Yeahhhhhh~~! So here it is. I'm almost through with a bout of mushy stuff (I think?), entering a more complicated plot (I hope) after that. I know some people probably don't see the point in doing such things, but I can't help but feel that what I've written so far has been what you'd call Part One, and in ... I don't know... 15 more pages, it would enter a Part Two. The goings-ons of the first part is so different from the second, different songs inspire each, and the intention/mood differ too. The first part's kind of just been there to play with your mind, relate her to you, allow you to live through something you know you can't - and there are so many different possibilities for the Phantom. The second closes in on him - once Lily has opened that door and has to deal with what she's let inside, sort of like (even though I don't believe they work) playing with a ouija board because it seems fun until you realize you share your house with something else. And I do expect it to get darker.

But to brighten things up for now, I found this doodle which clearly related to Christmas!


Bah! ♥



Okay, okay... the chapter... yes...

What I liked about this chapter...
Rob was on my desktop while I wrote it. ♥
The Phantom revealed something else about him. You'll have to speculate what though.
I've always wanted that music box too. Doesn't it have the cutest little ring? --> { link }
Mariam and Lily - lesbian lovers. I've wanted to throw a joke in there about that forever.

What I wasn't so happy about...
She never got to see him!
She never got to see Giry. Seriously. They've been passing each other up all Winter Break and that's just not right. I even told myself I really need to elaborate on who Giry is and get her working a little harder doing the research...
It felt awkward to me doing the chopped-up scenes, but I just didn't want another short chapter. I wanted to get all of this stuff in without having to do boring connectors everywhere.

15006 / 50000 words. 30% done!


HE'S THERE
Chapter 29 - Compassion


I knew it was far too early to wake up, but when a dream jolted me conscious, I sat up in bed and couldn't stop thinking. It got my head running, and my eyes blinking away the sleep, and soon it wasn't enough to remain there in the dark.

I stretched and stood next to my window, flicking the blinds and watching the back yard. It was its usual box of ominous shadows against the fence.

It took a moment before I realized it was technically Christmas, and one of my parents was bound to be sprawled out on the couch after a desperate bout of last-minute wrapping just to play Santa Claus. One of these days before I move out, I thought, I should help them and then still pretend the next morning that some fat guy did it.

They said that they would deal with the roses later, and our Christmas Eve was filled with no less cookies, television, or opening that one gift beforehand than usual... I'm just inclined to worry. When I was done talking with Meg in the study, I passed my Dad in the hall as we were heading to our respective bedrooms and he gave me a playfully suspicious look. Their suspicion alone, playful or not, made me wonder if I had left any other clues about having a certain guy following me around.


There was nobody in the living room when I checked downstairs, but the gifts sure were. There was a noticeably large box in the corner (you know, the one you always hope is yours), but I hadn't brought a flashlight so there was no way I could check. Casually, I plopped back into the armchair across the room and rocked back and forth, admiring a cast from the moon through the curtains onto the carpet.

The way it glowed reminded me of dreams I had often when I was a kid. I used to follow a strip of moonlight into this world filled with crystals. I would come back to it over and over, trying to reach the top of this mountain but always being distracted. Like once, I found in the snow a toy horse that apparently was once a real one and would turn back if I took it to a certain place. I woke up before I got there, but I could have SWORN that the toy was with me in my bed, until the sheets spread apart in my hands and there was nothing.

Like that world, beyond the curtains, white was fluttering to the ground again. I leaned over the top of the chair and smiled. I had used the word magic a week ago, a bit annoyed with my inferior word choice, but everything mustn't have been anything short of it, when I reconsidered. What more could myself in that moment ask for that I wasn't already slowly beginning to reach? For the first time since I was that kid, there was a place where the light stopped hitting and the dark continued - a darkness that left infinite possibilities and not a humdrum shoulder-sagger of an explanation about something I didn't understand. It would not be understood, but I knew that only because it was too grand for me to figure out, or even predict. The way the main characters in my books felt: I was not directionless, but my direction was delightfully unknown. I had so many layers to unravel when before I thought I had not only peeled the last layer, but chopped the onion and had no idea what to cook with it. I do not know where that analogy came from...

