Dorothy Must Die (26 page)

He winced as he told the story. I knew the feeling. Every unkind thing my mom had ever said to me was etched in my memory, too.

“Ollie—”

“My point is, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that she abandoned me. She’s my sister. I won’t abandon
her
. I need to find her. I don’t care what the risk is.”

I nodded. “All right,” I said matter-of-factly, “I’ll help.”

It was a split-second decision, not something I really thought through. But I’d hesitated yesterday, with Dorothy right under my knife, and that’d just bought me another day of feeling useless. If I could strike a blow against Dorothy and her regime, no matter how small, I was going to do it. That was my new policy. Screw waiting around.

But Ollie shook his head. “No, it’s not your fight. I have to do it myself.”

“It may not be my fight,” I replied. “But I know the palace better than you do, and I’m not a monkey wearing a dress. You’ll get killed if you keep traipsing around like that.”

“I wasn’t
traipsing
.”

“It was a miracle I spotted you instead of someone else.” I shook my head, thinking about the Wizard, the serendipity of it all. “I have a better chance of finding Maude than you ever would.”

An affronted look passed over his features, but then Ollie paused to consider it. “What would the Order say about this?” he asked. “What do they care about my little sister?”

He was right. I knew exactly what Nox would have said: that one winged monkey—no matter whose sister she was—wasn’t worth risking my cover. That my mission was about something bigger and that nothing could get in the way of it.

Well, maybe all that was true. But they weren’t here. They didn’t understand what it was like to stand by and watch Dorothy’s casual cruelty, to feel like a powerless coward hidden under a borrowed face. I was tired of waiting. I was my own person. Bound to the Order or not, I was still going to make my own decisions. And I felt deep down in my gut that this was the right one.

“The Wizard told me the Scarecrow is at work on something big. Something that could make everything the Order is fighting for irrelevant. They’ll probably thank me for finding out what it is,” I told Ollie, even though I knew it probably wasn’t true. “If Maude’s a part of it, I promise, I’ll get her out.”

Ollie scratched the top of his head. “I don’t know. How will you even find her?”

“I haven’t quite worked that out yet,” I replied.

“No way,” Ollie said, shaking his head. “You don’t even have a plan and you want me to just leave? Abandon my sister? No way.”

“You don’t have a plan either,” I reminded him. “And besides, I have this.”

With a flourish, my dagger appeared in my hand. I stuck it under Ollie’s chin and he held up his hands, eyes widening.

“Easy, Amy,” he said, glancing down at the blade. “What’s your, um, point?”

“My point is, you’ll die,” I replied. “You won’t last another hour here unarmed and in that ridiculous outfit. I’ve got weapons, I’m trained, and I sort of blend in. I’ve got a way better chance of finding her than you.”

“All right,” Ollie grunted, gently placing his hand on top of mine and pushing my dagger away from his neck. “I get it.”

I realized suddenly how long we’d been talking. Jellia would have noticed me missing by now.

“You should get out of here.” I walked to the window and flung it open. “I promise I won’t let you down.”

I looked back at him. Ollie nodded slowly, admitting to himself that I was his best option. As he walked toward me, he pointed a furry finger toward my chest.

“I’ll give you until midnight tomorrow,” he growled. “The Wingless Ones have a secret entrance in the Royal Gardens. If you’re not there, with my sister, I’m going back to Plan A—”

“Cross-dressing?”

Ollie grimaced. “You joke, but this is serious.”

“I know,” I replied, trying to sound confident. “I won’t fail.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly when he was at my side. “You’re the first kind human I’ve met since Dorothy took over.”

Ollie stood on the toes of his servant’s slippers and gave me a soft, tender peck on the cheek. Then he flung himself out the window, easily grabbing on to the branch of a nearby tree and scampering into the leafy cover, disappearing into the darkness of Dorothy’s artificial night.

No more waiting. I had made a promise to myself that I would help Ollie. Now I had a chance to make good on it.

The first step of my plan was to get out of the rest of my chores.

I found Jellia in the banquet hall, scrubbing the floors on her hands and knees. Normally, sunlight spilled in through the hall’s massive windows, but with night having already fallen, Jellia was forced to do her scrubbing by candlelight. Somehow, that made it even more depressing.

