Dorothy Must Die (23 page)

“How about you carry a poison capsule in your little jaws and drop it into her mint julep? Think you could pull that off?”

Star stared at me, then scratched my chest with her tiny claws and went back to sleep. I guess she wasn’t into my idea.

It was early the next morning. I hadn’t slept well and had spent most of the night tossing and turning, much to Star’s chittering annoyance, and now I was up before the magic bell at my bedside had even summoned me to my chores.

I sighed and plucked Star from my body, placing her back on the bed. As I pulled on a clean uniform, I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at the prospect of another day of redundant chores. The mysteries around the palace—Ozma, the Wizard, Pete—were piling up, but I still wasn’t any closer to figuring out a way to kill Dorothy. How many days of boring housework would I have to put up with before the Order made contact? If I wasn’t careful, way more careful than I’d been yesterday in the solarium, it wouldn’t matter. I’d be back in the dungeon.

Turning to face the mirror, I checked myself for presentability and then searched my still-strange face, looking for a sign of what Pete had seen in it—the thing that had tipped him off that I wasn’t who I appeared to be. I found nothing.

I almost jumped out of my shoes at a knock on the door.

Now
this
was new—before, if someone had needed me, they summoned me with the magic bell. No one had ever knocked on the door before.

“Just a moment!” I called out nervously, grabbing Star and shoving her under my bed. “Stay,” I whispered urgently. She seemed to get the picture.

When I saw Jellia waving cheerily at me from the other side of the threshold, I stifled my surprise. Maybe she did a weekly inspection of the maids’ quarters. If so, I hoped Star would have the rat-smarts to stay out of sight.

“Astrid!” she chirped. “How pretty you look! And aren’t you just the luckiest girl in the world today?”

I fixed a robotic grin across my face. “Every day is lucky when you work for Dorothy,” I replied.

Jellia chuckled. If she sensed my complete lack of sincerity, she didn’t let on about it. “Now that’s the attitude we like around here,” she said. “But today’s luckier than most, dear—you have a very special assignment. You’re going to help me prepare Dorothy for her activities. How does it feel to be the new second handmaid?”

I stepped back in genuine surprise. “Me? Dorothy’s new lady-in-waiting?”

“Yes,
you
, you silly goose,” Jellia said. “Don’t act so surprised! You’ve been here longer than almost anyone, and you’ve proven yourself just as loyal and lovely as any of us. Now come—we don’t want to keep Her Highness waiting.”

“But what about Hannah?” I asked, following Jellia down the hall at a businesslike clip. As of yesterday at lunch, Hannah had been the second handmaid. She hadn’t been in her seat at dinner, but I’d just assumed Dorothy had needed her for something. What had happened to her?

Jellia looked over at me and shook her head sadly. “Hannah is in the infirmary,” she said. “She won’t be returning to service in the palace.”

That didn’t sound good. I put a hand to my chest, trying to mask my curiosity with sisterly concern. “What happened to her? Will she be okay?”

“Unfortunately, the Lion took a liking to her.
Too
much of a liking.” She sighed. “It wasn’t the poor thing’s fault—the Lion has always had appetite issues. There was nothing Hannah could have done.”

“Did he . . . eat her?” Images of Gert melting on the floor of the forest clearing back in Gillikin flew into my head. She had died trying to protect me. To protect all of us. Meanwhile, the Lion was still alive, maiming guards and running around attacking innocent servant girls for no reason.

“Well—not
all
of her,” Jellia said. Her smile had never wavered. “She’ll be fine in no time, and after she recovers enough, the Scarecrow will repair her body. She’ll be better than ever. She’s actually quite pleased. It’s an honor to enter the service of the Tin Soldiers.”

Pleased.
Sure. I was burning with anger. Being mauled by a lion and becoming one of the Scarecrow’s gruesome science projects was supposed to be an
honor
now? As the heat rose in my chest, I felt my invisible knife again, pulsing along with my heartbeat somewhere inside my body. It wanted to come out. It wanted to do some damage. I willed it away.

