Shadows of the Emerald City

by J. W. Schnarr

  It was the only time she appeared animated, other than when the skies became gray and stormy. Otherwise, she exhibited all the classic signs of catatonia, and had to be fed, dressed and washed.

  In his first week, Will had leaned close to her to try and discern what she said as she regarded the painting, which he learned she had done in her first year at the institute, back when it was crudely labeled an “insane asylum”.

  It was just five words, and she repeated them like a mantra.

  There’s no place like home

  There’s no place like home

  There’s no place like home

  In the spring of 1964, when the country was still reeling from the death of President John F. Kennedy, Will went to Dr. Fisk with a proposal.

  He found the big man sniffling at his desk. Fisk held up a copy of LIFE Magazine which contained a picture of Kennedy’s young son saluting his father’s casket.

  “It’s a hell of a thing, Will,” Fisk said, putting the magazine down and blowing his nose on an enormous handkerchief.

  Will agreed, but his sorrow was tempered by excitement.

  “Doctor Fisk, I…”

  “Son, you’ve worked here now for nigh on to two years. I wish you would call me ‘Carl’.”

  “You’re right, Carl, I should.”

  Fisk beamed, and wiped an errant tear from the corner of his eye. He then looked at Will expectantly.

  “I would like to sign Dorothy Gale out for a day.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “I have been doing some reading in Die Deutsche Fachzeitschrift fur Psychisches Wissenschaft.”

  Fisk smiled.

  “I haven’t gotten my translated copy, yet.” When he saw the younger man flush with embarrassment, he waved him off. “A joke, doctor. I remember from your résumé you speak German and French.”

  Will almost mentioned that he also spoke Italian and a smattering of Russian, but thought better of it.

  “There’s an interesting article by Friedrich Leuchte concerning what he calls ‘erschüttern der bekannten’, or ‘the shock of the familiar’. He cites numerous case studies where some catatonic individuals have been shocked or jolted from their stupor by familiar surroundings. In Dorothy’s case, I’m thinking the Gale farmhouse.”

  “But Dorothy was returned there after being found,” Fisk said. “Doctor Walshe, the psychiatrist who initially treated her, also took her to other familiar surroundings. None of the attempts proved successful.”

  “But those trips were taken while she was still in the process of fabricating her fantasy world. She hasn’t been outside these grounds for over fifty years. In effect, she has spent all that time ‘in Oz’. Now it’s the farmhouse that would seem new and exotic, something both known but forgotten.”

  “A shock of the familiar.”

  “Exactly.”

  Dr. Fisk sighed.

  “There are many who would say the old woman is at peace, leave her be.”

  “If that’s true, Carl, then why not just load up every patient with tranquilizers and sit them in front of the television or the duck pond?”

  Fisk considered this and nodded. He pulled a form from his desk, and began filling it in.

  It was a brilliant May day when Will and Dorothy set out for the farm in Dryden.

  The drive was just over an hour, and Will had gone there on his last day off to make certain there was enough of the farmhouse standing to give Dorothy the necessary jolt.

  She sat in the front seat, her large hands clasped in her lap. For all her lack of affect, she might be sitting out on the duck pond bench. She was far more animated in her room than she was now.

  Her demeanor changed only once. Will heard her gasp slightly and saw her lean forward.

  There was a young girl on a bicycle, a white wicker basket of flowers mounted on the handlebars. When it became clear it was only a young girl, Dorothy returned to her vegetative state.

  Elmira Gulch had ridden a bicycle, Will remembered. It was funny, he knew the Gulch woman had had an altercation with Dorothy shortly before the tornado hit. He had thought of hiring an actress to play the woman, perhaps to come charging out of the house when they arrived. But he could find no pictures of Elmira Gulch, and realized the shock of seeing her double might be more than Dorothy could bear. One of the lessons he had learned in his residency was that results did not always come quickly. “Patience for patients” was something his instructors mentioned time and time again.

