No Place Like Oz

by Danielle Paige

  I was pleased to notice that they also took a special interest in me. Every new visitor who passed through the palace stopped to shake my hand, or to give me a kiss on the cheek and to marvel at what a wonder it was to have the famous Dorothy Gale back in Oz.

  I half expected Ozma to be jealous of all the attention I was getting. But she masked it well, and never failed to appear delighted when yet another one of her subjects treated me as if I was just as important as she—maybe even more important. One day, when a little furry Nome peddling jeweled goblets thanked me for ridding the land of the witches, I almost wanted to wink at him and whisper in his ear, “Just you wait. My work isn’t done quite yet.”

  Except for one thing: ever since I’d flossed Ozma’s brain, I was having a hard time hating her. In fact, when I set aside the unfortunate fact that she had imprisoned Glinda and tried to steal my shoes, we were getting on well.

  We spent our days planning the menu and picking out decorations: bright, blooming flowers that changed colors every time you looked away; handfuls of stardust sprinkled over everything—we even coaxed the Wandering Water to form a babbling brook around the outside of the ballroom. I have to say, it put to shame the streamers and tea candles that passed for lavish back in Kansas. We spent countless hours lying on the grass in the garden, threading flowers through our hair, speculating about who was coming to the party and daydreaming about the possibility that there might be a few suitable princes in attendance.

  My spell had done the trick—she had no recollection of our fight by the fountain, or of the controversy over my magic shoes. As far as she knew, we were just friends.

  In fact, Ozma was starting to feel like the closest I had to a best friend. It had been so long since I’d had a friend like that. Of course, the Lion and the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow were my loyal friends and the most wonderful companions anyone could hope to have, but they were different. It wasn’t like having a girlfriend my own age.

  All the Scarecrow ever wanted to talk about was his magnificent brains, which made me wonder what good was it to be the greatest mind in all the kingdom if you never actually thought about anything except your own intelligence.

  The Tin Woodman spent most of his time in the palace’s musty old library with his nose in boring old books of love poetry. When I agreed to let him read one aloud to me, I was so mortified at how romantic it was that I could barely stand to look at him afterward.

  As for the Lion—well, he was usually off in the woods, hunting or whatever it is lions do in their alone time. When he did deign to set foot on the palace grounds, he could barely go ten minutes before his newfound courage got the best of him and he tried to pick a fight with the first palace servant who crossed his path.

  With the three of them as my only other choices for company, who could blame me for preferring to spend my days dreaming and party planning with Oz’s sweet little despot? At least she was capable of carrying on a real conversation. And she seemed to actually want to spend time with me. I just had to be careful not to do any magic around her.

  I knew now that I could subdue her, if necessary—just wash her brain clear of any tension between us. But to be honest, I felt a little uneasy about having to do it again. Why go to the trouble?

  “Can I ask you a question?” Ozma asked one afternoon, just a few days before my ball when we were in her closet trying on party outfits for the umpteenth time. I nodded absently, trying to decide between slinky silk or dramatic tulle and chiffon—I was leaning toward slinky.

  I must admit, it felt like such a sweet victory to think that I’d be celebrating my sixteenth birthday again, like this, after the disaster of the first party.

  Ozma turned and fixed me with a penetrating look. “Why do you live with your aunt and uncle?” she asked, out of nowhere. “What happened to your mother and father?”

  I paused in surprise. “Oh,” I said quietly. It wasn’t the kind of question I was expecting.

  “I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have . . . it must be such a sad story. You don’t have to talk about it.”

  I shrugged. “No,” I said. “It’s all right. I don’t even remember them. My mother died when she gave birth to me, and my father was killed just a few months later. There was an accident with a plow. I know I should miss them, but it’s hard to be sad about people you never even knew.”

  Ozma smiled in sympathy.

  “What about you?” I asked. “You’ve never mentioned your parents at all, I don’t think. Just Lur-whoozit.”

