In My Darkness: La Chatte Noire

Chapter Twenty-Three: Plans

Chapter Twenty-Three: Plans

"I will only be gone for an hour, Camillé. It is the same length as always."

"Erik, you've been doing this for over a year straight. I think you can skip one."

He sighed and crossed his arms. "And she won't understand why. It's not as if I can tell her I have a lover who has a tendency to be possessive."

"We're not lovers yet; keep this up and we never will be. Erik, please," she tried again, now fully irritated, standing right in front of him, "Ce soir est une année, mon amour (Tonight is one year, my love). She can't mean that much to you."

Erik looked down at his beloved. No, Christine Daaé didn't mean half as much to him as Camillé did. Yet… the girl depended on him, thought he was the Angel sent by her dead father. How exactly would he explain this to her? He sighed, leaning down and kissing Camillé quickly.

"I will be back in an hour, Bien-Aimée," he told her, and she groaned, "I expect you to be ready when I return. Wear one of those dresses you cherish so much."

Her eyes widened. "Ready for what?"

"Something," he teased, winking at his beloved before he turned around and started into the tunnels.

Camillé stood there staring after Erik, confused as could be. Quoi? He was leaving… for a lesson with Christine… which left her an hour to apparently be ready for something… but he wouldn't tell her what, and he had told her to wear one of her dresses. She hadn't worn more than two of those dresses before, mostly without Erik's knowledge. What would he be doing with her that required a dress? Her mind suddenly whirred.

He could be taking her out somewhere – no, Erik hated the outside world, and he was always wary about his mask. Besides, the investigation about her, though it had never been solved and was eventually in the backs of everyone's minds, meant that she was not exactly safe outside la Maison d'Opera. It was best that she stayed inside it. Perhaps he had prepared something inside the Opera House… which would be idiotic, because they would run the risk of being caught by one of the members of the company. So what could he have prepared for them? The more she thought about it, the more she wondered. Were they going to go to the roof? Did he find something safe outside? Might they be going outside la ville? Her ideas were beginning to make her anxious for his return. She wanted to know.

Camillé leapt up the stairs two at a time and walked quickly into her bedroom. She threw open the storage alcove in the back and the trunk on the right side of the room. Out of the alcove came her favorite dress, the long, purple and black one that Erik had only rejected on the grounds that it was too low-cut. After she had stripped of her regular shirt and pants, she tied a corset on and slipped the dress on over her head. It fell to her feet and she did a little twirl, the dress expanding out and falling back with the wind. Camillé smiled and walked over to the trunk, taking out the only nice pair of shoes she owned and donning them. She picked up the small box out of the bottom, pulling the moonstone necklace Erik had given her out of the box and clasping it around her neck. When she had finished that, she sat down on the edge of her bed and brushed out her long, black hair until it was smooth, then parted it down the center. She braided her hair on both sides of her part, letting every other part hang down loosely. It had been one of the more popular hairstyles in her hometown of Mireval, and she had grown fond of it when she was a child. After completing a side to the back of her head, she braided it regularly and let it hang.

Once finished, she walked into the main alcove, down the stairs, and across the lair to her desk. She sat down and began writing a simple love poem or two – certainly not her best work, but simply well enough for her mood. All five of them had taken her a grand total of only ten minutes at most, and she found herself restless. Her best guess put Erik coming back in over half an hour. Camillé walked up to the bookshelf and took out the book she had found to be her favorite, a rewriting of the tale of Tristan and Iseult. She had read this story many times since she had come here and somehow fallen in love with it. It made no sense to Erik; the tale depicted a man who falls in love with his uncle's bride and ends up getting himself exiled. That, in her beloved's opinion, was not romantic at all, merely misguided. The boy should have known better.