Nerves prickling, Glinda kept her eyes on the blotches as they narrowed into thin rivulets, dripping into the bottom of the drum like heavy black tears.
In the bottom of the zoetrope, the inky puddle began to swirl, faster and faster, until it had lifted itself out of the drum and into the air; there it expanded into a billowing black cloud.
Glinda covered her face with her hands, but it was too late; the dark mist had filled her mouth with bitterness; her tongue and throat burned. Locasta erupted into a fit of violent coughing, and Ben squeezed his eyes closed against the stinging, churning cloud.
“Quickly!” cried Gage, pushing through the dark haze to snatch the knapsack from the table. “Everyone out of the cabin. Now!”
Dizzy and gasping, Glinda followed the teacher, but as she stumbled toward the door, she could feel the memory of King Oz’s celebration melting into the smoke, as though the cloud were trying to steal it away, erase it from her mind.
Locasta scuttled at their heels, with Ben close behind. The four burst out the cabin door and into the bracing dawn. Seeing their urgency, Liberty sprang off his branch and followed, for Miss Gage was running now, toward the farthest boundary of the Maker’s land. There she stopped, pressing the knapsack into Ben’s grasp as he, Glinda, and Locasta sucked in great gulps of the clean, fresh air.
None of them noticed the tiny green lily shoots pushing up through the rosy soil at their feet and bursting into bloom.
“You must get to Maud’s cottage as fast as you can,” said Gage as the Road of Red Cobble swelled up from the ground before them.
“Astonishing,” said Ben. “It’s almost as if it were expecting us!”
“You’ll be safe on the road,” Gage reminded them. “It knows where you need to go, and you’ll be protected as long as you tread upon it! Now hurry. You must get away from here!”
“What was that?” Glinda asked, ignoring the flowery trumpet blossoms now fully open beneath her feet; the sinister feel of the smoke still clung to her.
“I think the better question is ‘Who was it?’ ” said Gage, her eyes darting back to the cabin. “And the answer is that I have no notion at all, which is why you must be off.” She gestured anxiously to the road.
The three travelers leaped onto the cobblestones; Ben and Locasta lit out at once, but Glinda paused to cast a wary backward glance at the Maker’s lodge. She could see the black ink cloud pressing itself feverishly against the windows, like a beast trying to escape. Her gaze lingered until a sudden breeze swirled in, loosing the new-grown lily petals from their stems and lifting them into a pink-and-white whirl, obscuring her view.
“Get to Maud’s!” Gage repeated.
Glinda nodded as the petals whipped away in the wind. “Truth Above All!” she cried.
And then she ran.
23
MIST IN THE MORNING
The Road of Red Cobble rose and fell, winding away from the cabin, along the outer edge of the Woebegone. The stones of the road were as sturdy and promising as they’d been yesterday when they’d led Glinda to the Mingling in the clearing.
This, at least, was comforting.
As they meandered through the quiet countryside, she realized that Gage had been right about the road’s ability to hasten (or slow) a journey; while she and her friends were moving at an utterly ordinary speed, the world around them was whipping by at a truly incredible velocity, as if the Road of Red Cobble had convinced time to warp itself into a more expedient passage from here to there.
Magic, as a mode of travel, certainly had its advantages.
“This must be what it feels like to fly,” she noted, smiling up at Liberty, who circled lazily above their heads.
“It’s a wonderful sort of freedom,” the eagle said.
“You say ‘freedom,’ ” Locasta sneered. “I say dark Magic. In Oz, flight is discouraged, except in the most extreme emergencies. Only the Wicked Witches use it.”
“Not that she’s calling you a Witch, Liberty,” Glinda clarified as the bird sailed down to land upon Ben’s shoulder.
“I should think not!” he chirped. “Although, as long as we are on the subject of calling me things, I’d like to propose an immediate alteration.”
“You want to change your name?” Ben looked crushed. “Why? My father named you for the mood in the colonies, but for me, it’s more reflective of that feeling of personal expression. In either case, Liberty is a fine name.”
