Chapter Twenty:
Epilogue
Christine never did take the stage again,
preferring to live quietly. A year had passed since that first day she’d spent
with her Phantom; a year of growth and healing, happiness and love. With the
help of Madame Giry and the Persian, Erik purchased a modest home on the
outskirts of Paris
where he and his Christine were wed in a private ceremony. He stepped forward
as the owner of the Palais Garnier and, under his direct control and using his
compositions, the opera house thrived. His wife joined him there as a vocal
coach, having learned from the very best.
It took time and patience for
Christine to completely move beyond the violence perpetrated against her. There
were many nights she soared in her husband’s embrace on the wings of love and
passion; but there were also nights where something – a thought, a touch, a
sound – would bring the memories flooding back and she’d fight to get free. As
the years marched onward, those nights became fewer and fewer until she gave
little thought to the events of the past. The birth of their first child drew
her back to church and, for her son's sake, she struggled to regain her faith. It was
a struggle she never fully won.
The Devereauxs had a total of eight
children, of which three bore some variation of
Erik’s deformity though none were as prominent as his. The first to be so
marked sent her husband into such a black pit of despair that Christine feared
he’d never emerge. When he finally broke free of his self-loathing depression,
he’d written several gloomy compositions that he immediately trashed. She, of
course, recovered them and they became quite popular with the orchestras across
Europe .
With the dawning of a new century,
Erik and Christine retired to their country home,
having sold the Garnier. Together they had watched the construction of the Eiffel Tower
and the Pont Alexandre III and mourned their oldest child, killed during the
Great Flood of 1910 while trying to save his fiancée. Erik, already weakened by
age and illness, never fully recovered from losing one of his precious children
and Christine laid him to rest in the mausoleum at the outer edge of the rose
garden in the spring of 1914. When the war began later that year, the Devereaux
children tried to convince her to move to the city where she would be safe. She
refused to leave her home and her beloved Phantom, however, and died there
during the Battle
of the Marne . Christine was laid to rest
beside her savior, her friend, her husband, her love… her Phantom of the Opera.
Finis
what a story once more. and yes you do have a thing for Erik ;-)
ReplyDeleteyou have one in the past, one set in current time, maybe one more set in a distant apocalyptic future or outer space? hihi