The Ghost in Me

by Wenger, Shaunda Kennedy

  "That's right. It does. But can you feel it inside you, as well?"

  Brittley nods from her seat in the front row. "It kind of tickles. Right here." She points to the center of her chest.

  Diggs nods, pushes himself off the desk, and walks down the center aisle. "Scientists study the feeling of peace that this word, ohm, can bring." Pausing, he looks to opposite sides of the room. "Do some of you feel more calm as you say it?

  "Well, keep saying it, please."

  "Ohhhmmmmm."

  A curt laugh erupts from my throat. "Sounds more like the tune the poor cow died of!"

  Cass titters from her desk.

  I slap my hand over my mouth. Quiet!

  Diggs shoots me a glance, before returning to the front of the room. "This word, Ohm, may be the oldest word in the human language. But more than that, as drama students, it's imperative that you learn how to harness the inner feeling of peace it conveys.

  "Because harnessing that peace, learning to clear your head of what makes you you, will help you tap into your character. It will help you learn what makes that character real. And, if you use it before your performances, it can help quiet the unavoidable, last-minute jitters." He circles his hands up. "Say it with me! Ohhhmmmmm."

  "Ohhhmmmmm!"

  "I'd like you to add this to your mental tool box. File it with your Veee's, your Vaah's, and your Voh's."

  Wren clears my throat. "And those be the ones that the giant died of! When he fell off the stalk after wee little Jack."

  Cass gives me weird look. "That's fee, fi, fo, fum. Not veee, vaah, voh."

  Duey laughs. "Vee-vah the cow!"

  It takes barely a second for Cam to translate Duey's attempt at Latin. "Long live the cow?"

  "Yeah, viva the cow," Duey replies. He laughs, leans forward to look across the aisle at Wren (a.k.a., me). "Nice."

  Wren shoots him a flirty wink.

  Thankfully, we have a ringleader. Diggs gives a piercing whistle to quiet all the fees and fahs and vahs and voohs "I think this calls for a homework assignment!"

  The entire class groans. Everyone that is, but Wren. She sits me up with an eager jolt.

  "Yes, a homework assignment," he repeats. "On words that bring inner peace. Words that are known as mantras. One page, typed, double-spaced. Due next Tuesday. That should give you more than enough time to do it over the weekend.

  "And!" Mr. Diggs adds over the grumbles that follow. "To give you a hint on where to start, you may want to look into methods of meditation." He grins at the unrest rising around him. "Now, take out your scripts."

  Cass leans toward me, as she digs into her backpack. "Would you like me to kill you now, or later?"

  "Hate to tell you," I mutter, pushing Wren out. "I'm already half-way there."

  Chapter 24

  "Hold still." Mom tugs me back on the stool, where we can both watch the fitting in the bathroom mirror. "Let me pin this horn in place."

  "I thought female goats didn't have horns." I reach back to scratch an itch between my shoulder blades, but I can't press through the fur of the costume.

  "They do. I checked." She pauses to scratch my back. "Mountain goats have curved horns, both the males and females."

  "Do they have to be so big?" I swat the yellow horn curling on the side of my head. It barely moves, given that it's as thick as my fist.

  Mom presses her lips around a pin, eyes me in the mirror, then takes the pin from her mouth. "The horns are fine. If you ask me, this mask is better than what was shipped by that company. I can always go back to that one, if you want."

  I swivel my head, not agreeing either way.

  Mom stands back to read my expression; then lets out a defeated sigh, when she can't. "Since you've been cursed close to one hundred years, Myri, I'd think you'd have to look it, just a little."

  I'd rather not have to be in the play and look like anything at all. But she and I have had that conversation, and we both know there's no getting out of it. And even though I'm no longer tied to the play in a physical sense (thanks to Wren), emotionally, when I stop and think about it, I still get completely messed up.

  Frustrated by my silence, Mom comes round to face me. "Look, Myri, I've got two weeks to work with here, and twenty other costumes that need to be touched up and finished--for kids I don't live with, so I'd appreciate it, if you'd cut me a little slack. I'm doing what I can to help make this play good. Maybe you need to do the same. Don't you have lines to practice?"

