No Return: A Contemporary Phantom Tale

by Pope, Christine

  Ennis was the father his own should have been, Erik had to admit. It was Ennis who had taught him how to drive, Ennis who had held his head after a particularly bad experiment with a bottle of brandy, Ennis who had recommended the fencing lessons and the first computer when he could see the adolescent Erik going crazy from his enforced solitude. And it was Ennis who had watched over the rest of the household staff and made sure that no prying eyes or gossiping tongues shattered the fragile isolation Erik even then had wrapped around himself like a protective cocoon. No, he would not like to see the old man’s expression if he ever discovered the true reason for Christine’s tenure in the house.

  “I’m afraid Christine’s caught a bit of a cold,” he replied at length. “She thought it would be better if she stayed in her room for a while.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Ennis said, straightening as he finished gathering up the rest of the unused silver. “Do you know if she’d like anything special? Some hot tea, perhaps?”

  Hot tea seemed innocuous enough. “Certainly.”

  “I’ll see to that and her tray right away, then. Jerome said he would take it up?”

  “Yes. She—feels more comfortable with him.”

  Ennis seemed to accept the lie readily enough. “Poor girl. Such a pretty thing, too.”

  Erik hoped his tone was noncommittal when he replied, “Yes, I suppose so. She seems to do well enough on her medication, luckily.”

  “They do seem to work miracles these days.” There was no mistaking the fondness in his eyes as he added, “It was very good of you to take her in, Erik.”

  There were times when wearing a mask had its distinct advantages. Erik replied, hoping his color hadn’t risen too much, “Well, it was easy enough. We certainly have room to spare here.”

  Ennis nodded, then said, “And here I am talking when the girl’s in bed with a cold. I’ll see to her tray, and then bring your own dinner out.”

  “Thank you, Ennis.” And he watched the butler leave the room, wondering when it was that Ennis had become an old man. Somewhere during his obsession of the last two decades the man’s middle years had slipped away, and Erik had not even noticed. How old was Ennis now, anyway? Seventy? Seventy-five? How typical that he had never noticed until now.

  Suddenly weary, he took his usual seat at the head of the table, forcing himself not to look at the newly empty place next to his, forcing himself not to think of her. Forcing himself to feel as hollow as all the empty years he had wasted, alone with his need and his despair.

  Our détente lasted for three days.

  The first evening I was glad to see that at least they weren’t going to starve me into submission—Jerome had arrived promptly at seven with a truly lovely piece of grilled salmon, steamed vegetables, and fresh bread. He’d left it without comment, and I had to say I almost enjoyed myself as I took my meal into the little sitting room and ate as I listened to the rain fall outside the many-paned windows.

  The next day was Sunday, and I didn’t even bother to get out of my nightclothes—I took a long hot bath, read a good deal, listened to the radio, played with the cosmetics in my bathroom, painted my toenails, and pretty much forced myself not to think about anything. After so many years spent rushing from one place to another, I almost enjoyed my forced solitude; the little things women did to pamper themselves had never been a part of my life, and for once I didn’t have to justify the wasted time.

  On Monday I awoke vaguely ashamed of myself, and filled with a sort of creeping anxiety. Surely by now someone had noticed my absence—Randall might have been able to rationalize my absence over the weekend, but I never missed school unless I was ill, and since I imagined he would have gone to the bungalow to find me, he must know I wasn’t at home, down with a cold or the flu. What would he do then? Would he go to the police? I had a feeling he probably would, although I wasn’t sure that would do any good. I didn’t see how anyone could possibly connect me with Erik—if that really was his name. I still wasn’t sure I believed him.

  Truth be told, I didn’t know what to think about most of it. He’d had ample opportunity to force me, if that really were his intent. If this were only about sex, then why the carefully chosen wardrobe, the jewels, even the lovely room in which I was imprisoned? Why would he care whether I practiced my singing or not? And now this—this careful acquiescence to my wish not to see him again. He could have come to my room any time during the last few days and compelled me to go downstairs to be with him, but he hadn’t.

  Instead, I suffered the benign neglect of a long-term invalid—food was brought up at regular intervals, but otherwise I had been left to my own amusements, which were already beginning to wear thin. I had tried practicing scales, and had gone so far as to stand in the antechamber to my suite and sing pieces carefully chosen to annoy Erik if he were anywhere within earshot—ditties such as “She’s Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage” and “Green Finch and Linnet Bird” from Sweeney Todd—but if he actually heard me, there was no reaction from him that I could see or hear.

  By Monday evening I’d read so much that my eyes tired a little more quickly each time I picked up a book. I’d never been much of a television-watcher, more due to lack of time than anything else, but I soon found myself wishing for the mind-numbing distraction of hundreds of cable television channels. I amused myself for a few hours after dinner by trying on various items of clothing and then combining them with matching jewels from the little chest of drawers inside the wardrobe. It was all stunning, but I didn’t see the point in parading around in Armani and diamonds if I really were going to be stuck in these rooms for the rest of my natural life.

