Read Online Why I Let My Hair Grow Out by Maryrose Wood - Free Book Online

Fergus in my life, and now it was the second time in a day I’d heard the name. This also struck me as strange.
    The man was wearing some seriously punked-out clothing—made all of leather but not the glossy black biker kind, more the I-skinned-it-myself natural look, with bits of fur still stuck to the edges. His face was in need of a shave and his hands were rough and dirty, but this was in no way dimming Fergus’s grubby warrior-dude sex appeal. This guy was a hottie, even if he did look like an exhibit from the Natural History Museum.
    â€œMorganne!” was the first thing he said to me. He knelt beside me and cradled my throbbing head in his hands. “Morganne! You’ve come back!”
    So he knew my name, sort of, and acted like we’d met before. There were a number of very strange events going on, no question, but at that particular moment, the thing that struck me as the strangest and most inexplicable of them all was—my hair.
    My long, thick, strawberry-blond hair. It was spread out on the ground around me like silky gold ribbons. I only realized it was attached to my head when Fergus sat me up and the hair came along for the ride.
    â€œFek me!” I yelled. “Look at my hair!” And then I shut up, because now I knew I must be dreaming.
    Fergus smiled, with dream dimples, no less. “Ah, Morganne. If I start looking at your hair now, where will it end? Soon I’ll be looking at your eyes, and then your lips, and then all the rest of you—”
    My Little Talking Pony stomped its feet with impatience. “We’ve no time for that now,” the horse said. “Let’s get her somewhere safe, and quickly.”
    â€œSamhain is right, as always.” Fergus looked into my eyes with a searching, serious expression. “Thank the goddess you’re back, Morganne. There’s much trouble brewing. We need you now, more than ever.”
    Then Fergus picked me up and placed me on the horse’s back like I was a toddler taking the five-dollar pony ride at Lucky Lou’s. (It costs eight if you want a Polaroid at the end. Major ripoff, that.)
    Some of the richer girls at school were way into the horse thing, but personally I found horses smelly, inscrutable and unnecessarily large. I was just about to ask Fergus how he expected me to stay on board when the beast started to move, but before I could freak out Fergus was sitting on the horse too, right behind me, and Samhain took off at a trot or a canter or one of those gears that a horse shifts into when it starts to run.
    There was no seat belt in this vehicle but Fergus’s strong legs were wrapped around mine, and I could lean back against his chest as we bounced up and down in rhythm with the hoofbeats. My fingers were clutching the horse’s wavy silver-gray mane, and my long, long hair was whipping all around me.
    I like this dream, I thought. I hope it lasts a little longer.
    Â 
“We’re taking you back to dun meara,” shouted Fergus, above all the noise and the wind. I didn’t know what or where Dun Meara was—and since I’d never been there before how could I go back?—but hey, dreams aren’t supposed to make sense. I was happy to play along, and what choice did I have, anyway?
    Dun Meara turned out to be a small village of thatched-roof houses inside a large circular fort, ringed by a wall of mounded earth. There were people everywhere, women and men and children too, and many of them gathered to see who it was who’d come galloping up to the gate in a cloud of dust.
    â€œAhh, it’s only Fergus!” I heard a child’s voice cry. “I was hoping it would be Cúchulainn!”
    Fergus slid off Samhain’s back and landed lightly on his feet. “Not Cúchulainn, child, not yet!” he said, as he lifted me to the ground. “But one who can help us in his absence.”
    â€œMorganne.” It was as if the whole crowed