Between Mirrors and Roses (A Phantom of the Opera Fanfiction) ✓

40: A Story

Hello there! This is the final chapter! Thank you to everyone who has stuck with this story from the beginning and to all my new readers! I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I loved writing it.

Erik

"...And the Phantom swept down from the rafters to join Lady Christine onstage. His black cape flared large behind him, frightening everyone in sight—except Christine, who knew not to be afraid."

Bedtime. My two children listened to my story, enraptured. I sat on Marius' bed, little boy perched on my knee. Aria lay on her bed a few feet away.

"The evil Count Randall shouted, "Don't let them get away!" and pursued the couple into the cellars under the opera house. The Phantom told Christine, "Go, save yourself. I'll hold him off." But she didn't listen. Thinking quickly, she led the count to a passage that ended in a sewer pit. She and the Phantom hid behind his cape, blending into the shadows. Like... this!"

I covered Marius with my cape, and he burst into giggles.

I freed him after a few seconds and continued the story. "The count, oblivious to his peril, rounded the corner at full speed—"

"And he fell!" interrupted Marius.

"Shhh!" scolded Aria. "He did fall, right Papa?"

"Yes," I said. "The evil count fell into the sewer, defeated by Christine's cunning."

"Did they live happily ever after?" Aria asked, forgetting her insistence on quiet in her excitement.

"The Phantom whisked Lady Christine away, and the two of them were married. And they lived happily ever after."

Marius crawled off my lap.

I kissed his head and tucked him in.

"Papa?" asked Aria, her deep chocolate eyes fixed on me hopefully. "Can I have a cape like yours?"

"Why do you want a cape, darling?"

She set her chin and met my eyes resolutely, reminding me of Christine. "I have to be menencing," she said. "Maman says it makes you look menencing."

I laughed. "I think she said 'menacing,' and I don't think she intended it as a compliment." I watched her struggle with this new knowledge, and then I added, "Though perhaps you wish to be frightening like the Phantom?"

She nodded, looking about as frightening as a newborn bunny.

I kissed her on the forehead. "Then we shall acquire you a cape." She smiled at me, and I knew that if she had asked for all the treasures of the world, I would have found them and laid them at her feet. But a cape was easy enough.

Two days later I had procured it—a child-sized black cloak resembling my own, modified from a regular one by a tailor in town.

She stormed proudly around the house, startling then amusing Christine.

"Come here, little bat," she said. "It's time to get dressed for dinner."

"I'm not a bat," said Aria, twirling. "I'm the Phantom of the Opera!"

Christine caught me watching her and rolled her eyes, fighting back a smile.

I could never have predicted my current joyous circumstances. Before Christine, my life was a dismal, unpaved road to nowhere. Now, the future shone like a brilliant beacon of light, hopeful and promising.

No longer did I sleep in a coffin. Love had seeped into my rotted bones and made them new. No longer did I need a mask. I had nothing to fear and nothing to hide.