Dorothy Must Die (6 page)

I didn’t like the idea of airplanes, and I didn’t really want to go to Orlando anyway. But I’d always wondered what it would be like to touch a cloud.

Now I knew the answer to that, at least when it came to Oz clouds. It turned out they were just as soft and fluffy as they looked on
Wheel of Fortune
, as solid as cotton balls, but they were nothing you’d want to curl up and take a nap on. Every time my fingers grazed one, it sent an icy shock up my arm and down my spine into my toes. Some of them were as small as party balloons and others were as big as couch cushions, and soon they were so thick in the air that I had to swat them out of my path in order to keep moving.

Meanwhile, I could hear monkeys screeching, getting louder and louder. They were so close that I could feel their wings flapping just inches above my head. Every now and then I’d hear a scream so loud it straightened my spine. The sour smell of monkey breath filled my nostrils.

But Indigo’s spell had worked. They were close enough to touch, but the monkeys were ignoring me, acting like I wasn’t even there.

Finally the road began to curl in on itself, rising up in a steep, tight coil until I came to the top and stepped onto a small, circular platform twice as wide around as a hula hoop. This was the top. I was so high up that even the monkeys were beneath me now. It was all downhill from here. Literally: on the far edge of the platform, the yellow road plunged back toward the ground at a steep, straight incline, the rough texture of the bricks suddenly slick and smooth. It was a Yellow Brick Slide.

But that was nothing in comparison to the sight on the horizon. The Emerald City had come into view. Nothing I’d seen so far had prepared me for it. It seemed to have come out of nowhere, just when I was least expecting it, and now that I was looking at it, it was hard to understand how it hadn’t been visible all along, with its swooping skyline that was so green it colored in the sky around it, and the palace with towers so high that they disappeared beyond the clouds.

From up here, looking down on the city in the distance, you could almost forget everything that had gone wrong here. From up here, you could almost pretend that this was the Oz that should have been.

But as much as I would have liked to have stayed up here forever with that fantasy, I knew the monkeys would spot me eventually if I didn’t keep moving. I gulped, looking down.
Just pretend you’re going down a waterslide at AquaLand,
I told myself. It might have made me feel a little better if I’d ever actually
been
to AquaLand. My mom had never taken me.

So I just took a deep breath, dropped to my butt, and reassured myself that going down had to be easier than coming up. If nothing else, it would be faster. I closed my eyes and pushed off.

My stomach dropped as I hurtled downward, the wind whipping across my face and gaining speed every second. At first I was terrified, but after a minute, I inched my eyes open and saw the clouds whipping by as the ground approached at high velocity. Feeling a rush of exhilaration, I opened my mouth to whoop with joy and caught myself just in time to remember that the monkeys would hear me. Instead, I let out a quiet little squeal, grinning from ear to ear.

I landed with a thump on solid ground, where Indigo and Ollie were waiting for me, both looking a little shaky.

“That was actually sort of fun,” I said, scooping myself to my feet and dusting myself off.

Indigo glared at me. Ollie looked away, and I instantly realized my mistake. He wasn’t thinking about the slide or the thrill of survival. He was thinking about the monkeys.

I wondered how it had felt for him to be so close to his people and to not even be able to look at them. The monkeys weren’t evil: they were slaves, and some of them had probably been his friends once. Were his parents and his sister up there somewhere? Had he recognized any of the voices that had cackled in his ears?

“Ollie,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head like it was no big deal, but when he finally spoke, it was through gritted teeth and I could tell he was angry. Maybe not at me, but it didn’t really matter.

“I would do anything to get them back,” he said quietly. “Is there anyone in your life like that? Anyone you’d do anything to help? No matter what?”

“I . . .” I bit my lip and hesitated. There was a time when I would have said my mother. Now I wasn’t sure. I had tried to help her so many times, had done everything I could possibly think of, and none of it had worked. Not even a little. Now she was probably dead. “I don’t know,” I finally said, feeling my face flush with shame.

He cocked his head like he didn’t believe me. It wasn’t the answer he had expected.

Indigo just rolled her eyes. “I feel sorry for you,” she said. “I really do.”

We didn’t say anything after that. We just trudged on ahead.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the question Ollie had asked me. I made a decision. A promise to myself. I couldn’t help my mother anymore. If I’d ever had a chance, it was long gone now. But if I ever had a chance to help the monkeys, I would take it. No matter what it cost me. It was the least I could do. Not for him, but for myself. Just to say I had someone.

When the road turned a few minutes later we found ourselves in an apple orchard. The trees were lush and green in contrast to the icky cornfields. Huge, red apples dangled temptingly from their branches, shiny and juicy-looking.

I stepped off the road, the grumbling in my stomach outweighing what I’d seen with the mutant corn.

Star, still in my pocket, knew what was up, too. She poked her nose out and chirped hungrily as I reached for a piece of fruit.

For a split second I thought I saw the tree blink. I snatched my hand back.

I looked at the talking monkey next to me, remembering that anything was possible here. “Did that tree just move?”

“They talk, too, but they’ve taken a vow of silence.”