“Liberty is not a name at all,” the bird countered. “It is a concept. A laudable one, yes, but it seems to be the only concept anyone in the New York colony ever wishes to discuss.” He gave his tail feathers an indignant shake. “In the tavern, on the farms, in the square . . . ‘Liberty, liberty, liberty!’ That word is bandied about constantly.”
“Oh, I see,” said Glinda with a sympathetic grin. “Every time you hear it, you assume someone is calling your name.”
The bird nodded his sleek white head. “I’m forever turning this way and that to see who’s addressing me. It’s a wonder I haven’t suffered a case of whiplash.”
“Maybe you should change your name to that, then,” Locasta teased. “Whiplash. Whip, for short.”
“I have a better suggestion.” Liberty puffed out his chest. “I’d like to go back to the name my mother gave to me when I was but a fuzzy little eaglet in the family nest.”
“Fair enough,” said Ben. “What was it your mother called you?”
In reply, Liberty let out a long, shrill screech that had them all covering their ears.
“That’s what she called me,” Liberty said in a kind of half chuckle, half tweet. “After all, she spoke Eagle!”
“Very funny,” said Ben, rubbing his ears.
“I think it’s safe to say that the name loses something in translation,” Locasta pointed out.
“The closest interpretation in your tongue,” said the bird, “would be Feathertop.”
“Feathertop,” said Glinda. “I like it. It suits you.”
“Well, I’m a bird, so . . .”
“Very well,” said Ben. “Feathertop it is.”
Satisfied, the newly christened Feathertop sprang from Ben’s shoulder and returned to the sky.
Glinda watched him go, the talking eagle from a world she had never even dreamed existed, the chatty companion of a human boy who could channel an enchantment and turn it into a flute! It was all so bizarre she actually had to remind herself that just yesterday—yesterday!—she’d been walking to school with Ursie Blauf, worrying about arriving at Declaration with her hair unbraided. How mind-boggling it was to know that this very morning, as she set out from the Makewright’s lodge, her fellow Conclusives would be starting their new lives as members of the Quadling workforce. Glinda felt a tug at her heart, imagining Ursie installed somewhere as a Governess.
From the bottom of her heart, Glinda sent up a wish for Ursie’s happiness. Then she laughed.
“What’s got you tickled?” asked Ben.
“Oh, I was just wondering what my friend Ursie would think if she knew that I was setting out on a quest with a fiery-hearted Gillikin girl and a boy from another world.”
“I’m sure she’d be utterly dumbfounded,” said Locasta, who was several steps ahead of them, moving at such a vigorous clip that even the red road was having difficulty keeping pace. “I know I am.”
“Well, I for one cannot imagine anyone more suited to the task,” said Ben.
Glinda sighed. “That’s because you haven’t known me very long.”
“In point of fact,” said Feathertop, returning to hover above them, “he’s known you much longer than you think.”
Locasta stopped walking. She looked first at the bird, then at Ben. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve seen this place, this . . . Oz . . . before.” Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his knee breeches, he met Glinda’s eyes and shrugged. “I’ve seen you.”
Glinda blinked at him, astonished.
“I thin
k you’re going to have to elaborate on that,” said Feathertop.
“One day last autumn I went out with my father to help him mark off the boundaries of a particular tract of farmland. I was feeling awfully pleased with myself, as this was the first time my father had allowed me to use his theodolite. It meant he had great faith in my abilities and trusted that my measurements would be accurate enough to effect a fair and proper sale.”
Glinda couldn’t help but smile at the pride in his voice.
“As I was looking through the eyepiece,” Ben went on, “thinking how beautiful the foliage was in all its autumn glory of ginger gold and crimson, suddenly there was . . . well, for want of a better word, a shimmer. The scene I was viewing wavered, as if the air were breaking. Can you picture such a thing?”
“I can,” said Glinda, remembering the vision of the five shadowy figures two nights past. “Quite vividly.”
