I felt like I had rowed out to the end of the world and found myself right back at the beginning of it.
The only thing I had to guide me was the sun—not that it seemed very trustworthy at the moment either. While the mountains had been busy doing their amazing disappearing act, the sun’s movement in the sky had been speeding up, and now it was rising and sinking and rising and sinking over and over, like a time-lapse animation brought to life.
I guess it was possible that someone was going crazy with the Great Clock back in the Emerald City, but somehow I didn’t think so. When I was little, and my mom had told me about the International Date Line, I’d imagined it as a real line, painted down the middle of the world, and that if you stood with your feet on either side of it and looked at your watch, it would get so confused that the hands would start spinning around, out of whack. This felt something like that—like we were trapped in a place where time didn’t know which way was up anymore.
“I thought you were supposed to be the one leading the way,” I snapped at Ozma, who was still oblivious in her slumber, her hand dangling out of the boat, her fingers dragging in the water. “How about waking up and helping me out here?”
She sighed in her sleep and turned the other way.
Out of ideas, I tried casting a pathfinder spell, but when I conjured up the usually trusty ball of energy to guide us, all it did was flutter around in confusion, then sputter out.
I stared out at the water in frustration. “At least it’s not telling me what a loser I am,” I mused aloud. Secretly, I kind of wished it would, if only for the change of pace. A few Fantasms might not have been pleasant, but they would have given me someone to talk to other than myself and Sleeping Beauty over here.
The sound of my own voice made me feel giddy to the point of near drunkenness, and I began to giggle. “I guess I should have known that the Island of Lost Things wouldn’t be easy to find,” I said. “It would almost be funny, right? I mean, if we weren’t so totally, completely, utterly lost.”
Then my giggles became hysterical laughter. I wasn’t laughing at my joke (which wasn’t really a joke even) but from sheer joy. Because at the exact moment that my words escaped my mouth, I saw it: against the hot-pink silver dollar of the plunging sun, a tiny, crescent-shaped sliver of land had made itself suddenly apparent. Roused by my whooping, Ozma yawned, stretched, and rubbed her eyes, sitting up and cracking her neck from one side to the next.
“Finders keepers,” she said groggily.
I was too overjoyed to be annoyed at her nonsense. Now that I had spotted it, I began to paddle again in earnest and the island was approaching rapidly, rising up out of the water like some reverse Atlantis.
It made such perfect sense that I felt stupid for not thinking of it earlier. Duh. You couldn’t find the Island of Lost Things until you had gotten yourself lost beyond any hope of finding. If I’d given up an hour, or a day ago, it would have appeared that much quicker. So much for quitters never win.
But the sight of a destination—any destination!—had energized me, and I pushed myself as hard as I could, gaping when I realized that the island, while small, was actually something like a city, complete with a cluster of tall, boxy, and downright American-looking high-rises shooting up into the sky.
As the island grew nearer and nearer, I noticed all sorts of detritus floating in the water. There were old, soggy books, loose papers, pieces of clothing, wooden toys, and other stuff I didn’t recognize. Soon, there was so much of it that you couldn’t see the water at all.
The boat began to drag, so I jumped overboard, into the muck, and began pulling it, behind me, with Ozma still in it, trying not to think about what I was wading through. Before long, I was crawling ashore onto blessed, wonderful, dry land.
I mean, there must have been land somewhere underneath all the junk strewn about. This beach was in serious need of a caretaker, considering that the whole shoreline was heaped with piles upon piles of what appeared to be trash. It struck me that maybe there wasn’t any land underneath it. Maybe the island was just one big landfill.
Upon closer inspection, I realized that it wasn’t exactly trash. Some of it might as well have been, but there seemed to be some kind of method to the way it was organized. There were heaps of old coins and silverware and laundry and magazines as well as other stuff I didn’t recognize, all of it piled on top of more piles up and down the coast. The only thing natural that lay in sight was a thin barrier of palm trees that marked the end of the beach. Beyond those, the buildings I’d seen from the water loomed.
By now, Ozma had made it ashore, and she seemed just as intrigued by the island as I was. She looked around, made a beeline for what seemed to me to be a random mound of metallic scraps, and began to dig through it.
After only a few minutes of tossing stuff aside, she came back up, triumphantly holding a golden, jewel-encrusted scepter almost as tall as she was, topped with Oz’s insignia. She held it forth, beaming with pride, and banged it against the ground as if to remind me not to forget that she was the queen, after all.
I would have been more impressed if I hadn’t been distracted by something I’d spotted out of the corner of my eye. Something pastel and Argyle.
I gasped when I got a good look at it. It was a sock. It was my sock; the long-lost half of my favorite pair. How had it made it all the way here from Kansas? Had it shaken loose somehow when I’d been carried over in the tornado?
No. I was positive I’d lost it at the laundromat.
Oh, so what. It didn’t matter where it had come from. I leaned down and scooped it up. It didn’t do me a hell of a lot of good with its unmissing match still safely back in Kansas, but I was glad to see it, if only for the unexpected reminder of home. I held it to my face to find that it was warm from the sun and still smelled like the off-brand fabric softener I used to buy out of an old-fashioned coin-op dispenser.
