Pete scarfed his last piece of bacon and set his plate aside in the grass. As soon as he did, it disappeared in a poof of glitter.
“I mean that, like, I’m not going to be able to stick around much longer,” he said. He stood and stared wistfully off at the mountain range in the distance. “It used to be that when I took the wheel from Ozma, I had a good six hours at least—sometimes even longer—before she came back out. I never quite knew why it sometimes lasted longer than other times, but I think it had something to do with Dorothy. She never knew about me, but for some reason, when she was distracted, or not nearby, it made things easier. But now Dorothy’s gone and Ozma seems stronger than ever. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
I didn’t say it, but it actually made some sense to me. If Oz was getting stronger since the witches had broken down the pipelines that were sucking the magic from the land, it stood to reason that Ozma would be getting stronger, too. That would explain why, lately, she had also seemed more present.
“I wish we didn’t have to worry about her,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “You’re not as much of a pain in the ass as she is. Plus, you come in handy in a fight. Ozma just kinda stands there, you know?”
What I didn’t mention was that it was probably for the best if Ozma came popping back in soon. In fact, if she didn’t, I would probably have to make it happen myself, like it or not. It was Ozma, not Pete, who was supposedly locked on to the scent that Mombi had given her and was going to take me to Polychrome.
It was Ozma who I needed, not him. But this was nice. I could wait a few minutes.
“Do you think Glinda was right?” Pete asked. “That the Order wants to restore Ozma to her real self? I can see why they would, I guess. She’s the queen; putting her back in power is a step toward getting rid of Dorothy. But what happens to me when Ozma gets better? Does that mean I’ll be trapped in there for good, like I was before Dorothy came back? What if, this time, I just stop existing?”
“No!” I blurted. “It’s Glinda, remember? You can’t trust a word she says. She’s just trying to get in your head. She wants you to go running to her so she can send you straight back to Dorothy.”
“I guess,” he said, but he sounded doubtful. “But how do you know for sure?”
“Because she lies,” I said. “That’s what she does.”
As I said it, I found myself wondering if I was really being honest. With Pete, with myself. I mean, yeah, I knew I was right about Glinda—she was a nasty, manipulative piece of work, willing to play on any insecurity she could think of to worm her way in. On the other hand, that didn’t always mean she was lying, and until this moment, I hadn’t considered any of the questions Pete was asking. It was hard not to wonder if there was something to what he was saying.
“It will be fine,” I reassured him, trying not to feel guilty about it.
“You won’t let them do that, though, right? You’ll watch out for me?” Pete searched me as if he could sense every one of my doubts.
“Of course,” I said. I wanted to mean it.
“Look, I know Glinda’s a liar,” Pete said. “But part of what she said was true, you know. About what a waste it is, and how much it sucks. I’ve already missed out on so much. You have no idea how good you have it.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “I’m really lucky. Just look at me, living the good life here.”
There was a slight, warm breeze, and it ruffled Pete’s hair. He gave me a wistful frown with a million responses wrapped in it. Among them: girl, please and you really have no clue.
“I never stop appreciating it,” he said, tilting his chin into the sun and closing his eyes to soak it in. “Just being able to stand outside like this and breathe the air. You should remember it, too. Think of all the things you’ve already gotten to do; all the things you’ll still get to do. Okay, so maybe things could be better. But you have this life that’s just sitting there, waiting for you to take it. It could be worse.”
I realized too late how selfish I must seem. “You’re right,” I said, standing up, too. “I’m sorry.” As I placed my own dish aside and watched it disappear like his, it occurred to me to wonder where it had disappeared to. Had it gone off into some magical dishwashing dimension to be cleaned or had it just ceased to exist? The more I learned about magic, the more questions I had about it, but for now, I put them out of my head. I took Pete’s hand.
We both just stood there, looking out at everything Oz had to offer. For all the evil that was part of this place, there was so much that was good about it, too. Despite everything, Oz was a place of light and magic, and we had found our way to the center of it.
I don’t know where the next thing came from. I guess it was just something about the wildflowers all around us in the meadow and the mountains off in the distance. The breeze, the sun, the unexpected, unreasonable feeling that everything was going to be okay. Maybe it was what Pete had said about appreciating everything you had in the moment that you had it, or maybe it was the fact that I had no idea where the future was going to lead. What was I waiting for anymore? Why had I ever waited for anything?
Okay, so maybe I was just wired from the first caffeine I’d had in months. Whatever it was, I was just kind of like, oh, screw it.
So I kissed him. Because why not?
Pete’s skin smelled like sandalwood and soap. His lips were soft. His eyes widened in surprise as he pulled away.
My cheeks began to flush. Crap. “I’m sorry,” I said, backing away in embarrassment.
“No, it’s fine,” he said. “It’s just . . .” Out of nowhere, he started laughing.
“I . . . I just thought,” I stuttered. “I mean, uh, I guess I just thought, you know . . . since you said you’d never . . .”
“Amy,” he said. He collapsed back into the grass and pushed his hair from his face with a manic and astonished grin, like he sort of couldn’t believe it. When he laughed again, I started to feel a little insulted. “Well, I don’t think it was that ridiculous,” I said.
