Just before the festivities were about to begin, I looked in the mirror in my chambers and smoothed my hair out. I looked perfect, if I do so say myself. And I still couldn’t help checking myself one last time, feeling a little tickle in my stomach as I did it: butterflies.
I know I exude a certain confidence, but I have a little secret: parties always make me just a little bit nervous! The anticipation. What dress I would wear. Who I would dance with. Would anyone die.
By now, you should know that I always have a plan—and my wedding surely wasn’t going to be an exception to that. It was my special day, after all, and there was no way I’d let a few silly little assassination plots ruin it.
I was smart enough to have realized that despite all that I’d done, the Nome King was going to try to kill me.
I almost had to admire his nerve.
And even if he wasn’t going to go quite that far, I was beyond certain that he wasn’t going to let me get my way. The second most important thing you should know about me is that I always get my way. In the end, at least.
No matter what he was up to, I was two steps ahead of him. If there was one thing my beloved fiancé wasn’t counting on, it was Amy Gumm and her little boy toy.
I have to admit, it was almost exciting! No matter what happened, this was going to be the party of the year.
Bupu entered and brought the last piece of my costume—a real-life snake that wound itself around me.
I looked at the Munchkin. “You are a good friend, Bupu.” While I dressed, I told her about my friends, about Scare and Tin and the Lion, and the things that they had wanted when I first met them, and how I had helped them.
“I am not like them,” she said. “I am not smart or courageous or full of heart.”
“Bupu, you helped me when you didn’t have to—that was heart. You helped me when you knew you could have been skinned alive. That’s courage. And you were clever enough to find out that information I needed. If that isn’t brains then I don’t know what is.”
Bupu smiled at me.
Friendship doesn’t have to be selfless—but it works best when your interests line up. Bupu and I had an understanding now. And it was going to save us both.
I twirled around for Bupu to compliment me.
Everything was ready. My costume was ready, my hair was ready, and my will to live was at an all-time, through-the-roof high.
So it was perfect timing when the knock came at my door and the Nome King stepped inside the room.
“Are you ready, my darling?” he asked. I have to say that he looked less than appropriately smitten. His gaze flicked to Bupu, who was perched at my side, looking serious, and nervous.
He gave a scowl. “What is she doing here?” he asked.
“She’s my bridesmaid, beloved. It’s traditional.”
He let it go with a shrug. “As you wish,” he said. He knew perfectly well that Bupu was hardly a threat. She wasn’t meant to be. The real threat was on her way.
At least, I hoped she was.
I felt like a common prisoner as the Nome King escorted me to the ballroom, his guards flanking me on all sides. I ignored the indignity. After today, I’d never have to see these tiresome creatures again.
As we got closer I had to keep from beaming. Because my plan was working: Amy was out there somewhere. I could feel the power of her shoes burning in the distance, just as I could feel the power of my own coursing through my body.
That feeling only got stronger as I approached, and I knew that, wherever Amy was, she was close, and getting closer. We were both headed toward the same place.
It was almost ironic. She thought that she was going to kill me. She had no idea at all that she was playing right into my hands. Someone was going to die tonight, but it wasn’t going to be me.
I was happy to let her and the Nome King have their little murder ball. While they were busy ripping each other to shreds, I was going to apply a fresh coat of lipstick and get myself back to Oz. Maybe I could even manage to snatch my other shoes back while I was at it. What a coup that would be! It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
I wondered what Glinda’s face would look like when I saw her again. When she realized I was still alive, and that with both pairs of shoes under my control, there was nothing in the world that she could do to stop me.
I’d killed a few witches in my day. I was so looking forward to doing it again. This time, I’d really be able to enjoy it.
I had come a long way, after all. That first Wicked witch—the Wicked Witch of the East—had been an accident. I couldn’t help the fact that the tornado had dropped my house on her before I’d even officially set foot in Oz.
The second time, at least, I’d known exactly what I was doing, even if I hadn’t been quite ready to bask in the glory of it all. It was the first time I’d ever killed anyone in my life. I’d been surprised then by how easy it was.
