The Ghost Singer

The Ninth.
This was the ninth boy Catherine Pierce had brought me to ghost sing for.
The new kid, Dylan, sauntered around the recording studio with a sneer.
You signed a ten-year contract with her, and she's never released a single song of your own? he mused. We just met today, and she's already asking if I want to be a superstar.
He paused, a smirk playing on his lips. "I was wondering how I was supposed to sing when I'm completely tone-deaf. Turns out, she has a 'shadow' like you."
He wasn't wrong.
Catherine Pierce was one of the country's most renowned music producers. There was no one she couldn't make famous, only those she didn't deem worthy. Before Dylan, eight other boys had been handpicked by Catherine, given songs, launched into stardom, and became overnight sensations.
All of them, of course, owed their success to me. Their shadow.
I used to fight her, screaming until my throat was raw. "You only love this voice, don't you? What if I destroyed it? Would you care then?"
Her response was always a dismissive caress, a soft murmur. "Don't be dramatic, Julian. You are my most perfect creation. Of course I love you."
That, and a bank card with an ever-increasing credit limit.
So this time, I said nothing. I just silently went through the sound check, the calibrations, the recording, pretending Dylan's taunts didn't even register.
My silence pleased Catherine. She reached out and patted my cheek affectionately.
What she seemed to have forgotten was that our ten-year contract was set to expire in ten days.
1
"Stop, stop, stop!" Dylan strode over to the control console, wrapping an arm around Catherine's waist.
"Cat, I don't like this song. It's too sappy. Can we get something with a different vibe?"
Catherine, seated at the mixing board, didn't even look annoyed. "What kind of vibe are you looking for?"
"Something explosive! A real banger!" Dylan declared.
I lowered my head, adjusting the microphone.
Last year, I'd tried adding an improvised riff to a song's chorus.
Her face had instantly turned to ice. "Julian, remember your place. Stick to the sheet music. Don't get creative."
But now, she just ruffled Dylan's hair. "Alright. If you want to change it, we'll change it. My Dylan deserves something special."
I put my headphones back on.
During a break, Dylan spotted a wooden guitar propped against the wall.
"Whoa, this thing is beautiful!" he exclaimed, grabbing it.
My stomach clenched.
That was Catherine's prized possession, a custom-made Italian acoustic. Three years ago, I'd accidentally bumped it while cleaning, and she'd flown into a rage. "Don't touch it! That guitar is worth more than you'll ever be."
Dylan strummed the strings haphazardly, producing a series of jarring, ugly sounds.
Catherine walked over, wrapping her arms around him from behind. "You like it?"
"It's gorgeous! Just a little heavy." He shoved the guitar into her arms. "It's digging into my hand."
She took it, setting it aside carelessly as she massaged his fingers. "I'll find you a lighter one next time."
I watched them, a knot of wet cotton forming in my stomach, a dull, persistent ache.
The studio's air conditioner hummed. I was in a short-sleeved shirt, but goosebumps prickled my arms.
"It's boiling in here, Cat. Can you turn the AC down?" Dylan whined, fanning himself with his collar.
Catherine immediately set the thermostat to 65 degrees.
A blast of cold air hit the back of my neck.
"Thirsty?" she asked Dylan, her voice low. "What do you want to drink? I'll go get it."
"Iced Americano!" he grinned. "And some of those fried street food skewers!"
She grabbed her car keys and left without a second thought.
I watched her go. In ten years, through countless sessions where I'd sung until my throat was raw, she had never once asked if I was thirsty.
Catherine returned quickly, carrying coffee and a bag of takeout.
"Dylan, take a break. Get something to eat." She stuck a straw in the coffee and held it to his lips.
Dylan sipped his drink and then pointed at me. "Hey, you. Shadow. Do that last part again. It didn't feel right."
I took a deep breath and walked back into the recording booth.
We kept changing the style, and by ten o'clock that night, the track still wasn't right.
Outside, a storm had broken, rain lashing against the windows.
As I was packing up, Catherine suddenly spoke. "Julian, I'll give you a ride."
I froze, looking up at her.
In ten years, this was the first time she had ever offered to take me home.
The dead embers of hope inside me flickered, a tiny wisp of smoke rising against all odds.
2
"We can't have you catching a cold," she added. "It would affect your performance for tomorrow's session."
And just like that, the rain extinguished the smoke.
I understood. She wasn't worried about me. She was worried a cold would delay Dylan's debut album.
The heat in the car was blasting.
"Aside from the fact he can't sing, Dylan has the perfect look, the perfect charisma," she said, as if to herself. "His debut has to be flawless."
I stared out the window at the rain streaming down the glass and said nothing.
She pulled up to the entrance of my rundown apartment complex but didn't drive in.
"You can walk from here, right?" Catherine looked straight ahead. "It's just a few steps. Dylan's exhausted. I'm taking him back to my place to rest."
