Dorothy Must Die

Chapter Five

Dorothy happened. I’d tried to ask Indigo what she’d meant, but her eyes had gone from blue to black and she’d threatened to punch me in the face if I came one step closer or asked her another goddamn question. I had already been punched in the face once today—that had been today, hadn’t it?—so I did what she wanted and kept on moving.

It was only a few minutes before I put the tiny little town behind me. Now I was back on the road. Ahead, it led up a steep hill that was completely devoid of any grass at all, the raw dirt interrupted only by a few stunted, sickly shrubs here and there.

Dorothy had been here, I reminded myself. She had walked this very same path. You’re like her in so many ways, the boy had said.

Kansas, tornado, blah, blah, blah. I mean, the similarities were pretty obvious, right? But there were plenty of differences between us, too. First off, from what I remembered it hadn’t taken her long at all to make friends. It was like everyone she’d run into—witches not included—had wanted to jump on the Dorothy Express.

As for me, I’d come across two people so far, and exactly both of them had wanted nothing to do with me. It was kind of depressing to think that I could travel all the way to Oz and still be just as unpopular as I was back in Flat Hill, Kansas.

I didn’t know where to go next, but the Emerald City seemed as good a place to start as any. That’s where Dorothy had gone for help. The road would take me there. It wanted to take me there.

So I trudged up the hill, and as I did, the banging sound I’d heard back in the village continued. It was still intermittent—there were a few minutes of welcome silence for every thirty seconds of racket. It was getting louder with every step I took, though, and soon it was so loud that I had to cover my ears every time it started.

When I finally reached the top of the incline I saw where it was coming from.

In the distance, across a periwinkle field of dust and dirt and beyond a tangled maze of gnarled, thorny trees, stood a towering seesaw contraption that was attached by a mess of pipes and wires to something that looked like a cross between an oil rig and a windmill.

When I squinted, I saw at least twenty people of less-than-average height piled on either end of the seesaw thing. Every few minutes, the Munchkins would start bouncing up and down in place, and as they did, the taller machine would begin spinning and clanging, jackhammering into the earth.

Above all of the action a statuesque figure in a glittering ball gown floated serenely in midair, just watching them at work. I tried to see what was holding her up but as far as I could tell she was just . . . floating.

Wait, a ball gown?

I couldn’t make up my mind which part I was more curious about: the fact that she was levitating or the fact that she was doing it above a field of dirt, dressed like she was on her way to the prom.

I stared at her with rapt curiosity. Even from here, I could tell that she was no Munchkin. Not just because she was too tall to be one either. There was just something different about her. Something familiar that I couldn’t place. She had to be at least a couple of hundred feet away, but it was like her image was burning right through all that distance and imprinting itself right onto my retinas.

She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. Her hair was red, and her skin was glowing, and her body was radiating a shower of glittering pink sparks.

I smacked my head as it came to me.

Duh. It must be Glinda. She was supposed to be the Good Witch of the South, right?

I felt my face light up at the sheer insanity of it all. When I’d watched The Wizard of Oz with my mother, Glinda had always been my favorite character—because who wouldn’t want to travel around in a flying soap bubble wearing an awesome dress? She’d been my mom’s favorite character, too, but for a different reason.

“She’s a witch, but she’s Good,” Mom always said. “Now that’s what I call the best of both worlds.”

Finally, Oz was living up to its name. I had to see her up close.

As I stepped off the road and began to push my way through the thick mass of gnarled and twisted trees, I saw that they had sickly pale blue bark. They were thorny, too, and I had to gingerly push the branches aside, being careful not to cut myself. The whole time, I stared into the sky, mesmerized by the sight of Glinda. I couldn’t wait to meet her. I didn’t even care about the fact that my skull was vibrating from the noise the machine was making.

As I wound my way toward her, Star began to get uneasy. She clawed and fidgeted at my shoulder. There was something about all this that she didn’t like.

“Will you stop it?” I whispered to her. “It’s Glinda. Jeez.”

I could somehow hear Glinda’s voice echoing over the deafening noise, like she was speaking through a megaphone.

“There is no crying, little ones,” I heard Glinda call out, her lilting voice full of kind, gentle encouragement.

The Munchkin boy she was talking to couldn’t have been older than seven or eight. He was sitting in a little chair near the top of the seesaw, and from his red cheeks and puffy eyes, it was clear he’d just finished one major sob session and was working himself up for another. Glinda was talking him down from it. “What we do, we do for the good of Oz,” she cooed. “You do love Oz, don’t you?”

