Locasta was humming.
Although Glinda was fairly certain she didn’t even know she was doing it. It was a soft, sweet melody, which was surprising, coming from Locasta.
What was even more surprising was that Glinda recognized the tune.
Locasta returned to the cabin just as Ben finished tinkering with the bamboo sticks. He’d lined up ten pieces of graduated length and employed a small knife to cut a piece of rope. This he used to bind them together.
“What is that?” Locasta asked.
“I’m not sure,” said Ben. “It appears to be some manner of musical instrument, but I haven’t a clue how I was able to construct it. It was as if something . . . or someone . . . guided me in assembling it.”
“The Makewright’s enchantment,” said Miss Gage. “His energy still resides here—an overlay of being, you might say, a happy sort of existential remainder. I believe the Maker’s Magic just assisted you in making that pan-flute.”
“Is that what it is?” Ben held the instrument to his lips and hesitated, as though waiting for further instruction. Sure enough, a breeze came up to fan the pages of the Makewright’s Journal; it opened to a leaf on which a collection of musical notes had been carefully dotted across a staff.
“Can you read music?” Glinda asked.
“Well, I couldn’t before. But something tells me I’ll be able to now.”
“Go ahead,” Locasta urged. “Play.”
Ben took a deep breath and released it gently into the longest of the bamboo tubes. The little flute produced one clear note. With his sparkling eyes on the Maker’s Journal, he began to move the pan-flute side to side against his lips. The result was a melody, simple and pure.
And familiar.
It was the song Locasta had been humming. Which also happened to be the song that had swirled into Glinda’s memory that very morning.
“I know that tune! It’s the song Maud sang—” The recollection was returning to her so vividly it was almost as if it were happening all over again. Glinda saw herself as a small child on her own back lawn. It was the day Maud had given her the gift of a handmade rag doll—Haley Poppet—and it was also the first time her mother ever suggested she try her hand at embroidery. Glinda had struggled at first, but Maud was patient and showed her how to correct her mistakes. She’d spent the afternoon practicing her needlework in the dappling of shade cast by the ruby maple tree while Tilda, Maud, and Maud’s apprentice, Gremil, expertly stitched letters onto a piece of starched linen, the shadows of the leaves playing upon their work.
Glinda quickly described the memory to the others. “How do you know that song?” she asked Locasta.
To this, Locasta gave a curt shrug and murmured, “Just something my father taught me,” with her eyes trained on the toes of her scuffed boots.
“Did Maud’s song have words?” Miss Gage inquired.
Glinda nodded and began to sing along to Ben’s flute music:
Once upon a Wicked deed
Two times two invoked a creed
Sworn to honor, these brave four
A rightful ruler would restore
Count by one, a quest begun
Count by two, with hearts so true
Count by three to set them free
Count by four, at peace once more
Good will rise and Wicked fall
For Oz, forever: Truth above all.
As the final note swelled from the pan-flute, filling the lodge to its rafters, Glinda felt the warm tickle of coincidence around her heart. “I haven’t thought of that little song in ages,” she said, “and yet this is the second time today it’s come to my mind.”
“That has to mean something,” said Ben.
“Two times two, sworn to honor.” Glinda considered the lyrics. “Do you think that might refer to the Foursworn?”
“It must,” Miss Gage agreed. “Perhaps Maud’s counting song is actually a prophecy, or a prediction.”
“Or a dire warning,” Locasta added with a grimace.
“ ‘Count by one, a quest begun,’ ” said Glinda. “Perhaps the ‘one’ refers to me, since I’m going off on a quest in search of Maud and the Fire Fairy.”
“That seems like a reasonable analysis,” Ben concurred.
Glinda repeated the next line slowly. “ ‘Count by two, with hearts so true.’ ”
“Your ‘one’ became two when Locasta rescued you from Bog,” Gage observed, her face bright with discovery. “And Tilda encouraged you to unite—that’s certainly two by two in my opinion.”
Glinda and Locasta exchanged looks. Neither was thrilled with the idea of being a duo. But there they were.
