II

When the news of Nessarose’s premature death arrived at Kiamo Ko by carrier pigeon, the Witch was deep in an operation of sorts, stitching the wings of a white-crested male roc into the back muscles of one of her current crop of snow monkeys. She had more or less perfected the procedure, after years of botched and hideous failures, when mercy killing seemed the only fair thing to do to the suffering subject. Fiyero’s old schoolbooks in the life sciences, from Doctor Nikidik’s course, had given some leads. Also the Grimmerie had helped, if she was reading it correctly: She had found spells to convince the axial nerves to think skyward instead of treeward. And once she got it right, the winged monkeys seemed happy enough with their lot. She had yet to see a female monkey in her population produce a winged baby, but she still had hopes.

Certainly they had taken better to flying than they had to language. Chistery, now a patriarch in the castle menagerie, had plateaued at words of one syllable, and still seemed to have no clear idea of what he was saying.

It was Chistery, in fact, who brought the pigeon’s letter in to Elphaba’s operating salon. The Witch had him hold the fascia-slasher while she unfolded the page. Shell’s brief message told of the tornado and informed her of the memorial service, which was scheduled for several weeks later in the hope that she would receive this message in time to come.

She put the message down and went back to work, placing grief and regret away from her. It was a tricky business, wing attachment, and the sedative she had administered to this monkey wouldn’t last all morning. “Chistery, it’s time to help Nanny down the stairs, and find Liir if you can, and tell him I need to talk to him at lunch,” she said, through her gritted teeth, glancing again at her own diagrams to make sure she had the overlapping of muscle groups in the correct arrangement, front to back.

It was an achievement if Nanny could now make it to the dining room once a day. “That’s my job, that and sleeping, and Nanny does both very well,” she said every single noontime when she arrived, hungry from her exertions on the stairs. Liir put out the cheese and bread and the occasional cold joint, at which the three of them hacked and nibbled, usually in an unsocial mood, before darting off to their afternoon chores.

Liir was fourteen, and insisted he was going to accompany the Witch to Colwen Grounds. “I have never been anywhere, except that time with the soldiers,” he complained. “You never let me do anything.”

“Someone has to stay and take care of Nanny,” said the Witch. “Now there isn’t any point in arguing about it.”

“Chistery can do it.”

“Chistery can’t. He’s getting forgetful, and between him and Nanny they’d burn the place to the ground. No, there’s no more discussion about it, Liir; you’re not going. Besides, I’m going to have to travel on my broom, I think, to get there in time.”

“You never let me do anything.”

“You can do the washing up.”

“You know what I mean.”

“What’s he arguing about now, sweet thing?” asked Nanny loudly.

“Nothing,” said the Witch.

“What’s that you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Aren’t you going to tell her?” said Liir. “She helped raise Nessarose, didn’t she?”

“She’s too old, she doesn’t need to know. She’s eighty-five, it’ll only upset her.”

“Nanny,” said Liir, “Nessie’s dead.”

“Hush, you useless boy, before I remove your testicles with my foot.”

“Nessie did what?” screeched Nanny, looking rheumily out at them.

“Did died dead,” intoned Chistery.

“Did what?”

“Nessie DIED,” said Liir.

Nanny began to weep at the idea before she had even confirmed it. “Can this be true, Elphie? Is your sister dead?”

“Liir, you’ll answer for this,” said the Witch. “Yes, Nanny, I cannot lie to you. There was a storm and a building collapsed. She went very peacefully, they say.”

“She went straight to the bosom of Lurlina,” said Nanny, sobbing. “Lurlina’s golden chariot came to take her home.” She patted the piece of cheese on her plate, inexplicably. Then she buttered a napkin and took a bite. “When do we leave for the funeral?”

“You’re too old to travel, dear. I’m going in a few days. Liir will stay and look after you.”

“I will not,” said Liir.

“He’s a good boy,” said Nanny, “but not as good as Nessarose. Oh, sorrowful day! Liir, I’ll take my tea in my room, I can’t sit and talk to you as if nothing’s happened.” She hauled herself to her feet, leaning on Chistery’s head. (Chistery was devoted to her.) “You know, darling,” she said to the Witch, “I don’t think the boy is old enough to see to my needs. What if the castle is attacked again? Remember what happened the last time you went away.” She made a small, accusatory moue.

“Nanny, the Arjiki militia guard this place day and night. The Wizard’s army is well housed in the town of Red Windmill down below. They have no intention of leaving that safe haven and risking decimation in these mountain passes—not after what they did. That was their skirmish, that was their campaign. Now they’re just watchdogs. They staff the outpost to report signs of an invasion or trouble from the mountain clans. You know that. You have nothing to fear.”

“I’m too old to be taken in chains like poor Sarima and her family,” Nanny said. “And how could you rescue me, if you couldn’t get them back?”

“I’m still working on that,” said the Witch into Nanny’s left ear.

“Seven years. You’re very stubborn. It’s my opinion they’re all moldering in a common grave, these seven long years. Liir, you have to thank Lurlina that you weren’t among them.”

“I tried to rescue them,” said Liir stubbornly, who had rewritten the escapade in his own mind to give himself a more heroic role. It was not longing for the companionship of soldiers, he told himself, no, it was a courageous effort to save the family! In fact, Commander Cherrystone out of kindness had had Liir tied up and left him in a sack in someone’s barn, to prevent their having to incarcerate him with the others. The Commander had not realized Liir was a bastard son of Fiyero, for Liir himself didn’t know it.

“Yes well, that’s a good boy.” Nanny was now distracted from the sad news, drifting back to the tragedy she remembered more viscerally. “Of course I did everything I could, but Nanny was an old woman even then. Elphie, do you think they’re dead?”

“I could find out nothing,” said the Witch for the ten thousandth time. “If they were spirited to the Emerald City or if they were murdered, I could not tell. You know this, Nanny. I bribed people. I spied around. I hired agents to follow every lead. I wrote to the Princess Nastoya of the Scrow for advice. I spent a year following every useless clue. You know this. Don’t torture me with the memory of my failure.”

“It was my failure, I’m sure,” said Nanny peacefully; they all knew she didn’t think so for a minute. “I should have been younger and more vigorous. I’d have given that Commander Cherrystone a piece of my mind! And now Sarima is gone, gone, and her sisters too. I suppose it’s none of our fault, really,” she concluded disingenuously, scowling at the Witch. “You had someplace to go, so you went; who can criticize you for that?”

But the image of Sarima in chains, Sarima as a decaying corpse, still withholding from the Witch her forgiveness for Fiyero’s death—it pained her like water. “Give up, you old harridan,” said the Witch, “must my own household whip me so? Go have your tea, you fiend.”

The Witch sat down at last and thought of Nessarose, and what might come. The Witch had tried to stay removed from the affairs of the political world, but she knew a change of leadership in Munchkinland could throw things out of balance—maybe to a positive effect. She felt a guilty lightness at the death of her sister.

She made a list of things to bring with her to the memorial service. Foremost was a page of the Grimmerie. In her chamber she pored over the huge musty tome, and finally she ripped out an especially cryptic page. Its letters still continued to contort beneath her eyes, sometimes scrambling and unscrambling as she looked, as if they were formed by a colony of ants. Whenever she gazed at the book, meaning might emerge on a page that a day earlier had been illegible chicken scratches; and meaning sometimes disappeared as she stared. She would ask her father, who with his holy eyes would see the truth better.