The Scarecrow was silent for a moment. I could practically hear the stuffing in his head rustling, but I didn’t want to know what he was thinking since it was probably along the lines of what a complete failure I’d made of myself. “What will you do with them?” he asked casually.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I mumbled unhappily into my palms. “Send them home, I suppose. There are dozens of them here.” At the word “home” the chancellor perked up visibly, although all of them still looked at me as though I was going to tear off their heads, too. I felt badly about what I’d done, I really did, but if they’d just obeyed me—their king!—from the beginning none of that business would have happened.
“Seems a shame to just waste them,” the Scarecrow said. “Now that they’re here and all.”
“I can’t put them to work in the palace,” I replied. “You heard Dorothy. She doesn’t want to see them again.”
“There are . . . other options,” the Scarecrow said, and I looked at him. His flat black eyes were expressionless, but something in his voice sent a shiver down my tin spine. If you want to know the truth, I’d always thought the Scarecrow was a little creepy. Even on that first trip to Oz, pretending to be such an idiot, dithering around—no, he’d been planning something all along, you mark my words. The Lion, for all his uncouthness, is relatively honest. What you see is what you get, even if what you get is tacky, boorish, and bad for your nice furniture. And me—well, as you know, I’m just a man in love. But the Scarecrow isn’t like either one of us. He’s crafty, and he only got craftier once the Wizard filled up his head with sawdust brains. I didn’t like the look on his face, but I wasn’t about to let him know that he’d unnerved me.
“What do you mean, ‘other options’?”
He thought for a moment, as if considering how to present a complicated subject to a simple person. “Glinda and I have been . . . discussing a few things,” he said eventually. “You know, she’s really a magnificent woman. Very sharp. Very sharp indeed. She has some other very impressive assets, too, if you know what I mean,” he added with a wink.
“I’m sure I don’t,” I said coldly. “What’s your point?”
“She thinks that Oz isn’t going to be universally happy about Dorothy’s plan to restore the stolen magic.”
“Why on earth not?”
“Oh, you know,” the Scarecrow said vaguely, waving one cloth hand at the window. “Doubts about the process. Something with the constitution.”
“Oz doesn’t have a constitution.”
“Line of succession,” the Scarecrow said. “All of that. You know, people really love their fairies. All those wings and sparkles and whatnot. Dorothy’s just a girl. And you have to admit, this whole story about the battle with Ozma is a little suspicious.”
“Dorothy is certainly not just a girl,” I said sharply. “And what on earth do you mean by ‘suspicious’? Ozma betrayed all of us. Of course it’s shocking, but once people realize the truth, they’ll know right away that Dorothy only has the good of Oz at heart.”
“Shocking, yes,” the Scarecrow said mildly. “Quite shocking. Not to mention sudden. Some people are already saying it was a little too sudden, if you get my drift. Dorothy coming back to Oz? Glinda reappearing out of nowhere? Suddenly Ozma’s a babbling idiot? Come on, Tin, I know I have all these brains now, but even you aren’t that stupid.”
“So you’re just going to betray Dorothy?” I said in disbelief. “Because of some palace rumor mill?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that at all. Not at all. Look at us, Tin. We’re back in the Emerald City. Let’s face it, we belong here. We’re not just helping Dorothy. We’re making a better life for ourselves. If Dorothy stays in power, well . . .” He trailed off, his eyes glittering, his expression distant. If I knew one thing for sure in that moment, it was that the Scarecrow had a plan. I wondered if Dorothy knew what it was. If I should keep an eye on him, just in case. Maybe the Scarecrow wasn’t just a little sinister. Was it possible he was actually a traitor to the woman I loved?
The Winkies were following this conversation with enormous eyes, and it occurred to me we should probably be more discreet. I jerked my chin toward the chancellor, and the Scarecrow laughed.
“Don’t you worry about our little furballs over there,” he said. “I told you, I have an idea for what to do with them. Glinda’s shown me some . . . alterations that can be made to Oz’s creatures. Nothing drastic, mind you. Just a few improvements.”
