Dorothy Must Die: The Other Side of the Rainbow Collection: No Place Like Oz, Dorothy Must Die, The Witch Must Burn, The Wizard Returns, The Wicked Will Rise

by Danielle Paige

  I was faster than her. I’d been trained by the Order of the Wicked, and she was lazy, drunk, and used to relying on her magic to protect her.

  Dorothy glanced over her shoulder and saw me gaining. Instead of heading for the ballroom, maybe knowing I would’ve caught her before she got there, she suddenly veered left, through a barred door normally forbidden to the maid staff, and up a narrow spiral staircase.

  I took the steps two at a time. The spirals of the staircase were so tight that I lost sight of her, but I could hear her shoes clicking, her breath heavy and panicked. I pressed on, getting dizzy. How high was this tower? Where was Dorothy leading me?

  Then I felt a breeze on my cheek. I was outside. For a second, the lights from the city below us blinded me and then I could see again. We were on a jacaranda-covered terrace and Dorothy was standing with her back pressed up against the edge of the balcony. Her psycho little dog was trembling in her arms. Not so brave anymore.

  I had her trapped. There was nowhere for her to go.

  Her shoes weren’t going to help her.

  I took a step forward.

  With Dorothy helpless in front of me, basically just waiting to die, I hesitated. It was different this way—having time to think about it, not trying to kill her in the heat of the moment. I needed to be cold-blooded, to remember everything that she’d done, to remember that the girl standing in front of me was a monster.

  And yet, I found my gaze pulled across the glittering panorama of the Emerald City, the place I’d read about in books my whole life. I was higher up than I’d ever thought it was even possible to go. I wondered what my mom would think if she could see me now, at the top of the tallest tower in the palace of a magical fairyland a million miles from the Dusty Acres trailer park.

  About to stab the former heroine of the story.

  For some reason, Dorothy didn’t look afraid of me anymore. She just smiled sweetly at me, her eyes wide and glittering.

  “Amy, right?” she asked calmly. “The one that got away.”

  I didn’t reply. I knew she was buying time, a classic desperation maneuver. I inched closer.

  “I suppose I’ll never know what happened to the real Astrid,” Dorothy said, sighing. “My sweet little maid.”

  “Like you care,” I replied, not able to help myself.

  Dorothy smiled sadly and half turned to gaze out over the skyline.

  “It’s pretty, isn’t it?” she said. “I come up here when I want to think. Sometimes it’s almost like I can see clear on back to Kansas. You know?”

  There was a resigned, nostalgic tone in her voice.

  This time, I didn’t let her bait me. I wondered if this sudden change in her personality was all a big act, or if maybe, somehow cutting off the flow of magic from her shoes was bringing Dorothy back to her senses.

  I took another step forward.

  She didn’t flinch. “I think my aunt Em would have liked you,” she said, still smiling, talking casually like I was an old friend. “She’d think you’re awful pretty. She’d want me to give you a second chance. She’d say, ‘Dorothy, there’s no such thing as a bad apple.’ She’d know you’re no killer. That they tricked you. She’d say, ‘You know, Dorothy, maybe you and that Amy have more in common than you realize.’”

  I wasn’t stupid—I knew I couldn’t listen to her. But—what if she was right? What if we were alike? Dorothy hadn’t been like this when she’d first gotten here. It wasn’t until she killed the witches that she started to change.

  If I killed her, did that bring me one step closer to becoming her?

  No. I wasn’t like her. I was stronger—strong enough to absorb all those years at Dusty Acres, all those years of being a nothing, of being a punching bag, and never letting them transform me into anything close to the cruel and twisted monster Dorothy had become. Killing Dorothy was the only thing that would make Oz great again. It would avenge everyone she had hurt. It was what I was here for. I didn’t take it lightly—I knew I’d have to live with her blood on my hands for the rest of my life—but I wouldn’t let it corrupt me.

  They made us strong in Kansas. I could carry this.

  So I raised my blade. As I did, Dorothy’s unassuming, folksy smile widened, spreading into a twisted grin, her red lips grotesquely stretched with hate.