“At first, I thought the lens of the theodolite had simply clouded over, but even after I polished it, it was like looking through the mist that rises from the lake on fall mornings. Through the blur of the lens, I saw a village. It was a town, but not my town, and even stranger was the fact that it seemed to be moving at a different speed, not faster or slower, just—other, and elsewhere. It seemed to be right there before me, and yet miles and miles in the distance. Days and weeks and months away, but now, as well. I saw people going about their business, and I called out to them, but they couldn’t hear or see me. They were like ghosts, gliding straight through enormous boulders, passing through the trunks of trees. It was a moment before I realized that the trees and rocks were in the realm that is New York, and these strangers were not.”
“They were here,” said Locasta. “In Lurlia.”
“Yes,” said Ben. “We were sharing the same patch of the cosmos, experiencing the same whisper of time, only from entirely different perspectives. I have since determined that our separate realities—Earth’s and Lurlia’s—have always been intersecting, but somehow, in that moment, the theodolite made it visible to me.”
“Magic,” said Glinda.
“Yes,” said Ben, reaching out to take Glinda’s hand in his. “And in that Magic I saw you, in your pinafore and red dress, on the lawn of a big white building with towering turrets.”
“Madam Mentir’s Academy,” said Glinda. “My school.”
“I told my father what I’d seen.”
“Ooh!” Locasta winced and cocked an eyebrow. “How’d that go?”
“Not well, I regret to tell you. He was frightfully concerned; thought perhaps I’d caught a fever. He took me straight home and put me to bed with a tonic. It made me sleepy, and as I drifted off, I heard the sound of wings beating just outside my window. Right before my eyes closed, I caught a glimpse of a gigantic crane . . . the largest I’d ever seen, with brilliant red plumage and wise, gentle eyes.”
“Pastor!” guessed Locasta. “He is one of the mystic Wards of Lurl. He must have enchanted your theodolite, and then he brought you here to Oz.”
“At first I couldn’t imagine why,” said Ben. “But when I saw the contents of the Makewright’s workshop, I knew my skills and interests could come in handy on this Magical quest, far more than they ever could at home, where my father will not rest until he’s made of me a barrister or a statesman.”
“Interesting,” said Locasta. “I wonder if the Wards of Lurl will ever send you home.”
“I certainly hope not,” he said.
The sun was in the midpoint of the sky when Locasta turned to Glinda and said, “When we get to Maud’s, I think you should let me do the talking.”
Glinda’s eyes flew open wide. “You? Why you?”
Locasta gave her a smug look that said, Isn’t it obvious? To Glinda, it wasn’t obvious at all.
“Just because you have a little more experience with Witches and Magic than I do, I hardly think you should be the one to deliver my mother’s message to her oldest friend. The Grand Adept sent me. I’m the one who is supposed to save her.”
Locasta let out a bark of laughter. “And I’m the one who saved you! So I should be the one to explain everything to Maud.”
“Absolutely not!” Glinda shot back. “My mother, my friend, my quest, my responsibility! I’ll do the talking.”
Locasta opened her mouth to retort. But as she did, the red road halted, and the section of the path beneath their feet quickly sank away, vanishing back into the dirt.
Glinda felt a twinge of alarm. “I thought the road was going to take us to Maud’s.”
“Quirks,” said Locasta. “Remember? It’s probably trying to teach us a lesson. And if you ask me, it’s telling us to ‘let Locasta do the talking.’ ”
“And I told you,” said Glinda through her teeth, “my mother trusted me to enlist Maud’s assistance!”
“All right, let’s not start that again,” said Ben, maneuvering himself between the two girls and holding up his hands. “We have to get to Maud’s house without the road.” He gave Glinda an expectant look. “Which way to the cottage?”
“I’m not certain,” she said. “It’s been so long since we’ve come. And on those occasions we’d travel the Road of Yellow Brick.”
But the red road had led them on an entirely different course, and now it had chosen to disappear at a very nondescript crossroads in the Quadling outskirts. No signposts, no landmarks. Only a lone, smiling scarecrow propped on a stick in a field of new corn. But of course, he wasn’t talking.
