No Place Like Home

by Erik Schubach

  This didn't seem to surprise Dorothy, but Toto deflated a little. Then the witch asked, “You, the squeaky one. Is this the truth?”

  The squeaky one? Was she referring to the crystal tone of my voice that I've had ever since Ella-Marie saved me from werewolves by turning me into a crystal statue? Ella supplied with humor in her tone, 'Well, the manky bint ain't talkin' bout me.'

  Toto looked at the woman and said in frustration as she motioned a hand toward us expectantly,

  “Dot, this is too confusing if you can hear what we can't. Don't be mean.”

  Dorothy just held up a finger for her to wait as she looked at us with narrowed eyes full of intent.

  Wait, was she not going to let us out of Marie if I answered wrong? I wish I could have exhaled. I knew my answer wasn't what she wanted to her, but I wasn't going to lie.

  I said, 'Oui... yes. We don't even know how we got here except Ella had joked that she didn't think we were in Kansas anymore.'

  Dorothy nodded at us and said, “Truth. That is refreshing. Instead of telling me what you thought I wanted to hear.”

  She waved a hand like she was brushing the contents of a table to the ground and I stumbled, trying to catch myself from falling from the sideways motion as I found I was standing next to Marie. I

  inhaled sharply, frantic to finally breathe again on my own as the feeling of claustrophobia stopped threatening to crush my soul. As much as I loved my Ella-Marie, I didn't ever want to be THAT close again. I didn't realize how much panic was still inside me as I was trapped as just an echo of thought in Marie's mind.

  Oh hey, I'm thinking in English again!

  We heard a thud then clank to my side, and we all turned to look at Ella, in her own body, chained to the wall with huge iron chains. I had to blink in shock, not for the fact she was chained up, but the fact that she was dressed in a clown suit, complete with clown makeup on her face. God forgive me if it didn't do anything to take away from her cuteness in her own form.

  Toto snapped, “Dorothy Clementine Gale!”

  The witch laughed out in a cross between a chuckle and a giggle as she pointed at Ella without looking at her, her attention fully on her companion, “That one... is dangerous.”

  I felt as if I fell into the floor a few inches as Ella drew the earth into her and growled out as she thrust her arms down with a huge whump of released energy. The thick chains and irons around her wrists shattered as she said, “Sod off, you fecking wanker.”

  She moved in front of both Marie and me protectively, her hands clenching into fists, tendons creaking as we snapped at her in tandem for her language, “Ella!” This was not going to end well.

  Dorothy beamed like she was genuinely entertained and said almost breathlessly to Toto as she looked at us, “I really like this one, can we keep her?”

  Toto cocked an eyebrow, motioning toward the angry clown in the room. If I weren't so terrified of the woman who could apparently change reality at her whim, it would have been almost funny watching the cute furious clown.

  Dot muttered, “Sometimes you're no fun. You're just lucky I love you so much.” Then she gave her a look filled with longing and devotion as she absently flicked a finger. The clown getup was torn away from Ella, sending her falling back to be caught by Marie and me.

  I smiled down at Ella now in a cute leather Robin Hood looking outfit as we stood her back up.

  Toto smirked this time and looked at her girl expectantly. Dorothy gave her a cheesy grin. I followed their eyes down, and to my shame, I snorted as she made the huge oversize clown shoes still on my girl vanish, to be replaced with leather Robin Hood boots.

  Ella cocked an eyebrow at me, luckily for me her face is full of humor. Then she told Dorothy,

  “You're lucky my girls are here, or I'd be obliged to be givin' ya the what for ya two-bit Houdini.”

  Toto was shaking her head and saying in a resigned and pleading manner, “Don't, just... don't poke the bear. You're just as bad as Dot.” This pleased our scrappy girl who had earned the name, Ella

  Deathbringer over the centuries.

  I grabbed her hand and pulled her back to Marie and me, and we all grasped hands. I said to her,

  “Love, stop while you're behind.”

  Ella had been a handful for Dorothy when they fought, but our girl had been at her limit, and the witch still had a second wind, literally. If it had progressed any longer, it wouldn't have ended well for us.

