“As if witches are even real,” I murmur, closing my eyes and reaching up to rub at my temples. If I just ride this out, eventually the illusion will fade, and I’ll wake up at Aunt Em’s in my bed in the attic. “Certainly never met any in friggin’ Kansas.”
“Kansas? Never heard of that country before,” the supposed good witch says, his voice dripping with arrogance. “But tell me, is it a civilized country?”
“Depends on which side of the political spectrum you’re asking,” I mutter, opening my eyes back up. The joke is lost on the witch and he sniffs derisively. “But yeah, sure, whatever. Civilized enough.”
“Then that accounts for it. In the civilized countries, there are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. But, you see, the Land of Oz has never been civilized, for we’re cut off from all the rest of the worlds. Therefore we still have witches and wizards amongst us—obviously.”
My eye twitches. This guy’s said the word obviously like five times already. It’s driving me nuts.
“Wizards?” I scoff skeptically, and the man sighs, his almond-shaped eyes narrowing even further.
“You should know, considering you are one yourself,” he continues, his voice just this side of pleasant, like if he weren’t yawning and being bored and full of himself all the time, that it’d be like tinkling bells. “Oz the Great Wizard.”
“How do you know my name?” I ask as the Munchkins begin to murmur amongst themselves in another language. By the way, their teeth are razor sharp, and white as pearl. I swallow hard and glance back at the witch. Just more proof that I’m riding some sort of delusion; I never gave him my name.
“You’re more powerful than the rest of us put together, much as it pains me to say.” This time, it’s his turn to twitch an eye in irritation. “You’ll need to visit the City of Emeralds to register, however.”
I open my mouth to ask what strain of weed this guy must be smoking to come up with this crap when the Munchkins start shouting and pointing, chattering in that strange language of theirs. My eyes flick over to the legs of the wicked witch, and a scream gets caught in my throat.
“Oh, what is it now?” the good witch asks, following the pointing fingers of the Munchkins. The flesh on the legs bubbles, the bone cracking, as the body begins to decompose in super speed, melting into the ground like it was never there. It’s like one of those documentaries where they film a dead mouse for months and speed it all back up.
I’ve lost my fucking mind.
I slide down the side of the house as the witch picks up the silver shoes by hooking two fingers in them, and then holds them out my way, dropping them to the ground in front of me.
“The Witch of the East was proud of these ugly shoes. There’s some charm connected with them, but what it is, we never knew.”
“Are you joking?! I don’t want some dead broad’s shoes; they’re covered in blood!”
The Munchkins and the witch first look at each other, and then at me, shaking their heads and clucking their tongues.
The self-proclaimed good witch bends at the waist and puts his hands on his knees, looking at me with a very patronizing sort of expression.
“Listen here, you spoiled brat from another world. You’re not the first wizard to come through here.” He stands back up and crosses his arms over his chest. “Another sorceress already passed this way once and tried to save the land of Oz from its own, wretched self. But that one was not promising. Dorothy, the Small and Meek, is nothing but a loudmouthed goody-goody bitch. You are Oz, the Great and Terrible. Now stand your ass up and head for the city.”
“Wh-what?” I ask, blinking up at him as I try to remember the basic storyline in The Wizard of Oz. If I’m going to hallucinate a story, maybe I should know the ending first? “Dorothy? No, no, fuck all of this shit. I want to go home.” Well, not that I’d ever really call Kansas home, but this place is deranged … And where the fuck is my aunt?!
“Home?” he asks, sighing dramatically. “Well, it’s your funeral, I suppose. Head for the East,” the witch says, gesturing vaguely back in my direction, a long, gold braid hanging down his back. “There’s a great desert, not far from here. None could live to cross it.”
“If none could live to cross it, why the hell would you tell me to go that way?” I snap, shoving up to my feet and leaving the bloodied shoes on the ground behind me.
“It is the same in the South,” one of the Munchkins adds, speaking up for the first time. His English is lilted and strange, with an accent I’ve never heard, but I’m surprised any of them speak my language at all, to be honest. “For I have been there and seen it. The South is the land of the Quadlings.”
