Phantom of the Opera 1. Chapter 1

Prologue

Something is tied up in that cage. Two arms, pinioned with rope at the wrists against the cold iron bars, spread-eagled like Christ on the cross. It might be a man, thought little about the figure suggests as much. Its head hangs down upon its chest, limp as if unconscious, though it is not. The hair is a tangled mass, matted and filthy. It is dressed in nothing but a pair of ragged brown trousers tied on with a cord, like the loincloth of a savage. The light from a single candle highlights ribs that jut obscenely beneath wasted flesh, and flickers over a spectrum of bruises from old yellow to deep burgundy, a horrific watercolor on skin. Its breath, which is ragged, forms a white cloud that hangs about its head – it is November, and it is naked in the cold. Here is less a man than a beast, made so, we must acknowledge, by other men who have something of the beast about them, if not in their appearance, then at least in their souls.

But no man is responsible for that face. No, that mangled, misshapen approximation of a human visage goes beyond the art of man to create – with knives, with fire, with acid. No, God made that face. And God alone is responsible.

The eyes of that face are closed, as if they cannot bear to look upon their own misfortune. A body broken, a life destroyed, a dignity laid waste. And it is fortunate, too, that they are closed, for who could bear to look into their wild depths, and find a soul fully conscious of its own demise; who could see such a thing, and be unchanged by it?

All is silent in that tent that holds the cage, as if the fabric shuts out the joy of the world, just as it shuts in this example of misery. All is silent, except…

It hears, for it cannot shut his ears as well as its eyes, it hears… music. Borne on the air, a _mélodie_ floating, insinuating itself between the pain and the despair. The strains of a violin, and a child's voice, a girl's voice, as pure and sweet as cold clear water to a thirsty man.

_"The arms of my love are like home,_

_Where safe he'll keep me always,_

_His kisses melt the winter snow,_

_His smile drives away the clouds._

_And when I wander far afield,_

_Through loneliness and fear,_

_I'll think always of my love, and home._

_Of my love, my home..."_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"And how did my little angel enjoy her day at the fair, eh?" Charles Daae was a large man, a Scandinavian giant. Tall, and broad of shoulder, with light blonde hair (thinning somewhat, now that he'd entered his fifties) and pale blue eyes.

"Very well, Papa!" trilled a small, high voice by his side. Except that she addressed him as such, no one would have thought Charles Daae to be papa to the little creature that walked beside him. Little Christine had inherited her mother's coloring. Brown, curling hair, and large, dark eyes – there was nothing of the Swede about her.

"What was your favorite part?" asked the papa of the little girl as they strolled along a country road. His steps were long and extremely slow, to let her little pattering feet keep up.

"I liked singing, of course!" And she trilled out a bit of Berlioz that disturbed the pheasants from the hedgerow. She laughed as they scuttled across the land, then she let go her papa's hand and chased after them, which proved to be the cause of much to-do and squawking.

Charles lauged as he caught up with her. "Do you know what _my_ favorite part was?" he asked in a lowered voice, as if he was about to tell her a secret.

"What? What?" she cried.

He paused for suspense. Then, "Your singing!" he exclaimed.

She giggled as he swung her up onto his shoulders. "My little girl was the toast of the fair," he crowed. "Not a man there who didn't smile when he heard her sing! Not a man there who could deny it – she has the voice of an angel!"

"The angel of music!"

"That's right, the angel of music."

"And _you_ didn't play so bad yourself," she said, patting his shining blonde head.

"That's right," he said. "I didn't play so bad_ly_ myself."

"Oops. Bad-_ly_."

They walked along in silence for a few minutes. It was a cold November day, but the bright sun just managed to keep the bite off the chill. Still, Christine was bundled to the eyeballs and Charles had a scarf wrapped around his mouth. Paris lay ahead in the distance, lit up in the golden glow of the late afternoon sun. They weren't walking all the way. They would meet the mail coach a mile or two ahead at the small villiage of Armé, and it would take them the rest of the way home.

Every so often Charles would pull a flower or a vine from the side of the road and hand it up to Christine, whose little chubby fingers were trying to make a crown, but were far more successful at scattering flower petals into her papa's hair.

"Papa," she said eventually. It was clear she had been pondering something.

"Yes, Angel?"

"Is everyone happy when they're at the fair?"

"What do you mean?"

She furrowed her tiny brow as her fingers struggled with the flowers and her mind struggled with how to rephrase her question.

"Well… People go to the fair to be happy, don't they?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"But what if they're not happy? What if the fair makes them sad instead?"

He hadn't the slightest ide what she was getting at – even papa's don't have all the answers all the time. But he tried to answer the question anyway.

"Well, a person can't always be made to feel happy if they're not. That is, a clown might make one man laugh, but not another. Or it might frighten him," he mused. Did that… Did that answer your question, baby?"

"Ummm…" She hummed uncertainly. "Not really."

"What do you mean then?"

She huffed and just said what she was thinking. "The man in the cage was sad," she said.

"What?"

"The man in the cage was at the fair too, but he wasn't happy at all."

"Why was the man in the cage?" asked Charles.

"I don't know. Maybe he did something bad."

"When did you see it?"

"When you went with Monsieur LeFant to buy us chocolates. There was a tent. I heard something. So I went inside."

"Who was there? What did you hear?"

"The man in the cage!" she cried. "And another man. He was yelling. Hitting. I was scared, so I left right away and found you."

"Good girl," he said automatically. His adult's brain was trying to decipher her child's point-of-view.

A man. In captivity. Held against his will. Being beaten. Charles Daae stroked his beard, and kept walking.

He was silent for much of the trip home. Christine, if she noticed, didn't seem to mind his reticence. She possessed that childlike ability to amuse herself without awkwardness. She hummed and sang snatches of tunes; she fiddled with her flower crown; she cast two twigs in the characters of a princess and a magician, or a prince and his evil brother, or the angel of music and Father Christmas, and carried out entire conversations with herself, changing the pitch of her voice as her imaginary friends required. And when she and Charles caught the mail coach at Armé, she chattered away to the other passengers about her day at the fair. Of course she utterly charmed all she met, and brought a smile to the face of more than one person who perhaps had not smiled at all that day.

It was much later, when they had already reached their modest townhome on the western edge of Paris, that Charles asked his daughter whether, if they returned to the fair tomorrow, she would be able to show him the tent where the man was in the cage.

"Are we going back to the fair?" exclaimed Christine, her eyes all alight.

"I am curious about the man," said Charles. "We can go again tomorrow if you'll show him to me."

"Yes! Yes! Yes, of course!" cried the little girl, and ran off to bed. For what child doesn't delight in a country fair?

Charles was late in retiring after he had tucked-in his daughter. He sat in front of the fire, smoking his pipe and thinking.


End file.

Phantom of the Opera, Hurt-Comfort, Romance