  “Too late,” she said, just as I heard a dull, clanking noise behind me. I spun around to see him burst through the door, his boutonniere long gone, his tuxedo ripped to shreds.

  The Tin Woodman.

  He moved quicker than a man his size had any right to, his ax a silvery arc as it sliced through the air. I ducked just in time to save my head from being chopped clean off, then dove to the side. The Tin Woodman put himself between me and Dorothy.

  “My hero,” I heard her say, and the Tin Woodman, so recently rejected, puffed out his chest. He sized me up, swinging his ax back and forth, and I saw in his eyes a homicidal devotion.

  Could I win this fight? One-on-one with the Tin Woodman, with only my unenchanted knife?

  He charged, swinging his ax overhead like he was chopping firewood. I danced aside, his blade drawing sparks from the stone rooftop. As he hefted his ax, I shot forward and stabbed for his eye, but he brought his hand up defensively and my dagger glanced off his gauntlet.

  “Why do you fight for her?” I asked him, leaping backward from another brutal ax swing. “She doesn’t give a shit about you!”

  “Shut up,” the Tin Woodman replied, all business.

  I wasn’t quick enough on that last swing and had a shallow slash across my abdomen to show for it. I backpedaled, trying to put more distance between us.

  Then I heard footsteps thundering from the spiral staircase. Palace guards or Tin Soldiers or both. Dorothy’s entire army. It sounded like all of them. All coming for me.

  I caught my breath. There was no way I could take them all on like this: without magic, with just an ordinary dagger, and a psychotic, ax-wielding metal man already bearing down on me.

  The Tin Woodman swung again. This time, I moved toward the blade. At the last moment, I dipped into a somersault and slid underneath him, between his legs.

  A few strands of hair—the pink that I’d missed so badly when I looked in the mirror—floated down around me. He’d almost scalped me.

  But he’d also made a mistake. Behind him now, I had a clear path to Dorothy.

  This time I didn’t hesitate. There was only one way to accomplish my mission.

  “Kill her!” Dorothy screamed, so loudly I thought my eardrums would shatter. “Kill the bitch!”

  “There must be some mistake,” I said as I rushed toward her, my shoulder lowered. “You’re the bitch. I’m the witch.”

  I barreled right into Dorothy, hugging her, our foreheads knocking together as we stumbled backward. She realized what was happening too late, slapping at my face when she should’ve been planting her feet. I shoved forward in a tackle, heard Dorothy cry out as her back struck the parapet, and then together we flipped over the edge.

  We were suddenly weightless, tangled together, the blinking lights of the Emerald City stretched out beneath us. I heard the Tin Woodman bellow miserably and, just as we began to fall, I caught the briefest glimpse of Nox as he appeared on the balcony, a sword in his hand.

  “Amy!” he shouted after me, his voice cracking in desperation.

  It wasn’t Dorothy’s guards sprinting up the spiral staircase. It was the Order.

  Too late. They couldn’t help me now.

  It’s funny how much time you have to think when you’re plunging to your certain death from the top of a tower. You’d think it would be over in an instant, but it’s actually just the opposite. It’s like everything slows down.

  At least, that’s how it felt for me. I still had Dorothy in my grip, and she was clicking her heels together wildly as we fell. I knew it was a lost cause. Their magic was gone.

  Unfortunately, so was mine.

  Locked together in a cr
azy death spiral, my eyes met hers, and for a second—just for a second—it was like I understood her. It was like I forgot that she was her and that I was me. We were both from the same place, and we had both ended up here. We were both going to die together.

  I think she felt it, too.

  And then something happened. I felt something warm and tingly running through her body. I felt a burning sensation in my legs, coming from the vicinity of Dorothy’s shoes. Her eyes lit up.

  I wasn’t sure whether it was because the spell the witches cast had been broken or because we had passed beyond its bounds, but Dorothy’s magic was back. She was more alive than ever.

  She knocked her heels together and was gone in a burst of swirling pink smoke.

