The Wicked Years Complete Collection

by Gregory Maguire

  Their eyes both drifted to a milk jug on the table between them where a fistful of listing tulips, papery and translucent with age, had dropped a few browned petals. Sad, really. Condemning. She tried again. “In truth, I’ve been composing my memoirs, and the country is conducive to reflection, don’t you see.”

  “But why have you parked yourself in a country home abroad instead of in Loyal Oz, from where the Arduennas and the Uplands hail?”

  “Darling Cherrystone. Lord Chuffrey’s family had this house long before Munchkinland seceded—what, is it thirty years ago by now? And when I became Throne Minister, and this place remained accessible via the east-leading branch of the Yellow Brick Road, why shouldn’t I repair here? I could get back and forth to the capital with ease and safety.”

  “You could have relocated. There are other great houses within a few days’ ride of the Palace.”

  “But this house. It’s the real thing. Pallantine Revival, don’t you know. Without any of those tacky so-called improvements affixed with sticky tape and safety pins … no, it’s simply the best of its kind. You must have noticed the twice-etched pillars inlaid with strabbous onyx on either side of the south porch? In ranks of three? Genuine Parrith’s, I tell you, verified by the Parrith Society. He didn’t work in onyx anywhere else, not even in the Emerald City.”

  “In fidelity to the nation, a patriot would pick up and move house…” His tone was ominous, as if he had forgotten to notice the south porch. The oaf.

  “This house doesn’t move. Most don’t. Or are you referring to Dorothy?” she said coldly. “She moved house rather capably, as we all remember. Mercy, could she move house.”

  “Always clever. But, Lady Glinda, you align yourself with the wrong sort if you do not step in line.”

  “I didn’t draw this line, or any others. And if by ‘the wrong sort’ you are referring to the departed Thropp sisters, Nessarose and Elphaba, well, that’s tired business. They’ve been dead and gone, what, fifteen, sixteen years now.”

  “I have little time for this; I’ve heard what I need. You have not declared yourself unequivocally patriotic. That’s now a matter of public record. But I warn you, Lady Glinda. There are borders one should not cross.”

  “If Elphaba observed any border, she’d go out of her way to trespass against it. Or are we talking, obliquely, about social class? Have a brandy, it’s nearly noonday. Miss Murth, are you composed enough to decant something for us?”

  Cherrystone said, “I must decline. There is much to arrange. You have been served notice of detention at home. I am taking over Mockbeggar Hall as my headquarters.”

  Glinda sat forward and gripped the arms of her chair, though her voice remained casual. “I would do the same were I you, I suppose. It isn’t often that a boy of your humble beginnings gets to lodge in a jewel box like this. Will you be a honey, though, and do mind your bloody boots when it comes to the sofas?”

  His boots shone like ice, of course.

  “And where will you expect me to lodge?” she continued in a stiffer voice. “Do you intend to plunge me and my staff into some oubliette?”

  “You may maintain your private apartments and you won’t be disturbed. I am afraid we shall have to dismiss your staff.”

  She gave a laugh. “I don’t do without staff. Sir.” Her refusing to use his military title was intended as an insult, and she watched it land.

  “A skeletal company then. Two, three.”

  “A dozen. And the departing staff will need guarantee of safe passage through the armies that seem”—she indicated the window—“to be wreaking havoc in the hydrangeas.”

  “Please submit a list of those who will remain so we can have them vetted.”

  He crossed his long legs, as if making bivouac in some forest glade. The nerve.

  “I mean now,” he added.

  “Oh, my goodness, military life is so brusque. I had quite forgotten. Have you forgotten, Commander Cherrystone, that in my station—”

  “General. General Cherrystone, not Commander.”

  “Oh, I beg your pardon.” Could he tell she was having him on? “Nonetheless, though I wish I’d maintained a private army to turf you out, I shall do as you request in return for your promise not to molest those staff who must be made redundant. I shall require, let’s see. A chef, a sommelier, a butler. That’s three. An ostler and a driver. That’s five. And a lady-in-waiting as chaperone at home…” She gestured toward the woman nearby. “Not you, Miss Murth, you are too dour.”

