Dorothy Must Die: The Other Side of the Rainbow Collection: No Place Like Oz, Dorothy Must Die, The Witch Must Burn, The Wizard Returns, The Wicked Will Rise (47 page)
Authors: Danielle Paige
“How . . . ,” I started to say, staring at Ozma, but then the Wizard sent another one of his bolts shooting for Glinda just as Ollie swooped down from out of the sky and scooped me into his arms, carrying me up and away. I looked over my shoulder and saw Maude, carrying Ozma, right behind us. On the ground, the Wizard was locked in battle with Glinda.
In the distance, the Emerald Palace was burning, alight with flames.
I wondered if Nox was still in there. I wondered where Mombi and Glamora were.
But what I really wanted to know as we soared into the clouds, the jeweled city burning below us and the Tin Woodman’s evil heart still pulsing in my hand, was where Dorothy was. I didn’t know what was going on or where I was going, but I knew one thing: this wasn’t over. Even if I had failed tonight, at least I was one step closer. No matter how long it took—no matter who I had to destroy first—Dorothy was going to die.
Writing this book, stepping onto the Yellow Brick Road, has been the most incredible of journeys, and one that I could not have walked alone.
Special thanks to my beautiful family. My mom and dad and sister, Andrea, who have taken every step down every road with me, no matter what the color, with unwavering love and support. And who have always dreamed bigger for me than I have for myself. I share this and everything that comes after with them. Mom, you showed me how to love, to read, to write, and to try.
Thanks to my brilliant editor Bennett Madison, without whom Dorothy would not have been possible. His encyclopedic knowledge of all things Oz and his belief in Dorothy and me made him more than an editor—he’s an invaluable creative resource and friend.
James Frey for his amazing support and faith in this book.
To my amazing team at Harper. I am so lucky to have Tara Weikum, Jocelyn Davies, and Chris Hernandez, whose enthusiasm for Dorothy and support for me has made this all a dream, and whose fabulous editorial instincts and insights helped shape Dorothy and bring Oz into focus.
Ray Shappell for the gorgeous cover.
Sandee Roston and the terrific publicity team at Harper. Thanks for educating me and for giving Dorothy such an extraordinary amount of love and attention.
To my friends—
Lauren Dell, my forever friend, for being there from the beginning and still being here now. Annie Kojima Rolland, for saying you should really write a book before anyone else did, and for giving me a second family to love. Paloma Ramirez, for really becoming my friend a million years after we were floormates at Columbia. Leslie Dye, for understanding. Leslie Rider, for listening and for worshipping at the same altar of perseverance and loyalty. Carin Greenberg, for showing me how it’s done and for fancy lunches and Great American ones. Jeanne Marie Hudson for advice and last minute photographers. And Bonnie Datt, for being on call, with empathy and humor, advice and heart . . . who knew that a Nanette Lepore dress could be the start of a beautiful and absolutely essential friendship.
To the rest of my girls’ night girls, Lexi, Lisa, Sarah, Kristin, and Megan. My friends from the soap world, especially Jill Lorie Hurst, who was my very first mentor and is still a constant friend and cheerleader in my life. Claire Labine, Jim Brown, Barbara Esensten, Paul Rauch, and Tina Sloan, who always inspires and advises and shines.
And to the readers, thank you, thank you, thank you for picking up this book. I hope it has what I love in a book—takes you to another place, makes you think, makes you feel, and gives you a touch of magic.
To Josh Willis, Don and Sandy Goodman, Sue and Harry Kojima, Chris Rolland, Kerstin Conrad, Nancy Williams Watt, Jim and David Sarnoff, Josh Sabarra, Paul Ruditis, and to the many friends and family members not included here, but are so loved and appreciated!
And special thanks to Judy Goldschmidt who has been the most generous of friends and has opened countless doors for me. I am forever grateful.
To L. Frank Baum, for creating Dorothy and Oz. I hope he wouldn’t mind too much that I borrowed her for a little while.
COVER ART AND DESIGN © 2014 BY RAY SHAPPELL
HAND LETTERING BY ERIN FITZSIMMONS
DOROTHY MUST DIE
Copyright © 2014 by Full Fathom Five, LLC
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this eBook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins eBooks.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014930869
ISBN 978-0-06-228067-1 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-234704-6 (int. ed.)
EPub Edition © MARCH 2014 ISBN: 9780062280695
Version 11252014
14 15 16 17 18 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
CONTENTS
The Emerald City was burning.
As I zoomed away from the smoking chaos and into the moonlit night, carried in the furry, twig-like arms of a monkey, the skyline crackled over my shoulder in a fury of glitter and flames. It looked like a little kid’s birthday party gone horribly wrong, the formerly majestic towers and skyscrapers collapsing in on themselves in confetti-bursts of jewel and glass. It could have been beautiful, except for the dense, black mushroom cloud of smoke that hovered ominously over the skyline.
I was a long-ass way from Kansas.
My feelings about that might surprise you. Unlike some people, I had never been particularly eager to go back there. When it comes to clichés, there’s one that I’m starting to believe might actually be worth repeating.
You can’t go home again.
Exhibit A: Dorothy. She tried to go home twice, and see how that turned out?
Exhibit B: the Wizard. He couldn’t even manage to make it home once. (Okay, maybe that had something to do with the fact that he was traveling in a janky old hot air balloon, but still.)
Then there’s me, Amy Gumm, trailer trash nobody from Flat Hill, Kansas. While I liked to think of myself as about as different as you could get from people like them, it was hard to ignore that we had certain things in common.
For one thing, we had all been carried here from the real world by some unknown force, and while I don’t think anyone had yet figured out what that force was, I had my own theories about why we were the ones who had been chosen.
It’s just a theory, remember. Nothing proven, or even close. But I sometimes wondered if the thing that linked me, Dorothy, and the Wizard was the fact that, back where we’d come from, none of us had ever fit in. Whether we knew it or not. Maybe all three of us had been born in a place we didn’t belong to, and had been waiting to be found by a home that we could really call our own.
Look, I can’t speak for anyone except myself. I don’t even know the first thing about the Wizard, and only a little more about Dorothy. So maybe I’m wrong. It’s just something I’ve thought about. But here’s the thing: once you’ve traveled to the dark side of the rainbow, you’ve reached the end of the line. If you can’t make Oz home, you’re pretty much out of luck.
As far as homes went, Oz wasn’t exactly the most hospitable, but at least I could call it mine. And now it was burning.
My rescuer was Ollie, the monkey I’d once saved from Dorothy’s clutches. Flying at our side, his sister Maude was carrying
my unlikely companion: Ozma, Oz’s mystery princess with mush for brains, whose many secrets were only now starting to become clear to me.
Even as we sped into the clouds, the ground blurring below us, I was puzzling out the details of how we were flying at all. You’ve heard of winged monkeys, right? Well, Maude and Ollie were not exactly those—or at least they weren’t supposed to be. Not anymore. Although they’d been born with wings, they had both had them removed.
Ollie had cut his own wings off, to free himself from Dorothy’s enslavement. As for Maude—I still shuddered when I thought about how she had lost hers. I hadn’t just seen it happen. I had been the one to do it, sawing them from her back myself using only a small dagger.
