Oz Reimagined Part 4

"That wasn't nice, Dot," said Jack.

"Nope," I agreed. "It wasn't."

Rinn didn't say anything. I couldn't tell whether that meant he was getting used to me or had simply been horrified into silence.

The receptionist returned only a few minutes later with the round, blue-clad form of Boq, Amba.s.sador of the Munchkin Country and head of the anti-crossover political factiona"not to mention one of my first friends in Oz back before everything changeda"following close behind her. "Dorothy!" he bellowed in a tone that implied absolute delight at my presence. "You should have sent a card ahead. I would have met you at the door with cakes and lemonade."

"I didn't really have the opportunity, Amba.s.sador Boq," I said with a polite bow. "We've come on business for Ozma. May we retire to your chambers?"

Boq was a consummate politician, but even he couldn't have faked the look of surprise on his face. It had been a long, long time since I went anywhere on business for Ozma. "Yes, absolutely, my dear. You and your friends, follow me."

"Thanks." I offered the receptionist a little wave as we followed Boq down the hall to his private chambers, which were larger than my entire apartment and appointed ten times as well. They still weren't as nice as the quarters I'd shared with Ozma at the Palace.

I waited until Boq was settled in the chair behind his desk, giving him a few moments to feel like I'd been stunned into silence by the opulence of my surroundings. Then, without preamble, I said, "A Munchkin man was found dead in the old Wizard's Square today. He was dressed in Quadling colors. It's pretty clear that we weren't expected to figure out where he was from. Do you have any idea who he might have been? Ozma has tasked me with finding his killers."

Boq's face twisted into a mask of revulsion. "You've come here to talk about Downtown, with me? Dorothy. I thought better of you."

"No, Boq, I came here to talk to you about a murder. A Munchkin is dead. Surely that's more important than your hatred of the crossovers."

"Spoken like a girl without a country to defend," he spat. "You deserted your precious Kansas for us. How long before you desert us for something better? It was only a matter of time before the crossovers began killing."

"The fact that they had access to Quadling clothes and knew to re-dress him, that doesn't concern you at all?"

"Crossovers are as cunning as Winged Monkeys and about as trustworthy," Boq countered. "Really, you started killing the day you arrived. No wonder you speak for the rest of them. You're the first murderess of the lot."

"Since it got me a crown and made me a witch, I guess murder is pretty lucrative," I said. "You're the only one who might tell us who the man was, Boq. And you're the one who stands to benefit most from an Ozite dying Downtown. That makes me wonder why you're so defensive. I might just have to tell Ozma about this."

"You can't threaten me with Ozma," said Boq. "She heeds my counsel now, not yours."

"She heeds whatever counsel keeps Oz safest," I corrected gently. "Who was he, Boq? You know every Munchkin in the City of Emeralds. Who's missing?"

Boq hesitated. Then he sighed and said, "Taf. He's a junior clerk here at the emba.s.sy. He didn't report for work this morning."

"Why didn't you tell the guards?" asked Rinn. "We would have helped you find him."

"Munchkins police their own." Boq looked at me coolly. "We don't depend on outsiders to fix our problems."

"Funny," I said. "I seem to remember an outsider taking care of your little *witch' issue a few years back."

Boq reddened, but he didn't look away.

"Thanks for letting us know who he was," I said. "You can probably collect his remains from the morgue later today."

"Dust is a scourge," he said. "I blame you and your kind."

"Yeah, I know," I said and turned to go. Jack and Rinn followed me.

We were almost to the receptionist's desk when I froze, my earrings chiming madly with the sudden motion.

"I'm an idiot," I said.

"What?" said Jack.

"I never told him it was Dust." I turned, running back to Boq's office.