Out of impulse, I came to stand in the moonlight I had been staring at the past ten minutes, like it might have some effect on me. It was when I rose higher that I realized the snow in the front yard was completely caked over the grass. My impulse was to open the front door while I was still in that state of mind, letting myself go like I were a balloon into my own perfect sky. This time I remembered to snatch a coat on the rack.

It did not, though, prepare me for what I found in the snow. Like they had wandered up to our door, a set of deep footprints came up the deck from down the driveway and across the street. It became apparent to me that I, in my dreamy state, was not the only one out and about at 4:30 AM.

I followed these with my eyes when I realized I had pranced past the doormat and completely overlooked a box sitting next to our little snowman statue.

I was all alone, so I was not hesitant to raise my hands to my heart and positively gush at the thing, before I even knew it was for me. I took one more look down the opposite path that the footsteps retreated before approaching the box and bringing it out of the shadows of the deck where I could see it. It was unpretentious cardboard. I tried turning it over, but it weighed much more than you'd suspect from size. Who even knew if it was supposed to be flipped upside down... The search continued until a small red "C" became apparent to me on a lower corner.

Okay, this was definitely mine.

I couldn't help but glance back at the footprints, yet again.

He was being Raoul again and it still made me want to kick him in the shin, but in the way where afterwards he will be hurt and he will have no choice but to stay with me so I can feed him cookies.


What was I supposed to do with this box now that I had found it? Not open it? Leave it on my desk so it can stare at me all night? I don't think so.

In the smallest chance that he was to be anywhere standing around like last time, waiting for me to say something I didn't think he'd hear, I squinted up and down the street. "I'LL MAKE YOU COOKIES!" I screamed at the air while spinning around and running for the door, not even quite serious -- I just felt like yelling something.

I hurriedly crept back to my room, sitting before the box on the floor with the lamp's cord stretching to accommodate, and a pair of scissors in my hand. I ran them along the edge until it was easy enough to rip the top across, and inside was another box, white and equally mysterious.

The top came out easily on that one. A Styrofoam case laid underneath. I turned it upside down and rolled it out onto my lap, but my hand laid over the casing for a moment and I deeply inhaled. It occurred to me that there was a letter in the bottom of the cardboard box that I had ignored. It was going to have to wait.

Off came the casing. Inside was, staring me in the face, a ceramic monkey. The craft was gorgeous - carved with a surreal detail and the clothes sparkling with glitter paint. This familiar face was sitting on a wooden box. I carefully eased it out of its snug enclosure and looked at it on all sides, even underneath, where I found a tiny gold knob. I didn't think before my fingers rose to crank it.

Masquerade~
Paper faces on parade . . .
Masquerade!
Hide your face so the world will never find you~

I think I was going to die from the level of cuteness this box was emanating. ...It sounded just like Erik's. I had wanted one of this song for a century and a half, and here it was, sitting in my lap.

Masquerade~
Every face a different shade . . .
Masquerade!
Look around, there's another mask behind you!


I think I may have listened to this thing like twenty times before I set it down. It was sitting on my carpet, still staring at me, when I remembered (having actually forgotten) the envelop nearby. He better have had a good explanation for charming me like this.

"You're the only one who shows any compassion to me. Thank you."


... I was?

It was hard to describe how I felt after I read it, having been in such a good mood and suddenly feeling I had read something with darker notions. It wasn't entirely the part about me being the only one to "show him compassion", so much as... well see that I have put quotations there. I knew I liked him, but I scarcely seemed to show that to the full extent that it was... And here Meg says I seem to be mean to him, which made me defensive at first, but the more I thought about it the more I couldn't actually dismiss it.

If he deemed me compassionate, it didn't paint a very pretty picture outside the two of us. Did I ignore, get frustrated with, run away from, and call him psychopathic less than the other people he knew?

I wasn't sure what he was getting at, but I tried to take the compliment. He had made today very special, and I was not going to let long pass before I found him again and cornered him with thank-you's, even though he seemed not to like them very much.

When I thought I had just about gotten the monkey out of my system, I noticed the name printed by the crank. It seemed familiar to me, so familiar I had to reach for my other music box. I learned then that they were of the same make. The only thing that made sense was that this was coincidence.

