Oz Reimagined Part 8

"You might or might not remember, but Langwidere has a collection of heads she likes to wear, one for every day of the month. She simply takes one off and puts another on. She keeps them in gla.s.s cabinetsa"she even once threatened to take Dorothy's, although Dorothy wasn't having it."

"No, I dare say she wasn't," said the Wizard with a chuckle.

"I suspect that the Gla.s.s Cat begged Langwidere to teach her the trick, because she thought it would be an entertaining mischief. On her way back to Emerald, she came across...o...b.. Amby having a drink at the stream and decided to play the head-off trick on him that she'd learned from the Princess. But when Omby Amby's head came loose, it rolled into the water. Even though she's made of gla.s.s, she wouldn't have wanted to go in after it. Am I right, Cat?"

The Cat looked up long enough to let out a tinkling sniff, then returned to her grooming.

"But that wasn't enough for her, I suspect. She realized that with Omby Amby unable to perform his duties, she'd have a lot more to do. She likes being in the center of things. And if there was going to be a fight, and arguing, and people upset with each othera"well, she'd have even more to do."

"Is this true, Gla.s.s Cat?" asked the Wizard. "If so, it was very wicked of you."

"You people are silly," she said. "You simply don't have the sense of humor to appreciate a clever prank."

"A clever prank that almost started a war." Scarecrow was obviously troubled and stared carefully at the Cat for a long time. Meanwhile Orlando was beginning to worry all over again. At first he had been relieved just to have solved the mystery, but the Gla.s.s Cat had proven that things could go wrong in the simulation, even if she hadn't meant to cause as much harm as had resulted. How could they deal with her here? What if she decided to cause more trouble as soon as Orlando left? And even if Orlando simply removed the Gla.s.s Cat from the Kansas simworlda"something he was seriously consideringa"who was to say someone else wouldn't just start in where she'd left off? The simple-minded, simple-hearted characters could easily be led astray again.

"Ha! My excellent brains, which you gave to me, Senator Wizard, have thought of a possible solution," the Scarecrow said abruptly. "Do you still have that gift that the s.h.a.ggy Man brought back to you from the sh.o.r.es of Nonestic Lake?"

The Wizard looked puzzled for a moment. Then he brightened and nodded. "Yes, yes!" he said. "I do indeed. But before we do anything else, I want the Cat to prove she can actually do what she claims, because I am not sure I believe her."

"What are you talking about?" the Cat demanded. "Are you calling me a liar?"

"Well, I've never seen such a thinga"making someone's head come off with no harm to them." The Wizard shook his head in wonder. "I find it hard to believe such a thing is even possible."

"I'll show you," the Cat said, jumping abruptly from the chair to his desk. "I'll have your head off in a flash."

"No, no, I am too old for such tricks," said the Wizard. "And everyone knows it is no difficulty to get the Scarecrow's head off, as it is barely sewn on."

"Comes off all the time," agreed Scarecrow cheerfully. "Frightened one of my council members quite badly just the other day."

Orlando was beginning to get the drift. "And it won't work on me," he said. "BecauseaumaOzma put a spell on me to protect me against such things."

"Very well," said the Cat, "since you are all such scaredy-people, I'll demonstrate on myself." And without so much as a word of a magical spell or the hint of a magical gesture (although she might have whispered something to herself), the Gla.s.s Cat turned her head all the way around once on her neck, and it fell off like the lid of an unscrewed jar. Her body slumped down onto the desk, but her head shot them a look of superior self-satisfaction from where it now lay, bloodless and quite alive, on the Wizard's blotter. "See?" she said. "Easy as pie."

The Wizard lifted her head and examined it. Then he turned it neck-side-down and shook it (the head complaining loudly all the while) until the Gla.s.s Cat's pink brains rolled out of it and onto the desk. She immediately stopped speaking, and her emerald eyes closed; even her pretty little ruby heart seemed to stop beating. Then the Wizard opened a drawer in his desk and removed a small jar of what looked like transparent gla.s.s marbles.

