The Wicked Years Complete Collection

by Gregory Maguire

  “Oh, I’m going to be something larger than a bread box?”

  “Hurry up.”

  He did as he was told. The air felt good on his skin. They let him pee as a human, and then helped him climb into the cart. Nakedness among men might once have bothered him for all sorts of reasons, but it didn’t bother him now. He was going to his death in a tumbrel, humble as a deposed king.

  The captain cradled Liir’s head in his gloved hand and forced the vial to his lips; he was like a child being given medicine. Elphaba had never given him medicine, though. It had been Sarima, or Nor, or Nanny. Elphaba hadn’t noticed if he was ever sick or dead. The feel of the captain’s strong hand on his scalp and the plug of the silvery flask at his still bruised lips felt almost tender. He could see only fans of golden leaves against the autumnal blue sky. The world was waving him out, cheerily enough. He closed his eyes not to betray his sense of final calm.

  “For all our sakes, may this be a safe crossing,” said the captain. The last thing Liir heard. Behind his eyelids, the sun began to blacken in segments, and sound peeled back like a rind, exposing the silence within it.

  Above the cart, an old Eagle watched with a steady eye. He saw the donkeys struck with cudgels, he saw the naked man curled like an overgrown embryo. He saw poison administered. He didn’t know this was intended as a temporary death, a coup de théâtre. He hadn’t been able to hear well; hearing he left for his friend the Hawk, who was nowhere near.

  When the cart moved, the Eagle waited a while and then made a short circling flight, keeping to a height. He didn’t want to be seen paying his last respects. Liir would have preferred this final indignation to be private, he knew. Liir was like that.

  Kynot watched as his old friend, the boy-broomist, began to tremble in his death, and thicken. Liir’s lifeless body didn’t so much disappear as become bloated with something that looked fungal, growing from his limbs, spine, buttocks. The swellings emerged pale, like new mushrooms after an overnight downpour, but blackened as they enlarged. The wounds on Liir’s back disappeared, and that was a mercy, even to an Eagle who abhors sentiment of any variety.

  He waited only to see what shape Liir would take in death, in case the information was ever useful to him. One never knew. By the time the Eagle was ready to fly away on his unsteady wings—he was good only for short hauls with longish rests, these days—he recognized Liir as the corpse of a small Black Elephant. The soldiers must have known that was the aim of the liquor, as they pulled from their supplies a silly sort of mash-up of harness and brocade and arranged it on Liir’s back like a crumpled howdah, ruined in battle. Then they took on the aspect of mourning, and raised a periwinkle standard, the sign of request for safe passage.

  Go in peace, or something like that, thought Kynot, and flew away.

  7.

  If Tip has been brave enough to go look for the Grimmerie in Munchkinland,” said Rain, “I’m going to the Emerald City and present myself to the great and powerful Emperor of Oz. If he has the Grimmerie, he can keep it. But if he has my father, I want him back.”

  Chistery had only been acquainted with Rain for a week, but he knew her well enough not to doubt her. “Suicidal, but I’ll pack you a satchel,” he said.

  “Wait a minute,” said Iskinaary. “Your parents have spent their whole lives keeping you out of the way of trouble. They’ve lived and, who knows, they’ll die for it. And you’re identifying some adolescent martyr impulse in that flat breast of yours? Squelch it, darling, or I’ll squelch it for you.”

  “I’m going,” said Rain. “How much good has choosing to be fugitive done anyone? No one has ever stood up to Shell, at least not since the Conference of the Birds. That political gesture should have been only a beginning. Discussion comes next. I’ll bargain with him if I have to.”

  “Hi-ho, I don’t think we can be of use in this particular venture,” said Mr. Boss.

  “We’re going,” said Little Daffy. “At least as far as the gates of the Emerald City, anyway.”

  “Isn’t marriage bliss?” he replied, and went to ready his kit.

  “Well, it’s a fool’s errand, and I suppose I’m fool enough to qualify. I’m coming too, then,” said the Goose, but Rain said, “Think again. If you didn’t go with my father when he was kidnapped, you can bloody well stay here. When my mother comes back with the broom, you need to tell her where we are.”

