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 (59 page)

At first, I told myself it was just my imagination, but after an
hour of walking, I heard a telltale crunch of branches and a faint, wheezing grunt.

I spun around and shone my flame up and down in the dark, but the only movement I saw was a giant spider half skittering up the trunk of a tree to take cover from the light.

There was a time when just
that
would have been enough to have me running for my life. Now it was nothing.

I knew in my gut that there was something else, though. Call it magical insight or just good old Kansas intuition. There was something bigger, badder, something dangerous. It had been stalking us this whole time.

I tried to shift my focus, the way I’d done earlier in the day, trying to see if whatever was out there was using magic to hide. But nothing revealed itself except for the vague shimmer of energy that coated everything in Oz. And considering how jumpy I was feeling right now, I couldn’t be sure that even
that
was anything other than my overactive imagination.

Ozma had noticed that I was hanging back, and had looped around to join me. She looked at me curiously and gazed out at the forest.

“Mommy,”
she said. A slow smile spread across her face. And then, more urgently, she repeated it:
“Mommy!”

Between her demented smile and the flickering light on her face, she looked like a horrible, beautiful jack-o’-lantern.

Mommy.
Was she talking to me? Was she trying to say
Mombi
? Or was it something else? None of the options really reassured me. I put a finger to my lips, and Ozma narrowed her
eyes and nodded as if she understood.

Without any further warning, I let the flame in my hand extinguish. Everything went black, and I was already a shadow, effortlessly sinking into the in-between place I’d somehow learned to unlock over the past few days, then I was back, myself again, ten paces behind the place where I’d started.

I couldn’t waste any time; I had to move before our pursuer figured out what I was doing. In one swift motion, I stabbed my knife into the air and brought it down in a crackling arc that lit the whole forest for a split second, as if I’d just set off a flashbulb.

But that split second was enough: I saw it. The thing that had been following us was crouched menacingly behind a tree, its shoulders heavy and muscular. It spun its head toward me, and I saw its yellow eyes staring back at me in two thin, yellow slits.

A chill went up my spine as I thought of the cloaked figures I’d seen in my dream last night.

But those had been witches, and when this thing rose up onto its hind legs, I knew that it was not a witch. It was a monster.

An enormous ball of orange fire was already bursting forth from my outstretched palm, and before I could see my flame hit the target, I was teleporting straight for where I’d seen it hiding.

When I reappeared, I expected to hear whatever it was screaming as it burned. But I’d gotten cocky. When I materialized, there were no screams, my fire had already extinguished itself, and I couldn’t see anything in the blackness.

Hopefully that meant it couldn’t see me either. Instead of trying to light things up, I decided I would try to use the dark to my
advantage, and I mumbled a few words to cast a simple amplification spell. This way, even if I couldn’t see my attacker, I’d be able to hear it.

I listened, turning in a careful, clockwise circle, until I had picked out the creature’s thumping heartbeat and labored breathing.

I came up with nothing and stumbled forward.

Suddenly, before I’d recovered my balance, a flying ball of muscle hit me out of nowhere like a bag of bricks. I grunted loudly and, instead of falling, let my body roll into a sideways somersault, and then flipped easily back to my feet.

I was fast, but the thing was faster. It had ricocheted away from me before I’d even managed to get a look at it, back into the trees where, even with my magically heightened senses, I could barely make out the sound it made as it crawled from branch to branch.

Just a few minutes ago, I had been feeling lonely and a little helpless. In other words, I could use a good fight.

“Come and get me!” I shouted, brandishing my knife, knowing I barely needed it. Once again, my loneliness had turned, like magic, into fury. I would kill this thing with my bare hands if I had to. “C’mon, asshole!” I screamed, my voice reverberating through the trees. “I don’t care who you are. Mess with me again. I dare you.”

I stopped, picking through all the sounds around me until I heard a soft heartbeat, a few feet away, behind a tree. But when I listened more closely, I realized that it didn’t belong to my stalker.
From its steady, even pace, I knew it could only be Ozma—no one but her could remain so calm in the midst of all this.

So I tuned it out, glad she was safe, and then focused on all the other sounds.

