Dorothy Must Die Novella #2 (2 page)

Packing for the journey to Glinda's was simple. I told myself that Glinda was telling the truth, no matter how much she'd scared me the night before: this would just be for the summer. There was no need to clean out my room in the Emerald Palace. Just a few dresses and pairs of shoes. Glinda would probably have her own servants' uniforms, but I added my work dress just in case. I looked over my tidy little room and neatly arranged possessions, wondering if I'd ever see them again, and quickly squashed that thought. Of course I'd be back. Dorothy would insist on it, and Dorothy was in charge now. I had made myself indispensable to her. I tried not to think about how easily Glinda had overruled Dorothy the night before, or just how powerless Dorothy had been when confronted with Glinda's magic. Or to wonder what Glinda wanted me for.

I snapped my fingers, and an image of all the other servants wavered into life before me, transparent and iridescent as a soap bubble. I could summon up their images whenever I wanted, I told myself. I could probably even send them messages, though I'd never tried to use my magic over long distances before. This summer I would learn how much I was capable of doing.

The hardest part was saying good-bye. Astrid had already burst into my room first thing that morning, her face wet with tears. “Jellia!” she wailed, flinging her arms around me and almost knocking me over onto my bed. “You can't go! It's all my f-f-fault,” she sobbed into my shoulder. “Who will look after us when you're gone? Who will protect us?”

“It's just for the summer,” I said firmly, gently moving her head off my shoulder before she blew snot all over me. “You'll have to be strong, Astrid. You can't always rely on other people to fight your battles for you. This summer will be your chance to grow up.”
She's just a kid
, I thought, patting her back awkwardly.
How can she stand up to Dorothy? What will they do without me?
Technically,
I
was just a kid, but I'd always had a good head on my shoulders and a lot of responsibility. I felt about a million years older than Astrid, even though we were nearly the same age. And though I tried not to let her see it, inside I was almost as upset as she was. Glinda was seriously scary—and I had no idea what lay in store for me.

Despite our hasty departure, word had spread fast around the palace, and all the servants were assembled in the courtyard to see me off. I took a deep breath, determined not to cry. I looked around for Ozma but wasn't totally surprised by her absence. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her walking around in the palace, and it made me worry even more about Dorothy's plans.

Glinda hovered a few feet away—literally, her glittery heels floating a few inches off the cobblestones. She had dressed for the journey as if she were headed to a ball. Her pale pink dress was embroidered with glittering gold thread and the bodice was studded with clear gemstones that caught the sunlight and refracted it into a blinding dazzle. Her hair was piled on top of her head and secured with more gems. A small squad of the Tin Woodman's soldiers stood at attention behind her mechanical carriage, their metallic bodies gleaming in the bright courtyard as the automaton horses—wired together out of tin and wood and gems—stamped their feet mechanically, their tinny neighing breaking the still air. Glinda beamed benevolently while the other servants came forward one by one to say good-bye. It wasn't like Dorothy to allow the servants a moment's respite, but Glinda's departure seemed to have put her in a good mood. She stood a few feet away from the witch, decked out in a tiny-waisted leather dress pieced together out of blue and white squares. As always, her red shoes emitted a rosy halo of light.

Astrid was still sobbing like the sweet little idiot she was; I had to resist the urge to pat her on the head like a dog. Hannah, the maid who was closest to me in age—and the closest thing I had to a best friend—came up to hug me. The Munchkin cooks surrounded me, flinging their arms around my knees and crying “Jellia! Jellia! Don't go!” in unison. I was touched, even if they made walking a little awkward.

“It's just for a few months,” I reassured them, hugging them one by one. “I promise. You'll barely notice I was gone. Take good care of Dorothy—don't forget about the bacon—”

“—and color code her dresses,” Hannah finished. “We know, J. It'll be okay.” Astrid wailed aloud, and Hannah rolled her eyes. I laughed. She always knew how to cheer me up.