"s.h.a.ggy Man brought back these beautiful crystal pearls from the salty shallows of Nonestic Lake," the Wizard said. "They are made by the very cultured oysters who live there. The oysters are happy in the warm waters, so their pearls are lovely and clear, and I doubt there is an evil or even mischievous thought in them." He cupped the pearls in his hand and poured them into the Cat's head in place of the pink brains. The old brains went into the jar and back in his desk. Then he set the Cat's head back on its neck. "There," said the Wizard. "How do you feel now, Gla.s.s Cat?"

She blinked and looked around. "I feelagood. Thank you for asking. It has suddenly occurred to me that I owe a number of apologies, including one to you, Senator Wizard, and one to you, Mayor Scarecrow. But I have upset others, too, and I must get right to work telling them that I'm sorry." She turned to Orlando before jumping down. "Nice to see you again, Orlando. Please give Ozma my love and best wishes."

"What will you do when you've finished apologizing?" the Wizard asked.

"Something useful, I expect," she said. "Something that will make others happy." She jumped down, landed lightly, and walked out the door without a trace of her former swagger.

"But is it real?" Orlando asked. "Has she really changed, just like that?"

"Oh, no need to worry," said the Wizard. "Those pearls will let only the clear light of Truth into her head, which everyone knows makes it impossible to be wicked. I doubt we will have any more trouble from her."

"It is miraculous what brains can do to improve things," said Scarecrow. "Even if they are hand-me-downs."

A little while later, as Orlando was preparing to leave not just the Wizard's white house but the entire simulation, his host stopped him. "Just one more question, if you don't mind."

Orlando smiled. "Of course, Senator Wizard."

"We were wondering how you knew that something was wrong here in the first place. Did the Gla.s.s Cat call for you?"

"Noa"in fact, she seemed a bit surprised to see me." But as soon as he said it he wished he hadn't. How could he tell them about all the ways he was monitoring Kansas and the other simworlds? He fell back instead on an old catchall. "Princess Ozma saw it in her magic mirror, of course, and sent me to help straighten things out. She sees everything that happens."

Scarecrow scratched at his head with an understuffed finger. "But if Ozma saw it in her mirror, why didn't she tell you before you left what had really transpired? Why would she keep the Cat's trick a secret from you?" He seemed genuinely puzzled.

Orlando had been formulating another lie, but the deception was beginning to make him feel shabby. "You know, I don't actually know the answer to that. I'll try to find out from Ozma herself. I'll let you know what she says."

"Ah," said the Wizard. "Ah." He exchanged a glance with Scarecrow. "Of course, Orlando. We shall beainterested to hear."

"Is something wrong?" Orlando suddenly felt himself on shaky ground and wasn't sure why.

Scarecrow cleared his throat with a rustling noise. "It's justawell, we are very grateful for your help, Orlando. You've always been a good friend to Emerald and the other counties of Kansasa"

He heard the unspoken. "But?"

"Buta" Scarecrow looked embarra.s.sed, or at least as much so as a painted feed sack could. "Well, weawe wondereda"

"We wondered why we never see anyone else from Oz," said the Wizard. His familiar face was kindly, but there was something behind the eyes Orlando hadn't seen before, or perhaps hadn't noticed: a glint of keen intelligence. "Only you. Not that we're unhappy with that, but, wellait does seem strange."

The two best thinkers in Oz had been thinking; that was clear. Orlando wasn't too sure he liked what they'd been thinking about. "I'm sure that will change one day, Senator Wizard. Surely you don't think that Ozma has forgotten about you?"

"No," said the Wizard. "Of course not. Whether in Oz or Kansas, we're all Ozma's subjects, and our lives are good." But something still lurked beneath his wordsa"perhaps doubt, perhaps something more complex. "We miss her, though. We miss our Princess. And all our other friends who don't visit any more, like Jellia Jamb and Sawhorse and Tiktoka"

"And Trot and b.u.t.ton-Bright," finished the Scarecrow sadly. "I cannot remember the last time I saw them. We wonder why they don't come to visit us."