Before I approached, I took a few big whiffs of her dead-mouse stench—enough to make myself look queasy. Then, I staggered toward her, dragging my feet.

“Astrid,” she snapped, looking up. “Where have you been?”

I draped a hand across my forehead. “I’m feeling ill,” I told her. “My stomach . . .”

“This is no way to work yourself back up to second handmaid,” Jellia lectured.

“I’m sorry,” I pleaded, clutching my stomach. “But it’s better for me to get my rest than to puke all over Dorothy’s freshly cleaned carpets this close to the ball, isn’t it?”

She tilted her head, knowing I had a point. She forced a smile and I saw that there was a small fleck of red lipstick on her teeth. It made me feel even sorrier for her than I already did.

“Fine,” Jellia said. “But we need you tomorrow. Bright and early. No excuses.”

I left the banquet hall practically doubled over, straightening up only when I was sure no one was watching. I didn’t go back to my room like a loyal maid on the mend.

Instead, I headed for Dorothy’s solarium.

I’d memorized the maids’ schedule and knew the solarium had already been cleaned today. And, in cases of vanity-induced solar eclipses, you could always count on the room dedicated to sunlight being totally empty.

Nonetheless, I approached cautiously. I’d picked up a feather duster on my way here. This time, if I got busted—by the Wizard or anyone else—at least I’d have a plausible excuse. Just some extracurricular dusting around the magical artifacts.

The solarium was eerie in the early evening moonlight. The rainbow of lounges all appeared drained of color, like a furniture vampire had passed through. The dozens of floral arrangements that Dorothy demanded be changed weekly all drooped, their expected sunlight having never appeared.

Just as I’d hoped. It was empty.

I tiptoed across the room to Dorothy’s magic picture. Currently, it depicted a sprawling poppy field under a starlit sky. It was beautiful, actually, the only thing in the solarium that didn’t look washed out.

“Magic picture,” I whispered. “Show me Maude.”

Wherever Ollie’s sister was being held, it was somewhere dark. I couldn’t really even see her, only matted, sweat-slick fur that rippled with labored breathing. I could make out a set of leather straps holding her down on some kind of table. It looked pretty grim.

Well, I consoled myself, at least Maude was alive.

Then, I heard the Scarecrow. I jumped at the sound of his voice and whipped around, almost drawing my knife before realizing it was coming from the painting.

“These damn calculations,” he muttered. “Why won’t they just add up?”

A raven squawked in response.

“I know,” the Scarecrow hissed at the bird. “They
will
all laugh at me. Call me stupid. Call me . . .”

He trailed off. I heard a rustling sound, the scratching of straw shifting around, and then the Scarecrow’s wrinkled, felt-gloved hand gently caressing Maude’s cheek. She didn’t even have the strength to move away, although I could hear her breath catch with revulsion.

“Maude, my dear,” he said musingly. “Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?”

Did he feel me using the magic painting on him? It would make sense for the Scarecrow’s laboratory to be warded somehow against magical invasions, especially since it was so hyper-secret.

I glanced over my shoulder, but the hallway outside was still quiet.

I thought for a moment. I wasn’t sure if the Scarecrow had some kind of magical alarm system on his lab or if he was just paranoid—either way, I didn’t want to risk it. And anyway, looking
inside
didn’t help me find the lab’s location.

“Magic picture,” I whispered. “Show me the
outside
of the Scarecrow’s lab.”

The painting went gray for a second as if it was thinking, then one building on the palace grounds filled the entire frame.

The greenhouse.
Pete
’s greenhouse. Was the Scarecrow’s lab somewhere in there?

As if in answer, one of the grotesque crows with the huge, human ears landed on the edge of the greenhouse’s roof as I watched. Then I saw another one and then another, all of them flying from someplace behind the greenhouse.

“Magic picture,” I whispered, morbidly curious. “Show me the way in.”

With a lurching motion, the painting’s image pushed through the front wall of the greenhouse, zooming past the rows of flowers and through a latched hidden door. There, partially hidden away behind a small grove of trees, was the biggest birdcage I’d ever seen. The gilded bars stretched up at least three stories high, and I could make out a flurry of black feathers rustling inside.

An aviary.

