A Fiery Friendship

  For all his promising intellect, the idiot actually beamed. “It is my great pleasure to make your acquaintance, My Queen,” he said, clicking his boot heels and offering a bow. “I am, as ever, your faithful servant.”

  “Indeed you are,” Aphidina crooned, for already the red and copper hollyhocks had climbed up to surround him like the bars of a cage.

  With a smile that contained no mirth, the Witch approached the boy, her elegant fingers again grasping her chainmail vest.

  “Leef Dashingwood,” she said in a most casual tone, “I would like to talk to you about a friend of yours.”

  11

  FORTUITOUS FOREWARNING

  Glinda tried to enjoy the Farewell Tea, but the events of the morning hung about her like steady rain. After gulping down a celebratory glass of iced ragweed tea with Ursie, she slipped away from the crowd to conceal herself on the bench of a window seat and attempted to gather her thoughts.

  Peeking out from behind the curtain, she caught sight of Miss Gage standing in a far corner of the room, with her back to the festivities. She appeared to be engaged in conversation, though Glinda could not make out to whom the teacher was speaking.

  Her eyes remained on Gage’s back until whomever it was she’d been whispering to disappeared into the crowd with the nearly imperceptible flip of a dark gray cape. It seemed Miss Gage’s second mysterious encounter of the day had concluded without incident.

  But when the teacher turned around, her typically rosy complexion had gone ashen. Her troubled eyes scanned the room until they fell on, of all people, Tilda Gavaria, who was detained in conversation with the Blaufs. Mr. Blauf, a wagon wheel salesman by trade, seemed intent on selling Tilda a new set of hub rivets even though Ursie’s mother reminded him repeatedly that the Gavarias did not own a wagon.

  Miss Gage set out across the room in long, purposeful strides, momentarily waylaid by D’Lorp Twipple, who, in an emotional hiccuping frenzy, threw her arms around the teacher to bid her a choppy but heartfelt farewell.

  Spotting Glinda in the window seat, Miss Gage waved over D’Lorp’s hiccuping head. “Glinda Gavaria!” she called. “I was hoping you might introduce me to your mother.”

  This was the last thing Glinda wanted to do. Despite Miss Gage’s skillful handling of the blank scroll debacle, there was no getting around the fact that just an hour ago she’d been colluding with a Gillikin hooligan in a toolshed. And what of the clandestine chalk-dust message she’d sent to Ursie?

  Springing up from the window seat, Glinda hurried to collect her mother from the Blaufs. “Mother, I’d like to go now, please.”

  Miss Gage had managed to disentangle herself from D’Lorp and was now hastening in the Gavarias’ direction.

  “It seems your teacher wishes to speak with us,” Tilda said.

  “I have nothing to say to her,” Glinda insisted, tugging her mother toward the exit, while eyeing the approaching Miss Gage, who was pressing the first two fingers of both hands in an X over her heart.

  Tilda stopped in her tracks.

  Gage was moving more briskly now, dodging a serving maid with a tray of empty glasses.

  Just as Miss Gage reached Glinda and her mother, Madam Mentir appeared from nowhere and stepped directly into her path. Miss Gage stumbled backward a step.

  “Gage,” snapped the headmistress, “summer school begins in a fortnight, and you have yet to turn in your lesson plans for Advanced Butterfly Collecting for Girls.”

  “Oh . . . well . . .” Miss Gage’s eyes met Glinda’s over Mentir’s shoulder. “Can it wait just a moment? I’ve been so hoping to meet Glinda’s mother.”

  “Glinda is no longer your concern,” Mentir snarled without so much as a glance at the Gavarias. “She’s declared. Concluded. She is a was.” The headmistress flung out her hand and pointed to a doorway hung with red velvet curtains at the far end of the drawing room. “My office. This instant.”

  Miss Gage pressed her lips together and nodded. “Very well.”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk,” said Tilda. “Another time, perhaps.”

  “Oh, yes, most absolutely,” said Miss Gage, extending her hand for Tilda to shake. “Another time.”

  Tilda accepted the teacher’s hand.

  “Come along, Gage,” said Mentir.