  I pull the mask off my head, let it drop to the counter. "Yep, and for your information, I've been more than taking care of it."

  • • •

  When I push open the door to Gram's bedroom, I expect to find her reading a book on her bed--something she usually does before her afternoon nap. Instead, I find the room darkened, the shades drawn, and all the furniture--the bed, the coffee table, the odds and ends--pushed back against the walls to make space for a central card table draped with a satin red cloth.

  Gram and Mrs. Gertestky are sitting at it, facing each other, their palms pressed flat on the table between them. It's hard to tell if the ghost, who is sitting in his chair, even notices the three white tea candles burning in front of him.

  Seeing me hesitate, Gram beckons me in. I gather a quick glance of my surroundings, before closing the door. As far as I can tell, the only light in the room is coming from those tiny candles.

  My eyes squint, before adjusting to the darkness. "What's going on?"

  "A seance. We're trying to reach him," Mrs. Gertestky says, giving the ghost a nod.

  "With a cup of tea?" My eyes settle on the three white cups near the candles.

  Gram half-laughs, pulls me into her with a hug. "No, no. We're using the cups to read his fortune--his future--or, at least, what his future was supposed to be. You see, he keeps checking his pocket-watch, so he must have been wanting to go somewhere or meet someone before he died."

  "But wasn't his future cut short? That meeting, or whatever it was, was missed?"

  "Yes, but he certainly still believes he has one," Gram says. "And that may be enough to influence the cups."

  Mrs. Gertestky pats the table, locks eyes with Gram. "But if he never responds to anything other than that watch, he may be forever stuck."

  I distract my mind from that possibility by leaning forward to peer into the cups, expecting to see brown liquid, or the flecks of black tea leaves ringing the bottom, but they're empty.

  "Here," Mrs. Gertestky says, jingling an armful of bracelets. She taps the table with a curled finger. "Take a seat next to your grandmother. I'll show you."

  She touches her turban, taps the table again, insisting I sit.

  I know I'm not getting out of the room until I do, so I get the vanity stool from Gram's dresser. Gram brushes her shoulders with mine, as I sit. My stomach tumbles into a fit of fluttering. I've never seen a fortune told. I didn't know Mrs. Gertestky did this.

  She circles her hands above the center of the table, and as if casting a spell, mutters some strange words. After a moment, she carefully inverts each cup over each candle. The room grows dim, as their light is covered and extinguished. A candle I hadn't noticed burning on the bookshelf behind us intensifies the shadows on the walls, shielding Mrs. Gertestky's face in darkness.

  Her words are brisk. "Each cup before you now holds heat and fire--elements of human desire." She looks across the table at me, her green-gray eyes in shadow. "Myri, I ask you... concentrate on who you are. Where you want to be... ten days, five months, six years from now--"

  "Wait, you're reading my fortune? I thought this was for Old Top Hat." I tip my head at the transparent dude sitting next to me.

  "No. To show you, I'll do yours. His can come later. Now, think about you. Myri Anna Monaco. That is all we will focus on. Time does not matter. Space does not matter. Let the cups fill with a message for you. To do so, ask the candles laying underneath the cups a question. The one you choose will hold your answer."

 
; I let out a quick huff, reach across the table.

  Mrs. Gertestky shoots her arm out, stops my hand as it hovers over the cup that is closest to me. "Choose wisely, Myri. Choose with intent. Even fate can read apathy. If you do this, and you don't care?" She tsks. "It can affect your future in a bad way."

  I meet her eyes. "We're talking about a tea cup."

  "No, a gateway. A glimpse at the future. The tea cup may be a vessel, but make no mistake, it can hold all that's important to you."

  I shoot a look at Gram, thinking, yeah, right. This is the cup I drank hot chocolate from this morning. But I withdraw my hand and close my eyes, anyway.

  I do need something good to happen. I really do.

  When I take in a shaky breath, my head swims.

  According to Mrs. Gertestky, if I'm going to get something good, then I need to give this whole question-and-answer-thing about my future my best effort.

