The Witch Must Burn
Author: Danielle Paige
Date: 2014-11-11 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: kindle; fiction; sf; fantasy
Publisher: HarperCollins
Rights: All rights reserved

CONTENTS

1. One
2. Two
3. Three
4. Four
5. Five
6. Six
7. Seven
8. Eight
9. Nine
10. Ten
11. Eleven
12. Twelve
13. Thirteen
14. Fourteen
15. Fifteen
16. Excerpt from Dorothy Must Die
17. One
18. Two
19. Back Ads
20. About the Author
21. Books by Danielle Paige
22. Copyright
23. About the Publisher

Guide

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. 1

ONE

Things have been pretty weird lately in Oz. I mean, if you’re not from around here, things are always a little weird in Oz. There’re the flying monkeys, sure, and the Road of Yellow Brick, which isn’t exactly the most reliable freeway in the world (it moves around). We have magic—more about that later—and animated soldiers that used to be toys, and a city made out of emeralds, and trees that talk. We have an enchanted palace—that’s where I work as a servant—and we have a Wizard with extra-special powers. We had a Wizard, anyway, until he disappeared. We have cornfields that grow pre-roasted corn on the cob and talking animals and a Cowardly Lion who’s actually not so cowardly and is becoming a little bit scary. (He talks, too.) But for us, all of that is no big deal. We’re used to it. The really weird thing about Oz these days?

Her name is Dorothy. And she’s my boss.

Technically, Ozma is my boss. She’s the rightful ruler of Oz, and when she was running the show, things were great for us here in the Emerald City. I don’t know anything about where I’m from—I was left on the doorstep of the Emerald Palace as a tiny baby. Ozma and I grew up together there. I knew she’d one day be the ruler of Oz, too, but she never acted like someone who was about to be a queen. She was just my friend, and the palace servants became my family. I’ve never known anything else.

Then Dorothy showed up—the first time—and everything changed. She killed the Wicked Witch of the East and with the help of the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion, the Wicked Witch of the West. She saved Oz. Then she vanished back to the Other Place—the world she came from, where magic doesn’t exist. Ozma took her rightful place on the throne, and things were basically perfect. Although I still didn’t know anything about my real family, I’d lived in the palace for my whole life and Ozma and the servants were the only family I needed. I loved my work in the palace, as strange as that may sound—it gave me a real sense of pride to do a good job keeping everything running. Nobody plans a banquet like I do. I can remember the names of every single dignitary of Oz—and their children, pets, favorite foods, preferred seating arrangements, wives, husbands, ex-wives, ex-husbands, and what room in the palace they most like to stay in when they visit. My detail-oriented nature is what makes me so good at my job, and it’s why Ozma ultimately promoted me to be the youngest head maid in the history of Oz. I wasn’t going to be a famous queen or a powerful sorceress, and I was fine with that. I was good at something that I loved, and I’d get to spend my life doing it.

And then Dorothy came back, and that’s when things got weird. She was different—she wasn’t the sweet, innocent girl we all adored who had saved Oz. Dorothy moved into the palace, and this time she was here to stay. And then, after a palace ball one night, suddenly Ozma wasn’t herself anymore; overnight she went from our vivacious, caring, generous queen to a vacant ghost of herself wandering the halls of the palace like the world’s creepiest talking doll. Sometimes she didn’t even recognize us. At first, Dorothy pretended she was helping out, ruling on Ozma’s behalf. She kept Ozma close by her side.

But then Dorothy dropped the pretense pretty quickly, and none of us knew how to stop her, or even if we could. Suddenly, our peaceful palace was full of soldiers. They looked like the Tin Woodman, but there was something about them that didn’t feel right. The Scarecrow left his own corncob mansion out in the hills of Oz and moved into the palace, where he shut himself up in his suite of rooms and began to work on something mysterious that Dorothy referred to as his “experiments.” The Scarecrow had always seemed so harmless before, just kind of dopey and pleasant despite his brain upgrade, but the maids who took him his meals came back from his rooms with stories about sinister equipment and cages covered in blankets, behind which they could hear rustling and faint, soft moans, like something crying out in pain. We’d see lights coming from his rooms at all hours, and hear crashing and banging in the middle of the night. Pretty soon I had to bribe my staff with extra time off in order to get them to so much as clean the hallway outside his room. And the stories of what they saw inside sent chills up my spine.

Dorothy acted as though nothing was wrong—as though whatever was happening was totally normal. If any of us asked her about it, she’d fly off the handle in one of her infamous tantrums. So we left it alone.

I also quickly realized that Dorothy doesn’t like me, but I am careful to keep myself useful. I want to figure out what’s going on in the palace, and with Ozma, and I can’t do that if Dorothy kicks me out. And I think even she realized that dismissing me out of hand would clue the rest of the servants in to the fact that something was really wrong. Ozma would never condone such a thing, and for all intents and purposes, Ozma is still the ruler of Oz. I make sure for the time being to keep everything the way Dorothy likes it. I make sure her rows and rows of dresses are hung neatly, organized by color, occasion, and material (and yes, of course, season). Her bacon is extra crispy, the floors are extra scrubbed. I know exactly what it takes to keep the palace running like clockwork, and Dorothy knows I know, and so for now we’re in kind of a standoff. She hates me, but she can’t get rid of me, and I intend to keep it that way.

She is the only one who’s allowed to use magic in the palace. She says there’s too much of a risk of disaster otherwise. But I think the real reason is that she doesn’t want anyone to have more power than she does.

I’m not sure how much longer I can stand it here. Every once in a while, I’ll get a chance to pause for a moment at a window, looking out over the glittering green towers of Oz and daydreaming about what life used to be like when Ozma was in charge and Oz was the way it should be. When Dorothy was a national hero, not a national menace. When—

“Jellia!” Dorothy’s voice tore through the air, a piercing shriek that made me flinch. I’d been scrubbing the palace floors since sunrise. Dorothy had been on a tear since she staggered out of bed long after the palace was up and bustling, and I’d had the bad luck to be standing next to her when she decided the floors were filthy, despite the fact that we’d cleaned them the day before. I sat up from my brush and bucket as the relentless tap-tap-tap of her heels came storming into the room, and just barely scrambled to my feet and executed a clumsy curtsy.

“What are you doing?” she snarled. “Why are you filthy?” She’d used magic that morning to dress herself—there was no mistaking the way she was stuffed into her corseted and impossibly short dress, or the glittering haze that surrounded her as she moved. Her hair was curled into tight, childish ringlets that were a strange contrast to her glossy red mouth and heavily rouged cheeks. As always, her magical red heels glowed like the fires of Hell. If you got close to those shoes, it was almost as though you could hear them talking to you in a low, seductive whisper.

“You look terrible,” Dorothy said. So do you, I thought.

“You asked me to scrub the floors this morning.” I kept my eyes downcast.

“I most certainly absolutely did no such thing, Jellia.” She always said my name like it was the worst insult she could think of. It drove me nuts. I dared a look up at her through my lashes, trying to judge her mood. If she’d truly forgotten, I’d only make her angrier by contradicting her. If she was trying to torment me, she’d only leave me alone once she saw me squirm like a worm on a hook. She was looking out the window with a scowl, her attention already elsewhere, which meant I wasn’t on her hit list for the day. Yet.

I rolled my eyes and swallowed my pride. “I must have misheard, Your Majesty,” I mumbled.

“Get yourself cleaned up at once,” she snapped. “I’m throwing a banquet and it has to be perfect. And I want all my dresses laid out—and the ballroom prepared—and I want all the Munchkins out of sight. Every last one of them, especially that filthy little blue one. Is that clear?”

“Of course, Your Majesty. Someone is visiting the palace?”

“Glinda is returning tomorrow,” she said coolly.

Even I, practiced as I was becoming in keeping my emotions out of my expressions, couldn’t hide my shock. Glinda was one of the most powerful witches in Oz—possibly the most powerful witch in Oz. Rumor had it that she was somehow responsible for Dorothy’s return, although no one knew exactly what she’d done.

Then Glinda had vanished shortly after Dorothy had moved into the palace. I know I wasn’t the only one who’d breathed a sigh of relief.

“Glinda is coming here?” I blurted. Dorothy narrowed her eyes, studying my face, and I cursed my big mouth. If she was back in the Emerald City now, I was pretty sure it wasn’t to deck us all out in ball gowns and tiaras.

“Surely you’re thrilled,” she said, and I recognized the danger in her voice.

“Oh, of course.” I scrambled to cover my slipup. “I’m just—it’s just a surprise to have such a, um”—I was hit with a burst of inspiration—“such an exalted guest. It will be an honor to receive her.”

An expression of disgust crossed her face. “And change your dress,” she said. “You look like you crawled out of a sewer.” She laughed out loud at her own joke, pivoting on one glittering heel and stalking out of the room. Her ridiculously short dress switched back and forth with each stride. I sighed and scowled down at my mop bucket. Something was up, and I had the sinking feeling whatever was about to happen wasn’t going to be good.

TWO

The morning of Glinda’s arrival, the palace was a hive of activity. Servants ran back and forth, putting up decorations and frantically cleaning. Delicious smells from the kitchen filled the halls. I inspected every maid I passed, making sure everyone’s uniform was spotless and perfectly fitted. When I heard the clatter of carriages from the courtyard that signaled Glinda’s arrival, my heart skipped a beat. If everything wasn’t perfect, I’d be the one to pay for it.

Dorothy and Glinda shut themselves up in Dorothy’s chambers as soon as Glinda entered the palace. I spent the rest of the afternoon making sure that everything in the banquet hall was ready for Glinda’s big welcoming dinner. The long table was heaped with white flowers that released a gentle aroma of jasmine into the air. The crystal chandeliers glittered. The tablecloth was a snowy, spotless white, richly embroidered with silver thread. Every place was set just so. Even Dorothy, I thought, couldn’t find fault with anything here.

But that night, as we served dinner to Dorothy, Glinda, and her entourage, everything in the palace felt off. The air snapped with tension, and all the servants were nervous. I looked around and noticed Ozma wasn’t present. Dorothy sulked at her end of the table, her habitual fake smile replaced with a sullen scowl. Glinda sat next to her, and the two of them talked quietly on their own. I moved back and forth between the kitchen and the banquet hall, trying to catch snippets of their secretive conversation.

“How are the Scarecrow’s experiments coming, Dorothy? Are we on schedule to begin mining?”

“He’s doing his best,” Dorothy mumbled. “But we’re all worried about you-know-who. If you had better control over your sister—”

“My sister is unimportant,” Glinda snapped, cutting her off sharply.

“But he’s a danger to all of us,” Dorothy said petulantly. “Who knows why he’s returned? Or what his plan is?”

“My spies tell me that he hasn’t returned; he never left Oz at all. He may be throwing his lot in with the Wicked . . .” Glinda’s voice was cool and calculating. I couldn’t quite catch the end of her sentence, and it wouldn’t do to show I was listening. The wicked what? I wondered. “And we don’t yet know for a fact that he means to depose you,” Glinda said, her voice low. “His power—”

She cut herself off, looking at me. I lowered my eyes. “Go get more wine, won’t you, Jellia?” she said sweetly. “And you mustn’t pay attention to Dorothy and me. We’re just indulging in silly gossip!” She tittered gaily; it was like watching an eagle try to sound like a mouse.

“Yes, Your Eminence,” I said, curtsying quickly and turning to obey her request. The Wizard, I thought, my mind spinning as I went back to the kitchen. They were talking about the Wizard—they had to be. And Glinda was helping Dorothy—which meant that she must know about Dorothy’s slow takeover of the palace. Did Glinda know what was wrong with Ozma? Could the Wizard really have returned to Oz? And if he had, what did that mean for us? Had he returned to overthrow Ozma and take back the throne? Or did he realize that Dorothy was out of control? Was he trying to regain control of Oz—or protect it? And what exactly was the Scarecrow working on?

Astrid, one of the youngest servants, tripped on her way from the kitchen to the dining hall, bringing my thoughts back to the moment. I was right behind her and watched in dismay as she dropped the platter of roast beef she was carrying and burst into tears. “I’m—I’m—I’m sorry,” she sobbed, falling to her knees and trying to pick up the shattered pieces; she only succeeded in soaking her dress in the messy remains of the roast. I looked around quickly. Thankfully, we were alone in the corridor and no one had seen her blunder.

“It’s all right,” I said gently, hauling her to her feet. “I’ll make sure a Munchkin cleans this mess up.” I eyed her dress. Magic in the castle was strictly forbidden among the help, but I’d risked it before when trouble brewed. Besides, Dorothy was already tipsy so I didn’t think she’d notice, and being shorthanded at the banquet could end in disaster.

“Here,” I said, tugging at her dress and concentrating. I could feel the warm buzz in my hands, and Astrid gasped as the stains disappeared.

“Th-thank you, Jellia,” she whispered. She seemed shocked—almost as if she’d never seen a staff member do magic before. I’d always assumed everyone else here used it when they were in a fix.

“You can’t go back into the hall with that face. Smile.” I dabbed the remaining tears out of her eyes with the corner of my apron and looked at her sternly as her mouth quivered. “I mean really smile, Astrid. Go back to the kitchen and don’t carry anything to Dorothy until you look like you mean it.” It would be handy, I thought, if there were some spell that could keep all of us permanently smiling; Dorothy was only too happy to dole out punishment at random to anyone who didn’t look like they were having the absolute best time of their lives in her company. That was a hard level of happiness to fake.

“Yes, Jellia,” she whispered, and fled.

But that wasn’t the end of her mishaps for the evening. A few minutes later, as I topped off Dorothy’s wineglass yet again, a rigid grin fixed across my own features, Astrid came back into the banquet hall with a fresh platter of roast beef. Instead of a smile, her face bore an expression of terror. I caught her eye and tried to signal her to turn around, but it was too late. Dorothy could spot suffering from across a room like a cat on the prowl for errant mice. “Annabel,” she crooned, her voice dripping with lethal sweetness. “Come over here with that.” Astrid’s eyes went wide in fear. At Dorothy’s feet, Toto growled from his jeweled velvet pillow. Not for the first time, I thought that I’d have sacrificed a body part if it meant I could throw that wretched dog out a window. A very high window. Astrid rounded the banquet table with her platter and came to stand on Dorothy’s other side.

“Your Majesty,” she said, her voice shaking. Technically, Ozma was the only person in the palace we should have addressed as “Your Majesty,” since technically she was still the queen. But Dorothy was only too happy not to correct us. Soon we won’t even notice she’s taken over everything, I thought. The expression on Dorothy’s face was different than I’d ever seen it—instead of her usual scowl of adolescent petulance, she looked positively malevolent. A chill ran down my spine. Something was very, very wrong. I have to get Astrid out of here, I thought frantically, taking a step forward. But it was too late.

“Annie,” Dorothy crooned. “I’ve been waiting for the roast all evening. Jellia told me it’s extra special tonight. Was there a problem in the kitchen, Astrid?”

“A p-problem, Your Majesty?”

“Something that might cause such a significant delay with the service,” Dorothy said, her voice dripping honeyed menace. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Whatever happened next was not going to be good. “It must have been something simply disastrous, to keep a guest as honored as Glinda waiting.”

Astrid’s mouth trembled, her smile widening desperately and then faltering altogether. From the other end of the table, Glinda laughed. “Now, Dorothy,” she said. “There’s no need to be upset. I’m perfectly content.”

“This is my palace!” Dorothy shrieked, all the syrupy sweetness gone from her voice. Her eyes blazed as she reached out and grabbed Astrid’s arm, sending the platter clattering to the floor and the roast flying for the second time. Dorothy’s glossy red talons dug into Astrid’s flesh, and tears filled Astrid’s eyes as a trickle of blood ran down her arm. “You know what we do in my palace with servants who cannot perform their tasks properly?” She released Astrid’s blood-streaked arm and leaned back in her chair.