“Alterations?” I asked suspiciously.
“I’ve been working exclusively with the winged monkeys,” he said, ignoring me. “But I’d love to diversify. I think you’re on the right track with this whole army business. Dorothy just wants to frolic around the palace in petticoats and lipstick like the Emerald City is some kind of giant slumber party. But Glinda has a real vision.” I made a noise of protest, and he laughed.
“Oh, come now, Tin. I know you’re head over heels for the girl, but you have to admit she’s done nothing since she got back except play dress-up and use her supposedly all-powerful magic to give herself new hairdos. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m interested in the bigger picture. And so is Glinda.”
Talking to the Scarecrow was like wrestling with an eel. Suddenly everything I’d been trying to say was all turned around. “I think you’re all wrong about Dorothy,” I said angrily. The Scarecrow only shrugged, and I sighed in exasperation. “Do you really think you can use the Winkies to win her back to my side? What will you do with them?” I asked.
“Think about it,” he said, getting excited. “We do need an army; even you figured out that much. But what if we had an army that was invincible? Glinda thinks we can do it with magic, but you and I can’t use the magic of Oz that way, not directly. We don’t have any power. It may be possible for us to create weapons that use Oz’s magic—I’m working on that, too—but right now we can’t do much else. But what if I engineered soldiers using magic? She’s been helping me the past few days, and I’ve made all sorts of advances. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. But my experiments are, um—” He paused, a little sheepishly. “They do sort of eat up resources,” he said. “I need new subjects, and quickly. And you’ve just shown up at the palace with several dozen of them.”
“Are these experiments harmful?” I asked. Beheading my unruly subjects was one thing, but turning them over en masse to the Scarecrow for some kind of creepshow science project was something else.
“Oh no, no, no,” he said quickly. “Not really, no. Fatal sometimes, but definitely not harmful. And Dorothy will be so happy when you come to her with a real army instead of these little guys.”
“But she said she never wanted to see them again,” I said. “So even if you do turn them into soldiers, I’m still not in her good graces.”
“They won’t really be recognizable when I’m done with them,” the Scarecrow said. There was a chilling silence. One of the Winkies at the table made an agonized noise and then clapped his hands over his mouth. “She won’t even know they’re Winkies. So, Tin, what do you say?”
“I don’t know,” I said reluctantly. “I mean, they’re still my subjects. The Wizard said I was supposed to take care of them.”
“They won’t feel a thing,” the Scarecrow assured me. “They might even enjoy the process. Just think—all your life, a boring old Winkie, and suddenly you’re an enhanced soldier in the princess’s army? Not a bad opportunity, right? Plus, Dorothy will never take you seriously as a suitor unless you’re willing to do what’s necessary.”
I didn’t entirely like his plan, but that last sentence won me over. “I’ll do anything for Dorothy,” I said firmly, putting one hand over my heart. Next to me, Norbert started crying again.
“Oh, believe me,” the Scarecrow said, his grin growing even more sinister. “I know.”
EIGHT
That night, after I’d moved my things to my of
ficial new chambers in the palace—these rooms equipped with a closet I could stand in to sleep, as I’d requested—I stood lost in thought for a long time. Everything in Oz was changing so quickly. Dorothy back, Glinda and the Scarecrow probably cooking up some secret plan behind my back, the Lion chomping down bones in his room in the palace like it was his own home. Except that now the Emerald City was his new home. It was all of ours. I was overjoyed to have Dorothy back—more than overjoyed. I’d thought I would never see her again, and here she was, within reach. But everything else was so confusing, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about sharing her with Glinda, the Scarecrow, and the Lion.
Over breakfast, the three of us talked about the first time Dorothy had come to Oz. “Do you remember when you had to rescue me from the poppies?” the Lion roared happily, chomping on a chop and spraying bits of food as he talked. “All those mice!” We laughed, for a moment united again in our shared history.
