No Place Like Oz: A Dorothy Must Die Prequel Novella(33)

I had done it. I had performed real magic. If I could change the color of my hair, what else could I do?

Well, I had the whole night to find out, didn’t I?

Once I started, I almost couldn’t stop. Some things were beyond me—I spent close to an hour trying to make myself fly, and the closest I could manage was something along the lines of a little bunny hop that probably wasn’t magic at all. I tried to make myself invisible, but all I accomplished was a distressing pallor in my complexion. And try as I might, I just couldn’t bring back Glinda.

However, there was plenty that I could do. Oh, just little things—useless things, really—but little is relative when you’re a girl from the prairie.

I transformed a crumpled-up stocking into a little mouse that Toto chased furiously around the room before reacting with utter shock when it turned right back into a sock. He turned to glare reproachfully at me when he saw that I was doubled over with laughter in bed. I gave myself a lovely manicure; I made a fountain pen float across the room. I made a pair of earrings disappear from my jewelry box and reappear underneath my pillow. I didn’t have to knock my heels to do any of it, but I found that if something was proving difficult, it did help.

I turned the pink stripe in my hair green, then purple, and finally gold before I decided that I liked my hair just fine the way it was before, and I waved it all away with a thought.

Once I started, it seemed like there was almost no end to it. All I had to do was think of something, and if I thought hard enough, I could at least nudge it toward reality. With a little practice—and a bit more imagination—I was certain I would be able to manage much more.

I fell asleep, still in my clothes, just as the sun was coming up, filled with happiness. I was in Oz, and in just a few hours I would be reunited with my old friends the Lion and the Tin Woodman. I was in my own beautiful room in the Emerald palace, and, for now, no one—not even Aunt Em and Uncle Henry—could make me leave.

Best of all, I had magic. It was mine, and Ozma herself couldn’t take it away from me.





Fourteen

I hadn’t even stepped all the way into the great hall the next morning when I was tackled. A ball of golden fur came flying right for me, knocking me backward onto the carpeted floor of the hallway. A big, wet tongue licked my face.

It only took me a short moment to figure out what was going on. “Lion!” I squealed, wrapping my arms around him. Or, at least as far around as they would go. “Is it really you?”

“Who else would it be?” he asked in a low rumble, drawing back onto his haunches and licking his lips, gazing down on me kindly.

The Lion looked different than I remembered—he was bigger and wilder now, his yellow-brown mane tangled and matted, his arms and legs more powerful. When I’d first met him, the Lion had been timid and frightened, startling at the slightest sound. Even after the Wizard had given him his courage, he’d seemed as if he didn’t quite know how to be brave. Now, I could see, he’d grown into it.

“I can’t believe it’s really you,” I said breathlessly, sitting up and blinking.

“And not just me either,” the Lion replied. “Look who else is here to see you.”

At the long banquet table inside the great hall, another familiar face rose to his feet, grinning from ear to ear. The Tin Woodman stood and held out a rose. “My dear,” he said, presenting the flower almost shyly. “I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to get any bigger, but seeing you again, it feels about to burst.”

I just ran to him. I didn’t bother taking the flower; I just flung myself against him, planting a kiss on his cheek. And if you didn’t think tin could blush then, well, you should have seen his face at that moment.

Aunt Em and Uncle Henry were seated at the table, looking on at the scene politely. I was embarrassed to see that they were back in their tatty old clothes and, though Em’s hair was still green, she and Henry both had combed their new ’dos back into as close to their normal styles as they would go. They just wouldn’t accept any changes.

Ozma had said we’d get them to come around, but I didn’t see how we ever would.

While Toto and the Lion wrestled playfully on the marble floor, I joined everyone else at the table.

“It’s so nice to see old friends reunited,” Ozma said, raising a champagne glass, filled with something purple, in a toast. “Here’s to Dorothy—beloved by all who meet her.”

“I think a certain Wicked Witch would disagree with you there,” I said, but I clinked with everyone—even Em and Henry.

The table was covered in everything you could want for breakfast—and a lot of things I’d never thought to want.

There were fantastical fruits that sang witchy, enchanting little songs when you weren’t looking at them and fresh eggs with bright yellow speckles that cooked themselves however you wanted as soon as you cracked them open onto your plate. There were oddly shaped pastries and a rainbow of juices in little crystal pitchers. Some of the food seemed like a bit of a nuisance, really—like the sticky buns that wouldn’t let go of the plate and the flapjacks that flipped out of your way when you tried to take one—but it was definitely the most exciting breakfast I’d seen in all my life.

I helped myself to a little bit of everything, chattering in excitement as I heaped food onto my plate.