  Tilda headed for the door so quickly that Glinda fairly had to run to keep up.

  As she stepped for the last time through the doors of Madam Mentir’s Academy, she felt the unsettling sensation of a pair of eyes boring into her back.

  She turned, fully expecting to find Madam Mentir’s withering gaze upon her.

  But it wasn’t Mentir. In fact, it wasn’t anyone, as far as she could tell.

  Then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flicker of gray—the swirling hemline of a cloak or cape. But before she could be sure, the towering front doors of Mentir’s Academy closed behind her.

  And Declaration Day was over.

  Outside, Tilda pointed to the gravelly road at their feet and made a curving gesture with her finger. Next she tilted her chin upward to the rusted weathervane on the roof and blew softly and steadily until the arrow had spun a half turn. Then she grasped Glinda’s hand, and they set out at a frantic pace.

  “Come along, Glinda. We must hurry.”

  Clumsy Bear, who’d been napping under a tree, rolled himself to an upright position and wobbled along behind. Glinda would have liked to allow him to catch up, but Tilda hurried on without even sparing the animal a glance.

  Without preamble Tilda said, “Tell me about your nightmare.”

  “My what?”

  “Your dream. Last night, remember? You dreamed I was performing Magic out in the yard and then you saw a ghostly vision, yes?”

  “Yes,” Glinda replied.

  “I want you to tell me about it.” Tilda was walking faster, urging Glinda to do the same. “Tell me everything.”

  “But I can hardly recall it,” Glinda protested. Then, with a thud of her heart, she asked, “Mother, how can you possibly know what I dreamed?”

  “Because, my darling, it wasn’t a dream at all.” Tilda stopped walking and unfurled her fingers to reveal a small, wrinkled piece of parchment. “Miss Gage slipped this to me when she shook my hand.”

  Glinda looked at the scrap and realized it was a note. The message, written in Miss Gage’s elegant script, read simply Bog. As she looked at it, first the words, then the parchment itself melted away.

  “What does ‘Bog’ mean?”

  “I fear you’ll find out soon enough,” said Tilda. Again she grabbed Glinda’s hand and resumed her rush. Clumsy Bear struggled to keep up. “Now, tell me exactly what you saw in the yard.”

  Glinda frowned, picturing the distressing vision of the night before, which was suddenly abundantly clear in her mind. “I awoke and heard you reciting something. I saw you in the looking glass, but you were outside, alone under the ruby maple. And suddenly they were there. Four shadowy figures made of darkness. They were standing in a circle. And then a fifth one appeared.”

  Tilda’s grip tightened around Glinda’s fingers. “There was a fifth?”

  Glinda nodded.

  “That is disquieting in large amounts,” Tilda murmured, more to herself than to Glinda. “The risk of my discourse with the moon was greater than I had imagined. Elucida would have never sent the vision if she had known it could be . . . infiltrated.” She shook her head, and a long russet wave loosed itself from her tidy bun. “I’m sorry, Glinda. Go on, please. You were describing a fifth Witch.”

  “Witch? I never said Witch.” But as the scene unfolded in Glinda’s memory, she gasped. “You’re right! The smudges did become the Wickeds! And Aphidina was with them!”

  “I saw her,” said Tilda. “But right now, I am more interested in the fifth Witch. The one I did not see.”

  “It . . . she . . . was not part of the circle,” Glinda explained. “She was hiding, peeking out from behind the maple, li
ke a shadow. I caught only a glimpse, but I remember she was different.”

  “Different? How?”

  “She had . . . eyes. The others didn’t at first, but this one did, like two red-hot coals. I think she . . . it . . . saw you!”

  Tilda paled. “Miss Gage is right, then. I have been discovered. Which means we have very little time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “To prepare for Bog’s arrival.” Tilda doubled her pace. “What you saw—the vision—will likely be realized in time. I cannot say for certain when, though I sense it is still a ways off. But it is impending and it is dangerous. Deeply and exceedingly dangerous.”

  Glinda felt ill. “Why? There have always been Witches. What is so dreadful about them now?”