Ozma was rooting around on the ground like a pig searching out truffles, and I felt a surge of unreasonable glee as I joined her in the hunt for who knows what. Pretty soon, I had unearthed the final page of my tenth grade state government term paper, which I’d dropped somewhere between arriving at school and getting to class—earning myself a B minus for the quarter in the process—along with an old door key (I knew it was mine because of the battered, plastic SpongeBob key chain), a French textbook I’d had to shell out forty bucks to replace, and, most astonishingly, the beloved silver chain that my grandmother had given me for my tenth birthday just before she’d died. When I’d realized it was missing a few years later, I’d just assumed it was because my mom had pawned it for cash.
I rolled the chain over and over in my hand, admiring it, then hung it carefully around my neck. There was a satisfying click as I locked the clasp, and something about that sound, and the feeling of the metal against my collarbone, gave me a pang of regret.
Things had gotten insane so quickly since I’d arrived in Oz that I’d never really stopped to think about all the things I’d lost in coming here. Not the big things: of course I’d thought about my mother, and I’d even missed my room back in my old trailer every now and then. It was the other stuff that I hadn’t thought about that came back to me now. The books I’d loved that I’d never read again—books that had nothing to do with Oz—and my favorite sweater, and the birthday cards from my father that I’d kept saved in a shoebox in the back of my closet.
Even my old self. She had been ordinary, but she had been someone, and now she was gone. I’d never taken the time to say good-bye to her.
I was so caught up in the feeling that I didn’t notice at first that Ozma and I were no longer alone on the beach.
But then I had the sense that I was being watched, and when I looked up and saw the lanky, wild-haired figure who was gazing at me, my heart practically burst open with joy.
This had to have been Pete’s doing. When he’d promised to try to help, I hadn’t dared to think he would actually be able to make good on
it, but apparently I should have given him more credit. He had led me right where I’d asked him to, and done it in what had to be record time.
Standing there, atop a hill of ballpoint pens, looking as beautiful as I’d ever seen him, was Nox.
“I was wondering when you’d make it here,” he said. “I figured it only had to be a matter of time, but damn, you sure know how to keep a guy waiting.”
SIXTEEN
I jumped to my feet and flung myself into Nox’s arms, practically knocking him over in the process.
If it had been a movie, the camera would have rotated around us as the orchestra swelled and Nox swept me up in his arms. Young lovers, reunited at last, happily ever after—you know the drill. If it were a movie, the strings would have come in at the very moment that our lips met in a passionate, do-or-die kiss.
But it wasn’t a movie. Instead, we held each other for a few seconds before awkwardly breaking apart and standing there, not quite looking at each other.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” Nox replied.
“So,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said.
Seeing him again, just when I least expected it, I was reminded of how little I knew him. We had fought against each other, and fought at each other’s sides. When he was gone, I missed him—I knew that much—but did it actually mean anything?
“So,” Nox said. “I guess we have a lot to talk about.”
“I guess so,” I mumbled. “So where do we start?”
Nox ran a hand through his hair. He looked up at the sky, where the sun was setting again. “Look,” he said. “I don’t even know how long I’ve been stuck here. Long enough to think about some stuff. And . . .”
He clenched his eyes shut, like he was in pain. “Oh, screw it,” he muttered to himself.
So here’s where the strings come in. And, more importantly, the kiss. It wasn’t a kiss from a movie. It was just a kiss: sloppy and grateful and a little awkward, as we found our footing and tried to figure out exactly how we were supposed to fit together and then settled into something that was both new and familiar at the same time.
When it was over, the credits didn’t roll. There definitely was no happily ever after. But I felt happy anyway.
We both stood there looking at each other like, what was that?, neither of us with any idea what we were supposed to say.
Then every question I had came spilling out in one breath. “How’d you get here?” I asked. “Do you know where Glamora is? Are you okay? Did you take that stupid boat, too?”
Nox tried to speak over me, answering my questions and asking his own, but I didn’t leave him any room. It was too much of a relief just to get to talk to him. After all this time. I would shut up when I was ready.
“What about the fog?” I asked. “What did you see in there?”
Nox shook his head blankly. He didn’t know what I was talking about. “Fog?”
“Didn’t you come through the Fog of Doubt?” I asked. “To get here, I mean.”
“I don’t actually know how I got here. I just kind of, uh, showed up,” he said. “One minute Mombi was teleporting us out of the Emerald City, the next minute things got all screwed up. And then I was here. Guess I got lost.”
“It sort of makes sense,” I said, rolling it over in my head. “I mean, kinda. How long have you been here?”
“No idea. Days at least. Weeks? Who knows. Time’s even screwier than normal here, I think.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Nothing, really. Just sifting through all this stuff, hoping I’d find something useful. Mostly I was just trying not to go crazy. I probably would have, if I hadn’t known you would show up eventually.”
“Wait. How did you know I was coming? Even I didn’t know I was coming.”
“I just had a feeling telling me I should sit tight. That you were on the way.” He wiggled his fingers and made a spooky warbling sound. “I’m psychic, I guess.”
