The Final Act (A Phantom of the Opera Phan Fic)

Chapter Three ~ In Which There Is An Angel

Ella's POV

♦ ♦ ♦

Valence, France. I'd never had the opportunity to visit many places for leisure; but, of course, when your husband acts more like a evil stepmother who desires to lock you in the house to clean until you finally die, vacation leisure is the farthest thing from your mind. Nonetheless, Valence seemed like an excellent place to escape tyranny.

There were many quaint shops and things, although they seemed a bit gray with the rain drowning them out. The whole town seemed gray beneath the curtain of rain that continued to fall. It had poured the entire trip, and I was fearing the river would overflow. We had come five hours from Toulouse, and I was beginning to imagine good place to take up prolonged temporary residence. Truthfully, the only reason I had stopped in Valence was due to my little darling Arthur. He had become increasingly fidgety in the back. He could no longer stand the drive, and I did not blame him for that.

So, we stopped in Valence and took up residence in a small hotel across the street from an Opera House. L'Aria was its name.

It took no longer than twenty minutes for the lodging associate to find a small room for two, and becoming knowledgeable of the circumstances I was facing dropped the price by nearly fifty percent. I thanked her graciously for that.

Arthur ran ahead of me, eager to explore the new sites around him. His little legs took him directly to the elevator where he proceeded to mash all of the buttons that his tiny fist could reach. As I stepped in with our few luggage containers, he smiled giddily up at me. "Look, momma! They all lit up!" He giggled, shoving a thumb in his mouth.

I smiled at him, running a hand through his short, brown locks. If this new found adventure was not the end of me, Arthur's inexhaustible energy would be. Nevertheless, when the elevator stopped on our floor, after stopping a countless number of times on every floor that was unnecessary, I took Arthur's free hand in mine and proceeded to locate our room.

The small hotel room sat on the edge of the row of hotel rooms in one of the farthest back corners. It had one double bed, a small set of night stands, and a decent television set that I thought might keep Arthur entertained for all of three minutes. He was a fast paced child, too engrossed in the world around him to be captivated by television programs.

There was a small bathroom attached that had just enough room for two people to barely fit in. Typical hotel size and status. Everything seemed clean enough. I laid all of my luggage on one side of the room and proceeded to strip the hotel bed of its upper comforter. Word went around that often times hotels did not clean that part of the bed.

Once that had been accomplished, I turned my attention to finding a wholesome television show on for Arthur to watch. Finally stumbling upon a child's program, I let him to sit quietly on the bed while I took a shower.

The warm water sent a wave of calmness through me. My body relaxed, and I felt at ease for just a few moments. A warm shower was typically the only time I could get away from the tyrant that ran the house, and then again, sometimes I would be pulled short of even that luxury.

I stayed in the shower for a good twenty minutes, knowing that I could trust Arthur to sit patiently for at least that long. When I shut the water off, my heart sank a little as I again realized I had to face to real world again. Quickly, I dried off and threw on an old nightgown that I had brought with me and walked out into he bedroom area.

Arthur had been well pre-occupied with some childish cartoon, but instantly when he saw me his mind started to spew out questions. "Momma, how long do we get to stay here?" He asked me, his teddy squeezed tightly in his arms.