  “For ages, the Witches have been singular forces of darkness, content to inflict their Wickedness separately upon the four corners of Oz. But last night, Elucida showed us that they are planning to join together. I believe that fifth figure you saw is more threatening than all of them, and she will unite the four Wickeds in a confluence of evil that even the mighty Foursworn may not be strong enough to withstand.”

  “The Four Who?”

  They had turned the corner onto their quiet little lane. Tilda peered about anxiously before crossing the dusty road, sweeping through the gate, and dashing up the slate pathway that led to their front door.

  “I will explain when we are safely indoors,” said Tilda. “If Miss Gage’s hunch is correct, we must hurry to—”

  “Mother, I don’t think you should trust Miss Gage,” Glinda interrupted. “I don’t think you should trust her at all! She was talking to a Gillikin girl in the toolshed. An enemy of Quadling!”

  Tilda shook her head. “That is what you have been taught, because that is what the Witches would have us believe.” She pushed open the door, peeked into the parlor, then hurried inside, pulling Glinda with her.

  “Even so,” Glinda said, “I think Miss Gage is up to something.”

  To Glinda’s astonishment, Tilda smiled. “She is up to something, my dear heart. She’s trying to save my life.”

  12

  STRANGE INHERITANCE

  Tilda slammed the front door and bolted it. Then she rushed to the kitchen and locked that door as well.

  “Does this have something to do with you using Magic?” Glinda asked.

  Tilda checked the lock on the window. “It has everything to do with it.”

  “Magic is against the law. Against every law!”

  “Tell me, Glinda, would you rather have a mother who is lawful . . . or one who is Good?”

  “Aren’t they the same thing?”

  “Not always. And certainly not in Oz, not now.” Tilda’s next words came quickly but clearly. “It is time for you to know who I am. And who I am, who I have always been, is an exceedingly powerful Sorceress.”

  Glinda struggled to make sense of it. “So . . . not a Seamstress?”

  “In many ways, I am a Seamstress. I put things together. Restore what has been tattered, mend what has been torn. But I am first and foremost an accomplished practitioner of Magic. A Grand Adept, as it is called by the Foursworn, and I am avowed to protect the incarnation of Good.”

  Glinda shook her head. “I . . . I don’t know what any of that means!”

  “It means that I have studied and mastered all four of the Magical Pathways that we Ozians are born to travel, and because of this I have risen in the ranks of the Foursworn, an ancient society that began when the kings of the four countries swore loyalty to the first King Oz, the rightful ruler of this land, who was brutally vanquished by the Wicked Witches.”

  Glinda frowned in confusion. “That’s not what we were taught in Histrionics for Girls—” She cut herself off as understanding dawned. “Oh. I see. What we learned was Aphidina’s made-up version, wasn’t it?”

  Tilda nodded, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “When the Wickeds stole King Oz’s throne, they did so with abominable force. And on that day, we, the Foursworn, pledged our devotion and named ourselves the guardians of the perennial lineage of Oz.” She blinked away a tear as she strode briskly to the parlor, where a small wooden chest sat waiting on the hearth. Glinda had not noticed it that morning, but now it seemed to take up the entire room. She watched as her mother carried it to the kitchen, then selected the plumpest rosebud from the pewter vase and placed it upon the trunk’s lid.

  “What’s in there?” asked Glinda.

  “A gift I have long planned to present to you, when you were ready to receive it.”

  Tilda disappeared into her bedroom and returned with an iridescent cloth—the gauzy cape she had worn last night in the yard. This she draped over the dining table before placing the chest on top of it. “Open it,” she instructed.

  Glinda frowned. “No.”

  “No?” Tilda blinked. “Glinda, this is no time to be petulant.”

  “I’m not petulant, I’m angry. You should have told me! You should have trusted me!” She swallowed a sob. “I trusted you! And you lied. About everything.”

  “I don’t deny that,” said Tilda. “And I’m sorry. But I kept it from you for your own safety. Revolution isn’t the sort of secret one confides in a six-year-old. Or even a ten-year-old. It was much safer to let you just believe what Aphidina wanted you to believe. Until now.” She nodded to the chest. “Bog is coming. I have bent the roads that will lead him here and slowed his journey by thickening the air and pushing the wind against him. But he will transcend my efforts soon enough, so we must hurry.”