  And I was hurtling toward the ground.

  But if Dorothy’s magic worked now, that meant mine might, too. I could try to travel, but the way I was flipping and twisting, I was too disoriented—I would have just sent myself crashing headfirst into the ground even faster than I already was.

  I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate. I knew that flight spells were some of the most complicated and difficult magic that there was, but if I could just come up with something to at least slow myself down, maybe I’d have a chance of survival. I tried to focus on everything Gert had taught me.

  I pictured the energy running through my body, twisting and reshaping itself until it was pulling me upward, back into the sky.

  And then I was floating.

  Seriously. It had worked. I hadn’t expected it to do anything and now I was actually flying.

  My eyes sprung open.

  That’s when I realized I hadn’t done it at all. Four furry hands had hooked themselves around me, a pair under each of my armpits.

  Monkeys. The kind with wings. They were soaring up into the sky, and they were taking me with them. The buildings beneath us began to shrink. The lights receded.

  “Amy,” a familiar voice chirped. “We’ve come to save you.”

  It was Ollie. He was flying again.

  “Ollie!” I exclaimed, still too confused from the last few minutes of insanity to form any coherent thought. “How . . .”

  I craned my neck over my shoulder. It was Ollie all right—with one big difference. He’d been given wings.

  “You can do a lot with magic,” he said mischievously. “The problem is getting ahold of it.”

  Then I saw that his wings weren’t your ordinary feathery white monkey wings. They appeared to be made from old newspaper and coat hangers, held together with little bits of tape.

  “They could be more fashionable, but I was in a rush,” the other monkey said. It was a girl’s voice, smooth and soothing in contrast to Ollie’s excitable chirp. Familiar, even though the last time I’d heard her speak, she’d been hoarse and half delirious. “Anyway, they do the trick, as you can see.”

  I craned my neck to look at Maude, a huge smile spreading across my face despite my confusion.

  “Maude!” I shouted through the rushing air. “You’re okay!”

  “Thanks to you,” she replied. “Figured I owed you a save.”

  “How did you find me? Where are we going?”

  “Oh,” Ollie replied. “It wasn’t hard. The talisman I gave you when you rescued Maude—it doesn’t just lead you to us. We can also use it to keep tabs on you.”

  “Looks like we came just in the nick of time,” Maude said drily.

  I let out a deep breath. We were sailing above the Emerald City, toward the western gates. The air was cool and refreshing against my face and the moon loomed huge above us. We were zipping along, the landscape sliding by. I hadn’t realized monkeys could fly this fast.

  Under different circumstances, it would have been fun. But once I’d had a chance to catch my breath, I was able to review the events of the evening. Also known as the complete disaster that had been entirely my fault.

  The plan had gone into effect. The witches had done their part, but I’d botched mine in every possible way. I’d let Dorothy get away not once but twice tonight, and I’d come this close to getting myself killed in the process.

  “Take me back to her,” I said, having no doubt the monkeys would know who I meant. “I can’t leave the job unfinished.”

  “Um, no,” Maude said. “We didn’t save you just so you could rush off and commit suicide.”

  “Yeah,” Ollie added, “we’ve got a better plan.”

  I turned my head as much as I could, watching the palace disappear on the horizon. I’d failed. Dorothy was still breathing, which meant someone was still suffering.

  “What is this plan?” I asked, resigning myself to the monkeys’ clutches.

  “We’re off to see the Wizard,” Ollie replied.

  A few minutes later, Ollie, Maude, and I landed in a field just outside the city walls. A few paces off, a ramshackle building—maybe an old guard tower, the only structure in sight—looked like it might collapse in on itself at any moment.

  The Wizard was waiting for us.

  And so was Pete. They were standing in the field, side by side, the moon glowing on their faces. The Wizard tipped his hat at me as I stumbled out of Ollie’s arms and onto the grass. Pete gave me an awkward little half wave.