- - -

On the official Christmas morning, I came downstairs for a cup of coffee and my parents were amused with how bad it had snowed that night. Our house was like a desert island, except instead of ocean it was... well, you know. I thought this would be all I'd hear, but while I peeked in my stocking, Dad mentioned there were footprints on the deck conspicuously heading for our door. I told him I had no idea why. Weren't mine, weren't Erik's... must've been a gho-.... Actually... maybe it was Jeffrey in that Big Bird suit. I didn't know. It wasn't worth discussing now that I had all of this candy.

Anyway, what really matters, and you know it, is what I got this year:

1.Hey Arnold! Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. So I could watch it all in a row for like 6 hours and feel like I'm nine years old again.
2.Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story DVD
3.1925 Phantom of the Opera on DVD (For some reason I never bought it and now really wanted to see it again.)
4.A Shrek the Musical soundtrack. Because after the movie-Shrek party I wondered if it was any good, and it was.
5.A set of bedsheets with little teacups all over them. You can imagine what delighted sounds I made at sight of this.
6.A pair of ruby-red flats. I LOVED THEM.
7.A set of bow barrettes.
8.Bobby-pins with "diamonds" at the end.
9.Some other trinkets from various stores.
10.A stuffed owl. I named it Charles.
11.Two button-down sweaters in navy and grey.
12.The big box I was talking about turned out to be my dad's, but... now I have a laptop apparently? My mom said she wanted a new one (she had had her other for 5 years, mostly for work) and apparently she succumbed to temptation while out shopping, because she wrapped the old one, and I stared at it and said "Mom, this is your laptop," and she said "It was my laptop.

The relatives sent me a few gift cards for Borders and Suncoast's.

And for the record, I got my mom a 5-set of bold-colored coffee mugs that she had had her eye on, and a huge Sudoku book because she's addicted. I gave my dad a Fry's card, because he's hard to shop for, and my mom and I went in on buying him one of those back-massaging pads you put on the recliner. (Was looking forward to trying it soon.) And I gave Meg (because we had watched some together earlier, keeling over in laughter, and it's quite the inside joke) a The Best of Stephen Colbert DVD. Plus some little hairclips of miniature bananas.

Anyway, when I took all this stuff upstairs, I was sort of at a loss of where to put it. The clothes and jewelry I set on the dresser, Charles, I put in front of my pillow... the rest I didn't want cluttered about so I stuck it on the shelf above my bed. Since my parents were downstairs doing various things - I think my dad was actually COOKING... I fell backwards onto the mattress and cuddled Charles a bit before leaning to my side and opening the drawer of my bedside table and dipping my hand in to pull out an opened letter. My eyes fell on the curves of the red ink again.

"You're the only one who shows any compassion to me. Thank you."

I wondered where he was at the moment. Perhaps conked out from a night of wandering around people's yards? ...Had he left surprise boxes for anybody else, I wondered? Perhaps he was Santa Claus all these years and I didn't even suspect.

My phone was sitting nearby, still on, with zero messages. I decided I had nothing to lose in texting him.

"Where are you?"

I knew he would give me an ambiguous answer, just so we're clear.

Though I continued petting my owl and staring into his beady black eyes for a few minutes, Erik never answered.

I had breakfast with the fambly, listened to some of my Shrek soundtrack, checked my mail, and saw that Giry had emailed me to say she was sorry she had not talked to me in so long and wanted to know if we could meet the next day. Yes, yes! It was a miracle I had not shown up at her doorstep on my knees yet, considering what had gone down in her absence.

- - -

"Here, bitch." I said to Meg when she opened her front door, extending the present in my hands. "I had to walk all the way over here in this 12 inch snow, so you'd better like it." She giggled and took it. "May it bring about many lustrous conversations with your man."

"Oh, okay. That... doesn't really narrow down what it is." I crossed my arms. "Sorry. Here." She handed me mine, pausing in thought. "... You'd probably put Erik to sleep with this, but..."

This brought on more laughter.

"We're at a point in our relationship where putting him to sleep is probably for the best-"

"WHAT?!"

"No! I didn't mean it that way! I mean... I... if he's asleep, I can raid his pockets, and... find out... stuff."

"Oh, okay... 'Find out stuff', huh? You mean the way sex offenders 'find out stuff' after they give you date-rape drugs?"