Glinda put one pale hand on Dorothy’s arm. “Not yet, Dorothy,” Glinda said, so low I almost missed it. “The time is not yet.” I stared at Dorothy, my mouth half open in horror. She’d been cruel before, entitled and prone to outbursts. But I’d never seen her do anything like this.

“No, Your Majesty!” Astrid cried, sinking to her knees and sobbing. “Please, Your Majesty, I’m sorry—I’m so sorry—it will never happen again—miss, please, don’t hurt me—”

“That’s enough,” I said sharply. Dorothy looked up at me, her eyes narrowed with surprise. “I made a mistake with the order of the dishes. There’s no need to punish Astrid.” I added a hasty and belated, “Your Majesty.”

“Is that so,” Dorothy said. Her sudden calm was even more terrifying than her rage of moments ago. “Really, Jellia, you disappoint me.”

“The servants are my responsibility,” I said.

“Are you disagreeing with how I choose to discipline them?”

I took another deep breath. If I could distract Dorothy and calm her down, we might all get out of this banquet unscathed. “Of course not, Your Majesty,” I said. “As always, your wisdom is boundless. But I should have known that—that”—I racked my brain and hit on an idea—“I should have known that Astrid was too young to wait on such an important guest. The pressure was too much for her. She’s just nervous, Your Eminence—please, there’s no need to punish her.” I curtsied in Glinda’s direction for good measure, and caught an evil little smile flicker across her face and vanish again.

“Your head maid is a feisty little thing, isn’t she?” Glinda said, turning from Dorothy to me. “Come here.” Surprised, I looked at Dorothy, whose expression was uncertain. Astrid, forgotten, began to creep away from the table on her hands and knees.

“Obey Glinda, Jellia,” Dorothy snapped. I curtsied again and walked over to where Glinda was seated. She’d barely touched her food; her plate was still full. From a distance, she was beautiful; up close, she was even more so. Her soft strawberry-blond curls framed her heart-shaped, ageless face. Her eyes were a bright, cornflower blue. She was wearing a pale pink ball gown sewn together out of what looked like tiny scales of leather; the effect was almost like armor, but still managed to be pretty. She stretched out one delicate, immaculately manicured hand and gripped my chin, turning my face back and forth as she studied me like a bug under a magnifying glass. Her blue eyes bored into me and I felt as though I were falling into a bottomless pool, sinking deeper and deeper below the surface as I helplessly watched the sunlight recede above me and the darkness intensify all around me. You’re supposed to be the Good Witch, I thought faintly. But the look in Glinda’s eyes was cold, hard, appraising.

“You can’t just have my maid,” Dorothy said indignantly. Her voice broke the spell. I inhaled sharply, as though I’d just been underwater. “She’s mine.” What was she talking about?

“Just for the summer,” Glinda said, her eyes not leaving my face. “You can have her back just as soon as I’m done with her, Dorothy. You wouldn’t begrudge me this one favor, would you? After everything I’ve done for you?” Her voice was so syrupy I swore I could see the words oozing out of her mouth and flowing across the table toward Dorothy like a pink, sugary tide. Dorothy blinked, her mouth falling open a little, as the thick, shimmering liquid slid up the front of her dress and into her open mouth. Dorothy licked her lips, which glistened as though they’d been dipped in sugar. I blinked. I wasn’t imagining it.

“Just for the summer,” she whispered. But Glinda wasn’t looking at her; she was still staring at me.

You see it, don’t you, little girl? You can see the magic, not just feel it. I heard her voice inside my mind, but her lips weren’t moving. Her fingers tightened on my chin and I went rigid with terror. I had never been so frightened in my life. You don’t even know what you are, do you? You haven’t the faintest idea, she crooned inside my skull. I can make much use of you, child. Much use indeed. She let me go and I staggered backward, nearly falling to the floor. Around us, the guests who’d fallen silent during Dorothy’s tantrum began to chat nervously again, and the buzz of conversation filled the banquet hall. The servants, moving hesitantly at first and then with more confidence, refilled glasses and cleared plates, brought out trays piled with colorful desserts. The room returned to normal for everyone but me.

“Just for the summer,” Glinda said pleasantly. “I think it will be such a wonderful time. Don’t you, Jellia?”

My heart hammering in my chest, my limbs finally released from her terrible power, I answered in the only way I could. I turned and fled the room.

THREE

Packing for the journey to Glinda’s was simple. I told myself that Glinda was telling the truth, no matter how much she’d scared me the night before: this would just be for the summer. There was no need to clean out my room in the Emerald Palace. Just a few dresses and pairs of shoes. Glinda would probably have her own servants’ uniforms, but I added my work dress just in case. I looked over my tidy little room and neatly arranged possessions, wondering if I’d ever see them again, and quickly squashed that thought. Of course I’d be back. Dorothy would insist on it, and Dorothy was in charge now. I had made myself indispensable to her. I tried not to think about how easily Glinda had overruled Dorothy the night before, or just how powerless Dorothy had been when confronted with Glinda’s magic. Or to wonder what Glinda wanted me for.

I snapped my fingers, and an image of all the other servants wavered into life before me, transparent and iridescent as a soap bubble. I could summon up their images whenever I wanted, I told myself. I could probably even send them messages, though I’d never tried to use my magic over long distances before. This summer I would learn how much I was capable of doing.

The hardest part was saying good-bye. Astrid had already burst into my room first thing that morning, her face wet with tears. “Jellia!” she wailed, flinging her arms around me and almost knocking me over onto my bed. “You can’t go! It’s all my f-f-fault,” she sobbed into my shoulder. “Who will look after us when you’re gone? Who will protect us?”

“It’s just for the summer,” I said firmly, gently moving her head off my shoulder before she blew snot all over me. “You’ll have to be strong, Astrid. You can’t always rely on other people to fight your battles for you. This summer will be your chance to grow up.” She’s just a kid, I thought, patting her back awkwardly. How can she stand up to Dorothy? What will they do without me? Technically, I was just a kid, but I’d always had a good head on my shoulders and a lot of responsibility. I felt about a million years older than Astrid, even though we were nearly the same age. And though I tried not to let her see it, inside I was almost as upset as she was. Glinda was seriously scary—and I had no idea what lay in store for me.

Despite our hasty departure, word had spread fast around the palace, and all the servants were assembled in the courtyard to see me off. I took a deep breath, determined not to cry. I looked around for Ozma but wasn’t totally surprised by her absence. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her walking around in the palace, and it made me worry even more about Dorothy’s plans.

Glinda hovered a few feet away—literally, her glittery heels floating a few inches off the cobblestones. She had dressed for the journey as if she were headed to a ball. Her pale pink dress was embroidered with glittering gold thread and the bodice was studded with clear gemstones that caught the sunlight and refracted it into a blinding dazzle. Her hair was piled on top of her head and secured with more gems. A small squad of the Tin Woodman’s soldiers stood at attention behind her mechanical carriage, their metallic bodies gleaming in the bright courtyard as the automaton horses—wired together out of tin and wood and gems—stamped their feet mechanically, their tinny neighing breaking the still air. Glinda beamed benevolently while the other servants came forward one by one to say good-bye. It wasn’t like Dorothy to allow the servants a moment’s respite, but Glinda’s departure seemed to have put her in a good mood. She stood a few feet away from the witch, decked out in a tiny-waisted leather dress pieced together out of blue and white squares. As always, her red shoes emitted a rosy halo of light.

Astrid was still sobbing like the sweet little idiot she was; I had to resist the urge to pat her on the head like a dog. Hannah, the maid who was closest to me in age—and the closest thing I had to a best friend—came up to hug me. The Munchkin cooks surrounded me, flinging their arms around my knees and crying “Jellia! Jellia! Don’t go!” in unison. I was touched, even if they made walking a little awkward.

“It’s just for a few months,” I reassured them, hugging them one by one. “I promise. You’ll barely notice I was gone. Take good care of Dorothy—don’t forget about the bacon—”

“—and color code her dresses,” Hannah finished. “We know, J. It’ll be okay.” Astrid wailed aloud, and Hannah rolled her eyes. I laughed. She always knew how to cheer me up.

“Jellia,” Glinda cooed, “we really must be going. You’ll see all your little friends again before you even know it! I need your help at my palace now.”

I gave everyone one last wave before I climbed reluctantly into Glinda’s carriage. To my surprise, I saw the Scarecrow stumble out of the palace, carrying an enormous satchel. Behind him stretched a line of the Tin Woodman’s soldiers, carrying various pieces of mechanical equipment and machine parts. Another carriage drew up behind Glinda’s, and the soldiers busied themselves loading it with their burdens while the Scarecrow supervised.

“He’s always late,” Glinda said, and sighed. Gone was the terrifying witch of the night before; in the afternoon sunlight, she looked radiant and gentle, although her voice had a peevish tone that belied her sweet expression. Finally, the second carriage was loaded to the Scarecrow’s satisfaction, and he gave Glinda a jaunty wave.

“Everything will work as we discussed?” she called in a honeyed voice. He nodded jerkily, his black button eyes flashing in the sun.

“If the girl has enough magic to power the device,” he said. The Scarecrow only spoke rarely, and his dry, straw-like voice always sent chills through me. What girl was he talking about? Did he mean me? What magic could I possibly have?

“Oh, I’m confident of that,” Glinda said gaily. “I believe in the power of positive thinking, don’t you? If everything’s ready, I think it’s time we were going.” She rapped sharply on the roof of the carriage, and the driver snapped to life with a whirr of clockwork. “Good-bye, Dorothy!” Glinda sang merrily. “Good-bye, Emerald City! Say good-bye, Jellia! We’ve got such adventures ahead of us!”

I did not like the sound of that at all. I waved out the window as the servants shrank behind us in the distance, and I didn’t turn back to face the road until they were nothing more than tiny dots against the glittering green of the Emerald Palace. Whatever happened next, I was on my own now.

FOUR

I had only been outside the Emerald City a handful of times in my life, and despite my anxiety about what lay ahead of me, I couldn’t help a surge of excitement as the carriage passed through the immense gates of the city and onto the Road of Yellow Brick. Next to me, Glinda lay back against her seat with her eyes closed, looking for all the world like a pretty young girl taking a nap. If I’d hoped she would give me some clue as to what she wanted with me, I clearly wasn’t going to get it. I used the brief respite from her razor-sharp attention to look out the carriage window at the countryside. Once we were out of the gates, the radiant green aura of the city dissipated. Hills gave way to rolling farmland; cornstalks bobbed in the wind, and neatly tended orchards stretched toward the horizon in even rows. The trees didn’t talk anymore—that had been one of Dorothy’s first decrees, she said they gave her a headache—but their silence didn’t affect the views. We’d been traveling for an hour or so when Glinda opened her eyes next to me and sat up, rapping on the roof of the carriage with her knuckles. We drew to a halt, and she stepped out of the carriage. I stayed where I was, confused, until I heard her call sweetly, “Jellia! What on earth are you waiting for? Surely you’re not shirking your duties already?” I got out hastily.

We’d stopped next to a broad meadow of periwinkle grass, bordered on one edge by a thick, lush forest. The second carriage had followed us, and I only now saw that a large contingent of the Tin Woodman’s soldiers had ridden along in the carriage. Glinda was directing them to unload the Scarecrow’s machinery from the other carriage—a bewildering array of pipes and wires and instruments. The unloading took some time, and I could sense Glinda’s impatience, although her face remained unnaturally serene. When the soldiers had finished they stood expectantly, staring at her.

“Now put it together,” she said. This time there was no mistaking the irritation in her voice, and the soldiers got busy at once, assembling the pieces in the middle of the field. Glinda didn’t seem to expect me to do anything, so I stood awkwardly at her side as she surveyed the construction.

The soldiers were moving with sharp, jerky motions, like sped-up windup toys, and soon a structure began to take shape. It was a giant contraption that looked almost like a complicated windmill with a long, flat piece that stretched out from the main body of the structure and balanced on another, smaller structure, like a seesaw. What on earth? I wondered.

“It’s a drill, of course,” Glinda said, as if she could read my mind.

“A drill, Your Eminence?”

“For magic,” she said. I looked up at her. The rubies in her crown dazzled in the afternoon sun. “It’s simply everywhere in Oz, as you know, going to waste. It’s high time we put all those natural resources to work, don’t you think?”

“You’re drilling magic out of the ground?” I stared at her in surprise and she raised one eyebrow. “Your Eminence,” I added quickly.

“Of course. Now that we have the technology to extract it, there’s no reason not to. Think of how much that power will improve the lives of your fellow citizens!” I wasn’t fooled by her sugary rhetoric; I was pretty sure that the only citizens whose lives would be improved by Glinda’s crazy plan were Glinda herself, and Dorothy.

“But Your Eminence, doesn’t Oz depend on that magic to survive?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Jellia, I thought I saw something special in you in the palace, but now you sound positively old-fashioned. There’s plenty of magic to go around. Oz won’t feel a thing.”

I shut my mouth. The months ahead would be hard enough without starting out on Glinda’s bad side. We watched as the soldiers finished tightening the last nuts and bolts on Glinda’s drilling machine, and then she pushed me forward. “Now, Jellia, it’s time to do your duty for your country.”

“Me?” I blurted in surprise as two soldiers grabbed me by the arms and dragged me toward the machine. “But—”

“I need magic to power the drill,” Glinda cooed. She floated delicately after us, her heels sparkling silver several inches off the ground. “You certainly don’t expect me to use mine, do you?” Now that we were closer to the machine, I could see a leather harness and silver helmet attached to one end of the giant seesaw. I struggled desperately, but the soldiers strapped me in and jammed the helmet down on my head. What was happening? Glinda looked me over with an assessing gaze, and then nodded.

“Begin,” Glinda said, and one of the soldiers flipped a switch on the seesaw’s platform. I screamed as a blinding wave of pain surged through me. It felt as though I was being electrocuted. Over my own cries I could hear the machine give out a huge, creaking groan, and the platform I was strapped to shifted as the machine began to move. The pain was unbearable and unending; my nostrils filled with the scent of burning, and I realized in horror that it was the smell of my own flesh. Nothing I had been through in my life had prepared me for pain like this.

“I’m very disappointed in you, Jellia,” I heard Glinda say, and then everything went black.

I woke up on my back in the long, sweet-smelling grass. Every part of my body ached, and when I tried to open my eyes my vision was so blurry I shut them again. My head pounded with a dull, throbbing pain.

“Awake, lazybones?” Glinda’s voice came from a few feet away, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. “I’m afraid you’ve failed me rather badly this afternoon, and it will take quite a lot of effort on your part to make it up to me. I’ve had to revamp the entire mechanism, and all that wasted time is your fault.”

“What happened?” I croaked, my voice barely above a whisper.

“You should have had enough magic to power the device yourself. But you simply weren’t up to the job, Jellia, and now I’ll have to find a way to run it manually. How inconvenient for me.” She sniffed delicately. “I suppose I need to think of something for you to do all summer at my palace. You’re not nearly as valuable to me as I thought you would be.”

Every muscle in my body cried out in protest as I struggled to sit upright, cradling my pounding head in my hands. “Now stand up and make yourself useful,” Glinda said, her voice sharper. I heard her snap her fingers, and I yelped aloud as my body was jerked into a standing position. I was afraid I’d fall over, but her spell held me there. “Open your eyes,” she said, and my body obeyed her. Slowly, my vision returned. We were still in the field, and the sun was still high in the sky—but that didn’t mean anything. Dorothy controlled the passage of time in Oz, and she liked long afternoons with lots of sunshine. Something was moving next to Glinda’s terrible machine. I squinted, and saw that the soldiers had corralled a handful of terrified Munchkins. While a few soldiers guarded the Munchkins, another was busy taking apart the harness and helmet they’d strapped me into. When they finished, they began lifting the Munchkins up to the platform part of the seesaw.