“Voluntarily?”

“The princess felt that their conversation ruined the apple-eating experience and was therefore a violation of the Happiness Decree.”

“What about their happiness? The trees, I mean?”

“I think we all realized a little too late that the only happiness that matters is Dorothy’s,” Indigo chimed in.

Ollie looked at me. “I know you want to, but you can’t.”

“Is it poison? Or is it forbidden?”

“It’s against the Happiness Decree. It’s not worth the risk,” Indigo said.

“But we need to eat. And Ollie needs his strength. No one is around.”

I plucked two apples and nodded at the tree, meeting its sad eyes. “Thanks,” I said. I handed one to Ollie, who took it and examined it, unsure.

The first bite melted in my mouth. It tasted like pie. Apple pie. Apple and cinnamon and sugar and butter all mosh-pitted around in my mouth. It was a magically delicious apple! Finally, something in Oz that was actually as cool as advertised.

It was too good to last. I’d just taken another satisfying bite when I saw Indigo’s face go white. She pointed behind me and opened her mouth to say something. No sound came out.

And then.

It started to get dark. But it wasn’t the sun setting. The sky was as sunny as ever. Instead, it was like the world around us was being covered in shadows, starting with the yellow road. Then the shadows began to rise up from the ground, curling and inflating and twisting into forms. They were taking on shapes. Shapes that looked oddly, eerily familiar to me.

It was the Tin Woodman. He wasn’t alone.

I knew we were really in trouble when I saw that Indigo was too scared to even mutter an
I told you so.
She was just a little wall of fear with wide eyes. The color seemed to drain from her tattoos until they were just gray impressions on her skin. Ollie was shaking right down to the tip of his tail, the uneaten apple still in his hand.

This Tin Woodman was not the Tin Woodman I remembered. By now I shouldn’t have expected anything different—nothing was the way it was supposed to be in Dorothy’s remade Oz. Still. I wasn’t prepared for what I was looking at now.

He looked more like a machine that had been cobbled together out of spare parts, a hodgepodge of scrap metal and springs and machinery pieces all held together by screws and bolts. His long, spindly legs were a complex construction of rods and springs and joints, and bent backward at his ankles like a horse’s legs; his face was pinched and mean, with beady, flashing metal eyes and a thin, cylindrical nose that jutted out several inches from his face and ended in a nasty little point. His oversize jaw jutted out from the rest of his face in a nasty underbite, revealing a mess of little blades where his teeth should have been.

I half remembered the Tin Woodman’s story. He had been a flesh-and-blood man until a witch had enchanted his ax to make him chop off pieces of his body one by one, and one by one he had replaced them with metal parts until that was all that was left of him. From what it looked like, he had been making improvements ever since. The only thing that was really familiar about him was the funnel-shaped hat he wore. I guess some things never change.

Behind the Tin Woodman, four people in black suits materialized out of the shadows a moment after he did. They weren’t made of tin, but they weren’t exactly people either. Each of them was mostly flesh—with a few mechanical modifications.

One of them had a silver plate bolted to his face where his mouth should have been; another was round and squat with huge copper ears the size of his entire head. The third was a girl, probably about my age, with a glinting sword in place of an arm. But it was the last one who was the creepiest: He was just a disembodied head grafted to the body of a bicycle, with two robotic arms where the handlebars should have been, the knuckles of his mechanized hands scraping the bricks on the road.

“Run,” I said. It came out as more of a breath than a word. But no one moved. There was nowhere to run to, and anyway, I was so scared that my knees felt like they were made of jelly.

I tried to smile my widest, most ass-kissing smile—the one I usually used on Dr. Strachan at school. When I remembered that it had never worked with him, I made it even wider. If anyone noticed, they didn’t mention it.

“In the name of Ozma of Oz,” the Tin Woodman said grimly, his voice robotic and scratchy, “by order of Princess Dorothy, I—the Tin Woodman of Oz, Grand Inquisitor of the Emerald Police and commander of the Tin Soldiers—hereby arrest you for crimes of treason.”

He held out a piece of paper with a gold seal on it, and for the first time I got a look at his hands. A chill ran through my entire body.

He had fingers like knives and needles, each one of them twisted into a slightly different shape. Like dentist tools.

I had avoided cavities my entire life exactly because I’m not good with pain. My body tensed up, anticipating one of those sharp things pressing into my skin.

“Treason?” I squeaked.

At the Tin Woodman’s words, Ollie, who had been frozen at my side, suddenly came to his senses. He began to screech his ear-shaking monkey wail and he sprung into the air like he’d been shot from a slingshot. Hooking his tail onto the branch of the nearest apple tree, he used it to pull himself up into its leafy boughs.

It all happened in an instant. I got one last glimpse of his tail as he swung into the next tree and then disappeared into the orchard completely.

As he went, Bicycle-body reared on his hind wheel to chase after him but the Tin Woodman put up a calm hand. “Let him go,” he said. “The Lion knows the movements of all the beasts. He will take care of him. He won’t make it beyond the forest.”