In the rearview mirror, I saw Dylan asleep in the back, covered with her jacket.
It hit me like a punch to the gut.
She was taking him back to her family home? The ancestral estate she'd once told me no outsider would ever set foot in.
I didn't say a word. I just opened the door and stepped out. Rain immediately soaked my shoulder.
The car's taillights vanished into the downpour. I stood there, drenched, watching the spot where they had disappeared.
She really was different with him.
My phone vibrated in my soaked pocket.
"Chloe," I croaked, my voice hoarse. "I want to come home."
My sister's voice on the other end was a burst of surprised joy. "Julian? Really? You finally I'm coming to get you right now!"
"Wait ten more days," I said softly, wiping the rain from my face. "Just ten more."
The long hours in the freezing studio finally did me in. I swallowed a few pills and collapsed into bed.
My mind drifted back eight years.
"Why can't it be me?" I'd cried, clutching at her sleeve. "I can be the one on stage! I can learn to dance, I can learn anything."
"Can't you not find someone else? Can't it just be me?"
She pulled her arm away, looking me up and down. "You're too fat. You're not photogenic."
At the time, I was six feet tall and weighed 145 pounds.
I didn't eat for three days after that.
On the fourth day, I blacked out during a recording session. When I woke up, I was in her family home. The one and only time I ever set foot in that place.
She'd gently fed me porridge. "Stop torturing yourself. I'll make many people famous, and I'll have many lovers. But you will always be my best partner. And in the end, you'll be the only one who matters."
My phone vibrating pulled me back to the present.
A text from Catherine: Be there at nine a.m. sharp tomorrow.
The next morning, Dylan was already in the studio when I arrived, eating pork buns.
"You can't eat in here."
It was one of Catherine's strictest rules. Her love for music was so obsessive she considered food a contaminant.
I'd once brought a sandwich in, and she'd smashed a glass on the floor. "If you ever do that again, I will throw you and your sandwich out on the street!"
Dylan rolled his eyes. "Who asked you?"
The door opened, and Catherine walked in with a paper bag.
"Cat!" Dylan immediately ran to her. "He yelled at me!"
I braced for her explosion.
Instead, she just placed the bag on the console. "I brought you some pan-fried dumplings. Eat them while they're hot."
I stood there, stunned.
"No way," Dylan pouted. "They'll make me fat."
"A little pudge is good," she said, pinching his cheek, her voice dripping with affection. "I like you with a little meat on your bones."
My stomach churned.
I remembered her words: "You're too fat. You're not photogenic."
Dylan was easily fifteen pounds heavier than I was.
"Let's get to work," Catherine said, clapping her hands.
When we got to the chorus, Dylan suddenly stopped us. "Can we add a harmony here?"
"If you want to, sure."
"I want you to sing it!" he whined, shaking her arm. "Just a small part."
Catherine was fiercely private. To avoid the media's constant scrutiny of her personal life, she rarely made public appearances or spoke on the record.
Last year, I had acute appendicitis and needed emergency surgery. The hospital required a family member's consent. The nurse called her. On the phone, she refused to say a single word.
My sister had to fly back from out of town to sign the papers. The doctor said another half hour and I would have been dead.
But now, she actually nodded. "Okay. I'll sing with you."
I stared down at the lyric sheet, my fingers crushing the paper into deep wrinkles. I never thought this would be how I'd get my first duet with Catherine.
We finally finished at three in the afternoon.
"The results are fantastic," Catherine said, saving the project file. "Dylan, your on-camera presence is amazing. You're going to be a huge star."
Dylan shot me a triumphant look. "I think so too. It's like I'm really the one singing!"
I quietly packed my things and left.
My job was just to be the voice. Catherine would handle the rest.
I got home, and the rain started again.
Sometime after midnight, lost in a feverish sleep, my phone exploded with a call.
It was Catherine's assistant. "Mr. Vance, get to the studio! Now! Ms. Pierce is furious. You'd better be here in ten minutes!"
3
When I burst into the studio, Catherine was standing at the console, her back to me.
Dylan was sitting in a swivel chair, his eyes red and puffy.
"You finally show up," Dylan leaped to his feet. "Did you do this?"
I was still catching my breath. "Do what?"
"Someone leaked that my new song is plagiarized!" He slammed a tablet down in front of me. "Did you leak this demo?"
On the screen was the interface of an old, obscure music website. It was playing a song I wrote in high school, "Whispering Wind." The upload date was a week ago.
A few of the lyrics were identical to Dylan's new songthe very same lines I had suggested we change.
Catherine turned around, her face a thundercloud. "Explain."
"That's a song I wrote in high school," I stammered, my voice trembling. "I've never published it. I've never even heard of this website!"
"Stop playing innocent!" Dylan shrieked. "You're just jealous! You're trying to sabotage me! Who else could have posted your song?"
Catherine's eyes bored into me. "So this was your plan all along? This is how you get your revenge?"
