Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years (25 page)

In time, she would probably know the answer more richly than he ever would. The thought afforded him comfort, and on that he rested al night.

9.

The Kels began to loom up before them. The Lion said, “I’m not going to drag this caboose up the sides of those bluffs. Get yourself another workhorse, Mr. Boss. The book’s advice seemed to suggest we go south.”

“To get around them, we’l have to head a little east, then,” said the dwarf. “It’l take us into the southeast margins of Munchkinland, but we’l meet up with the lower branch of the Yelow Brick Road eventualy and then we can plunge to the south.”

“When precisely wil we have gone south enough?” asked Ilianora. “Or are we now wandering to take in the views?”

“We’re putting as much distance as we can between us and the menace of the Emperor,” said the dwarf. “The EC never cared for Quadling Country except for the swamp rubies. And the taxes, when they could be colected. But given a war with Munchkinland, they’l be letting the Quadling muckfolk lie falow. A brief holiday from imperial oppression. We’l be safer there. Can hide like pinworms in a sow’s bowels, like the book told us.”

Rain said, “The book didn’t suggest anything.”

They looked at her.

“It was the
person
in the book,” she explained. “And en’t it possible she weren’t saying ‘go south’ but only ‘get back’? Like, um, ‘get back from this book, it’s too dangerous?’ ”

“Oh, the Clock already told us who’s dangerous,” said Mr. Boss. “Keep your mouth shut. What makes you think you can read better than we can?” They settled into a better pace, but a certain germ of doubt attended their progress.

As the weather finaly cooled off, Rain was working on her letters. Little by little she figured out how to form them into words. She wrote comments by placing broken twigs on the ground. RAIN HERE. And TODAY. And WHO. And SORRY. She made words with pebbles on the beds of streams, big words that someone with an eye for stony language might see one day. WATER RISE she wrote, and WATER

FALL. Rather expressing the obvious, thought Brrr, but he was as proud of her as if she’d been translating Ugabumish or inventing river charms.

The occasional farmstead gave way to the occasional hamlet, with its own chapel and grange, its antiquated shrines to Lurlina, its stables and inns and the unexpected tearoom. They passed farmers and tinkers on the rutted tracks. By stature they were Munchkins (“Munchkinoid,” suggested the dwarf, who was one to talk), but they seemed equable and not especialy xenophobic. Little Daffy splinted someone’s shabby forearm, dosed someone with rickets, and puled a tooth from the wobbly head of an old crone. Everyone nearly gagged, but the grandmammy smiled with a bloody gap the size of an orange when the job was done, and she invited them home for tooth soup. An offer they declined.

News of the troubles to the north was thin. One farmer asserted that the whole lake of Restwater had falen to the invaders. “Any word of Lady Glinda?” asked Brrr.

The man was startled. “Haven’t heard of her since the turtles’ anniversary swim meet. Is she stil alive?”

“Wel, that’s what I was wondering.”

“Scratch my behind with a bear claw. I got no possible idea if it’s so or no. Why would she be dead? Other than, you know, death?” On they trudged. The month being Yelowtime, their hours rounded golden, when the sun was out. But hours can’t dawdle—they only seem to. The leaves began to fal and the branches to show their arteries against the clouds.

Finaly they reached the Yelow Brick Road. It was il tended, here; the occasional blown tree or stream overrunning its banks made passage slow. The stretch was clearly untraveled. That night they camped in a copse of white birches whose peeling bark revealed eyes that seemed to be trying to memorize them.

“Can trees see?” asked Rain.

“Some say the trees are houses of spirits,” said Little Daffy. “I mean, stupid people say it, but even so.”

“I don’t mean tree-spirits,” said Rain. “I mean the trees. Can they see us?”

“They weep leaves upon the world every autumn,” said Little Daffy. “Proof enough they know damn wel what’s going on around here.” After Rain’s eyes had closed and her breathing softened, Brrr intoned to Ilianora, “Do you think everything is right with our Rain?” She raised an eyebrow, meaning, In what context do you ask?

“I’ve known few human children. That Dorothy Gale just about completes the list. So I have no premise on which to worry. But doesn’t Rain seem—wel—odd? Perhaps she is a girl severed from too much.”

