“She is not from this realm,” Nick says, and his eyes widen in shock.
“That is unusual.”
“You’re telling me,” I snort.
“I am telling you. It is very unusual to meet an individual from another realm,” he says, and I almost explain but decide it’s pointless and keep quiet.
“Do you recall what the Guardian told you about the Wizard’s power bursting forth when the Witches came for him?” Nick reminds me.
“Right, yes, I do. So, this is the spot?”
“Yes, it is. At this exact spot, the ground cracked open and the magic burst forth. It came in light and fog, formed the face of the Wizard, and said, ‘I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Witness my power. This city you dare set foot in is sacred ground. No Vampires may enter. From this hollow, the force of my power emanates. Anyone who dares to violate this order will feel my wrath.’ Then, his magic engulfed both Vampire witches and ejected them from the city. Then he said, ‘For those who know the sacred words, speak them while gazing into the depths of the hollow. To you, I will reveal great wonders.’ The banister grew in the next day and that was on the plaque,” he says and shrugs.
“Is that true, or is that legend?” Nick asks.
“It’s true. I was here when it happened, and I remember every word.”
“Are you a founding resident of the city?” Nick asks.
“I watched it grow from the ground with my own eyes. At first, it was only those of us in Emerald who moved in, but many more peaceful people from all over Oz began to arrive. And the city keeps growing. The buildings get taller and taller every year that passes.”
“Wow.”
“We are very lucky to live here.”
“We don’t live here. He will soon, but I will return to my realm.”
“That is too bad. It is a peaceful city and a wonderful place to live, even for living humans. There is no other place like it in the realm. I must get back now. Good luck to you both. Enjoy your stay,” he says.
We wave goodbye as he walks through the front doors of a large storefront a few feet away with an awning that says, ‘Zombie Mart.’ And in the tinted green window hangs a large sign that says in bold, green, swirling letters, ‘Fill your belly with Brain Jelly!’
I turn back toward Nick as Toto hops up on my leg with his little tail wagging.
“Tired of walking already?” I say as I bend over and pick him up. When I stand upright, he peeks into the hollow straightaway. He must have wanted a better view.
“I wonder what the words are,” Nick says as he looks into the hollow with Toto.
I turn my attention to the giant emerald cluster lined hole with no bottom in sight oozing thick green glittery fog that smells like fresh baked sugar cookies and roses, and I say, “What are the sacred words, oh Great and Terrible Oz?”
A rush of that magical feeling rolls through me, then a soft, prismatic light shimmers from my chest and floats into the foggy hollow.
“What was that?” Nick asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, just as stunned as he is when words write themselves out before us.
“Whoa,” I breathe. “Do you see that?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Let’s read it,” I say, itching to do it—I want to see great wonders.
“I do not know,” he says, hesitant.
“Whatever, I’m reading it,” I say, now determined. He grumbles and sighs.
“Fine. Ready?” he says, and I nod.
In unison, we read the words before us.
“Ozerikhalizo. Ozakygotuzo. Ozodequiazo. Ozuhmwapuzo.”
The letters disperse and nothing happens. A moment passes and words form in magic before us again, and we read them aloud as they appear.
“Ez… Yaz… Iz… Uz… Oz…”
The glittering green fog that bubbles up from the hollow twists into itself creating a vortex, a whirlpool of mist that sweeps Nick, Toto, and me off our feet. It carries us over the balustrade into its center while every person around watches slack jawed. As we spin around and down the funnel waist deep in luminescent fog, I worry I might end up back in Kansas with Nick considering I came here in a very similar way. I clutch Toto to me with one hand and reach out for Nick’s hand with the other. He grasps it tight and pulls me to him, wrapping his arms around me and Toto as we spin down and down and down the funnel. The sky above has disappeared and all we see in its place is a tube of green sparkling smoke that arcs and curves.