  “Chistery can do that,” said the Goose.

  “Chistery can’t fly on his old wings. If my mother has the broom and can learn to fly it, she’ll have to catch up to us soon enough. You can accompany her, if you want to accompany someone. And if she doesn’t come back, but something else happens…” She meant, if Tip returns for me, and they all knew what she meant though she didn’t put it into words. “… you can come let me know.”

  There was sense in what she said, but Iskinaary didn’t like being bossed around by a schoolgirl. He hissed and rushed at her legs. She batted him away absentmindedly as if she couldn’t bother to feel the pinches.

  She was furious at Tip, and fury made a useful source of energy. She’d never known. It was almost fun until she realized that the fury was partly a disguise for raw fear. How could he keep safe? In some ways Tip was more innocent than she was. However hobbled a childhood she’d had, she’d learned to be more wary than he had.

  One final time she mounted the steps to the Witch’s chambers. She looked around to see if there was some scrap of something bewitched she might take as a souvenir, in case she never came back. In a wild sense, this was her ancestral home, though she’d never seen it before, and by the looks of things the castle wouldn’t survive the next earthquake. She might never see it again.

  She couldn’t find anything worth saving. The dead scraps of beast bored her now. She intended to live among the living for a while longer, so she wanted no huffle yet with bones and bits. “You’re enough for me, Tay,” she said to the otter.

  For reasons she couldn’t name, she went up to the gazing globe. It came off the stand easily enough. She held the world in her hands, if it was still the world. “I don’t care,” she told it, “don’t show me another glimpse more, it’s too much.” But she looked again. Was she seeing herself, cold and heartless at last? The face in the globe looked green and leering, mocking. Almost daring her to manage this mayhem. She hurtled the glass bubble out the window so widely that she never heard a crash.

  From under a bench she pulled a few baskets. One of them revealed a substantial collection of deer antlers; she left them there. Another had desiccated bits of moss, or that’s what it looked like now; she didn’t want to know. A third had a scatter of spare buttons. Imagine the Witch sewing on her own buttons! Rain clattered the lot all over the floor and left the room with the basket, which was the right size.

  She didn’t look back to see if the crocodrilos was rolling its dice at her. She didn’t care.

  On the way downstairs she passed a children’s dormitory and went in. Underneath one of the beds was a grey stuffed mouse. Rain put it on her finger for a moment, then slipped it in her pocket.

  Next level down, she stopped to peek in at Nanny, who now slept in a library off the reception rooms. Nanny was awake, awake enough, and sat up happily among her pillows when Rain came forward.

  “My Elphie, give Nanny a kiss,” she said.

  “I’m not Elphaba, Nanny, I never was.”

  “That’s a duck. No, I suppose you’re not, or not today. When is she expected back? Off larking I suppose?”

  “I suppose.” But Rain had never mastered lying and she didn’t want to lie to Nanny as she left her behind. “She’s not coming back, Nanny. She’s gone.”

  “Oh, she’s a tricky one, she is,” said Nanny. “Don’t you fret.”

  “I’m leaving now, too,” said Rain.

  “If you see her, tell her to hurry herself up. I can’t be doing about the oven any more or I’ll set myself on fire, the way she did.”

  “Nanny.”
Rain tried one final time. “What did you come upon when you got to the parapet? The day Dorothy threw the bucket of water at her? You were the first one up the stairs, and you never let anyone else see.”

  “No, I didn’t, did I,” said Nanny. “I was a smartypuss, I was.”

  “But—but what? What was there? What did you do with her body?”

  “Little girl,” said Nanny, “you don’t need to worry your head about that. I did the right and proper thing, to save that Liir any more grief. Adults know what to do. What to do, and what to say, and while I haven’t always been the most honest woman in my life, I’m telling you the truth now.”

  Rain leaned forward and grasped Nanny’s hands.

  “And the truth is this. What I did is none of your business.”

  Rain almost hit her.

  “Was that you throwing Elphie’s globe out the window, or has that air-bubble Glinda been floating around in her private pfenix again? Never a moment’s peace around here. Child, let me confess something to you.”

