The witch of maracoor, p.18
The Witch of Maracoor, page 18
Nanny’s advice about a training noseguard for the dwarf dragon had been sound. Gardius scorched himself once, and once was enough. That evening Rain had to use a twig to pick out pellets of torched mucus from the sensitive nostrils. Not that he became an angel creature. When annoyed, he aired his opinions with a blast of smeltery breath. But he governed himself more strictly than before. She jettisoned the snout-helmet overnight.
During the days and nights that Rain and Gardius groped their way across Oz, they encountered the usual rabble. Some welcoming and some suspicious, some armed with stones and others with oven-warm bread, or beans from a roadside cook-fire. Rain accepted hospitality. She was pretty sure that her color, not to mention the awkward dragon lolloping alongside, gave her an advantage over the usual single woman trekking cross-country. Regardless, she kept to herself.
Nor did she rehearse strategies for what she would do when she arrived in the Emerald City. She would make an approach to Ozma. Probably. Wasn’t that the plan. But what if when she got there, she discovered that she’d lost the appetite for an encounter whose nature she couldn’t yet imagine. She wouldn’t know till she arrived. One foot in front of the other, one padded paw in front of the other. Come on, Gardius.
She didn’t browbeat or wheedle passersby for the scuttlebutt from the Emerald City. Somehow it was easier not to know. In her best days she’d never managed to be the sprightly girl-in-the-middle-of-a-chattering-circle. And over the past several years she’d perfected a kind of hulking presence, mostly stern and maybe censorious. A talent for unsettling. She gave people the creeps. She welcomed their silence. Why that, why did it matter. Maybe for fear of what such tongue-wagging might tell her. She didn’t want to know—yet. Until there was no other way to sidestep it. Wasn’t amnesia itself the greatest avoidance strategy of all.
Truth be told, she gave herself the creeps. She kept clear of reflective ponds and such mirrors as tinkers hang on the sides of caravans, for shaving. She began to wish she hadn’t thrown away the tin lid for Gardius’s nose. She might have been able to hammer it into a tin mask for herself.
Before too long—well, it had been long enough—she’d crossed the border of the Vinkus into the narrow stretch of Munchkinland that led to the Emerald City’s southern gate, Munchkin Mousehole. The gleaming towers, the spires and domes of the capital city looked from this distance like a set of dials, some single coordinated machine of suspicious ambition. The clockwork mechanics of governmental power.
Rain saw hives of shanty settlements newly sprung up outside the gates. The spoils of peace, she supposed, now that reunification of Munchkinland and Loyal Oz was several years on. Gardius pretty much kept to her side, except for investigating road ditches to inspect the digestive expulsions of others roaming the territory.
Having little interest in townships or in crowds, she kept her head down. But she relished the hodgepodge blessing of accents. People speaking Ozish with a Quadling curl, a Munchkin broadness. Probably at Shiz Gate to the north you’d hear college tones and other upper-crust sonorities that flourished in the prosperous reaches of Gillikin country. The accents pleated across one another with ease, as if everyone had memorized their lines before leaving home this morning. Rain felt more tongue-tied by the day.
Then, there they were, the gates to the nation’s capital, flung open in what looked like a permanent position. A token sentry languished in the guardhouse, smoking a cigarette and picking at a boil on his neck. She walked past without his noticing. She had worried that Gardius might draw attention, but the children in the alleys were only running in mock terror, and they circled back quickly. A pony dragon was more adorable than alarming, apparently.
Rain had known a few people in the Emerald City, back in the day, when the civil war had come to a head and her great-uncle Shell-of-God had abdicated the throne. First and foremost, her bosom companion, Brrr, the Cowardly Lion, who had ascended as regent while Ozma was being groomed for her elevation. The dwarf and his wife, Little Daffy. Dorothy too, for that matter, but she’d wafted off to some netherland or other, as was her habit. Most of Rain’s circle didn’t matter or had disappeared. In any case, even Rain’s beloved Brrr, the Throne Minister at the time she had left two years ago—she didn’t want to hear his silky lion’s complaint. She only wanted Ozma. She supposed she’d have to go to the steps of the Palace.