  Tipping my head to one side, I ask the candle a question and focus on what I want.

  Nothing out of the ordinary happens. The candle behind us doesn't flicker. The table doesn't shake. A crow doesn't rap at the window.

  I reach for the nearest cup again, set my hand on it, when suddenly, a thought hits me. Is this really the cup I want? If one of these cups does hold answers about my future, don't I want to know what they are?

  Letting go of the first cup I chose, I quickly upright the other I'm drawn to. The one in the middle.

  A strong scent of sandalwood and musk seeps through the air from the extinguished candle that was sitting underneath. Dipping into the up-righted cup with her fingertips, Mrs. Gertestky pulls her arm up in a long, graceful arch. Smoke follows her fingers, swirling like a delicate white ribbon, before setting on a path toward the ceiling.

  With a circle of her hand, Mrs. Gertestky disentangles herself from the smoke's journey and sits back in her chair.

  The trail of smoke curls and unfurls in small, gentle waves. Some ribbons, thinning into thread-like strands, hover close to the table and fold back into the cup. For a moment, I'm almost disappointed that the connection between the smoke in the cup and the smoke dancing a ballet at the ceiling will be severed.

  Yet, swirls of smoke re-emerge, fanning their way around the cup's rim, as if pulled by an invisible force, before spilling onto the table.

  Mrs. Gertestky's gaze moves toward the cup I had originally meant to tip. The cup on the left. The inverted rim is propped at an angle on the edge of the candle sitting underneath. In my haste, I'd not reset it to lie flat, and now a thin stream of smoke is escaping--curling out in a slithering mass toward the cup I chose.

  Mrs. Gertestky's eyes widen, then narrow, as the two bodies of smoke merge, then fan out, before slowly fading away. Concern fills her face. "It's a warning," she says.

  Gram takes in a worried breath. "What does that mean?"

  Mrs. Gertestky's eyes cloud, as she raises them to meet mine. "It means, stay straight on the paths you follow, Myri. Don't be pulled from your future by another." Her brow furrows at the base of her turban. "The cups are telling you, stay straight on the paths you follow."

  Chapter 25

  For the rest of the weekend, my paths brought me through a list of chores that I had to finish on Saturday and my lovely drama assignment, which took up most of Sunday. (I'm not the world's fastest typist.)

  Plus, it was hard to come up with a whole page of things to say about Hamsa (a meditation word that means, Who am I?) and Soham (another meditation word that means, I am that), until I pretended I was Diggs.

  Sick and wrong, I know. But it worked.

  Pretending to be Diggs was the only way I could fill my paper with long, flowing, smart-sounding sentences. I couldn't believe how easy it was to write the assignment, once I got into the groove. It was so easy, in fact, that I think pretending to be other people is a good thing. There's so much that can done!

  Which is why I was almost giddy to be back in school this morning. Or, not back in school--at least when it comes to drama club. Wren's been doing a great job pretending to be me. So good, that most of the time it feels like I'm not there.

  English class is another story, however. And my stomach has been letting me and everyone else know that I'd appreciate being let out early for lunch.

  Roz may be partly to blame. She's taking a quiz in Teen Life, trying to discover which cookie her personality resembles most. Based on where her finger is pointed on the page, it looks like she's heading in the direction of either a gingersnap or a cocoa crinkle. Which, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with what Miss Augustus is talking about.

  "In the art of persuasion," she's saying, "you need to be convincing, whether you believe in what you're saying or not. It's critical, really. You'll need to keep that in mind when you work on your next set of essays. In them, you'll demonstrate your understanding of persuasion."

  Samantha Wheeler raises her hand, grinning. "Persuasion is like lying then? We have permission to lie in our essays? I'm not sure if my parents will like that."

  Miss Augustus starts to reply, then lets her arms dangle by her side. This is her first job out of college, and we tend to frustrate her with these types of questions. Some kids even make a sport of it--seeing how many times they can get her to let out a deep breath, rub her forehead in frustration, cry--she's cried twice.

  But today, Miss Augustus is saved by the bell, and so are we, since she doesn't have time to finish going over the assignment.

