No Place Like Oz: A Dorothy Must Die Prequel Novella(40)

An hour before the party, Jellia delivered one more dress to my door. This one was from Ozma.

The skirt was green and flowing, made from the finest chiffon, with a bodice studded with a rainbow of jewels.

My Dearest Dorothy, the note read. My new friend. I am so happy to have you at my side.

I set the note on my vanity and took one look at the dress Ozma had given me before I tossed it aside, into the corner where my pile of castoffs was turning into a mountain.

The dress from Ozma was beautiful, but it wasn’t the dress I was supposed to wear on my sixteenth birthday, the day I announced my official return to Oz. It was what she wanted for me, not what I wanted for myself. I didn’t want to be at her side while she ruled Oz. I was no one’s lady-in-waiting. And suddenly I knew exactly what I wanted.

I no longer cared about hiding my magic from her. Why should I have to hide what belonged to me? This was Oz. Everything else was magic. Why shouldn’t I be magic, too?

So I called it forth. Using it was second nature to me now. All I needed to do was want and it was mine.

The room was twitching with energy as I stood in front of the mirror. Atoms rewrote themselves around me. I felt the world twisting and turning at my silent command. Fabric wove itself against my body; my hair grew even longer, twisting, taking the shape I wanted from it until it fell around my face in two perfect auburn braids with curls that scraped my shoulders. I felt my skin becoming smoother and softer. My eyes brightened; my lips reddened. My cheeks flushed with the perfect rosy glow.

My dress took form.

When I was done, Toto barked in approval. I looked just how I wanted to look. I looked both like myself and like something greater.

There was a knock on my door. I opened it to find that Aunt Em and Uncle Henry were waiting for me outside. They gasped when they saw me.

“Why, Dorothy . . . ,” Uncle Henry started. I saw him blush, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“You look . . . ,” Aunt Em began to say. She was at a loss for words, too. A look of scandal crested her face. She put her hand nervously to her mouth.

“I look like a princess,” I said. I knew that it was what they meant. “And not just like any princess. I look like Princess Dorothy. The Witchslayer. The Girl Who Rode the Cyclone. The One True Princess of Oz.”

They both looked away. They didn’t say anything. They didn’t have to. It was what they were thinking.

“Now let’s go to my party,” I said.



“Dorothy?” Ozma asked in surprise when I entered the ballroom, where the gala was just getting underway. “That’s not the dress I sent you.” Her face looked hurt and suspicious as she surveyed me.

My dress was blue gingham, just like the blue gingham I’d worn on the day I’d first landed in Oz. But it was different, too. Rather than being made from that scratchy, cheap fabric, it was made from the finest silk. The blue checks were stitched with glittering gold thread so subtle that you barely could see it until you looked closely.

It was short—shorter than anything I’d ever worn before. It was shorter than any dress I’d ever seen before, revealing my long, bare legs.

All of it did nothing more than draw attention to the shoes on my feet. They shone brighter than anything else in the room: brighter than Ozma’s crown, or her scepter, or the tiny jewels that were braided through her dark hair.

“Your dress was lovely,” I said, breezily. “But it wasn’t what I envisioned. Today is my day.”

“But where . . . ,” she asked.

Before she could finish the question, I stepped past her, into the ball, where everyone was waiting. They were waiting for me.

It barely looked like a ballroom at all. The sky was a brilliant galaxy of stars studded with giant, red poppies that opened and closed in time with the music, emitting a shimmering, heavenly light. The dance floor was a deep purple sunset.

Swarms of Pixies flew throughout the room, carrying trays of drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

The whole place was filled with Oz’s strange and notable personalities. Some of them I recognized from hearing Ozma talk about them: there was Polychrome, the Daughter of the Rainbow, wrapped in a diaphanous gown that looked like it was woven out of the sky itself. There was Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, cartwheeling across the floor like a whirling dervish, whooping with laughter as she went. There was a giant, dignified frog in a three-piece suit, and a man with a jack-o’-lantern in place of a head.

There were Nomes and Munchkins and Winkies and a man and woman made entirely of china, dancing carefully apart from the rest of the crowd so as not to risk breaking into pieces.

I whirled joyfully through the room, gliding from one citizen of Oz to the next, smiling and kissing each one on the cheek in greeting before spinning on to the next one. Each one of them looked up at me with love and gratitude. I meant so much to them. I had done so much for them—so much more than Ozma could ever think of doing. And they all wanted to meet me. I was famous. I was their hero.

When I got to the Scarecrow, he was ready for me. He took me up into his stuffed arms and spun me around and I laughed, kicking my feet up as the crowd parted to make way for us. The orchestra was playing a happy, energetic ragtime number and the trumpets blasted as the Scarecrow tossed me over his head as if I was light as a feather. He caught me, laughing, in his arms as I came back down before twirling me across the floor to where the Tin Woodman was waiting for me.