Authors: Catherine Stovall

Fractured Fairy Tales (16 page)

BOOK: Fractured Fairy Tales

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Soon, all of the music executives, stylist, and lackeys turned their attention to the shiny new artist. Adele’s music was much more in style. Her sex kitten appeal and pop attitude drew the people to her. Lorelei, who refused to let the stylist change her appearance, seemed faded and drab compared to the new girl. A whole new marketing plan was built upon the gorgeous woman’s future career, and John worked side by side with her late into the night for many weeks.

One night, he returned home very late, guilt over forgetting Lorelei weighing heavily on his heart. To his surprise, she was gone. He searched the house and the gardens, which suddenly seemed to lose their luster without her walking there, but she was nowhere to be found. No matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t seem to discover where his little nightingale had flown.

In a board meeting the next day, he declared, “What the hell is she thinking? She’s got to be the most ungrateful woman ever.”

His employees all agreed and offered up their best condolences. “It doesn’t matter. Adele is much better, and we have her.”

Chambers stood up, commanding the attention of the room. “Adele is beautiful, she appeals to the masses. She is trained and well-bred. She has been brought up with a music career in mind. We could never count on what Lorelei would or could do, but with Adele, she hasn’t got a single original thought in her head. She will do whatever we need done and do it with the trained precision that is expected of a star.”

John sneered, anger fueling his words, “My thoughts exactly.”

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A huge concert was scheduled and a single set to release, so Adele could be introduced to the people. The show, and the subsequent appearances in magazines and on television, was a huge success. Adele became even more famous than Lorelei had ever been.

People loved the complicated and electronic sound of her music, they adored the auto-tuned voice, and they admired her beauty above all. However, those that had heard Lorelei sing at The Nightingale, shook their heads in confusion.

“Adele sings well enough, and she is very sexy, but she doesn’t have what Lorelei has. She is missing the passion and the heart.”

However, no one would hear Lorelei sing anymore. Not unless they drifted back down to the wharves and sat at a little table in the smoke filled bar. Emperor Records had severed her contracts, and she’d returned to the life she loved as a waitress, a vagabond, and a sometimes midnight crooner.

Adele kept a place in the silk sheets on John’s bed. He lavished her with gold jewelry garnished with precious stones, and an endless array of trinkets lined the dressers and closets of the house. He called her his little songbird, and the entire music world loved her. She was the heart of Emperor Records, and John fell deeply in love with her.

The entertainment magazines wrote no less than twenty-five articles on her talent and beauty, detailing everything about her that they could learn. Even those who did not love her pretended to, because Adele was the in-girl. No one wanted to be considered uncool or out of the loop, so they all played her songs on an endless loop.

A year passed in this way, and the whole world knew every word of every song she sang. They could all hum every bar, because the composition was so simple and without challenge. The catchy tune and easy lyrics made them comfortable, and they liked that above all else. Even John would catch himself singing the words as he worked away the days.

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Just when it seemed all was well, and Lorelei was forgotten, fate struck as it often does. Adele was preparing for bed, her voice slurring as she sipped from her wine glass and sang. John lay in bed listening to the rattle of pill bottles and her increasingly unstable tune. When he heard a crash and a loud thump, the song stopped.

John sprang from the bed and dialed his personal physician at once, the one who served all the stars and always knew how to keep a secret. Next, he phoned his psychiatrist, because he knew the doctor could only fix the body, but the problem was truly in the young girl’s mind. Fame and stardom had taken a great toll.

They spoke for hours at her bedside as she lay in unconscious bliss. She’d sing again, she’d be able to perform, but the appearance would have to be scheduled sparingly because something in her mind was worn out. A terrible shame, but Adele would need to record less and rest more, and not be upset in the least for a long while. She only went on tour once a year, and her behavior then was erratic at best. Fewer and fewer albums were made, but the magazines and the press said she was doing well, so she was doing well.

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Five years passed, and again, fate raised its hand. The music world fell into sadness at the announcement that John Emperor had fallen ill and might die. His second in command was prepared to step up and take the company, but the paparazzi and regular media stood outside John’s home, trampling his gardens and constantly asking if he still lived.

“No comment,” Chambers growled every time.

Pale and waning, John lay in his magnificent bed alone. His entourage, even his beloved Adele, had abandoned him in his last hours. Unable to look at the once vigorous man as he faded away, they treated him as if he were already dead and gone. The flowers filled the room, and everyone who did come, wore black. The house was kept silent, the once constant music gone. His only solace was the smell of the gardens through the open window above the bed and the moon shining in.