  Roz grins up at me, as I sit on the corner of her desk. "Ready?"

  "I'm a gingersnap," she says. "And you're a sugar cookie. I did your quiz for you."

  "That seems to be the new trend."

  Roz steps with me into the hall. "So... I've been meaning to ask... how's drama?"

  I shrug. "It's going all right."

  "And Wren? She's okay with everything?"

  "Yep. We're getting along."

  "How about Duey?"

  "What is this? Twenty questions?"

  "Ye-ahh. Has he talked about me lately?"

  Crap. If I were to be honest, I'd have to say, no.

  "Well, I know he's not interested in Brittley, like you thought he would be." I figure that's one thing she'll be happy to hear. "Even though they're in the play together, it's not happening."

  "It's not?" Roz pauses mid-step, as her look of confusion spills into delight at the possibilities she thinks are opening before her. "Really? Are you sure?"

  I suck in my lips until they smack apart. "Yep. That's what it looks like, but it's hard to tell. All we've been doing in class and at rehearsals is read the play aloud, over and over, so that in the event of a disaster--like, someone forgetting their lines, or throwing up, or getting abducted by aliens--the show can go on, because someone will be able to step in. We're all understudies for everyone else."

  "Oh."

  "So, I haven't really talked to him... or seen him all that much."

  "You're in a play with him," she says, her voice going flat.

  "Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean we talk about his life."

  She doesn't say anything, and that's okay. Everything I've said is true. I mean, he definitely doesn't seem to be going out with Brittley, anymore--she must have reeled in that newsflash before it got around. Typically, stuff like that--who's going with whom, and who's dumping whom--spreads like wildfire before it even happens.

  And Duey only hinted at the fact he would be okay with going out with me. Nothing more was said on that issue to clarify whether he thinks he's my boyfriend. And even though he does seem to hanging closer to me--talking to me after class and rehearsal--technically, when it comes to time spent in drama, he's not himself. He's Prince Bastian. And I'm really not myself. I'm Wren, who's playing me, who's playing Nelle. Which is tricky, now that I think of it.

  Duey did say, "See you at rehearsal," to me this morning, after sliding a Twix bar in my pocket. But that's a given (the what-he-said-part, not the Twix part). It's something he'd say to a
nyone in the play. But it would have been better if he'd said, "Say hi to Roz for me," or, "Tell Roz to come by rehearsal."

  ...I'm working on that. And if that means I have to keep playing up to the 'that'd-be-more-than-okay' hypothetical-girlfriend-idea, so that Brittley can't be his real-girlfriend, then so be it. It's all being done so that good things can happen between Roz and Duey.

  Eventually.

  The sooner the better, actually.

  Because now that Roz is asking about him again, this whole deal is starting to make me nervous.

  So nervous in fact, that for the first part of rehearsal tonight, I'm going to be me. That way, I can talk all about Roz to Duey. Remind him of all the good qualities he couldn't resist in the past. Then I can have better answers for Roz's questions. Answers she wants to hear.

  "Well, tell him I said, 'hi,'" she says, backing down the hall toward her Spanish class.

  "I will."

  Now I just have to get him to do the same.

  Chapter 26

  "We have a problem." I push the script across the kitchen table toward Wren.

  She drops her hands from an energy ball, floats higher in her chair to look.

  "What'll be eating y' now?"

  "The kiss. At the end. It can't be done."

  Her head pulls back. "Sure it can. It's how he breaks me spell."

  "Well, yes. But that's not what I mean. You can't kiss him. It has to be me. It didn't occur to me until today."

  Wren's mouth drops. "But that's the best part! I don't want to be stepping out for that."

  "I don't want you to step out for it, either, but you have to. It's too close of a touch. If you kiss, he might see you."

  "He won't see me. How can he see me when it's yer bod that I'm setting in?"

  "He might see double. And that would be weird. He could totally freak. Which wouldn't be good for me, or you, or the play. And if it happened in rehearsal, we wouldn't be able to do what we do anymore. You won't be able to do what you do anymore. And Duey might get all revved up about ghosts in the theater again."