Ilianora shut her eyes. “She’s young even for her age, that’s al. She stil lives in the magical universe. She’l outgrow it, to the tune of pain and suffering. We al do. Don’t worry so much. Look at how she touches the trees tonight, as if they had spirits she knew about and we didn’t. That’s not weird; that’s what being a child is. I was such a girl, when I was alive.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Oh, I’m alive enough now.” Her eyes opened, and they were filed with whatever passed for love in that woman. “I am alive. But I’m not that girl. I’m a woman grown from a life broken in the middle. I’m not even a cousin of that girl I was so long ago. I see her life like an ilustrated weekly story I read long ago, and it is pictures of that that I carry in my head. Her life in Kiamo Ko. Her life with her father, long ago

—that famous Fiyero Tigelaar, prince of the Arjikis. Her life with her mother, Sarima, and her father’s erstwhile lover, Elphaba Thropp. It’s a child’s story in my head, no more real than Preenela and the skeleton hermit in the everlasting cloak of pine boughs. I’m not sad; don’t shift; leave me be. We were talking about Rain.” For her sake, he returned to the earlier subject. “I don’t fault her interest in the natural world. What I notice is her … her distance from us.”

“She’s here curled up against your haunches. To get her any closer you’d have to swalow her whole.”

“You know what I mean. She seems to float in a life next to ours, but with limited contact.”

Ilianora sighed. “We agreed to take her to safety, not to perfect her. What would you have us do? Sing rounds? Practice our sums as we march?”

“I don’t know stories. Maybe you could tel her more? I wish we could get
through
a little more. She loves us, perhaps, but from too great a distance.”

“She’l have to cross the distance herself. Trust me on that, Brrr. I know about it. Either she’l choose to visit us when there is enough of her present to visit, or day by day she’l learn to survive without needing what you need and I need.”

“I think it’s caled a knot in the psyche.”

“It’s caled grief so deep that she can’t see it as such. Maybe she never wil. Maybe that would be a blessing for her in the long run. If she can’t learn to love us, would that keep us from loving her? Brrr?” Never, he thought. Never. He didn’t have to mouth the word to his wife; she knew what he meant by the way he tucked his chin over the crown of Rain’s head.

I0.

Aday of mixed clouds and sudden fiercenesses of light. Breezy but warm, and aromatic, both spicy-rank and spicy-balm. The road passed through open meadows interspersed with dense patches of black Astarsnaps and spruces, where clusters of wild pearlfruit glistened in caves of foliage. Rain paid no attention to the clacking of nonsense rhyme that Ilianora had taken up. Rain heard it but didn’t hear it.

Little Ferny Shuttlefoot

Made a mutton pasty.

Sliced it quick and gulped it quick

And perished rather hasty.

and

Reginald Mouch sat on a couch.

A ladybug bit him and he said ouch.

It smiled at him. He started to laugh

And bit that ladybug back. In half.

“What’s up with you today, al this mayhem?” said Mr. Boss to Ilianora. “Awful passel of nastiness in children’s rhymes. Toughens up the little simpletons, I guess.”

“A lot of biting too,” said the Lion, showing his teeth. He was proud that Ilianora was taking up the chalenge to force-feed childhood lore to Rain.

“I remember a counting-out rhyme,” said Little Daffy, and proved it.

One Munchkinlander went out for a stroll,

Two girls from Gillikin danced with a troll.

Three little Glikkun girls chewed on their pinkies.

Four little Winkie boys showed us their winkies.

Five Ugabumish girls started their blood.

Six little Quadlings went home to eat mud.

Now who wins the prize for being most pretty?

The girl from the Emerald, Emerald City.

One Ozma, two Ozma, three Ozma.

“And on until you miss a step,” said Little Daffy.

“Which you rarely do,” said the dwarf.

“There’s a skipping game to that,” said Little Daffy. “We used to play it in Center Munch.” She found a stick of last night’s kindling saved for tonight, and with the charred end she drew squares and circles on the yelow pavement. She labeled them with numbers.

“No one learned me numbers yet,” said Rain.

“It’s easy.” The Munchkinlander skipped and huffed to the ninth circle. Whinging, Rain tried to folow, but she was stopped at the seventh circle by the explosion into the eighth of a smal whirlwind of feathers and beaks. A Wren with a grandmotherly frown had landed onto the bricks in front of them. She was flustered and out of breath.

“No time for nursery games,” panted the Wren. “Unless you fly, me duckies, you’l have enough time to skip stones in the Afterlife.”

