The Rock Star Next Door, a Modern Fairytale (31 page)

“You a
re safe, Jessica.” Lex assured her for what seemed the hundredth time that
day. “No one can get to you
. No one knows you are here, except Jack and the guys.”

Jessie nodded, but didn’t dare open her mouth to enlighten him.

She couldn’t explain it. She could only wait for the inevitable.

No one wanted to align themselves with a family who had a history of mental illness
.
While Jessie’s maternal grandmother seemed normal, and he
r mother’s sister,
there had been whispers growing up about great-grandma Delaney’s ‘delicate nervous condition’, and great grandfather
Delaney
committed suicide by slashing his throat in the bat
htub during the Depression in the last century.
In more recent family history, Jessie and Jack had a female cousin who had also killed herself
a few years back
, Aunt Rachel’s only daughter. Cousin Lucy left behind two small children and a grieving husband.

Their
m
other was always
threatening to commit suicide. S
he’d threatened them since Jessie’s earliest remembrance. She just never followed through with her threats, but  used them to manipulate her husband and her three children.
Marcie
Delaney-Kelly refused to seek counseling or psychiatric help. In her mind, she was perfectly all right. It was the
rest of the world that was wrong, out to get her, to ruin her life. The rest of the world, her children specifically, were to blame for her problems, for her unhappiness.

Jack thought that possibly their own sister, Michelle, suffered from delusions and paranoia, but in a different manner than their mother. Michelle and her husband, David, were involved in a very strange religion, one that saw demons behind everything, from the children’s
cartoons
to the Catholic Church being the
Whore of Babylon
and the Pope the
Antichrist
as prophesied in t
he Bible.
Michelle and David
shunned mainstream s
ociety, had only Church friends
and spent a great deal of their free time trying to convert the rest of the world to their own point of
view by street preaching, prison ministries and even going door to
door in residential areas
to hand out religious tracts and invite the masses to their church.

Whe
n Jessie and Jack were fourteen, just
gawky, insecure teens, their sister e
mbarrassed them at the county fair. Michelle stood
j
ust outside the gates with her husband
and a few church friends. They were preaching
the salvation message
, but they were
actually
screaming insults
at the passers-by, calling them sinners, adulterers, fornicators, and telling them they were
going to
hell
if they didn’t repent. Jack and Jessie arrived
at the fair gate with their friends, and seeing Michelle, decided to pretend they didn’t know her
.
Would she return the favor and let them be?
No, she had to single them out in front of their friends by a
cknowledging them as family, and then tell them and their teenage friends that they all needed to repent of their wickedness or they would burn in an eternal fire.
Someone had called the police on the street preachers, and they were forced to leave the fairgrounds or face arrest, but Jack and Jessie were humiliated by the experience.
And Lex came from a
nice,
normal, middle class suburban family
?

He had no idea
what he was getting into
by asking Jessie to marry him. T
here was no way she could e
xplain her bizarre family
.
If she did, he’
d probably run. He
wouldn’
t want to have children
with Jessie
and her goofed up gene pool.
And she wouldn’t blame him.

The guest room
at Lex’s house
was a study in subtle s
hades of blue & beige, emulating
the colors of t
he beach and the rolling sea.
The luxurious down comf
orter on the bed was lush, rich velvet blue.  Matching
curtains
framed the windows. The room had a masculine feel to it. An antique blond oak
armoire
was positioned across from
the bed,
a custom built item housing a large plasma TV and a DVR for the
guest’s comfort.
In the guest bathroom she found
a sunken tub that could fit more than one person.
The granite countertop and tub surround looked like polished grains of sand. Seashells were scattered about the bathroom, giving it a resort feel.
The guest suite
rivaled a ho
tel in comfort, something Jessie hadn’t expected in a bachelor’s home.
The
side
window over
looked the ocean, a corner view
as the master bedroom
took up the premium beachfront vista. 

Lex
hovered nearby as she slipped into her silk pajama pants and tank top. She slipped into the bed and settled into a comfortable recline with several feather pillows beneath her. Lex came to sit
atop the covers
beside her. He’d just
made her a cup of herbal tea. She sat sipping the comfortin
g wa
rm liquid as they watched a roman
tic comedy
. The t
ea tasted like licorice candy. Jessie loved the sharp, biting-sweet flavor as she loved black licorice candies
.
The sedative the doctor had given her in the ER was slowly enveloping
her
in a delicious lethargy
as she cuddled agai
nst Lex. Through a distant haze
she felt him brush her cheek with a brief kiss and whisper goodnight.

She was in an ancient castle. Jessie
walked through the hall, disorientated,
not sure why she was here and what she was supposed to be doing
.
The place was familiar
. She
instinctively knew where she was going;
toward the solar. She looked down at the odd crunching beneath her feet. There were rushes on the floor. Oh, yes, she forgot about those. Th
ey were there to sop up the mud
and
the
dog droppings. She lifted the
edge of her dress with one hand
and stepped carefully around a moist spot that was either a spill from the kitchen or a mess from the master’s dogs.