“The what?” I ask, but they’re all a’buzz with gossip now.
“I am told,” another Munchkin adds, his wings buzzing behind him like a dragonfly, “that it is the same at the West. And that country, where the Winkies live, is ruled by the Wicked Witch of the West, who would make you his slave if you passed his way.”
Winkies? The fuck is a Winkie?!
“The North is my home,” the ‘good’ (read: sarcasm) witch declares, “and at its edge is the same great desert that surrounds this Land of Oz. I’m afraid, my dear”—the witch adds his own dollop of sarcasm—”you will have to live with us.”
“Eventually, I’ll wake up, and this’ll all be over,” I growl, curling my hands into fists. What would happen if I punched Mr. Pretty Face Good Witch in the face? It is my delusion, after all. “Who cares what you say anyway?”
The witch pulls the white hat off of his head and a small light zips out from underneath, buzzing around him. He swats it away and then balances the pointed tip of his hat on his nose, chanting three words, like a bit of a countdown.
With a puff of smoke, the cap changes into a chalkboard, just like that, and I’m left wide-eyed and shaking with disbelief.
The little ball of glowing light zips up to the chalkboard, and words start to appear with that awful screeching sound of chalk on a chalkboard.
HELP OZORA GET TO THE CITY OF EMERALDS!!!
“Really, though? Really?” he asks as the ball of light buzzes around his head. As I blink at it, it dissolves into a small woman with wings of her own, much like the Munchkins.
A fairy.
It’s a goddamn fairy.
“Why should I help this spoiled, rotten brat?” The fairy zips around the Good Witch’s head as he waves her away and then turns back to look at me, standing in front of my Aunt’s house next to a pair of bloodied shoes with a bleeding dog-man waiting just up the stairs.
“Well, it’s settled then, if Cailín thinks you should go, you really should go. But I am not going.” The fairy flies at his face again, but he ducks her advances easily and shakes the chalkboard, turning it back into the pointed white hat that he uses to scoop her up. The witch sets it back on his golden hair and looks down his nose at me. “Perhaps, if you win in the Ruby Trials, Dorothy will help you.”
“Fine, I’ll bite. Where is this stupid city?” I grind out, just wanting something to happen. Anything but me just standing here like a total asshole.
The witch yawns as the Munchkins begin to scatter into the woods, their wings flashing in the stray shafts of sunlight peeking through the canopy.
“It is exactly in the center of the country, and is ruled by Dorothy, the not-so great wizard I told you of.”
“She’s a good woman then?” I ask, just to clarify. I mean, Dorothy was the hero in the original story, the one who found her way home through like, hope and sweet innocence or some shit. I have neither of those things, but I figure my mind is breaking under all the stress of my shitty life, and maybe this is some sort of metaphor cooked up by my unconscious brain. Find Dorothy, learn life lessons and shit, find my way home. Then I’ll wake up. Maybe I’m in a coma or something, right?
“She’s a wizard of moderate talent, but a woman? Whether she is or not I cannot tell, for she spends most of her time deceiving, lying, and
in general, being a total bitch. I was certain she was a howler monkey or a banshee.” He pretends to swipe some imaginary dust from his shoulder with a glittering hand.
“How can I get there then, to this Emerald City place?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.
“You must walk,” he replies saucily, glancing over his shoulder with a look of such pure smugness that I feel my temper boiling beneath my skin. “And it’s a long journey—obviously—through a country that is sometimes pleasant and sometimes dark and terrible. However, I will—quite graciously, I must add—use all the magic arts I know of to keep you safe from harm.”
“Oh, really? And how do you plan to do that?” I ask as he turns around and stalks toward me, putting his palms on either of my shoulders. “By escorting me there?”
“Not a chance in this hell we call Oz,” he replies smoothly, leaning down to put his mouth near my ear. “But I will give you my kiss, and no one will dare injure a person who has been kissed by the Witch of the North.”