“Munchkin labor,” Glinda sniffed, her honeyed voice underscored with disgust. “Unreliable, ineffective—and impossible to leave unsupervised. I’ll have to station some of my soldiers here, and even return myself to make sure the job is getting done properly. All of this could have been avoided, Jellia, if your magic was sufficient to power the machine.” She studied her device thoughtfully, and then looked back at me. “Perhaps with some refinements you’ll be able to help me again.” One of the soldiers barked an order, and the miserable-looking Munchkins began jumping up and down in place. With a terrific, earsplitting groan, the machine began to turn. Glinda sighed and turned away. “Onward to my palace, I suppose,” she said.

Magic. Glinda was mining magic, pulling it out of the soil as if she was just digging a well. It was everywhere—it was in the land itself.

I struggled to stay awake in Glinda’s carriage, but my body had other ideas, and I passed out again as soon as it moved forward. I had no idea how much time had passed when Glinda shook me impatiently and I snapped back to consciousness. My muscles still ached, but the rest had done me a little good; the headache had subsided, and my vision was much clearer. “Look sharp, you lazy girl,” she said. “We’re almost to the palace, and I won’t have you setting a bad example.”

I’d heard about the Summer Palace, Glinda’s famous home, but I’d never seen it with my own eyes. It was nearly a full day’s journey from the Emerald City, and Glinda’s domain wasn’t exactly a hot vacation destination. Outside the carriage, the countryside was remote and desolate. Lonely-looking blue hills, barren and rocky, surrounded us, and the trees were twisted and thorny. Here and there, huge craters dotted the landscape, and I wondered if she’d already tried out her magic-mining experiments closer to home. We were approaching a huge, sparkling pink gate, made out of some stone that refracted the setting sun’s light and sent it in dazzling sparks across the desolate, rocky ground. Beyond the gate, candy-cotton-pink towers stabbed upward to dizzying heights. As soon as Glinda’s entourage was within the castle walls, the gate swung shut. Like it or not, I was home.

Glinda’s palace was as pink on the inside as it was on the outside. The walls were coated with a textured pink paint that looked as though someone had smeared sugar over everything. Chandeliers, crusted with pale pink gems, hung from the high ceilings. Pink-framed mirrors reflected the pink light, and everywhere hung pink-hued portraits of Glinda in an endless series of pink ball gowns. Waist-high pink vases held huge bouquets of pink flowers, which released little puffs of sickly-sweet perfumed pink smoke into the air at regular intervals. I tried not to gag as a waft of scent hit me, leaving a faint pink smear like a slug’s trail on my uniform. Glinda, who didn’t seem to walk if she could help it, floated ahead of me, gesturing me to follow her down the pink-floored main hall of the palace. “I have the perfect place for you, Jellia,” she singsonged as I trotted after her, wincing at my still-sore muscles. “We’ll start you in the kitchen.”

“I’m trained as a lady’s maid, Your Eminence,” I panted as I hurried after her.

“Too good to start out at the bottom, are we?” she cooed.

“It’s not that, Your Eminence, it’s just that I thought—” She whipped around in midair, her ball gown swirling, and stared down at me.

“In my palace, you don’t think, Jellia,” she said. “Is that clear?”

“Yes, Your Eminence,” I said.

She smiled. Despite her pretty face, the expression made her look like a shark. “That’s more like it, Jellia. And don’t think I won’t be keeping an eye on you. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Your Eminence.” In a puff of pink glitter, she vanished. I stood blinking in the hallway, uncertain what to do next, when a tall, lean boy about my age with thick dark hair rounded a corner and stopped in front of me. He was one of the best-looking people I’d ever seen; I was very happy to see that he wasn’t pink.

“You’re the new girl,” he said, his curt demeanor at odds with his charming looks.

“Yes,” I said, and curtsied for good measure. He snorted.

“Save it for Glinda,” he said. “I’m here to help you stay alive.”

FIVE

I was taken aback by his bluntness, but after what I’d been through on my way to the palace, I was grateful that someone was finally being level with me. “I’m Nox,” he said, stalking away from me. I realized I was supposed to follow, and hurried after him. “I oversee the kitchen, where you’ll be stationed for the time being until Glinda . . .” He paused, and a look of pity crossed his face for a second before he returned to stern indifference. “Until Glinda promotes you.”

“Promotes?” I asked as we walked. The maze of pink corridors was hopelessly disorienting; I couldn’t imagine ever being able to get my bearings.

“She has a habit of it,” he said, his tone discouraging further questions.

“What happens to people she promotes?” I persisted.

“To be honest? I’m not sure you want to know.”

“Oh,” I said, and was quiet for a moment. “I’m only here for the summer. I work in the palace in the Emerald City, normally.”

“I know,” he said.

“You seem to know a lot about me.”

“Your reputation precedes you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He didn’t slow down. “Glinda’s not the only one who’s kept an eye on you. It’s my job to know what happens in the palace.”

“I thought you just said you worked in the kitchen.”

“Among other things.” With this cryptic answer, he pushed open a pink-paneled door at the end of yet another pink hallway, and I followed him into what was obviously the palace kitchen. A bank of ovens took up most of one wall; next to them, pink pots bubbled on a huge pink stove. But the rest of the room was mercifully ordinary; the long counter that stretched the length of the kitchen was just plain old wood, the floors were gray stone, and the walls were painted a clean white. “Glinda doesn’t come in here,” Nox said, as if to explain the color scheme. Three Munchkin cooks bustled back and forth in front of the stove, and a bedraggled girl who looked about ten was washing dishes in the kitchen’s huge sink. Nox didn’t introduce me, and none of them looked up as we came into the room. “Glinda only eats pink food—mostly cake, which is why there are so many ovens,” Nox said. “She likes strawberry ice cream, too. If she wants something that isn’t ordinarily pink, we have to enchant it. Just hope you don’t get stuck on cleanup after bubble gum fondue night.”

“Bubble gum fondue?” He was kidding, right? But his expression was serious, and based on his demeanor so far, it didn’t seem like he kidded anyone about much of anything.

“Listen,” he said, “I don’t know how they do things in the Emerald City, but if you want to survive here you’d better not let Glinda overhear you say anything she might find unflattering. And she has ears everywhere in the palace.” He looked meaningfully at the cooks.

“Right,” I said. “Thanks.”

He took a tiny pink bird covered with pink rhinestones out of his pocket and fastened it to my apron with a little pink clip. “Don’t ever take this off, even when you go to sleep. She’ll know, believe me. This is how she summons you when she needs you. It’ll direct you to wherever she is in the palace.” As if on cue, the bird let out an earsplitting blast of noise, and I jumped about a foot in the air. Nox didn’t even flinch. “Jellia!” Glinda’s voice, tinny and compressed, shrieked across the kitchen. “Bring me a strawberry sundae!”

Nox crossed the kitchen to a tall freezer, which he opened to reveal a row of strawberry sundaes, already prepared. “When she wants something, she wants it right away. We make her favorite dishes ahead of time so she doesn’t have to wait.” He took a pink platter and a pink vase down from a shelf, filled the vase with pink roses from another cooler, set a sundae and the flowers on the platter, and handed the platter to me. “Good luck,” Nox said. “I’ll see you back here when you’re done.”

I’d hoped I would get some time to rest after my ordeal in the field, but clearly that wasn’t going to be the case. I did a mental self-assessment; I was still sore, but I’d manage. The bird pin barked directions at me as I hurried back through the palace corridors and up spiraling flights of pink stairs. Finally, I found myself at a set of pink double doors. I knocked lightly, and the doors swung open.

SIX

Glinda’s personal chambers looked as though a pink marshmallow had gotten into a losing fight with a cotton candy machine. The walls were a lighter version of the ever-present shade of the palace, and the floors were carpeted with thick patterned rugs piled on top of each other, in some places inches thick. Heavy pink velvet drapes hung on either side of the big picture windows, which let in a view of the surrounding countryside through rose-tinted glass. A huge, pink-canopied bed dominated one corner of the room, where Glinda lounged against a raft of immense, ruffled pink pillows. She had let her hair down and her soft curls framed her heart-shaped face. She looked almost vulnerable, and surprisingly young—despite what she had put me through, I found myself wondering what she was really like when she wasn’t busy being a manipulative, magic-stealing monster. She had to be pretty desperate for friends, if Dorothy was the closest thing she had to someone to hang out with.

“That took you long enough, Jellia,” she said sweetly. “You may bring the tray over here.”

“Yes, Your Eminence,” I said, trying not to trip on the carpets as I crossed the room.

“How are you finding the palace, Jellia?” she asked as she took the tray from me and settled it on her lap. Was she serious? I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. Her face was serene. She was serious.

“It’s as lovely as you are, Your Eminence,” I said cautiously.

She smiled. “You are very clever, aren’t you, Jellia? Tell me honestly—were you happy working for Dorothy?”

I kept my eyes on the floor. We were definitely on thin ice. What did she want from me?

“I’m always happy,” I said, and she actually laughed.

“Look at me, Jellia.” Cautiously, I looked up. She was still laughing, holding her bowl of ice cream so carelessly that it was in danger of spilling over onto her dress. “Jellia, I know you’re not stupid. And I know you’re not happy. Dorothy is . . .” She paused. “Dorothy can be quite difficult,” she said, although I didn’t think that was what she had meant to say originally. “But you have run her palace very well, and remained very modest—admirable qualities, in someone with your power.”

Was this about her machine? Or the magic she was mining? I had plenty of practice keeping my expression blank after all the time I’d worked for Dorothy, but something told me Glinda was going to be a lot harder to fool. “Perhaps you can be of more use to me than I thought,” she mused. She looked down at her ice cream and a sudden frown marred her perfect features. “But this ice cream has melted, Jellia, because you took so long to bring it to me.”

“But Your Eminence, we’ve been talking—”

Her frown deepened. “Now, Jellia, I don’t want to hear your excuses. I want you to do better next time. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Your Eminence. It won’t happen again,” I said. Next time I would have to use a spell on her sundae to keep it cold. No one had said anything about a ban on using magic in Glinda’s palace.

Glinda studied me and sighed deeply—a sigh that seemed to come all the way from where her puffy, feathered, pink high-heeled slippers dangled from her perfectly manicured pink-glitter-coated toes. “Tell me, Jellia. Do you enjoy your job?”

I blinked. “Enjoy, Your Eminence?”

“I mean, do you take real satisfaction in your work? At the end of the day, do you feel pride in what you’ve accomplished? Is it meaningful for you to be here?”

I had no idea how to respond to this. “I’m sorry, Your Eminence, I don’t mean to be disrespectful—it’s just that it’s my first day, and I—”

“Because the thing is, Jellia, I get the sense from you that you just don’t care,” Glinda interrupted, her fructose-sweet voice tinted with genuine sadness. “It’s as though you’re just going through the motions—you’re clearly very smart, and very efficient, but I need you to understand that we’re all at the palace because we want to be here. Because our work is meaningful to us. I give my heart every day to magic, Jellia”—at this, Glinda laid her beautifully manicured hands over the bony area of her sternum that I imagined housed this, also doubtless pink, organ—“I show up for my work with joy, Jellia, because there simply isn’t anything I’d rather do than be Glinda the Good Witch. But you—I think you’d almost rather be anywhere else. Mistakes like this”—she indicated the bowl of melted ice cream with a gentle, regal nod of her golden head—“tell me that you think you’re too good to be here with us. Don’t get me wrong, you’re very competent. But I need to feel that you care, Jellia. I need to see caring from you. Can you do that for me?”

“I—I think so, Your Eminence,” I said, utterly confused.

“I’m sure things were different when you worked for Dorothy,” Glinda said, her voice losing none of its gentle sweetness. “But here, we don’t make mistakes.” In her hands, the sundae bowl began to glow red-hot, and the ice cream melted into a steaming swirl. Without changing her expression, Glinda threw the bowl directly at me.

I flung up my arms without thinking, as if to protect myself—and felt a strange buzzing surge through me. The air around me shimmered, and to my astonishment, the bowl shattered in mid-flight, as though it had hit an invisible brick wall. With a series of little pops, the fragments vanished before they even hit the floor. A few blobs of pink ice cream hung forlornly in the air before they, too, disappeared with a faint, sticky noise. I stared in disbelief, but Glinda was smiling.

“I thought so,” she said. “Oh, I had a feeling about you, Jellia, and I’m simply never wrong when I have a feeling.”

I was too startled to keep up my perfect servant act. “What—happened?”

“All in good time,” Glinda said, and this time the gentleness in her voice seemed almost real. “I moved too quickly with you this afternoon. But there’s much, much more to you than meets the eye, and together we’re going to find out just how much you can help me.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Leave the understanding to me,” she said briskly. “You’re dismissed, Jellia. We’ll have plenty of time to perfect your—education.” She waved a hand in my direction and turned back to the window.

Nox took one look at me when I finally found my way back to the kitchen and told me I was done working for the day. His demeanor was as gruff as ever, but I thought I saw sympathy in his eyes. “What happened up there?”

“I—to be honest, I’m not sure,” I said, and told him everything—Glinda’s sudden niceness, the ice cream, the thing I’d done to somehow make it disappear. When I got to that part, his eyebrows went up.

“You mean, you did magic?”

“But it wasn’t something I did on purpose,” I said. Before Dorothy and her rules, everyone in Oz had used magic all the time in the palace for little things, like polishing the silver, or making the flowers in the garden grow a particularly vibrant shade. Ozma had magic, of course—Ozma was a fairy, with all the powers of Oz at her disposal. And Dorothy had power, too: the power to control the weather, set the seasons to her liking, bewitch the Scarecrow’s weird experiments into more than just lifeless ideas strung together out of wood and wire—though none of us really knew where Dorothy’s power came from, or if she’d had it in the Other Place. But what I’d done in Glinda’s room was something different from the common household magic all the servants shared. It was far more powerful—and seemingly out of my control.

“You’ve never done anything like that before?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, and then stopped. I had done something like this once before when I was a little girl. I’d been playing with some hand-me-down dolls that the other servants had given me. I was lonely—I was the only child in the palace, and one day I’d decided I wanted some real live friends, so I made my dolls come alive. I still don’t know how I knew the magic to make that happen, but I do remember when Ozma walked in on me and my animated friends. She’d instantly made them go back to being just stuffed dolls, and she’d made me swear to never do that again—and to never let anyone else know that I could do something like that. I always wanted to make her happy, so I’d never again tried to summon that kind of magic—I didn’t want to upset Ozma.

I’d always kept the extent of my magic a secret from everyone else in the palace. Adding a little extra shine to the silverware was no stretch for most Ozians, but ever since that day, I knew that my own powers were different—and stronger—from everyone else in the palace. Except Dorothy. And Ozma.

“You’re different, aren’t you,” Nox said, interrupting my reverie. I didn’t confirm his suspicions—he seemed to know without me saying anything. “That must be why we—” He cut himself off.

“Why what? And who’s we?”

“I promise I’ll tell you everything when it’s time,” he said. “But for now you’ll have to trust me.”

“Right,” I said. “Clear as mud.” I sighed, annoyed, but whatever he knew, he wasn’t going to tell me anything else now.

“You’ve had a long day,” he said. “Why don’t you get some rest, and you can get a fresh start tomorrow.” He lowered his voice again. “Whatever she says to you—whatever she lets you see—don’t trust her. Understood? She can act vulnerable, but it’s just an act.”