  Ozma passed her hand down the length of her body and her emerald-green dress turned to bloodred.

  “Maybe add a train?” I suggested.

  “Perhaps. No, they’re so easy to trip over. Think of how embarrassing that would be.”

  “You can have a team of Munchkins on hand just to hold it up,” I said, and we both laughed over the absurdity of the idea.

  “The truth is,” Ozma said, when we had recovered. “I don’t have parents. I never did.”

  “You must have at some point. Everyone has parents.”

  “Everyone except fairies,” she said. “I was born from the pool in the center of the maze. Remember that little red flower, floating in the pool?”

  “Yes,” I said, vaguely remembering.

  “That’s where I came from. The next princess is somewhere in there, biding her time. When the flower is big and full and about to shed its petals, it means she’s close to being born, and I’ll know that it’s time for me to go rejoin Lurline and my people. I’ll go off to find them, and my successor will rise up out of that flower to take my place. Of course, it takes a very long time, and after she’s born she’ll be a baby for a bit—that’s when Oz is most vulnerable. That’s how the Wizard managed to do away with me the first time.”

  “How strange,” I said. “But where did he send you? I’ve been wondering.”

  “Does it matter?” Ozma asked.

  “Why wouldn’t it?”

  “Does it matter that you’re from Kansas? You’re here now. The past is gone. Especially in Oz—that’s the way time works. In Oz, it’s always right now.”

  I thought about it for a moment. It did matter. I didn’t necessarily like to think about where I was from, and I certainly didn’t want to go back there, but it had made me who I was, just as much as my trip to Oz had made me who I was.

  Wherever Ozma had been had made her who she was, too. How could it not have?

  And who was she, really? Was she the sweet, charming new friend I’d made—a girl who wanted nothing more than to try on dresses and plan parties—or was she the regal, majestic, fairy princess I’d seen that day in the hedge maze?

  Was she the girl who would do anything to be a good ruler to a kingdom she didn’t even really want, or was she so desperate for power that she had banished Glinda to some terrible, faraway place to get her out of the way, just the same way the Wizard, once upon a time, had done to Ozma herself?

  It didn’t occur to me that maybe she could be both. All I knew was that I had to find out the truth.

  So even though I knew it was risky, I cast a spell. I knew I couldn’t be too obvious this time. Ozma may have looked sweet and innocent, but she was dangerous, too. She was a fairy. If she had done something to Glinda, she might be able to do it to me, too, if I wasn’t careful.

  I gave her just the tiniest little nudge. I had been practicing at night, in my room alone, and I was getting better at using the magic. I didn’t have to knock my shoes together anymore; I didn’t even need to feel the tingling in my feet. The magic wasn’t just in the shoes. It was in every bit of my body, and all I had to do was take a tiny little piece of it and send it out into the world to bring me back what I wanted.

  There in Ozma’s dressing room, I looked down at my fingertip and saw a little red butterfly sitting on it, glowing and pulsing its jeweled little wings.

  Tell me, I told it, without speaking the words aloud. And the butterfly took flight. It fluttered into the air and
circled around Ozma’s head in a scattered halo.

  “Dorothy?” Ozma said. “Are you okay? You have the strangest look on your face.”

  The butterfly landed on her forehead. She didn’t react. She didn’t seem to notice it.

  “What are you thinking about?” Ozma asked, looking deep into my eyes. “You look like you’re a million miles away.”

  Tell me, I thought. Tell me where Glinda is.

  The butterfly crawled across her brow, like it was looking for a way into her mind, and then it disappeared—just evaporated in a tiny puff of red dust. I had lost it.

  Ozma didn’t seem to know what had just happened, I don’t think. But her mind was still her own. Her magic was more powerful than she let on.

  I knew then, without a doubt, that she was the one who had done something to Glinda. You don’t guard secrets that you don’t have in the first place. And there was definitely something in her mind that she was guarding closely.

  “Yes,” I said. “I was thinking of my mother.”