  They were about three miles from the town of Dryden when Will took a dirt road off to the left. He thought he saw Dorothy’s eyes flicker, but he had to keep his eye on the rough and rutted road.

  They passed one large working farm and two smaller spreads that had gone to seed, their houses and outbuildings slowly caving in to rotted piles of lumber and nails.

  Then came the Gale farm.

  The barn was burned down, and the pigsty and chicken coops were gone, but the house stood, seemingly little changed from that infamous day in 1900.

  Will glanced at Dorothy, and was rewarded to see that her eyes were alert, her hands unclasped.

  They passed the rusted ruin of a mailbox and parked in the dooryard.

  The house was indeed crooked on the foundation, as if a giant had lifted it and then replaced it carelessly on the foundation.

  It was a sad and plain gray house in a colorless landscape. Even the brilliantly blue sky seemed bland and charmless in this barren and desolate place.

  My God, Will thought, it’s no wonder her fantasy world is so filled with bright colors and rainbows.

  The two of them sat there for a moment, the only sounds the ticking of the cooling engine and a big dog barking somewhere in the distance.

  “Dorothy?”

  She turned to him, and he noticed for the first time that her eyes were an amazing shade of green, like the ocean as the sky clouds up. Though he had seen many pictures of her over the years, he realized that in her youth she must have been extraordinarily beautiful.

  “Do you want to go in?” he asked.

  She nodded slowly, looking again at the house as she did so.

  As if it might disappear.

  Will got out first, and went to help her out. Her hand was strong as it clasped his, and despite her age there was no hint of weakness or palsy.

  The front door was open, and he and Dorothy walked in.

  The house had been cleared of furniture and bric-a-brac decades ago. Only a pair of faded gingham curtains remained in living room. Still, for a house standing vacant for sixty years, there was no sign of vandalism or decay.

  How could that be?

  Will realized he must have spoken this thought aloud, because Dorothy was looking at him.

  “I was thinking,” he said. “The house looks remarkably untouched for one so old and abandoned.”

  “It was touched by Oz,” Dorothy said, as if this was obvious.

  She walked over to the curtains and touched them tentatively, then leaned in to smell them. She smiled for the first time since Will had known her, and it was a beautiful smile.

  “I… I can smell her perfume,” Dorothy said, her voice the whisper of an acolyte.

  “Whose, Dorothy?” He wished now he had brought a portable tape recorder with him, but he had a feeling Dorothy’s days of silence and immobility were over.

  “Auntie Em,” she said, and suddenly wiped at a tear in her eye.

  “Where is Auntie Em, Dorothy?”

  “She’s waiting for me, back in Oz with Uncle Henry and the others.”

  “And Elmira Gulch?”

  Dorothy’s smile disappeared and her eyes flashed.

  “Her? My house crushed her sister and I melted her. Good riddance!”

  Will couldn’t believe how well it was going. True, she was persisting in her fantasy, but it was carefully crafted over years of inactivity and lack of stimulation. That was all going to change.

  The dog barked again, but now it sounde
d different. It was closer, for one thing, and it…

  “Toto!” she cried, her face lighting up like a child’s a Christmas. “Oh, Toto! Toto, I’m here!”

  She ran toward the back of the house. The barking had sounded more like the yip of a terrier, but surely that was a coincidence.

  He hurried after her, not trusting the ancient floor to support her.

  She was in a back bedroom, spare and empty, with one window. She held something in her hand, and looked at him, her eyes shining with tears.

  “This was my room, Dr. Price, when I was younger.”

  She remembered his name! Surely this was a breakthrough!

  In her hand was a single poppy, its bright orange petals satiny and vibrant. The flower looked as if it had just been picked from a field, yet the land for miles around was too hot and dry for poppies.

  Will wanted to ask her where it came from, but then she smiled and blew on it, like a dandelion. Shining pollen like diamond dust swirled and eddied, each mote a tiny star suspended between them, and both of them were inhaling it before he could protest.