Nox summoned another Munchkin to show me to my room in the servants’ quarters. It was tiny, like my room at Dorothy’s, but it had none of the comforts of my room at home, where I’d spent my entire life. It was bleak and bare bones, with just a narrow bed, a low dresser, and a single small window that overlooked the palace gardens. The room was a stark reminder of how different my new life was, but at least here, I could be alone. Just the summer, I told myself again. I just have to make it through the summer. I collapsed on the bed, too exhausted to even change out of my dress, and fell immediately into sleep.

SEVEN

The next day the little bejeweled bird woke me up with a horrific shriek right in my ear. I sat bolt upright, my heart galloping in my chest, and it took me several minutes to remember where I was and what had happened to me. I looked down in dismay at my wrinkled, dirty dress. The bird fell silent after its initial blast, and I realized it was just some kind of alarm, not a call from Glinda. I splashed cold water on my face, brushed my hair, and muttered a quick spell over my dress; the previous day’s grime melted away, and the wrinkles dropped from the fabric. I didn’t exactly feel my usual chipper self, but the night’s rest had loosened up some of my aching muscles and done away with my headache at least. I put my hair up in a demure twist, pinched my cheeks to add a bit of color, and ran down to the kitchen.

Nox was already there, going over a complicated-looking chart spread out on the big counter. “You’re late,” he said tersely without looking up as I entered the kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t wake up until the alarm.”

“It’s not an alarm,” he said. “It’s the signal that means you should be at your post already. Don’t let it happen again.”

“I won’t.”

Finally, he looked up, and his expression softened a little. “I’m just working out the schedule for the rest of the day,” he said in a low voice, gesturing to the chart. “I’ll try to keep you out of Glinda’s way today. After yesterday, I imagine you could use a break. I can’t do much if she summons you directly, but at least this way you won’t be right in front of her. I’ll try to keep her occupied. Hopefully she won’t come after you until the afternoon.” In a more ordinary tone—one the cooks could easily overhear—Nox explained the workings of the palace to me. “This chart is posted in the kitchen with the day’s schedule. Sometimes we have various guests and dignitaries who are served meals in the dining hall, but right now Glinda is here alone. If she doesn’t have guests, she usually eats in her chambers. Servants eat in the kitchen after the main meal is served. I’m sure we’re a much smaller staff than you’re used to in the Emerald City; we all do a bit of everything. You’ll meet the rest of the maids today at dinner. But in the meantime . . .” He trailed off and studied me thoughtfully. His dark hair fell into his eyes, and he had that kind of mournful, beseeching look about him that would have suggested poetic depth to a girl with a slightly less pragmatic disposition than mine. I imagined he probably did pretty well among the ladies of the palace, although Glinda couldn’t have had much interest in his considerable charms if she kept him relegated to the kitchen. Then again, it was hard to imagine the words “Glinda” and “romance” in the same sentence. I couldn’t exactly picture her swooning over photos of heartthrobs, or waiting anxiously at fancy restaurants for her dinner date to show up. I wondered suddenly if Glinda’s interest in the Wizard was more than academic—after all, they were more or less equals. But it seemed more likely that she was trying to rope him into her crazy magic-mining plan somehow.

Nox was looking at me with one eyebrow raised, and I realized I’d been staring at him. “Sure,” I said, trying to remember what we were talking about. Meeting the maids—scheduling—dinner. “Dinner! Do I need to do anything to set up? At Dorothy’s my job was pretty . . .” I waved my hand around. “I mean, I was responsible for basically everything. Although Dorothy didn’t care what color her food was. I might need some help with the pink thing.”

But he shook his head. “That’s really what I’m here for,” he said.

I couldn’t help the note of petulance that crept into my voice. “Then why am I here? Really?”

He paused and looked over his shoulder. Right. The cooks. Eyes and ears for Glinda everywhere. Or else he was using them as an excuse not to tell me what he knew, what he meant by “we” yesterday. “Glinda wants to know how she can use you,” he said softly.

I saw out of the corner of my eye one of the cooks half turn in order to hear us better.

“It’s just that I want to be certain I do the best possible job for Glinda,” I said loudly, in a sugary voice. “It’s so important to me that I serve Her Eminence well.” One corner of Nox’s mouth twitched, and I realized belatedly he was hiding a smile. Score one for me, I thought. I’d made the Stone Man himself crack a grin. He reached forward, as if to touch my hand where it rested on the table, and then seemed to change his mind and picked up his pen again.

“I’ll send you out to the gardens for the morning,” he said. “You don’t need to worry about tending them or anything like that. Most of the landscaping is done by magic, and there are a few Munchkin gardeners who take care of the rest. But here in the kitchen, we use herbs and vegetables from the main garden, so you should make yourself familiar with it.”

“What should I do if Glinda calls me while I’m outside? She was”—I paused, making sure my voice was under control—“unhappy with me for my tardiness last night.”

“Punctuality is very important to Glinda,” Nox said drily. “But you should be safe for the morning, at least. Take this basket with you. Here’s what we’ll need for the day,” he said, handing me a basket from a shelf overhead and a neatly printed list of various vegetables, fruits, and herbs. “I imagine it will take you a few hours to find everything,” he added. That wasn’t even close to true, I thought, looking over the short list he’d handed me. He was basically giving me the morning off to wander around outside. If I didn’t know better, I would have hugged him. “Yes sir,” I said, and he smiled.

“Nox,” he said. “Please. There’s no need for formality in the kitchen.” And he smiled at me again—a real smile this time, winning and full of charm. I couldn’t help myself; I smiled back.

EIGHT

Dorothy’s palace in the Emerald City had gardens far grander than Glinda’s, though never in a million years would I have been dumb enough to point that out. Even so, Glinda’s gardens were nothing to sneeze at. A little heavy on the pink flowers for my taste, of course—rows and rows of sweet-smelling singing roses in a dozen variations of the shade; towering pink lilac trees, which released visible puffs of perfumed smoke at intervals; an orchard full of pink-barked trees, each of which bore a different pink fruit: peaches, apples, hot-pink pomegranates (points for creativity, I guess, even if not for realism). There were even tiny pink flowers that covered the winding paths through the decorative portion of the gardens like a carpet, and when you stepped on them, they shot out little jets of pink glitter. By the time I got back to the kitchen I was going to look like a disco ball.

It took me a while to find the vegetable garden, which was more or less hidden behind a low, pink brick wall, and which bore little resemblance to the rest of the landscaping. The plants here had a distinctly practical feel: unlike the rest of the gardens, which were beautiful but obviously designed to cater to Glinda’s unnatural passion for pink, these more humble rows of vegetables and herbs were comforting in their hominess.

I’d been so young when my parents died that I had no memory of them. All I knew was what Ozma had told me: that I’d been born in a small village in the Oz countryside, to people who were too humble to leave me anything other than my name. Ozma had taken me in because I had no other family and nowhere else to go.

Wandering the rows of the vegetable garden, I wondered if my own parents had grown food like this; if maybe they’d sat down every night to a dinner of crisp green lettuce and ruby-red tomatoes pulled from the earth just moments earlier. I rarely thought about my parents—what good did it do me to wonder?—but for a moment in Glinda’s garden I stopped to consider what my life might have been like if they hadn’t died. Maybe I’d be out in the countryside somewhere, lying in a field napping underneath the warm sun, or reading a book. Maybe my life would be my own, not Dorothy’s. But thinking like that was useless, and bound to get me nowhere. There was no point in crying about it. My life was what it was. There was no way I’d ever get away from Glinda, or Dorothy, or whatever they had in store for Oz.

I was lucky to even have a job; since Dorothy came back, there were rumors of Munchkins going hungry for the first time in Oz’s history. The winged monkeys were little more than zombies these days, only too eager to obey whatever the Tin Woodman ordered them to do—even if it meant harassing innocent citizens. Some of the servants at the palace talked about friends and relatives who were out of work—something that had never happened before in our history. It was like Dorothy had brought some terrible disease with her from the Other Place, one you couldn’t see.

I shook my head, trying to rid myself of such dark thoughts. There was nothing I could do to solve Oz’s problems from Glinda’s garden. And it was such a relief to be outside, alone, with the sun on my shoulders and the trilling of birdsong in my ears. As Dorothy’s head maid, I’d had little time to myself in the Emerald City, and I’d imagined that Glinda would be watching me like a hawk out here. But Nox had given me the gift of a morning out from under her scrutiny, and I was determined not to let a second of it go to waste.

When I had filled my basket to Nox’s specifications I went out of the vegetable garden back into the flower garden. Despite the overwhelming influence of Glinda’s dubious taste, it was still a beautiful place on a sunny morning. I sat with my back against one of the fruit trees and closed my eyes. It wouldn’t do to fall asleep out here, but surely no one would notice if I took a moment to rest before I went back inside to face whatever Glinda had in store for me next.

Suddenly, the sinister, dulcet tones of Glinda’s voice cut through the serene air, and I froze in terror. “Of course, we’re so delighted to see you,” she trilled.

How had she found me out here? Had Nox sent her after me? Why hadn’t she just used the bird pin megaphone? I flung myself up against the nearest tree, my heart pounding, as she continued.

“We have so much to discuss, my dear friend . . .” I craned my neck around the tree, desperately hoping she couldn’t see. She obviously wasn’t talking to me, and I didn’t recognize the little man at her side. But in an instant, I knew exactly who he was.

The Wizard, I thought.

NINE

Glinda strolled casually through her pink pom-pom of a garden, the Wizard by her side. He was dressed snappily in a brocade suit with a top hat, and he carried a silver-tipped cane that he swung as he walked. Though they were a ways away, and thankfully the tree hid me from their view, I could hear most of what she was saying. “. . . and of course I’m certain Dorothy and I would be only too happy to work with you to clarify a vision of Oz’s future, if only we knew something more about your intentions. I know things ended on a . . . difficult note during your last visit to the palace, but there’s no reason to continue what I know was simply a terrible misunderstanding. Dorothy is just torn up about it. As, of course, am I.”

Glinda’s voice was so sweet it was practically dripping syrup, but even from where I was sitting I could hear the steely resolve underneath her words. The Wizard made a noncommittal noise and Glinda tried again. “I mean, you haven’t even told us how long you plan to be in Oz!” she cooed, adding a giggle for effect that sounded more sinister than flirtatious.

What on earth was the Wizard doing here—and what could he possibly want with Glinda and Dorothy? I quickly refocused my attention as his words carried across the garden.

“I’m sure we’ll have plenty to discuss,” he was saying. “But as you know, the well-being of Oz is of utmost importance to me. It remains to be seen whether Dorothy is the leader we need in this difficult time.”

“Certainly she’s young,” Glinda interrupted smoothly, “but she was clever enough to defeat you, Wizard, with all due respect. And please, you can’t imagine she’s to be the true leader of Oz. That role has always fallen to those with real power. She’s simply a heroine of the people. They cherish her. They’re only too happy to obey her every command. But make no mistake, my dear friend, those commands come from me.”

The Wizard laughed. “Dorothy’s arrival was . . . foreseen, Glinda. But do not make the mistake of underestimating her. I know you think you control her, but she most certainly has plans of her own—and she’s far more dangerous than you can imagine. And what’s this I hear of your magic mining? You know Oz doesn’t have the infrastructure to support that kind of a power draw. In fact—”

They were moving away from me and though I strained so hard to hear the rest of what he was saying I nearly fell over, his words were unintelligible. I sat back against my tree, my mind racing. I hadn’t heard enough to tell me much, but it seemed more than possible that my initial assumption about the Wizard was wrong.

He hadn’t seemed pleased with Glinda at all—and her own wheedling, ingratiating tone suggested she was well aware of the fact. Were they working together, or was she trying to convince him to side with her? What did it mean if he’d been in Oz all along? Were they double-crossing Dorothy—or was he double-crossing Dorothy and Glinda? And it seemed pretty clear that Glinda really was trying to steal Oz’s magic. Whatever was going on, it was definitely something big. And maybe I didn’t want to know the answer. It was far easier to be a servant girl, oblivious to the political machinations of the real powers of Oz. What could I do to stop them?

And then I had a sudden, terrible image of Ozma, wandering with unseeing eyes through the halls of Dorothy’s palace, and my heart sank all the way into my scuffed boots. Who was I kidding? Of course I cared. If there was anything I could do to help Ozma, to turn her back into the vibrant, powerful, generous ruler she’d once been . . . Well, there wasn’t much I wouldn’t give to have the palace back the way it should be. And when you got right down to it, that meant no Dorothy. And no so-called Good Witch, either.

I’d been in the garden for a long time, and even though Nox had cut me a break this morning, I didn’t want to push my luck. I picked up my basket, looked around one last time to make sure Glinda and the Wizard were out of sight, and hurried back to the kitchen.

Nox was there, more or less where I’d left him, although now instead of going over the schedule he was overseeing the decoration of four enormous pink cakes that the Munchkins must have baked that morning. Each cake had been frosted in a slightly different shade of pastel pink, and a young Munchkin baker was painstakingly creating elaborate portraits of Glinda on each one—a radiantly beautiful Glinda holding a bouquet of enormous pink roses; Glinda, looking benevolent, distributing pink cupcakes to beaming Munchkin children; Glinda with a festive background of fireworks and a cheering crowd; Glinda reclining on her immense pink bed, looking sultry.

The portraits were so detailed they looked as though she was about to spring to life. I gave an involuntary shiver. Nox looked up as I came into the kitchen and set my basket on the counter, careful not to jostle the surface and upset the Munchkin’s work.

“That last one seems a little scandalous,” I said without thinking. Nox raised an eyebrow at me and the Munchkin looked startled. “Nice pictures, though,” I added to the Munchkin. It wasn’t his fault Glinda was a power-hungry despot trying to suck Oz dry of all its magic. He was just trying to do his job and stay alive.

“Remember what I told you yesterday?” Nox asked in a warning tone.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m just feeling a little revolutionary, I guess.” The Munchkin dropped his container of frosting and stared at me in fear, and Nox’s eyes widened. He rounded the table and grabbed my arm.

“That’s enough,” he hissed in my ear. I shook him off angrily.

“No, you know what’s enough?” I snarled at him. “This charade is enough. Glinda is destroying Oz, and you know it. We can’t let her get away with this! She’s the one who’s making Dorothy into a monster, and she’s the one who’s stealing our ma—” Nox clapped a hand over my mouth and wrapped his other arm around me.

“I said that’s enough,” he snapped. The Munchkin was staring at us, his mouth open. “Get back to work,” Nox told him. “I’ll deal with this. Understood?” The Munchkin nodded, turning back to his cake. Nox dragged me outside into the hallway.

“Listen to me, and listen carefully,” he said in a low voice. “Talking like that will get you killed, do you understand? I know you don’t understand why—I know I haven’t been able to tell you everything. But you can’t die. We need you.”

“So that’s why you’ve taken an interest in my welfare?” I was suddenly furious. “I can’t die because you need me? For some mysterious cause? I don’t even know what the cause is, Nox! I just know Glinda has some kind of crazy, sinister plan for me, and I have magic I don’t understand, and what if Glinda tries to put me back into that terrible machine, and . . .”

“Look,” he said so quietly I had to strain to hear him. “I know. Believe me, I know. I’m on your side, Jellia. But you can’t draw attention to yourself like that. You’re risking your life. You need to be strategic.” He looked as if he was struggling with a decision, and then he sighed. “There are other forces at work here you don’t know about. Just—you’re not the only one in Oz who feels this way, Jellia. Be patient.”

“Don’t tell me to be patient,” I retorted, and then I thought about what he’d just said. “Wait, do you mean the Wizard?”

His gaze sharpened and he pulled me in again. “What do you know about the Wizard?”

“He’s here. I saw him. In the garden with Glinda.” He looked around, his eyes wide, as if checking to see if the Wizard were standing behind us, but the hallway was empty.

“Tell me everything,” he said. “But not here. It’s not safe. Meet me—” He stopped, thinking. “Meet me in the garden. At sunset.”

