No Place Like Oz: A Dorothy Must Die Prequel Novella(14)

Neither of them looked too thrilled with my plan, but it’s not like they had a choice. So Toto and I stomped ahead and we all moved on.



The first signs that we were nearing the road were some scattered bricks here and there—they almost looked like they were growing out of the dirt. After a few more minutes of walking, there were more and more of them, and then the road sprung up in the middle of a wide, overgrown field, unfurling itself into the horizon like a golden ribbon.

Aunt Em was so surprised when she saw it that she let out a squeak and jumped back on her heels. Uncle Henry shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

I’d spent my share of time on this road, but even I was taken aback by how radiant it was in the afternoon sunlight, at the dazzling golden contrast against the blue-green of the grass and the cornfields and the sky, at the way it twisted and spiraled through the fields and hills, winding out into the distance like it would lead us anywhere we could possibly imagine, if only we could name the place.

Toto was already a few paces ahead of us, panting and wagging his tail in excitement. He barked three times, ready to lead the way.

“Well, I suppose it won’t hurt to explore just a bit,” Uncle Henry said. “Now that we’re here anyway.”

Aunt Em didn’t say anything at all. She just stepped forward and set a foot onto the road. She looked back at us with a small, playful smile. “I guess the dishes can wait,” she said. “For now at least.”

The thing about the yellow road is that it’s enchanted. It wants you to follow it—not for any devious reason, but just because it likes to have a purpose. It’s very hard to resist a road with such infectious enthusiasm. I knew from experience.

My feet tingled against the bricks as we eased our way down the road, letting it lead us lazily through the hills and fields and valleys of Munchkin Country. With every step I took, it was like I could feel magic flowing up from the road and into my body. Surprisingly, even after as long as we’d been walking—even in heels higher than any I’d ever seen before, let alone worn—my feet didn’t hurt. It was just the opposite actually. It felt like I was getting a very pleasant foot rub.

We strolled for hours without getting tired. Everyone seemed so happy. Uncle Henry was whistling one after another of the old songs he’d learned in the war, and Aunt Em was peppering me with questions, like, “Where was it that you met your friend the Scarecrow?” And, “I still don’t understand why this Tin Man of yours wanted a heart so very desperately. He sounds like he was perfectly kind and loving and gentle without one, so why bother?”

She often gasped in amazement at a strange plant or animal—she was practically beside herself with glee when we came upon a resting flock of flying piglets, no bigger than sparrows, who were nibbling at some apples that had fallen into the road—but other times, like when we passed by the waterfall that fell up instead of down, she was simply caught without anything to say.

When we walked through the field of poppies that I remembered so well, I told everyone to hold their noses so we wouldn’t be tempted to lie down for an endless nap. We walked right on through, admiring the ruby-red blossoms and the little puffs of pink smoke that shot into the air every so often.

We made it through without our eyelids even fluttering.

“In some ways it’s so different from Kansas and in others it’s just the same,” Aunt Em remarked a bit later as we strolled through a flourishing field of corn that grew over our heads on either side. Clearly she was trying to put a positive spin on things. “I mean, we grow a lot of corn back home, too.”

“This corn’s different, Aunt Em,” I said. “It comes right out of the husk already buttered, and it’s like nothing you ever tasted.”

“Never had a problem buttering my own corn, thank you very much,” Henry sniffed. But I could tell even he was impressed. Back home, butter was for special occasions only. When I plucked an ear from a stalk and shucked it, the smell wafted up enticingly. Aunt Em took a nervous bite and her eyes widened. As soon as he saw her reaction, Uncle Henry helped himself to his own, and soon all three of us were sitting by the side of the road munching to our hearts’ content.

It was so wonderful that I almost forgot anything was wrong. I almost forgot Glinda’s desperate plea for help, and the fact that if Glinda was in trouble, Oz was in trouble, too. If wickedness was allowed to run rampant, the lush, magical cornfields would probably be replaced with barbed-wire orchards or bulldozed to make way for pincushion factories or something even more terrible.

I couldn’t forget that. I was here with a job to do.

But for now the corn was plentiful, there was nothing wicked in sight, and all seemed right with the world.

That is, until we’d finished our lovely picnic, set off traveling again, and made our way a few more miles down the road.

That’s when the screaming started.





Eight

Soon after we left the cornfield, the sky darkened into dusk and the picturesque fields and farmland we had been traveling through began to give way to a barren, burned-out landscape of stunted, sickly trees and shrubs, which made the constant screaming even eerier. The grass thinned out until the ground was mostly just blue-gray dirt dotted with sad and dried-out patches of weeds. Even the road itself was different here, dull and worn down, the bricks cracked or loose or missing entirely. Crows swooped overhead, their dark wings casting long shadows on the pale yellow bricks.