One song saved his life.

One song crushed her spirit.

In a manor of secrets, betrayal and lies, neither could have guessed what the music would reveal...

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A/N: I love blending beloved classics (in public domain) that have strong similarities to PotO while keeping all the facets of PotO to make it the same in presentation (basics), but unique and all my own too – a blend of both tales with a twist. Not truly a crossover, so I keep it in the PotO section. As I did with Come to Me (PotO blended w/ Wuthering Heights), the same applies to this story, will eventually be rated M for all the usual reasons. (sex, adult situations) Chapter warnings will be given. Until that time, I'm keeping it at a T...At times it will strongly favor Jane Eyre, other times will entirely be PotO, especially later into the story (both ALW and Kay's) - but don't look for exact matches to either tale, because I'll be doing my own thing too. ;-) The characters of PotO are not my own (oh, how I wish - haha), nor of Jane Eyre, though original characters are my creation...

I

(1856)

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"There is no Angel of Music you stupid child!"

The harsh words were aimed at the small girl crouched in the corner on the dusty hardwood floor. With her knees drawn up beneath her chin, she clutched her legs and buried her face into her worn skirts.

She would not let her mean cousins see her tears!

"But there is a terrible beast that roams these lands," nine-year-old Georgiana continued where her eleven-year-old brother left off, "a monster with a demon's face. He searches out the wicked children, seeping through the manor walls like a ghost – and will surely come this night to bite off your head!"

"And eat your brains out," Geoff added snidely. "He comes every harvest moon, to claim his next victim…"

"I'm not wicked," she whimpered into her skirts, "I'm not!" Christine trembled at the idea of such a frightful creature.

"You are wicked – you broke my music box!"

"I didn't mean to!" She lifted her head to make her feeble defense. "It was on the edge of the table. I walked by, and it fell -"

"You lie, you wretched girl! You did it on purpose!" Georgiana rushed forward and viciously pulled a handful of thick ringlets, then slammed her palms against Christine's shoulders so she fell back against the wall. Warily, she again pushed herself upright.

"But the monster of Rouen will come and find you. He lives in the darkness and feeds off your fear," Georgiana hissed. "You will make a tasty morsel for his midnight supper."

Christine kept silent, again resting her forehead on her knees – they wouldn't believe her, they never did, though she told the truth as Papa always said to. Yet she would not beg them to stop speaking of such terrors or to let her out. Begging did no good. It only made their torments worse.

"You should never have come here, Christine Daaé!"

A door slammed and Christine heard the bolt shoot through the lock. Startled she lifted her head, but saw nothing. The room was pitch-black.

NO!

They had locked her in this horrid attic room, smelling of mildew and death, and next to frightful ghosts and storybook monsters she feared the darkness even more. She had never seen a ghost or monster, but she had experienced the darkness more than once since she'd come to this awful place, and before that too...

It was in the darkness her Papa died. It was in the darkness they took her away from him. And it was in the darkness they punished her when they said she'd been bad.

Terrified, she scrambled to her knees and then to her feet, blindly feeling along the walls for the window she had glimpsed earlier.

If it had been up to her, she would never have come to this awful, horrid place. But little girls were never given a choice, especially poor little girls, and when Papa died from the fever shortly after she turned six, she had been forced to come to Greenwich Hall, the home of her widowed aunt and two cousins, who were every bit as evil as their mother. She had lived here half a year, and the tortures never ceased.

"Papa, Papa," she whimpered, the tears now falling past her face and wetting her neck as she slapped her palms along the planks. She moved slowly, fearfully, sure at any moment to feel the bite of sharp teeth from the Ghost Monster of the Harvest Moon.

"Oh, why did you leave me, Papa…?" she wailed softly.

At last her hands connected with the rougher wood of what must be the shutters. Quickly her small fingers found the latch, and she threw them wide. The sash of the dirty window stuck, but desperately she pushed at it until it gave, and sobbed in relief to see the clear nighttime sky painted with so many white stars and a huge orange moon that glowed and gave light. A cold breeze kissed her heated face and attempted to dry her tears. Her grateful gaze went up to the wide stretch of sky and fastened on a star that shone more brightly than all the rest.

"You once spoke of an Angel," she whispered, "you said one day the Angel of Music would come to me and be with me if I was very good. But it's so hard, Papa. I try to be good, but they say I'm bad. I don't like it here. I don't like them. I hate them and wish I could leave and be with you. I so want to be with you again, Papa…"

Sing, my Little Lotte. When you are troubled and frightened and your heart is heavy, then sing. Fear is found in whispers and shadows. When you sing, you no longer hear them or feel them.