I scanned through all of it, casting aside the noises that weren’t relevant—the crickets and owls in the trees, the snakes slithering through the grass, the wind in the leaves—building a picture of my surroundings in my head. When I listened hard, it was almost like being able to see again.

It only took me a minute but then I found it.
Thump. Thump. Thump.

The noise wasn’t coming from anywhere near where I’d been looking for it, but once I found it, it was unmistakable. The beast’s heart was racing from adrenaline; its breathing was heavy and hungry.

But I didn’t want to use the same trick twice, and so instead of throwing another fireball, I decided to try something new. I called down a bolt of lightning from the sky to fry my mystery attacker before it knew what hit it.

There was a sizzle, and the electrical smell of ozone, as a blue bolt zigzagged in through the leaves, striking at the place where I’d guessed my target to be hiding. The creature shrieked as my spell connected.

But if I’d thought that would be enough to kill my enemy, I was wrong again. There was a whistling sound of a vine swooping through the air, and then the creature was on top of me, its legs wrapped around my midsection as it scratched at my face
with giant, almost human hands.

I felt its claws drawing blood, but I spun on my heel, using the thing’s momentum against it, tackling it to the jungle floor. We landed together, me on top, and I pressed my forearm to its chest, pinning it—whatever it was—to the ground.

“Game over,” I said. It had been easier than I’d expected, and I found myself almost disappointed that my workout had been cut short. I was getting pretty good at this.

I raised my knife to go in for the kill. I didn’t even really care
what
it was that I was killing, I just wanted the fight to be over.

But then it spoke in a voice I recognized. A surprisingly
squeaky
voice.

“No! Uncle! Uncle! I give up already!”

It couldn’t be. But who else sounded like that?

I willed my knife to glow, illuminating my now captive enemy.

“You!” I exclaimed. Looking up at me in shamefaced, pathetic defeat was none other than Queen Lulu of the Wingless Ones. One second ago, I’d been ready and eager to kill. Now I wasn’t sure what to do.

I looked over to Ozma, who was leaning against a tree a few feet away, observing the whole scene with a kind of birdbrained calm. After a moment’s pause, she gave the monkey a dopey, sad little wave.

Under me, Lulu blanched at the sight of Ozma.

“What do you want?” I demanded slowly, debating whether
to put my knife away. “Why were you following us? Don’t lie to me.”

“Didn’t mean to scare you . . . ,” my captive wheezed. “Wasn’t gonna hurt anyone. I just wanted to see her. I didn’t . . .” She stopped herself, seemingly overcome by something she couldn’t say.

“
See
her? You could have seen her whenever you wanted. You wouldn’t even let her into your throne room. Now you expect me to believe you just wanted to
see
her? Do you think I’m stupid? And why do you even care?”

She wriggled under my weight, trying to crane her neck toward where the princess was hanging back. Lulu blinked. I would have thought she was fighting tears, if I hadn’t known she wasn’t the type for sentimentality.

“I was afraid she’d remember,” she finally said.

“Remember
what
?”

“She was so little when it happened but . . . you never know with fairies. What if she remembered?” She sounded almost frantic.

I looked at her quizzically. I had no idea what she meant. Then I remembered, and with a jolt, I suddenly understood what Ozma had meant by
Mommy.

“She was mine. I was supposed to protect her. I was all she had, and she was happy anyway. She loved me. Trusted me. I left her, see? Left her all alone. When she came to the village . . . I couldn’t look her in the eye, not after all I did. How could I? But I didn’t want her to leave like that either. Barely there a day.
And not even a simple sayonara?” Queen Lulu bit her lip and clenched her eyes shut. “My spies told me you were trying to dip out, and I knew I had to say good-bye. I had to see her. Just once, that’s all. I wasn’t going to hurt anyone.”

Lulu was quiet but almost panicking, too, so different from the imperious, fast-talking dame who had haughtily held court at Mombi’s trial. Her brassy bluster had faded in the bright, searing light of her own memories, leaving only regret.

Maybe I was being stupid—weak, a pushover—but I believed her. I lifted myself off the monkey queen and stood, now holding on to my knife only for the light it was casting.

Lulu breathed deep in relief.