"I'll be sure to mention it to Ozma." Now Orlando wanted only to get out as quickly as he could, before these uppity Turing machines began to ask him to prove his own existence. "I'm sure she'll find a way for your friends to come see you." At the very least, Orlando thought he could reanimate a few more characters from the original simulation without causing any real continuity problems. Which reminded hima false alarm, mr. ka"it was something that came completely out of the system itself, not a murder at all. the character wasn't even really dead. no repeat of the kansas war, you'll be glad to hear. (or maybe you won't.) no need to shut it downa"it's doing all right. really. nothing to worry about. i'll finish the official report after i get some sleep. your obedient ranger, o.

Nothing wrong with a half-truth every now and then, right? For a good cause?

Scarecrow and the Wizard came out onto the veranda of the Wizard's white house to wave good-bye to him, but Orlando couldn't help feeling they would be discussing what he'd said for days, pulling it apart, trying to tease out hidden meanings. Perhaps the Oz folk weren't quite as childlike as he'd a.s.sumed.

So was there a moral to this story? Orlando headed down the hill from the Wizard's house and into the outskirts of Forest. Every Eden, he supposed, even the most blissful, was likely to have a snakea"in this case the curious, manipulative, and self-absorbed Gla.s.s Cat. But Orlando had been so worried that this particular snake would ruin things that he had been willing to consider shutting down the whole garden. Instead the peculiar logic of the place had absorbed the conflict anda"with a little a.s.sist from Orlando Gardiner, Dead Boy Detectivea"had resolved the mystery without any drastic remedies. But Orlando had also learned that these sims were not always going to take his word for everything, at least not the cleverest of them. Was that good? Bad? Or just the way things were going to be in this brave new world?

Oh, well, he thought. Plenty of time for Orlando Gardiner, the only Dead Boy Detective in existence, to think about such things later, after a little well-deserved rest.

Plenty of time. Maybe even an eternity.

DOROTHY DREAMS.

BY SIMON R. GREEN.

Dorothy had a bad dream. She dreamed she grew up and grew old, and her children put her in a home. And then she woke up and found it was all real. There's no place like a rest home.

Dorothy sat in her wheelchair, old and frail and very tired, and looked out through the great gla.s.s doors at the world beyonda"a world that no longer had any place or any use for her. There was a lawn and some trees, all of them carefully pruned and looked after to within an inch of their lives. Dorothy thought she knew how they felt. The doors were always kept closed and locked, because the home's residentsa"never referred to as patientsa"weren't allowed outside. Far too risky. They might fall or hurt themselves. And there was the insurance to think of, after all. So Dorothy sat in her wheelchair, where she'd been put, and looked out at a world she could no longer reachaa world as far away as Oz.

Sometimes, when she lay in her narrow bed at night, she would wish for a cyclone to come, to carry her away again. But she wasn't in Kansas anymore. Her children told her they chose this particular home because it was the best. It just happened to be so far away that they couldn't come to visit her very often. Dorothy never missed the weather forecasts on the television; but it seemed there weren't any cyclones in this part of the world.

Dorothy looked down at her hands. Old, wrinkled, covered with liver spots. Knuckles that ached miserably when it rained. She held her hands up before her and turned them back and forth, almost wonderingly. Whose hands are these? she thought. My hands don't look like this.

A young nurse came and brushed Dorothy's long gray hair with rough, efficient strokes. Suzie, or Shirley, something like that. They all looked the same to Dorothy. Bright young faces, often covered with so much makeup it was a wonder it didn't crack when they smiled. Dorothy remembered her own first experiences with makeup so many years ago. "Been at the flower barrel again?" Uncle Henry would say, trying to sound stern but smiling in spite of himself.

Suzie or Shirley pulled the brush through Dorothy's fine gray hair, jerking her head this way and that, chattering happily all the while about people Dorothy didn't know and things she didn't care about. When the nurse was finished, she showed Dorothy the results of her work in a hand mirror. And Dorothy looked at the sunken, lined face, with its flat gray hair pulled back in a tight bun, and thought Who's that old person? That's not me. I don't look like that.

Eventually the nurse went away and left Dorothy in peace, to sit in a chair she couldn't get out of without help. Though that didn't really matter; it wasn't as though there was anything she wanted to do besides sit and think and rememberaher memories were all she had left. The only things that still mattered.

