Authors: Danielle Paige
And the old farmhouse was still standing there, invincible and mostly undisturbed, with my poor aunt’s feet still sticking out from underneath it. I looked away. I couldn’t bear the sight of it.
Then my eyes caught sight of
her
.
Ozma was lying on the ground, her crown knocked from her head and her scepter ten feet away. Her dress was streaked with blood and dirt and her face was bruised and swollen. But she was breathing.
She sat up and looked around. I took a step forward, ready to keep fighting. Ready to do whatever it took. Then I saw that she was smiling. It wasn’t a normal smile either. It was dazed and vacant and her eyes were empty, like old, tarnished marbles. She looked at me and cocked her head.
“Who are
you
?” she asked stupidly.
I lowered my arms. “Ozma?”
She giggled an idiotic giggle.
I pointed at her and tried to call up more magic. Just a little bit more, enough to snuff her out once and for all. But all that shot forth from my fingers were a few useless red sparks from my fingertips that faded away as quickly as they had come. I had used it all up, for now, I figured. It would take some time to recharge.
Ozma didn’t seem to understand that I wasn’t exactly her friend. She clapped her hands. “Oh that’s
lovely
!” she cried. “Do it again.”
Before I could try anything, a high-pitched yipping noise filled my ears.
“Toto?” I spun around.
In all the commotion, I had forgotten about my dog, and when I searched for him, I saw Glinda standing there, right next to the farmhouse.
Her pink dress looked like it was made from the sunset itself; her eyes were kind and gentle. She bent down to pet my Toto, who was bouncing up and down happily at her feet, and when she stood up, she caught sight of me and beamed, picking up the skirt of her dress and racing forward through the grass to greet me.
“Dorothy!” she called, her voice strong and sweet and joyful. “My beautiful, powerful,
angry
Dorothy. I knew I could count on you, and I was right. Just look how right I was!”
She gestured toward Ozma, who had her arms outstretched and was whirling around, making herself dizzy as she laughed and tripped over herself, oblivious to everything that was going on.
“What did I
do
to her?” I asked.
“Oh, you did what you had to,” Glinda said with a shrug. “You couldn’t kill her. I don’t think it’s possible to kill her, at least not without destroying Oz. But still,
ding dong,
as they say!”
Glinda threw her head back and let out a long, melodious chortle.
I was a little confused. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Think of it this way,” Glinda said, when she’d stopped laughing. “You’ve taken Ozma’s power and you’ve given it back to the land. Back to Oz, where it belongs. She was trying to hoard it all for herself, you know—that’s been her goal all along. That’s why she hated me, and why she wanted your shoes so badly. She just wanted to hoard the magic, like fairies always do.”
“I thought the fairies
gave
Oz its magic.”
“Oh, she told you that old taradiddle, now did she? I’m sure you didn’t believe her. These fairies are
greedy
little creatures. She just couldn’t
stand
to see anyone else with even a drop of magic to speak of. You did what you had to. You did what was right. And Oz will thank you for it, someday. For now, you’ll have to settle for
my
thanks. You saved me, Dorothy. You can’t think of how horrible it was for me to be locked away like that.”
“How did I . . .”
“Once you took care of Ozma, the prison she’s been holding me in ceased to exist. Poof! Just like that. Of course I came to find you right away. I’ve been so worried about you all this time. It’s a miracle I was able to get you those shoes at all. But you know—even all chained up, even in the darkest of dungeons—this old girl had a few tricks up her sleeve.” She wiggled an eyebrow at me and laughed again, but this time she stretched out her arms as she did it and gestured for me.
“Oh, come here, you foolish, dear thing.” As soon as she said it, I fell effortlessly into her embrace and suddenly found myself sobbing as she pulled me tight against her bosom.
“My aunt,” I managed to say through my tears. “My uncle . . .”
Glinda held me close. She kissed my head and squeezed me even tighter. Aunt Em had hugged me before, and of course I knew that she had loved me, but there had always been a certain distance between us. She had never wanted children, and even though she had tried her best with me, I always knew I wasn’t quite part of her plan.
Now, as Glinda kissed me and hugged me and stroked my hair, I wondered if I finally knew what it was like to have a mother.
“Darling,” she said kindly. “I’m so sorry about what’s happened to them. But it just couldn’t be helped. And, you know what?”
“What?” I asked, as she let me go and I stepped back. She took my arms, held them at my sides, and looked lovingly into my eyes.
“You’ll have a
new
family now. A family who loves you more than you can imagine.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Why,
me
of course, you silly goose! And the Scarecrow, and the Lion, and the Tin Woodman, and, oh, just about everyone in Oz, I imagine. You’re to be their new princess, you know, and you’re sure to be the most beloved girl in the land, before long. If you’re not already!”