The ravens were circling and diving in and out of the cage. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of them, cawing and cackling, crowding every available perch, their human eyes bulging, their ears twitching. My stomach turned. It was disgusting.

The cawing was too loud. Someone in the palace would hear.

“Enough,” I hissed at the painting.

The movement and sound immediately stopped, replaced by the painting of the poppy field at night.

I had learned enough. I still didn’t know exactly where the door to the lab was hidden, but I had a good idea, and I’d pressed my luck in the solarium long enough. I turned and headed back to my room.

When I opened the door to my bedroom, part of me couldn’t help hoping that Pete was waiting for me again, but I was alone. I could’ve used some information about the greenhouse. And, more importantly, I needed a friend right now. Someone to tell me I wasn’t crazy for what I was considering—breaking into the total horror movie that was the Scarecrow’s lab.

I pulled Star from her hiding place and cradled her in my lap, softly stroking her soft white spine. There was one more obstacle left to consider. If I was going to rescue Maude, I needed to get the Scarecrow out of there first. My plan to do that? Not entirely sane.

“Hey, Star,” I said. “Know anything about arson?”

Of course, Star didn’t reply. I found myself laughing in spite of the danger. The Wicked Witch of the West, she had some good ideas.

How about a little fire, Scarecrow?

I breathed a sigh of relief the next morning when the sun came up like normal. Dorothy must’ve gotten enough beauty sleep. The Great Clock was turning again.

I went through my daily chores as usual, boredom and nervousness mingling dangerously in the pit of my stomach. Ollie was going to meet me in the Royal Gardens at midnight, which meant I had to rescue Maude as close to that time as possible. I could manage hiding my pet rat in my room, but what was I going to do with a winged monkey? No, I had to time this out perfectly.

I found Jellia at the end of my shift. Two days of that dead-mouse smell had caused some major cracks to form in her jovial exterior. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her smock wrinkled and flecked with smudges, and her hair was in total disarray. Worst of all, her lips were taut and stress sores had formed at the corners of her mouth, probably from too much PermaSmile.

The other maids had been keeping their distance and Jellia, not the least bit oblivious to the effects of her pungent aroma, had assigned herself chores that kept her isolated. As she finished cleaning out the kitchen’s grease traps, I went right up to her like nothing was wrong.

“Hey, Jellia,” I said, smiling gratefully. “I just wanted to say thank you for giving me the day off yesterday. I feel much better.”

A fragile smile spread across Jellia’s face. For a moment, she seemed to regain some of her pep. “Of course, Astrid. Think nothing of it.”

Without hesitating, acting like the smell didn’t even bother me, I went in for a hug. I squeezed Jellia tightly and, after a moment’s hesitation, she hugged back. And then she clung to me for a few seconds longer than normal hug-length, letting out a little whimpering noise.

“It’ll be okay,” I whispered to her.

When I pulled back, Jellia wiped the corners of her eyes. “Thank you. I needed that.”

I sincerely thought Jellia needed some cheering up and I wanted to make her feel better. So I felt a little pang of guilt as I walked away holding the master key ring I’d fished from the non-smelly pocket of her smock. She was the only maid entrusted with access to every room in the palace, which meant I had no choice but to pickpocket her. I hoped she didn’t realize the keys were missing until the morning, when I planned to find some way of giving them back to her—losing them would just be one more thing for Jellia to freak out about. Still, it had to be done. Hopefully, the worst-case scenario was Jellia spending a sleepless night worrying about her keys instead of a sleepless night gagging on mouse smell.

I made it back to my room and waited for nightfall. Lucky for me, Dorothy was still on her twelve hours of beauty sleep kick, so the moon rose promptly and the palace went quiet. It was actually kind of nice for the servants; without Dorothy raging around, they could relax.

I held Star close before I departed.

“If I don’t come back,” I told her, “find a way to give everyone the plague.”

I crept upstairs to the Scarecrow’s room without seeing another soul. The hay bales were still stacked next to his door, awaiting their hideous fate of being stuffed inside the burlap folds of a maniac.

I needed to make this look like an accident.