“It seems we’re going to Maud’s together,” said Glinda, mustering a smile.
“Seems we are.” Locasta returned the smile. More or less.
“Count by three,” Ben said. “Do you think the Foursworn knew I was coming?”
“I believe they did,” said Glinda. She turned to Miss Gage. “I suppose that makes you the fourth.”
“Oh!” Gage laughed. “That seems unlikely, doesn’t it? You three are so young and I’m . . .”
“Old enough to remember King Oz,” Ben finished.
“Yes,” said Gage. “Old enough for that. I suspect the fourth traveler will be someone more like the three of you. A Magician more recently come to his or her craft.”
“So there is to be a fourth someone,” Locasta mused, knitting her brow.
Through the window, Glinda glimpsed a flutter of gray. Liberty, probably, she told herself, just stretching his wings. Or perhaps a low-hanging cloud.
Gage nodded to the Makewright’s table and said, “Benjamin, let’s you and I see what might come in handy on this ‘quest begun,’ shall we?”
Ben beamed and reached for the theodolite.
As Glinda watched them sort through the Makewright’s tools and gadgets, she felt Locasta’s critical eyes upon her, taking in the fancy boots, red ruffled school dress, and matching pinafore.
This appraisal went on so long that Glinda squirmed and adjusted a ruffle. “What?” she demanded at last.
“Oh, I was just wondering,” Locasta drawled, her mouth bending into a grin. “For this quest of ours . . . that’s not what you’re planning to wear, is it?”
Miss Gage lit a fire on the hearth (without the aid of a flint), while Ben helped Locasta measure off several yards of fabric from a bolt on the Maker’s worktable. It was of a nubby texture, oat-colored and perfectly serviceable.
Glinda hated it.
“I don’t see why I can’t just wear my academy uniform,” she grumbled, her fingertips stroking the soft sheen of her school dress.
“First of all,” Locasta said, smoothing a length of material across the tabletop, “Madam Mentir is one of the Witch’s minions, so as far as I’m concerned, that is the uniform of the enemy.” She made a crease in the fabric, indicating where Ben should cut. “Second of all, it’s ugly.”
“It’s not that ugly,” Glinda protested. “Is it?”
“Hideous,” Gage concurred, her eyes on the fire.
“The color’s not bad,” said Ben, using the Makewright’s heavy shears to cut the desired yardage from the bolt. “But other than that . . .” He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Sorry.”
Glinda sighed. “Well, at least let me help with the sewing. After all, I was very nearly declared a Seamstress. Before Miss Gage’s Possibility speech, that is.”
Locasta’s response was a wag of her eyebrows. “Sewing? Who said anything about sewing?”
“Oh.” Glinda’s cheeks went pink. “Right. I forgot. Magic.”
When Ben finished cutting, he stepped aside and gestured to the fabric. “Have at it,” he said to Locasta, his eyes gleaming with anticipation.
Locasta swung her purple curls behind her shoulders and took hold of the fabric’s edge; then she began to twirl, dipping and lifting the material so it swelled like a cloud, spinning it above her head, then behind
her back, then up again, snapping it toward the ceiling. It moved like a banner in a breeze, and Locasta ducked gracefully under it, or stepped over it, or let it wrap itself around her, only to unfurl it again, chanting to the rhythm of her dance:
“Apparel come, apparel be
From fabric now apparel see
Believe, believe . . . and there’s a sleeve
Be swift, make haste, to form the waist
A sash, a cuff, a hem . . . enough!”
Abruptly, Locasta stopped dancing. She was holding a perfectly formed oatmeal-colored tunic blouse with a loose red sash and neatly folded cuffs.
“Astounding,” breathed Ben.
“Nicely done,” said Gage.
Locasta lifted an eyebrow at Glinda, who was examining the flawless tunic. “Well?” she prompted. “What do you think?”
“I think,” said Glinda allowing the tiniest of smiles, “that I’ll be needing a pair of trousers, as well.”
22
FIRST LIGHT. THEN DARK.
They rose at first light.