“Is the Lion still here? In the palace?”

“No,” Jellia replied as we turned a corner and headed up the grand staircase toward Dorothy’s quarters. “Glinda decided it would be best for him to return to the forest for the time being. We don’t want another incident, and he hasn’t been himself since—” Suddenly she stopped herself.

“Since what?” I’d wondered if he’d been affected by what Gert had done to him in the woods but I couldn’t see anything specific the day I saw him in the garden.

She looked away. “Never mind that. Aren’t you excited about your new assignment?”

I
was
excited, but not for the reasons Jellia thought I should be. I was scared, too. Getting close to Dorothy was part of my mission, but this was all happening so quickly.

I knew from listening to the other girls at mealtime that being one of Dorothy’s ladies-in-waiting was a coveted position, reserved only for the most cheerful and pliable of the servants.

“Why me?” I asked.

“You’ve impressed the princess over the years. And you’ve impressed
me.
”
Jellia lowered her voice and leaned in close. “You work well under pressure, dear. You’ll need that.”

I thought about our encounter with the Tin Woodman in the tight confines of the garden annex. I assumed Jellia had blocked that incident out, stored it down in her special utility closet of denial. Apparently, it made more of an impression than I thought.

“That, and . . .” Jellia glanced over at me, sidelong, “the Wizard also put in a good word for you.”

I stopped in my tracks. “The Wizard?”

“Oh yes. He came to me just last night and told me how pleased he was with your dusting. True, the Wizard is always full of compliments, but not usually when it comes to housekeeping. You must have made quite the impression. I thought it was only fair that you get your chance.”

“I was just doing my job,” I said, still not sure what to make of all this. Was the Wizard trying to help me? Was he working for the Order, helping me make my way into Dorothy’s inner sanctum?

Jellia turned to me and looked me up and down, mistaking my confusion for reluctance. “If you aren’t up for this, Astrid, I’m sure any of the other girls would jump at the chance.”

“No, of course I am. It’s just—poor Hannah.”

“This isn’t the time for mourning. We go on,” she scolded. “We only have one job, and that’s to please Dorothy.”

Yeah, Jellia kinda needed a slap. But all these maids were so brainwashed, I couldn’t fault her for being callous.

We arrived at the door to Dorothy’s private chambers. It was green and heavy and gaudy as hell, carved from solid emerald and etched with an ornate floral pattern, the grooves lined with gold and jewels.

Jellia gave me a last once-over before we entered.

“Here,” she said, digging into the pocket of her apron and pulling out a little gold pot. “We’re not really supposed to use it, but just a little bit won’t hurt.” She unscrewed the lid and held it out to me.

I cautiously dipped my finger inside and came back with a glob of shimmering, greasy stuff that reminded me of lip gloss. Indigo’s face popped into my head and I closed my eyes for a second, remembering what she’d told me about it. I smeared it across my lips, feeling a tingle as the PermaSmile took effect. It wasn’t exactly comfortable—it felt like the corners of my mouth were being held apart by clothespins—but I guessed that was better than accidentally letting Dorothy see me frown.

I returned the canister to Jellia and she took a little for herself, refreshing her smile before placing the goop back in her apron. When her hand came back out, she handed me a silver hairbrush.

“Remember—it’s a thousand strokes. Not a thousand and one and not nine hundred ninety-nine. Don’t lose count. Dorothy will know. She always does—we’ve lost more than one girl that way. If there’s one thing to say about Hannah, it’s that she certainly
could
count.”

Jellia knocked on the door and, after getting no response, pushed it open. As she entered, she looked over her shoulder and whispered back at me with one more bit of advice. “Whatever you do,” she said, “don’t touch the shoes.”

