No Return: A Contemporary Phantom Tale by Pope Christine

Author:Pope, Christine [Pope, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Dark Valentine Press
Published: 2012-01-19T16:00:00+00:00

For the first time in more years than he cared to count, Erik felt hope. Surely he hadn’t imagined that brief moment of hesitation in Christine’s eyes last night, that slightest parting of her lips before she had said good night. She was not ready yet—he wasn’t going to delude himself on that point—but somehow he sensed a gradual softening in her attitude toward him, the merest hint of the beginnings of acceptance.

Certainly it had been the first “date” he’d ever had in his life—if one could call it that. However, dinner and a movie seemed to be a widely accepted form of courtship, and Christine appeared to have enjoyed herself. He smiled even now to recall her unrestrained laughter during the more manic parts of the film, laughter that didn’t seem to have a trace of self-consciousness in it. Surely she wouldn’t have been able to let herself go enough to react in such a way if she didn’t feel able to relax—even a little—around him.

Today he’d arisen far earlier than he normally would—barely past noon—eager as he was to see her again. Before Christine, the harsh hours of daylight had held no allure for him. Darkness had always been his friend, sheltering him and keeping him secure, but he knew that Christine, unused to his nocturnal habits, was awake hours before he was, and somehow he couldn’t bear to think of that time as being wasted. Perhaps in time she would adjust to his schedule, but meanwhile he could at least meet her halfway.

As he slowly mounted the stairs to her rooms, he thought of the chamber he’d had constructed all those years ago to resemble the Phantom’s lair from the musical. He knew that it was far too soon to take Christine there. However much he longed to see her in that room, to hear her voice echo against its marble-lined walls, he didn’t dare to upset the delicate balance between them by revealing himself as the obsessed madman she first believed him to be. No, he had to take care to keep things as normal as possible, to let her relax and come to see him only as a slightly eccentric man who, whatever his faults, truly loved her.

That realization had surprised him. He had wanted her, dreamed about her, thought of her to the exclusion of all else for so long that when he was actually confronted by the reality of her he’d been astonished to realize that she was a person in her own right, with her own quirks and awkward edges. He hadn’t expected her anger when she had first confronted him, just as he hadn’t expected the cheek that led her to sing those carefully chosen ditties about caged birds and whatnot. No wonder Randall had been so infatuated with her.

The thought of the boy sobered him momentarily, but he brushed the image of Randall aside. That unfortunate young man was in Christine’s past. He, Erik, was her future. All that was

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