One or two elderly people or Animals exclaimed “Elphaba!” as she crossed their paths. She didn’t correct them. But when a rather squinty Quadling fellow, hawking beads on the pavement in front of a tonsorial parlor, followed that name with a “Praise be!” Rain relented. She couldn’t accept reverence. Not after the dressing down that Thilma had delivered. Rain squatted on her haunches so she was eye to eye with the vendor and she said, “I’m not Elphaba, not even close.”
“You’re a good enough likeness, then. Acting her in some tragedy playhouse?”
“That would be a neat business to be in. No. I’m an anomaly. I just like the brass beads.”
“Calcified milkweed pods; varnished, baked, and enhanced with highlights. Take them, on the house, please.” She wouldn’t. She threw him two coins that she’d purloined from Liir’s desk. He asked, “If you’re not Elphaba, who are you instead?”
“The Witch of Maracoor, will that do? Now listen. I want to know about Ozma.”
“Don’t ask me about Ozma. I’ve no opinion.” He wasn’t agnostic, he was skittish, clearly not wanting to be implicated in some factional divide. He tossed the coins back at her. “Keep the beads.” He rolled up his carpet of wares and slung it over his shoulder and scurried off, leaving scattered items where they fell.
Curious. So that was it; she could avoid the subject no longer. Eventually remembering that people gather under bridges, she slipped into a group of itinerants and pickpockets reviewing their days’ take. They threatened her until they saw Gardius furrow his brow. Then they opened their circle and gave her a scoop of dirty soup in a saucer, an adjacent crust of rye.
What her father had told her was true, apparently: Ozma hadn’t yet ascended to the throne. The Cowardly Lion was still performing duties as the Regent Throne Minister. Where Ozma actually was, and why she hadn’t claimed the crown due her by inheritance, these vagabonds couldn’t say and they didn’t care. They didn’t much believe in Ozma, any more than they’d cottoned to that parody of brutal innocence, Dorothy of Kanzizz.
Rain sensed she oughtn’t push them. Whatever was going on, it was a delicate moment for Ozma. Rain changed the subject to the activities of the domestic military who policed the underclasses. While the feisty crowd chattered their stories of sweet comeuppance, she plotted her tomorrow.
She slept with them. Think of it, a young woman on her own, and so on. In the dark, green skin became less obvious, so it served less well as a defense against unwanted advances. Gardius was a comfort and a protection.
2
When the town clocks had struck morning and the streets clattered with commerce, she thought she might get by without being noticed. Even the oddment of humanity can almost disappear if the crowd is full enough. She made her way up shady boulevards and across light-swept plazas, seeing with a new eye. The Emerald City was built of a different vernacular than the great capital city called Maracoor Crown. The hometown glories looked sprucer, perhaps glossier, like pastries coated with egg white before baking. But also cheaper for that. She couldn’t have noticed this before. And so unlike Maracoor Crown, with its low, solid, columned blocks of sun-scrubbed pale granite and dark marble. Now was she growing homesick for the place that had put her on trial for sedition. What a basket case I am, she thought.
A kerchiefed cleaning woman heading for a staff entrance at the Palace frowned when Rain stopped her, saying, “I need you to bring a message to the Throne Minister: Rain in the forecast.”
“Not my bailiwick, conveying threats,” said the hard-bitten domestic, then, “but I would be obliged this time, miss,” when Gardius backed Rain’s request up with a fancy spray of fire droplets a little too close to the woman’s ankles.
Rain contorted her fingers in a theatrical manner. Aiming at mystery, she suspected she only looked as if she was demonstrating muscular twitches for a class of medical students. “I’ll come back for an answer, tomorrow, at this very hour. You or someone else will need to be here, or you’ll learn what mischief I can make. I’m a certified trouble-maker. The Witch of Maracoor, in the flesh, as it happens.” It felt okay to say it out loud.
When she returned to the Palace servants’ entrance the next morning, the old scout with her mop and broom didn’t show up. Rain loitered a while, conceding that she mustn’t be very threatening as a witch after all. She was about to leave when the door opened and a younger woman peered out. For a brave and horrified instant Rain’s heart leapt and fell simultaneously.