I wouldn’t realize it until later, but it was that moment that had changed me forever. Killing the Wicked Witch of the West had unlocked the secret potential that had always lived inside me—the potential to be great. After that, it had just taken a little bit of living—not to mention a second trip to Oz—to realize exactly what that potential meant.
It meant that I was special. It meant that I was a queen.
I had the decisiveness and power it took to govern a country. To be truly great. Because what had all those hours in my history class back in Kansas taught me, if not that the most effective rulers are also the most ruthless ones? I was proud to be like them in that way, and grateful to the witches for sacrificing themselves (the poor things!) so that I could become the girl—no, the woman—who I was truly meant to be.
The Nome King and I were approaching the ballroom now. I wondered what my guests were doing. This was going to be the grandest event they’d ever witness in their miserable, mildewy little lives.
“You promised me an entrance, my darling,” I said, turning to him.
“Indeed I did,” he replied, with a smirk that was almost romantic.
My beau, I noticed just then, was wearing a wicked-looking silver blade strapped to his belt. Rubies studded its hilt. I felt the unmistakable throb of magic pulsing down the length of the knife and I understood immediately: this was how he was going to try to kill me. It was how he was planning to unleash the blood that would allow the shoes to return to him.
Let him try, I thought. Soon, at long last, I’d be going home—back to Oz, where I belonged. Back to the throne that was rightfully mine.
Home. For just a second, I faltered as that word echoed uncomfortably in the back of my head. It made me shiver, reminding me of something that I couldn’t put my finger on. Something someone had said to me once.
A sliver of doubt festered in me where there had only been certainty before. I pushed it aside. The Nome King was just trying to get into my head.
Of course Oz was home.
Now the Nome King led me down a twisting hallway I hadn’t noticed before, away from the main entrance to his ballroom.
“Nothing makes an entrance grander than a secret doorway,” he said with a smile, pointing to a cleft in the rock wall. Hmmm, I thought, filing this away. For all I knew, it was too late for this information to be of any use, but I’d save it just in case. I shimmied through it. The cleft ended in a heavy red curtain. I peeked around it and saw a raised dais, and beyond it, the ballroom.
The place was packed. Absolutely packed. For a moment, I felt a wild glee. These people were all here for me! They’d dressed up in costumes, just as I’d told them to. The ruby light played over hundreds of faces.
But despite the massive crowd, the servants and Diggers and attendants and cooks and guests and hangers-on, the entire cavern was silent. Deathly silent. As if all of them were terrified to draw the Nome King’s attention. They knew from experience that whenever he called for a crowd, something awful was bound to happen. They were all wondering which one of them it was going to be.
I felt Amy before I saw her. Her boots were calling to me, and I knew exactly where she was, pressed close to the stage, surrounded by bodies.
Silly girl. She thought her ridiculous getup was enough to disguise her. In those boots, I’d have known her even if she’d been wrapped in a fully body cast. They were calling to me so loudly that it almost made me wince.
Everything was working even better than I’d planned.
The Nome King gestured to the Diggers, and another group of them carried forward an enormous, glittering red throne. He settled himself into it with a yawn.
“Where’s my throne?” I asked.
He smiled. “I thought we could share, my love. For now why don’t you enter the room behind me?”
Bupu sniffled quietly at my feet. I reached down and patted her head comfortingly through the branches of her costume.
Well, like Aunt Em always used to say, make lemonade when the sun shines. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and adjusted my mask.
It was showtime.
The Diggers carried the Nome King onto the dais. Bupu and I followed him like lackeys, but I just smiled, knowing that I’d have plenty of time later to make him regret the insult if I felt like it.
I sighed, and he glanced over at me, I suppose expecting to see the glum face of a prisoner. Instead, I threw him a radiant smile. He smiled back, but there was something uncertain about it this time.
What a waste killing him would be. But it’s like they say—you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Even Toto refused to change his ways when he got older. The Nome King, I was sure, wouldn’t be any better at it.
