Chapter Text
Erik was deliberately keeping Carlotta waiting. He wondered how much longer he could stretch it out…
Probably only a little longer. Otherwise she’d start yelling with impatience. Carlotta’s appearance at his home had ruined Erik’s mood. Wasting her time by making her wait had cheered him up a little, but that slight measure of cheerfulness would melt away the second Carlotta raised her voice.
Besides, he was already dressed in robes fine enough to upstage whatever she had chosen to wear.
Erik swept into the room where he received visitors – not that he had many. He watched Carlotta flinch at the sight of his face, the goddess of love and beauty repelled by a face not even a parent could love.
Perhaps there were other reasons why she hated his face. After all, Erik’s death’s head appearance was a pertinent reminder that the gorgeous young lovers she spent so much time pairing up and sighing over would all one day grow old and wither. It was only a matter of time before the faces of the prettiest mortals ever born looked just like Erik’s.
Then, she seemed to remember the reason she had come. Whatever it was, it had her angry enough to overcome her distaste for his ugliness. Looking straight at him, Carlotta declared, “I presume you’ve heard of this outrage.”
“You must specify,” Erik replied, disinterested. Anything could be an outrage, according to Carlotta. Maybe some nymph had accidentally spilled a drop of nectar on her second-favourite dress.
“There is a mortal woman,” Carlotta spat, “And they are worshiping her more than they’re worshiping me!”
Erik threw back his head and laughed. The goddess of beauty, upstaged by a mortal? Oh, it was too good.
Carlotta seethed. “You must do something about it!”
“I don’t see why I should.” Erik did not bother to suppress the giggling. It had made his day – no, it had made his month.
“I don’t get my hands dirty – but you’re technically a love god. So go down to the mortal realm and deal with her! Make her fall in love with some ugly old man or a wild beast or something. Stop the mortals from loving her! This is an outrage against the gods, and as much as you hold yourself aloof, you are still a god. Do something!”
*
Erik had told Carlotta that he wouldn’t do anything about the beautiful mortal woman, and then spent the rest of the day chuckling about the look on Carlotta’s face.
Still, he was curious to see what the fuss was about. One free afternoon, Erik spread his wings, shifted into the shape of a large nightbird, and flew to the mortal realm.
He found a crowd gathered below.
Erik perched on a statue of a man holding a lyre and looked down. A woman stood on a makeshift stage below. She was as beautiful as he could have expected; more beautiful than Carlotta.
Then the woman opened her mouth to sing, and Erik fell in love.
*
Christine was never going to get married.
Some might have been surprised by that, given her beauty, but her beauty was the very thing that prevented her finding a husband. Men admired her as an object, as a distant ideal of the female form. They didn’t admire her as a person, or even really as a living woman they could touch. They didn’t want to lie beside her or talk with her or start a life with her. They just wanted to look at her.
Strictly speaking, her career as a singer was what brought in money, but Christine knew that for all the skill of her voice, the audience weren’t there to listen to her. They were only there to look.
It caused Mother Valerius no end of worry. With Christine’s mother long dead, and her father dead in her teens, Mother Valerius was the closest thing she had to a parent, and the elderly woman had decided that Christine was her responsibility.
Yet Christine was into her twenties, unmarried, and Mother Valerius knew that she would not live forever. If Mother Valerius died before Christine was married, then Christine would be alone in the world, with nothing but the vapid attentions of sundry young men.
In the end, Mother Valerius went to the oracle, and asked who Christine would marry.
The answer terrified her. The oracle said that Christine would marry a hideous creature, a monster that even the gods feared.
Worried and weeping, Valerius told Christine what she had learned.
Christine bore the news with surprising stoicism. Her life was already so isolating that nothing else could really make it worse. An awful monstrous husband seemed a thing far away from the empty-eyed adoration of the crowds she sang to. Even though it was a prophecy, it did not seem real to her.
Perhaps it would never have become real, were it not for a beautiful woman who came into town, pouring poison in the ears of the men in charge. She gave no name; her name was Carlotta.
And so it came to pass that a group of magistrates came to the home of Mother Valerius, demanding that she hand over the young woman in her protection.
It had been prophesised that Christine was to marry a monster, something even gods would fear. Since Christine lived in the town, the magistrates reasoned, the monster would have to enter the town in order to claim his bride. Which simply would not do in the aim of public order.
Christine was to be banished. Kept far away from any respectable person who might be harmed by the coming of a hideous monster.
They took her; there were too many to resist. Christine was dressed all in black, funeral attire, and she was taken, dragged, forced up to a high peak with a sheer cliff.
She was to stay there, they told her, until her husband came for her. Soldiers would be stationed a safe distance away so that she would not try to run back to the town.
And just like that, Christine was alone, aside from the distant figures of the soldier away below her, stick-figures watching her from a distance. If she tried to move from the high peak, to step away from the edge of the cliff, they would force her back at spearpoint.
Evening was coming on. If the hunger didn’t get her, then the cold would.
No, she realised, the thirst. The thirst would kill her in a matter of days.
Christine hugged herself. The wind was picking up. It tore at her clothes, the heavy funeral clothes they’d made her change into for her ‘wedding’.
The wind raged stronger. She was no longer able to stand steady on her feet. Christine pulled her clothes tighter around herself, hoping to give the wind less to grasp. It was no use. A powerful gust pushed her over into empty space, and Christine fell.
Something caught her.
*
The thing that held her was invisible. Two thin, strong arms held her, but she could only see the black robes the being wore. She could hear wingbeats, but saw no wings.
Stunned into silence and still buffeted by the wind, Christine could only wait as the spirit (for it must be a spirit) carried her away.
They flew for a long time, into the evening. They touched down in a vast meadow, filled with flowers. An invisible hand took Christine’s hand, and led her on, past a glimmering lake.
Then she saw the palace. Huge, marble, elegant and intricate, and she was being led towards it.
She found herself in an entrance hall. Large stone vases in alcoves held more flowers.
The invisible man let go of her arm, turned towards her, and said, “Do not be afraid, Christine. You are not in any danger here – so long as you do not attempt to see my face. I can make myself invisible while I am awake, but not when asleep. That is the only rule; never to enter my room when I am sleeping; never to look upon my face.”
“What are you?” she asked.
“A spirit, of a kind. You may call me Erik.”
His voice echoed in the large hallway.
Erik remained invisible; she could not see his face or body, but she saw his robes move as he knelt before her and confessed his love.
“Do you love me for my beauty?” Christine could not fully keep the disdain out of her voice. He had saved her life, but the last thing she wanted was to find herself listening to yet another man who thought of her only as a face. “Because if so, then I should like to leave immediately.”
“You may leave if you wish: I will show you the way if you ask… Christine, I love you for your voice. I like listening to you sing. I sing too…”
And Erik sang to her.
His voice was entrancing. Spellbinding.
Exhausted and overwhelmed and in a palace fit for an emperor, the unseen spirit sang Christine to sleep.