He just laughed harder. “No, it’s not that. It would be totally nice to kiss someone. It would be nice to kiss you, if things were different. But I don’t want to kiss someone just to kiss them, you know? I’m probably not going to get too many chances, see? It’s like, when I do it, I want to make it count. I guess I just thought you knew.”
“Wait,” I said. “Knew what?”
“Listen. I get you. You’re trouble. If I were into girls, I’d be so into you. But I’m not. Even girls as awesome as you.”
“You mean . . .” I’m pretty sure gears were visibly turning in my head.
Pete shrugged. “I guess,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know, but basically.”
“Oh,” I said.
Okay, so I was kind of dumbstruck. The idea that Pete was gay just wasn’t something I’d ever considered as a possibility. “I don’t know why I thought you knew. I mean, it’s not like I told you or anything. There’s no reason you should have known.”
I hadn’t really ever thought about it one way or the other. But as soon as he’d said it, it made perfect sense. As handsome as he was, and as much time as we’d spent together, there had always been something missing—a distance between us that had always been hard to pin down. Now I knew what it was.
“And even if I wasn’t,” he said. “Would it matter? I kinda get the feeling you’re into someone else anyway. So it’s probably just as well, right?”
“I guess,” I said. “Just do me a favor, okay?”
“Sure,” he said. “What?”
“When you’re in there . . . keep an eye on me. When you can see me, I mean.”
He tilted his head, and his hair fell in his face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean . . .” I paused, not wanting to admit what I was really afraid of. “I mean, if you think I’m about to do something, you know. Scary. If you’re in there somewhere, and you see me not being myself. Try to give me a signal. Or stop me. Or whatever.”
br /> Pete nodded, understanding. “Fine,” he said. “If I can, I will. But you have to look out for me, too. Don’t let them do anything to me.”
“I promise,” I said. I hoped it was a promise I would actually be able to keep.
I had a bunch more stuff I wanted to ask him, but it was too late. Pete’s body began to shudder. He winced in pain and jerked his head back. He swallowed hard.
“Told you,” he said. “She wants control again. Here I go. Hopefully I’ll see you again soon. We’ll have plenty to talk about. But I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s going to be as easy after this. She’s different now. She’s going to fight hard from now on. I can tell.”
As if on cue, his face began to change. It was like the two of them were wrestling each other to occupy the exact same square foot of space. Pete’s skin rippled as the princess struggled to get out; his arms and legs began lengthening and contracting. His face was flipping back and forth between his own and Ozma’s and something in between.
Pete screamed. He clutched his head. Then he was gone and Ozma was standing in his place, looking steely and hard. She gave me the once-over, cocked her head, and raised her eyebrows, her lips pursed. It was kind of intimidating.
Was she mad at me? Did she blame me for bringing Pete out again?
It didn’t matter. As nice a respite as the last hour had been, it was time to go. I wasn’t sure exactly how I was supposed to pack up the tent, but it turned out I didn’t need to worry about it. As soon as I decided it was time to get moving, the tent seemed to understand. It collapsed in on itself like I had issued a command out loud, and folded itself back up into a small, neat square of cloth that I placed in my back pocket. I knew that it was dangerous to use again, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to leave it behind.
Ozma turned in a circle, getting her new bearings, and then she began to walk. If nothing else, she certainly was single-minded. That spider spell really worked.
She moved carefully and deliberately, but slowly. For every few steps she took, she’d back up a few times and then change direction. Finally, when she had found a spot in the meadow a few paces from where we’d started, she stopped, paced around as if judging it, and knelt to the ground as I looked on from a respectful distance.
On her knees, the princess ran her hands carefully through the grass, letting her fingertips graze each blade. Next, she turned her attention to the flowers and began to examine them.
I moved in closer, trying to see exactly what she was doing. All of the flowers I’d seen in the field were one shade of purple or another, but as Ozma searched, she managed to find an assortment, which she began to pluck up as she settled on the ones she wanted: first a tiny red one, then an odd royal blue flower with thin, spiraling petals, and a purple crocus and a yellow buttercup until, finally, she was holding a tiny bouquet representing the four colors of Oz.
She rose, holding the flowers to her chest, and, with her other hand, licked her index finger and held it up. She turned clockwise, then counterclockwise, gauging the wind, and then stopped. I felt a prickle on the back of my neck as a gust came from behind me, out of nowhere. As the wind blew around us, Ozma tossed the flowers into the air and watched as the current caught them up and carried them, flying, into the distance.
Ozma was still. A second later, a brick appeared in the grass at her feet. Then another, and another, each one of them blooming in front of her like flowers in a time-lapse video.
They popped up slowly and then quickly, and while they appeared scattered at first, a pattern began to emerge. It was a road. And it was yellow.
Ozma stepped onto the path to begin the next part of the journey. “Follow,” Ozma said.
So I followed: not Ozma, but the road itself. Now the princess and I walked together, side by side, in a looping, meandering path that I knew was taking us into the mountains.