As we spin down the funnel clutching each other, the thick mist engulfs us, and the scent of magic overwhelms me. Toto barks and Nick holds us tighter as the fog thins. We rise straight up and soon we are floating toward the mouth of the hollow. The mist that remains around us morphs into a large bubble with a pop. I look down at Toto and somehow his green bow has become a fancy gold collar. When I turn to Nick, he wears gold head to toe and has a gold crown upon his head. More now than ever before, he is devastatingly handsome. When our eyes meet, his eyes widen at the sight of me.
“Dorothy,” he breathes. “You look like a princess.”
I look down at myself to find a golden gown on my body, and when I raise my hand to my head, I feel strands of my hair pulled back in an elaborate hairdo pinned with jewels.
“So do you,” I say and he holds back a smile. “But not a princess. A prince, or something regal. Whatever, you know what I mean—we’re dressed like twinsies and you’re wearing a freaking crown,” I say with an eye roll, and he chuckles at me.
A roar of cheers turns our attentions away from each other as we emerge from the mouth of the hollow. When we look out at the surrounding city, there is a crowd of people in the streets and they’re all cheering and waving at us. We wave back, not sure what to make of it.
The city looks different too. So different it’s jarring. It’s like our realms have amalgamated somehow. Everyone below cheers and waves as we float over their heads. They wear far more contemporary clothing, and the storefronts around us have a far more modern aesthetic. One zombie in the crowd even has a video call going with another zombie on a tablet with emerald accents. Everyone still wears the glasses, but they look more like wraparounds or VR goggles.
Our bubble rises and the cheers of the crowd fade the higher we go. From up here, just how much the city has changed becomes even more clear. The emerald buildings are taller, far taller than before, and floating in the sky about them are magic billboards with ads that move like cinemagraphs.
On a floating billboard we pass is a moving image for ruby accented smartphones and tablets with 3D projection screens. In giant print beside the image is a slogan that says Walk while you talk. Talkie-Walk.
Down the road, ahead of our bubble, a billboard turns a corner with an ad for futuristic flying sports cars that reads: New Jinjurly Zippiwizzers. Now with eight hundred and eighty-eight Ozwatts of power. The billboard makes the turn and I notice on the other side is an ad for a misty green microwave called an OzGen Sizzle Zizzle.
A few feet ahead of that billboard is another billboard with an ad for a 3D wall size smart TV on a thin sheet of emerald crystal that reads Emerald Vision Watchy Wall by Jurbil Wizardry. Now with OzConnect.
“What is this?” Nick says, looking around in awe.
“An alternate universe?”
“What?”
“This version of your world looks like what would happen if technology merged with magic. It’s like your realm and my realm are one realm.”
Our bubble rises higher and higher, coiling around the same shifter building we circled when we first arrived. It’s the tallest building in the city, and it’s far taller than it was before. The higher we go, the farther away we can see, and it seems the rampart that surrounds the city, although still there, is no longer its border. Far beyond its walls, the city has grown, expanded for miles upon miles with beautiful, affluent, suburban and farm communities on the outskirts. The city looks far more industrial in parts than before, but it’s all still beautiful. Zippy
wizzers fly about while Oz bubbles float over the city carrying people.
We rise higher and higher, up past the clouds, to find the aviary gleaming light and magical green mist, and the higher we float, the more nervous I get.
“Where are we going?” I say as our bubble floats through cloud after cloud. Soon enough, the sky is below us and what’s above is the blazing sun and dark space filled with stars. We’re too close to the hot white roiling star and dread overtakes me.
“I’d rather not fly into the sun, if you don’t mind,” I say aloud to the bubble and Nick grips me tighter to him.
The bubble turns just in time and veers away from the bright burning star into the darkness of space. Nebulas and constellations I’ve never seen glitter and glow throughout the dark sky. Below us is a planet steeped in a rainbow of colors, bold and bright, like a Fauvist masterpiece—if Matisse or Derain painted a planet surrounded by stars, it would look something like this. Pastel clouds caress oceans in every shade of blue. Each country’s land a different vibrant color that marks their borders to create the most vivid planet I could have ever imagined. The geography is not the same as Earth, or it’s as if the land mass never split apart into the seven continents of the civilized realm.