At any rate, he must have taken to heart what I’d said to him about weddings being a festive occasion. As the guests gaped up at him like sheep, he invited them to dance. And to my delight, they did. The musicians played a wonderful waltz. The guests danced in beautiful patterns, their faces glowing with joy and exertion.
I clapped my hands in delight, transported briefly from my more immediate problems. The dance was a little ungraceful, but perhaps that was just the local custom. I snatched a glass of something silver and sparkling off a passing waiter’s tray and surreptitiously chugged it down in one gulp. I’d already sampled some of the Nome King’s most bracing liquor to soothe my nerves before my big moment, but one more sip never hurts, does it?
I’m sure the guests would have danced all night if he’d let them, but the Nome King had more important business to take care of. It was sad, really. I would have so loved to find the man who was a perfect match for my abilities and beauty.
Of course, it was likely that that person didn’t exist. If he was out there, I certainly would have met him by now.
Suddenly another memory flashed through my mind, unbidden and unwelcome.
The Other Place. Aunt Em had had a hired hand for a while who was as handsome as the day is long and who always paid me extra attention. He’d leave little gifts on my windowsill—a pretty hair ribbon, a robin’s egg he’d found in the long grass, a pie still warm out of the oven—and sometimes when I caught him looking at me he’d turn bright red and look away. I’d been wildly in love with him, of course, but much too shy in those days to do anything about it.
Why was I thinking of him? At this moment? It made absolutely no sense. And yet the more I tried to swat the memory away, the stronger it became.
Tommy. He’d been called Tommy.
I wondered where he was now. Then I realized he was long dead. Time moved differently there. But before that—if he’d found some other farm girl to fall in love with and marry. If he’d ever had a family. A farm of his own. Maybe he’d moved to the big city. He had been so handsome—maybe he’d become a movie star. As the Nome King droned on, I remembered Tommy’s smell—new hay and clean sweat—and the transparent blue of his eyes. I remembered how he’d always called me “Miss Dorothy” and tipped his hat when he saw me, even though I told him a thousand times that just plain Dorothy would do. I remembered—
No. I didn’t want to remember. That life was over.
Tommy was beautiful and charming, but when I came back from Oz, he had joined the others in shunning me. “Miss Dorothy, you seem changed,” he’d said. He’d preferred the old me, the one who had not an ounce of magic or courage. I didn’t belong with him any more than I belonged with my current homicidal fiancé. At least he recognized I was royalty.
Another memory flooded in—Aunt Em baking pies in the kitchen of the old homestead. She’d made me pie after Tommy slighted me. “Nothing cures a broken heart like pie,” she’d said.
“I don’t want my heart. But I’ll take the pie,” I’d quipped. I could see Aunt Em’s smile and hear her laugh and I could almost taste the pie. At the time it tasted like hope and cinnamon.
With some effort, I dragged myself back to the present, only to hear the Nome King quietly clear his throat. He was looking at me with surprise and some annoyance. I wondered when he’d stopped talking.
“My fellow citizens of Ev,” the Nome King said pointedly, “I give you your future queen, the Witchslayer, the rightful ruler of Oz.”
It was my cue—the moment I’d been waiting for. Immediately, all my senses sharpened; my memories vanished like smoke on the wind. This was it. This was my only chance, I knew, to escape the man who wanted to steal the fruits of all my hard work and claim it as his own.
Being a woman, it turns out, isn’t any different in a make-believe world than it is in the real one.
I stepped forward and took off my mask. And then I looked directly at Amy. It was ironic that she was the key to my escape after trying so very hard to end me. I looked at her; the dress she’d chosen wasn’t horrible. Losing the pink hair, though, was a big mistake. But it was perhaps the best I’d seen her look since that trailer dropped her in my kingdom.
Her eyes flickered with more than recognition. More than hate. She knew what I was up to. She was smarter than I had ever given her credit for, after all. Once upon a time we were both in the Other Place wishing for some magic, excitement, and friends. And here we were now. Two tornados later. Two girls from the Other Place all dressed up at my wedding ball . . .
“Hi, Amy,” I said. “Are you going to kill me now?”
And the ballroom broke out into chaos.