I was speechless. "What?"
"First, you pretend to casually suggest some lyric changes. Then, right after Dylan's song is released, you hire online trolls to expose it as plagiarism," she sneered. "So calculating."
"You don't just want to ruin Dylan. You want to ruin me."
It felt like a physical blow to my heart.
"No, that's not it, that song was"
"Was what? What lie are you going to spin now?"
It was a song I wrote for you. The words died on my lips. It was the secret I'd kept hidden for years, the confession of a teenage boy who fell in love with you at the school talent show when you played the piano on stage. You were like a beacon of light.
I became obsessed. I listened outside the practice rooms every day after school. I downloaded videos of all your performances. I even retook my senior year of high school just to get into the same university as you. After graduation, I worked relentlessly on my singing because you once said you liked guys who could sing. All just to get a little closer to you.
But what was the point of saying any of that now?
She wouldn't care.
Catherine picked up her phone. "PR team. Release a statement."
"Say that Julian Vance plagiarized Dylan's unreleased work and maliciously uploaded it to the internet."
I was horrified. "How can you twist the truth like that?"
"You're not a public figure," she said nonchalantly, twisting a strand of her hair. "No one will remember you. Dylan is different. He's going to be a superstar."
The assistant hesitated. "Ms. Pierce, about Mr. Vance"
"I'm not interested in anything about him," Catherine waved her hand dismissively. "Just do as I say."
"This is what he gets for being so clever."
Dylan smiled in triumph.
Two hours later, thanks to a coordinated online smear campaign, my photos and personal information were everywhere.
Calls started coming in from unknown numbers.
DIE, YOU PLAGIARIZING SCUM!
HOW DARE YOU MESS WITH DYLAN!
DOX HIM! LET'S RUIN HIS LIFE!
I curled up on the sofa, watching the venomous comments flood my screen.
My phone lit up with a text from Catherine.
Stay in line. Don't cause any more trouble.
Or I can't guarantee what will happen next.
The next day was Dylan's new song release event.
My voice was so raw that I couldn't perform the live "ghost vocal," so Catherine had to change it to an autograph session at the last minute, cutting the performance segment.
I was in the middle of lunch when my apartment door was violently kicked open.
It was two of Catherine's assistants.
One of them grabbed my arm. "You're coming with us to the studio."
I was still running a fever, weak and dizzy, as they half-dragged, half-carried me out the door.
A terrible feeling began to creep over me.
4
The recording studio was as cold as a meat locker; the AC was on full blast.
An assistant made a video call. Catherine's tired, furious face appeared on the screen.
She was in a hospital room.
Dylan was lying in the bed behind her, asleep.
"Julian, you are truly ruthless," Catherine's voice was arctic.
"I don't understand."
"You don't understand?" She laughed, a sound devoid of humor. "At Dylan's signing today, someone pretending to be a fan handed him a bottle of water. He took one sip and completely lost his voice. He's here now getting emergency treatment!"
I was stunned. "What does that have to do with me? I've been home sleeping all day!"
"Nothing to do with you?!"
"Security caught the 'fan' immediately. He said you put him up to it. Said he was 'protecting your original work'!"
Catherine's glare was like a knife. "Besides you, who else would have a reason to go after Dylan?"
Just then, Dylan stirred.
Catherine picked up a glass of water. "Shhh, it's okay. Drink a little. Then go back to sleep." She gently wet his lips with a cotton swab.
After Dylan was settled, she turned back to the screen, her expression instantly freezing over.
"Since you enjoy playing these little games, let's see how you like a taste of your own medicine."
At her command, an assistant produced a small, clear vial filled with a colorless liquid.
"What is that?"
"Something to shut you up."
Catherine's voice came through the speaker. "You think you're untouchable because of that voice, don't you? You think I can't live without you? Well, let's just see what tricks you can pull when it's gone."
My legs gave out, and I collapsed. "Catherine! It's all I have left"
She scoffed. "And that's precisely why I have to take it away."
"I'll disappear forever! I'll leave the city! I'll never show my face to you again, just please, don't do this to my voice!"
"Do it."
The two assistants pinned me down, one on each side. They pried my jaw open and poured the liquid down my throat.
It burned like acid. I thrashed wildly, the potion mixing with my tears, splashing all over me.
"Lock him in," Catherine said, before ending the call with a look of disgust.
The studio door slammed shut and was locked from the outside.
I scrambled to the door, pounding on it, but all I could manage were hoarse, rasping gasps.
I couldn't even scream for help.
On the morning of the third day, Catherine was in the hospital, peeling an apple for Dylan.
Her assistant burst into the room, panicked. "Ms. Pierce! He's gone!"
"Who's gone?" she asked, not looking up from the apple.
"Julian! He's not in the studio! All we found was this!" The assistant handed her a sheet of paper and the empty vial.
It was our ten-year contract. The expiration date was yesterday.

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