Twisted Every Way(Phantom Of The Opera Fic)

Chapter 41: Fire

"Eli," Christine laughed, "Gustaves gone, come out."

"He didn't see me did he?" Eli asked in a timid shaky voice peeking his head around the corner.

"No dear, and even if he had, he loves you, he would never be sorry to see you."

Elis' eyes darted around the room. "And Father?"

"He'll be back momentarily dear, he was just helping Ilios into the boat. Are you sure you don't want to go with them?"

Eli buried his face into his mother's lap and shook his head.

It had been a year and yet the pain was still fresh in his little mind.

Gustave's warning still haunted his every movement. 

The mistake he made- the fire he had-

"Whatever you do Eli, don't touch the candles alright, I have to see Autumn out. I'll be right back."

He couldn't help it, they were so bright, so beautiful, so full of life.

He hadn't meant to hurt anyone, he hadn't meant to.

'Nights?" he questioned, pointing to the book that rested on the piano.

"A Midsummer Nights dear," Christine nodded, "By Shakespeare. My poor little boy, I know you must have the words hidden away in there."

Eli sighed, he hoped he did. He thought he did. Or so his mother told him. He thought more than his sister, he knew that much. Yet there seemed so much to think that there was very little to say. he was happiest with his father when he could say nothing at all and be understood perfectly.

But it had been his silence that had started the trouble in the first place. 

His brother had taken the blame, claiming he had been careless with the lamp again. He had been scaring some of the Ballet girls by the sets he claimed, had dropped the lamp and caught the whole thing on fire. How Father had yelled, how Gustave had cried.

Eli cowered at the very thought, how he had longed to call out, scream to his father, "It was me it was all me. I started the fire."

But no words came. Never when he needed them and always when he didn't want them.

Erik came out, fixing his mask on his face and fixing his leather gloves onto his calloused hands.

Eli loved to watch him. He was their father in those moments together, but alone he stood apart, mysterious, precise, dangerous.

Eli preferred to watch him at night when the candles lit his mask into a face from a dream and carried him far away on some tide of music Eli longed to follow.

All his family boasted of music, sought after it, prided themselves in it. But Eli had never heard it, loved it he had, but felt it? Never.

He hadn't revealed such revelations to his mother, nor told her how he learned to read plenty... but all would come with time he supposed.

How he loved to read, hours on hours alone in his room were spent pouring over picture books and music scores and plays and operas. Of course when either of his loving parents approached he would pretend to draw on them or laugh as their pages crinkled when he turned them.

He didn't want to be different.

So far, he hadn't a mirror in the world to notice, not a thought of his face that put it apart from any other face. Christine and Erik had agreed to give him a normal childhood they would spare him of that early pain, best as they could. And Eli- though occasionally catching a glimpse of his reflection in the waters of the lake, thought himself no different in looks than his sister or older brother.