  There was a part of me that was so relieved to see him that I wanted to throw myself into his arms. But a bigger part of me was exhausted, wary, and above all confused. I reached down to gingerly press the cut on my stomach, but it wasn’t so bad. Just a flesh wound.

  “Amy,” the Wizard said, all businesslike. “We have a lot to talk about and not much time.”

  “Hold up,” I said. “How do you know . . . ?”

  “I’ve been following your adventures closely since your arrival in Oz,” the Wizard replied before I could even get the question out. “As best as I’ve been able to, at least. It’s not every day that someone from the Other Place arrives here. When it happens, it has a way of shaking things up. For better or for worse. Of course I take an interest. I’m from there, too, you’ll remember.”

  I looked at Pete. “And you? Have you been spying on me for the Wizard all this time?”

  “Amy . . . ,” he said. But, as usual, he didn’t answer. The silence hung in the air.

  “I assure you that everything will be answered in time,” the Wizard said. “You’ve escaped for now, but Glinda is surely looking for you at this very moment. You may need to fight again before the night is through.”

  “Good,” I replied, ignoring the ache from my abdomen and actually feeling a rush of energy. “I’m ready now. Send me back to Dorothy and let’s finish this.”

  The Wizard shook his head emphatically. “The consequences of that would be disastrous,” he said. “Dorothy cannot be killed yet. Not even by you.”

  I stared at him, remembering what Nox had said about him being a manipulator. Dorothy had seemed pretty scared when I was about to stab her, and even more so when I’d tackled her off the roof—not at all like some magical immortal.

  “Okay, sure,” I replied. “I’d still like to try it.”

  The Wizard guffawed, a twinkle in his eye. “I love the enthusiasm, but you still don’t understand how Oz works. I wouldn’t have expected the Order to teach you everything, but . . . surely they know that you’re out of your league against Dorothy.”

  I folded my arms across my chest.

  “Out of my league? They told me I was the only one who could kill her.”

  “That may be true,” he said. “And, it may not. It’s just a theory, and, after all, Mombi and her friends have been wrong before. But let’s just say the witches’ theory is correct. Just for the sake of argument. Do you suppose that Dorothy doesn’t know about it? Do you suppose she hasn’t gone to great lengths to protect herself?”

  “Of course she has,” I said. “That’s why I had to spend all this time pretending to be a maid—so that I could get to her when she was weak.”

  “Her Highness has wrapped herself in intricate layers of pro
tection, it’s true. And with the Order’s help, you’ve already managed to breach many of those walls. But the princess is not the only player in this game. She may not even be the most important player. There are things protecting Dorothy that she herself doesn’t even know about. Just as you don’t.”

  “She doesn’t know about them. I don’t know about them. The Order doesn’t know about them. And you do?”

  “Oh, Amy. I’ve learned a bit of magic, here and there, since I returned to Oz, but let’s face it—I’ll always be a bit of a humbug when it comes to that sort of thing. My real wizardry has nothing to do with spells at all. It has to do with knowledge. I knew about you the moment you arrived here, didn’t I? Even the most unbreakable of spells are meant to be broken. You just need to know a thing or two. It’s the knowing things part that just so happens to be my specialty.”

  This was getting very annoying. “Look. You obviously want to tell me something,” I said, checking my imaginary wristwatch. “So just stop screwing around and let’s hear it.” I looked around nervously, knowing Glinda could come magicking around the corner at any second.

  The Wizard sighed theatrically and rolled his head back and forth like he was really struggling to make up his mind.

  “Killing Dorothy can only be done by a certain kind of person, and some people think that person is you. But what the Order seems to have missed is that it can only be done a certain way. Certain . . . tools are necessary. Certain items to which the princess has a special connection. You may have ascertained that several of Dorothy’s loyal companions are not quite what they used to be. Am I correct?”

  “How should I know what anything used to be?” I asked. “I’m new here, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “Well, I hear there’s a book,” he said with a wry laugh. “Haven’t you read it? I’m talking, of course, about the Scarecrow. The Tin Woodman. The Lion. Why do you suppose they’re so different from the heroes you expected to meet?”