“Everything was so much simpler then,” I said, a little sadly. “We only wanted obvious things. A heart, courage, brains—and Dorothy gave us all of that, and more.”
“Of course,” said the Scarecrow, eyeing me keenly. “And that’s why you must do exactly what she asks of you, Tin.” I couldn’t help but notice he didn’t say “we.” When had my friends changed so much? Was it really true that I could no longer trust him? I didn’t want it to be, but I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind.
Even before I’d known I loved Dorothy, I’d been her champion. When the Wicked Witch of the West had sent wolves to kill us, I’d slain them all without a second thought, to protect Dorothy. I’d done whatever was necessary on our quest to keep her safe. Wasn’t killing the Winkie in my courtyard almost the same thing? If it was, why did I still feel so bad about it? Why did everything have to be so complicated now?
I wandered through the palace in a daze for the next few days, confused and often alone. I barely saw Dorothy, who was holed up constantly with Glinda, and if I didn’t know better I would have said that she was avoiding me. After that first breakfast the Scarecrow, too, was nowhere to be found, presumably working away at his mysterious experiments. To my surprise, I even missed the Winkies—especially Norbert. He had been a good, reliable, and kind companion over the years, and he knew a tremendous amount about the history of Oz. I should have kept him at my side, I realized belatedly. The Scarecrow didn’t need all my Winkies for his project. Norbert would have been good company—and a good adviser in this strange new palace life.
Only the Lion had as much free time as I did, and although I often found him wearisome—all he talked about was hunting—at least when I was around him I didn’t have to think about a lot of things I didn’t understand. On the rare occasions when the Scarecrow emerged—I’d see him in passing, or at meals, which we attended as Dorothy’s closest companions even though we didn’t eat—he refused to talk about his work other than to say it was progressing well. His clothes were often smeared with blood, and sometimes bits of other, gorier things that I preferred not to examine too closely. He would spend the meal practically bouncing in his chair, and then rush away as soon as the dishes were cleared. “Be patient,” the Lion counseled in his meaty-breathed growl. “Only the best for Dorothy, you know.” I sighed. Did everyone in the palace know how I felt except her? She, too, sat at meals most of the time, but took the place of honor at the head of the table, where she laughed and carried on with everyone but me. Glinda was always by her side. I tried every day to catch her alone, before or after lunch or dinner, but she always said gently, “Not now, Tin,” and hurried away. Could it be possible that I’d disappointed her so much she was avoiding me? The Lion, who witnessed most of these failed attempts, gave me consoling pats on the shoulder as I stared longingly after her glittering heels retreating from me time after time. Those shoes! These days, they were all I could think about, glittering at the back of my mind like my own heartbeat. How could I make Dorothy see me? How could I make her understand how much I cared for her? I had to find a way to make her mine. I simply had to. Even if she couldn’t see it, we belonged together.
Finally, one morning a few days after he’d taken away the Winkies, the Scarecrow found me in my chambers, where I was staring out the window. “Are you busy?” he asked politely, though I obviously wasn’t. I’d been thinking about how Dorothy might look in a wedding dress, walking down an aisle toward me. Would we marry in the palace? Perhaps the gardens? The Scarecrow cleared his throat.
“Oh,” I said, remembering where I was. “No, not really.”
He actually rubbed his hands together with glee. “I have something to show you,” he said. “Something I think will interest you very much.” I waited. “In my workshop,” he said impatiently.
I sighed and got to my feet, squeaking audibly. I hadn’t been so good about oiling my joints in the last few days. Nothing seemed very important anymore if I wasn’t going to see Dorothy.
I followed him through the hallways to the suite of rooms Dorothy had given him. I didn’t think we’d been in the palace long enough for the Scarecrow to amass the kind of clutter that filled his chambers. Every surface was filthy, cluttered with piles of paper and old books and pens and tools. A bookshelf was so stuffed with volumes that they threatened to burst from its shelves. A large table covered in leather straps and mysterious stains dominated one end of the room. Though the day was bright and sunny, the Scarecrow’s workshop was as cold as an icebox, and if I hadn’t been made out of tin I would have shuddered.