“Why should I trust you? Why do you even want to know?”

He laughed. “You shouldn’t trust me. You shouldn’t trust anyone in this palace. But I give you my word that I’m on your side. You’ll have to decide for yourself if that’s enough. I can tell you more tonight.”

The tiny bird clipped to my dress let loose with a piercing shriek and we jumped apart. “Jellia!” Glinda cooed, her voice so loud I wanted to clap my hands over my ears. “I need you at once, Jellia!” I stared at Nox, my heart beating hard.

“You’d better go,” he said, his face worried.

“Do you think she—”

“I don’t know. You have to be careful, Jellia. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I’ll try.”

“Do better than that.” The concern in his voice was genuine, I was sure of it.

“No promises,” I said, and then Glinda’s magic yanked me away from the hallway. The last I saw of him was his handsome features twisted into a mask of worry.

TEN

Glinda was in her chambers, in a terrible temper—I could only guess because of the way things had gone that morning with the Wizard. She’d torn through her closet in a fit of pique, and the floor of her room was strewn with ball gowns and high-heeled shoes and gem-studded necklaces. “Pick that up,” she said as soon as I materialized in her room, dizzy and nauseous from the spell she’d used to transport me through the palace. She sat on her bed huffily and watched as I obediently collected the dresses off the floor and hung them carefully in her huge closet.

She was wearing a revealing gown that plunged deeply, showing a considerable amount of cleavage, and her soft strawberry-blond hair hung loose around her shoulders. Her pretty features had a childish set to them, and she looked more like a sulky teenager than a terrifying witch.

I wondered what it was like being Glinda. She had outlasted all of Oz’s other witches, and from what she’d told the Wizard in the garden, she was the real power behind Oz. When I was growing up in Oz, she’d always had a reputation for being the Good Witch, but I had a more than sneaking suspicion that she was responsible for whatever had transformed Ozma from our regal, powerful, beloved princess to the vacant shell she was now. But in a strange way, as much as I hated Glinda, I also felt sorry for her. There was something deep in those blue eyes that looked almost like loneliness.

“You know,” she said conversationally, “we’ll be having another guest soon, Jellia.” My back was to her; I could feel her eyes boring into me as I gathered up her scattered jewelry.

“Is that so, Your Eminence,” I said politely.

“An old friend of yours, I believe. The Scarecrow.”

“The Scarecrow is coming here?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice, and I could tell Glinda was pleased to have caught me off guard.

“Of course, Jellia. Who do you think invented the magic-mining machine?” I flinched involuntarily, remembering the nightmare of my journey to her palace. She examined her nails, a tiny frown marring her perfect features. “I really don’t think magic makes for the best manicures,” she mused. “Why don’t you try, Jellia?”

“As you wish, Your Eminence,” I said. She summoned a tray of nail polish out of the air with a snap of her fingers and leaned back against her pillows.

“You pick,” she said. “I don’t care anymore.” There was something in her voice that was so genuine and vulnerable that I looked up at her in surprise. I examined the bottles of polish—all pink, of course—and selected a vibrant coral. She held out one delicate hand and closed her eyes, and I went to work. The repetitive motion of brushing on the polish was almost soothing, and Glinda’s silence was a relief. My mind wandered, taking me back to the Emerald City, to the days when Ozma ruled Oz and my life had been much less complicated—and filled with much more joy. Ozma had taken me once to the Rainbow Falls, and I remembered now the feel of the spray on my face as we stood on a rocky promontory overlooking the majestic, vibrant colors of the falls. The air had been cool and gentle, the breeze scented with Ozma’s heady perfume of bergamot and sandalwood; the cobalt and crimson and deepest emerald of the falls glowing vividly underneath a clear blue sky.

“My goodness, Jellia,” Glinda murmured, her words snapping me back to myself. “What a talent you have.” I looked down at her nails and saw that somehow, without realizing it, I’d painted a perfectly detailed series of tiny pictures on each nail: Ozma looking out over the Rainbow Falls, the Lion bounding across a field, his heavy golden mane so perfectly rendered that I could almost see it moving as he leapt; the periwinkle field where Glinda had set up her terrible machine . . . Each image was impossibly lifelike. My hands tingled. Glinda was regarding me with an expression I couldn’t quite read: triumph, but something else, too, something sadder. “You have real power, Jellia,” she said quietly. “You have the very magic of Oz itself moving through you. Did you really never know?”

“I don’t—I don’t understand,” I said, dazed. What had I just done?

“You will,” Glinda said. “When the time is right, Jellia, you will.” Her tone was gentle, but her words sent a chill all the way through me. I couldn’t meet her eyes.

“You’ve done very well, Jellia,” she said. “You may go back to the kitchen for now. But I think perhaps it’s time for you to take on more . . . responsibility. The Scarecrow and I have much to discuss.” I couldn’t control my shudder, and Glinda chuckled, all trace of her vulnerability gone. “Sleep well tonight, Jellia,” she murmured.

ELEVEN

That evening, I could barely finish my dinner. My stomach was knotted in fear, and my head was a jumble of conflicting thoughts. Finally, the meal was mercifully over. When I was sure no one was paying attention, I slipped out a side door into the gardens. There was Nox under the same tree I’d hid behind to eavesdrop on the Wizard and Glinda that morning. His back was to me as he scanned the garden, on the lookout for anyone who might see us.

He heard my footsteps and turned as I approached the tree. “We have to be quick,” he said in a low voice. “If we’re both gone for too long at the same time, someone will put two and two together. It’s not safe for us to be seen together like this.”

“Why would Glinda suspect you of anything? What exactly is going on here? Who are you?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“You know who I am. You seem to know more about my magic than I do. You know more than you should about what Glinda’s doing. You haven’t told me the truth about anything since the moment I came here. And if Glinda has some plan for me, and you know what it is—”

He cut me off. “Jellia, I know how difficult this must be for you. And believe me, I’m not trying to lie to you—it’s just that the less you know about some things, the better. For your own safety.”

“What do you mean, ‘about some things’?” I asked, my fear and confusion turning to anger. “Nox, what are you talking about?”

He took a deep breath. “I’m talking about defeating Glinda,” he said quietly. “About sending Dorothy back to the Other Place. About restoring Oz to what it once was—and what it should be.”

Defeat Glinda. Get rid of Dorothy. I couldn’t believe he’d said it out loud. We weren’t just meeting to swap secrets—Nox was openly talking treason. But if Nox was serious, he couldn’t be acting on his own.

“Nox, what are you planning? And how does it involve me?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Jellia. There’s so much I can’t tell you—not yet. Glinda brought you here because she knows your magic is special. And she wants to keep an eye on you because she knows we’ll reach out to you—and she can use you to find us.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” I asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“You’ll find out when it’s time,” he said. “But not now. I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but it’s for your own safety.”

I shook my head. “A lot to ask doesn’t begin to cover it.” But for some reason, I was willing to give him a chance. And if he truly knew of a way to bring the real Ozma back, I would do whatever it took to help him.

I thought again of being at the falls with Ozma. Of what my life had been like when she ruled Oz. Of how everything had been different—and better. “Promise me you’ll tell me everything,” I said. “Not now—fine. I understand that. But soon.”

“I promise,” he said instantly. “When the time is right, you’ll know. Now tell me everything you saw this morning in the garden. If the Wizard is back—if he’s allied with Glinda—we have to know.”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think they’re working together,” I said. I quickly told him everything I’d overheard of Glinda and the Wizard’s conversation. Nox’s frown deepened as I talked, and when I was done he let out his breath in a deep sigh.

“I wish I knew what it all meant,” he mused. “But it sounds like the Wizard is refusing to forge an alliance with Glinda. At least for now. And that’s good news, I think.”

“What do you know about the Wizard?”

“Nobody knows anything about the Wizard, except that he’s from the Other Place. Dorothy’s world.”

“And he can send Dorothy back?”

“I don’t know for sure. If Glinda brought her here, she might be the only one with the power to return her. But if he isn’t helping Glinda, he might be willing to help us—and that could make all the difference.” He paused, thinking. “Just keep doing what you’re doing,” he said finally. “Glinda wants you close to her for now, and I don’t think she’ll do anything to hurt you until she knows more about your magic.”

That wasn’t exactly comforting. “And then what?”

“For now, you’ll have to wait. Listen, we have to go back inside. They’ll miss us soon. Wait a few minutes before you follow me.” And with that, he turned around and walked off through the twilit garden.

I sighed and watched him go, my head spinning. Revolutionary conspiracies, bargains with wizards, all these secrets—it was going to be hard to find my way through all of this to the truth. But Nox was right—I didn’t have much of a choice. If he was willing to tell me that he was part of some secret group planning to send Dorothy back to the Other Place, that meant he was putting his life in my hands. I had no other option but to return the favor.

TWELVE

A few days after Glinda brought up his visit, the Scarecrow arrived. He constructed a makeshift laboratory on the palace grounds and shut himself away as soon as it was completed. Glinda spent long afternoons holed up with him there, and sinister sounds of clanking and hissing emitted from the hastily constructed shack at all hours.

The Scarecrow never slept. He didn’t need to. The servants took turns bringing him his meals at his lab. One of the girls didn’t come back until the next morning—that night, we heard terrible screams from the Scarecrow’s laboratory, and at breakfast the servant girl was dead-eyed and silent. Nox sent her to her room to rest, but when he asked her what had happened in the laboratory, she just shook her head and refused to talk. I knew Nox was as curious as I was, but there was nothing we could do without putting ourselves at risk, and so we went about our duties and kept our eyes open.

My days at Glinda’s palace stretched into weeks, and slowly I relaxed. Nox was right: Glinda kept me close. After the day when I’d painted her nails, she declared that I was “indispensable.” She demoted her previous personal maid, and now every morning she summoned me to her pink chambers and demanded I help her with her hair and makeup, lace her into her tight corsets, and offer her advice on which of her endless dresses to wear. Her obsession with fashion and her looks was even bigger than Dorothy’s, but she didn’t need my help. She had more innate fashion sense than Dorothy and she always picked out the perfect ensemble on her first attempt. After just a few days of composing obsequious compliments and picking up after her as she discarded clothes on her bedroom floor, I was exhausted—but I couldn’t let her see it, and so I made my face into a mask of good cheer. Sometimes I’d see flashes of the other, secret Glinda—the lonely witch who’d let me paint her nails—but they were few and far between; and she kept the powerful witch who’d strapped me into her terrifying machine well hidden, too. I had to remind myself not to be lulled into a false sense of security. I met Nox again in the garden a few more times, but I had nothing to report. Other than the Scarecrow’s secret project, there was nothing out of the ordinary happening in the palace.

If Glinda was somehow pulling Dorothy’s strings, she was careful not to let me see it. She spent her afternoons in the garden, or holding court in her elaborate throne room, where she lounged on an immense, overstuffed pink chaise longue and nibbled pink bonbons off a pink tray. Messengers flitted back and forth between her palace and the Emerald City, reporting on the daily doings of the metropolis—Dorothy’s elaborate banquets and balls, her increasing number of new decrees, another statue erected in her honor. Once, as yet another messenger delivered yet another flowery speech on Dorothy’s magnificence, I saw the muscles of Glinda’s jaw tighten, and I wondered if she regretted her choice of a puppet. For a moment, I almost felt sorry for her. Glinda and I had at least one thing in common: we both thought Dorothy was insufferable.

And then, one morning one of the Tin Woodman’s soldiers arrived at the palace carrying an elaborate scroll, which he unfurled dramatically and read from in a deep, mechanical voice. “By order of Her Majesty, the Regally Benevolent and Eternally Beautiful Dorothy, Rightful Ruler of Oz and Mistress of the Deadly Desert—”

“The introduction is unnecessary,” Glinda interrupted smoothly.

The soldier sputtered and cleared his throat with a noise like a teakettle whistling. “Dorothy demands that her maid be returned to her,” he said in a more subdued tone.

Glinda raised one elegant eyebrow. “Dorothy demands?”

The soldier shifted his weight from one metal foot to the other, clanking nervously. “That’s what it says here, Your Eminence,” he said.

Glinda’s nostrils flared and she lifted one delicate hand from her couch. For a moment, I thought she might blow the soldier to smithereens. But then her expression cleared, and she smiled. “Of course,” she said. “It’s been so wonderful to have Jellia here that I’d simply gotten used to her. She’s been tremendously helpful.” The soldier and I exchanged glances, both of us unsure if we were expected to respond to this. “I don’t know what I’ll do without her,” Glinda continued, “but you may tell Dorothy I’ll send her home tomorrow.”

My heart leapt in my chest, and then sank again. I’d done it—I’d survived, and it was finally time to go back. But what about Nox and his secret plans to restore order to Oz? What could I do from the Emerald City, if he was here? And what did I have waiting for me with Dorothy when I got back?

Word of my pending departure traveled quickly through the palace, and that night he pulled me aside after dinner. I expected him to give me instructions, or some kind of message, but all he said was, “Stay safe. I’m worried she has something else up her sleeve.”

“Wonderful,” I muttered. “That’s comforting.”

“I’m looking out for you,” he insisted. “Don’t do anything foolish. But don’t worry.”

I nodded, but all I could do was worry.

THIRTEEN

The morning of my departure Glinda summoned me to her room as usual. She was already dressed in a low-cut pink dress that was fairly simple—for her, anyway. Her eyes had a dangerous glitter to them, and my heart sank. After all these weeks of relative calm, the real Glinda was back.

She wasn’t alone—the Scarecrow was there with her. His gangly frame was stuffed into his habitual too-small suit, and the clothes combined with his painted-on face, button eyes, and the bits of straw sticking out from under his hat should have made him look charming and harmless. But there was nothing harmless about the Scarecrow.

“As you know, our dear friend has been helping me with a project that’s very close to my heart,” Glinda cooed. “And before I return you to Dorothy, he’d like to see all his hard work come to fruition. I hope you’re aware of what a tremendous honor it is for you to be asked to help him.”

“Me?” I asked uncertainly, and Glinda laughed.

“My dear Jellia!” she burbled merrily. “You don’t think I’ve forgotten about how eager you were to do your duty for Oz, do you? We’ve been working nonstop all week to perfect the machine I designed that will siphon Oz’s leftover magic to where it’s needed most.”

My eyes widened in terror and I took an involuntary step backward. “I thought the machine didn’t work, Your Eminence,” I whispered. Her brow furrowed with displeasure.

“Jellia, that skeptical attitude is simply hateful, and I won’t tolerate it. Of course my machine works. It simply needed some—adjustments.” She smiled at the Scarecrow. “Now, are you ready?”

Before I could open my mouth to answer, everything went blurry, and I felt as though I was being pulled through a tub of molasses while trying to cross a stormy sea in a rowboat. When the world solidified around me again, Glinda, the Scarecrow, and I had been transported to a meadow of pale yellow grass, dotted here and there with bright red flowers that grew more thickly at the meadow’s center. The air had the faint, ozoney crackle of magic. A handful of Munchkins were busy setting up what I recognized with a sinking heart as a simpler and more compact version of the mechanical apparatus she’d used on me on the journey to her palace.

“You know what they say, Jellia,” Glinda said, smiling at my stricken expression. “If at first you don’t succeed—try, try again.” She seized my arm and dragged me, struggling, toward the machine, the Scarecrow following after us. “You should be very honored, Jellia,” Glinda added. “Even though he’s terribly busy, the Scarecrow agreed to come out and help me make a few adjustments to my magic drill. Isn’t that generous of him? He knows how important the well-being of Oz is, and how much this magic will help keep Oz the wonderful place it is.”

As Glinda dragged me closer the Scarecrow turned to look at us, his awful button eyes glinting as he examined me like I was one of his science experiments. “This is the fairy?” he grated.

