No Place Like Oz (14 page)

Nineteen

Silence.

Terrible, awful, horrible silence.

It was only broken by the sound of my voice cracking. “Aunt Em!” I screamed. “Uncle Henry!”

There was no response. I knew there wouldn't be.

I fell to the ground in front of the house, sobs racking my body.

What have I done?
She was dead. Uncle Henry was dead. Tears rolled down my face. My throat closed up. It hurt so much. They were my only family. They had loved me, despite everything.

I choked on my tears. Why had I ever brought them here? I should have left them in Kansas, where they would have been safe. And happy. They hadn't asked to come. All they'd wanted was to go home and I wouldn't let them.

No. It wasn't my fault. It was hers.
She
had done this to them.

I shook with rage as I saw Ozma, back on the ground, crawling to her feet from where she'd made her own crash-landing.

The clouds thickened, growing darker above me. My shoes hugged my feet like a vise, glowing like they were made of red lightning. Ozma stared up at me in shock.

“
You
did this,” I shrieked. “
You
killed them!”

I walked toward her, the rage burning me alive. It felt
good
to hate her this much. Natural.

Small forks of lightning flickered off the shoes as they throbbed with a magical pulse. But the heels weren't alive.
I was
. The pulse was my heartbeat. Their magic was part of me now.

A scream ripped out of me as another magical surge punched through my body. I felt like I was about to explode into flames as I walked steadily toward Ozma, screaming louder and with more anguish than the Screaming Trees in the Forest of Fear.

She staggered backward as I rushed at her. Her face contorted in fear. “No, Dorothy! Please! Don't let it control you! Don't give in to it!”

“Too late for that,
Princess
,” I screamed. As I said it, I felt all of Oz screaming along with me.

“Please, calm down. You've no idea what you're doing. You can still save yourself. Think about this.”

With a roar louder than the Lion's I unleashed every last bit of magic that had been building unstoppably inside me since I got to Oz.

It was wondrous.

It surged through my body, flowing like a thousand rivers cascading violently and crashing on the shore.

It drained from the land and the sky, up through me and right at her.

She screamed as I hit her with pure energy, streams of purple and green and red lightning shocking and sparking as it struck the ground around us over and over and over again.

She didn't fight back. Maybe she couldn't—maybe she'd used up everything she had summoning my house. Or maybe she didn't want to. Maybe she was too scared. I didn't know and I didn't care. I just wanted her dead. I wanted it to hurt.

But she didn't die. When I'd used up everything I thought I had, I was sure that I'd see her lying on the ground in a mangled, bloody heap. But Ozma rose to her feet. Easily, steadily, as if it was nothing.

She was more powerful than I'd realized. She had changed. I hadn't hurt her a bit. I might have even made her stronger.

Ozma's entire body turned the color of midnight and shadows. It looked alive—like there was black smoke churning just beneath her skin. Her eyes were hollow, golden caverns; her scepter was a lightning bolt that stretched into the thick clouds overhead.

“You have no idea what I am,” she screamed with a hundred voices. “I am the blood of Lurline and the daughter of the Ancient Flower. I am the first and the last and the in-between. I am
Oz.
”

She slammed her scepter into the earth, and a swarm of black moths came bursting forth out of it. They flew for me, knocking me backward, clinging to my skin, trying to suck the life out of me.

But the shoes protected me. Without me even trying, they wrapped me with red light, and the moths burned away as if I was a candle whose flame they'd been drawn to in the dark.

I regained my composure. Ozma had taken everything away from me. Everything I cared about or would ever care about. She had taken away Glinda, and my aunt and uncle, and my magic. She had tried to take away my kingdom.

“I am
Dorothy
,” I screamed back at her.

I closed my eyes and knocked my heels three times, begging the Land of Oz to fill me with darkness and power and all the enchantments it possessed.

It did.

It all came bursting out of me. This time, it was more than magic. It wasn't just the shoes at work. It was me. It was the reason I had been brought here in the first place. It was the reason I had been brought back again.

It was that
wanting
I'd known my whole life. All that hope that there was something better out there, something that could be mine and mine alone.

Ozma was no match for it. She'd never felt anything like it, I don't think. She had all this, and she didn't even care about it.

But I cared. I wanted. I wanted
more.
My desire was a tornado that twisted out of my body and danced toward the princess, catching her up in its funnel, lifting her into the air as easily as if she was a feather. She screamed and struggled against it, but there was nothing she could do.

It was no use. She was powerless against me. She may have been the One True Princess, the delicate peach blossom and the blood of whatever-her-name-was, but I was the girl who rode the cyclone, the girl who had slayed the witches. I had been brought here against all odds—not once, but
twice
. I wouldn't be denied.

Within the cone of the maelstrom, I watched calmly as Ozma's dark form began to tear itself apart in a gruesome explosion of black and gold. It was like she was unraveling. Like she was
melting.

And then she was gone.

For the third time, Oz had chosen
me.

 

The sky had returned to normal. Everything was quiet. The storm I had summoned faded away into the distance. It was like none of it happened, except that my head was throbbing and all of my limbs were aching in exhaustion.

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.