“What did you want to show me?” I asked, trying not to let him see how creeped out I was by his whole setup. I’d known the Scarecrow was weird, but I’d had no idea he was this weird. He gestured toward the broad table, which was covered by a dirty, bloodstained blanket. I moved closer. The blanket was lumpy and misshapen, suggesting it covered something fairly large. Something, I realized, that was moving.
“What is it?” I asked. The Scarecrow smiled.
“Not it,” he said cheerfully. “He! An old friend of yours, in fact.” He flipped up the bottom half of the blanket, revealing a gruesome mess of bloody flesh and metal. I bent down, trying to figure out what I was looking at. It seemed to be the lower half of an animal, but no animal I had never seen. The torso was covered with fur, so stained with blood and grease it was impossible to determine the original color. Bloody, gaping wounds slashed here and there through the fur, crudely sewn together with thick black thread. “Not all the implants take, you know,” the Scarecrow said, seeming just a touch defensive. “This is very complicated work.” Where the animal’s legs should have been, its torso was fused to a single rusty wheel, like a unicycle. The line where flesh met metal was red and angry, bulging with scabbed-over skin and glistening red meat that looked suspiciously like organs. I swallowed at the gruesome sight.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What is this?”
The Scarecrow smiled and clapped his hands together. “Tin, old friend, meet your new general!” he cried, and whipped away the rest of the blanket. I gasped.
The creature strapped to the Scarecrow’s table was—or had once been—Norbert. One eye stared sightlessly up at me, but the other side of his face was a mess of metal and wires and exposed bone, the eye socket sprouting a glowing red bulb. His fur was matted with blood and oil, and in other places it had been cut open, revealing the pulsing red of his muscles. One arm ended in metallic pincers, not unlike the implements my own hands had transformed into. His chest heaved as he struggled for breath. “Sir,” he wheezed beseechingly. “Sir, it hurts. Please help me.” Impossibly, this awful ruin of my former chancellor was alive.
“What have you done?” I whispered.
“I thought you would be pleased!” The Scarecrow beamed. “Unrecognizable, am I right? Unfortunately, most of the other little fellows didn’t quite make it through the process, but this one gives me hope. In no time we’ll have fully mechanized soldiers for your army. I’ll even allow you to be the one who tells Dorothy,
as long as you give me proper credit, of course.”
“What do you mean, didn’t make it through the process?”
The Scarecrow clapped me heartily on the back. “Science involves sacrifice, my boy! You wouldn’t know that, I suppose. I’ve been imagining a project like this for a very long time, you know. Glinda’s return has given me the opportunity, and Dorothy’s return has given me the excuse. But truth be told, I’m in it for the knowledge, not the power. Just think of what advances I can make next!”
“You killed them?” I asked in disbelief. “All of them?”
“Not killed!” he exclaimed. “Sacrificed. It’s not like I murdered them in cold blood! I had no way of knowing they wouldn’t be strong enough to survive the initial round of trials. I have a few of them left, though, and soon I’ll have them all fixed up and ready to go. This little fellow was my first success. He’s a real trouper—no pun intended. Let me put him through his paces for you.” He undid the straps that held what had once been my chancellor to the table, lifted him up, and set him on the ground so that he balanced on his wheel. “Show the Woodman your stuff,” he ordered. Obediently, the chancellor scooted back and forth, and then creaked around the room in a little circle. His one good eye wept. “Please, sir,” he whispered again. “Just make it stop.”
“See? Right as rain,” the Scarecrow said. “Nothing wrong with him a little oil won’t fix, and I’m sure you’ve plenty of that lying about. It was you who gave me the idea, actually. A machine-animal mix? What could be better. All your sturdiness, with a bit of muscle and brain thrown in for good measure. The soldiers will be engineered not to think too clearly, of course. Wouldn’t want them to mutiny. So I suppose they’ll take after you more than me.” He laughed.
Dorothy Must Die Page 6
