Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years (53 page)

“You’re
not listening
, are you. Your enemies have finaly
added it up
. The tree elves and Glikkuns know that the book is expected to be found with a green-skinned girl the age of Rain. The powers that be remember the Conference of the Birds a decade ago, in which you and I both flew, cawing out ‘Elphaba lives!’ over the Emerald City. Only they don’t read it as political theater anymore. They think it was prophecy. Or that’s what they say. Maybe when your honey boy Trism was set upon by the Emperor’s soldiers, they beat out of him word of the green-skinned daughter.”

“He wasn’t here when she was born—” began Lir, but stopped. Candle hadn’t said when Trism was or wasn’t at Apple Press Farm. Maybe Trism had seen little green Rain even before Lir had taken her into his own arms.

“It doesn’t matter how they know,” said Iskinaary. “It could have been some oracle, it could have been some Wood Thrush squealing in exchange for clemency. What matters is that they’ve put it together.

The conjunction in your household of a twelve-year-old girl and the Grimmerie is, I fear, a dangerous giveway.”

“If I could read the book, I might find a spel to make it invisible,” said Lir. “But I can’t read it.”

“Have you let Rain try?”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“You don’t trust her. Nice father.”

“I don’t know what damage the book might do to her. I certainly couldn’t risk it.”

“Wel, what do you propose we do?”

Not for the first time, Lir wondered just what he’d done to deserve the Goose’s loyalty. Iskinaary could take wing any day he liked. But he lived without family or flock, dogging Lir’s years like a retainer.

“We’l wait until my sister and my wife wake up, and we’l talk it over with them.”

“They won’t ask my opinion,” said the Goose, “but I’l give it anyway. Birds beware roosting in the same nest for more than a season. It may be time—” Rain was hurrying around the house, Tay at her heels as usual, so Iskinaary stopped. “You’re a whip-poor-wil in a hurry,” said the Goose.

“Some tree elves are bathing down on the shore of the south lake. I haven’t seen a tree elf since I lived at Mockbeggar, and then only once, from far off. These ones are singing some song and their voices come over the water like crinkly paper music. Don’t you hear it?”

The Goose and the man exchanged glances. Once more needing to be the heavy, the Anvil of the Law, Lir said as mildly as he could, “I don’t think you better go there, sweetie.”

“Oh, I’l just—”

“He said
no
,” snapped the Goose, and dove at the girl’s legs. And maybe that’s why he stays around, thought Lir. He’s wiling to provide that bite of discipline I can’t manage.

5.

It was summer, they needed no fire. They kept Rain indoors and quiet while the elves were in the neighborhood. “Sort out your colections,” said Lir. “No, you can’t bring a sack of rocks with you, or a cup of acorns. Take your favorite out of each colection and leave the rest behind. We’l come back and get them another time. Hush your crying. We’re trying to draw no attention to ourselves. To keep stil, like little mice under the eyes of a hawk.”

As far as the family knew, the tree elves and the renegade trols never did take the measure of the hearthhold at Nether How. But after a ful day of discussion and two days of preparation, the family was ready to leave their cottage home.

Heavy hearts, heavy tread, but very light luggage. They took little with them. The broom they would trust to the eaves, but they couldn’t leave the book. Maybe they’d come across Mr. Boss and somehow persuade him to take the Grimmerie back. Holding it from al those avaricious and wiling readers of magic was taking its tol.

They started their trek on foot. They’d span the Vinkus River and then the Gilikin River before they’d need to say their good-byes.

Crossing the Vinkus looked problematic until they met a boatman. He charged punitively to steer his smal vessel across the waters pummeling down from the slopes of the Kels, but he delivered them safely.

On the other side, they found that the crescent of land between the Vinkus and the quieter Gilikin River was now under cultivation. Perhaps, Lir guessed, Loyal Oz was trying to make a go of supplying its own needs of wheat, corn, barley. A few grousing laborers disabused Lir of any notion of success, though. The storms that blew high over Nether How settled down here, and the snow came early and stayed deep.

At a crossroads of sorts on this undulating river plain, wagon carts roling by from six or eight different directions, in and out as if along spokes of a wheel, the family members made their good-byes. Briskly, to the point. In a sense, they al folowed Rain’s lead, her brusqueness steadying the adults, helping them avoid long faces and soggy remarks.