“Thank you,” she said. She didn’t stand; instead she crawled forward on her haunches in a crouch, just looking Ozma up and down.

Now that the monkey’s attention was on her, Ozma’s calm demeanor melted away, and she began to shake her head manically. She clenched her fists to her temples, yanking frantically at her hair. “No, no, no,” she chanted to herself. But she didn’t back away.

Lulu hardly paid attention to the way Ozma was freaking out. It was like she had expected it.

“She’s so different now,” the monkey queen murmured, half to herself and half to me. “You should have seen her before, witch girl. When she was born, she was so tiny I could hold her in the palm of my hand. Now look at her, all grown up and pretty as a penny fresh from the mint. Powerful, too. So I hear.”

“She is,” I said. It might have been a lie. Or it might not have been.

“And she was a good queen, when she had to be. I wish I’d visited, but I didn’t know what to say. Still, I knew. She was one of the best. I’m an awfully good queen myself, so I should know.”

“You are,” I said.

Lulu seemed very far away now. “I didn’t expect any of this,” she said. “Didn’t ask for it, didn’t want it, it just happened. I was just a monkey. Don’t know why I was the one to stumble into all this. I just was. Stranger things happen.” She glanced at me sheepishly. “But not that much stranger.”

Lulu bowed her head to the dirt and didn’t say anything else. Her shoulders were trembling now, and she took her sunglasses out and put them on again to hide her face as she wept.

Somehow it made everything even sadder that she was so proud of Ozma—the girl she’d loved as her own—and sadder still when you thought about everything that she wasn’t saying. About what had been done to her, what had been done to Ozma. About everything that can go wrong even when you have every best intention.

Lulu was a monkey queen and I was a girlfrom Kansas, but we were the same in a few ways. I wondered what it was like for her, how it must feel to see Ozma again now in a place and time as strange as this, with both of them so changed. I wondered if I’d ever find out the answer for myself.

Okay, so I was crying, too. Only a little bit. Even a wicked witch like me has a heart, you know?

The confusing show of emotion must have been what got Ozma’s attention. She was now looking back and forth from me to Lulu, thinking god knows what.

Lulu was still stooped over, but she had recovered herself and lifted her head with a graceful, stubborn pride.

Ozma bit her thumb nervously, and her eyes locked with Lulu’s for the first time. The fairy queen took a tentative step forward, looking a little frightened and a little curious and maybe—I mean,
maybe
—like something was coming back to her.

Just that tiny move, that small show of familiarity, was enough to make Lulu brighten. But when Lulu stood up and began to open her arms, the princess jolted and backed away again. Lulu looked like she understood.

“I’m sorry, honey pie,” Lulu said softly. “It’s only me. Good old Nursey Lu.” At that, Ozma just turned her back to us, facing out into the darkness beyond my magical ring of light.

“Lulu—” I said.

“No,” she interrupted. “It’s what I expected. I understand.” With that, it was like we were making a silent agreement to pretend we hadn’t noticed what had just happened.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I wiped my eyes and shook my head. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t even have a choice. They made you a slave. It’s demented.”

She made a loud buzzer noise, like the sound on a game show when someone messes up. “Wrong! I could have done something.
Maybe I couldn’t have done anything about the deal the Wizard made with the Western Witch, but I could have stopped Dorothy from . . .”

Instead of finishing her thought, Lulu fluttered her oversize paw halfheartedly in the air. I understood. It was too much to talk about.

The silence was heavy but something she had said snagged my attention. “The
Wizard
. He’s the one who made the deal with the witch. He sold you out.”

“Sure did, toots. No use thinking about it. That’s yesterday’s news and I canceled my subscription to
that
paper a year ago anyway.”

I was confused. “But you’ve worked with him. He’s the one who gave Ollie and Maude their paper wings. I thought he was your friend.”

“Nah, not a friend, but not an enemy either. Not anymore. He made his mistakes a long time ago. Time might move slow around here, but everything else changes fast. It wasn’t his fault anyway, not really, and Mr. Wiz paid the price. Got himself right with me and mine. I can’t say I ever know what the hell is going on underneath those dinky little hats of his, and I won’t be picking his nits for him anytime soon, but he’s okay by me until he messes with the monkeys again. Or with her.”