IX

She returned to Munchkinland in a punishing journey, exhausting herself. She had slept so little, and her head still throbbed. But she was proud of herself. She arrived in the front yard of Boq’s cottage, and called for the family to come.

Boq was out in the field, and one of his children had to be dispatched to fetch him. When he came running, he had an adze in one hand. “I wasn’t expecting you, it took me a minute,” he said, panting.

“You’d have run quicker if you’d left your blade behind,” she noted.

But he didn’t drop it. “Elphie, why have you come back?”

“To tell you what I have done,” she said. “I thought you would like to know. I have killed Madame Morrible, and she can no longer harm anyone.”

But Boq did not look pleased. “You took against that old woman?” he said. “Surely she was beyond the point of hurting anyone now?”

“You’ve made the mistake that everyone makes,” said the Witch, cruelly disappointed. “Don’t you know there is no such point?”

“You had worked to protect the Animals,” said Boq. “But you did not intend to sink to the level of those who brutalized them.”

“I have fought fire with fire,” said the Witch, “and I ought to have done it sooner! Boq, you’ve become an equivocating fool.”

“Children,” said Boq, “run inside and find your mother.”

He was scared of her.

“You’re sitting on the fence,” she said. “Here your precious Munch-kinland is going to be sucked back into the folds of Royal Oz, under His Highness the Emperor Wizard. And you see what Glinda is up to, and you send that child on her way with the shoes that belong to me. You took a stand when you were young, Boq! How can you have—spoiled so!”

“Elphie,” said Boq, “look at me. You are beside yourself. Have you been drinking? Dorothy is just a child. You may not retell this to make her into some sort of fiend!”

Milla, alerted to the tension in the front yard, came out and stood behind Boq. She carried a kitchen knife. Whispering noisily, the children watched from the window.

“You do not need to defend yourselves with knives and adzes,” said the Witch coldly. “I had thought you would care to know about Madame Morrible.”

“You are shaking,” said Boq. “Look, I will put down this thing. Clearly you are upset. Nessa’s death has been hard on you. But you must get control of yourself, Elphie. Don’t take against Dorothy. She is an innocent creature. She’s all alone. I beg of you.”

“Oh, don’t beg, don’t beg,” said the Witch, “I could not abide begging, from you, of all people!” She ground her teeth and clenched her fists. “I will promise you nothing, Boq!”

And this time she got on her broom and flew away. Recklessly, she mounted the sides of air currents, until the ground below had lost any detail sharp enough to cause her pain.

She was beginning to feel too long away from Kiamo Ko. Liir was an idiot, headstrong and lily-livered by turns, and Nanny sometimes forgot where she was. The Witch didn’t want to think about yesterday, the death of Madame Morrible, the accusations made by the puppet play. She could hardly be more averse to the Wizard than she already was; if there was a shred of possibility to that sick idea of his having fathered her, it only made her hate him the more. She would ask Nanny about it when she got home.

When she got home. She was thirty-eight, and just realizing what it felt like to have a sense of home. For that, Sarima, thank you, she thought. Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven, so you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it.

But she decided to head toward Kiamo Ko by following the Yellow Brick Road. She would make one last try for the shoes. She had nothing left to lose. If the shoes fell into the hands of the Wizard, he would use them to bolster his claim to Munchkinland. Maybe, if she tried, she could shrug her shoulders and leave Munchkinland to its own fate—but damn it, the shoes were hers.

She finally found a peddler who had seen Dorothy. He stopped by the side of his wagon and rubbed the ears of his donkey as he discussed it with her. “She passed here a few hours ago,” he said, chewing on a carrot and sharing it with the donkey. “No, she wasn’t alone. She had a ragamuffin crew of friends with her. Bodyguards, I suspect.”

“Oh, the poor frightened thing,” said the Witch. “Who? Munchkinlander beefcake boys, I wonder?”

“Not exactly,” said the peddler. “There was a straw man, and a tin woodman, and a big cat who hid in the bushes when I passed—a leopard maybe, or a cougar.”

“A man of straw?” said the Witch. “She’s awakening the figures of myth, she’s charming them to life? This must be some attractive child. Did you notice her shoes?”

“I wanted to buy them from her.”

“Yes! Yes, did you?”

“Not for sale. She seemed very attached to them. They were given her by a Good Witch.”

“Pigspittle, they were.”

“None of my affair either way,” said the peddler. “Can I interest you in anything?”

“An umbrella,” said the Witch. “I’ve come out without one, and it looks nasty.”

“I remember the good old days of the drought,” said the peddler, fishing out a somewhat worn umbrella. “Ah, here’s the bumbershoot. Yours for a nickel florin.”

“Mine for free,” said the Witch. “You wouldn’t deny a poor old woman in need, would you, my friend?”

“Not and live to tell about it, I see,” he answered, and went on his way uncompensated.

But as the wagon passed, the Witch heard another voice: “Of course, no one asks a beast of burden, but it’s my opinion she’s Ozma come out of the deep sleep chamber, and marching on Oz to restore herself to the throne.”

“I hate royalists,” said the peddler, and lashed out with a crop. “I hate Animals with attitude.” But the Witch could not stop to intervene. So far she had been unable to save Nor, she had been incompetent at bargaining with the Wizard. She had been a moment too late to murder Madame Morrible—or had she been just in time? Either way, she should not try what was clearly beyond her.