“You are a child of Oz,” said Lir to his daughter. “Your mother is Quadling, your grandmother was a Munchkinlander, and your grandfather from the Vinkus. You can go anywhere in Oz. You can be home anywhere.”

Lir turned north toward Kiamo Ko. The Grimmerie was under his arm. Iskinaary hustled like a civil servant self-importantly at his side. Candle—resentful but understanding of their strategy—walked a few steps ahead. Lir could see her try to control the shaking of her shoulders. He thought, Anyone who can be home anywhere realy has no home at al.

6.

So, some days later, on an early autumn afternoon of high winds and intermittent squals, with her aunt Nor at one side lurching under a luggage bundle, and Tay scampering at her heels, Rain came into the Gilikinese city of Shiz.

7.

Why do you think your child wil thrive at St. Prowd’s?”

In her time Nor Tigelaar had faced insurrectionists and colaborationists and war profiteers. She’d endured abduction and prison and self-mutilation. She’d sold herself in sex not for cash but for military information that might come in handy to the resistance, and in so doing she’d come across a rum variety of human types. She didn’t think, however, she had ever seen anyone like the headmaster or his sister, who both sat before her with hands clasped identicaly in midair about six inches above their laps. As if they were afraid they might absentmindedly begin a duet of self-abuse in their own receiving chamber.

“I am not a widely traveled woman, Proctor Clapp—”

“Please, cal me Gadfry,” said the brother. He flickered a smile so weak it might have been a toothache; then his face lapsed into the wel-scrubbed prize calabash it most nearly resembled. His wiry hair was squared off in the back like a box hedge.

“Gadfry,” said Nor, trying to swalow her distaste. She hoped this school strategy wasn’t a mistake. “I have come in from the family home in the mountains to find a place for my girl. Her father died in an earthquake, you see, and I haven’t the wits to know how to teach her. We live far afield, out in the Great Kels, but we know St. Prowd’s comes with the highest recommendations.”

“Wel yes naturaly, but what makes you think that your little scioness wil thrive under our particular scholarly regimen?” What did he want to hear? “She hasn’t had the best preparation, admittedly.” Nor worked the edges of her shawl. “In certain families in the western heights, the academic education of girls isn’t considered essential, or even useful. But I—that is, my poor husband and I—wanted the best for her.”

The sister, Miss Ironish Clapp, unfolded a hand. “St. Prowd’s certainly counts itself among the best seminaries, but in this rough climate I’m afraid that the funds to support unprepared scholarship students simply don’t exist.”

Oh, thought Nor, is that al it takes? “Perhaps I misrepresented our hopes for Miss Rainary. I should have spoken more carefuly: my dead husband and I wanted the very best for our daughter that
money
could buy
.”

Miss Ironish brought her fingernails in to graze her pink pink palm. Her eyes did not narrow nor her breathing hasten when she said, “And how costs have risen, what with the scarcity of food in wartime.”

“I’m sure you can prepare me a bil for the first year that we can settle before I leave,” said Nor.

“Of course, Dame Ko,” said Gadfry Clapp. “That is my sister’s purview. But a child untutored in the basics may take longer to finish our course of studies than someone who has enjoyed a responsible formation. You should budget for a number of years.”

“We wil scrutinize her for her strengths,” said Miss Ironish. “If she has any, that is.”

“Oh, she is a powerful enough child, you’l see,” said Nor. “Not wilful,” she added. “Nor unpleasant.”

“I can’t say that she presents wel,” admitted Miss Ironish. “A St. Prowd’s girl is meant to have a certain. Ahem. Flair.” They al turned and looked through the tal narrow windows that divided the proctor’s parlor from the waiting room. The oak mulions hung with panes of old green glass seized up with the vertical moraines of age. Beyond them, Rain sat hunched on a chair with her fingers in her mouth. The bow that Nor had purchased from a miliner had the exhausted appearance of a fox that has been run down by hounds.

“We rely on your good offices to perk her up,” said Nor.

“But how did you choose St. Prowd’s?” asked the proctor. A coquette primping for compliments.

