Free Dreamers Often Lie by Jacqueline West Page B

like a clump of fog.
    Now focus. Focus. “What, jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence . . .”
    The stage lights shifted from gold to blue. Nikki and a freshman whose name I couldn’t remember skipped onstage and started their scene. The lines cycled through my brain, setting off little flares of recognition.
    I knew this scene. I knew this whole play. I’d beenstudying it for almost a year, ever since Mr. Hall announced that
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
would be the spring production. The script in my hand felt comfortable and superfluous, an extra blanket on an already-warm bed.
    You can do this.
    My cue. I strode out onto the stage, the fairy entourage behind me. My mind bolted to that last walk down the hospital hall, the singing fairies tagging after me. I jerked it back.
    Pierce waited at his mark. A beam of silver light made his profile glint like metal. He watched me step closer, wearing Oberon’s regal smirk. “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.”
    I inhaled. Air and words combusted inside me. I felt filled with light. “What, jealous Oberon?” My voice was stronger than it had been in weeks. Stronger than I actually was
.
“Fairies, skip hence. I have forsworn his bed and company.”
    Pierce grabbed my wrist. “Tarry, rash wanton. Am I not thy lord?”
    I whirled back to him. “Then I must be thy lady. But I know when thou hast stolen away from fairyland . . .” I blazed through the rest of that speech, a long, winding one about storms and seasons, the light inside of me big and bright enough to fill the room.
    It was so good to be here. It was so good to be someone new.
    “Do you amend it then; it lies in you.” Pierce cupped my cheek with his left hand.
    I met his eyes. He looked straight back into mine. This was as close as the fairy king would ever come to an apology.
    Pierce’s voice grew softer. “Why should Titania cross her Oberon?”
    For a second, I felt Titania’s hesitation. The easiness of giving in. Taking him as he was.
    I took a breath. But before I could get out the next line, in the distance, over Pierce’s shoulder, a dark figure stepped out of the wings.
    It glided into the pool of stage light.
    Dark tights. High forehead. Heavy-lidded blue eyes.
    Shakespeare sauntered closer to us, his hands clasped behind his back.
    Please, no. Not right now. Please please please.
    For a long, heavy beat, I couldn’t tell if time had stopped inside of me or outside of me. If I was really standing there, center stage, while Pierce touched my cheek and the entire cast and crew waited for my next line. If this was happening at all.
    Maybe I would blink, and Shakespeare would be gone. Maybe I was asleep. Maybe I was still lying in that stiff white hospital bed, or in that red-flecked hole in the snow.
    Shakespeare tilted his head. He looked at me with something that wasn’t quite amusement. “O,” he murmured, “what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!”
    I felt the fog envelop me. It seeped through my skin, snuffing out the light. The ache started to pound again.
    The silence around us was building. My cue. My line.
    “And I . . .” I whispered, “most deject and wretched, now see that noble and most sovereign reason, like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh . . .”
    Shakespeare’s lips moved with mine. “. . . Woe is me,” we breathed together. “To have seen what I have seen, see what I see.”
    I shut my eyes. “Wait.”
    Pierce’s hand drifted away from my face.
    “Wait.” I could feel the solid boards under my boots, hear the steady buzz of the lights above me. “That’s not Titania.”
    “No,” said Mr. Hall’s voice, from somewhere that seemed very far away. “It’s Ophelia.”
    I opened my eyes.
    The other actors had frozen in their places, staring at me.
    Mr. Hall stood at the lip of the stage. “Have you been studying
Hamlet,
Jaye?”
    “No.” I shook my head. “I . . . No.”
    Pierce had backed away. When I glanced at him, his eyes