No Place Like Oz: A Dorothy Must Die Prequel Novella(39)

It didn’t occur to me that maybe she could be both. All I knew was that I had to find out the truth.

So even though I knew it was risky, I cast a spell. I knew I couldn’t be too obvious this time. Ozma may have looked sweet and innocent, but she was dangerous, too. She was a fairy. If she had done something to Glinda, she might be able to do it to me, too, if I wasn’t careful.

I gave her just the tiniest little nudge. I had been practicing at night, in my room alone, and I was getting better at using the magic. I didn’t have to knock my shoes together anymore; I didn’t even need to feel the tingling in my feet. The magic wasn’t just in the shoes. It was in every bit of my body, and all I had to do was take a tiny little piece of it and send it out into the world to bring me back what I wanted.

There in Ozma’s dressing room, I looked down at my fingertip and saw a little red butterfly sitting on it, glowing and pulsing its jeweled little wings.

Tell me, I told it, without speaking the words aloud. And the butterfly took flight. It fluttered into the air and circled around Ozma’s head in a scattered halo.

“Dorothy?” Ozma said. “Are you okay? You have the strangest look on your face.”

The butterfly landed on her forehead. She didn’t react. She didn’t seem to notice it.

“What are you thinking about?” Ozma asked, looking deep into my eyes. “You look like you’re a million miles away.”

Tell me, I thought. Tell me where Glinda is.

The butterfly crawled across her brow, like it was looking for a way into her mind, and then it disappeared—just evaporated in a tiny puff of red dust. I had lost it.

Ozma didn’t seem to know what had just happened, I don’t think. But her mind was still her own. Her magic was more powerful than she let on.

I knew then, without a doubt, that she was the one who had done something to Glinda. You don’t guard secrets that you don’t have in the first place. And there was definitely something in her mind that she was guarding closely.

“Yes,” I said. “I was thinking of my mother.”

It was a lie, and it wasn’t. I had been thinking of Glinda, who was as close to a mother as I’d ever had. Closer than my own mother had ever been, that’s for sure. Closer than Aunt Em was, even.

Glinda had brought me here. She had helped me get home to Kansas, once upon a time, when it was all I wanted in the world. I had to find her. I had to help her. Even Ozma—as lovely a friend as she could be—wasn’t going to stand in my way.



The night before the ball, I walked into my bedchambers. I knew that it was important to get a good night’s sleep, but there was so much on my mind that it was impossible to quiet it.

Toto was curled in the corner, asleep, dreaming about whatever it is that dogs dream about.

Without even having to think about it, I used my magic to strip my dress off; to untie the ribbons that held my hair into plaits. I sent them drifting off to the corner of the room, where I let them drop into a messy pile. I let an ethereal nightgown slip over my head. The shoes, of course, stayed on. I never took them off. I couldn’t even if I tried.

I levitated myself off the floor and floated myself to my bed, letting myself drop gently onto the cloud-soft mattress. I drifted off to sleep, not bothering to pull the sheets over my body. Instead, I wrapped myself in magic like it was a heavy down quilt.

As it enveloped me, I felt both happy and content—and emptier than ever.

Tomorrow was the party. I was in Oz, and there was a party being thrown for me. I had gotten exactly what I had wanted, and still it wasn’t enough. I had wanted. And now I wanted more.

That was who I was, I realized, as I drifted off to sleep. This wanting itself was a kind of magic—one that I’d had since I was just a little girl. Since even before I’d been to Oz. Even before I’d had a pair of magic shoes, silver or red. I had always wanted more.

It was what had brought the tornado to me. It was what had brought me to Oz in the first place. It was what had sent me home, too, and it was what had allowed Glinda to find me again, to reach out through the walls that separated Oz from the rest of the world and bring me back. Now that I was here—now that I had my shoes, my magic, my party—the wanting was still with me. It always would be.

I wanted more. I wanted what Ozma had. I wanted everything.





Seventeen

Ozma sent Jellia Jamb for me in the morning, so that we could get ready together, but I sent the plain little servant away. This was my big day, and I wanted to be alone—I wanted to take the time to think about everything that had brought me to this place, and about what the future held for me.

For me. Not for Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Not for Ozma, or for Oz, or the Scarecrow or the Tin Woodman or the Lion or even poor, missing Glinda, but for me alone.

So I spent the day in my room. I magicked up a light breakfast of those wonderful Anything Eggs and some Chimera’s milk, and, later, for lunch, ambrosia and Emeraldfruit.

I stood in front of the mirror, trying to decide how I should look for the party. Toto sat in the corner, just watching me, understanding, I guess, that I was in a world of my own.

I tried on every gown in my closet, but none of them felt special. I summoned Jellia and requested more, but I still knew that none of them would be good enough. The right dress would come from magic—not Ozma’s magic, but the magic of the shoes. The magic that belonged to me.