Christine smiled faintly at the memory of her Papa comforting her during a bad storm. She had sung, he had played his violin, and the frightful darkness of the storm and the shadows it cast had passed into calm forgetfulness.

Many times since she'd come to Greenwich Hall, she sang when she was alone or scared, when they could not hear. Her aunt loathed music, but she was asleep on the other side of the manor, and Christine was locked away for the night, trapped, in this cold, dark attic room with its cobwebs and spiders and darkness…always the darkness…

The unseen monster that fed on fear threatened to swallow her whole.

She shivered and turned her beseeching gaze up to the stars, lifting her voice in song.

xXx

Under the dusky light of a harvest moon, along the narrow path of a cliff by the sea, a lone figure moved with quiet grace, his soul and body weary and weighted with his choice. Viciously he rubbed his sleeve along wet cheeks, determined not to cry but unable to stop the tears.

Unwanted. Unloved. No more than a monster…

Hardly a boy, barely a man, he had come home, hoping to find peace and a place to heal. Hoping his mother might at last welcome him with open arms. Hoping she might have missed him after all the years he'd been gone.

He should have known better. He had long learned to live without such an unreachable presence as hope, the lesson taught him as a small child. Hope was the disguise of a cruel marauder stealing its way into his fortress of cold logic, once more desiring to rob him of his resolve by taunting him into the belief that one day things could change.

They would never change!

She had been just as cold and cruel and as beautiful as ever. She had not ordered him to leave – where would be the fun in that? Her amusement was in daily forcing him to see what a wretched excuse for humanity she had been cursed with – not even human. She had called him a little monster ever since he could crawl, and on his sixth birthday, when he begged not to wear the mask only that one day, and then asked the unpardonable – for a kiss to keep and a kiss to save – she made him look in her full-length mirror to see the monster - dressed in his clothes! - and he learned the wretched truth. He had fled two years later, been captured by gypsies, and years after that ran from them as well, stowing away on a ship in the night. For a time he found solace in another country, even acceptance in learning a trade, but then…

Luciana.

A fresh swell of tears burned his eyes at the dark whisper of memory, and he looked out over the cliff and the sea churning beneath the nighttime sky.

God, he was a monster! The ghost stories the cruel village children spread about him, ever since in his boyish ignorance years past he foolishly attempted to befriend them, might as well be true…

He did not deserve to exist, was told so repeatedly, so why should he bother? No one wanted him. Many more feared or ridiculed him for something he couldn't even help or change. His very presence disgusted the masses and now… now he had killed an innocent, proving what a monster he truly was.

Oh God, Luciana…

He clutched his cloth mask in one hand, fisting it hard as he moved closer to the edge and the dark promise of oblivion. One step, and then another. A smattering of small rocks broke away from beneath the toe of his shoe, plummeting far to the crashing waves and the boulders below. Only one step more, and then it would all be over …

From nowhere and everywhere the sweetest of voices suddenly drifted to him, carried on the wind. A voice – clear as the ring of crystal – it lingered over the rush of the distant surf and lifted in song. His eyes widened at the beauty of the voice, so pure, so innocent…

The voice of an angel.

He stepped back from the cliff, his dark intent abruptly forgotten, and returned to the pathway, looking all around the empty land shrouded in nighttime's shadows for the bearer of the song.

It was impossible to tell where the beautiful voice came from, how distant or how near. The words were vague, unrecognizable, but his sharp hearing could just make out the syllables. He listened, her angel's voice settling gently into his soul and giving him a strange sensation of ease and warmth in the middle of his chest, where there had been only turmoil. His senses were almost buoyant but…calmed…the rhythm of his heart slowing its frantic beats.

Was this comfort that he felt?

He desperately wished to seek out the voice, though he feared that once he did, his monstrous presence would frighten her and she would run from him. As all the girls ran from him. Some of them whimpering or screaming. The boys, his age and younger, usually threw handfuls of pebbles or rotten food at him, to drive him away like the wild beast they called him. Only at Giovanni's villa had he felt a measure of safety …

But he could never go back there.

Desperately he searched, though he had no idea where to look, and continued to walk, further away from the sea and what was once home and the woman who did not want him...drawn to the beautiful music that warmed his heart in the chill air.

The song she sang, the same one over and over again, was a drink of refreshment to his parched soul. The further he walked, the words came clearer, stronger –

She sang, in earnest and mournful plea … to an angel?

And then the music abruptly ceased. He wanted to cry for the desolation of losing that sweetest of voices. He waited, motionless, hoping to hear her strange song once more.

It was then, with the memory of her pure, celestial voice still echoing in his mind, that he made a decision. He would live on – he would not give into defeat. He would go to the land of which Giovanni had spoken.

He would go to Persia.

xXx

A/N: More to come soon…hope you liked this little intro! :)