  I said to try to diffuse the situation, though I had the feeling that Dorothy was just having some fun at our expense, “Thank you for restoring us.”

  The woman looked down her nose at us and said, “Wasn't my idea. Thank Toto. I was having fun feeling you squirm in there.”

  Toni sighed, shaking her head at her misbehaving witchy companion. “Stop being wicked. I don't have much human time left today, let's not waste it. Let's greet our guests properly.” She looked genuinely perturbed, especially the part about not having much human time left. What did that mean?

  Dorothy sounded genuinely apologetic, “Sorry, love. They were a couple minutes from falling out of the pretty one on their own anyway. I was just having fun. You know I can't break someone else's spells, only alter things about them. It was about to reassert itself.”

  Wait, we were going to go back to normal anyway? I thanked her for... what? Ok, I could see why my Ella was growling just then.

  Toto let go of Dorothy's arm and lifted her nose high as she stepped up to us and looped an arm in mine and Ella's and started marching us past her wicked witch. “Ladies.” I heard a huff behind us and then the door slamming hard as Dorothy followed. Ok, I may have grinned at the mischievous smile on Toto's face. She could obviously play her girl like a Stradivarius violin.

  I was startled at the clatter of claws on stone beside me, and I looked down to see Fenriss at my side, looking up at me. He smiled, showing those long fangs of his. I shuddered, though I don't think he intended to scare me, I think it was a real smile. Just great, I had a groupie? A dangerous and deadly groupie.

  Then Marie gasped, stumbled, and looked up with surprise painting her features. “Fuck!” That's when I noticed Ella was nowhere to be seen like she had just vanished. I realized as she whispered in a tone that conveyed the heartbreak and crushing sadness in her as she whispered in her familiar British accent, “I'm sorry Marie.”

  My own heart felt like a vice was crushing it when my own sorrow hit as I heard in my head, “Eet is ok, mon amour, at least I had one last chance to hold you een my arms.”

  I realized the ramifications of what Dorothy had been saying about not being able to break someone

  else's spells, and that it was about to reassert itself. My girls were one again, with Ella in charge of their body.

  As Toto looked around in surprise at one of us just vanishing, Fenriss jumped back to draw a blade as he scanned the corridor, hissing. I looked back at Dorothy. I didn't expect the look of profound sadness and apology on her face. I gave her a weak smile, and she inhaled deeply and put on an aloof look as she strode forward past us to lead the way. “Come along. We've much to discuss.”

  I looked at my beautiful Ella-Marie, seeing the two souls in her eyes again. I was so grateful I had had the chance to meet the other half of my love in person. For that, I would be forever grateful to this witch of Oz. Ella-Marie silently took my free hand and laced our fingers, then Toto dragged us to catch up with the confusing sorceress.

  Part of me was wondering if Dorothy had known the effect it would have on the three of us to be able to meet after all this time. And I was able to see my girls in a new perspective when I was trapped like Marie has been for centuries. Was the witch really being wicked? Or... had this been her intent?

  Was she giving us a moment to first truly be with, then to understand each other better?

  I looked out the windows and gasped as I gazed down a road of a city that went on as far as my eye could see, gleaming and glittering green towers that s
tretched toward the sky. The Emerald City! And it seemed to be truly made of polished emerald!

  I realized my jaw was hanging open and I snapped it closed, hoping nobody noticed my shock as the sheer scale and majesty of the impossible city we saw. I glanced back to see Fenriss, spinning circles in the corridor behind us, looking for Ella with his blade outstretched, the poor little guy.

  We stepped through an archway and stumbled. My point of view had changed, I realized I was now looking down on the city outside the windows. I glanced back through the arch and saw a conflicting view out those windows. It was impossible.

  Then I chuckled. “It's a Tardis.”

  Toto asked with nostalgia in her voice, “People still know about Doctor Who?”

  I hesitated and reminded her, “It is still playing. Only two years have passed in the mortal realm.”

  She nodded understanding, though she still looked shaken. I reached out a hand and squeezed hers.

