Gustaves Diary

August 4th

Today I stayed again with Madam Giry. I begged her not to fetch my parents, but she appears to have no idea where they are. And while she begs me in tears to tell her, it's information I will not surrender. I want to find work soon, I'm running out of money. It was 3 weeks ago that I ran away now. I can see signs and police watching me on the street.

I miss my Mother, and my old room and my piano. I talk even less than I did, allowing myself three words a day. Usually to ask for directions. I wish I could hear grandpa's violin. As sweet and somber as Mother once described it. I've decided to learn the violin, a piano is to hard to travel with. I think I won't eat tonight, I'll save the money and buy a violin instead.

I might even miss Erik.

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Erik sat at his piano. No music, no thoughts, no feelings. He wasn't hungry.

Christine fretted and cleaned furiously. Even cooking though her husband hadn't eaten in days.

Where was Gustave? Was he okay after all this time? What kind of parent loses their only child?!

Christine tried not to blame herself but it was hard not to. She had some urge to ask Raoul if he had seen Gustave but that would lead only to a situation where she could neither control nor suppress Erik's anger.

Gustave needed to come home, Erik wasn't going to make it much longer without him.

Coming up behind her husband she put her hands on his shoulders, attempting to comfort him.

"Oh Christine," Erik said in a breaking voice.

It was all she needed to hear.

Her name on those trembling lips so filled with pain.

Holding him close they cried together, each in eachothers arms beneath a moonlit sky.

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Gustave noticed her following him from the corner on 4th street. He stopped walking and she stopped too.

She was tall, slim, her brown hair curled gently over her shoulders.

He quickened his pace towards Madam Girys, she did too. Finally, with his short temper running out he swiveled around and snapped at her.

"What exactly do you want?!"

She shrugged, "To follow you, sir."

She smirked after saying this. She looked exactly his age.

"Follow me where. I do not know where I am going. Therefore you don't either. Go home!" Gustave grumbled.

"Where you go, I shall go, I don't have a place to be anyway." She laughed.

"Go! leave me!," Gustave said firmly raising his voice.

"Ha!" He thought. "I told her."

"No!" She exclaimed.

No?" Gustave asked confused.

No one told him no. He was no child! Not anymore!

"Yes, I said no! I have just as much a right to be here as you do, and that my friend is not such a right! Now here's how things are going to go from now on..."

Gustave raised his eyebrows, who did she think she was?

"You're going to help me onto that train, the one coming through at five, then I'll get cold and you'll offer me my jacket and I'll supply you with a tip. Got it?"

Gustave scoffed, "What makes you so sure I'll agree."

"You will. Because like it or not, I can tell your not mean, you're just lonely." She said with a blatant smile.

She was right, he supposed. 

But how did she know? What did she know of him?

She started walking towards the train station, across from Madam Girys.

Only this time, Gustave was the one that followed.