  Was this it? “Yes, Nanny.”

  “I stole a lot in my time. Garters, beads, a considerable amount of cash. A pretty little green glass bottle, once. It did me some good. You have to learn to take what you need. But don’t tell anyone I said so.”

  The original Handy Mandy, thought Rain. “I’ve stolen a bit already. Good-bye, Nanny.”

  “Good-bye, dear,” said Nanny. “Good-bye, Rain. Yes, I see it now. You’re not Elphaba, are you? But you’ll do.”

  They left before dinner, to make it at least to Red Windmill, maybe even to push on to Upper Fanarra. Since the skies were cloudless, the jackal moon would be usefully glary. Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, the dwarf and the Munchkinlander, Rain and Tay. On the stony path again.

  Iskinaary and Chistery waved from a wobbly wooden porch that looked about to become unglued from the side of a turret. A raft of flying monkeys tossed their jaw-edged spears into the air as a salute. They clattered into the dry moat and blunted, which would give the monkeys a lot of work to do over the long winter, repointing all those blades.

  At Upper Fanarra they paused long enough for Rain to scour the weaving collective and single out the tired teenage mother who’d kept smacking her child. Rain offered the babykin the small stuffed mouse she’d found in the vacant dormitory in Kiamo Ko. The infant grinned and gummed it at once. “Tell the mother,” said Rain to a factotum of the clan who could translate, “the mouse is from Tip. From me, a promise that if she keeps hitting that child I’ll come back and wallop the crap out of her. I’m not as nice as Tip.”

  Easier going down than up, though hard on the calves. It only took about five days for them to get to the dam where they could cross the Vinkus River. Once again most of the Beavers were out foraging, but Luliaba was still hanging about, minding the mother-in-law.

  “Let her go,” said Rain.

  “It’s none of your concern,” said Luliaba.

  “The little girl said let her go,” said Mr. Boss, baring his teeth.

  “I could take you in a bite fight, mister buster,” replied the Beaver, baring her own.

  “Let her go,” said Little Daffy.

  “I keep her locked up for her own good. She’s a menace to herself.”

  They all looked at Brrr, but he didn’t speak. Since the death of Nor he chose his moments more carefully.

  Dorothy said, “Let her go, or I’ll sing.”

  “Sing away!” called the mother-in-law inside her prison. “She hates that. I do it all day to annoy her.”

  Dorothy began that song about plain fruits and majestic purples. The others joined in as best as they could. They sang it twice, three times, four, until Luliaba said, “Stop! I give up. You win. I can’t take that kind of malarkey. What kind of a patriotic song is it that doesn’t even mention Beaver dams? That’s what makes our nation great. Come on out, you old bitch. Your constant carping has set you free at last. What your son will say when he gets home I don’t want to think.”

  “He’ll thank you for it,” said the old Beaver, emerging and blinking and twitching her white nose. “He never liked me neither. So, who’s the little dolly who was leading that anthem?”

  They all pointed at Dorothy. The Beaver mother-in-law said, “Most disgusting song I ever heard, but it did the trick. You’re a sweetheart.”

  “Here’s your coracle,” said Rain, handing her the button basket.

  “I hope it floats, but where I’m going, it doesn’t really matter,” she replied, climbing in and rocking it a little. “Hmmm. Sound bottom, near as I can make out. Push me off, honeybunches, and let me go find my sweet Lurline and give her a little love nip on her holy ankle.”

  As she rocked away on the vicious water, they heard her begin to sing.

  O beautiful, to make escape

  And leave this world behind.

  Had I to stay another day

  I’d lose my fucking mind…

  Over the roar of the water they couldn’t hear any more after that, and were grateful for it.

  8.

  The corpse of the Black Elephant was hauled through the porte cochere of Colwen Grounds and around to the back. Here the ground sloped away, allowing access to some whitewashed stables, clean to clinical standards. All had gone according to plan so far. Various Munchkinlanders helped drag the cart into a stall with a bricked barrel vault ceiling, also white. They kept this place in fine fettle, but that was what Munchkinlanders were like.