Before I get the chance to pull back, the witch puts his hot lips against my own, kissing me with a flash of sharp heat, his tongue diving into my mouth and tasting me. He tastes like honey and coconuts, I think, the softness of his mouth and the breathlessness I feel briefly blinding me to the situation.
Did this fucker just kiss me without my consent?
The witch moves his lips from my mouth to my forehead, kissing me briefly there before stepping out of swinging range of my fists.
With a flick of his cap off his head, he changes the hat into a mirror, and I can see that there’s a round, shining mark on my forehead, like a six-pointed golden star.
“The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow bricks,” the witch says with a smirk. “Even someone as dense as you cannot miss it. When you do find Dorothy, don’t be afraid of her; she’s too full of her own morality for her own good, or the good of this kingdom. Good-bye, my dear.”
The last three remaining Munchkins bow to me as the witch gives me a naughty little wink, whirls around on his left heel three times, and disappears, just in time for Toto to stumble to the doorway and see.
“Bain!” Toto shouts out, growling loudly enough that the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. “You piece of shit! Get back here!”
Somehow though, knowing what little I know of that asshole, I’d sort of expected him to disappear in just that way.
I’m not surprised at all.
Not in the fucking least.
Taavi Toto Kills a Kelpie
“There’s nothing left,” I grumble, checking through the cabinets for food. “The cyclone must’ve swept it all away.”
“It’s okay, I’m fine,” Toto says—and yeah, it really is weird as hell to hear my dog talk. Glancing over my shoulder, I find him slumped at the table, his head in his hand, blood oozing from his right shoulder. He doesn’t look fine to me: Toto is pale and shaky, and even those intense brown eyes of his seem dimmed.
“You need to eat and drink something, at least,” I say, narrowing my own eyes and turning back around. With a bit of effort, I manage to shimmy Aunt Em’s bread drawer open, exhaling with relief when I see the two freshly baked sourdough loaves at the bottom. The fridge door is open, hanging crookedly off to one side. The only things left in there are some smashed jars, and a bit of butter tucked underneath the liftable plastic cover. I take that out and start buttering the bread.
“We need water. You think that pretty little creek out there is safe to drink from?”
“Nothing in Oz is safe,” Toto says, and I turn around, a slice of bread in one hand, a buttery knife in the other. He watches me carefully before standing up and running his fingers through his ebony hair. Underneath, I see a hint of brown, a mimicry of the pattern he had on his fur. “But you’re right: we’ll need water if we want to reach the Emerald City. I’ll get it.”
Toto starts toward the door, and I move to block him, noticing as I do that he’s still very much wearing his leather collar and tags. It looks … weirdly good on him. At the very least, I was able to find him some jeans to put on. They were in Aunt Em’s darning chest, a client’s jeans. She earns quite a bit of money fixing up other people’s clothes. Of course, Henry keeps all the money for himself and drinks it away, but that’s neither here nor there at the moment.
“You’re not going out there,” I say, and Toto stops where he is, turning to face me. His expression is tight, equal parts pained and frustrated. “So sit down and stay here.”
Without skipping a beat, he sits his ass on the floor.
Like a dog.
My brow goes up. Huh.
“This is so not happening to me,” I mumble again, still convinced that I’m in a coma of some sort. I can’t stop thinking of all the movies I’ve seen, the ones where the main character’s in a coma, but has to overcome obstacles in their own mind in order to wake up.
I’m thoroughly convinced at this point that I need to find Dorothy. Think of the symbolism there? A lost little girl, finding her way home? Learning life lessons along the way? Plus … Seattle is known as the Emerald City, and here I am trying to find my way there?
Yep, this Emerald City thing is happening.
Toto crosses his muscular arms over his chest and sighs, like he’s thoroughly frustrated with me.
“Mistress,” he begins, in an almost placating sort of tone. I hold up a hand to cut him off.
“No. Don’t call me mistress. It’s too creepy, what with you all … muscled up and sexy …” My face squinches up, and I cringe at the idea that this is my mind’s interpretation of my own dog. How weird is that? I’ve turned my pet into the perfect man. What sort of psychological issues do you think that harkens to?