"Don't get old, dear," her Aunt Em had said back on the farm. "It's hard work being old."

Dorothy hadn't listened. There was so much she could have learned from wise old Aunt Em and hardworking Uncle Henry. But she was always too busy. Always running around, looking for mischief, dreaming of a better place far away from the grim gray plains of Kansas.

She had dreamed a wonderful dream once, of a magical land called Oz. Sometimes she remembered Oz the way it really was, and sometimes she remembered it the way they showed it in that movieashe'd seen the movie so many times, after all, and only saw the real Oz once. So it wasn't surprising that sometimes she got them muddled up in her mind. The movie people made all kinds of mistakes, got so many of the details wrong. They wouldn't listen to her. Silver shoes, she'd insisted, not that garish red. All the colors in the movie Oz had seemed wronga"candy colors, artificial colors. Nothing like the warm and wonderful world of Oz.

Dorothy woke up after dozing off in her wheelchair, and she was back where she belonged: in Oz. A country of almost overwhelming beauty, bright and glorious as the best summer day you ever yearned for. Great stretches of greensward ranged all around her, dotted here and there with groves of tall stately trees bearing every fruit you could think of. Banks of flowers in a hundred delicate, delightful hues. All kinds of birds singing all kinds of songs in the trees and in the bushes. Wonderfully patterned b.u.t.terflies fluttered in the air like animated sc.r.a.ps of whimsy. A small brook rushed along between the green banks, sparkling in the sunshine, and the open sky was an almost heartbreakingly perfect shade of blue.

Dorothy was just a little disappointed. When she'd imagined returning to Oz in the past, she'd always thought there would be a great crowd of Munchkins waiting for her, with flags and banners and songs, happy to welcome her back. Those marvelous child-sized people in their tall hats with little bells around the brim. But there was no one there to greet her. No one at all.

Dorothy was surprised to find herself a young woman, in a smart blue-and-white dress, with silver shoes, rather than the small child she'd been the last time she visited Oz. Though this was how she'd thought of herself, for many years, long after she stopped seeing that image in the mirror. She patted herself down and was surprised at how solid and real she felt. And not a pain or an ache anywhere.

She jumped up and down and spun around in circles, waving her arms about and laughing out loud, glorying in the simple joy of easy movement. And then she stopped abruptly as a dog came running up to her, wagging his tail furiously. A little black dog with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled so very merrily. He danced around her, jumping up at her, almost exploding with joy. Dorothy knelt down to smile at him.

"You look just like the dog I used to have when I was just a little girl," she said. "His name was Toto."

The dog sat back on his haunches and grinned at her. "That's because I am Toto," said the dog in a rough breathy voice. "h.e.l.lo, Dorothy! I've been waiting here for such a long time for you to come and join me."

Dorothy stared at him blankly. "You can talk?"

"Of course!" said Toto, scratching himself briskly. "This is Oz, after all."

"Butayou're dead, Toto," Dorothy said slowly. "You diedaa long time ago."

"What does that matter where Oz is concerned?" asked the little dog. "Aren't you glad to see me again?"

Dorothy gathered the little dog up in her arms and hugged him tightly, as though to make sure no one could ever take him away from her again. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and Toto lapped them up gently with his little pink tongue.

Finally she had to let him go, if only so she could look at him again. Toto backed away to regard her seriously with his head c.o.c.ked to one side.

"You have to come with me now, Dorothy."

"Where?"

"Along the road of yellow brick, of course," said Toto. "To where all your old friends are waiting to meet you again."

Dorothy straightened up and looked, and sure enough, there it was: a long straight road stretching off into the distance, paved with yellow bricks. A soft b.u.t.ter-yellowa"easy and inviting to the eye. Nothing like the gaudy shade in the movie. Dorothy smiled and set off briskly down the road, with Toto scampering along happily beside her. She had no doubt the road would lead her to answers, just as it always had.

The sun shone brightly, with not a cloud anywhere in that most perfect of skies. Birds sang sweetly, a cool breeze caressed her face, and Dorothy's heart was so full of simple happiness it felt like it might break apart at any moment. It felt good to just be striding along, stretching her legs after so much time in that d.a.m.ned wheelchair. Neat fences painted a delicate duck's-egg blue ran along either side of the road, just as she remembered. Beyond them lay huge open fields full of every kind of crop, so that the whole land was one great checkerboard of primary colors.