“I remember,” said Glinda, “that we would follow the yellow bricks as far as a narrow brook, which we crossed by way of a footbridge, and then we walked the rest of the way on dirt trails lined with red geraniums. But without the yellow road as a starting point, I’m really not sure which way to go. I don’t see the brook, or the footbridge.”
“Feathertop,” said Ben, “fly as high as you dare, and tell us what you see.”
The eagle obeyed, soaring skyward, looping around the area once, then swooping back. He called down with a whistle, which Glinda took to mean, Follow me.
“Still think flying is Wicked?” she said to Locasta, who replied with a snort.
As they traced the short path of the eagle’s flight, Locasta glanced over her shoulder. “Careful,” she warned. “Without the road underfoot, we aren’t protected.”
Moments later, they rounded a bend and were standing before Maud’s cottage. The sight of the place did Glinda’s heart good, familiar and pleasant behind its whitewashed fence laced with climbing rosieglories and razzleberry vines. Everything about it said, Welcome.
“Do you think she’ll remember you?” Ben asked.
“You’re extremely forgettable,” Locasta pointed out.
“She’ll remember me,” said Glinda.
They hurried up the flagstone walkway to the cheerfully painted front door.
“Liber . . . I mean, Feathertop—” Ben gave the eagle’s head a friendly pat. “Why don’t you wait out here?”
As Feathertop perched comfortably on a fence post, Glinda knocked on the door.
From inside the house she heard a shuffle of footsteps, then the metallic clunk of the bolt sliding from its hold. The door swung open, and Glinda gasped.
She had expected to be greeted by her mother’s cherished friend Maud, or perhaps Maud’s longtime apprentice, Gremil. Instead she found herself staring into the smiling face of someone else.
“Glinda! What a lovely surprise! Hello.”
“Hello,” said Glinda with a gulp, “. . . Blingle.”
24
THE TRAPESTRY
How deliciously chummy of you to visit me on my first day as the Seamstress’s apprentice,” Blingle crooned, inviting them in with a sweep of her arm.
Glinda hesitated on the stoop. “Apprentice?”
Hadn’t Blingle declared herself a Nurse at yesterday’s ceremony? A little knot of concern began to form in Glinda’s belly. Squaring her shoulders, she entered the cottage.
??
?You’re certainly keeping peculiar company,” Blingle observed, casting a glance at Locasta and Ben. “As if that Ursie Blauf weren’t bad enough.”
Glinda bristled. “Where’s Maud?” she asked.
“Oh, you know Maud,” said Blingle. “I’m sure she’s just hanging around somewhere, tying up loose ends.” Then she laughed, as though she’d just made a brilliant joke.
Blingle eyed Locasta’s plum-colored curls. “A Gillikin! Well, you don’t smell nearly as repulsive as I imagined an underground laborer would.”
This had Locasta lunging for the apprentice, but Ben caught her before her hands found their way to Blingle’s throat.
“Speaking of peculiar,” Blingle went on, “that is surely an interesting ensemble you’re wearing.” She frowned, suddenly agitated, as her eyes raked Glinda up and down. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?” Glinda asked.
Blingle shook her head, and her expression softened. “Never mind. Please, make yourselves at home.” She sounded like she owned the place.
Looking around Maud’s house, Glinda noticed a cross-stitch sampler hung in an oval frame against the white brick of the fireplace. The sampler consisted of basic X stitches forming simple block letters spelling out an ancient piece of poetry:
A hero is he who, as in a myth, rallies on fields of battle.
His spirit ever steadfast as words he wields
and takes the lost one in hand, leaves with a heavy heart.
So solemn is this affair, yet remember:
A righteous fight
can soon ignite
To yield the light
When those far too long
Independent
At last unite.
It was the sampler Maud and Tilda had made together on the day Maud had given Glinda the gift of Haley Poppet. Glinda recalled how the sun had dappled their work with shade patterns cast by the ruby maple. Her mother had encouraged her to stitch a word or two, but her first attempt at the I in Independent had come out snaggled, so Maud had shown her how to unravel it and try again.