The recognition was wrong, though. A familiar face, just not the right one. “Scarly?” said Rain.
Scarly—the servant girl from St. Prowd’s School in Shiz. Other than Tip, nearly the only friend her own age that Rain had ever made. Rain had taught her to read. “As I live and breathe,” said Scarly, sounding like a middle-aged char, “it is you! I didn’t believe it.”
“Of course it’s me, who else would it be?” She had one of the tarot cards ready to hand over, the one with the broom on it. “This is my calling card.”
“Everybody en’t been keeping their same shapes and forms, as you know. You en’t never been green back in the day. Thought you might be some flitch of that old Elphaba. Had to come see for myself. It is you, just like a splinter in a sore place. Oh, Miss Rainary! Look, but you can’t keep here. Now I seen you I’ll have to say so. But you should go. It en’t safe. And I daren’t loiter.”
Rain reached out to grab Scarly’s wrist; at first the girl pulled back as if afraid of being burned. “Oh, it’s not that,” said Scarly, “I don’t mean that. I’m just scared for you and not so happy for myself. There’s a lot of thuggery skullduggery ranged against the Palace, and you showing up could kick up a coup. Can’t you go back away wherever you went? You don’t want to get nobody in trouble, do you?”
“Who could be in danger? Scarly, what are you talking about?”
“Not for me to say. Less said, less let loose.” She twisted her wrist from Rain, not out of worry or anger, but so she could grip Rain’s own hands in hers. “One day there’ll be something like peace, you know. I believe that, I do! Meanwhile there’s an awful handful of upkeep. I got my duster on. Don’t come back, Miss Rainary, for everyone’s good.” She bobbed a curtsey.
“Don’t you ever do that to me!” said Rain, nearly at a shout, and Gardius raised his eyebrows as if to defend his companion with a spittle of flame. “Wait! Where is Tip?”
Scarly put her finger to her lips and made a shushing sound, and then flapped her hands to shoo Rain away like a chicken. The maid disappeared behind a stoutly slammed utility door.
Rain and Gardius spent the day under a bandstand on the Royal Mall. Scarly had unnerved her—odd that it be done so easily, after all Rain had been through. But it couldn’t come only to this, could it. Could it. She’d, what, she’d just walk away. Was that all. Really. Was that it then.
She was cowed, that much was true. Here she was in the shadows. Keeping her green skin hidden. She didn’t know why, and was afraid to learn. Do they really burn witches in this modern day.
As evening fell, a troupe of unrepentant musicians came to the bandstand to practice their all-piccolo repertoire several times over. Rain lasted as long as she could stand it. By the time she and Gardius were driven from the shrieking overtones, shadows were settling beneath the great trees of the Mall. Rain decided to return to the servants’ entrance at the Palace at dawn. Did Scarly think Rain would give up so easily. She was a witch, after all. She’d have Gardius torch the door if need be. She’d come all this way, via the otherworld and back, if you wanted to put it like that.
She didn’t return the next morning, though, because sometime during the night, under the bridge, she was attacked by dark-clad thugs. She scarcely heard Gardius beginning a bark, and only began to apprehend the assault before a curtain of dark descended in her brain.
3
Rising to consciousness was like breasting the surface of the Nonestic Ocean after she’d fallen into it from a great height. A notion of movement but no light at the ceiling, no sense of when she might force her way through. If ever. The sensation more barometric than anything else.
Eventually, a warmth began to line the inside of her lids. A pale, colorless blush. She couldn’t open her eyes. She moaned for Gardius but heard and felt no nearby stirring. The worst of the heaviness passed. She saw some dark shapes against darkness, some movement against stillness. Fell unconscious again. The sensation ebbed and flowed, until finally she could open her eyes and keep them open, and shift her gaze to see where she had been laid.
Though the place was nearly lightless, gradients of shadow suggested dimension. A large space, columns holding up a mezzanine along a far back wall. A high ornate ceiling curlicued around a recessed oval. Rain was lodged upon a platform along one end of the hall, looking into gloom, inert and sort of hesitant. Nearly morgue-like.
She thought she might be tied up but no, she could roll over, and, in a few moments, even pull herself to a sagging, half-upright position. She was on a settee of some sort.