Soon enough she came to a small summerhouse of gleaming white wood, standing stiff and upright all on its own at the side of the road. Bright-green jade and rich blue lapis lazuli made delicate patterns over the gleaming white. And there, inside the summerhouse, sitting at a table, were two women she recognized immediately: Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch. They were taking tea together and chatting quite companionably. They stopped their conversation and put down their teacups to smile brightly at Dorothy.

She stopped a cautious distance away and studied them both carefully. Toto sat down at her feet, apparently entirely undisturbed. The Witches looked pleasant enougha"two cheerful young women who didn't seem any older than Dorothy was. Or was now. Glinda wore white, and the Wicked Witch wore green, but otherwise there wasn't much to choose between them. They might have been sisters. Dorothy remembered them as being much older the first time she encountered them, but she had been just a small child at the time. All adults seemed old then.

Dorothy crossed her arms tightly and gave both Witches her best hard look. "It seems to me," she said firmly, "that an explanation is in order."

Glinda and the Wicked Witch shared an understanding smile, and then beamed sweetly at Dorothy.

"You were just a child when you came here, my dear," said Glinda. "And you wanted an adventure. So we provided one. In a form you could understand. You can have anything you want here."

"Glinda played the Good Witch, so I played the Bad," said the Witch in green. "Though you were never in any danger, of course."

"So nothing that happened here was real?" asked Dorothy.

"Well," said Toto carelessly, "there's real, and then there's real. I always found reality very limiting. I couldn't talk when I was real."

"When you were alivea" said Dorothy slowly.

"Yes," said Toto. He waited a minute, as though for her to grasp something obvious. Then he sighed and got to his feet again. "Look! Here come some more of your old friends!"

Dorothy looked around, and her heart jumped in her chest as she saw the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion hurrying down the road of yellow brick to join her, waving and laughing. They all looked just as she remembered them. The Scarecrow was out in front, lurching along, all bulgy and misshapen in his blue suit and pointed blue hat, his head just a sack stuffed with straw with the features painted on. She jumped up and down on the spot, clapping her hands together, until she couldn't wait any longer and ran forward to grab the Scarecrow and hug him fiercely, burying her face in his yielding shoulder. He scrunched comfortably in her arms.

The Tin Man was waiting for her when she finally let go of the Scarecrow. He was all shining metal, with his head and arms and legs jointed on, and not an ounce of give in him anywhere, but she still hugged him as best she could. He patted her back carefully with his heavy hands. And finally there was the Lion. He towered over her, standing tall on his two legs, a great s.h.a.ggy beast. When Dorothy went to hug him, she couldn't get her arms halfway around him. His breath smelled sweetly of gra.s.s.

But when she finally stepped back from her friends, Dorothy was shocked again when they strolled over to the summerhouse and greeted both Witches as warmly as old friends. Dorothy's heart suddenly ran cold. She folded her arms again, and hit them all with her hard stare.

"So," she said harshly. "If you two just pretended to be Good and Bad Witches, does that mean you three just pretended to be my friends?"

"Of course we were your friends," said the Scarecrow in his soft husky voice. "That's what we were there for. To keep you company, so you wouldn't be alone and scared. So you could enjoy your adventure."

"Right," said the Tin Man. "A doll to hug, a metal man to protect you, and a cowardly lion to feel superior to."

"Wait just a minute," said the Lion. "There was a lot more to my role than that."

"I don't understand," said Dorothy, suddenly close to tears.

"Then let me explain," said a familiar voice.

And when Dorothy looked around, there he was, of course. Oz the Great and Terrible. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. A little old man with a bald head and a wrinkled face, dressed in the kind of clothes no one had worn sinceaDorothy was a child. He smiled kindly at her. There was such obvious warmth and compa.s.sion in the smile that she couldn't help but smile back. She felt better, in spite of herself.

"I thought you went back to Omaha," said Dorothy, "in your balloon."