  Glinda looked down at the Seamstress scroll still clutched in her hand. Then she looked at the battered chest and gasped as the rosebud that lay upon its lid burst into a luxuriant red bloom right before her eyes.

  With a heavy sigh, she tossed the Seamstress scroll into the fireplace.

  “Go to your room, please, and bring me Haley Poppet.”

  Glinda found this an odd request but did as she was told. A moment later she was back, and she placed the rag doll on the table. Tilda put the open rose back in the pewter vase among the rosebuds, then nodded to Glinda, who opened the chest.

  Reverently, Tilda reached into the chest and removed three objects, which she arranged beside the doll: a slender book, a map, and a deck of cards.

  Then she went to the windows and drew the calico curtains tight across them. “Some answers can only be found in the shadows,” she said. “Thus is the case with your future. Your true and powerful Magical future!”

  As the words pressed themselves into Glinda’s heart, she understood that her life would never be the same. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

  “Look closely,” Tilda instructed. “Don’t just look . . . see.”

  Glinda studied the collection of items, all of which seemed perfectly ordinary.

  “Do you see them, Glinda? Do you see them eternally?”

  “I . . . I think so.”

  “Good.” Tilda handed her the book. The cover bore but a single word: MAGIC.

  Running her fingertip along the deckle edges of the handwritten pages, Glinda opened it and instantly recognized that the penmanship was her mother’s. When Tilda had written it, Glinda could not imagine, but she sensed that the contents of this slight volume had taken more lifetimes than her mother’s to create.

  Opening to a page toward the back, Glinda read aloud:

  “Lurl Ly Lee, Listen and Be . . .

  Lurl Ly Lo, Question and Know . . .

  Lee Lily Lurl, Time Shall Unfurl . . .

  Lee Lolly Lawl, Truth Above All.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “It seems to be equal parts wisdom and nonsense.”

  Tilda shrugged. “A thing is not nonsense simply because you cannot understand it. Magic speaks in its own cadence, its own rhythm. That’s what makes it Magic.”

  Fanning the pages, Glinda inhaled their papery scent. Enchantments and incantations seemed to waft into her head like an intoxicating fragrance—spells an
d directives, diagrams and encouragements. A language wholly new to Glinda and yet one she longed to understand.

  The first section included a chart labeled simply Pathways of Magic.

  WITCHCRAFT   SORCERY

  MAKECRAFT   WIZARDRY

  “These are the four Magical Paths,” Tilda explained, “which the Witches’ embargo forbids us to explore. It is a violation of our birthright, a denial of a most basic fairy need.”

  “Ursie called it a lie,” Glinda noted.

  “Ursie was right. The Foursworn’s goal is for Oz to be governed by that which is its own intrinsic truth. Truth—”

  “—Above All,” Glinda finished, remembering Locasta’s words in the toolshed.

  Tilda nodded. “When the rightful ruler is restored, she will give us back this right, but for now you must remember that Magic is a part of you and that your proper pathway beckons you always. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “We are all born predisposed to one of the Magical Pathways.” Tilda smiled. “Some of us have the talent to master all four. The strength of a Sorceress’s Magic is guided by her intellect; she deals in enchantment. Witchcraft is connected to emotion; it effects transformation through incantation. Wizardry relies upon illusion and ambition. And finally, the craft of the Makewright is both humble and noble, in that he or she creates ordinary objects from materials imbued with Magic, so that they may take on Magical qualities of their own.”

  “How does one know which sort of a Magician he or she is?” Glinda asked.

  “The Magic knows,” Tilda explained. “And your spirit reaches out for the Magic to which it is most suited.”

  Glinda hesitated, then asked, “Which am I?”

  “That is not for me to tell you,” said Tilda. “You and your Magic must determine that on your own, together.”

  “Magic sounds a great deal like friendship,” Glinda observed.

  “That is perhaps the best definition of it I have ever heard.”

  When Glinda closed the cover, the book disappeared.