“
Jellia
,” Glinda cooed, “we
really
must be going. You'll see all your little friends again before you even know it! I need your help at
my
palace now.”

I gave everyone one last wave before I climbed reluctantly into Glinda's carriage. To my surprise, I saw the Scarecrow stumble out of the palace, carrying an enormous satchel. Behind him stretched a line of the Tin Woodman's soldiers, carrying various pieces of mechanical equipment and machine parts. Another carriage drew up behind Glinda's, and the soldiers busied themselves loading it with their burdens while the Scarecrow supervised.

“He's always late,” Glinda said, and sighed. Gone was the terrifying witch of the night before; in the afternoon sunlight, she looked radiant and gentle, although her voice had a peevish tone that belied her sweet expression. Finally, the second carriage was loaded to the Scarecrow's satisfaction, and he gave Glinda a jaunty wave.

“Everything will work as we discussed?” she called in a honeyed voice. He nodded jerkily, his black button eyes flashing in the sun.

“If the girl has enough magic to power the device,” he said. The Scarecrow only spoke rarely, and his dry, straw-like voice always sent chills through me. What girl was he talking about? Did he mean
me
? What magic could I possibly have?

“Oh, I'm confident of that,” Glinda said gaily. “I believe in the power of positive thinking, don't you? If everything's ready, I think it's time we were going.” She rapped sharply on the roof of the carriage, and the driver snapped to life with a whirr of clockwork. “Good-bye, Dorothy!” Glinda sang merrily. “Good-bye, Emerald City! Say good-bye, Jellia! We've got such adventures ahead of us!”

I did not like the sound of that at all. I waved out the window as the servants shrank behind us in the distance, and I didn't turn back to face the road until they were nothing more than tiny dots against the glittering green of the Emerald Palace. Whatever happened next, I was on my own now.

I had only been outside the Emerald City a handful of times in my life, and despite my anxiety about what lay ahead of me, I couldn't help a surge of excitement as the carriage passed through the immense gates of the city and onto the Road of Yellow Brick. Next to me, Glinda lay back against her seat with her eyes closed, looking for all the world like a pretty young girl taking a nap. If I'd hoped she would give me some clue as to what she wanted with me, I clearly wasn't going to get it. I used the brief respite from her razor-sharp attention to look out the carriage window at the countryside. Once we were out of the gates, the radiant green aura of the city dissipated. Hills gave way to rolling farmland; cornstalks bobbed in the wind, and neatly tended orchards stretched toward the horizon in even rows. The trees didn't talk anymore—that had been one of Dorothy's first decrees, she said they gave her a headache—but their silence didn't affect the views. We'd been traveling for an hour or so when Glinda opened her eyes next to me and sat up, rapping on the roof of the carriage with her knuckles. We drew to a halt, and she stepped out of the carriage. I stayed where I was, confused, until I heard her call sweetly, “Jellia! What on earth are you waiting for? Surely you're not shirking your duties already?” I got out hastily.

We'd stopped next to a broad meadow of periwinkle grass, bordered on one edge by a thick, lush forest. The second carriage had followed us, and I only now saw that a large contingent of the Tin Woodman's soldiers had ridden along in the carriage. Glinda was directing them to unload the Scarecrow's machinery from the other carriage—a bewildering array of pipes and wires and instruments. The unloading took some time, and I could sense Glinda's impatience, although her face remained unnaturally serene. When the soldiers had finished they stood expectantly, staring at her.

“Now put it together,” she said. This time there was no mistaking the irritation in her voice, and the soldiers got busy at once, assembling the pieces in the middle of the field. Glinda didn't seem to expect me to do anything, so I stood awkwardly at her side as she surveyed the construction.

The soldiers were moving with sharp, jerky motions, like sped-up windup toys, and soon a structure began to take shape. It was a giant contraption that looked almost like a complicated windmill with a long, flat piece that stretched out from the main body of the structure and balanced on another, smaller structure, like a seesaw.
What on earth?
I wondered.