Dorothy’s room was wall-to-wall pink. Pepto-Bismol pink, cotton-candy pink, sunset pink, and every nauseating shade in between. A canopied bed was encircled with pink silken drapes; the floor was wall-to-wall pink shag carpet; and the ceiling overhead was covered in what looked like pink rhinestones that would probably make you go blind if you stared at them too long.

If Madison Pendleton ever made it to Oz, I thought, she could probably get a job as Dorothy’s personal interior decorator.

In the center of the room, a few feet from the bed, some kind of green powder had been sprinkled onto the carpet in a wide circle. Inside it, a little black terrier was racing around in excitement, chasing his own tail.

I knew exactly who
that
was. Toto. When he spotted us, he bared his tiny teeth at me and growled.

Jellia stepped carefully around him. I did the same, and as I did, Toto lunged at me but hit an invisible barrier. Undaunted, he got back up on his little feet and tried again. I jumped, despite myself.

“Don’t mind him,” Jellia said, waving her hand. “He’s having another time-out. He’s a sweet little thing, but he sometimes has problems controlling himself.”

It was no surprise that Dorothy’s little dog was as vicious as she was. As for Dorothy herself, though, she was nowhere to be found.

Jellia pulled the fluffy bedspread a hair tighter as she passed by. “Yoo-hoo!” she singsonged. “Your Majesty!”

There was no response.

“She’s probably in her favorite place,” Jellia said, pulling open a door.

Calling it a
closet
was an understatement. It was as big as one of the caves back in the Order. There were dresses, mini and maxi, corseted and flowy, and ball gowns and short-shorts and skinny pants. The clothes were endless in their variety, but they all had one thing in common: they all bore a familiar, blue-checked print.

When I reached out and ran my fingers against the fabric of a checkered jumpsuit, it dislodged itself from the others and floated out ahead of us as if it were being worn by an invisible model. I touched a hat next, and it joined the dress on its strut down the runway.

Jellia gave me a sharp glance and touched both items, launching them right back to their original spots. I grimaced in silent apology.

We continued through the closet with no Dorothy in sight. Besides Her Royal Awfulness, there was something else that was conspicuously absent amidst the rows and rows of clothes: there wasn’t a single pair of shoes.

We finally found Dorothy in the back, stretched out on a chaise covered in pink paisley swirls. She was wearing a long, silk robe—still in that blue gingham pattern—and the toes of her red heels poked out from underneath it.

Even in her pajamas, she never took them off. Did she
sleep
in them?

“You’re late,” Dorothy said icily, looking up from a fashion magazine called
Her Majesty.
Her own face PermaSmiled at me from the cover.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Jellia said, casting her eyes to the floor. “There was a disturbance with one of the other maids. Astrid here will be taking Hannah’s place.”

Dorothy glowered at me. “Can she count?”

“She’s a wonderful counter,” Jellia said. I nodded in agreement, but Dorothy had already stopped caring. She threw her head back and stretched, clapping her hands together.

“Where are we on the guest list for the ball?” she demanded.

“Everyone who’s anyone will be there,” Jellia asserted. “Jinjur, Polychrome. I even heard from Scraps, the Patchwork Girl.”

Dorothy frowned, like she wasn’t all that impressed with her guest list. Well, maybe if she weren’t always exiling and executing people, they would want to come to her parties.

“Whatever,” Dorothy snapped, and pointed to the tray of nail polish that was sitting on a small vanity in the corner. “Anna. Nail polish.”

It took me a second—and a look from Jellia—to figure out that
Anna
meant me. I nodded shyly and brought the tray over, wondering where I was supposed to put it. Jellia just tapped it quickly and it floated right out of my hands, hanging steady in the air.

“What would you like today?” Jellia asked, surveying the rainbow of polishes. I was happy to see that at least when it came to her manicures Dorothy had a sense of variety. There must have been at least a hundred different colors.

Dorothy sat up and swung her feet to the ground. As she did, her shoes made a ruby-red comet’s tail through the air. I had to stifle a gasp. It was like they were glowing from the inside, like they wanted me to notice them.