The kid nodded, sniffing up his tears and wiping the snot from his nose, and then he threw himself back into the motion of the seesaw.

The clanging began again. My skull was vibrating so hard that I thought it might explode. My hands flew to cover my ears, but that did virtually nothing.

I was close enough to really see her now. Her dress was even more extraordinary from this vantage than it had appeared in the distance. Instead of the beautiful, flowing dress that the character had worn in the book, this gown was more like armor: thin metallic petals made up the voluminous skirt while magenta jewels dipped and curved across her chest in a tight, plunging bodice. It wasn’t my style, okay, but it was still pretty amazing.

She seemed perfect. And yet, as I approached, an uneasy feeling prevented me from calling out her name.

Something wasn’t right. From far off, she looked beautiful, ethereal, otherworldly. But up close, there was something ugly about her. Something was wrong with her face.

Yes, she was delicate-featured with exquisite bone structure, her perfect strawberry-blonde curls escaping from underneath a blinged-out golden crown as she smiled benevolently down at her loyal subjects. But that smile. It was—I don’t know how else to put it—kind of super-gross.

It stretched unnaturally wide, spreading out maniacally all the way across her jaw from one cheekbone to the other, and it was twitching at the corners like her lips had been pinned into place.

Other than the twitching, it didn’t move. At all. Even when she talked.

“What’s with her mouth?” I asked Star under my breath, after the machine had halted its banging once again.

I jumped when an actual voice answered in a hoarse whisper from behind me.

“(A) it’s PermaSmile, and (B) are you out of your dumbass mind?”

I whirled around to see Indigo’s bright, aquamarine eyes staring out at me from somewhere within the shadowy web of the tree branches.

“Have you been following me?” I whispered back at my stalker, and then—my curiosity winning out over my annoyance—added, “And what’s PermaSmile?”

“I wasn’t following you,” Indigo replied with a petulant scowl. “I was just going in the same direction you were going in.” She paused. “Besides, I couldn’t let you just wander up to Glinda like she’s going to give you a kiss and a cookie. I’m a softer touch than you think. And this is PermaSmile.”

She pulled out a small tube and held it up. “I never wear it, but it comes in handy to have around,” she said, uncapping the top and smearing it across her mouth like lipstick. As she did, her scowling lips stretched like putty into a wide, maniacal grin and stayed that way.

“Ew,” I said, unable to help myself.

“I know,” she said. “I hate it.” Her huge grin barely moved as she spoke. It was like Botox in a tube. Then she drew it across her face again, in the opposite direction this time, and, just like that, her mouth returned to its customary half scowl. “Everyone wears it in the city, and since that’s where I’m going, I’ll need it.”

“The Emerald City?”

“Yes, the Emerald City,” she mimicked. “Where else? Now come on. We can’t just hang around down here. She could smell us at any second.”

“Smell us?” I asked, genuinely confused. “What is she, a hunting dog? Besides, isn’t she supposed to be a good witch?”

“Sure,” Indigo snorted. “Good. Like that means anything around here. I hate to break it to you, but just because someone has pretty hair and good skin tone and a crown instead of a pointy hat doesn’t mean she’s not the baddest bitch this side of the Emerald City. Seriously. I can’t believe I’m risking my own neck to help you out.”

“But—” I said.

“No buts,” Indigo said. “Look, I’m giving you a chance. If you want to stay here and hope she takes a liking to you, be my guest. If you’d rather not get killed, follow me.”

Then she was scampering back toward the road, effortlessly weaving through the thorns and branches like they weren’t even there.

I paused for a moment. Glinda and Dorothy the bad guys? It was all so upside down—and yet, something about what Indigo was saying seemed right. I didn’t want to believe her, but I knew all too well that you can’t always get what you want. So I followed.

By the time I made it back to the road I was a scratched-up mess, my shirt torn and my arms crisscrossed with tiny cuts. Indigo was waiting for me, looking typically sour.

“Don’t get too excited,” she grumbled, but I could tell that somewhere underneath all that, she was happy I was joining her. “You can come with me as far as the city and then you’re on your own. And you do what I say, got it? You’ve already proven you have no survival instincts.”

“Deal,” I said.

I craned my neck back up at the so-called good witch, who was still floating eerily in the sky. How could I come all the way to Oz and pass up a chance to meet the one and only sorceress herself? It was like going to Disney World and not getting your picture taken with Cinderella.

I don’t think I have to tell you that my mom never took me to Disney World.

I was still wavering when Star hissed at me angrily. I knew what she was trying to tell me. With a twinge of regret, I chased after Indigo.

Sometimes you just have to trust your pet rat’s instincts.