Ollie had gotten away. He had abandoned us, if you wanted to be technical about it, but I didn’t blame him. For a second, I almost wanted to cheer. I hoped he made it far, far away.

I was happy about it, but Indigo and I didn’t have that option. And we were in big, big trouble.

She had been right all along. There were consequences in Oz. Supersized consequences that didn’t fit the crime. If Ollie had been tied to a post for “sass,” then what would
our
punishment be?

I wanted to tell her I was sorry. She had warned me—begged me, even—and I had ignored her. But was I sorry? Should I
not
have freed him? I didn’t think so. What else could I have done?

It had been right to free Ollie. But was that what we were
really
being punished for? Her frozen face broke, and she collapsed to her knees, sobbing.

“P-p-please,” she sputtered through her tears. “I was trying to help Dorothy. I was bringing the traitor to be interrogated! I swear! I just wanted to help! I can give you information!”

She was betraying me. She had to, of course, and I didn’t blame her. This was on me, and if her pleading helped her then at least one of us would get out of this.

I knew that, but still, it stung to listen to her selling me out.

“Is that so, little one?” the Tin Woodman asked coldly. “You were delivering the outlander to your princess?”

“Of course!” Indigo pleaded. “I love Dorothy more than words. Why would I ever betray her when she’s made me so happy?”

I had to help her. Since I wasn’t from Oz and didn’t know all of Dorothy’s rules, maybe they’d be more lenient on me. I stepped forward. “She’s right. She had nothing to do with any of this.”

Indigo glanced at me now. I think she seemed grateful, but it was hard to tell.

The Tin Woodman looked her up and down for a second and then nodded to the man with the plate over his mouth. The plate slid open to reveal a spigot-like device that telescoped outward in Indigo’s direction.

“What are you doing? I was the one who took the apple. I was the one who freed the monkey.” The words tumbled out wildly. Whatever the
thing
was that they were pointing at Indigo, it looked like it was going to hurt.

He grumbled to himself, as if he didn’t owe me any explanation. “Save your confession for Dorothy, outlander. Loyalty is very important in Oz. The Munchkin must be punished for her cravenness.”

“She just told you she’s been loyal to Dorothy.”

“Perhaps. But she was not loyal to you. Either way, she is guilty of the crime.”

“What are you talking about? You can’t have it both ways—either she’s guilty of being disloyal to Dorothy or she’s guilty of being disloyal to me.”

“Indeed.” The Tin Woodman’s metal face somehow managed to look smug. “Now. For her punishment.”

The gunlike nozzle extended from the Tin Soldier’s lips. It twisted and pivoted, adjusting itself as he put Indigo in his sights. She was heaving and shaking on her knees.

“Run,” I said again. “Run!” I cried, willing her to get up. She didn’t listen. She didn’t even open her eyes.

The Tin Soldier fired and the device made a popping sound.

A tiny sigh of desperate relief escaped my lips when I saw what came shooting out of his mouth: a stream of iridescent bubbles. That was it? I wanted to laugh as the innocent-looking bubbles floated toward Indigo, zipping forward in a happy little stream. They began to swarm her like bees on honey.

But instead of popping when they touched her, they clung to her clothes and skin. She swatted at them frantically but it was no use. They didn’t budge. My eyes widened in horror as the bubbles began to melt into her flesh.

I made a move forward to help her—to do anything—but before I could get to her, Sword-Arm’s blade snapped out at me. She pressed it tight against my jugular.

“I’m sorry!” I told Indigo. “I’m sorry.”

She looked at me then. “No. You were right. Please help us,” she said. “You’re from the Other Place. You’re like her. You can do something.”

A calm look came across her face—too calm. Like, good-bye calm. Then the bubbles covered her face, too.

As they merged with her body, her tattoos separated from her skin and slipped off her, the ink puddling in a shiny, mercurial mass. Indigo was melting.

She was barely recognizable now. She was just a big lump of sticky, pinkish flesh, her arms and legs only barely discernible as limbs, her features only little misshapen blots where her face should have been.

“Make it stop,” I begged, still crying. “Please. I didn’t mean to—I didn’t know. She shouldn’t pay for what I did. Please.”

“I hate to burst your bubble,” the Tin Woodman said with a sly grin, “but ignorance is no excuse. You can tell the whole story to Dorothy. The princess is . . . curious about you.”

Pop!

All I could see of what had been Indigo was a red splatter of bone and blood where she had knelt just a few seconds ago. I felt myself gagging, but nothing came up. I leaned over, hands on my knees, trying to get a breath.

She had painstakingly written the history of the world on her body so that it would live on. And the Tin Woodman and his goons had just erased her with the push of a button.

“It’s very messy, but we find it’s a deterrent,” the Tin Woodman said.

This place was insane. He was insane. I thought they’d given him a heart—how had he become
this
?

“Now as for you,” I heard him saying. It sounded like he was talking to me from the end of a long tunnel. “The princess is
very
interested to meet the girl who dropped out of the sky.

“Take her,” he told his men. I didn’t resist as they grabbed me. I didn’t say anything. I
couldn’t
say anything.

Everything went black. I became a shadow, like them.