He was in the process of emptying his desk when I burst ina"with Jack, Rinn, and the shouting receptionist all close behind me. I didn't hesitate before launching myself across the room, grabbing Boq by the shoulders and pulling him away from what he'd been doing before he could destroy any more evidence. He shouted and threw a sachet of fine gray powder in my face, where it burst and filled the air around me in a choking cloud. I coughed and grabbed for him again. He shied away, stumbling right into Jack's arms. Jack grabbed him and held fast. The pumpkin-head might be made of sticks, but he was stronger than a normal man. Magic can be funny that way.

Boq struggled against Jack's grip for a moment before spitting in my direction and saying, "At least I get to see you die, crossover."

"Uh-huh." I coughed again before wiping the Dust out of my eyes. I was going to need another shower. "Funny thing, Boq. Crossovers can gather this stuff because they're resistant. Crossing the shifting sands makes the Desert a little less potent for them. I've crossed the shifting sands more times than anyone."

His eyes widened. Then he sagged, going limp in Jack's arms. "You b.i.t.c.h."

"It's p.r.o.nounced witch, but that was a good try." I turned to Rinn. He was keeping his distance from me. Smart boy. At this point I probably qualified as a walking intoxicant. "Take him to Ozma. Tell her his clerk overdosed and Boq staged the murder to implicate the crossovers. Also tell her he tried to kill me." I couldn't keep myself from smiling. Ozma and I might not get along, but I was still her property, as far as she was concerned, to coddle or break at her whim and no one else's. She wouldn't take kindly to hearing that Boq had given me a face full of Dust.

Boq knew that too. He whimpered, and kept whimpering as Rinn handcuffed him and pulled him from Jack's arms.

I coughed again. The room was starting to spin. My multiple crossings of the Deadly Desert made me resistant, not immune. Jack's arms caught me before I could hit the carpet, and I let him bear me up and carry me home.

When I woke up, it was raining, and the whole room smelled like petrichor. My head was still spinning, and so I closed my eyes again, waiting for the world to be still.

"Ozma sends her thanks," said a voice from beside mea"female, alto, and more welcome than a thousand roads of yellow brick. "She says that Boq will be dealt with appropriately."

"Meaning he'll be out in less than a week."

"He'd have been out in less than a day if he hadn't thrown that Dust in your face." Polychrome's hand touched my forehead. Her skin was cool and faintly damp, like a fine mist. "How are you feeling?"

"Better now." I reached up to catch her wrist without opening my eyes. "How long has it been raining?"

"About eight hours. You've been asleep for ten. We should tell Jack that you're awakea""

"In a minute." Oz was a land divided; the City of Emeralds was only the visual representation of a split that would tear us all apart, if we weren't careful. Boq was my enemy now, if he hadn't been already, and I was deeply afraid that if I started looking for the source of the Dust, all roads would lead me back to the Munchkin Country. Ozma was starting to use me again.

None of that mattered as I opened my eyes and looked up into the face of the woman I loved, wide-eyed and worried and haloed by the rainbow-streaked cloud of her hair. I leaned up as she leaned down, and her kiss was like the end of a yearlong drought. Outside the rain came down, and oh, the sweetness of that storm.

I was so glad to be home again.

LOST GIRLS OF OZ.

BY THEODORA GOSS.

Dear Dottie, This will be a long letter, because I'm going on a tripa"and such a trip! You won't believe me when I tell you! But don't tell Mamsie, because you know how she worries when she thinks either of us girls is doing anything the least bita"well, she would call it dangerous, but I'm going to call it adventurous.

But I do want to tell you about it, because I want you to know where I am in case anything goes wrong. That makes it sound dangerous, I knowa"but please don't worry about me. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, and I wouldn't be an intrepid girl reporter if I didn't follow my story wherever it took me. And this is quite a story, my dear. I'm so glad that I came to San Francisco even though it meant leaving you and Mamsie. I would never have gotten a story like this, or the Ogilvie murders either, if I hadn't left sleepy old Sacramento for the big city.

Do you remember how much Mr. Leavis liked my story on the murders? I spent months researching those girls, and when they actually caught and arrested Ogilvie, based on the evidence I had uncovered, it was quite a coup for the Ledger, I can tell you!

