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

started whispering my name, or some version of it. “Morganne, Morganne.”
    â€œHey, people,” I said with a wave. “ ’Sup?” This was like being on the red carpet at the Grammys. I’d never had such a vivid and detailed dream before. I hoped I’d remember it later when I woke up, which I was in no rush to do since I vaguely recalled leaving a bit of unpleasantness behind me. Something about Colin and Heidi and Lucia and a camera and a map—
    â€œHave you told her of our sufferings yet?” asked a thin, pale-haired woman. She was wincing as she spoke, her hand on her belly. “Does she know about the king? Can she lift the curses upon us?” The woman looked up at me. Her face seemed familiar—she looked a bit like Julie Andrews, in fact. “Will you help us, Morganne?”
    â€œPatience, Lachama,” said Fergus, kindly. “I’ve told her nothing yet. She is newly arrived from the land of her own kind. First we offer our hospitality. Afterward,” he said, glancing my way, “after she is fed and rested, then we may ask for her aid.”
    â€œMorganne, do you like wheat cakes?” said a young girl, tugging at the sleeves of the dress I was wearing. (All due props to the dream fashion designer for the dress, by the way. It was flowy and cream-colored and fit me perfectly.) “I made them myself and I want you to eat one because they are so good !”
    Fergus grinned and cuffed the girl on the head. “My sister, Erin, was a baby at the breast the last time you saw her, Morganne, and look what a mayfly she has become! Impossible to ignore.”
    The Billingsleys, I realized. The little girl looked like Sophie and the woman with the bellyache looked like her mother.
    â€œ You ignore me all the time, Fergus. But Morganne won’t,” Erin said, firmly taking my hand. “I will show you the finest hospitality in Dun Meara. Fergus, tend to your horse!”
    Fergus grinned at me and did as he was told, and little Miss Feisty dragged me off to find the snacks.
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i should have Woken up by now.
    That’s what I kept thinking, as Erin fed me wheat cakes and honey inside the primitive but comfortable house that she’d led me to. It’s a dream, I kept telling myself, but the food tasted so real, and my stomach was actually getting full. Most dreams—my dreams, anyway—tended to be vague and blurry around the edges, but this one had way too much information. It was jam-packed with details that didn’t seem lifted out of Lord of the Rings , so where the fek were they coming from?
    I could never make all this up, is what was starting to run through my mind. No way, not even in a dream, not even if I had Tammy’s imagination (which no one does; that kid is always droning on about her imaginary friends and the strange adventures they have, and if you get sick of listening she’ll just continue the conversation with her Beanie Babies).
    These thoughts started to make me anxious. To calm myself, I started imagining ways for the whole experience to peter out, like a toy that needed new batteries. Maybe I’d look behind a wall and find it was a painted flat, like the ones they used in the drama club shows at school. Maybe I’d snap out of it suddenly and find myself waking up by the side of an Irish country lane after an unplanned but pleasant afternoon nap, my bike parked nearby under the watchful eye of a decorative animatronic cow.
    In the meantime, though, I was there, tasting my food and feeling the warmth of a very real-looking fire, while Fergus explained about the suffering and curses the woman Lachama had been talking about.
    â€œWhile Cúchulainn has been off studying the arts of war, the Good People have been at their mischief,” he said. “They’ve pockmarked the land with their enchantments and taboos, inscribed on every pillar and stone, carved in the trees and written in