I approached the wall sconce closest to the bales, the one right next to the Scarecrow’s door. Inside, the ornate oil lamp glowed brightly. I produced my knife and slid it against the base of the lamp, just hard enough to create a small crack. Oil began to leak out, dribbling slowly down the wall, onto the floor, and then seeping into the nearest bale.

Now I just needed to create a spark.

Before I realized what was happening, my dagger began glowing white-hot. Was I doing that? Or was the dagger helping me along?

Regardless, the blade sizzled up against the oil spillage, igniting it. Blue flame spread from the wall to the bales, which immediately started to crack and smolder. Soon, they’d all go up.

Using Jellia’s keys, I slipped into the Scarecrow’s room, shutting out the growing cloud of smoke behind me. I kicked some of the trash from his floor—more straw, loose papers, discarded scrolls—toward the door, knowing that they’d catch when the fire spread.

If a fire in his room didn’t draw the Scarecrow out of his laboratory, I didn’t know what would.

Next, I climbed out the same window Ollie had left by yesterday, clambering onto the tree. I wasn’t nearly as graceful as he’d been—the branches scratched my face and the backs of my hands, creaking under my weight, but I managed to climb down, carefully and quietly.

Above, I could hear shouts from the Scarecrow’s floor. Smoke was now spilling out from the window I’d climbed out of. From my position halfway down the tree, I had a pretty clear view of the palace grounds. A few stories up, the fire crackled, louder and louder. I watched and waited, slowly beginning to dread that he wouldn’t come. That I’d become an arsonist for nothing, endangered my cover, and let Ollie down.

But then I saw a lanky shadow step away from the recesses of the greenhouse. It was him! The Scarecrow crossed the palace lawn on long strides, his head tilted up to see the furnace glow emanating from his room. He’d taken the bait.

When he was out of sight, I dropped the rest of the way out of the tree, landing softly at its base. In the distance, the dome of the greenhouse was glowing with the huge reflection of the full moon. It wasn’t far now.

The palace grounds were just as beautiful at night as they were during the day. But, lit as they were by delicate lanterns and glittering tea candles, they didn’t offer a lot of cover. I sprinted across the lawn, hoping everyone would be too distracted by the fire to spot me.

In his haste, the Scarecrow had left the greenhouse unlocked. I rushed through the door, the fragrant smell of flowers immediately wiping away the charred scent of the palace. I paused for a moment, catching my breath and listening. All I could hear was muffled shouting from the palace—no guards chasing after me, no Tin Soldiers clanking in this direction. Just a caw or two escaped from the dark recesses of the greenhouse. I’d made it. So far so good.

The greenhouse was filled with rows and rows of flowers like nothing I’d ever seen before. There were huge roses with blossoms bigger than soccer balls and bright-red poppies that opened and closed their petals every few seconds as if they were breathing, expelling pale pink pollen into the air as they did. There were tulips whose colors changed every few seconds, cycling through all the colors of the rainbow, and towering sunflowers that sparkled in the near darkness, their petals seeming to give off their own sunlight.

The rows of plants went on and on and on. This, I realized, was what Oz should be like everywhere. Dorothy wasn’t just satisfied with stealing the magic from Oz—she was also stealing what the magic created. Someday, I hoped that I’d have a chance to see some of these plants growing in the wild, out of Dorothy’s reach.

But not tonight.

I hurried toward the back, the sound of the crows getting louder and louder, until I was only steps from the aviary. It was now or never. I ignored my fear, unlatched the door, and stepped into the cage.

Inside, they were everywhere. On perches high above and on the ground, pecking at seeds that were sprinkling down from a wrought-iron feeder hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier. Standing careful guard.

Despite their vigil, they ignored me.

I kept my breath shallow and steady, hoping that Pete was right, and that neither their hearing or vision was very good, trying not to think about their razor-sharp claws and even sharper curved beaks.

I’d only had a narrow glimpse of the Scarecrow’s laboratory, but I got the feeling it was underground. There weren’t any staircases that I could see in the aviary. Most of the floor was covered in seed, feathers, and bird crap.

Except the birdbath. That, oddly enough, was mostly clean. Stranger still, the ravens didn’t perch there.

I approached, tiptoeing past the birds that scavenged for seed at my feet. I ran my fingers along the edge of the birdbath, examining it for a button or a latch or anything else that might give me a clue about what to do next.