The furniture became more convincing when a door opened. Light squared itself in, hurtful at first, softening. A person carrying a lamp paused, and lifted the apparatus high, the better to see across the boards.
“Scarly was right; it is you,” said Ozma. “We thought it might be a ruse of some sort.”
What was it that Rain recognized here. That Ozma’s voice wasn’t Tip’s, not very; her presentation of herself was more . . . more curated. All these months, all those miles; and here she was, sedate as if swanning in from an afternoon of croquet and lemonade. Cool as an ornamental silk fan. Ozma’s face was wary and perhaps kind; but then, Rain had never been good at nuances of expression.
When she found she could still speak, Rain said, “What happened and where am I? And where’s the dragon?”
“I’ll call for it. It’s been kept downstairs in the joinery shop. It’s all right. Jolly jumpy thing, trying to burn its way out to find you. Luckily there’s a gate of iron bars, for air, don’t you know; and the basement is built of granite block. Your companion couldn’t burn through any of that.” She stepped back through the doorway and spoke to an unseen accomplice. Returning, she continued, “I hardly have the right to pose a question of you. But I’ll start anyway by asking if I may come closer.”
“Not too close.” At the flinch on Ozma’s face, Rain added, “My head is pounding.”
Ozma moved across the sloped flooring. A stage of some sort. Now Rain could see the wings. A network of perpendicular and angled ropes used to hoist and lower sets. Ropes that reminded her of sailing to Maracoor Crown with Lucikles from Maracoor Spot on the Pious Enterprise. “Can you turn up some lights?” asked Rain.
“The windows are draped as a matter of course, but extra bunting has been hung for increased security. It’s safer to keep the house dark. No one is supposed to be here. It was the best we could think up at such short notice.”
“Where in blazes are we?”
“The Lady’s Mystique.” Ah, Rain remembered it: a jewel box of a playhouse in the tony Emerald City neighborhood of Goldhaven. She groaned and felt her head.
“I’ve called for glasses of water. And your creature will be here shortly. Do you need anything else for right now? I’m sorry about the attack. It went rougher than planned because you awakened from some nightmare and you fought like a warrior goddess. Or so I’m told. We were trying to invite you to a midnight rendezvous. You weren’t intended to be knocked on the head.”
“I’m used to it. In fact, I’m nearly addicted to the occasional concussion.”
Ozma’s look was wintry. “Ever contrary, our Rain. And the side effects?”
“Distress and confusion. I don’t know where I am. But I’m getting used to that feeling, too.”
Ozma almost smiled. When there was a sound in the corridor, she went back. Rain watched her captor move across the floor, a shapely young woman in a becoming afternoon gown of plum moiré. White sleeves with shot cuffs, like a banker’s clerk, and a gentleman’s collar at the neck, but a comb with baroque flourish jabbed into her chignon, which listed off-center. The effect was arresting and also, Rain guessed, studied.
The princess royale returned with a beaker of water and a glass and set them down on a table next to the settee but returned to the doorway for a further consultation. Rain took in her jail cell. This whole setup made her feel as if she were appearing in some play of which she’d never been shown the script. Someone’s impression of a salon, organized to be seen from the orchestra seats, the balconies and boxes. A room without solid walls, an imagined chamber hovering in the darkness. A carpet in bright greens and reds, and beyond, a lady’s chair, and a wicker baby carriage filled with heaps of yarn bristling with knitting needles. Everything was a bit too big and bright and real. Those balls of yarn the size of cantaloupes. What was theater, thought Rain as she waited for Ozma, but legitimized spying on someone else’s idea of the world.
Rain heard Ozma dismiss her chaperone, requiring the factotum to wait outside the building with the others. In the carriage yard. Until further notice. Maybe it was Scarly. Maybe not. Again Ozma came back. This time she carried a wicker basket on one arm and a leash looped in her hand. Gardius dragged backward on the lead until he saw Rain. Then he pulled out of Ozma’s grip and tried to climb into Rain’s lap. He had to settle for getting his paws and nose in her face. He licked her, and such was his new continence that his breath was almost cool, if malodorous.