  Miss Murth wailed.

  “Only kidding, Miss Murth! Though I turn serious if you shriek again.”

  “That’s six,” said Cherrystone. “More than enough. Though in actual fact you won’t need an ostler or a driver.”

  “Surely you don’t plan to confine me? To keep me from making my rounds among the poor of the parish?”

  He snorted. “You’re doing charity?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised. It’s bundles of fun.”

  “When you wish to dispense largesse, you can rely on me to supply you a driver and a chaperone. We’ll subtract two from your list of six. No ostler, no driver. That leaves you four. That sounds quite enough.”

  “Oh, and yes, I shall need a girl to help me bathe.”

  “You’ve forgotten how to bathe?”

  “The powders, dear Sir. The unguents. The gentle persuasion of peroxide. You need study me more closely, or do you think such beauty as I pretend to is wholly of the natural order?”

  He colored slightly. She had him, and carried on. “Unless you want to dispatch a young foot soldier to do the work? In the interest of military economies? Very well, if I must. Provided I get to interview the nominees and make the choice myself. I pride myself on being able to tell a healthy—”

  “Five retainers, then. Submit to me their names and their points of origin. You will not be allowed to maintain Munchkinlanders, I am afraid.”

  “Well, we stand in agreement on that matter, for I always found old-stock Munchkins too petite to reach the sideboard. In any event one is wise to keep the sherry on an upper shelf, don’t you know.”

  He ticked on the fingers of one hand. “A companion, a butler, a chef, a sommelier, a private maid. You may take the afternoon to write out their references. But we’ll drop the sommelier, I think. I know a bit about wine. I’ll take pleasure in making recommendations myself.”

  “I don’t supply supporting documents, General Cherrystone. I am Lady Glinda.” She stood up so suddenly she felt light-headed. “Your horses are eating my roses. Miss Murth, would you see the General out?”

  When he’d gone, she remained at the window. Restwater, the largest of Oz’s lakes, glowed keenly white in the high sun. A few storks waded in the rushes of the nearer cove. She could glimpse little sign of the fishing fleet out on the water. The fishermen had tucked their vessels up tightly somewhere, and were hoping to sit out the invasion without starving.

  There was no safe place in Oz for Glinda. She knew this. The government administrators in the Emerald City—the Emperor’s men—were just waiting for her to emerge. She was too popular a figurehead to be allowed to swan about freely in the EC. Her longtime sponsorship of an institute of maunts latterly accused of printing seditious broadsides was enough reason to lock her away. Risky business, offering patronage. No, her bread was buttered good and hard on the wrong side. Better to tough it out here and manage her private obligations as best she might, for as long as she could.

  3.

  By noontime the next day the soldiers’ horses had drunk the fountain dry. The forecourt of crushed lake abalone reeked with horse manure. “Do bring a message to the General,” said Glinda, “and inform him that there’s a whole lake forty feet beyond the lawns. Since this invasion is all about the appropriation of water, perhaps he’d be so kind as to lead his cavalry down to the water’s edge?”

  “I do not think, Lady Glinda, that he listens to me overmuch,” said Miss Murth unhappily. “I would no
t command his attention.”

  “Try. We are all under pressure, Miss Murth. We must do our best. And we may be confined for some time, so I suppose I should convene a colloquy among the help. Propose a common attitude toward this intrusion, and so on. What do you think?”

  “I was never good at current affairs. I preferred the arts of needlework and correspondence.”

  “Correspondence? To whomever would you write?”

  “Well. The papers.”

  “So you took the papers. You never read the papers, surely?”

  “I found news somewhat sullying.” Miss Murth fluffed the feathers on Lady Glinda’s afternoon hat; they remained droopy. But Lady Glinda wasn’t going anywhere. “It wasn’t a wise choice, I now see,” said Miss Murth. “I might have followed politics, but I preferred the society columns. When you were in them.”

  “Surely I’m in them still.”