  I’d gone to bed early, only to be haunted by disturbing dreams like something out of a Cocteau film—long candlelit hallways, hands reaching out for me, pursuit by a nameless figure that I somehow dreaded yet desired. More than once I’d awakened in the darkness, feeling my heart pounding in my breast, breath coming in harsh gasps, not sure of where I was or what I was doing there. Then I would hear the soft classical music coming from the radio and suddenly remember. I was in Erik’s house. I was his prisoner.

  Once I even thought I heard his voice in the depths of the night, that yearning tenor, singing one line from Faust over and over again...

  “Oui, c’est moi, je t’aime...oui, c’est moi, je t’aime...”

  I’d sat up in bed, clutching the blankets to my chest, but all that met my ears was the deep quiet of a house in the early, early hours of the morning, that and the delicate sound of a harpsichord tinkling from the speakers of the little Bose stereo. Just another dream, another voice echoing in the darkness. And I kept telling myself that as I fell once again into uneasy sleep.

  On Tuesday morning I awoke unrefreshed and more than a little irritable. Not even an extra-long shower followed by a special breakfast of eggs benedict and fresh-baked brioche could liven my spirits. I tried to engage Jerome in conversation about the weather—the rain of Thanksgiving weekend had finally given way to blue skies with only a few lingering clouds—but either he was particularly disinclined toward conversation that morning or Erik had told him to speak with me as little as possible, for he kept his answers terse to the point of rudeness and left my room as quickly as possible.

  By late that afternoon I was climbing the walls and ready to sit down and have dinner with the devil himself if it meant I wouldn’t have to spend another evening alone with my thoughts. I went to the door that connected my rooms to the hallway and knocked on it. Feeling rather foolish, I called out, “Hello? Anyone there? I’m waving the white flag!”

  Only silence. It figured. When I didn’t want Jerome showing up, then apparently he was lurking just outside the door. Now, when I was as eager to get sprung as a prisoner waiting out the last day of a ten-year sentence, no one was there. I knocked again. “Truce—really! Jerome? Hello?”

  Finally the click of the key in the lock.

  “Thank God,” I said. “I was afraid no one was there..
..” And then I let the words trail off, because the man who waited on the other side of the door was not Jerome, as I had expected, but Erik himself.

  “Good afternoon, Christine,” he said. “Gilded cage starting to feel a bit cramped?”

  So he had heard me the day before. I could feel myself blush but couldn’t do much about it except return his gaze as squarely as I could and reply, “Well, you did tell me to keep up with my practice.”

  “So I did. You have an interesting repertoire.”

  I gave him a narrow look from between my eyelashes, and he smiled, daring me to rebuke him further. Instead, I just returned the smile and said, “So am I sprung?”

  “Absolutely,” he replied, and then stepped out of the way so I could enter the hallway.

  The corridor looked different in the last light of the setting sun, which blazed through a magnificent stained-glass window at the end of the hall. The colors were richer, from the Persian runner under our feet to the mix of landscapes and portraits in their gilded frames that lined the walls. Even Erik’s mask shone golden in the light, and the edges of his dark hair caught fire from the dying sun.

  “Your house is stunning,” I said. It was the simple truth.

  For a second he looked at me, seeming a bit surprised, and then he said, “How would you like to see it from the outside?”

  It seemed as if I hadn’t breathed fresh air for a lifetime. “It would be heavenly,” I replied.

  “Well, then—” and he offered me his arm.

  I hesitated just a bit, then took it. It seemed a small sacrifice when he was offering even the smallest taste of freedom.

  If he noticed my reticence, he made no mention of it, for then he led me downstairs and out through the French doors of a small salon on the ground floor to the loggia I could see from the window of my sitting room, pausing only long enough for him to push some sort of code into the keypad that locked the doors. Once we were outside, he released my arm and watched as I stood on the marble pavement and opened my arms wide, as if to embrace the sunset.

  “Oh, God, that feels good!” I exclaimed, taking deep breaths of the cold, clean air, reveling in the touch of the wind against my face. It was chilly enough that I knew I couldn’t stand out there forever, but at that moment I wanted to.

  He watched me with some amusement as the wind caught his hair, ruffling it around his face. It was heavy and thick, with the slightest wave to it—the kind of hair that a woman would want to run her hands through.

  Wondering where that thought had come from, I stepped away from him and went to the edge of the steps that led down into the rose garden. Although it was almost December, there were still blooms on most of the bushes. Erik wore only a black shirt over black pants, so he would probably be even less suited to stay out here for long than I was.

  I turned to look up at the house. From this vantage I couldn’t get a true idea of its size, but I could see it was an immense pile of pale gray stone, done in a vaguely Norman chateau style. One section was covered in ivy, and I could see at least three fireplaces just from where I stood.

  “Have you always lived here?” I asked. He seemed to be a part of this place, as integral to its structure as the stone of its façade.

  He replied, eyes fixed on some point in the distance past my shoulder, “Yes...I was born here.”

  “Really? How...medieval!”

  “Not exactly.” He turned as well and looked up at the house with an unreadable gaze. “Apparently I came early. There wasn’t enough time to get to the hospital.”

  “Better that than the back seat of a car, I suppose.”