This morning, Mr. Leavis called me into his office, which always reeks of cigar smoke, and said, "Nell, you know these girls that have been disappearing?" Well, of course I dida"they've been in all the papers, and there was a story on them in the Ledger last week. You remember the clipping I sent youa"girls from respectable neighborhoods, gone missing and no bodies found. Quite the opposite of Ogilvie, who strangled them and left them in alleys. "I want you to look into it," he told me. "You did good work on the Ogilvie casea"under my direction, of course." As though he'd had anything to do with it! Honestly, sis, the way he takes credit for everyone's work is just sickening. "The Langs have agreed to be interviewed. We can run a story on the poor grieving family and at the same time launch our own investigation. How about it?" Well, of course I said yes! Imagine if I could find out where those girls have gonea"I would be on the front page again, but this time I would insist on my own byline! No more "by Eleanor Dale and Edward Leavis," thank you!

After lunch I went to see the Langs. At first I wasn't sure if I was going to get the interview after all. Mr. Lang was obviously drunk and refused to let me in, but his wife pleaded with him, saying it was "for our Mary." So we sat on the sofa and had a very stiff interview indeed. Luckily Mr. Lang pa.s.sed out in the middle of it, and then Mrs. Lang really opened up. Poor woman! She was the one who had called the police and then the Ledgera"her husband hadn't even wanted to file a missing person report. "He said Mary had run off with some boy, but I don't believe it," she told me. "Mary was always a good girl." She talked about how much she missed her daughter and what a help she'd been around the house and with the little ones. And she let me look around Mary's room. She even showed me Mary's diary. There wasn't much in it, just an account of her daily life, but every once in a while, I came across a curious entry: "Father angry today," or "Father especially angry today."

Fathers do get angry, but it was the reoccurrence of the phrase that caught my attention. And there were mentions of a best friend, Sally Russell. I asked Mrs. Lang if she could give me Sally's address. It was only a couple of blocks away. I walked along streets of placid houses surrounded by white picket fences. They seemed to be sleeping in the California sunlight. (Do you like that description? I'm going to use it in the story.) Sally Russell was a tall, lanky girl with freckles and strawcolored hair. She wasted no time in telling me what was what. "Of course Mary ran away!" she said. "No, she didn't have a boyfrienda"Mr. Lang would never have let her. He used to beat her something awfula"and her mother, too, but her mother never did anything about it. And he was going to do worsea He wasn't Mary's real father, you knowa"her father ran off, and then Mrs. Lang married Mr. Lang and had two more children. Mary could never go anywhere, because she had to take care of them. The little imps, she used to call them. I think it was the school nurse that told hera"one day when she was afraid Mr. Lang had broken her wrist, it was so swollen, and she just couldn't hide it anymore. The nurse told her that there was this undergrounda"that it could get girls to Oz."

Well, you can imagine how I responded to that! Everyone knows you can't get to Oz anymore, not since the borders were closed. No one even knows where it is now. It could be in the middle of the sea or a great desert. And even if you could find ita"what if you ran into Nomes or Wheelers or Winged Monkeys? I told her, quite sternly, that Mary had probably been tricked and could be in a lot of trouble. She grew frightened at that. There was something she hadn't given the policea"it was an address where Mary had said she could send letters. Well, she gave it to me, after I promised that I would investigate and make sure Mary was safe. I promised her I would do it myself and not turn the address over to the police. It was an easy promise to makea"I didn't want to be scooped!

I took the address and looked it up on a map. It was in an older, rundown part of the city. The trolley took a while to get there, and it was already dark when I arrived. But that allowed me to sneak around to the back of the house and look in through the windows. Only one room was lit, and in it was a man, rather old and stooped, sitting at a table and writing something in a book.

Well, he didn't seem terribly frightening! And I knew what to do next. Just a few blocks from the house, close to the trolley stop where I had gotten off, was a diner. I asked the waitress if she had any rubber bands and then went into the bathroom and washed all the makeup off my face. I put my hair in two pigtails. When I came out, she looked at me curiously.

