Free The Ghost in Me by Shaunda Kennedy Wenger

"The run-down bakery. Where Prince Bastian meets Nelle, who's been living alone as a cursed, hunch-backed, half-human goat.... Oh, my." She looks out at Diggs. "Should I be hunching me-self over for this? Like an ill-begotten goat?"
    He laughs, I presume, at the way I sound. She hasn't bothered to soften the Irish accent. "Uh, no. Reading it will be fine."
    She looks at Duey, or rather, we look at Duey, who smiles and takes a half-step forward.
    "Is no one here?" He pauses, and then turns away, as if he doesn't see me.
    "No. No, there be no one," Wren replies, making my voice raspy, while throwing it off to the side, as if she were hiding behind a barrel, like the script says.
    "Surely, you're mistaken," Duey replies.
    "No. But I dare say it's been a hundred moons since anyone has crossed my threshold. What is it y' could possibly seek in a place as low and empty as this?"
    "The one attached to that sweet voice."
    Wren huffs like the script says. "Sire, either yer brain has grown daft, or else cast under the spell of a bad fairy, if y' thinks me craggy voice, weighted with the age of a hundred years, sounds sweet to human ears. T'would be better if y' left, and never returned."
    Duey shakes his head. "I have no way, nor desire, to leave this place. The skies have grown dark. The air, heavy with foreboding. Please, my maiden, believe me when I say I can hear the kindness in your voice. Take mercy and offer me some bread, if not some company. For it has been many a day I've been lost in the forest. My stomach has grown weak with hunger. My heart, weary with loneliness."
    Tucking the script under my arm, Wren begins moving my hands in front of me, as if hastily stacking a tray with food. A few moments later she shoves the imaginary tray forward, then opens the script again. "`Tis only hard bread I can offer today." She pushes forward an imaginary pitcher. "And water. But yer belly won't be thanking me for it. Despite me efforts to knead the yeast through, me loafs refuse to rise. Forgive me, but `tis the best I can do."
    Duey pretends to take a bite. A tough bite, but one that shows growing pleasure at the taste. When it comes to acting, he's actually pretty good.
    "Who makes such fine food? The taste belies its sight. It would be lovely with a spot of tea. Show yourself. Come sit with me a while. We'll heat a kettle by the fire."
    "Y' don't know what y' ask. Please, eat and be on yer way!" Wren tips my head, as if spying on Prince Bastian from behind an imaginary curtain. "There be evil lurking in these woods!"
    Finally, with a spin, a bow, and a flirty wave, Wren gives us quick leave of the stage.
    • • •
    "That was great!" Roz says.
    Only Roz would have the courage to sneak back-stage, when she's not even supposed to be here.
    Wren lets out a long-winded breath from my mouth. "Well, I'd trade all the gold of Ireland to know what Duey'll be thinking."
    We turn to see him give a thumbs-up, as he makes his way off the other side of the stage. Even though I'm not completely connected to my body, I feel the full force of my stomach going queasy.
    "Okay, that's it. Time for you to leave." I stretch my arms up to shake Wren free, squeeze my eyes shut.
    With a slight fluttering from my belly--as if we're being pulled apart like string cheese--Wren appears before me, looking like the ghost she's always been.
    "Feel better?" Roz asks, draping her arm across my shoulders.
    "Like I've been bathed in the breath of life," Wren says.
    I brush at my arms, making sure all of me is still here, give Wren a hard squint. "She was asking me, Genius. And we're never doing that again."

 
    Chapter 19
     
    I'm hanging my jacket in my locker--and still humming, of all things (something I've done since last Friday)--when Roz and Elise come running down the hall. Elise reaches me first. "I can't believe it, Myr! You did it!"
    "Did what?"
    Roz slides behind and gives me a push. "Come on! You'll see!"
    They pull me with them, not caring how many