Out of Oz

by Gregory Maguire

  Her household wobbled on. Systems seemed maintained not so much through stamina as through an inertia borne of fear. Nothing more came to light about Chef. Puggles did what he could with the odd breast of fallow-hen, with parsleyfruit and wristwrencher beans, with eggs and cheese and a militant sort of pastry pot pie that refused to yield to a knife. Miss Murth lived on tea and she smelled of tea and she began to resemble a tall stalk of ambulatory celery, and she trembled when she talked, which was less often than usual. What Rain ate was a mystery to Glinda, mostly.

  One day when the cloudburst began earlier than usual, the girl showed up fresh from her lesson. She hunted for Os and Zs all over Glinda’s parlor, in the gnarly filigrees of preposterously carved furniture. She all but capered with the fun of it. “I know Oz, now,” she said, and in the carving of the lintel she found that common ideogram, a Z circled with an O. “Usually letters don’t hide inside each other,” she told Glinda firmly.

  “No, that’s true. In Oz, I suppose, something is always hiding, though.”

  The girl turned and as if by magnetism walked directly over to the little bookshelf beside the window. She tugged the yellow book out. It might as well have been her primer. “What’s this book? I can’t read these words yet.”

  “It’s called, um, The Wind Blew Away. Or something.”

  “Is it about the big wind that blew Dorothy here?”

  “Where did you hear about Dorothy?”

  “Miss Murth told me the story.”

  “Never listen to Miss Murth. She’s too old to be valid. Now put that book back.”

  I must seem too old to be valid, too, thought Glinda, as Rain ignored her. The girl opened the cover and ran her hand along the page. “What’s hidden here?”

  Glinda felt a chill. “What nonsense you speak. What do you mean?”

  “This book. It’s like a creature. It’s alive.” She turned to Glinda. “Can you feel it? It gots a heart, almost. It’s warm. It’s purring.”

  “Do you come in here and touch this book when I’m not looking?”

  “No. I never seen it before. But it was sort of shimmery.”

  Glinda snatched it away. She had never noticed a shimmer to the book and she didn’t see one now. But Rain was on to something. The Grimmerie had a kind of urgent low heat to it. A kind of soundless hum.

  She found herself saying, nearly whispering, “What page would you like to look at?”

  Rain paused. Glinda held the book down to her like a tray of canapés. From under those horrid flea-bitten bangs of hers, Rain looked up at Glinda. Then with a hand scratched by thorns and ignorant of soap, she cracked the code of the disguise charm without even trying. The Grimmerie took on its original aspect—broader, darker, more opaque; handwritten, on this page, in inks of silver and iodine blue. A narrow design seemed to be contorting around the margins, writhing. Glinda felt faint. “How did you do that?”

  The thunder made a menacing comment, but it was comfortably distant. Rain turned to a page about two-thirds through.

  “You can’t read this. Can you?”

  Rain peered. “Everything’s hitched up and kicking.”

  “Yes yes, but can you read it?”

  Rain shook her head. “Can you?”

  How mortifying. Glinda looked. A heading of some sort was squeezing like a bellows; at full extension it seemed to suggest To Call Winter upon Water.

  “It’s about dressing warmly enough. Sort of,” she said. She slapped the book closed. “Why did you open to that page?”

  Rain murmured, “I was remembering something once. About a goldfish.”

  Suddenly Glinda was tired of Rain. Tired, and a little scared of her. “Would you run tell Miss Murth it’s time for my tea? And no touching this book unless I ask you to. Do you understand?”

  Rain was out the door, on to the next thing in her stunted little life. “Sure,” she called, disingenuously no doubt.

  Glinda carried the volume to her escritoire. She opened it again, but now she couldn’t even fan the pages. The book fell open to the page it preferred. To Call Winter upon Water. How had Rain called this spell up out of the book?

  I chose to be the patron of arts festivals over dabbling in the science of charms, she thought. But there’s no help for it now. I am stuck here with a book of magic that won’t let me go.