Exhaustively Nor had prepared for this griling; she was ready. “We considered a few places. The Home for Little Misses in Ticknor Circus seemed promising, but theirs is a horsey set, mostly from the Pertha Hils families. A bit close-minded. The Boxtable Institute seems to be in the grip of a raging ague and a quarantine made an interview out of the question. I realize that Madame Teastane’s Female Academy in the Emerald City comes very highly regarded, but one worries about the safety of a child left in their charges.”

“Safety?” Miss Ironish spoke as if it was a word in a foreign tongue, a word she had not come across before.

“Wel, so much nearer the front.”

“Not that much nearer, as the dragon flies.”

“There’s near and there is nearer,” explained Nor. “Given a chance to attack one of Oz’s two great cities, the Munchkinlanders won’t hesitate to storm the Emerald City. I couldn’t take the chance. I am surprised any parent could.”

“Wel, we hate to win by default.” Miss Ironish, Nor saw, was possessed of that skil of finding a way to take umbrage at any remark whatsoever.

It was time to go on the offense. “I chose St. Prowd’s for its traditions of excelence in the rearing of proper young men and women. I thought you might defend its record against your competition. I can examine the alternatives if this is proving a waste of your—”

“Oh, there is no competition, not seriously,” said Proctor Gadfry. “We’re almost within shouting distance of the great coleges of Shiz—not that our students are inclined to raise their voices in any unseemly display. I am sure you know the history of St. Prowd’s. We opened our doors in the third year of the reign of Ozma the Librarian, as you could guess from the magnificent carvings in the lintel. They were thought to be from the school of Arcavius, but we have documentation on file more or less proving the master did them himself.” Nor hadn’t noticed the carvings and she didn’t turn to look. “It’s a beautiful building in a magnificent setting,” she said, indicating the narrow and sunless street on which Founder’s Hal fronted.

“Magnus St. Prowd was a unionist theologician whose work paved the way for the famous Debate on the Souls of Animals held at Three Queens Colege. Uncommonly prosperous for a bishop, he left his home to the causes of education—this was once a bishop’s palace—and he endowed the school to serve as a feeder pool for young students of unionism. As the times have become more secular, we’ve striven to retain as many of the customs of prayer and obedience as seem sensible.”

“Though we strive for a joly nondenominational middle road that occasionaly strikes me as lunatic,” remarked Miss Ironish, a rare instance, so far, of her appearing to disagree with her brother.

“I’m sure it’s difficult to strike the perfect balance between piety and populism, but I’m equaly confident you manage it.” Nor was eager to get away before Rain did something to disqualify herself.

“Where did
you
train, Dame Ko?” asked Proctor Gadfry.

“You wouldn’t have heard of it. A very smal local parish school in the Great Kels.”

“Ah, the godforsaken lands,” said Miss Ironish.

“Not godforsaken, merely godforgotten,” said Nor with a pretense at merriment. “But before we settle up, may I enquire about the size and makeup of the student body this year?”

“We began as a school for boys, of course,” said the proctor. “We opened to girls during the reign of Ozma the Scarcely Beloved.” Miss Ironish put a gentle fist to her breast. “Kept hermeticaly distant from one another, of course. The girls lodged in the dormitory, with the boys in the annex above the stables.”

“In these sorry times, though,” said Proctor Gadfry, “the boys are al caled to train for the army. So we’ve had to make arrangements to house them out of town. In a junior military camp. For driling in the use of firearms and rapiers and such musical instruments as are required in marching bands.”

“The boys are kept
intensely
busy, so the girls here in town no longer mingle, even socialy, with the boys in camp. St. Prowd’s Military Center, we’re caling it, though we don’t know if this is a permanent arrangement or if we wil contract after the war is over.”

“Because I know mothers worry, I find it consoling, these days, that no boys are housed on this campus to pester any of our St. Prowd’s girls,” said the brother.

“Not that
you
worry overmuch,” said the sister to Nor. They both glanced again at Rain, who was slumping in her chair and showing scant devotion to the art of posture.

“And there are other girls her age?” asked Nor.

“We have about forty girls this year, from a little younger than Miss Rainary to a few years older. Some five or eight wil finish next spring and proceed to Shiz University if they are lucky enough to secure a place. About eight have done very wel on their O levels, but Z levels is where distinctions come out.”

Forty girls. Rain ought to be safe enough hidden in a bevy of forty girl students roughly her own age.