Unmasking the Phantom – Part 6

After that confrontation, Edmée decided that tonight was not the night for opera. So, she quietly went home, tears brimming in her eyes. When she arrived, she entered the house quietly so as not to alert Raoul that she was home early.

When she was in her personal parlor, she opened the locked drawer of her desk and pulled out the Phantom’s journal.

        No, her journal. Sometimes it seemed so long ago that she forgot the pitiful young woman was her.

        Sitting down, she opened the journal to the place she had marked.

        Ma Chere Confidante,

        I saw Christine’s Raoul today. He is so handsome! She had said that he was good-looking, but oh my!

        I am so jealous of Christine. She can be with Raoul in a way that I cannot. Her beautiful looks assure that Raoul would notice her, but her voice is no comparison to mine. Perhaps I can entice him with that.

The next few pages were torn out of the book, but Edmée remembered what had happened. A few months later, in an effort to lure Raoul to her, she had led Christine to her underground lair. At first, everything went well. Christine followed her voice through the hidden passageways, completely entranced. She looked almost like a deer in the headlights with the way she stared at her. Edmée could feel Christine’s gaze on her as she rowed them across the underground lake. She even stared when Edmée led her to her new room. Edmée never liked it when people stared, but she dealt with it for the sake of possibly meeting Raoul. She felt like she knew him so well from Christine’s descriptions and stories.

Everything changed when Edmée played a song on her organ for Christine. Engrossed in playing, Edmée did not notice Christine coming nearer. She did not see Christine’s hand nearing her face until it was too late, and Christine had removed Edmée’s mask.

The scream that assaulted Edmée’s ears would haunt her for the rest of her life. The piercing sound echoed in the cavern of the lair. Edmée felt her eyes well up with tears as she looked at Christine with a look of horror that mirrored Christine’s.

“Why?!” Edmée cried, clutching the deformed side of her face with one hand and her heart with the other. “You could you not have been happy with what we’ve had? Why?”

At Edmée’s exclamation, Christine threw the mask to the ground and ran into her bedroom. Wincing at the slammed door, Edmée went to her knees, sobbing. While her intention was to lure Raoul to the lair, all of her time spent with Christine had led her to think of the girl as her friend.

I should have known better, Edmée thought. How could I have any semblance of a normal relationship?

After the tears stopped flowing, Edmée picked up the mask and settled it into place. She strode over to Christine’s door and knocked gently.

                “Go away, you monster!” Christine yelled from behind the door.

                “I’m going to take you back,” Edmée said sadly. “Please come out.”

The door opened slowly, and Christine peeked out. Once she saw that the mask was back in place, she opened the door the rest of the way. Edmée turned and silently led Christine back to the opera’s foyer. She would just have to find another way to entice Raoul.

        Edmée could feel her heart pounding at the memory. She had expected so much more from Christine. However, that wasn’t the end of her heartbreak that day.

                    Once news got out that Christine was back, Raoul immediately found her.

“What happened?” he asked, holding her arms. “I’ve been looking for you almost the entire day!”

“Oh Raoul, it was so terrible!” she exclaimed.

Raoul rubbed her upper arms. “Oh, my dear, you must tell me everything!”

“Not here,” she replied, looking around her fearfully. “She could be listening! We must go where she can’t find us. But where?”

“The roof!” Raoul exclaimed.

As Raoul led Christine to the roof of the opera house, Edmée followed, taking her own hidden route. Of course, she was listening; she was always listening.

When she arrived at the roof (before Raoul and Christine, since her path was more direct), Edmée hid behind the statue of Apollo and waited. Soon after she settled in, they burst through the door and cowered at the base of the statue.

“Oh Raoul,” Christine cried. “It was so horrible!”

“Tell me, Christine. Let me help bear your burden.”

“Do you remember me telling you of the Angel of Music?”

“Yes, you mentioned that your father had sent it to teach you.”

Christine let out a sob. “Well, she showed herself to me tonight.”

“Wait, herself? You mean it’s a real person?” Raoul asked, shocked.

“Yes, and oh, it’s so horrible!”

“What is?” Raoul asked warily, immediately imagining the worst.

“Her face!” Christine wailed. “Oh Raoul, it was so hideous! It looked as though wax were poured over a skull! Her eye was sunken into her head and her lips were grotesquely twisted. I tell you, Raoul. It was so unbearable!”

“How monstrous! Certainly, such a thing is the work of the devil!” Raoul said in disgust.

Edmée felt her heart stop. The two lovers kept on talking, but Edmée couldn’t hear them over the blood pounding in her ears. She felt like someone tore her heart into two. She loved Raoul, at least as she understood the notion. Hearing him call her monstrous was the worst thing she could imagine. She let out a long, sorrowful wail.

“What was that?” Christine asked, looking around fearfully. “We must go. It’s getting late and I’m afraid of the darkness.”

Edmée watched them leave, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“So be it,” she whispered. “I’ll show you monstrous.”