"I went to a party with my boyfriend," I told her. "He's in collegea"he doesn't know I'm just in high school. But someone took my school uniform. I don't know what to do. If I go home like this, my mom is going to kill me."

"I used to do that," she told me sympathetically. "Here, why don't you take my sweater? And I've got some shoes you can borrow. You can tell her that someone accidentally took your uniform at gym, and you had to borrow clothes from another girl."

"I could just kiss you!" I told her. Then I traded my hat and jacket and pumps for her sweater and a pair of rubber-soled shoes. I looked at least five years younger. It's a good thing I carry a leather postman's bag instead of a silly little purse! In the dark I thought it would look enough like a school bag.

When I knocked on the door, the old man answered it and said, "Yes, my dear? What is it?"

"Mary Lang sent me," I said, looking fearfully around as though afraid someone might have followed me. "She said you could help!"

"Oh goodness, come in, come in quickly," he said. "Along that hallway to the back, where we can't be seen."

Well, I was alone in the dark house with him, but I wasn't afraid. He looked so old, and not particularly strong. And you know I've taken jiu-jitsu.

I followed the hallway and found myself in a room at the back of the house. When he turned on the light, I saw that the curtains were drawn. There was a bed along one wall, a dresser, and a table with two chairs. Really, it was a perfectly ordinary room.

"You must be hungry," he said. "What would you like to eat? Ask for anythinga"anything at all." Laughing at him a littlea"surely this funny old man couldn't produce anything I asked fora"I said I would like a pork chop with mashed potatoes and peas. And thena"you won't believe this, Dottie, but it's truea"he pulled out a wand from inside his jacket, waved it over the table, and there it all was! With a gla.s.s of lemonade to drink. Of course I knew who he was immediately.

"You're Oz, the Great and Terrible," I said.

"Oh, I don't go by that name anymore," he said, smiling modestly. "I just go by Oscar, or Mr. Diggs if you prefer. To make up for the terrible deception I practiced on the Ozites, I spend my life helping Ozma in her great work."

"And what work is that?" I asked.

"Why, helping girls like you and Mary," he said. "By royal decree, any girl who asks for refuge in Oz is granted it. What did you say your name was again, my dear?"

I hadn't said. "Sally Russell," I told him. "Mary gave me your address so I could send her a letter. She didn't know I would need it myself! But my unclea"he lives with us, and he's such a frightening man! Hea""

"You don't need to tell me, my dear," said the Wizard. "It's a story I've heard many times, from girls very much like you. But there is a place and a purpose for you in Oz. Finish your dinner, and sleep here tonighta"there is a nightgown under your pillowa"and tomorrow we shall go to Oz!"

"How will we get there?" I asked him. "Aren't there terrible dangers in the way?"

"Oh, we have our methods," he said. "Don't you worry. Just get some sleep. We have a long journey tomorrow."

Well, Dottie, you can imagine what was going on in my mind! This was undeniably the Wizard: he had made a dinner appear before my eyes, and a very good dinner too! And he was taking girls who had run away from their families to Oz. That's where all the girls were going. What a story this would make! It would be on the front page, to be sure. Imagine if I could go to Oz and interview Mary Lang!

I ate a bit of everything he had given me and then waited half an hour to see if it contained a sedative, but I felt perfectly fine, so I finished my dinner. Now I am sitting at the table, writing this letter to you. As soon as I finish it, I'm going to sneak out through the window and post it in a letter box I saw down the street. Then I'll get some sleep. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but this is quite the adventure, isn't it?

Don't worry about me, my dear. But I do want you and Mamsie to know where I've gone. Just in case something does happen to me (but it won't). Love you, little sis! I'll write to you again when I can.