“I’m to be
princess
?” I asked.
“Who else would be?” Glinda asked. “Her?” She pointed to Ozma, who was kneeling in the grass sniffing curiously at a patch of buttercups. “Well, they’ll still
call
her princess, I guess. All that fairy magic makes it unavoidable. La-di-dah! But as you can see, she won’t be good for much from now on. When we get back to the palace, I’ll see to it that she issues a decree making you Deputy Princess and Protector of the Crown. Won’t be too difficult. We’ll set her up with some dolls and toys and let her run wild in her own quarters while you sit on the throne and do all the important princessing work. With my help and guidance, of course. They’ll forget all about her soon enough; the people of Oz have short memories, bless their hearts. And they absolutely
adore
a new monarch. Oh, the coronation we’ll throw for you!”
I looked over at Ozma, and Glinda, and then over at the farmhouse. I wasn’t sure about any of this. Aunt Em’s feet were pointing away from each other in odd angles. She was wearing the same ordinary leather boots she’d worn on the farm—for all the fancy new shoes she’d been offered here, she’d refused to give them up.
Glinda saw the doubt in my eyes. She frowned sympathetically. “You poor thing. You always
were
such a sentimental sparrow.”
She waved her hand at the house. “Poof!” she said, and as soon as the word escaped her lips, my old home—along with my aunt and uncle—disappeared in a shower of pink bubbles, like there had never been anything there at all.
I felt a weight lifting from my shoulders. I felt my sobs easing.
“There, doesn’t that feel better?”
“It does,” I said. As soon as the reminders were gone, everything that had happened in the past couple of weeks felt very far away.
“It doesn’t
matter
where you came from,” Glinda said. “I came from someplace, too, you know. Someplace not that different from Kansas. I’ll tell you the story someday, if you can
possibly
stand the boredom!”
“I’d like that,” I said softly.
Glinda smiled back at me. “Good.
Very good.
Now, why don’t we leave all this useless sadness behind and go back to the palace? We need to pick you out a nice crown.” She put her arm around me. “Doesn’t that sound like a good idea?”
It did. It really did.
Glinda turned to Ozma. “You too, darling,” she said, and the princess scampered toward us, almost tripping over her own feet. “You two can be like wonderful sisters!”
Ozma nodded eagerly and took my hand.
Glinda winked knowingly. “Well, maybe more like distant cousins,” she said to me in a stage whisper. She put her arm around my shoulder, and we began the walk back to the Emerald City.
“Now,” Glinda said, “you must tell me
all
about your adventures. I was able to watch some of them while you were having them, but I have to say it all came in a bit garbled. Like listening to a radio with a broken antenna.”
I looked back over my shoulder. The house was gone. My aunt and uncle were gone. Ozma was flapping her arms as she skipped aimlessly through the fields.
She wouldn’t be much company. But Toto was racing behind us. And I had Glinda and all my friends in the palace. I had my kingdom.
My shoes sent a happy wave of magic shooting up through my body, and, on impulse, I grabbed a fistful of it and tossed it into the blue sky, where it burst into a pink and gold firework.
“That’s my girl!” Glinda exclaimed proudly. “Oh, I can’t wait to show you what you can really do with it. You were
born
to be a sorceress, you know.”
It was too good to be true. It was almost like Kansas was just a dream and I was waking up to a wonderful new morning where everything was bright and sunny and full of life.
They say you can’t go home again. Well, I’m proof that’s not true. Home isn’t just where you’re born—it’s where you belong. I found my home and I let it go. But I came back. Now I was home for good, and I would never,
ever
make the mistake of leaving again. The past was gone forever. There was no place like here.
Copyright © 2013 by Full Fathom Five, LLC
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EPub Edition © 2013
EPUB Edition OCTOBER 2013 ISBN 9780062280763
ISBN: 978-0-06-228076-3
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FIRST EDITION
CONTENTS
Things have been pretty weird lately in Oz. I mean, if you’re not from around here, things are always a little weird in Oz. There’re the flying monkeys, sure, and the Road of Yellow Brick, which isn’t exactly the most reliable freeway in the world (it moves around). We have magic—more about that later—and animated soldiers that used to be toys, and a city made out of emeralds, and trees that talk. We have an enchanted palace—that’s where I work as a servant—and we have a Wizard with extra-special powers. We
had
a Wizard, anyway, until he disappeared. We have cornfields that grow pre-roasted corn on the cob and talking animals and a Cowardly Lion who’s actually not so cowardly and is becoming a little bit scary. (He talks, too.) But for us, all of that is no big deal. We’re used to it. The really weird thing about Oz these days?