The dress . . . it was
a soft mossy green fabric,
simple but
beautiful and elegant all the same. Jessie stopped walking and looked down at her attire with wonder. The long bell sleeves draped over her wrists, and an odd belt cinched her waist. Funny slippers
with pointy toes completed the
medieval fashion ensemble.

“Julianna! There you are. For
sooth
, child, do you want another beating?
Her ladyship is in a brutish humor. Make haste, make haste, I say.
”
A woman poked her head out o
f an arched stone doorway. She was
scowling at Jessie. Jessie almost laughed at the comical looking woman with
her face poking out of a frothy white swathe of fabric. A
cone shaped hat remin
i
scent of
a witch’s hat sat on the woman’s head. It
lack
ed
of the
characteristic brim of a witch’s hat. Long, sheer blue fabric floated down from the top of the cone.
The woman
waved insistently at Jessie, gesturing for her to come towards her.

Jessie hurried to the door leading to the solarium. Geez, how did she know the name for this odd room? A platform was set up in the center of the room, sort of like a stage. On the platform were several elaborately carved chairs, and women were gathered there as if to hear a concert. Except the women, clad in elaborate silks and jewels, were on the stage, and the musicians were settled in the corner of the room, near the large mullioned windows.

Musicians? She chanced a closer look at the four men with their instruments, only to be dragged roughly by the elbow to the platform by the
woman in the mock blue witch’s hat
. “Hurry it up, missy. I’ll not relish tending the welts again if her ladyship takes your slowness out of your hide!” 

Maude, tha
t was her name, Jessie recalled. T
he
older woman was in charge of the maids.  Maude pushed Jessie toward
the platform. Jessie held out the tray she’d been sent to the kitchen to retrieve for the lady, and approached the woman holding court in the center of the room. She gasped aloud, nearly shrieked at the sight of her mother sitting like a queen, preening and gloating, giving Jessie an evil gleam tha
t promised
a painful beating later
, after the guests had retired for the evening.

“Lady Marcella
, where did you find these darling lads to entertain us?” T
he dark haired woman in the blue and g
old brocade giggled as she glanced with unbridled longing at the men in the corner.

“The Troubadours
are supported by Queen Eleanor’s court. I hired this band and asked them to come to us
when last I was in Poitiers.
”

Troubadours?
They were
the
medieval
equivalent of rock stars;
court musicians paid to entertain the ladies with songs of love. Jessie turned about to get a glimpse of them.

“Julianna!” The lady Marcella screeched, sounding like a harpy. “Serve the ladies. Mercy alive, that girl is as dull as a pail of mop water.”
Jessie shivered. That woman looked too much like her mother. The arrogant woman
snapped her fingers, gesturing for Jessie to serve her frie
nds the tray of pastries she held
i
n her hands. Jessie just stood and stared
at the
lady, confused and disturbed by the uncanny resemblance to her mother
.

Maude yanked the tray from Jessie’s hand and served the women in her stead, anxious to please the woman
of the house, who ruled with iron claws
.

“Out with you, to your room.” Marcella/Moth
er shrieked, her tone like
an agitated seagull. “I’ll deal with you later.” Her narrowed grey gaze sent chills
down Jessie’s spine. “Out I say.
” She continued to shriek when Jessie didn’t move. “Or I will have you physically removed. Guards!”

Jessie stirred. She turned quickly and stepped down from the wooden platform. Her d
ress caught, and she put her hands out as she was
falling to the hard stone floor.

“Easy, Mademoiselle.” A large hand caught her about the waist and she was lifted from her ungraceful descent by a pair of very solid arms.

“Thank you, sir.” She mumbled, embarrassed by her clumsy movements in a room full of well dressed courtiers, and by her mistress’ sharp rebuke in front of them all. Her face was hot with humiliation.

“Have a care, little Julianna. I should hate to see that pretty skin marred by her ladyship’s lash.”  T
hat voice, she knew that voice; Lex?
She gazed up into the handsome face of the lead musician, and sure enough, it was her Lex, that blue-eyed, dark, sexy rock legend . . . only he was wearing a tunic and hose. His face was the same, but his clothing was like hers, ancient, like something out of Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. He wore a cap on his head with a feather in it, and a knee length green cape.

“How do you know my name, good sir?” She found herself replying. It was like being in a movie, being dropped in a movie and expected to know your lines perfectly.

“Oh, I inquired, to be sure, as soon as I caught sight of those lovely long auburn locks, I said to myself ‘Hmmm, perhaps this won’t be another boring
tour’, and I set out to find the answers to all my questions.” He walked her toward the exit as he spoke, w
ith one hand on her elbow. “For
sooth, my beauty, your mistress commands us bot
h, but let us meet again when we both are free, after midnight, in the second gallery.”

Behind them, the shrill voice of the ‘lady’ directing the musicians to begin their labors echoed in the large chamber. “You there, leave my idiot maid be and begin to earn your purse, G
aston.”

“Duty shrieks, and I, a lowly entertainer must oblige.” He murmured.
With that, he pressed her hand
and then raised it to his lips, planting a soft kiss across her knuckles.