"I... no. I know you would, but... diff'rent strokes, Meg." She paused. "Mar. I meant Mar." She shook her head at me like she was ashamed. "Uhhh. I hate to break up all this love we're sharing on Christmas afternoon, but I'd like to get home while I can still feel my toes."

"Oh... okay."

"By the way... um... and this is completely unrelated... If my mom asks, you were the rose-culprit."

"Huh?"

"I'll explain it later. It's... nothing, really." She stared off in space a moment. I'm thinking she guessed correctly what this was related to.

"All right then..."

"See ya later, Mrs. Vanhorn."

"...BYE MRS. PHANTOM." I turned around just to give her a surprised look but she made sure to slam the door on me just in time for hers to be the final word.

- - -

He did finally text me before our company arrived, but by then it was 3:00. Instead of any ambiguity, he told me he was standing on a roof, although he "doesn't know what of".

"You don't know. ...Didn't you look when you went up there?"
"I certainly did. I started somewhere else."
"Are you trying to say you're lost?"
"No."
"...Is there any reason you're up there?"
"To figure out how to get down."
"I'd use the fire escape."
"I work a little differently than that. Heh."
"Uhh... shoot webs out of your wrists?"
"While that's possible, I'd consider it cheating."

BAH!! Hahah.

"...Isn't this kind of an odd way to be spending Christmas?"
"It would be for you, wouldn't it."

Hm.

"You should just come back here."
"Back to your house?"

Heh. Heheh. I smiled.

"Yes."

Our replies seemed to come one after the other, but I waited for five minutes and he didn't answer for some reason. In the midst of me trying on my barrettes, my phone beeped again. I practically dove for it.

"I would if you really wanted me to."

Ay...I took a deep breath and glanced at the monkey.

"I do, but I can't actually meet you..."

I soaked in guilt over this before the doorbell reverberated throughout the house. Scared the shit out of me. I didn't have the courage to move, so I waited until I heard muffled voices, clearly that of my parents chatting it up with their two friends. My phone picked the precise moment of me sinking back into my chair in relief to beep again.

"Tell me whenever you can, then. I'll be there."

He was just trying to give me arrhythmia wasn't he?

My mom started calling me, so I turned off the phone and stuffed it under my pillow, then put Charles in front of it. I don't know why, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

- - -

"Lily, pass the cookies around, will you?"
"Certainly, mother."
"Oh! They all look so good! I can't choose."
"Just pick the one that calls to you."
"Hahaha! Um..."
"...and speaks your name..."

I darted my eyes around but nobody got it/seemed to be paying attention.

- - -

The day after Christmas. I had left Giry messages to ask when I would see her but she never replied, leading me to believe she must've been having one hell of a holiday break. I missed hanging around with her, talking, about anything, learning what she was interested in... And yeah, it would have been the bee's knees if we could talk about Erik.

But for the time being, Meg was going to spend the night, and I hadn't really talked to her since we exchanged gifts, so I knew what was coming before we were even up the stairs with the door closed behind us. We couldn't even make it up the stairs, actually, before my mom emerged from absolutely nowhere and asked if she had seriously "done it."


"Oh yesss... all me..." She awkwardly confessed, clearly discomforted that she had admitted to doing any number of things that I hadn't told her about yet.

"It was based off something. Yeah."

We weren't very convincing, but who else exactly was my mom supposed to point the finger at.

"Alright... but if you had asked me, I'd say it was a boy."

"That's part of the joke!"

"No no no no, I was wooing Lily."

"Oh! Yeah. Yes. We're lesbians now."

My mom just stared at us.

"T-that's why you caught us dancing earlier. The dynamic of our friendship has um... changed a little." Mariam coughed very loudly. "Bye." I yanked Meg into my room and slammed the door shut. We remained still as statues. She gave me a look nobody else could do with the same effect until I finally caved and told her what had happened.



“He covered your yard… in roses.” I gave her a confirming stare. “How come I didn’t see this?”

“Honestly, they were only there for like a night.”

“Did you have to pick them up or something?”

“No, they, they.. t-they..” She raised her eyebrow at my stuttering. “Actually, they just disappeared.”

“…”

“I-I think he got rid of them in the wee hours.”