FOURTEEN
We spent the morning walking, following the Road of Yellow Brick as it took us through pastures and meadows and an orchard of squat trees whose branches hung heavy with luscious plums that I was still too full from breakfast to eat; it led us across babbling streams and over rolling hills, into and then out of lush, vibrant valleys.
A few times, way off in the distance, I noticed clusters of domed buildings that looked like villages, but whenever they popped up in my peripheral vision, the road always veered off in the opposite direction. I was familiar enough with Oz to get that it wasn’t just luck—the road knew that we wanted to be stealthy, and it was helping us.
Was this the same road that, once upon a time, had led both me and Dorothy from Munchkin Country to the Emerald City? That was a hard question to wrap my head around. That road had a fixed beginning and ending, but I knew from experience that it was also known to move around, depending on traveling conditions. I’d been told more than once that it had a mind of its own. It was possible that Ozma had summoned it with Old Magic, and it had veered off course to help us find our way.
The sun was still out, the walk was peaceful, and I was actually making some headway teaching Ozma to sing “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” The only problem was that she didn’t really know how to count, and kept mixing up the numbers.
After a while, I gave up on correcting her and just let her keep on singing. Even though the song didn’t make any sense at all anymore, her voice was actually nice, and I let my mind wander.
This morning’s conversation with Glinda had been unsettling, although I guess it could have been worse. But what did she want from me? Why had she changed her tune so drastically? She had to be trying to trick me . . . but trick me into what?
I was reminded of Lulu’s warning in the forest, to keep ahold of yourself. If Lulu was worried that Oz was corrupting me, did that mean that Glinda thought so, too? Had she come to me this morning because she thought she’d be able to take advantage of that?
Glinda had made it sound like, out of nowhere, she had no more use for Dorothy. I wondered what could have caused such a huge rift between them in just the few days since the battle in the Emerald City—unless their alliance had never been as solid as it had appeared. And where did that leave me? Did Glinda think that the fact that I was from the Other Place meant that I would be able to pick up the slack now that her favorite little despot had fallen out of her favor?
It was frustrating that everyone was so convinced that I had this great potential to be evil, when all I’d done was show up, get thrown in the dungeon by Dorothy, and then follow the Order’s instructions pretty much exactly. I’d fought for what I thought was right. For what I believed in. And now even people like Lulu—people who were supposed to be on the same side as me—seemed suspicious of me because of it. It all felt a little unfair.
Anyway, I had a hard time thinking of myself as a ticking time bomb waiting to explode in a burst of evil when I was in such a good mood. Yeah, the morning had been a little dicey, but ever since Ozma and I had started walking, it had been a pretty perfect day.
The whole time we walked, the mountains stayed fixed in the distance. They were a jagged set of purple teeth on the horizon, rising higher and higher as we moved closer. Based on the deep indigo hue of everything around us, as well as the little I remembered of Oz geography, I was pretty sure these mountains had to be the Gillikins—the treacherous, sprawling range that stretched all the way across Oz’s northern territory, separating wild from wilder.
We’d seen no monsters since we’d left the forest—not counting Glinda—so I was guessing things were still basically civilized for now. But the landscape was slowly changing, and even without crossing the Gillikins, I wasn’t sure that we were going to stay in civilized territory for much longer. As morning faded to afternoon—in a way that felt pretty normal by Oz standards—the sunny fields and groves of trees gave way to muddy swampland dotted with intermittent patches of brush, milkweed, and the occasional stunted, tired-out-looking tree. The sun had disappeared behind a dense, rolling cloud cover, leaving ev
erything around us a gloomy gray that was only barely tinted with a washed-out lavender. Everything looked as though the life had been sucked out of it. The world had lost its color.
The air had changed, too. It had thickened, turned sticky and cold, until I felt like I was draped in a used, mildewy towel like the ones my mom had always had a penchant for leaving strewn all over our trailer.
Ozma had stopped singing.
Only the path we were walking on lent any bit of cheeriness to the landscape. The road had brightened in contrast and now cut a curling swath into the distance, no longer yellow but a glittering, pulsating gold.
Then even the road began to lose some of its fight against the gloom. This morning it had been a wide and open boulevard, but as the terrain grew rocky, it narrowed and snarled to weave its way through the obstacles that had begun to pop up.
Meanwhile, though it didn’t feel like we were getting any higher, the sky appeared to be getting much closer. The clouds were now so low over our heads that I could practically reach up and touch them, and then I didn’t need to reach at all: the road curled sharply, leading us into a corridor of boulders barely wide enough to lift your arms, and I saw the clouds scraping the bricks just ahead of us, swallowing the path.
Sitting at the edge of the fog was a lone figure: it was a woman, wearing a long, hooded cloak of midnight blue feathers, each one tipped with gold. Her skin was smooth and unlined, but there was a sharp wisdom in her eyes too. She looked both very young and very ancient. When she saw us coming she let out a long, stuttering howl that bounced against the rocks, echoing in a chorus like there were twenty of it instead of just one. And she began to change. She spread out her arms, and her cape became a set of enormous wings; her nose and mouth joined together and stretched themselves into a long, thin beak. Finally, the creature blocking our path was no longer a woman at all, but a giant bird.