“It's a drill, of course,” Glinda said, as if she could read my mind.

“A drill, Your Eminence?”

“For magic,” she said. I looked up at her. The rubies in her crown dazzled in the afternoon sun. “It's simply everywhere in Oz, as you know, going to waste. It's high time we put all those natural resources to work, don't you think?”

“You're drilling magic out of the ground?” I stared at her in surprise and she raised one eyebrow. “Your Eminence,” I added quickly.

“Of course. Now that we have the technology to extract it, there's no reason not to. Think of how much that power will improve the lives of your fellow citizens!” I wasn't fooled by her sugary rhetoric; I was pretty sure that the only citizens whose lives would be improved by Glinda's crazy plan were Glinda herself, and Dorothy.

“But Your Eminence, doesn't Oz depend on that magic to survive?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Jellia, I thought I saw something special in you in the palace, but now you sound positively old-fashioned. There's plenty of magic to go around. Oz won't feel a thing.”

I shut my mouth. The months ahead would be hard enough without starting out on Glinda's bad side. We watched as the soldiers finished tightening the last nuts and bolts on Glinda's drilling machine, and then she pushed me forward. “Now, Jellia, it's time to do your duty for your country.”

“Me?” I blurted in surprise as two soldiers grabbed me by the arms and dragged me toward the machine. “But—”

“I need magic to power the drill,” Glinda cooed. She floated delicately after us, her heels sparkling silver several inches off the ground. “You certainly don't expect me to use
mine
, do you?” Now that we were closer to the machine, I could see a leather harness and silver helmet attached to one end of the giant seesaw. I struggled desperately, but the soldiers strapped me in and jammed the helmet down on my head. What was happening? Glinda looked me over with an assessing gaze, and then nodded.

“Begin,” Glinda said, and one of the soldiers flipped a switch on the seesaw's platform. I screamed as a blinding wave of pain surged through me. It felt as though I was being electrocuted. Over my own cries I could hear the machine give out a huge, creaking groan, and the platform I was strapped to shifted as the machine began to move. The pain was unbearable and unending; my nostrils filled with the scent of burning, and I realized in horror that it was the smell of my own flesh. Nothing I had been through in my life had prepared me for pain like this.

“I'm very disappointed in you, Jellia,” I heard Glinda say, and then everything went black.

I woke up on my back in the long, sweet-smelling grass. Every part of my body ached, and when I tried to open my eyes my vision was so blurry I shut them again. My head pounded with a dull, throbbing pain.

“Awake, lazybones?” Glinda's voice came from a few feet away, but I couldn't bring myself to look at her. “I'm afraid you've failed me rather badly this afternoon, and it will take quite a lot of effort on your part to make it up to me. I've had to revamp the entire mechanism, and all that wasted time is your fault.”

“What happened?” I croaked, my voice barely above a whisper.

“You should have had enough magic to power the device yourself. But you simply weren't up to the job, Jellia, and now I'll have to find a way to run it manually. How inconvenient for me.” She sniffed delicately. “I suppose I need to think of something for you to do all summer at my palace. You're not nearly as valuable to me as I thought you would be.”

Every muscle in my body cried out in protest as I struggled to sit upright, cradling my pounding head in my hands. “Now stand up and make yourself useful,” Glinda said, her voice sharper. I heard her snap her fingers, and I yelped aloud as my body was jerked into a standing position. I was afraid I'd fall over, but her spell held me there. “Open your eyes,” she said, and my body obeyed her. Slowly, my vision returned. We were still in the field, and the sun was still high in the sky—but that didn't mean anything. Dorothy controlled the passage of time in Oz, and she liked long afternoons with lots of sunshine. Something was moving next to Glinda's terrible machine. I squinted, and saw that the soldiers had corralled a handful of terrified Munchkins. While a few soldiers guarded the Munchkins, another was busy taking apart the harness and helmet they'd strapped me into. When they finished, they began lifting the Munchkins up to the platform part of the seesaw.