The sky outside the windows shimmered with a pastel gleam, which Locasta, a miner by trade, likened to a handful of opals spilled on silk. Then she set to work on dancing Glinda a pair of pants.
Ben, with his hair mussed and his eyes still sleepy, padded softly to the trestle table. It was only then that Glinda realized he was still in his stocking feet.
Locasta noticed too. Tossing the newly conjured trousers unceremoniously at Glinda, she pulled a pair of boots from beneath the upholstered chair. “I found these last night. I suppose they were the Makewright’s. Seems fitting, since you’ve got the gift of manufacture.”
Ben looked pleased at her assessment. “Thank you,” he said, slipping first one, then the other foot into the ancient boots. “I do fancy myself a bit of a tinkerer as well as an artist; an inventor of sorts. I often spend my afternoons in the smithy’s shop, or visiting with the apothecary, learning whatever I can.” He stood up, testing the boots. “It may not be the same as imagining new laws or drafting declarations of an independent nature, but I do think what I know can make just as much of a difference.”
After they’d eaten a breakfast of warm bread, hearty porridge, and birch-bark tea, Ben collected the items he and Gage had chosen for their journey: the theodolite, some rope, a lantern, and the Makewright’s leather-bound journal. These were loaded into a knapsack that they found hanging on a peg near the door. Glinda was positive it had not been there the night before.
Then Ben, in his borrowed boots, went outside to allow Glinda some privacy to change her clothes.
The tunic Locasta had fashioned hung on the post of the Maker’s bed. The trousers, still tingling a bit with the Magic that had brought them, were in Glinda’s hand.
“Must I?” she asked.
“Glinda Gavaria is no longer the schoolgirl she once was,” said Gage with respect. “Today she sets out as a seeker of truth.”
“And she’s not going to do that in ruffles!” said Locasta, tugging at the bow that secured Glinda’s pinafore. “Time to retire this awful thing!”
Glinda removed Haley Poppet from the dress pocket and laid her gently on the Makewright’s pillow. The doll’s button eyes gazed back at her serenely, as though she knew she was being left behind but minded not at all. The golden thread that secured Haley’s back caught a ray of sunlight through the window and sent a warm glow across the cabin.
Glinda shrugged off the pinafore and slipped the rumpled red school dress from her shoulders.
As Miss Gage quietly folded Glinda’s clothes and placed them beside Haley on the pillow, Glinda reached for the tunic and pulled it over her head. Then she stepped into the trousers.
A perfect fit. Magic, it seemed, had a knack for sizing.
Ben appeared in the doorway, his boots tapping anxiously. Glinda couldn’t tell if the excitement was entirely his own, or if it was a bit of enchantment lingering in the Makewright’s shoes, urging him onward. “Ready?”
She allowed herself one last glance at the pinafore and the poppet before turning away from the bed. “Ready,” she said.
Miss Gage placed her hand on Glinda’s shoulder. “One thing before you go. I’m sure your mother would want you to know, to see with your own eyes, why our pledge to protect the royal lineage of Oz is so infinitely important. Ben, will you please bring the zoetrope to Glinda?”
Ben did as he was asked, and Glinda accepted the strange contraption as if it were a precious gift. Examining it, she saw that inside the drum was a band of parchment on which was drawn an array of austere black-ink illustrations. The barrel also had several narrow slits cut into it at regular intervals.
“Try the crank,” said Ben.
Glinda gave the handle a tentative turn. The drum moved, but only a little.
“There’s a better way,” Locasta said with a knowing air. Plucking the Magic book from the nightstand, she held it in her upturned palms; from nowhere a breeze fluttered up and opened the book to a page labeled, For the Purpose of Magically Animating Items of a Mechanical Nature. Part I: Zoetropes.
“Well, that’s specific,” Ben observed, grinning.
“Locasta, you read the spell aloud,” Gage directed. “As the zoetrope revolves, Glinda, you look through the cuts in the side.”
Glinda placed the gadget on the curved table and hunched down so that the slits were at eye level.
Locasta read:
“Roundiling, spindiling, outside and indiling
Story unfold-a-ling, story be told-a-ling
History, mystery, tell all of this to me
Whirl-a-ring, swirl-a-ring, past is unfurl-a-ring . . .”