“Wow.”

“I saved some, though,” I assured her, stepping back to the closet and sliding the door. The pile sorta flooded onto the carpet. Meg’s eyes enlarged. When she looked at me I was just smiling at her.

“He’s got you,” she informed me. I broke out of my smile.

“What?”

“You would have never given me that look about something like this a few months ago.” I shook my head.

“I-I think it was a charming gesture. Don’t you?”

“Oh yeah… it’s very charming… Guy hanging around your front yard in the middle of the night while you’re asleep.”

“He did it to surprise me!”

“I think he sounds obsessed, frankly.”

“Mariam!” I actually put my hands on my hips.

“You gotta take a joke, Lily.” My shoulders sagged.

“Yeah well… You should take things more seriously!” I countered, but it seemed the both of us were having a difficult time being serious, looking each other in the eye like that. Meg averted hers, almost strategically landing on the monkey. Her mouth dropped a little.

“Oh my God, did you get that for Christmas?!” She ran over and laid her hands all over it. When she started to turn it backwards, I found myself hovering around her as she inspected. “This is beautiful… didn’t you say you wanted one like this?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s so cool…they even found the same kind as the other one they got you… At least, it looks like it.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

Meg took a moment to tap the top of Red Death’s head on my other before turning the knob on the monkey. She hummed along as the cute Masquerade pinging filled the room and looked at me. I tried to flicker a smile, but I couldn’t hide my unease.

“…What.” I slowly shook my head at her like I didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Nothing.”

“Oh… sorry… I forgot you don’t like people touching your Phantom stuff.”

“No! No… really… by all means.” I said this while plucking it from her and walking with it under my arm towards my closet to bend down and gather the roses.

“Lily…?”

“What?” I was adjusting the pile but turned around to her. She just shrugged at me, so I continued. Although afterwards, I felt a little guilty that I was keeping something so trivial from her. Of all the things that had happened with him, why was a music box on my list of avoided topics?

"Um..." While she was reading the back of one of my new DVD's, I came up next to her again and set down the monkey, displaying some unexpected perfectionism in returning it to its right position. "This was a gift from him, actually..."

"Seriously?" The way she asked contained no hints of previous skepticism or derision. I looked her in the eye and she was not even cocking an eyebrow.

"Yes."

"Oh... That's..." I waited. Very curious what word she would use. "He picked a perfect gift for you."

"Heh..."

"Doesn't look cheap, either."

"Heh. No. I think my first one was like $60, but I'll have to ask my parents."

"Speaking of gifts, did you like mine?"

"Oh! YES. Of course!" I pointed to the peppermint-colored candles on my window pane. "I'm almost afraid to burn them, they're so cute!" Her face lit up like Christmas lights. "And the book... I can't wait to read it.. thank you..."

"Yeah and thanks for the hardcore Colbert."

"But of course," I replied, particularly French-like.

"Oh my God, you got an OWL, TOO!" She shrieked out of nowhere. "IT'S SO CUTEEE."

"Its name is Charles," I explained as she cuddled it. I could tell that this thing was going to become our child or something.

"... What got you to name it Charles?"

"Dance-Phantom. I felt bad for not giving him enough attention recently. And I just saw his face in that owl when I saw it."

She stared at it long and hard.

"You and your phantoms and your birds..."

"I-I-I wasn't trying to!"

"Come now, my child," she whispered into my ear, hand on shoulder, "we have a marathon of Hey Arnold complete with commentary ahead of us."


Favorite Quote(s)

One of these days before I move out, I thought, I should help them and then still pretend the next morning that some fat guy did it.

If he deemed me compassionate, it didn't paint a very pretty picture outside the two of us. Did I ignore, get frustrated with, run away from, and call him psychopathic less than the other people he knew?

I wondered where he was at the moment. Perhaps conked out from a night of wandering around people's yards?

"We're at a point in our relationship where putting him to sleep is probably for the best-"

"WHAT?!"

"No! I didn't mean it that way! I mean... I... if he's asleep, I can raid his pockets, and... find out... stuff."

"Oh, okay... 'Find out stuff', huh? You mean the way sex offenders 'find out stuff' after they give you date-rape drugs?"

"I... no. I know you would, but... diff'rent strokes, Meg."