  It was a lie, and it wasn’t. I had been thinking of Glinda, who was as close to a mother as I’d ever had. Closer than my own mother had ever been, that’s for sure. Closer than Aunt Em was, even.

  Glinda had brought me here. She had helped me get home to Kansas, once upon a time, when it was all I wanted in the world. I had to find her. I had to help her. Even Ozma—as lovely a friend as she could be—wasn’t going to stand in my way.

  The night before the ball, I walked into my bedchambers. I knew that it was important to get a good night’s sleep, but there was so much on my mind that it was impossible to quiet it.

  Toto was curled in the corner, asleep, dreaming about whatever it is that dogs dream about.

  Without even having to think about it, I used my magic to strip my dress off; to untie the ribbons that held my hair into plaits. I sent them drifting off to the corner of the room, where I let them drop into a messy pile. I let an ethereal nightgown slip over my head. The shoes, of course, stayed on. I never took them off. I couldn’t even if I tried.

  I levitated myself off the floor and floated myself to my bed, letting myself drop gently onto the cloud-soft mattress. I drifted off to sleep, not bothering to pull the sheets over my body. Instead, I wrapped myself in magic like it was a heavy down quilt.

  As it enveloped me, I felt both happy and content—and emptier than ever.

  Tomorrow was the party. I was in Oz, and there was a party being thrown for me. I had gotten exactly what I had wanted, and still it wasn’t enough. I had wanted. And now I wanted more.

  That was who I was, I realized, as I drifted off to sleep. This wanting itself was a kind of magic—one that I’d had since I was just a little girl. Since even before I’d been to Oz. Even before I’d had a pair of magic shoes, silver or red. I had always wanted more.

  It was what had brought the tornado to me. It was what had brought me to Oz in the first place. It was what had sent me home, too, and it was what had allowed Glinda to find me again, to reach out through the walls that separated Oz from the rest of the world and bring me back. Now that I was here—now that I had my shoes, my magic, my party—the wanting was still with me. It always would be.

  I wanted more. I wanted what Ozma had. I wanted everything.

  Seventeen

  Ozma sent Jellia Jamb for me in the morning, so that we could get ready together, but I sent the plain little servant away. This was my big day, and I wanted to be alone—I wanted to take the time to think about everything that had brought me to this place, and about what the future held for me.

  For me. Not for Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Not for Ozma, or for Oz, or the Scarecrow or the Tin Woodman or the Lion or even poor, missing Glinda, but for me alone.

  So I spent the day in my room. I magicked up a light breakfast of those wonderful Anything Eggs and some Chimera’s milk, and, later, for lunch, ambrosia and Emeraldfruit.

  I stood in front of the mirror, trying to decide how I should look for the party. Toto sat in the corner, just watching me, understanding, I guess, that I was in a world of my own.

  I tried on every gown in my closet, but none of them felt special. I summoned Jellia and requested more, but I still knew that none of them would be good enough. The right dress would come from magic—not Ozma’s magic, but the magic of the shoes. The magic that belonged to me.

  An hour before the party, Jellia delivered one more dress to my door. This one was from Ozma.

  The skirt was green and flowing, made from the finest chiffon, with a bodice studded with a rainbow of jewels.

  My Dearest Dorothy, the note read. My new friend. I am so happy to have you at my side.

  I set the note on my vanity and took one look at the dress Ozma had given me before I tossed it aside, into the corner where my pile of castoffs was turning into a mountain.

  The dress from Ozma was beautiful, but it wasn’t the dress I was supposed to wear on my sixteenth birthday, the day I announced my official return to Oz. It was what she wanted for me, not what I wanted for myself. I didn’t want to be at her side while she ruled Oz. I was no one’s lady-in-waiting. And suddenly I knew exactly what I wanted.

  I no longer cared about hiding my magic from her. Why should I have to hide what belonged to me? This was Oz. Everything else was magic. Why shouldn’t I be magic, too?