Through nebulous clouds of green and blue, we float farther away from the planet until we come to a dead stop. Behind us is pure darkness. Before us is a glittering rainbow universe, and the closest planet in sight is the rainbow world that contains Oz. Colorful clouds of interstellar dust and rich-hued stars frame the world to create an enchanting vision—it’s a magical work of art and the most exquisite sight I have ever seen.
“Wow,” I breathe.
Nick and I turn our heads toward each other, and when our eyes meet, his gaze splits me open. It’s as bare as I feel. From the darkest strokes to the lightest wisps of color, every aspect of who he is makes a person I find to be as beautiful as the scene before us. I’m head over heels and I hate he doesn’t feel the same way, but I understand and I’m grateful for his friendship. My eyes are glassy, brimming with unshed tears, but I smile. As he examines my face, probably to remember me by, I am certain I could never forget his, and I never will.
He leans in and my heart jumps, hoping he might kiss me, hoping he’s feeling even a smidgeon of what I am, and right as our lips are about to touch, a glaring light shines from the darkness at our backs. As we turn our heads, we find white light has overtaken everything behind us and draws us toward it. The pull is so strong I fear our magic bubble will pop, and the light is so bright we both have to look away. As we do, we see the world we came from and the darkly vibrant space around it shrink until we are outside it altogether.
Surrounded by white, looking at a universe contained inside a bubble much like the one we are in, we stare in wonder as it spins on its axis. The bubble moves forward in an arcing curve when three more universe bubbles come into view. Each one moves parallel to another forming a helix in its perpetual motion. Our bubble floats through the endless brilliancy toward the dark spiraling spheres, and the closer we get the slower they spin.
On one end is a sphere of light and dark whose outer walls are a pure waving luster, colorless and glistening. Inside the fluttering clear gloss are accents of shimmering black against a vibrant, glittering center, a nucleus that bursts like a silver sparkler. Next is the prismatic universe we came from that glimmers with variegated mists, vivid stars, and a world in a rainbow of colors. Beside it is one that looks far more familiar, with constellations I recognize. It’s not as arresting as the one that contains Oz, there is no glittering mist, but the stars still shine and there are still glimmers of color and light amidst the dark, still black that surrounds the faint flickers.
Made of bubbling reds, from the fieriest scarlet to a red as black as blood, the fourth sphere swirls in dark crimson shimmers and a sparkling wine so dark they verge on black. Amidst the shimmery swirls, specks of light from the palest pink to the most vivid neon red scintillate around gleaming orbs that burn and bubble and spark through their cracked fissures.
Each sphere spins at a different speed from the one beside it, but they all seem to move forward together on the same track at the same speed, but it looks as though they have no destination, no purpose other than hurtling through the endless whiteness, spiraling on in a dizzying corkscrew to nowhere.
“Are those the realms?”
“I think so,” says Nick.
“Only four with all this brilliance around them?” I ask when our bubble turns and shoots into the white away from the realms we come from, and after an amount of time I can’t discern, we see a bird’s-eye view of a kaleidoscope of dots that create a moving pattern that resembles the Flower of Life. The magic of Oz integrates this symbol into so many of its designs, and now I see why.
“What is it?” Nick asks.
“Everything. Nothing. All of it.”
“Then what is this light?”
“The encasement, the shell. Like an egg. It’s the white. That is the yoke.”
“How do you know this?”
“I don’t. I’m just talking out of my ass.”
“What?” he says and huffs a laugh of shock.
“I’m just bullshitting. You know, guessing,” I say and his smile beams. He looks even more beautiful in his white and gold princely attire against the pure white energy that surrounds us.
“Oh, Dorothy, I adore you.”
“I think you’re pretty great too, Nick,” I say, and his bright smile warms as he hugs me to him.
This will forever be the most extraordinary moment of my existence. There’s only one thing I can think of that would make it better. So, I muster the courage to lift my head from his chest and look up at his chiseled face.