“Ha,” I said, giving him a funny look.
He gave me the exact same look right back. “No, really. I am a little psychic. You knew that, right?”
“Somehow I missed it.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“You’re serious?” I said.
“Oh. It’s really no big thing. The sixth sense comes in handy in fights, so I can figure out my opponent’s next move. Basically when my gut talks, I listen. It’s just that my gut has a lot to say. Been that way since I was a little kid. Since before I even learned magic. What, you think Mombi rescued me out of the kindness of her heart?”
“Kinda, yeah,” I said. “I guess that is what I thought.”
“Nah. I mean, she probably would have rescued me anyway, but I doubt she would have taken me under her wing the way she did. Mombi only does that when she thinks someone might be useful. Anyway, I’m half-kidding. I mean, I am a little psychic, sometimes, but I don’t think that’s how I knew you were coming. I think I just . . .” He paused. “I mean, I guess it was less like I knew you were coming and more like, I had to hope for something. Otherwise I really would have lost my mind. I’m serious.”
“Oh,” I said, taken aback. I was flattered, yes, but this was way more sincerity than I was used to from him. It was more talking than I was used to from him too. The Nox I knew wasn’t exactly what you would call an open book. He was more like a tightly locked safe.
“Sorry,” he said. “Forget it. And forget the questions, too. I don’t have any of the answers. I’ve been stuck on this island. You’re the one who’s been out in the world. Tell me what I’ve been missing.”
So I took a deep breath and then started at the beginning. Nox listened in rapt fascination.
Then he went in a direction I hadn’t expected. “You met a Magril, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”
“No reason,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve never heard of anyone actually seeing one before. The Magril’s more like a legend or something. I didn’t even know they were real.”
I let out a little laugh. “Come on. This is Oz. Witches are real. Fairies are real. Everything’s real here.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Everything except the Magril. That’s why it’s kind of strange that you saw one. That you talked to it. Especially since . . .”
He trailed off, but I knew what he was talking about, and I pulled my knife down from the air and held it in my open palm so that we could both look at it. On the hilt, just as Nox had carved it, was the very same bird I had encountered.
“What do you think it means?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Means something,” he said. “But anyway. What happened next?”
“Oh,” I said, realizing that there were some parts of the story I wanted to keep to myself. “You know. Fog. Doubt. A really dumb boat. Then I was here.”
Nox raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t press any further. “So here we are,” he said. “I guess it would have been too easy for you to show up and tell me that Dorothy was dead, the kingdom was restored, and all wrongs had been reversed, huh?”
I gave him an in your dreams look. “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe you did go crazy out here.”
“Maybe,” he said. Then something struck him. “Hey,” he said with a touch of excitement in his voice. “I want to show you something.”
I nodded, figuring that it would be something useful. Something to lead us where we were going. Instead, Nox pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, carefully smoothing the creases.
“I searched this island up and down. Didn’t find anything. Except this.” He handed me the paper with a cockeyed expression that was both proud and bashful.
It was a photograph. In it, a chubby kid—really just a baby—sat wedged between two handsome grown-ups. On the left, the man was stern-mouthed, but his eyes were twinkling like he was laughing inwardly at a secret joke. The woman, on the right, was beautiful, but with a certain goofiness to her, which was accentuat
ed by the fact that her hair, like Nox’s, was so wild that it looked like she’d just stuck her finger in an electrical socket. Meanwhile, the kid looked like he would never in his life be able to take anything in the world seriously. His face was all scrunched up like he couldn’t stop laughing long enough for the shutter to snap. If it weren’t for the full head of hair so black that it was almost purple, I would never have guessed.
“It’s you,” I said.
Nox nodded, blushing furiously. I didn’t think I had ever seen Nox blush before. It was basically adorable.
“Are those your parents?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t even really remember what they looked like, until I found it. It must have gotten lost when our village got ransacked.”
I looked at the picture again, this time trying to imagine another life for Nox. In the picture, he was just a little kid who couldn’t stop laughing, who had two parents who loved him, and all the opportunity in the world to look forward to. It broke my heart, a little bit, to see him like this, knowing what was in store for him—knowing how the picture would have been different if it had been taken just a few years later.
I wondered who he would have become if Dorothy had never come back to Oz. If his parents hadn’t been murdered when Dorothy’s soldiers had raided his village, if he hadn’t had to be rescued by Mombi and raised to fight, if he’d been able to make his own choices about what he wanted for his life, rather than having them all made for him.
“Things should have been different for you,” I said quietly. I wasn’t sure he would know what I meant, but he did.
“We’re the same like that,” he said. “Aren’t we?”
I had never thought of it that way, but I realized that he was right, sort of. I hadn’t grown up in Oz or had my life ripped apart by a monster like Dorothy Gale, but it’s not like things had gone the way they could have for me either.
Once upon a time, my mother, my father, and I had all lived together in a house that was full of sunlight. On Sunday mornings, I would wake up to the smell of pancakes and bacon and the country station turned up loud to George and Tammy singing a duet, and even when things hadn’t been completely perfect, it had always felt a little bit like the world was just waiting for me to step out into it.