  So I called it forth. Using it was second nature to me now. All I needed to do was want and it was mine.

  The room was twitching with energy as I stood in front of the mirror. Atoms rewrote themselves around me. I felt the world twisting and turning at my silent command. Fabric wove itself against my body; my hair grew even longer, twisting, taking the shape I wanted from it until it fell around my face in two perfect auburn braids with curls that scraped my shoulders. I felt my skin becoming smoother and softer. My eyes brightened; my lips reddened. My cheeks flushed with the perfect rosy glow.

  My dress took form.

  When I was done, Toto barked in approval. I looked just how I wanted to look. I looked both like myself and like something greater.

  There was a knock on my door. I opened it to find that Aunt Em and Uncle Henry were waiting for me outside. They gasped when they saw me.

  “Why, Dorothy . . . ,” Uncle Henry started. I saw him blush, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

  “You look . . . ,” Aunt Em began to say. She was at a loss for words, too. A look of scandal crested her face. She put her hand nervously to her mouth.

  “I look like a princess,” I said. I knew that it was what they meant. “And not just like any princess. I look like Princess Dorothy. The Witchslayer. The Girl Who Rode the Cyclone. The One True Princess of Oz.”

  They both looked away. They didn’t say anything. They didn’t have to. It was what they were thinking.

  “Now let’s go to my party,” I said.

  “Dorothy?” Ozma asked in surprise when I entered the ballroom, where the gala was just getting underway. “That’s not the dress I sent you.” Her face looked hurt and suspicious as she surveyed me.

  My dress was blue gingham, just like the blue gingham I’d worn on the day I’d first landed in Oz. But it was different, too. Rather than being made from that scratchy, cheap fabric, it was made from the finest silk. The blue checks were stitched with glittering gold thread so subtle that you barely could see it until you looked closely.

  It was short—shorter than anything I’d ever worn before. It was shorter than any dress I’d ever seen before, revealing my long, bare legs.

  All of it did nothing more than draw attention to the shoes on my feet. They shone brighter than anything else in the room: brighter than Ozma’s crown, or her scepter, or the tiny jewels that were braided through her dark hair.

  “Your dress was lovely,” I said, breezily. “But it wasn’t what I envisioned. Today is my day.”

  “But where . . . ,” she asked.

  Before she could finish the question, I stepped past her, into the ball, where everyone was w
aiting. They were waiting for me.

  It barely looked like a ballroom at all. The sky was a brilliant galaxy of stars studded with giant, red poppies that opened and closed in time with the music, emitting a shimmering, heavenly light. The dance floor was a deep purple sunset.

  Swarms of Pixies flew throughout the room, carrying trays of drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

  The whole place was filled with Oz’s strange and notable personalities. Some of them I recognized from hearing Ozma talk about them: there was Polychrome, the Daughter of the Rainbow, wrapped in a diaphanous gown that looked like it was woven out of the sky itself. There was Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, cartwheeling across the floor like a whirling dervish, whooping with laughter as she went. There was a giant, dignified frog in a three-piece suit, and a man with a jack-o’-lantern in place of a head.

  There were Nomes and Munchkins and Winkies and a man and woman made entirely of china, dancing carefully apart from the rest of the crowd so as not to risk breaking into pieces.

  I whirled joyfully through the room, gliding from one citizen of Oz to the next, smiling and kissing each one on the cheek in greeting before spinning on to the next one. Each one of them looked up at me with love and gratitude. I meant so much to them. I had done so much for them—so much more than Ozma could ever think of doing. And they all wanted to meet me. I was famous. I was their hero.

  When I got to the Scarecrow, he was ready for me. He took me up into his stuffed arms and spun me around and I laughed, kicking my feet up as the crowd parted to make way for us. The orchestra was playing a happy, energetic ragtime number and the trumpets blasted as the Scarecrow tossed me over his head as if I was light as a feather. He caught me, laughing, in his arms as I came back down before twirling me across the floor to where the Tin Woodman was waiting for me.