“Sexy?” Toto asks, his voice strained. He looks away, toward the open front door (to be fair, it’s only hanging on by one hinge, and even that’s a stretch), like he’s ashamed or something. “You can’t find me sexy, Ozora.”
“’Kay, well, this is my hallucination, so I can do whatever I want. Here.” I move over to him and hold out the slice of bread. “Eat this, I’ll get us some water, and then we’ll see if we can’t figure out this bullet wound of yours.”
“Thank you for the bread, but there’s no need for you to worry about my wound,” Toto says, glancing down at the bloodied hole in his chest like it’s an inconvenience at most.
“Uh, you were shot,” I snap sarcastically, rolling my eyes and wiping butter on my jeans. Not that it matters: they’re crusted with dried blood. I pull my phone from my back pocket and stare at it for the hundredth time. It’s still on, and it’s got plenty of power, but there’s no signal. No Wi-fi. Ugh.
“My body will heal itself if given time.” Toto takes a bite of the bread, and then pauses to look down at his wound again. As we both watch, the bullet pushes itself out of his skin and pings across the rugged wooden floorboards of the old house. “Much better,” he says, reaching up to rub at the wound. “The skin should start knitting together shortly.” He polishes off the bread while I stand there slack-jawed. My mind is a weird, weird place, isn’t it? I mean, where am I coming up with this crap? “Do I have permission to stand and get water?” He looks up at me with those all-too familiar brown eyes of his.
“Permission?” I ask, and when I see that he’s damn serious about not getting up without it, I add, “sure, yeah, whatever.” Toto rises to his feet and heads for the door with me following along behind him. “So, you called that Good Witch guy, Bain, right?” Toto’s lips tighten into a thin line, and his eyes narrow to slits. “You two know each other?”
“You could say that,” Toto replies smoothly, moving over to the old wood chest that Uncle Henry nailed to the side of the house, to keep teenagers from stealing his tools. Toto reaches down, grabs hold of the lock, and pulls. It shouldn’t surprise me when he snaps the whole thing right off the chest and tosses it aside, but it does. I can tell myself I’m in a coma all I want, but this feels real. Reality is the one nightm
are you can’t wake up from, isn’t it?
“Oh, come on, that’s a platitude. I could say that? So, do you know the guy or not? I feel like I deserve an answer, considering he just tounged me and all. Do you people not know the meaning of consent?”
Toto grits his teeth as he hefts a metal bucket out of the wooden chest, turning and heading across the green grass and through the colorful field of flowers to the edge of the stream. On the other side of the river, strange birds watch us from the shadowed foliage.
I take a step forward toward the water, and Toto throws up an arm to stop me.
“Wait,” he growls out, lifting his nose in the air and sniffing. That frown settles more deeply into his face as he glances right then left. “I smell a kelpie.”
“A kelpie?” I ask, thinking of my big brother’s Dungeons and Dragons sessions in the attic. “That’s, like, a faerie horse that eats people, isn’t it?”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Toto says, shoving me back violently. I pinwheel and land on my ass in the field of rainbow tulips as he swings the metal bucket as hard as he can, smashing it into the ghostly white face of a horse that I swear to god wasn’t there two seconds ago.
My eyes widen as the horse rears back, snarling with rage, its razor-sharp teeth glistening in a stray shaft of sunlight. The colorful birds scatter, screaming out their warning calls as Toto tosses the bucket aside and steps back.
“Ozora, your magic!” he calls out, turning to look at me over his shoulder. “Bless me with it.”
“Bless … you …” I start, and then the memory of that douchebag Bain kissing me comes to mind. Well … I’ve always wanted to be the heroine in my own story, right? I most definitely wasn’t, when my family was drowning in an ice-cold lake. Shoving up to my feet, I lunge toward Toto, grabbing onto either side of his face. One of his strong arms wraps my waist as I press my palms against his cheeks and kiss him hard.
Very Bad Wizards Page 3