  She read a little bit of the charm, as best she could, and then sat back, exhausted. Thought about the Grimmerie, and its wily ways. Perhaps she shouldn’t read too much into Rain’s capacity to hone in on the tome. She was learning to read, after all. Secrets are revealed as you are ready to understand them. It seems capricious and mean-spirited of the Grimmerie to hold back, to yield and then to tease with a single page—but then the world is the same way, isn’t it? The world rarely shrieks its meaning at you. It whispers, in private languages and obscure modalities, in arcane and quixotic imagery, through symbol systems in which every element has multiple meanings determined by juxtaposition.

  How does anyone learn to read? she thought. How did I?

  By the time Miss Murth arrived with tea, Glinda had worked through a good deal of the spell, though she didn’t understand its possible uses. She closed the volume gently, drawing no attention to it, in case Miss Murth was in one of her beaky prowly moods. But Murth had other things on her mind. “The storm has moved on toward Sedney,” she said, “and the General has called for the barn doors to be open. They are breaking down the front of two of the barns, Mum. They are bringing out the boats.”

  “You know they’re boats?” Glinda felt a little cheapened.

  “You think you’re the only one pays attention to Rain,” said Murth.

  I7.

  The vessels rolled out on an ancient technology: clean-hewn logs set parallel. At once Glinda saw the serviceability of Mockbeggar in a new light. The appeal to Cherrystone of her country house wasn’t the formal aspect of the great house. A Pallantine masterpiece meant nothing to the armed forces. It was the barns. They were tall enough to have served as incubators for these four massive ships. Sequestered, men had worked through the daily downpours and on through the night.

  Even more important, the grade from the barnyard to lake would accommodate a launch. A clear access presented itself across the drive, through the wildflower meadow and down the pastures, neatly avoiding the ha-ha and (mercifully) Virus Skepticle’s bentlebranch folly in honor of freshwater mermaids.

  Glinda considered herself in the mirror, then drew a lace shoulderette from the wardrobe and freshened her lashes. A parasol to suggest idle ambling. She wished she had lap dogs so she could seem to be taking them for a walk, but ever since that monstrous Toto had nipped her heel and torn the hem of her favorite pink reception gown she had gone off the cussed creatures.

  Puggles was making an effort to concoct some sort of soup. “I weren’t raised to this grade of domestic work, Mum,” he said, wiping his brow and nearly clocking himself through the clumsy application of a meat mallet.

  “You’re doing admirably. I shall take notes one day. But Puggles, did Miss Murth tell you? The builders have unveiled their constructions.”

  “She did.”

  “How will they avoid being attacked? The ships, I mean?”

  “Lower your voice, Mum, there’s soldiers everywhere now.” He pounded harder as he spoke, to drown out his whisper. “It’s hard to get word through the cordon of guards, but I have it on pretty solid authority that the farmers and fishermen of the area already have worked out for themselves what was going on here. I think some of the Munchkinlander beached fleet might be readying to venture out again after their nice long rest.” He winked at her. “Suicidal, I know…”

  “There’ll be cannon on board Cherrystone’s warships, no doubt.”

  “Cannons are good for hammering at the stone walls of fortresses, Mum, but they’re less good for swiping at your little lake heron or your quick minnow. If you take my meaning.”

  “Well.” She chose her words carefully.
“If you hear more about the wildlife on the lake this season, do let me know.”

  “I’m no longer permitted outside the house, Mum,” he told her. “I’m not likely to hear more.”

  She moved on, worried for the local Munchkins. Cherrystone was too smart to display these lummoxy floating wooden castles without being prepared to deal with any attack on them. Still, Glinda was infected with a sense of excitement as she descended the great stairs. She admired the well-made thing, whatever it was: a slipcover, a compliment, a man-o’-war.

  She ignored the muddy boots lined up on the floor, just plowed through the banquet hall and the kitchens as if she’d been used to taking charge there for years. “Zackers. Hat off in the presence of a lady,” she barked at him, who whirled around from where he was rooting through a bin of biscuits. Feeling a warm breeze from an open door, she continued on through a larder and a maze of pantries, and found an exit into an herb garden. How useful, now that she knew what herbs were for. But she had no time to pause and take notes.

  From the ground the four ships were even larger than they’d looked from her windows. Bowl-bellied wooden narwhals. Men with their shirts off were swarming up ladders on all sides, caulking and scraping and wielding brushes to apply some sort of gleaming oil. It made the fresh wood glow like skin.