Nothing.

The stagnant puddle of water in the bath’s basin was murky and black and stinky with mildew. It was impossible to see what was down there . . . which made it a perfect hiding place. I had an idea. I held my knife out and willed it to fill with heat like it had back in the palace. The weapon felt eager to please, turning orange, the color of an almost-extinguished ember. I concentrated harder and turned up the juice until it was shining so brightly that it hurt to look at it.

I plunged it into the fountain, the water steaming as it came into contact with the blade. I could see through the cloudy pool to the bottom where my knife illuminated something dark and round.

A button.

I jammed the butt of my knife against the button, and it gave easily.

The birdbath disappeared right out from under me, and I almost tipped over and fell flat on my face. I managed to keep my balance, though, and looked down to see that where the birdbath had stood just a few seconds earlier, a small round door like a manhole had appeared in the ground. I leaned down and tentatively lifted it—inside, a stairway spiraled into darkness.

From somewhere high above my head, I heard a loud
Ka-caw!

Then, an excited rustling. I’d gotten their attention.

Another crow cried out, and then another and another until they all seemed to be screaming at me.

A rumbling sound began to build as my peripheral vision clouded with a fluttering blackness. The rumble got louder and louder, and then I realized what it was: it was the sound of hundreds of birds flapping their wings all at once. They were all flying right for me.

With no time to worry about what was down there, I stepped through the door and plunged down the twisting stairway. I felt like I was running for my life, trusting my feet to find their purchase against the treacherous stone stairs. They didn’t let me down. Nox had trained me well.

The door slammed shut behind me and everything suddenly went completely black. Able to see exactly nothing, I stopped and looked up and waited for my eyes to adjust.

They didn’t. I decided to light my knife up again, finding it even easier the second time than the first, and held it aloft. Or tried to. I hit rock a few inches above my head. I climbed back up the staircase and examined the back of the door, but it didn’t have any handles or buttons. I had no idea how to open it back up.
Well
, I thought,
at least it will keep the crows out.
Plus, I might be trapped. With no other direction to go but down, and only my knife to light the way, I descended.

When the steps finally ended, I looked around, the glow of my knife lighting up an entire room. The Scarecrow’s House of Horrors was almost as I had imagined it to be. Except worse.

There were two long metal tables set up with horrific instruments like the ones I’d seen in his room, and a metal chair with restraints on the arms and the legs. I was pretty sure that’s what Maude had been strapped into yesterday. So where was she now?

Next to the chair was a square, squat machine, with a bunch of circular dials and gauges on it. It was attached to a long leather tube. I didn’t want to know what that was.

Against the wall was a huge shelf lined with big glass jars—the kind that Gert kept her dried herbs and potion ingredients in. But these jars weren’t filled with mandrake root and nightshade dust.

Many of them held what looked like brains floating around in some kind of glowing green liquid. I stepped closer. They were pulsing. They were still alive, I realized in horror. It wasn’t just brains—there were other body parts, too, ears and hands and tiny little white wings. From baby monkeys? I shuddered.

I turned my attention to a wooden drafting table, which was papered with sketches and anatomical diagrams. There were monkeys, Kalidahs, a chicken, and a few other animals I didn’t even recognize.

I tore my eyes away and began looking for signs of actual life. “Hello?” I called out. “Is anyone here? Maude?”

I wasn’t really expecting an answer, but then I heard a noise, a barely audible moan coming from behind a metal door I hadn’t noticed in the back of the room, on the other side of the boxy machine. The moan came again, louder this time, and I knew that as afraid as I was, there was someone, or something, on the other side who had it a lot worse than me.

I held my breath before opening the door, picturing all the terrible things I might find.

The next room was smaller and filled entirely with rusty metal gurneys. They were caked in dried blood, but at least there were no bodies on them.

Then I saw her. In the back of the room, a tiny monkey in a frilly pink dress was cowering in a metal cage that was barely big enough to contain her. Feathers from her twisted, mangled wings poked through the bars.

“Maude?” I asked gently. “Is that you?”

She looked up at me with scared, big brown eyes. They looked like Ollie’s only minus the mischief. But the rest of her was not at all like Ollie. Her head was freshly shaved and her arms were wrapped with cloth bandages.