“Munchkin labor,” Glinda sniffed, her honeyed voice underscored with disgust. “Unreliable, ineffective—and impossible to leave unsupervised. I'll have to station some of my soldiers here, and even return myself to make sure the job is getting done properly. All of this could have been avoided, Jellia, if your magic was sufficient to power the machine.” She studied her device thoughtfully, and then looked back at me. “Perhaps with some refinements you'll be able to help me again.” One of the soldiers barked an order, and the miserable-looking Munchkins began jumping up and down in place. With a terrific, earsplitting groan, the machine began to turn. Glinda sighed and turned away. “Onward to my palace, I suppose,” she said.

Magic. Glinda was mining magic, pulling it out of the soil as if she was just digging a well. It was everywhere—it was in the land itself.

I struggled to stay awake in Glinda's carriage, but my body had other ideas, and I passed out again as soon as it moved forward. I had no idea how much time had passed when Glinda shook me impatiently and I snapped back to consciousness. My muscles still ached, but the rest had done me a little good; the headache had subsided, and my vision was much clearer. “Look sharp, you lazy girl,” she said. “We're almost to the palace, and I won't have you setting a bad example.”

I'd heard about the Summer Palace, Glinda's famous home, but I'd never seen it with my own eyes. It was nearly a full day's journey from the Emerald City, and Glinda's domain wasn't exactly a hot vacation destination. Outside the carriage, the countryside was remote and desolate. Lonely-looking blue hills, barren and rocky, surrounded us, and the trees were twisted and thorny. Here and there, huge craters dotted the landscape, and I wondered if she'd already tried out her magic-mining experiments closer to home. We were approaching a huge, sparkling pink gate, made out of some stone that refracted the setting sun's light and sent it in dazzling sparks across the desolate, rocky ground. Beyond the gate, candy-cotton-pink towers stabbed upward to dizzying heights. As soon as Glinda's entourage was within the castle walls, the gate swung shut. Like it or not, I was home.

Glinda's palace was as pink on the inside as it was on the outside. The walls were coated with a textured pink paint that looked as though someone had smeared sugar over everything. Chandeliers, crusted with pale pink gems, hung from the high ceilings. Pink-framed mirrors reflected the pink light, and everywhere hung pink-hued portraits of Glinda in an endless series of pink ball gowns. Waist-high pink vases held huge bouquets of pink flowers, which released little puffs of sickly-sweet perfumed pink smoke into the air at regular intervals. I tried not to gag as a waft of scent hit me, leaving a faint pink smear like a slug's trail on my uniform. Glinda, who didn't seem to walk if she could help it, floated ahead of me, gesturing me to follow her down the pink-floored main hall of the palace. “I have the perfect place for you, Jellia,” she singsonged as I trotted after her, wincing at my still-sore muscles. “We'll start you in the kitchen.”

“I'm trained as a lady's maid, Your Eminence,” I panted as I hurried after her.

“Too good to start out at the bottom, are we?” she cooed.

“It's not that, Your Eminence, it's just that I thought—” She whipped around in midair, her ball gown swirling, and stared down at me.

“In my palace, you don't think, Jellia,” she said. “Is that clear?”

“Yes, Your Eminence,” I said.

She smiled. Despite her pretty face, the expression made her look like a shark. “That's more like it, Jellia. And don't think I won't be keeping an eye on you. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Your Eminence.” In a puff of pink glitter, she vanished. I stood blinking in the hallway, uncertain what to do next, when a tall, lean boy about my age with thick dark hair rounded a corner and stopped in front of me. He was one of the best-looking people I'd ever seen; I was very happy to see that he wasn't pink.

“You're the new girl,” he said, his curt demeanor at odds with his charming looks.

“Yes,” I said, and curtsied for good measure. He snorted.

“Save it for Glinda,” he said. “I'm here to help you stay alive.”