  She located Cherrystone near a commissaire or clerk who was taking notes. She bearded the General. “Traper, you are to be congratulated. This is an installation of most magnificent hue and heft. I can’t think where you got all the lumber.”

  “There’s a mill or two in the Pine Barrens. You pay enough, you can find the help you need.”

  “Pay with cash, or with threat of violence?” But she smiled as she said it, and he grinned back, replying, “Oh, the coin of the realm appears to be good cheer, as I understand it. We imported white oak for the ribbing, but the local fir stock is suitable for cladding and masts. Amazing how generous the locals are, if you put it to them persuasively enough.”

  “I don’t know sail-lacing, so this is deepest arcana to me. However, Restwater being Oz’s largest lake, I believe I’d have noticed vessels of such magnificent profile if they’d ever sailed by me before. They don’t look like riverboats, yet the masts are lower than I would imagine useful to help propel such a capacious hold.”

  “Oh, it’s a manly art, is shipbuilding,” said the General. “I can’t pretend to follow a word of it. I have a hard time lacing my own boots.”

  Glinda caught herself from making a remark about not lacing her own stays. “We all know the EC wants to divert the lake for its private use, in the capital and in the mill towns and factory hamlets springing up between the Emerald City and Shiz. And so I realize these ships are intended to attack Haugaard’s Keep. But I can’t understand why you’d take four weeks and some to build them, giving the local farmers a chance to plan their resistance and fortify the lake, when you could’ve marched your army along through the villages and circled Restwater six times over by now.”

  “Straight through a gauntlet of pint-size guerrillas? No, thanks. But too terribly dry, this business of strategy,” he said, as if in agreement. “I’d love to chat more. Shall we dine again? I can wax hysterical about the cost of labor in wartime, and you can catch me up on your successes in the field of cuisine.”

  “Are you inviting me to a reception upon the virgin decks of your commanding vessel?”

  He blushed. She hadn’t known she could make him blush. “I’m afraid it’ll be some time before the accoutrements are fitted, the paint applied and dried, and so on. It’s why I had the ships brought out into the sunlight, so this work could proceed apace.”

  “But the daily thunderstorms?”

  “Spittle and eyewash. Won’t slow us down.”

  She almost asked permission to take a promenade around the boats, but remembering herself, she started out at a pace. He caught up with her and took her by the arm, but gently, as a husband might, and escorted her about the graveled yard. She commented, “I trust you’ll be putting my barn fronts back together. One bad storm and the places would collapse like houses of cards.”

  He didn’t answer, just pointed out admirable bits of carving on the figureheads. “You have some very talented, very bored soldiers,” she said. “Surely that’s not a portrait of me?”

  “No, it’s meant to be Ozma.”

  “Dreadfully royalist of you. Positively seditious. I’d expect it to be the Emperor.”

  “Some of the men are simple. But if you want to get good work out of them, you have to allow them their prejudices.”

  “Tell that to the Munchkins.” But she was trying to be slick as boiled sweeties. “What will you call these fine dames of the lake?”

  “We’ll slap their names upon them when they’re waterworthy.”

  “I can’t wait that long. I might die in my sleep tonight, of impatience.”

  “Oh, don’t do that, Glinda.”

  He had used her name without the honorific. She smiled a little less winningly, more inscrutably, reeling him in. “No, do tell. Traper.”

  “Can’t you guess what the Emperor’s four lake ambassadors would be called?”

  She blinked at him, grateful she’d taken time to darken her lashes.

  He said, “The Vinkus, Gillikin, and Quadling Country.”

  “I see,” she said. “And the lead vessel … the Emerald City.”

  “Oh, no,” he replied. “Munchkinland. In anticipation of the reannexation, whenever we achieve that happy marriage, and make Oz whole again.”

  I8.

  In truth, she’d begun looking over Chef’s shoulder—before he disappeared. A bit sullenly, she now peered in at the efforts of Puggles. She was starting to know just enough to be dangerous in the kitchen. She watched things being ladled out of cast-iron gorgeholds and dumped into porcelain kettles or copper skillets. She understood how a single squeeze of lemon could salvage a crime against cuisine, and how a misplaced spray of orange balsam could sabotage a masterpiece. About things like salt and sugar and blanched pepper she became more confused, as they all looked more or less snowy.