“Only part,” Glinda said, “but she’ll have to do.” My mind reeled. Part fairy? Me? But that was impossible.

“It may not be enough. I’ve already told you, Munchkin labor—”

“Is inefficient,” Glinda interrupted sharply.

“Perhaps. But it may be the only way to operate the machine.”

“I didn’t bring you all the way out here to give me excuses,” Glinda said brightly. “There’s no excuse for this negativity when it comes to serving Oz.”

The Scarecrow shrugged. “I made the adjustments you specified, but I haven’t had enough time to experiment. Another few weeks in my laboratory, and I might have something for you. But I can’t guarantee this machine will work.”

“We don’t have another few weeks. Dorothy wants the girl back now,” Glinda said, shoving me forward into the Scarecrow’s arms. “And we wouldn’t want to disobey the illustrious ruler of Oz, would we? Start the machine.”

His fingers closed around my arms, and I shuddered with revulsion. It was almost impossible to believe this monster was the same lovable buffoon who’d once—briefly—governed Oz before Ozma took her rightful place on the throne. His fingers dug into my flesh as he strapped me to a smaller, more compact version of the platform Glinda had harnessed me to before and fastened a metal collar around my neck. Metal pieces curved upward from the collar and ended in rods that he inserted in my eardrums. I couldn’t move my head without impaling myself, and so I gave up struggling and held myself as still as possible. His eerie, dead eyes didn’t even register me as he worked. He tightened the straps that crossed my chest and stepped away from me. “It’s ready,” he said to Glinda, and she smiled.

“Let’s begin, Jellia,” she said sweetly. “Try not to let me down this time, my dear.”

I braced myself but there was no preparing for the agony that followed. Excruciating waves tore through me, each one worse than the last; the metal pieces in my ears were like red-hot pokers driving into my brain. Glinda and the Scarecrow watched dispassionately as I sobbed in despair.

“She’s too weak,” I heard the Scarecrow say as my vision began to go dark. “I told you, it’s not going to work.”

“Then both of you are terrible disappointments,” Glinda said coldly. “But I’m done wasting my time here. If she survives, the Munchkins can take her back to Dorothy. I have no more use for her.”

The pain overwhelmed me, and then I didn’t feel anything at all.

FOURTEEN

When I opened my eyes again the darkness around me was so thick there was no difference from when I’d had them closed. I was lying on my back on something hard. When I shifted cautiously, the pain shooting through my body was so awful that I gasped aloud.

“Ah, she’s awake,” said a gentle voice nearby, and the darkness was suffused with a cool white glow that gradually brightened until I could make out what surrounded me.

I was lying next to a clear pool in the middle of a huge cavern whose ceiling was lost somewhere in the darkness overhead. The cavern’s purplish stone floor was polished smooth, as though by generations of feet, and its walls glowed with a gentle, phosphorescent light that eased the darkness around me and illuminated the person who had spoken.

I turned my head with difficulty to study her. She was the oldest person I’d ever seen; her body was round and shapeless beneath her sack-like white dress, and her face was so seamed with lines and wrinkles that it was hard to make out her features. Her hair stuck up in a silvery halo that wafted gently in the cool air like an undersea plant. “Don’t try to move,” she said. “You’ve been through quite a lot, my dear.” The wrinkles around her mouth wriggled and shifted, and I realized she was smiling at me.

“What—who are you? Where am I?” I croaked, wincing as a whole new set of aches flared up in my body. In the cave’s light, I could see what a mess I was. My dress was torn and bloody where the Scarecrow’s harness had dug into my skin. My bare arms and legs were purpled with bruises and streaked with more blood. And every part of me hurt, from my scalp to the tips of my toes.

“You can call me Gert. Grandma Gert, if you like. But who I am and where you are can wait until you’ve healed. You’re dying, Jellia.”

“Dying?” I struggled to sit up and cried out as my broken body refused.

“Lie still.” Gert’s voice was gentle but firm. “What you’ve been through would have killed anyone without your power. Glinda’s machine—”

“You know about my power?” I wheezed.

“I said lie still, Jellia.” She scooped me up in her soft arms, so lightly that I barely felt the movement. It didn’t seem possible that someone so soft could be so strong. She waded into the pool with me still in her arms. “This may hurt a little, my dear.”

The clean, clear water of the pool rose around us. It was as warm as bathwater, but it felt thicker than ordinary water—almost like oil. Gert lowered me fully into the water and I felt it move against my skin insistently, almost as if it wanted something from me. I became more and more aware of the pain in my body—the pool was pulling it from me, bit by bit. I cried out in anguish and my open mouth filled with water; I swallowed involuntarily and felt a mouthful of the strange liquid move through my body as if it had a will of its own, worming its way through my veins.

I looked down at myself and saw that a thick, dark substance was seeping out of my pores, forming a black cloud around me that slowly dissipated in the pool. The pain in my body was slowly replaced with a warm, drowsy sense of bliss. Dimly, I felt Gert lift me up again and set me down gently at the pool’s edge. The bruises and blood were gone; my skin glowed, and my ruined dress had been replaced by a thick, soft white robe. Instead of feeling broken and exhausted, I felt refreshed.

“What was that?”

Gert was looking at me with an expression that was hard to read. It almost looked like pity. Though she’d just gone into the pool with me, her clothes were dry. “Magic,” she said.

“I figured that much out.”

She smiled. “It’s good to see you back to normal, Jellia. I must admit I was worried about you. We were aware you might encounter danger at Glinda’s, but we weren’t prepared for things to move so quickly. Come,” she said, offering me her hand and pulling me to my feet. “It’s time for some explanations.” But instead of continuing to talk, she took off at a brisk pace. I had no choice but to follow her as she led me away from the healing pool and down a bewildering series of tunnels, all lit by the same glowing phosphorescence that seeped out of the walls.

Sometimes the tunnels opened up into more caverns, each one of them full of marvels: a shimmering, underground meadow, radiating silver light and dotted here and there with towering wildflowers that rose into the darkness; another pool, this one so big I couldn’t make out its far side, where bright golden fish jumped and fell back into the water with a splash; a series of mysterious, enormous machines, which sent a shard of terror stabbing through me until I realized they were putting together elaborate clocks that slid past on a conveyor belt.

We were moving too fast for me to catch more than the briefest glimpse of each cavern before Gert dragged me along to the next tunnel. Finally, she stopped at a low wooden door, rapped sharply, and pushed it open without waiting for a response. I followed her into a smallish room, furnished with a huge black table and rough wooden chairs that took up most of the space. Three people sat at the table: a cloaked figure, a mean-looking old woman I didn’t recognize, and Nox, whose expression was distinctly worried.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“He saved your life,” the cloaked figure said, and lowered her hood. I flung my hands up and took a step backward. Her perfect face, her heart-shaped mouth, her strawberry-blond curls—Nox hadn’t saved me, he’d betrayed me. Because the woman in front of me was Glinda.

Without realizing it, I’d backed up to Gert, who held me firmly in her fleshy arms. “It’s all right, Jellia,” she said, her soft tone doing nothing to slow my pounding heart. “It’s not her. I’d like you to meet Glamora—Glinda’s twin sister.”

I blinked and stared at the woman seated at the table. What Gert was saying made a kind of sense. This woman had Glinda’s face, but where Glinda’s eyes were like cold, hard chips of ice, hers were kindly. The set of her mouth was friendly, not cruel.

“Have a seat, Jellia,” Gert said, steering me to a chair. “We have much to discuss. And I imagine you’re hungry.” With that, she sat down next to me and snapped her fingers, her eyes twinkling. I was used to magic, but I was still taken aback by the feast that appeared on the table almost instantaneously—big platters piled high with fruit and cheese, fragrant loaves of steaming bread accompanied by creamy butter and honey, a huge tureen of some kind of soup that smelled like heaven. Gert handed me a plate and a gleaming silver fork that she plucked out of the air, and I helped myself.

If this was going to be my last meal, I might as well make it a good one. Nox, Glamora, and Gert filled their plates, too—but the fourth person sat at the far end of the table, glaring at the food as if she expected it to bite her. I eyeballed her surreptitiously as I ate.

She looked more like a troll than a witch. Like Gert, she was short and squat, but where Gert came across as nurturing, there was nothing generous about this woman. Her nose was the most extraordinary feature in her wrinkled face: huge and bulbous, with a wart at its very tip. She was dressed in purple rags that hung haphazardly from her stout body and a battered, pointed black hat rested on her greasy, stringy black hair at an alarming angle. “Why don’t you paint a picture, it’ll last longer,” she growled at me. Embarrassed at being caught staring, I quickly looked away, mumbling an apology. Next to me, Gert chuckled.

“Don’t you mind our Mombi,” she said. “She has a terrible attitude problem.”

“Remind me of my attitude problem the next time I save your skin,” Mombi snapped. “Are you done stuffing your faces? We don’t have all day. It’s time to get down to business.”

For the first time, it occurred to me to wonder what Glinda would think about my disappearance. How long had I been in the cave? What would happen when—if—I returned to her palace? And how had I gotten here in the first place?

“One at a time, dear,” Gert said, and I realized that she was answering me even though I hadn’t spoken aloud. “Bad habit,” she added, reading my thoughts again. “But it saves time. I won’t look in on anything that’s none of my business, don’t worry.”

“Fine,” I said, trying not to show her how unnerved I was by her magic mind reading. “How did I get here?”

“I can answer that,” Nox said. “I followed you when Glinda summoned you. I knew if she’d brought the Scarecrow to the palace, she was up to something really bad. We”—he indicated the others seated at the table—“didn’t realize she’d move again so quickly. I could protect you inside the palace, but by the time I got to you, it was almost too late. She and the Scarecrow had left you for dead. I thought there was still a chance we could save you, so I brought you here.” I thought of the Scarecrow’s machine and shivered, covering my eyes with my hands. I felt Gert put an arm around my shoulders.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t prevent you from experiencing so much pain,” she said. “We had no idea she would try again so soon after she brought you to the palace. Glinda and Dorothy have been looking for a way to tap into Oz’s magic since Dorothy took over the Emerald City. Glinda’s machine will be slowed down now by the fact that she’ll have to use Munchkin labor. But that won’t stop her for long. Oz is in danger, and we’re the only people who can keep the country safe.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” I asked. Mombi drew herself up to her full height.

“The Revolutionary Order of the Wicked,” she said proudly. “The only thing standing between Oz and its destruction.” If the only thing standing between Oz and its destruction was this ragtag bunch, I thought, then Oz was in even bigger trouble than I’d thought—but I kept my mouth shut. Gert was probably reading my mind anyway. “We’re witches, too,” Mombi continued. “But for years, we’ve kept to ourselves, letting our more attention-hungry sisters steal the spotlight. When Glinda brought Dorothy back to Oz, we knew it was time to come together to find a way to stop her.”

“You said you knew about me already,” I said to Nox. “Back at Glinda’s palace. What does that mean? Does it have something to do with your—Order?”

“We have eyes everywhere, including in the Emerald City,” he said. “We’ve known about you for a long time. You’re part fairy, Jellia. It’s why Glinda thought she could use you to tap into Oz’s magic.”

“But how could I be part fairy?” I asked.

“It’s not common,” Gert countered, “but it’s certainly possible. Why do you think your magic is so powerful? You’ve always been different, and you know that.”

I struggled to process what Gert was saying. I did have stronger magic than most—I knew that. But how could this be? How had I never known?

“Did Ozma know?” I said finally.

“I’m sure she did,” Nox said. “Anyone with enough magic can recognize your power, Jellia.”

“Why didn’t she ever tell me?”

“Ozma has always had her own reasons for doing what she does,” Glamora said. “The fairies aren’t like the other citizens of Oz. They literally are Oz; their magic is Oz’s magic. If she didn’t tell you, it was because she felt it was for the good of Oz. But everything is different now. You have to learn the extent of your powers if you want to help send Dorothy back to the Other Place and heal Ozma.”

“You’re not any better than Glinda,” I said, hurt surging up in my chest. “You only helped me out because you think I can do something for you.”

“Not because you can do something for us,” Mombi said curtly. “Because you can do something for Oz.”

“I know this is difficult, dear,” Gert said, her gentle voice countering Mombi’s gruffness. “But these are desperate times. We’ve protected you because you’re special, it’s true. But you have the power to help us heal Oz—to bring Ozma back and restore the rightful order. You can’t choose who you are. But you can choose what you’ll become.”

“But I don’t even know how to use my magic,” I said. “I never even knew what I was. How can I help you?”

“Nox is our eyes and ears in Glinda’s palace,” Gert replied. “And you can do that work for us in the Emerald City. No one is as close to Dorothy as you are.”

“And Glinda hasn’t told her about your magic,” Glamora added. “As far as she knows, you’re just as ordinary as anyone else in Oz—if anyone in Oz can be said to be truly ordinary.”

“If Glinda recognized me as part fairy, why hasn’t Dorothy? She has magic, too,” I pointed out.

“Dorothy doesn’t have magic of her own,” Gert said. “All her power comes from those infernal shoes of Glinda’s. Dorothy is learning how to use that power for her own ends, but for now Glinda can still control her.”

I sat for a moment, digesting what they’d told me. “You’re asking me to risk my life when I don’t even know what you’re trying to do,” I said finally.

“That part is simple,” Mombi said. “The witch is going to burn.” Everyone else at the table fell silent. Mombi slapped her hands on the table and heaved herself to her feet, trundling around the table to where I sat. “Listen, little girl,” she said, grabbing my chin and forcing me to meet her eyes. “You don’t think much of us now, and I can’t blame you. I know more about your life than you think. I know what you’ve seen and I know how much Dorothy and Glinda have hurt you. Not just you—your friends. I know you remember what it was like to live in a free Oz. We might not look like much, but we can do it. We can make Oz free again.”

Her tone was gruff, but underneath her harsh words there was something almost sympathetic.

As if she could sense me softening, Mombi continued. “We’re asking you to risk your life, sure. You know that. You’re not stupid. But your life is already at risk, every day you work for Dorothy. Glinda’s already figured out she can’t use you in her machine. You’re no more use to her. Do you really want to be Dorothy’s head maid for the rest of your life? This is your chance, Jellia. It’s your chance at something better. We’re not going to pretend it’s not risky. But Oz deserves better—and you have the power to help.”

Her grip on my jaw was firm, but when I met her eyes again they were full of compassion. “I know,” she said, so quietly I didn’t think the others at the table could hear her. “I know how much you want the real Ozma back. In that, if nothing else, we’re together.”

I jerked away from her grip, and she let me. She took a few steps backward, put her hands on her broad hips, and stared at me. They were all watching me now.

“I need some time,” I said.

“We can give you a few minutes, but that’s all,” Gert said. “We can bewitch the Munchkins who were tasked with taking you back to Dorothy so that they won’t realize you were gone, but the longer you’re here, the harder it will be.”

“Fine,” I said. Without another word, Gert led me back to the cavern with the healing pool and left me there.

FIFTEEN

I sat staring into the pool as the soft slap of Gert’s bare feet on stone faded away. A pale pink mist had formed over the water, which was now an opaque, rich blue and smelled of honeysuckle. I had no idea how long I’d been sitting there when something in the air changed and I realized Nox was sitting beside me. He’d come up behind me and sat down so silently I hadn’t even noticed.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice, looking at the water.

“Why did you join them?”

He was silent for a long time. “It might not seem like it,” he said at last, “but you’ve been protected in the Emerald City from the truth of how evil Dorothy is. Glinda has been trying to tap into Oz’s magic for a long time, and Dorothy is helping her. It’s not just that machine—Glinda’s been digging mines deep under Oz, looking for ways to pull magic out of the earth. The Tin Woodman’s soldiers have been kidnapping people and using them as slave labor.”