Your own, Nell Dearest Dottie, I don't know when or even whether this letter will reach you. Once I finish writing it, I'm going to give it to a woman I met at the Great Market in the Emerald City. She's a traveling merchant who brings rugs to sell in Oz from beyond the Deadly Desert, crossing the sands on one of the ships that sail across it, blown by the wind. There is no way to get to Oz except across that desert, and anyone who touches the sands turns into sand himself! Of course there is no other way to leave Oz eithera Yes, I'm in Oz, in a camp outside the Emerald City. As I sit in my tent, writing you this letter, I can hear the other girls outside, talking and laughing. Girls from all over the country! In this tent there are six of us: two from California, one from Kentucky, one from Oklahoma, and two sisters who ran away together from Ma.s.sachusetts. The others are outside right now, probably roasting marshmallows, which grow on the marshmallow bushes down by a swampy area close to the city walls. The fields outside the walls are gay with tents and banners: red and yellow and purple and blue, the colors of the four countries of Oz. All of us girls have been a.s.signed to a particular division; the six of us are in the Quadling division, so our tent and uniforms are red, which I think goes quite well with my hair! But I can't explain where I am without telling you the whole story, from the last time I wrote.

After climbing out of the Wizard's window and mailing you my last letter, then climbing back in again undetected, I had a good night's sleep. The next morning, the Wizard woke me and conjured a breakfast of toast with b.u.t.ter and marmalade, and eggs sunny-side up, with a mug of coffee. I have to admit that it was delicious. But his car! It was a Model A that looked as though it had come through the War. Wouldn't you think a wizard could conjure a better car than that? I asked him, but he said he didn't know that kind of magic. We drove down toward San Jose and then east past Fresno. Slowly the verdure faded from the landscape to be replaced by the dun-colored hills of eastern California. (Isn't that a good line? Francesa"one of the girls from Ma.s.sachusettsa"used the word verdure earlier, when we were talking about the gardens in the Emerald City, and I liked it so much that I wanted to use it myself.) At some point I must have fallen asleep; it was so dull, driving through the desert. The car jounced along, making it hard to talk, and the Wizard was not a particularly good drivera"every time I asked him a question, he turned to look at me, and I was afraid he would swerve off the road.

We stopped under a sign that read "Welcome to Nevada" and had a picnic lunch: ham sandwiches, apples, and more lemonade. It's quite useful having a wizard along when you're traveling! Although I wish he could have conjured up an electric fan. At that point I was too awake to sleep. I kept staring at the miles and miles of sand and scrub, wondering how in the world we were supposed to get to Oz. Maybe the Wizard, although undoubtedly a genuine wizard, at least as far as ham sandwiches were concerned, was also a crazy old man who drove girls into the desert and murdered them, leaving their bodies to rot on the desert sands. When I looked over at him, I couldn't bring myself to be scared of him. But maybe that was part of his plana"to seem so harmless? Well, if he was a murderer, he wouldn't find me easy to kill! I went through my jiu-jitsu moves in my head.

Just as the sun was starting to set, we came to a town in the middle of the desert. Well, town is too fancy a word for ita"it was just a gas station, the first we had seen for hours, and a general store with a "Closed" sign in the window, and some houses that looked as though they might collapse at any moment. Next to the gas station was a motor lodge, and that, at any rate, was still open; there was a "Rooms to Let" sign out front and a car in the parking lot in considerably better shape than ours. We pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car. I was so sore from sitting and jouncing! The rooms were arranged in a semicircle around the parking lot, and one of the doors opened. Out came a girl, about my age, who waved at us.

She was dressed all in green: a green blouse with hearts embroidered on it and green trousers over which she wore thigh-high green leather boots. Around her waist she wore a gun belt with silver pistols in the holsters. She had short green hair that stood up in spikes all over her head.

"Jellia Jamb!" said the Wizard. "It's so good to see you. I've brought a last-minute addition to our party."

"I have two more in the room," said Jellia. "And the s.h.a.ggy Man telephoned to say that he will be here tonight with another three. We'll leave in the morning and meet Nick Chopper at the second rendezvous point."