  She had no time to waste, though.

  “Grab a sheet of paper, Miss Murth. The pen is on the blotter. Date: 18th Highsummer comma, 11 of the clock. Dear Traper comma, Unable to wait for a kind offer to dine on the deck of the Emperor’s good ship Munchkinland comma, I propose instead—”

  “Dear Traper?” Miss Murth’s outrage was controlled and magnificent.

  “—that you join me for a meal in the knot garden. Stop. The prettibells are perfection and the roses aren’t too shabby either. Stop. I’ll cook. Underline the I’ll twice. Tomorrow night at eight question mark? Are you keeping up, Murthy?”

  “Shall I sign it, Love and kissies, your little Glinda?”

  “Don’t be absurd. I’ll sign it myself.”

  “I’ve already signed it.”

  Glinda snatched the paper and read Cordially, Lady Glinda, Arduenna of the Uplands.

  “Exactly how I would have signed it. You have perfected my signature after all this time.”

  “I aim to serve,” said Murth, aiming herself out the door.

  “Miss Murth,” said Glinda.

  Murth turned.

  “Would you kindly try not to be so cheerless. It’s unsociable and it taxes the nerves. I do know what I’m about. I’m not the idiot you take me for.”

  Miss Murth attempted a kind of curtsey that had gone out of fashion four decades earlier. Her knees clacked like ivory dominoes dropped on a plate.

  Glinda in the kitchen. “Zackers.”

  “Mum.”

  She gave up on insisting on Lady Glinda. “In the absence of Ig Baernaeraenaesis, otherwise known as Chef, I’m attempting to put together a little meal. Do you know where the cookery books are kept?”

  Zackers found a shelf under a window seat. Some parish committee’s collection: Munchkinlander Aunties Share Secrets of the Sauce. And Glinda liked this one, printed in larg
e type with droll and useful drawings: Avoid Prosecution for Poisoning: Cooking by the Book. Particularly well thumbed was Widow Chumish’s famous volume, Food You Can Actually Stomach. She grabbed all three and told Zackers she would send down a list of ingredients.

  She was almost excited. The dishes, the pans, the wooden spoons! The heat of the stove would rosy up her cheeks and curl her hair. She hoped it wouldn’t also steam off the highlights. She had found more than one frizzle of grey nestled among the gold and wrenched it out, but now it was either dye the traitorous locks or resign herself to mid-age baldness.

  Glinda with Rain. The Grimmerie lay on the games table, sweetly dull in its disguise. Glinda sat before it, and Rain stood at her side.

  “Your interest in reading seems to inspire this book’s playfulness,” said Glinda. “I wonder if you could open this book to any page?”

  The girl didn’t understand. Lurline, but she was a slow train to Traum!

  “Now watch me.” Glinda banged open the cover. The merciless slabs of dense print on every page looked like torture. No pictures, no diagrams, very little white space on which to rest the eye and let the mind wander. Glinda riffled the pages to make the book’s point, whatever it was. “Now you do it.” She closed the book and pushed it toward Rain.

  The girl paused, then opened the volume. It transformed under her hands, becoming the Grimmerie, proffering the page with the spell: To Call Winter upon Water.

  “But you see, I don’t want to call winter upon water,” said Glinda, as if she were talking to a simpleton. She wasn’t sure if she was addressing Rain or the Grimmerie. “I’m looking for a recipe for starched muttock, maybe, or grip of lamb with a crawberry chutney to lend a sort of alto chromatic to the gaminess of the enterprise. A genteelly quibbling complement.” Or did she mean compliment? She had no idea what she was talking about. She couldn’t speak gourmandese. She just wanted to see Rain handle the Grimmerie.

  The book, however, had its own notions. While Rain could slip the pages a little from the gentle steppe of parallel deckled edges, she couldn’t move them to reveal more than an inch or two. The pages husband their secrets; the book was only interested in suggesting how To Call Winter upon Water.