I thought of the rumors that had swirled around Dorothy’s palace ever since Ozma had changed. The stories of Munchkins going hungry, of the winged monkeys turning evil. They hadn’t just been stories, then. “That still doesn’t explain how you got here,” I said.

“The Tin Woodman’s soldiers burned my hometown to the ground when I was just a boy,” he said quietly, not looking at me. “They tried to take all of the adults, but everyone fought back. No one was left alive—except me. Mombi rescued me and brought me here. She raised me to be a fighter. I owe the Order my life.” He looked up at me. “But it’s more than that. More than just gratitude. I believe in the possibility of a better Oz, Jellia. I have to. I won’t let Glinda and Dorothy keep destroying our country. And if I can avenge my parents’ deaths—well, so much the better.”

I searched for the right words. “I’m sorry,” I said simply, though it hardly seemed like enough. “I didn’t realize.”

He shrugged. “You didn’t know. But now you have to decide, Jellia. Will you help us?”

“I’ve already made up my mind,” I said, and his face fell. But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, Gert materialized next to me in a little puff of purple smoke.

“I knew we could count on you, Jellia,” she said, her voice full of pride. She wrapped me up in a big, soft hug, and after a moment I returned the gesture. I could see Nox’s confused expression over her shoulder.

“You’re not the only one who wants to see the real Oz restored,” I said to him, and his face was transformed by a real, full smile.

Gert released me from her embrace and I found that I missed her comforting warmth as soon as she did. I hadn’t had much mothering in my life. “Down to business,” she said briskly. “I’m sorry to be curt, my dear, but we haven’t much time. We must return you to the meadow where Glinda left you, and Nox has to get back to Glinda’s before she notices his absence.” She paused, smiling at me. “Welcome to the future of Oz, Jellia. We’re proud to count you among us.” When she put it like that, I couldn’t help but be a little proud of myself, too.

After that, there wasn’t much else to do. Mombi, Gert, and Glamora assembled in the pool cavern to see me off. Glamora waved her hands, and my soft white robe was replaced with the tattered, bloody dress I’d been wearing when Nox brought me to the cavern. Glamora waved her hands again, and bruises sprang up painlessly across my skin. I poked one cautiously; it didn’t hurt at all, but it sure looked convincingly gory. “Just a glamour,” she said. “They’ll fade eventually, like real bruises.” I looked down at my ruined dress. I was really going to do this. I was really going to spy on Dorothy—and put my life on the line for the future of Oz. What was I thinking? Why had I agreed to this?

“Because you know Oz needs you, dear,” Gert said. I faced her and opened my mouth, ready to tell her I knew no such thing. But the words didn’t come. Instead, I thought of the tiny girl who washed dishes all day long in Glinda’s kitchen. I thought of Nox’s murdered parents. I thought of poor Astrid—how was she faring, back in the Emerald City without me to look after her? I thought of Glinda’s Munchkin cooks, so afraid of Glinda’s power they were willing to spy on the people who they should have been united with. I thought of Ozma, and how things used to be. I cared about them, all of them. I cared about their chance for a better life. For freedom. I cared because they deserved it. I took a deep breath and adjusted my dress so that it looked even more askew.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said. Gert smiled.

“You’re very brave, dear,” she said. “Very, very brave.”

Hopefully, I wasn’t about to be very, very dead.

Gert took my hand and put it in Nox’s. His grip was cool and reassuring. Gert took his free hand and Mombi took mine. The last thing I saw before the cavern disappeared was Glamora’s face, a haunting mirror image of Glinda’s, her big blue eyes looking deep into mine.

We rematerialized in the meadow where Glinda had left me, next to the Scarecrow’s machine. It was night, just before dawn; overhead, the constellations of Oz gleamed like gems in the lightening sky. A handful of astounded Munchkins huddled around the machine, gaping at our unexpected arrival. Gert marched over to them briskly; I could see the air shimmering with magic around her upraised hands.

“Listen, Jellia,” Nox said, and stopped, searching for the right words. “Good luck,” he said finally. “Be careful.”

“You too,” I said. He nodded again and then, to my surprise, he gave me a brief, fierce hug. Without another word, he turned his back on us and loped off into the darkness.

Gert walked back toward us with the Munchkins trailing after her, blinking and dazed. “It’s time,” she said. “Be strong, Jellia. We have faith in you. We chose you because we knew you could do what we asked of you. Not many people are that brave.”

“Or that stupid,” I said.

Mombi grinned and patted me on the back. “Don’t get killed, kiddo.”

Gert turned to the Munchkins. “You remember nothing,” she said gently, and they nodded as one with their mouths open. She smiled at me. “Good-bye, dear. And good luck.” The witches’ outlines wavered, and I watched as they shimmered and then disappeared with a pop, like a bubble bursting. That was it: I was on my own.

The Munchkins were looking around them as though they’d just woken up from a dream. One of them caught sight of me and stood up a little straighter. “You’re alive,” he said slowly. “We’re to take you back to Dorothy, if you’re alive. To the Emerald City.”

I took a deep breath. “What are we waiting for then?” I said. “It’s time to go home.”

EXCERPT FROM DOROTHY MUST DIE

Follow Amy Gumm’s mission to take down Dorothy in . . .

ONE

I first discovered I was trash three days before my ninth birthday—one year after my father lost his job and moved to Secaucus to live with a woman named Crystal and four years before my mother had the car accident, started taking pills, and began exclusively wearing bedroom slippers instead of normal shoes.

I was informed of my trashiness on the playground by Madison Pendleton, a girl in a pink Target sweat suit who thought she was all that because her house had one and a half bathrooms.

“Salvation Amy’s trailer trash,” she told the other girls on the monkey bars while I was dangling upside down by my knees and minding my own business, my pigtails scraping the sand. “That means she doesn’t have any money and all her clothes are dirty. You shouldn’t go to her birthday party or you’ll be dirty, too.”

When my birthday party rolled around that weekend, it turned out everyone had listened to Madison. My mom and I were sitting at the picnic table in the Dusty Acres Mobile Community Recreation Area wearing our sad little party hats, our sheet cake gathering dust. It was just the two of us, same as always. After an hour of hoping someone would finally show up, Mom sighed, poured me another big cup of Sprite, and gave me a hug.

She told me that, whatever anyone at school said, a trailer was where I lived, not who I was. She told me that it was the best home in the world because it could go anywhere.

Even as a little kid, I was smart enough to point out that our house was on blocks, not wheels. Its mobility was severely oversold. Mom didn’t have much of a comeback for that.

It took her until around Christmas of that year when we were watching The Wizard of Oz on the big flat-screen television—the only physical thing that was a leftover from our old life with Dad—to come up with a better answer for me. “See?” she said, pointing at the screen. “You don’t need wheels on your house to get somewhere better. All you need is something to give you that extra push.”

I don’t think she believed it even then, but at least in those days she still cared enough to lie. And even though I never believed in a place like Oz, I did believe in her.

That was a long time ago. A lot had changed since then. My mom was hardly the same person at all anymore. Then again, neither was I.

I didn’t bother trying to make Madison like me anymore, and I wasn’t going to cry over cake. I wasn’t going to cry, period. These days, my mom was too lost in her own little world to bother cheering me up. I was on my own, and crying wasn’t worth the effort.

Tears or no tears, though, Madison Pendleton still found ways of making my life miserable. The day of the tornado—although I didn’t know the tornado was coming yet—she was slouching against her locker after fifth period, rubbing her enormous pregnant belly and whispering with her best friend, Amber Boudreaux.

I’d figured out a long time ago that it was best to just ignore her when I could, but Madison was the type of person it was pretty impossible to ignore even under normal circumstances. Now that she was eight and a half months pregnant it was really impossible.

Today, Madison was wearing a tiny T-shirt that barely covered her midriff. It read Who’s Your Mommy across her boobs in pink cursive glitter. I did my best not to stare as I slunk by her on my way to Spanish, but somehow I felt my eyes gliding upward, past her belly to her chest and then to her face. Sometimes you just can’t help it.

She was already staring at me. Our gazes met for a tiny instant. I froze.

Madison glared. “What are you looking at, Trailer Trash?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Was I staring? I was just wondering if you were the Teen Mom I saw on the cover of Star this week.”

It wasn’t like I tried to go after Madison, but sometimes my sarcasm took on a life of its own. The words just came out.

Madison gave me a blank look. She snorted.

“I didn’t know you could afford a copy of Star.” She turned to Amber Boudreaux and stopped rubbing her stomach just long enough to give it a tender pat. “Salvation Amy’s jealous. She’s had a crush on Dustin forever. She wishes this were her baby.”

I didn’t have a crush on Dustin, I definitely didn’t want a baby, and I absolutely did not want Dustin’s baby. But that didn’t stop my cheeks from going red.

Amber popped her gum and smirked an evil smirk. “You know, I saw her talking to Dustin in third period,” she said. “She was being all flirty.” Amber puckered her lips and pushed her chest forward. “Oh, Dustin, I’ll help you with your algebra.”

I knew I was blushing, but I wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment or anger. It was true that I’d let Dustin copy my math homework earlier that day. But as cute as Dustin was, I wasn’t stupid enough to think I’d ever have a shot with him. I was Salvation Amy, the flat-chested trailer-trash girl whose clothes were always a little too big and a lot too thrift store. Who hadn’t had a real friend since third grade.

I wasn’t the type of girl Dustin would go for, with or without the existence of Madison Pendleton. He had been “borrowing” my algebra almost every day for the entire year. But Dustin would never look at me like that. Even at forty-pounds pregnant, Madison sparkled like the words on her oversize chest. There was glitter embedded in her eye shadow, in her lip gloss, in her nail polish, hanging from her ears in shoulder-grazing hoops, dangling from her wrists in blingy bracelets. If the lights went out in the hallway, she could light it up like a human disco ball. Like human bling. Meanwhile, the only color I had to offer was in my hair, which I’d dyed pink just a few days ago.

I was all sharp edges and angles—words that came out too fast and at the wrong times. And I slouched. If Dustin was into shiny things like Madison, he would never be interested in me.

I don’t know if I was exactly interested in Dustin, either, but we did have one thing in common: we both wanted out of Flat Hill, Kansas.

For a while, it had almost looked like Dustin was going to make it, too. All you need is a little push sometimes. Sometimes it’s a tornado; sometimes it’s the kind of right arm that gets you a football scholarship. He had been set to go. Until eight and a half months ago, that is.

I didn’t know what was worse: to have your shot and screw it up, or to never have had a shot in the first place.

“I wasn’t . . . ,” I protested. Before I could finish, Madison was all up in my face.

“Listen, Dumb Gumm,” she said. I felt a drop of her spit hit my cheek and resisted the urge to wipe it away. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. “Dustin’s mine. We’re getting married as soon as the baby comes and I can fit into my aunt Robin’s wedding dress. So you’d better stay away from him—not that he’d ever be interested in someone like you anyway.”

By this point, everyone in the hallway had stopped looking into their lockers, and they were looking at us instead. Madison was used to eyes on her—but this was new to me.

“Listen,” I mumbled back at her, wanting this to be over. “It was just homework.” I felt my temper rising. I’d just been trying to help him. Not because I had a crush on him. Just because he deserved a break.

“She thinks Dustin needs her help,” Amber chimed in. “Taffy told me she heard Amy offered to tutor him after school. Just a little one-on-one academic counseling.” She cackled loudly. She said “tutor” like I’d done a lap dance for Dustin in front of the whole fourth period.

I hadn’t offered anyway. He had asked. Not that it mattered. Madison was already steaming.

“Oh, she did, did she? Well why don’t I give this bitch a little tutoring of my own?”

I turned to walk away, but Madison grabbed me by the wrist and jerked me back around to face her. She was so close to me that her nose was almost touching mine. Her breath smelled like Sour Patch Kids and kiwi-strawberry lip gloss.

“Who the hell do you think you are, trying to steal my boyfriend? Not to mention my baby’s dad?”

“He asked me,” I said quietly so that only Madison could hear.

“What?”

I knew I should shut up. But it wasn’t fair. All I’d tried to do was something good.

“I didn’t talk to him. He asked me for help,” I said, louder this time.

“And what could he find so interesting about you?” she snapped back, as if Dustin and I belonged to entirely different species.

It was a good question. The kind that gets you where it hurts. But an answer popped into my head, right on time, not two seconds after Madison wobbled away down the hall. I knew it was mean, but it flew out of my mouth before I had a chance to even think about it.

“Maybe he just wanted to talk to someone his own size.”

Madison’s mouth opened and closed without anything coming out. I took a step back, ready to walk away with my tiny victory. And then she rolled into her heels, wound up, and—before I could duck—punched me square in the jaw. I felt my head throbbing as I stumbled back and landed on my butt.

It was my turn to be surprised, looking up at her in dazed, fuzzy-headed confusion. Had that just happened? Madison had always been a complete bitch, but—aside from the occasional shoulder check in the girls’ locker room—she wasn’t usually the violent type. Until now.

Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones.

“Take it back,” she demanded as I began to get to my feet.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amber a second too late. Always one to take a cue from her best friend, she yanked me by the hair and pushed me back down to the ground.

The chant of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” boomed in my ears. I checked for blood, relieved to find my skull intact. Madison stepped forward and towered over me, ready for the next round. Behind her, I could see that a huge crowd had gathered around us.

“Take it back. I’m not fat,” Madison insisted. But her lip quivered a tiny bit at the f-word. “I may be pregnant, but I’m still a size two.”

“Kick her!” Amber hissed.

I scooted away from her rhinestone-studded sandal and stood up just as the assistant principal, Mr. Strachan, appeared, flanked by a pair of security guards. The crowd began to disperse, grumbling that the show was over.

Madison quickly dropped her punching arm and went back to rubbing her belly and cooing. She scrunched her face up into a pained grimace, like she was fighting back tears. I rolled my eyes. I wondered if she would actually manage to produce tears.

Mr. Strachan looked from me to Madison and back again through his wire rims.

“Mr. Strachan,” Madison said shakily. “She just came at me! At us!” She patted her belly protectively, making it clear that she was speaking for two these days.

He folded his arms across his chest and lowered his glare to where I still crouched. Madison had him at “us.” “Really, Amy? Fighting with a pregnant girl? You’ve always had a hard time keeping your mouth shut when it’s good for you, but this is low, even for you.”

“She threw the first punch!” I yelled. It didn’t matter. Mr. Strachan was already pulling me to my feet to haul me off to the principal’s office.

“I thought you could be the bigger person at a time like this. I guess I overestimated you. As usual.”

As I walked away, I looked over my shoulder. Madison lifted her hand from her belly to give me a smug little wave. Like she knew I wouldn’t be coming back.

When I’d left for school that morning, Mom had been sitting on the couch for three days straight. In those three days, my mother had taken zero showers, had said almost nothing, and—as far as I knew—had consumed only half a carton of cigarettes and a few handfuls of Bugles. Oh, and whatever pills she was on. I’m not even sure when she got up to pee. She’d just been sitting there watching TV.

It used to be that I always tried to figure out what was wrong with her when she got like this. Was it the weather? Was she thinking about my father? Was it just the pills? Or was there something else that had turned her into a human slug?

By now, though, I was used to it enough to know that it wasn’t any of that. She just got like this sometimes. It was her version of waking up on the wrong side of the bed, and when it happened, you just had to let her ride it out. Whenever it happened, I wondered if this time she’d be stuck like this.

So when I pushed the door to our trailer open an hour after my meeting with the principal, carrying all the books from my locker in a black Hefty bag—I’d been suspended for the rest of the week—I was surprised to see that the couch was empty except for one of those blankets with the sleeves that Mom had ordered off TV with money we didn’t have.

In the bathroom, I could hear her rustling around: the faucet running, the clatter of drugstore makeup on a tiny counter. I guess she’d ridden it out again after all. Not that that was always a good thing.