  Miss Murth sighed. “It’s a shame about the horse droppings.”

  “Miss Murth. Are you listening?”

  Miss Murth straightened her shoulders to indicate that she was indeed listening, damn it.

  “You ought to follow events, Miss Murth. You remember that skirmish by Munchkinlanders into Loyal Oz last fall? Oh, don’t look at me like that, it was west of here, near that strip of land that divides Kellswater and Restwater. You remember. Near the mauntery of Saint Glinda, where I sometimes like to go and consider my soul, my debts, my diet, and so on? Yes?”

  “Yes. With those cloistered ladies who think they’re so holy.”

  “Miss Murth. Do try to attend. Out of the goodness of my heart I’m sharing what I have picked up.”

  “The skirmish. Yes. Everyone was so vexed,” recalled Miss Murth, aiming at drollery and achieving condescension. “It completely upended the social season.”

  Damn the attitude of help; Glinda was talking this out to get it straight in her own head. “When by winter’s end our Munchkinlander tenants and neighbors had retreated under the superior fire of the EC forces, they scurried back east. I hear they’ve been beavering about, renovating some antique fortress at the easternmost end of the lake. Where the Munchkin River debouches. So I believe General Cherrystone is stopping here to wait for reinforcements before pressing farther east. If he takes the fort at the head of the lake, he’ll have access to the river, which is a virtual high road of water straight into the breadbasket of Oz, straight to Bright Lettins and to the seat of the Munchkinland government at Colwen Grounds.”

  “Where the Thropp family used to live, back in the day.” Miss Murth sniffed.

  “Indeed. Well, not Elphaba, nor her brother Shell. Oh excuse me: Emperor. But their great-grandfather the Eminent Thropp ruled from that house. A pretentious heap compared to Mockbeggar’s understated charm! But never mind all that. It’s on the strength of his bloodlines that Shell Thropp claims Colwen Grounds and, by extension, the right to rule all of Munchkinland. So he starts with Restwater, which until the secession of Munchkinland twenty-umpty years ago, or something like that, had always provided water for the Emerald City.”

  “If we’re through reviewing current events,” said Miss Murth, “the General is waiting for the list of staff. He threatens to imprison the whole lot of us if he doesn’t receive it by teatime.”

  “Very well. Find a quill and take down this list. You can remind me of the names, if you will. Put yourself first, Miss Murth. Have you a first name?”

  “Yes, in fact.”

  “How alarming. Next, Chef. What’s he called?”

  “Ig Baernaeraenaesis.”

  “Write Chef. Write Puggles the Butler.”

  “His real name is Po Understar.”

  “Oh, this is so tedious! Am I expected to remember these names? Is that the lot? Are we missing anyone? I think that’s it.”

  “You requested a chambermaid.”

  “That’s right, I did. Now whom should I pick? There’s Mirrtle. She’s a little cross-eyed but she plays a mean hand of graboge. There’s the broomgirl who does the steps. I don’t recall her name. And then silly Floxiaza. No, she steals my cologne. Not Floxiaza. What do you think? Mirrtle, shall we?”

  “I like Mirrtle,” said Miss Murth. “One can rely on Mirrtle to keep a civil tongue to her superiors.”

  “Then I’ll choose the broomgirl. Write down the broomgirl. What is her name?”

  “I’ll ask her,” said Miss Murth. “Nobody ever uses it so I doubt she’ll remember, but maybe she’ll surprise us all. May I deliver this now? I don’t want to appear cowering but the General seems insistent.”

  “I suppose I should sign it.”

  “I have signed it for you.”

  “You’re a blessing in disguise.” Glinda looked her over. “A very capable disguise. You may consider yourself dismissed.”

  4.

  She was standing at a weir. Though later she realized someone must have built it, at the time it seemed just another caprice of nature. An S-shaped curve of broad flat stones, to channel the water, slow it, creating a deep pool on the upstream edge. Along that side a fretwork of bentlebranch fronds had been twisted and laced together laterally, further helping to slow the water that coursed through—when water coursed, that is. Today it was frozen.