  She nodded thanks, and we looked up to see Dorothy watching me offer my support and apology with the gesture, her eyes narrowed and green flame licking in her pupils.

  I swallowed, but Toni just reached up and slapped the back of her head. “Don't be a jealous twit.”

  There were dozens of savage hisses from somewhere when she did that, and Toto looked up and chastised, “Oh shush, you all know she deserved it.”

  Ella-Marie and I looked up, and I froze in mid step. The corridor had hundreds of winged monkeys

  with pikes looking down at us, pikes in their front claws as they hung from pegs in the roof by their tails.

  They were... guarding their leader, Dorothy, from above. I swallowed wondering if they were in our cell too. We started moving again at Toni's prompt and followed a grinning Dorothy into a room through two giant wooden doors.

  We found ourselves in a palatial set of rooms. I could see a huge bed behind some curtains on a raised portion of the space. These were Dorothy's rooms? You could have fit a small village in her apartments. Wow.

  She moved us up to a huge table with a couple dozen chairs and motioned for us to sit. I glanced around first and even up, to see we were alone. Then slid into the chair Ella-Marie was holding for me.

  I gave her a quick loving smile as she joined me in the next chair.

  I jumped a little when something landed on the top of the high backed chair I sat in. I looked up to see a smiling Fenriss. He gave me a wave, and I hesitantly returned it.

  Then after Dorothy helped Toto into a seat, she held her arms wide and said in a booming voice,

  “Ladies – welcome to Oz!”

  Then her voice got really small as she sat with a puzzled look on her face, one eye squinted almost cutely, “Now what the hell are your names?”

  Toto made the introductions and gave a quick explanation as to Ella and Marie's situation. Just how long had she and Marie talked before I woke up? Then we braced ourselves for the game of a trillion questions from Dorothy. But what she asked took us off guard, “Cinderella? No shit? Guess I'm not the only fairytale princess stomping around.”

  I winced and braced for my girl's blurted response, “We're not a fuckin' princess!”

  The two glared at each other, and Toto and I started looking back and forth between them. They were like two peas in a pod. I chuckled inwardly, letting Marie hear my thought about the world not being able to handle two Ella's. She chuckled in response in my head.

  Then the two titans broke into grins. What? That's it? I don't think I'll ever understand my Ella, who offered in a calmer tone, “And we're not Cinderella... Fuckin' Grimm Brothers.”

  Dorothy nodded as she added, “They don't hold a candle to goddamn Baum, damn pain in the ass oracle.”

  Someone... fine, I asked, “Oracle?” A million possibilities flashed through my head.

  Dorothy seemed to deflate into her chair, leaning back and slumping a little, that flame in her eyes igniting again. This was a sore subject I could tell, and one that haunted her if Toto reaching out to take her hand was any indication.

  The green-eyed witch nodded slowly as she said with disdain, “His damn premonitions are what got us stuck here. How I lost – me.” I could hear the heartbreak on the last part.

  Ella-Marie held up a finger for clarification, and I squinted one eye in mock pain. Dorothy has already exhibited that she has no qualms messing with us if she is irritated. Luckily, before she could be her usual brash self, Marie cleared her throat in our heads to stop her.

  The smirk on Toto's face was priceless as she watched us. She offered the clarification, “The great and powerful Wizard of Oz, better known in the mortal realm as Frank Baum, is an ass. All those stories about Dorothy and Oz were all premonitions the man had while he ruled here. He took his show on the road and traveled to Earth to tell Dorothy of her place here in Oz. He wouldn't leave her alone, plying her with the books, and spinning tales of wonder while knowing the real truth the whole time.”

  She had no love for the man, and my own blood was boiling, he did sound like the Brothers Grimm, speaking in half-truths and riddles.

  Dorothy picked up the narrative. “He was whining that the fate of multiple realities depended upon me coming to Oz. Some nonsense about the Elders. When we wouldn't come to Oz with him to fulfill our destiny, he tore a hole though realities to thrust us here. The ass sealed the way home, and we've been looking for it ever since.”

  I cocked an eyebrow, the woman who could alter some aspects of reality itself couldn't find the way back?