“Sassy thing,” said the dwarf. “Are you available to stay for supper? We’l serve roast Wren.”

“I cain’t spend precious moments in foolflummery. I been hunting a while.” She was having a hard time talking while catching her breath; her voice came out whistley. “The crazy bird lady asked me to find you. I folowed the words I saw on the ground. You’re in danger, the blessed lot of you. A thumping great crew of the Emperor’s nasty-men is on your tail and no mistake. Oh, al is lost! Unless it ain’t.” It took them a while to piece together the sily creature’s message. The soldiers were armed and mounted. They’d interviewed the Bird Woman of the Disappointments, and wrung from her the information that the company of the Clock had passed that way, al jolylike and worms for brekkie.

“I wonder what wardrobe I should plan for prison?” drawled Brrr.

“Begging your pardon, sir, you’l not get the privilege of prison, I bet,” said the Wren. “Not to judge by them fiercish faces. Why do you
loiter
so? Fly, I tel you!”

“I have short legs. I never move fast,” said Little Daffy. “Maybe we should split up?”

“It was a nice marriage while it lasted,” said Mr. Boss. “I never thought it would come to this, but life is ful of pleasant shocks.”

“I didn’t mean you and I split up, oaf.”

Ilianora roused to alarm earliest. “Perhaps it’s a sign we should ditch the Clock and take the book; we can move faster on our own.” The Lion flashed her a warning look; however dizzy this Wren, they oughtn’t reveal to her that they had any books. But it was too late now.

“If you got the singular volume they’re after, pity upon you,” said the Wren. “Grayce Graeling thought you might. But the longer you sit here and mul it over, the easier a job to round you up. Those horsemen on their way are al done up in silver plate, bright as icicles, armed with saw-ribbed swords and quivers of skiligant arrows.” The dwarf had heard enough. “On we go, then. When you return to that Bird Woman, tel her we thanked her for the warning.”

“There ain’t a whole lot of her left to thank,” said the Wren. “Ozspeed, you little egglings. Wind under your wings and al that. I’l sing out to alert what remains of the Conference of the Birds that I saw you safe, once upon a time, and I left you safe. What happens next belongs to your decisions, and to luck. Is that girl who I guesses she is?”

“Don’t go,” said Rain. Brrr and Ilianora looked at each other. Even in the face of mortal danger parents are attentive to the smalest improvements in the capacities of their children.

“I’l sing you cover best I can,” said the Wren kindly. “If you’re looking for Lir, he’s wel hid. But what a sight for sore eyes you’d provide him, on some happy day! Meanwhile, I’ve done me best, and now you do yours.”

II.

Having finaly been roused to worry, they made up for lost time. “We’re history,” said Little Daffy. “Even without the Clock, we can’t move faster than soldiers on horseback. Not with a child.”

“I can run faster than you can,” said Rain.

“I know. We’re both three feet tal but I’m two feet stout.”

“We’re not ditching the Clock,” said Mr. Boss. “That’s a nonstarter.”

They were hurrying along; their chatter was nervous chatter. “Why armor, at this time of year?” asked the Lion.

Little Daffy spoke up. “Against some sort of spel, hammered metal can afford a minimal protection. Or it can at least slow down a spel’s effectiveness.”

“You’re not a witch, except in the boudoir. Are you? You witch,” huffed her husband, almost admiringly.

“It’s no secret that some professional people can manage a bit of magic in their own line of work. Sister Doctor and I used to sew sheets of hammered tin into our clothes when we worked among the Yunamata, for instance. The mineral prophylactic. Only common sense.”

“Can you do us something useful? A pair of seven-league boots for each of us, to settle us more deeply into the safer mess of Quadling jungle?”

“I’l need two pair,” said Brrr. “Though I’d also accept a seven-league settee.”

“Bring me an ingrown toenail and I’l trim it without my sewing scissors,” huffed Little Daffy. “That’s about the size of what I can do, people. Anyway, even the most powerful enchanter doesn’t have the power to do
anything
he or she might want. Only certain things. No one can point a finger at a dozen horsemen and turn them, poof, into a dozen doughnuts. No one can, as a single campaign, magicaly remove the Emperor from his throne, nor bring Elphaba back from the dead. Magic powers are limited to start with, and more limited by the history and aptitudes of the person attempting a spel.”

“Look,” cried Rain. Brrr turned, aware that for once she was paying more attention than the rest of them.