  “I suppose...” he echoed.

  The last of the sun disappeared behind the trees that bordered his property, and with its absence the wind seemed to rise. I shivered, and he must have noticed, for he said immediately, “It’s getting cold. We should go inside.”

  As good as the fresh air felt, I had to agree that it was too chilly to stay outside any longer, so I followed him back into the small salon and waited as he closed the door and reentered the code into the keypad, apparently rearming the lock.

  “Well, then,” he said. “What would you like for dinner?”

  I was surprised by that. After all, no one had really asked for my input on my meals, save that one time at the very beginning of my stay here when Jerome had inquired what I’d wanted for breakfast. The meals had all been as varied in content as they were uniform in excellence. It was like dining in a five-star restaurant every day of the week. Still, I’d been starting to crave homelier foods.

  “You’re going to laugh at me,” I said.

  He watched me carefully, the dark green eyes scanning my face. What he saw I wasn’t sure. “I promise I won’t laugh.”

  “Your chef is great—really. But we college kids usually live on simpler stuff.” I took a breath and said, “So what I’d really like is an In-N-Out burger.”

  “A what?”

  “You’ve never heard of an In-N-Out burger?”

  A line appeared momentarily between his brows as he frowned. “I don’t think so.”

  Well, that settled it. I didn’t see how anyone could grow up in Southern California and not hear of In-N-Out—they were legendary. How sheltered a life had he led…and why?

  “But I’m sure I can have my chef make us some hamburgers if that’s what you’d like.”

  I manufactured a smile and said, “That sounds great.” At least it would be a break from chicken cordon bleu and steak au poivre, if nothing else.

  Odd as it seemed to me at the time, I actually enjoyed that evening. We did not eat in the forbidding red dining room, but in a smaller, cheerier chamber not far from the kitchens. I had to admit that the burgers were marvelous, better than any others I had tasted, especially accompanied as they were by a mound of freshly made french fries and a beer for him and a glass of hard cider for me. I’d never had cider before, but Erik suggested that I try it once I’d admitted that I wasn’t much of a beer drinker. It was certainly tasty, crisp and fizzy, much drier than a regular sparkling apple cider.

  “That’s definitely more my speed,” I commented after I’d had a few sips.

  “It does have a fairly low alcohol content,” he agreed, and again I could see the twitch at the corner of his mouth that belied some sort of secret amusement. It made me wonder how much Jerome had told him about my post-Bordeaux hangover.

  Once we’d finished eating he suggested a movie. I looked at him blankly.

  “A movie?” For a split-second I had a crazy image of him in his Phantom mask escorting me to the latest blockbuster at the multiplex at the Paseo Colorado shopping center.

  “Yes—I’m actually quite proud of the setup. If you would follow me—”

  I trailed him out of the breakfast room and down several hallways until we came to a set of double doors.

  “I had this put in a year ago. I can’t think now why I waited so long.” And with that he flicked a light switch and led me into a theater.

  Yes, a theater. Of course, it wasn’t as large as a real movie theater—although in actual size it was close to some of the smaller screens I’d been to at the local multiplex. It was also furnished much more lavishly, in a vaguely Art Deco style meant to imitate the grand movie houses of the ’20s or ’30s. There were about twenty seats, all upholstered in dark red plush. Black lacquer sconces sent moody uplighting against the dove-gray drapes that hung on the walls.

  “Wow,” I breathed. I’d seen setups like this in magazines, but I’d never thought I would actually see one in real life.

  I could tell he enjoyed watching my amazement. Perhaps he thought he could seduce with me with his wealth if nothing else. It’s going to take more than a private movie theater for that, I thought, then felt a pang of guilt. He had been nothing but a gentleman to me all evening. Why did I always suspect him of the worst motivations?

  Because he kidnapped you, dammit! came that little voice inside me. All the politeness in the w
orld can’t erase that fact, can it? I had to admit to myself that it probably couldn’t, and with that thought I began to feel angry again, although oddly enough I felt angrier with Erik for thinking that the only way he could approach me was by stealing me away. Did he have that little confidence in himself? Did he really think the only way to win my favor was by coercing it? As far as I could tell, he had much more going for himself than most men—apparently limitless talent, a sharp mind, enormous wealth. What could possibly lead him to believe that he was unworthy of any affection that wasn’t stolen?

  The mask...

  Jerome had said, Don’t ever mention the mask, and at the time I had thought he was merely being melodramatic. I thought the mask was only a prop, something to reinforce Erik’s obsession with the Phantom story, but what if it were more? What if he truly did need it?

  I told myself to not be ridiculous, this wasn’t the Middle Ages, or even the Victorian era in which the original Phantom story was set. These days people with disfigurements weren’t hidden away, for God’s sake—if anything, they were pushed out into the public eye, the subject of fundraisers and 5k runs and that sort of thing. And I’d seen documentaries where plastic surgeons performed near-miracles on people with congenital birth defects. It just didn’t seem to make much sense.

  “Christine?” Erik’s voice broke my reverie as he stepped into a small chamber, rather like a projectionist’s booth, that was located at the back of the theater.