Sunday, October 23, 2011

Chapter 20



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 fiancĂ©e. 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

1 comment:

  1. what a story once more. and yes you do have a thing for Erik ;-)
    you have one in the past, one set in current time, maybe one more set in a distant apocalyptic future or outer space? hihi

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