  Probably she’d been wearing boots, but she didn’t remember boots, or mittens, or even a coat. What the mind chooses to collect, and what it throws away!

  She leaned from the walkway over the top of the artificial thicket. She could see that the whole affair guided the stream through a channel. Good for fishing.

  The surface of the stream was glassy, here and there dusted with snow. Beneath the surface of the ice some hardy reed still waved underwater with the slowed-down motion of a dream. She could almost see her face there beneath all this cold, among the hints of green, of spring.

  Never one for studying herself, though, her eye had caught a flick of movement a few feet on. In a pocket in the ice of the stream, a little coppery fish was turning round and round, as if trapped. How had it gotten separated from the members of its school, who were probably all buried in the mud, lost in cold dreams till spring? Though she couldn’t have known about hibernation yet.

  One hand on the unstable balustrade, she ventured onto the ice. The trapped fish needed to be released. It would die in its little natural bowl. Die of loneliness if nothing else. She knew about loneliness.

  A stick came to her unmittened hand somehow. She must have dropped her mittens, the better to grasp the stick. Or she’d been out without protection. It didn’t matter. She bashed at the ice for some time, never thinking that the floor could capsize and she might go in the drink. Drown, or freeze, or become mighty uncomfortable some other way.

  Little by little she hacked away a channel. The fish heard the vibrations and circled more vigorously, but there was no place for it to go. Finally she had opened a hole big enough for her finger.

  The fish came up and nestled against her, as if her forefinger were a mother fish. The scrap of brilliance leaned there, at a slight tilt.

  That’s what she remembered, anyway.

  She had gone on to release the fish. What had she done with it? With the stream frozen over? The rest was lost, lost to time. Like so much.

  But she remembered the way the fish bellied against her finger.

  This must be another very early memory. Was no one looking after her? Why was she always out alone?

  And where had this taken place? Where in the world did childhood happen, anyway?

  5.

  Glinda finished her morning tisane and waited, but no one came to take away the tray. Oh, right, she remembered. But where was Murth when you needed her? The woman was useless. Useless and pathetic.

  A light rain pattered, just strong enough to make the idea of Glinda’s giving an audience in the forecourt something of a mistake. She’d rather send remarks through a factotum, but that was the problem: the factotums were getting the boot. The least she could do was give her good-byes in person.
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br />   There was nothing for it but that Glinda must poke about the wardrobe herself and locate some sort of bumbershoot.

  Puggles saw her struggling with the front door and rescued her. “Let me help, Mum,” he said, relieving her of the umbrella. It had a handle carved to look like a flying monkey; she hadn’t noticed that. Probably Cherrystone would decide that the umbrella was grounds for her execution. Well, stuff him with a rippled rutabaga.

  “Everyone’s assembled, Mum,” said Puggles. “As you requested. Too bad about the weather, but there you are.”

  She’d written some notes all by herself, but raindrops smeared the ink when she took them out of her purse. “Goodness, Puggles,” she said in a low voice. “Do so many work here?”

  “Until today.”

  “I never quite realized. Well, one rarely assembles the staff all at once.”

  “Once a year. The below-stairs staff party at Lurlinemas. But you don’t attend.”

  “I send the ale and those funny little baskets from the Fairy Preenella, one for everybody.”

  “Yes, Mum. I know. I order them and arrange for their delivery myself.”

  Was he being uppity? She couldn’t blame him. She should have realized the household staff was this large. There must be seventy people gathered here. “If this is the number on which we normally rely, how are we to get along with only a skeletal crew, Puggles?”

  But he’d stepped back to join the paltry retinue that would not be dismissed, which had lined up behind her.

  Awkward. In what degree of affection or distance ought she to address them? The situation was grave; many of them were in tears. She was glad she had worn the watered-silk moss luncheon gown with the peek-a-boo calf flare and the carmine collar; she’d be stunning against Mockbeggar’s rose-colored stucco and ivory entablatures. A comfort to the staff, she hoped, her ability to maintain her style. An example.