  Answering the unasked question Toto supplied, “The wizard is even more powerful than Dorothy.

  She says that he is staying on the other side to hold the way shut, but the moment he opens it to come home again for one of his visits, we'll try to dart through. We keep missing, and it's been two hundred years now.”

  Ella asked, “If the wanker is so powerful, why doesn't he just handle this Elder threat himself?”

  Dorothy said absently as she played with a ball of glowing green magic that she batted between her hands, “Some asinine excuse that he's not allowed to interfere. That it is our destiny to... blah blah blah.” She added as I felt the magic inside her darken, “I'd like to see him one last time to thank him for my loss of self.”

  I realized I could feel the wicked and good energy within her lapping at her consciousness like a tide that followed her moods. It was so fluid, and her mental state seemed to be just as volatile. And right that moment, it was all wickedness and malice.

  That part of her would kill Baum without a second thought, and that scared the hell out of me. Just what did he do that made her lose herself?

  Dorothy's eyes flicked to mine, locking on me, and I felt a shiver of fear zing down my spine.

  “You really want to know the story of Dorothy of Oz? Not that made up shit Baum was vomiting up a century before we came here?” Could she hear my thoughts? Like she could when I was trapped inside of Marie?

  She saw my fear and chuckled as Toto leaned over to lay her head on Dorothy's shoulder. “No I can't read your mind, you just have that same look that everyone who asks gets. Usually, just before I whisk them out of the palace and into the deep forest for annoying me.”

  I must have had a look of profound relief on my face as Dorothy kissed the top of Toni's head and chuckled to Ella-Marie as she winged a thumb toward me, “This one is adorable. I see why you love her so.”

  Ella was no help as she just beamed a smile at me. Women!

  Toto snuggled into her girl and smiled up at her and prompted, “Once upon a time.”

  Dorothy beamed a smile down at her, and I could feel the dark magic balance inside the woman slosh all the way to where it tasted good and caring. She loved her girl. Simple as that.

  Then the witch who was sometimes good and sometimes wicked started to tell us their tale.

  Chapter 5 – Kansas

  The first time I met Baum was the day I was packing up my things in one of our sunflower farm's beat up pickup truc
ks to head off to Central Kansas College. It was so amazing that I, Dorothy Gale was going to college. I was the first Gale to be going to college, the first to seek higher education, and my aunt and uncle were gushing with pride for me.

  I used to be inquisitive about everything before this, good grades followed me through no fault of my own, I just loved to read and learn. That brought the good fortune of me becoming the valedictorian at my little high school in the middle of Tornado Alley in Sylvia, Kansas.

  That's not as impressive as it may sound, we had a graduating class of thirty-six, and I wasn't competing against any mental geniuses. Most of the kids were infected with the lupine curse so didn't really even try.

  And as glamorous as Sylvia may sound, surrounded by land so flat it will drive you mad, and farms from horizon to horizon, I'm here to tell you that it was not. So getting lost in my studies was the only way to keep my sanity.

  Ah, sanity, some days I miss you.

  But I guess all that studying came in handy, as it got me a partial scholarship to a cut-rate college on the fringes of the walled city of Topeka. Aunt Emily and Uncle Henry had been squirreling away a little money here and there between harvests, and I had been saving every penny from the babysitting and bookkeeping I did for our neighbors over the years. It was enough to get me through my first year if I stayed in the dorms protected by full moon bars, and got a part-time job in the big city.

  I had only been to Topeka twice in my life, and it was so thrilling to me to see so many people... so many strangers with so many stories of their own just waiting to be told. It was sort of exciting to go through the gates of the walled city and have to be pricked by a silver needle to prove we were Clean Bloods.

  I was going to be an English major with a minor in History – I wanted to be a teacher. Knowledge had a way of excited me and my sparking imagination in ways that had me thirsting for more.

  What I wouldn't have given to speak with someone new, if just once. There weren't strangers, new people to talk to around our parts, everyone knew everyone, and nothing ever happened except the seasonal tornado sirens sounding and everyone hiding in their root cellars. Or someone getting a werewolf scare when their full moon bars almost failed on an older farm.