Glinda jumped when the crank turned of its own accord and the barrel began to spin, picking up speed as Locasta repeated the spell at a jauntier tempo.
“Roundiling, spindiling, outside and indiling . . .”
The pen-and-ink renderings leaped to life, moving, changing . . . being. As the drum whirled, the pictures transformed from spare sketches to intricate, vibrantly hued miniatures featuring a man bedecked in silver armor. His proud bearing and regal manner were unmistakable. He was King Oz.
As Glinda marveled at the moving images, it became clear that they were telling her a story. A true and terrible story.
As it revealed itself to Glinda, her heart began to pound. . . .
THE ZOETROPE’S TALE
The king has invited the best and the brightest of his land to a celebration in the Reliquary, the most artful wing of his Emerald Castle, which sits at the highest point in the Centerlands of Oz. He has just unveiled seven newly commissioned masterpieces, all dear to his heart.
Glasses are raised, toasts are made, and compliments extended. The Goodness innate in the Land of Oz brings joy to its inhabitants, and tonight they revel in it, pledge to sustain and increase it, vow to defend it for time beyond time. Goodness and truth, they all agree, are the only foundations on which to build a land (a toast to the Elementals here) and with which to nurture a civilization (a cheer to everyone else here).
Among those in attendance are an elderly Quadling Seamstress who reminisces with her dear friend, a Munchkin lady; she laughs a sweet, breathy laugh and carries a delicate scalloped fan of blue, which she flutters flirtatiously for the benefit of the dapper Winkie gentleman who wears a yellow cape and neatly creased pocket handkerchief. Also present are the four magnificent Elemental Fairies. One is brilliantly bright, another is sturdy and solid, the next is a marvel of fluidity, and the last a miracle of weightless, life-giving power.
A King from afar and his princely young Son are engrossed in conversation with the King’s Mystic. Several knights and their ladies mingle about as well, all of whom are steadfastly loyal to King Oz. Most prominent among these is Sir Stanton of Another Place. His physical strength is rivaled only by the breadth and depth of his intellect. There is not an ounce of Fairy Magic in him (having been brought to Oz by the mystic Wards of Lurl by way of an avalanche), b
ut he is respected by the king nonetheless. When a waltz strikes up, Stanton invites a young lady—the Seamstress’s apprentice—to dance and soon discovers with great delight that she is, thought for thought, as wise and as confident as he.
A tumult begins outside the walls of the Reliquary; through the lavish stained-glass windows the guests spy the source of the commotion. Four she-beings have arrived, unexpected, uninvited . . . un-everything, really; nothing in them aligns with what it means to be of Oz. They have swooped down from the dark sky like a storm, or a pestilence.
They proclaim themselves Witches, and the Witches who are guests at the party take umbrage to this, as they would never willingly associate with such hoydens. In Oz—up until this very moment—Witchcraft has been a pure and gentle art form.
The four trespassers taunt the king, croaking insults and dares from the Reliquary terrace. The words of the unwelcome ones are so ugly that the partygoers hardly notice how stunning in appearance these Witches are. All anyone sees is their fury, for it is great; unmatched.
What it is, is Wicked.
King Oz calls upon his four Regents Valiant—Lord Quadle, Sir Wink, the Viscount Gilli, and the Archduke of Munch-Kindred—who put down their crystal glasses. These five brave leaders go outside to confront the intruders.
Perhaps—
Perhaps—
Perhaps—
The zoetrope squealed to a stop and the spell book slammed closed with a bang.
“This can’t be good,” Locasta muttered as the lively drawings ceased their dance. Surrendering all motion and color, they stilled once again to become static black jottings; jottings that now began to blur, seeping and spreading into shapeless inkblots—liquid bruises marring the pale parchment. The warmth of the lodge gave way to a deep chill, as if the Goodness of the Makewright’s enchantment was cowering before a sinister presence.
“What’s happening?” asked Ben.
Miss Gage’s face was taut with concern. “I don’t know.”