  Its formal name was Parliament House, though since no parliament had ever been convened everyone still called it Colwen Grounds. The ancestral home of the Thropp family, the place old Nanny had started out in domestic service as Cattery Spunge, late of the spindlemills. Back when she was young Nanny. Or young enough. When she’d been engaged to help raise Melena Thropp, the randy and irresponsible mother of Elphaba, Nessarose, and Shell, now Emperor of Oz.

  No one from the Thropp line was here to see Liir return to his birthright at last. And maybe for the best. The humiliation of being a prisoner. What would Liir’s ancestor Eminence, Peerless Thropp, have made of this?

  Taking it for a genuine corpse, the palace staff began to prepare the pyre. But La Mombey herself descended into the basements—they’d never known her to do that before—and required the corpse to be rolled over. The book in its sack wasn’t appreciably squished, and she grabbed it with both hands.

  “Shall we continue our preparations to burn the corpse?” asked the grounds overseer.

  Mombey said, “Do you smell the stench of death?”

  “I don’t know what the stench of death is for a Black Elephant.”

  “Believe me, you’d know if you smelled it. Hold the torches. It might pull through.”

  “Can I take that for you, Your Highness?” asked her handmaid.

  Mombey said, “Jellia Jamb, I can carry my own books to school, thank you very much. Don’t you ever touch this one.” She took the book in her arms and stalked away with it. The handmaid shrugged and made a face at the farm overseer. You never knew what Mombey was going to say or do; she was a different woman every hour of the day.

  Not so different from the rest of the race of women, though, thought the overseer.

  9.

  At this point in the early autumn, the waters of the Gillikin River had fallen. Fording the great broad flat was almost a picnic. They were ahead of the seasonal rains by two or three weeks, maybe.

  It felt good to be going somewhere again. Maybe I’m just a wanderbug, thought Rain. Everyone I care about most in the world is off and in trouble, and I’m noodling along on the road as if it’s my job.

  Tay looked at her almost as if it could read her mind, accusatorily. Everyone you most care about? Hello?

  Well, not everyone, she thought. Come here, you. And she carried Tay a stretch.

  She remembered the marking stone that had shown a fork in the road, but she wasn’t sure that she had crossed the Gillikin River at the same place where she and Tip had done t
hose weeks ago. Still, after they passed through a couple of fairly prosperous town centers and some dustier cousins, too, they came to a sarcen on which directions were painted, with arrows. Sitting on top of the stone was an Owl.

  “Which way now?” asked Dorothy to the Owl.

  “Depends, I suppose, on where you want to go.”

  “Out of Oz, and the sooner the better,” said Dorothy, and then she recognized the voice. “Why, it’s Temper Bailey. What are you doing here?”

  “Relocated after my professional humiliation.”

  Little Daffy said, “Oh, that was a rigged case if ever I saw one. You never should have taken it on.”

  “I was required under pain of caging.”

  “And you’re now a Loyal Ozian?” asked Dorothy. “Have you no patriotism toward Munchkinland?”

  “None.”

  That seemed to be that. “Well, we’re headed toward the Emerald City,” said Rain.

  “If you stay on this road, you’re too far north. You’ll eventually end up in Shiz.”

  “No, thank you,” said Rain. “I might be tempted to kidnap Miss Plumbago and hold her for ransom until I get my father back, and I don’t want to stoop to their tactics.”

  “Then turn around and find the crossroads in the village you just quit. Take the left road out of town, the one by the ironmonger. That’ll bring you to a high road that joins up with the Yellow Brick Road.”

  “You’ve done me a service again, as you did once before,” said Dorothy. “Will you come with us to the Emerald City?”

  The Owl scuffled his talons. “You’re going there again? Are you in complete denial ? You’ve picked the wrong support group with this lot. Or what, are you going to ask the Wizard to grant you your heart’s desire?”

  Dorothy took no offense. “Well, I’ve come to see you have a point. Concentrating on getting your own heart’s desire is myopic at best. Or just plain selfish. But there isn’t any Wizard anymore, is there? He hasn’t made a comeback?”