could feel the plaster crack behind her skull. Her knees gave out and she sank slowly to the floor. Raoul stood in front of her, panting like a rabid dog. He crouched down and lifted her chin and stared straight into her soul.
“I never want to see you again.”
Raoul stood then and turned his back on her and stalked out of the room. Christine could hear the destruction in his wake as he raged: Glass shattered, tables overturned, and he howled with the anger of a man betrayed.
The stillness Raoul left behind was deafening. Christine looked around stupidly. She blinked against the absolute normalcy of the scene. The curtains rustled in the breeze from the open window, the horses outside whinnied softly, and the household staff chittered from the furthest recesses of the grand estate. Christine lost herself for a moment in the illusion of quiet domesticity, longing to turn back the clock to that morning they had fled in the carriage. She had been so full of hope. Fear, yes, and guilt, of course–but hope had grown with every mile they put between themselves and Paris.
Between themselves and Erik.
Her daydream was shattered by the sound of the front door as it slammed open and then closed, followed by Raoul’s voice as he barked orders for his favorite horse to be saddled. It was only a few moments later that she heard the front gate whine open, and then hoofbeats furiously pounded at the lane that wound its way down from the chateau. Raoul was gone.
Christine sighed and pushed herself up from the floor. Her belly was heavy and her gait already awkward, and she stumbled a bit, gripping the windowsill for support. She winced–something tugged deep inside her and white hot pain flared by the small of her back. She reached around to probe at her lower back, assuming that her last fall into the wall had left a bruise. But when she brought her hand back around, she realized that it was smeared with dark red blood.
Christine rushed to the full-length mirror and twisted around. She did not have to strain to see. Dark blood stained the back of her silk skirt. There was so much that it had oozed through her undergarments, skirts, and bustle. It came from between her legs and seeped slowly in every direction. She could feel it, then, dripping down her thighs and pooling at her feet. She looked back at the wall: Enough blood had spilled from her that it had even smeared on the wallpaper when she slid down to the floor.
A sudden, sharp pain pierced Christine’s belly and she doubled over, clutching at her midsection. Blood was everywhere now—her hands, her legs, slipping across the floor in angry puddles. She felt lightheaded, and pricks of darkness gathered like storm clouds at the edge of her vision.
(the lake beneath the opera. dark and deep and black.)
Christine fell to her knees, and the black embrace of night swept her away.