Click, Click, Click

“You’re boyfriend’s in the paper again.” It’s been a two years since he literally dropped in. We have a flirtatious friendship going on, but it’s not become anything more than that. Much to my dismay. I do not say that to Glinda. She hands me the paper. It’s written in its normal rainbow ink. Made out of real rainbow. Front page again I see. I sit on a bench near Glinda’s garden. She pretends not to notice the dead daisydil. As I pretend not to feel guilt about it, or a sharp pain growing in my chest. The paper reads:

Wizard of Oz Traveling Tour Returns Home to the Emerald City

Emerald City Citizens rejoice as Oz’s one, and only wizard returns. With his tricks we have been well entertained for years, and rumor has it he helped find the livestock thieves long ago. Well there’s a new rumor he helped save a kitten from a tree that was on fire. Citizens are warned about these strange forest fires. There has been eight deaths in the last year. The wizard also says he is creating a new flying contraption called a kite. Many also don’t know he is a well renowned writer. From political books to children’s fiction he has written a little of everything. Though we all wonder what the royal family thinks of his return. As he’s known to have some pretty important connections. Some rumors state he is even courting one of the Princesses.

I stop reading. He’s a the same age as me. I’m eighteen, and a half. He’s almost nineteen. Nessarose is nineteen. Glinda’s just turned twenty. A while after I turned eighteen, and just before he toured Oz something changed between us, and you could hear it in our letters. We agreed to flirt, but I felt something more. I wanted to talk to him about it in person. I guess here’s my chance.

“I’m inviting him to dinner.” I tell Glinda not really asking her approval. She nods. She brings one of her flower back to life with magic. It burns with green fire. Then goes out just as abruptly.

“Sorry-“ but just as the word leaves my lips I’m curled up in a ball on the grass. I whimper.

“Elphaba!” Glinda says fear written all over her face. It wasn’t enough not nearly enough. Glinda takes a price of parchment out of her pocket scribbles on it, then folds it into a bird. It flaps away. Glinda places a hand on my bare arm. It does nothing. If I do something truly wicked, I may be killed for it. If I don’t, I hunger for it’s painfully. Go long enough I’ll die. There’s really no winning for me. For us. Nessarose appears before us. “Help her.” Glinda cries. Her love for me at the moment outweighing any desire for good. Just like most of the time, my love for her outweighs any desire to do any real harm to her. I never want to hurt her. Or Nessarose.

“Ness. Help.” She’s brought out of her shocked to stare. She’s determined now. She picks me up into her arms, my head against her shoulder. I hear her click her heels three times. I blink, and it takes me a moment to realize we’re we are. We’re in the South. What will be Gilnda’s one day.

“Eat.” She gestures to the candy houses. “We’ll go from there.” I snap off a piece of candy cane. Thunder booms over head. Nessarose opens an umbrella. I pull her under the roof of of a sturdy looking gingerbread house. It doesn’t rain. It hails. Large chunks of ice snap roofs in two. Though it bounces harmlessly off the gumdrops. I make the caramel melt, and the peppermint freeze, and break. I take a piece of gingerbread.

“Ok maybe not the one we’re in Elpha.” Nessarose says. We laugh at the thought of eating a house we’re in from the inside out. I hear a squeak behind me. We both turn. There’s a walking macaroon behind us. Nessarose lifts themselves into the air, and their candy shell crumbles. I shiver, but not from the cold.

“You going to go poof if you keep pretending to be something you’re not. I don’t blame you. I can’t blame Glinda. She wants us to be good because she can’t help it. But our parents are only hurting you by asking you to wear these.” She holds up my hand covered in black leather.

“I agreed to it.”

“When you were five!” The wind picks up,, but the hail stopped. “Do you want to wear them?” I open my mouth. “Do you or don’t you.?

“No, but I don’t feel like I have much of choice.”

“Are parents aren’t as good as they pretend to be.” Good people, but not good parents. And passive Glinda is just as much a victim as she is. Favorite child, or not. It’s not really for my safety they want me to hide away. It’s for our citizens, and for themselves. Good and selfish, and their children pay the price for it.

“I’ll teach you to hide your misdeeds. They haven’t turned against me yet.” Glinda has helped with that. Smoothing over there fears. There’s also the fact that there was more stability now that we had been doing more. Glinda’s been working on constructing old buildings, helping the South, and helping with charity work. Nessarose has been reviewing laws, training guards, and helping choose punishments for criminals. I’ve been trying to convince mother, and father to let me go to the West for a very long time. They say I’m not old enough, but they let Glinda. They won’t let Nessarose go East either. We both tried multiple times. Even with her slippers we get caught by guards, and brought back.

“I’ve been able to go between the Emerald City, and South no problem.” She says. “You can barrow my Sliver Slippers.”

“That won’t work forever.” I say. Then something occurs to me. “It was you who started the forest fires. Why forest fires?”

“I wanted to frame you.” She smiles wickedly. I nod. I’ve made it thunder and lighting before, and Glinda’s made it snow. (Snow that would never melt so it can’t hurt us.) So although weather isn’t my thing it was the first destructive thing I thought of. I wasn’t trying to frame her though. It must be the wicked in her. I’m supprized she was ever caught.

“Let’s go home.” We leave the cotton candy, and cake crumb fields behind us.

~

The green cuckoo clock on the wall ticks. The bird comes out of the little house, with the swinging pendulum.

“What time is it?” I ask. The bird answers.

“Five fifty-six your Grace.” The little purple cuckoo bird goes back into the house. A few minutes later the clock chimes, and my parents and Oz enter.

“Hello dear.” He kisses my cheek. Our relationship changed again. When I saw him again on his wooden house on wheels. we talked. Things changed. Flowers appeared in his hand. I take them. After the first course my parents get to talking to Oz.

“Well your are certainly an accomplished young man aren’t you.” Father says approvingly.

“Thank you sir. You should come see my shows some time.”

“I’m sure you could perform here at the palace sometime.” Mom adds. After dinner we go for a walk in the royal gardens.

“You know this place feels more like home than Kansas ever did?”

“What was it like?”

“Far too boring for you tastes your Grace. No witches. No magic. No adventure.”

“What about your magic?” I ask.

“I must confess something. I am a con-man. I have no magic. I do tricks of the eye, and illusions. Nothing more.” I had suspected, but never could have been sure. “Do you think less of me?”

“No.” He’s a lair. So maybe there’s a little wicked in him too. The people here would struggle to tell the difference between fake magic, and the real thing. “There’s something I have to tell you too.” I admit. I reach for my glove.

“I know.” He says. We stop walking, and I turn to face him.

“You do?” I ask. A little relived.

“You my dear are hunting witches.”

“Pardon?” I say.

“Wicked one’s of course. With the the traveling, and you and your sister’s whisperings. Well it wasn’t that hard to put together. I want to help.”

“Help me what?” I ask.

“Hunt wicked witches.” He says. I nod. We keep walking. “I won’t be much help without magic, but I’ve researched a lot of things since I’ve been here, and with my tricks and things I’m sure I have some use.”

“Why?”

“Why hunt witches. Two reasons. One, the one that’s out and about has killed fifteen people.”

“And two?”

“Killing a menace of malice, and a murderer. It would make some story of myself. I mean no offense to your sister of course, and I know it’s not their fault of course, but you know what I mean. Every one would know who I am. Just like everyone knows who you are Princess.” He will never be able to live up to their expectations. And they don’t know me, and now nether will you.