Our eyes lock, and we gaze at each other through a sea of unspoken emotions. Waves of words I wish I could say but won’t crash into me—I’m positive I love him. It’s as though my heart decided for the rest of me and doesn’t seem to care he sees me as a buddy. But I love him in a way I’ve loved no one. The feeling is so much more intense than anything I expected.
When he breaks our gaze and his eyes fall to my mouth, I dare to lean toward him. With my heart racing in my chest I wait for him to respond, to meet me halfway, and thank goodness he does, but then our eyes meet and sadness saturates his mien—it looks a lot like pity. Before I can spiral into defeat, Toto barks, and we turn our heads right as we enter the magical realm and speed through a colorful, glittering dark space to the world that holds the Lands of Oz.
The speed of our bubble increases as we hurtle toward the ground racing through layers of clouds and clear blue sky. In a dive straight into the water, we fly head first into the surface of the world. I am terrified of what happens next, but I can’t imagine the magic of Oz would bring us through all this just to send us to our deaths, so I relax about it and let myself enjoy the ride.
We pull up right before we hit the water and an exhilarated squeal flies out of me. Nick laughs at my giddiness as we speed toward land. We pass an island or two so fast I can’t make anything out, and when we reach the mainland, we sail over it so swiftly it’s nothing but a blur of streaking colors.
Everything goes dark, as if we’ve gone underground, and soon the glittering green fog engulfs us again. I look to Nick and he is back in his clothing from before, and when I look down at myself, so am I. We careen around the shaft of a magic funnel until we’re shot out into the night, up through the mouth of the Enchanted Hollow. Screams and shouts ring out as we emerge and float away.
Magic illuminates the city that glows against the dark night sky. The streets are just as packed as they were during the day, but now all the taverns, restaurants, and nightclubs are open and packed with people.
We float through the streets toward the palace and circle it, passing the front door by. Where is this bubble taking us?
Hidden in an enclave below the roof of a charming turret is a latticed garden dripping in beautiful flowers. Bloo
ms of vibrant pinks, reds, purples, blues, and their loose petals cover the garden floor. But in the center with not one petal on its surface, is a large, emerald, circular tile with the Flower of Life symbol carved into it. As I look around at this flower covered secret garden, I notice Oz wove the crystal lattice in the same Flower of Life pattern.
I put Toto down and take a step toward the large emerald circle. It opens up in a kaleidoscope of crystal layers, and when it closes, a beautiful candlelight dinner covers its surface. Toto trots right over and with his little mouth, pulls his emerald bowl filled with chunks of red meat over to a thick pile of petals, gets comfy, and starts eating. Even Nick can’t help but smile at how adorable he is.
“Shall we eat the meal Oz has prepared for us?” Nick suggests.
“We shall,” I say and sit before a place setting on a bed of flower petals, and Nick sits opposite me.
“So Oz, the Wizard, showed us all that?”
“They say the magic is his.”
“What do you think?”
“I think the magic comes from the land. Or that is what my mother taught me. I do not know for certain. Since I have met you, I have seen things that make me doubt it.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You called magic out of the sky.”
“But Ardie said the sky is a part of the land.”
“But your magic does not look the same as the other witches. I have seen them all. Gayelette’s magic is white as is the land she is from. North Munchkin is all white. Clear crystals grow from the snow covered ground. The trees are white and so are their leaves. Only white flowers grow there. Those lands are hers and her magic is as white as the North.
“Then there is Glinda, the Slayer Witch of the South. She is from Quadling and rules over those lands. Her magic is red because in Quadling, everything is red. Vibrant red rubies grow from the red ground. The trees are redwood with red leaves and only red flowers are native to that country. I heard Glinda grows other flowers in her garden, but Quadling flowers are always one shade of red or another. The magic of Emerald is green, as you have seen, and so on and so forth. But your magic is all the colors. Like a rainbow. And it comes from the sky. That is not usual.
Dorothy In the Land of Monsters Page 29