A Tempo of Two Heartbeats (Private RP)
Prologue: The First Morning
When Erika awoke that night, she knew she was dying. That wasn’t a shock to her – the empty teacup at her bedside still held the white residue she’d chosen to bring about her demise. What was a shock, however, was how painful it was. Cyanide was meant to act quickly, and sleeping tonic was meant to make it painless. Instead, her limbs and lips here numb, and her thoughts swam around in her skull as if underwater hours after drinking the lethal concoction. She might have been able to fall back into a peacefully permanent sleep, if not for the horrific pain. She only had the strength to utter an open-jawed whimper as her body contorted and strained as if possessed.
Every heartbeat brought a stab of agony. Erika used what she thought were her final breaths to silently plead to a god she did not believe in – begging to let it all end. How fitting, she thought, for her life of misery to end in such a pathetic way – like a dog left shot in an alley. She tried to will herself up from the bed, to find some quicker – if bloodier – method to end her deathbed agony, but her body would not comply.
The night seemed darker in that attic apartment than any night below the theater had been. The moon was hiding in the shadow of the Earth, and clouds choked the starlight from the sky. The curtains were sealed shut, so not even the streetlights five stories down could reach her small bedroom. She blindly reached for the framed portrait on the bedside table, only for her shaking fingers to knock it to the floor.
Erika searched the darkness for something else, anything else, that she could choose as a meaningful last sight…but found nothing.
And then she felt her waters break.
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Charlotte watched her Mama move her hands to play and she was locked on the patterns that were repeated up and down the keys. They went through at least five times total together until Charlotte started to wiggle and shook off Erika’s hands. “My turn. Myself Maman.” Her little hands found the first keys and went up slowly and back down to do the song herself, only slipping off to the wrong note only once. She played the pattern two more times alone, correcting the mistake made on the first time.
Charlotte deemed herself finished, sat back again with a sigh. Something wet dropped on her face, puzzled, her expression twisted as she tried to find the source. It was her Mama. “Maman? Why do you cry?” Her little hands reached up to her mothers face to wipe one away from her cheek. “I’m all done music. Maman all done music?”
@mirageoftheopera
Erika blinked in surprise when her daughter wriggled her hands from her grasp. She sighed softly. Already wanting her independence, it seemed.
“Alright, then,” she said, holding onto Charlotte’s hips so she wouldn’t tumble from her lap. “All by yourself.”
She watched in amazement as Charlotte replayed what she’d shown her, even correcting herself when her small fingers slipped from the keys. Charlotte seemed to have a pinpoint focus to her as she tapped out the nursery song, growing faster each repetition until the tempo was much faster than they had played together.
A few tears leaked from her eyes, dripping from her smiling lips and into her daughter’s curls. An overwhelming halo of pride glowed from her heart, but buried beneath it was a crushing sense of guilt. Deciding to keep her baby was the best decision she’d ever made. Yet, she had been so close to destroying her. She had been willing to abandon this brilliant little girl on the steps of a church, where no future would await her. It didn’t matter what she had chosen to do instead…she had still been so close to doing it.
Charlotte turned her bright face up towards Erika’s face, just in time for a tear to drip onto her forehead. She couldn’t answer Charlotte for a moment, her throat closed to keep the sobs at bay.
“Maman is fine, Lotte,” she said, taking a handkerchief from her breast pocket before her gaping nasal cavity could start leaking. “I…I love you so much.”
She patted Charlotte’s cheek, staring into her patchwork eyes. “You will never know how much I love you.”
@daae-dancer93
“Love you Maman.” Charlotte nuzzled into her chest. It was where she fit best. They sat a while together at the piano before Lotte became too restless and wanted down on the floor once more.
When her little body was back by her toys on the floor she hugged her bear close. “Love you too Bear.” Giggles erupted in little hiccups as Charlotte was very pleased with herself as well. She played the piano and told her little imaginary friends all about it quietly to herself still humming the nursery rhyme.
Away from the piano she may have been, but there was music deep in her soul. Why would there not be. Charlotte played until she could play no more and cuddled Bear close, barely able to keep her eyes open her head lulled against the bottom of the low sofa.
@mirageoftheopera
“Hold on, wait!” Erika gasped as Charlotte nearly squirmed herself from her lap. “Let me set you down.”
Erika carried Charlotte back to the chaise lounge and sat her back next to her toys. “Remember to call if you need me,” she said, patting Charlotte’s hair. “I’ll be right over here.”
She pulled up her seat to the writing desk on the opposite side of the parlor room. She re-read the draft of her letter, frowned, and ripped it in half. Retrieving a fresh sheet from her drawer, Erika began a fresh letter to her confidant, Madame Antionette Giry:
Charlotte noticed Erika’s scent as she dosed and grasped her hands onto her mothers blouse. She felt her mother soothe her with pats to her back as she was placed gently into her bed, cushions surrounded her so she would not roll off and get injured. Bear was tucked gently beside her as the light blanket was pulled over them to snuggle in sleep.
Lotte didn’t fuss at naptime, in fact fussing was something she rarely did. She was just happy to be with her Mama living her life, not knowing they did not live how society would consider normal.
Erika left the flat while Lotte napped, just long enough to venture down to the post boxes on the ground floor of the apartment building. She adorned her veil even to walk down the five flights of stairs. Thankfully, she didn't run into any of her neighbors on her errand to mail her letter -- and then it was a quick trot back into their humble apartment. She hated leaving Charlotte alone for any length of time. The mental image of Charlotte crying out for her when she wasn't there to answer...it drove her to paranoia.
If she were to be honest, Erika was usually unsure what to do with the brief time alone she had while Charlotte was asleep or otherwise occupied. There had been a time, in her youth, when inspiration would possess her with such ferocity that she would spend entire days at her organ or her violin. By the time she fell asleep, she would be surrounded by hundreds of pages of the symphonies that played in her head.
Erika steeped herself a small pot of tea, listlessly staring at the rooftops outside her kitchen window. She often missed those spells of blissful creation. Although the ghosts of that passion still lingered, her hands would not play with the same intensity as they once did. Her soul was filled with a deep-seeded weariness when she recalled her fits of musical passion, as if she were a broken old woman recalling her days as a dancer.
Erika was startled from her depressive spell when she heard Charlotte calling for her. She left her tea to steep a while longer. It was time to return to the present, where she was needed.
~ End Chapter 1 ~