"My friend Nick is a fierce fighter, although no man has a kinder heart," said the Wizard, turning to me. "We'll need his help getting through the Nome Kingdom."

I nodded, not quite knowing what to say. It was like walking into a fairy tale or a film studioa"you know how often Mamsie would tell us about the famous people of Oz, before it was cut off from the world. The Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion and Sc.r.a.ps, the Patchwork Girla And here I was going to meet them! Until that moment I had not truly believed that we were going to Oz. But now I knew we were.

In the room at the motor lodge, I met the other two girls. Joan was also from California. She had run away from home to be a film star and had ended up living on the streets of Los Angeles. Ingrid was from a farm in Oklahoma, and she would not talk about why she wanted to run away. She spoke with an accenta"I think her family was Swedish or something like that. I told them about being Sally Russell from San Francisco and about my friend Mary Lamb. We sat on the beds and talked a little, but mostly listened as the Wizard and Jellia leaned over a map on the table and made their plans. Jellia said that the Nomes had been especially troublesome lately, which was why Nick Chopper was joining us; once we made it past the Nome Kingdom, we would be fine. "The last time the Growleywogs and Scoodlers bothered us, we had the Hungry Tiger with us, and we showed them what for!" said Jellia. "I don't think they'll be bothering us again soon." Once we reached the third rendezvous point on the border of the Deadly Desert, we would be transported to Oz.

"How will that happen?" I asked.

"Don't you worry," said Jellia. "All that will be taken care of."

Because we were all hungry, the Wizard conjured up some ice cream, the flavors we liked besta"I asked for strawberry and chocolate. I was amused to see that Jellia asked for pistachio. Just as we were finishing, we heard a knock on the door. It was the s.h.a.ggy Man.

He was exactly the way I had expected: s.h.a.ggy everywhere, all his clothes in rags, although they weren't really. If you looked carefully, you could see that the cloth had been carefully cut to appear ragged. And his hair and beard were separated into a number of small s.h.a.gs, all tied with ribbons. His clothes were so colorful that he looked like a rainbow. He had brought three more girls: Lula Mae from Kentucky, who immediately started talking to Ingrid about milking cows, and Frances and Enid, two sisters who had run away from a fancy boarding school in Ma.s.sachusetts. At first I didn't have a lot of sympathy for them, but during our journey, they earned my respect. None of us could build a fire as fast as they could, or put up a tent so it wouldn't blow over during the night.

"Well, Jellia, my dear, and Wizard, my good friend, I'll take the first watch," said the s.h.a.ggy Man. As I fell asleep in the bed I was sharing with Joan and Ingrid, I saw him standing in front of the motor lodge, holding what looked like a machine gun out of a gangster film.

The next day we drove across the desert in a caravan, Jellia's car in the rear because it was the most heavily armed. By evening we had reached the second rendezvous point, where Nick Chopper was waiting for us.

I saw him as soon as I stepped out of the Wizard's car: a man made all of metal, gleaming in the light of the setting sun. He was armed with an axe, and although he had a jolly enough smile on his metal face, I would not have liked to make him angry! Next to him stood a boy about my age. He looked as though he had been training for one of the strongman contests at the state fair: his biceps bulged out of his shirtsleeves and blond hair flopped over his eyes. Behind them was a van armored all over with metal plates.

"Will you look at that," said Joan, who was standing next to me. She was staring at the boy with the muscles. I was more impressed with the Tin Woodman.

"This is my friend Nick," said the Wizard. The metal man made us an awkward bow.

"I've brought b.u.t.ton-Bright," he said. "The last caravan we sent through the Nome Kingdom was attacked. They've gotten bolder since Ruggedo III ascended the throne. They don't dare attack Oz itself, not while Ozma has the Magic Belt. But they want to annoy and hara.s.s us as much as they can."

"Is that b.u.t.ton-Bright?" I asked, pointing to Mr. Muscles.