The Fifth Cellar (Phantom of the Opera)

Chapter 19 - Watching

 Evangeline's POV:

I tiptoed behind Christine and Raoul. Erik has been composing a lot later and I told him that I would keep an eye on Christine and Raoul. I knew that Erik would kill them if anything happened. I knew that if I was ever caught I would be in big trouble but since when hadn't I been? Christine was showing Raoul around the Opera House. I knew every nick and cranny and easily wasn't seen. Christine was acting like a crazy woman. One moment she was happy then scared then worried. It was weird. She led Raoul in circles and seemed to have no logical pattern. Erik had driven her mad. If only he knew what he was doing to her. Suddenly I grew close enough to hear what they were saying. Raoul was asking what was wrong. Christine called out feverishly,

*“Nothing! … I swear it is nothing.”* I rolled my eyes and watched as she led him across the stage where there was an open trap door. Raoul looked into it and said,

*“You have shown me over the upper prat of your empire, Christine … but there are strange stories told of the lower part … Shall we go down?”* Christine hugged him and drew him away from the trapdoor. She looked terrified.

*“Never! … I will not have you go there! … Besides, it's not mine … everything that is underground belongs to him!”* I knew just who they spoke of and decided that it was a wise move for them not to go down. Erik might have killed Raoul. I knew that he was very close to doing it but I had convinced him that I would be better to let them have their fun and when Raoul left Christine could be his. He had believed me, thank goodness. As I was thinking about it I heard Raoul say,

*“So he lives down there, does he?”*

*“I never said so .. Who told you a thing like that? Come away! I sometimes wonder if you are quite sane, Raoul … You always take things in such an impossible way! … Come along! Come!”* I silently laughed and followed them. Suddenly the trap door slammed shut. I looked back and saw a boney hand that was there and gone. Trouble was in the air now. If Erik was here than there would be problems. As the door slammed shut Raoul said,

*“Perhaps he was there,”* I had a time keeping myself from telling them that if a trapdoor closed Erik was involved somehow. Christine shrugged her shoulders and said uneasily,

*“No, no, is the 'trap-door shutters.'”* I gave her a weird look but of course she couldn't see me do it. This girl was trying to convince Raoul that Erik wasn't near. Either that or she was trying to convince herself. *“They must do something, you know … They open and shut trap-doors without an particular reason … it's like the 'door -shutters': they must spend their time somehow.”* I rolled my eyes but didn't make a peep. She was something else.

*“But suppose it were he, Christine?”* Raoul asked.

*“No, no! He has shut himself up, he is working.”* She sounded desperate.

*“Oh, really! He's working, is he?”* Raoul sounded pleased.

*“Yes, he can't open and shut trap-doors and work at the same time.”* I silently laughed. Erik was here. I knew that. Even Erik took a break on occasion. As she shivered, Raoul said,

*“What is he working at?”*

*“Oh, something terrible … But it's all the better for us … When he's working at that, he sees nothing; he does not eat, drink or breathe for days and nights at a time .. he becomes a living dead man and has no time to amuse himself with the trap-doors.”* I rolled my eyes again. Maybe that is what Christine thought but that wasn't what Erik did. He didn't sleep but he certainly ate, drank, and breathed. I should know. I spend most of my time down there. Suddenly she said,

*“Suppose it was he?”* I could hear the fear in her voice.

*“Are you afraid of him?”* Asked Raoul.

*“No, no, of course not.”* Liar, liar, skirt afire, I thought to myself. They continued to walk around I noticed that Christine avoided the trapdoors as much as possible. It was a wise move on her part.