His breathing became ragged and the pressure felt as if something was squeezing his chest. The fever burned his brain, and when he opened his eyes, he saw Death sitting upon his chest. The creature spun a gold record in one hand and held one of John’s many awards in the other. All around the thing, the shadows of John’s misdeeds and triumphs swayed and swirled together. Their faces were twisted masks of pain and blissful smiles of adoration.

Death laid its hand on John’s heart.

“Do you remember me? Do you remember this?” his evil and good doings whispered. They showed him and told him of all the rights and wrongs he’d committed in his life. All of which left him panting and weeping in fear.

“I didn’t know,” he cried out, trying to fight off the voices of all those he had once known. Screaming to anyone who might hear, he shouted, “Music! Play the music. Drown out the sound of Death and his creatures.”

The voices tormented and pressed, insistent that he should know all of what he had done. Their words and images blurred together in a matinee of madness and sorrow, jubilation and success. He had done many things in his life, and as he pleaded for release, Death watched on— nodding his head as if to say that he understood.

Finally, Adele came to stand at the side of his bed with a wine glass in her hand and tears in her eyes.

“Sing! Sing, damn you. Sing away the damned! I gave you everything; I gave you riches and fame. I gave you my heart. So sing now, sing!” he begged.

She remained silent, her mind empty from the medications and the wine. Her heart deader than his own, could not allow her to sing. So Death kept on, its horribly dark eyes staring into John’s soul, and the silence prevailed. The world was quiet, so quiet, and Adele walked away.

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Just when he had given up hope, a voice came through the window, the loveliest song he had ever heard. Lorelei, his nightingale, sat outside in his gardens and sang just for him. She had heard of his illness and had come to offer solace and hope.

On and on she sang, and as she did, the voices and shadows faded. John’s heart grew stronger, and his blood flowed faster through his weak limbs. Even Death stopped his infernal staring and nodding to listen.

In a voice as cold as grave dirt, Death whispered, “Keep singing, little nightingale. Keep singing.”

“If you give back his records, give back his awards, and give back his heart, I shall sing,” she whispered right back.

Death returned all the things, and Lorelei kept singing. She sang of a dustland fairytale, of memories, and of everlasting love. She let her sorrow fill her voice as she sang of dying roses, goodbye kisses, tears that fall, and of going to the grave.

The lyrics and the mournful tone made Death long for his own cold gardens with the tombstone statues and mourning saints. With icy tears streaming down his sallow cheeks, he floated out of the window in a chilly white mist and vanished.

As Death left the room, Lorelei entered.

“Thank you, thank you!” John cried. “You lovely, wonderful woman! I abandoned you, I left you, and still you have come to sing away the visions of evil and Death from my bed and my heart. How can I ever repay you?”

“Your attentions so long ago were payment enough,” Lorelei sighed. “You gave me faith in myself and a love for my voice that I had never had before. You made me see that I am good enough to be a star, if that was what I wanted. To be loved for the talent one possesses is the greatest treasure of all. Sleep now, dear one. I will sing for you once more.”

John fell into sleep with her small hand on his cheek and her sweet voice driving away the silence. When he awakened, the sun was shining, and he felt strong and healthy once more. No one had returned to his side, still believing him to be nearly dead, but Lorelei remained, still singing.

“Stay with me, my nightingale. Not as my star, or my lover, but as my wife. Let me love you and make up to you all that I have done. I will leave Adele. I will send her to another company. I will end her contracts. Please, be mine forever,” he pleaded.

“Don’t do that!” Lorelei exclaimed. “She has done the best she could, and she loves you. Keep her as best you can, and love her with all of your heart. She is such a fragile thing. I can’t stay here with you. I have my own life to live now. I bought The Nightingale, and I still sing there every evening, but I will come to visit. I will do whatever I can to make you and Adele happy and keep her from suffering. It was never her choice to harm me.”

John shook his head, unable to believe that she’d choose to live a life on the wharves than with him in his decadent home.

“I sing to make people happy, and from that tiny stage, I reach people’s hearts. I sing to the poor, the rich, to everyone who chooses to listen. I love your heart far more than your money, and yet I choose to refuse both. I will forever be your friend, John Emperor, but you must promise me one thing.”

“Anything!” he cried.

“Tell no one my name. I shall be your best kept secret. I want no one seeking out the star I was, because that is not who the woman I have become.”

Lorelei walked out the door, and John stood in good health, reaching for his phone. He would rule once more as the music mogul that he had always been, but forever after, he would have a nightingale of his very own, one in which he would never share.