“Mom?” I asked.

“Shit!” she yelped, followed by the sound of something falling into the sink. She didn’t come out of the bathroom, and she didn’t ask what I was doing home so early.

I dropped my backpack and my Hefty bag on the floor, slid off my sneakers, and looked over at the screen. Al Roker was pointing to my hometown on one of those big fake maps. He was frowning.

I didn’t think I’d ever seen America’s Weatherman frown before. Wasn’t he supposed to be reassuring? Wasn’t it, like, his job to make us feel like everything, including the weather, would be better soon? If not tomorrow then at some point during the extended ten-day forecast?

“Hey,” Mom said. “Did you hear? There’s a tornado coming!”

I wasn’t too worried about it. They were always predicting disaster around here, but although nearby towns had been hit a few times, Dusty Acres had always been spared. It was like we had cliché to shield us—Tornado Sweeps Through Trailer Park, Leaves Only an Overturned Barbecue. That’s something that happens in a movie, not in real life.

My mom emerged from the bathroom, fussing with her hair. I was glad to see her vertical again, freshly scrubbed with her face all done up, but I had to wince at the length of her skirt. It was shorter than anything I owned. It was shorter than anything Madison Pendleton owned. That could only mean one thing.

“Where are you going?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. “For three days, you’re one step away from a coma and now you’re heading to the bar?”

It was no surprise. In my mother’s world, there were only two pieces of scenery: the couch and the bar. If she wasn’t on one, she was in the other.

She let out an accusatory sigh. “Don’t start. I thought you’d be happy that I’m back on my feet again. Would you rather I just lie on the couch? Well, you might be content to mope around the house all day, but some of us have a life.” She fluffed up her already teased hair and began looking for her purse.

There were so many things wrong with everything she’d just said that I couldn’t even begin to process all the ways it was infuriating. Instead, I decided to try the sensible argument. “You’re the one who just told me there’s a tornado on the way. It’s dangerous. You could get hit by a tree or something. Won’t Tawny understand?”

“It’s a tornado party, Miss Smarty-Pants,” Mom said, as if that explained things. Her bloodshot eyes lit up as she spotted her purse lying on the floor next to the refrigerator and slung it over her shoulder.

I knew there was no point arguing when she got this way. “You need to sign this,” I demanded, holding out the slip of paper Strachan had given me. It was to show that she understood what I’d supposedly done today, and what the consequences were.

“I got suspended,” I told her.

It took her a few seconds to react, but when she did, her face registered not surprise or anger, but pure annoyance. “Suspended? What did you do?” Mom pushed past me again to get to her keys. Like I was just a thing that was in the way of something she wanted.

If we lived in a regular house, with one and a half bathrooms, I wondered, would she still hate me this much? Was resentment something that grew better in small spaces, like those flowers that Mom used to force to bloom inside in little vases?

“I got in a fight,” I said evenly. Mom kept staring. “With a pregnant girl.”

At that, Mom let out a long, whistling sigh and looked up at the ceiling.

“That’s just great,” Mom said, her voice dripping with something other than motherly concern.

I could have explained it to her. I could have told her exactly what happened; that it wasn’t my fault. That I hadn’t even hit anyone.

But the thing is, at that moment, I kind of liked having her think I’d done something wrong. If I was the kind of girl who got in fights with pregnant girls, it meant it was on her. And her stellar lack of parenting skills.

“Who was it?” Mom demanded, her plastic purse slamming into the counter.

“Madison Pendleton.”

She narrowed her eyes but not at me. She was remembering Madison. “Of course. That little pink bitch who ruined your birthday party.”

Mom paused and bit her lip. “You don’t see it, do you? She’s already getting hers. You don’t need to help it along.”

“What are you talking about? I’m the one who was suspended.”

Mom flung her hand out and gripped the air, mimicking a pregnant belly. “I give her a year. Two tops before she’s got a trailer of her own around the corner. That boy she’s with won’t stay. And she’ll be left with a little bundle of karma.”

I shook my head. “She’s walking around like she’s God’s gift. Like she and Dustin are still going to be prom king and queen.”

“Ha!” Mom hooted. “Now. But the second that kid comes, her life is over.” There was a pause I could drive a truck through.

For a split second, I thought of how things used to be. My before Mom. The one who’d dried my tears and challenged me to a cake-eating contest at that fateful birthday party. “More cake for us,” she’d said. That was when I was nine. After Dad left, but before the accident and the pills. It was the last time she’d even bothered remembering my birthday.

I didn’t know what to do when she acted like this. When we were almost having a normal conversation. When she almost seemed like she cared. When I almost saw some glimmer of who she used to be. I knew better but I leaned into the kitchenette counter anyway.

“One second, you have everything, your whole life ahead of you,” she said, fluffing her hair in the reflection from the stove. “And then, boom. They just suck it all out of you like little vampires till there’s nothing left of you.”

It was clear she wasn’t talking about Madison anymore. She was talking about me. I was her little vampire.

Anger pricked in my chest. Leave it to my mother to turn any situation into another excuse to feel sorry for herself. To blame me.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “You’re right. I’m the one who ruined your life. Not you. Not Dad. The fact that I’ve been taking care of you every day since I was thirteen—that was just my evil scheme to ruin everything for you.”

“Don’t be so sensitive, Amy,” she huffed. “It’s not all about you.”

“All about me? How could it be, when it’s always about you?”

Mom glared at me, and then there was a honk from outside. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this. Tawny’s waiting.” She stormed to the door.

“You’re just going to leave me in the middle of a tornado?”

It wasn’t that I cared about the weather. I wasn’t expecting it to be a big deal. But I wanted her to care; I wanted her to be running around gathering up batteries for flashlights and making sure we had enough water to last through the week. I wanted her to take care of me. Because that’s what mothers do.

Just because I’d learned how to take care of myself didn’t mean I didn’t still feel panic setting in every time she left me like this—all alone, with no clue when she’d be back, or if she’d ever be back at all. Even without a tornado on the way, it was always an open question.

“It’s better out there than in here,” she snapped.

Before I could think of a good enough retort, she was gone.

I opened the door as she slid into the front seat of Tawny’s Camaro; I watched as Mom adjusted the mirror to look at herself and saw her catch a glimpse of me instead, just before the car vroomed away.

Before I could have the satisfaction of slamming the door myself, the wind did it for me. So maybe this tornado was coming after all.

I thought of Dustin and his wasted scholarship, and about my father, who’d left me behind just to get out of here. I thought of what this place did to people. Tornado or no tornado, I wasn’t Dorothy, and a stupid little storm wasn’t going to change anything for me.

I walked to my dresser, pushed up flush against the kitchen stove, and opened the top drawer, feeling around for the red-and-white gym sock that was fat with cash—the stash of money I’d been saving for an emergency for years: $347. Once the storm cleared, that could get me bus tickets. That could get me a lot farther than Topeka, which was the farthest I had ever gone. I could let my mother fend for herself. She didn’t want me. School didn’t want me. What was I waiting for?

My hand hit the back of the drawer. All I found were socks.

I pulled the drawer out and rifled through it. Nothing.

The money was gone. Everything I’d spent my life saving up for. Gone.

It was no mystery who’d taken it. It was less of a mystery what she’d spent it on. With no cash, no car, and no one to wave a magic wand, I was stuck where I was.

It didn’t matter anyway. Leaving was just a fantasy.

In the living room, Al Roker was back on TV. His frown was gone, sort of, but even though his face was now plastered with a giant grin, his jaw was quivering and he looked like he might start crying at any second. He kept chattering away, going on and on about isotopes and pressure systems and hiding in the basement.

Too bad they don’t have basements in trailer parks, I thought.

And then I thought: Bring it on. There’s no place like anywhere but here.

TWO

I had to admit it looked a little scary outside: the darkening sky stretched out over the empty, flat plain—a muddy, pinkish brown I’d never seen before—and the air seemed eerily still.

Usually on a day like today, even with bad weather, the old guy next door would be out in the yard, blasting old-fashioned country songs—the kind about losing your car, losing your wife, losing your dog—from his ancient boom box while the gang of older kids I never talked to would be drinking neon-colored sodas from little plastic jugs as they sprawled out on the rusty green lawn furniture and old, ratty sofa that made up their outdoor living room. But today, they were all gone. There was no movement at all. No kids. No music. No nothing. The only color for miles was in the yellowed tops of the dried-out patches of grass that dotted the dirt.

The highway at the edge of the trailer park, where cars normally whizzed by at ninety miles an hour, was suddenly empty. Mom and Tawny had been the last car out.

As the light shifted, I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection in the window and I saw my face, framed by my new pink hair. I’d dyed it myself and the change was still a shock to me. I don’t even know why I’d done it. Maybe I just wanted some color in my stupid, boring gray life. Maybe I just wanted to be a little bit more like Madison Pendleton.

No. I didn’t want to be anything like her. Did I?

I was still studying my face when I heard squeaking and rustling, and turned around to see my mom’s beloved pet rat, Star, going crazy in her cage on top of the microwave. Star has got to be the world’s laziest rat—I don’t think I’ve seen her use her wheel a single time in the last two years. But now she was racing frantically, screaming her gross little rat screams and throwing herself against the sides of her home like she was going to die if she didn’t get out.

This was new.

“Guess she abandoned both of us, huh?” I tried to ignore the twinge of triumph I felt at this. I’d always had the sneaking suspicion that Mom loved Star more than me. Now she couldn’t be bothered with either of us.

The rat stared right at me, paused, and then opened her mouth to reply with a piercing squeal.

“Shut up, Star,” I said.

I thought she’d stop after a second, but the squeal just kept coming.

Star didn’t stop.

“Fine,” I said when I couldn’t take it anymore. “You wanna come out? Fine.” I unlatched the top of her cage and reached in to free her, but as I wrapped my hand around her body, she thanked me by sinking her tiny teeth into my wrist.

“Ow!” I yelped, dropping her to the floor. “What’s wrong with you?” Star didn’t answer—she just scurried off under the couch. Hopefully, never to be seen again. Who even keeps a rat as a pet?

Suddenly the door of the trailer swung open.

“Mom!” I called, running to the open door. For a split second, I thought maybe she’d come back for me. Or, if not for me, then at least for Star.

But it had just been the wind. For the first time, it occurred to me that the impending tornado might not be a joke.

When I was twelve, when it all first started, I didn’t get it at first. I thought Mom was actually changing for the better. She let me skip school so we could have a pajama day. She took me to the carnival in the middle of the school day. She jumped on the bed. She let us eat pizza for breakfast. But pretty soon she wasn’t making breakfast at all, she was forgetting to take me to school, and she wasn’t even getting out of her pajamas. Before long, I was the one making breakfast. And lunch. And dinner.

The mom I’d once known was gone. She was never coming back. Still—whoever she was now—I didn’t want her out there on her own. I couldn’t trust Tawny to take care of her in a disaster. More than that, I didn’t want to be alone. So I picked up my phone and punched in her name. No service. I hung up.

I went to the door, still open and creaking back and forth on its hinges, and took a step outside to scan the horizon, hoping I’d see the red Camaro zooming back down the highway. A change of heart.

As soon as I put my foot on the first stair outside the trailer, I heard a whooshing noise as a plastic lawn chair flew through the air toward me. I hit the ground just in time to avoid getting beaned in the face.

Then, for a moment, everything was still. The lawn chair was resting on its side a few feet away in the dirt like it had been there all along. It began to drizzle. I thought I even heard a bird chirping.

But as I hesitantly got to my feet, the wind started back up. Dust swirled and stung my eyes. The drizzle turned into a sheet of rain.

The sky just overhead was almost black and the horizon was a washed-out, cloudy white, and I saw it, just like in the movies: a thin, dark funnel was jittering across the landscape and getting bigger. Closer. A low humming sound, like an approaching train, thrummed in my ears and in my chest. The lawn chair shot up into the air again. This time, it didn’t come back down.

Slowly, I stepped backward into the trailer and yanked the door closed, feeling panic rising in my chest. I turned the deadbolt and then, for good measure, pulled the chain tight, knowing none of it would do any good.

I pressed my back to the wall, trying to keep calm.

The whole trailer shook as something crashed against it.

I had been so stupid to think this might be a joke. Everyone else was gone—how hadn’t I seen this coming?

It was too late now. Too late to get out of town—even if I’d had the money to do it. I had no car to get to a shelter. Mom hadn’t even thought to ask Tawny to drop me off somewhere. I was trapped here, and whichever way you sliced it, it was my mother’s fault.

I couldn’t even lie down in the bathtub. We didn’t have a bathtub any more than we had a basement.

Al Roker’s voice on the TV had been replaced by the buzz of static. I was alone.

“Star?” I squeaked. My voice barely made it out of my chest. “Star?”

It was the first time in my life that I’d been desperate for the company of my mother’s rat. I didn’t have anyone else.

As I sank onto the couch, I couldn’t tell if I was shaking, or if it was the trailer itself. Or both.

My mom’s stupid Snuggie was rancid with the stench of her Newports, but I pulled it over my face anyway, closing my eyes and imagining that she was here with me.

A minute later, when something snapped on the right side of the trailer, everything pitched to the side. I gripped the cushions hard to keep from falling off the couch. Then, there was another snap, and a lurch, and I knew that we’d come loose from our foundation.

My stomach dropped and kept dropping. I felt my body getting heavier, my back plastered to the cushions now, and suddenly—with a mix of horror and wonder—I knew that I was airborne.

The trailer was flying. I could feel it.

Dreading what I would see, I peered out from under the blanket and toward the window, squinting my eyes open just a crack to discover my suspicion had been right: Pink light danced through swirling clouds. A rusted-out car door floated by as if it were weightless.

I had never been on a plane. I had never been higher than the observatory, the tallest building in Flat Hill. And here I was now flying for the first time in a rusty old double-wide.

The trailer bounced and swayed and creaked and surfed, and then I felt something wet on my face. Then a squeak.

It was Star. She had made it onto the couch and was licking me tenderly. As her soft squeaks filled my ear, I let out a breath of something like relief just to have her here with me. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Mom was probably on her third drink by now, or maybe huddled with Tawny in the basement of the bar, a stack of kegs to keep them happy for as long as necessary. I wondered what she would do when she got back—when she saw that the trailer was gone, and me along with it. Like we were never here. Would her life be better without me in it?

Well, I had wanted to be gone. I’d wanted it for as long as I’d known there was anywhere to go. I wanted other places, other people. Another me. I wanted to leave everything and everyone behind.

But not like this.

I scratched my index finger against Star’s furry spine and waited for the falling part. For the crash. I braced myself against the cushions, knowing that my tin-can house wasn’t going to protect me when we hit the earth. But the crash didn’t come.

Up and up and up we went. More white-pink light, more pink clouds, and every kind of junk you could imagine all swirling around in the surreal air blender: an unbothered-looking Guernsey cow. An ancient, beat-up Trans Am. An old neon service-station sign. A tricycle.

It was like I was on the world’s most insane amusement park ride. I’ve never liked roller coasters. Going up would be fun if you didn’t have to think about what always came next.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DANIELLE PAIGE is a graduate of Columbia University. Before turning to young adult literature, she worked in the television industry, where she received a Writers Guild of America Award and was nominated for several Daytime Emmys. She currently lives in New York City.

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BOOKS BY DANIELLE PAIGE

Novels

Dorothy Must Die

The Wicked Will Rise

Yellow Brick War

Novellas

No Place Like Oz

The Witch Must Burn

The Wizard Returns

Heart of Tin

The Straw King

Ruler of Beasts

Order of the Wicked

Collections

Dorothy Must Die: The Other Side of the Rainbow Collection

COPYRIGHT

THE WITCH MUST BURN. Copyright © 2014 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © October 2014 ISBN 9780062280770

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FIRST EDITION

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