  Suddenly, there was a roaring all around, as if some great beast had discovered the long-empty house was now occupied. Will felt a sickening lurch in his stomach, that kind of giddy, nauseous joy experienced on elevators and roller coasters, and the room began to spin. Will’s knees buckled, and his vision blurred.

  As he lost consciousness, he heard the yapping of a small dog growing louder, more urgent. Everything went Kansas gray, and then he slipped into a darkness that seemed to have been waiting the whole time.

  Something wet touched Will’s face, and for a moment he thought he was out in the rain.

  Eyes dark and merry were regarding him as he opened his own. He sat up, and the small, dark terrier barked and capered around him.

  “Toto, let him stand up!” Dorothy called out, laughing.

  The dog ran to her and whined until she picked him up. Will’s head was throbbing and he wondered if she had bludgeoned him. Perhaps he had been drugged?

  “Oh, Doctor Price, it’s so wonderful, so incredibly wonderful!” Her cheeks were flushed, and again he noticed that she had once been an incredible beauty.

  “Hit my head,” he said, framing it midway between a question and a statement.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, kneeling near him. “The first trip is always the most difficult.”

  “Trip?” He remembered the poppy and wondered if he had ingested LSD somehow. Perhaps Dorothy had spiked the lemonade he had bought them at the fruit stand down the road from the insitute. The idea of her having access to hallucinogens explained a lot, but would also mean someone at the institute was her accomplice and supplier.

  Dorothy looked at him, her face filled with concern.

  “You don’t believe me, do you? Oh, Doctor Price, you must! Please, come to the window and see!”

  “See what, Dorothy?”

  “Oz, of course! We set down near the outskirts of Munchkin Land! They’ve been keeping Toto for me, and…”

  “Dorothy, you must know that’s not your dog,” he said gently. “This is a puppy, and your Toto would be over sixty years old. No dog lives that long.”

  “But this is Oz, Doctor Price, Oz. It’s a wonderful place, please come to the window and see!”

  Will knew this was a crucial juncture in her therapy. If he went to the window, he would be giving her fantasy some credence. It might undo all they had achieved here today, and put her back in that delusional state of isolation and confinement.

  “Dorothy,” he said slowly, “I will come to the window if you tell me if anyone at the institute has been supplying you with hallucinogens.”

  Dorothy looked at him, puzzled.

  “I’m not sure I know what that word means, Doctor Price.”

  “It’s a chemical that causes you to hallucinate, to see and/or hear things that are not there.”

  “Like a dream,” she said, the animation leaving her face.

  “Yes, but a waking dream.”

  Dorothy hugged the dog, and the little animal wagged its tail furiously and licked her neck.

  “The Scarecrow told me you wouldn’t believe,” she said sadly “He said you’re too concerned with your brain to listen to your heart.”

  “Dorothy, I only want what’s best for you.”

  She looked at him, and put Toto down. She stood and offered him her hand.

  “Please, Doctor Price, come with me. My friends will protect you.”

  “From what, Dorothy?” He tried to project as much compassion and empathy as he could. Patience for patients, the golden rule.

  “From the Witches,” she hissed, her eyes darting nervously as if some hag might even now be crawling along the ceiling.

  “But you told me both the witches were dead,” he said calmly. Gently, he reminded himself, she has had years to craft this fantasy, but there are flaws. Oz for all its grandeur is merely a trauma-inspired house of cards.

  “New witches always arise in the West and East,” she said. “Please, come with me to the North, where Ozma and Glinda can look after you.”

  “And what about the Wizard?” he asked.

  “Wizard,” she spat. “He’s the reason I came back. He convinced me that this is where I belonged. He was a horrible man and Oz is well rid of him.”

  He heard a flock of crows cawing outside, their raucous din a reminder of their location, a dreary and deserted farmhouse in Dryden, Kansas.

  Dorothy tugged on his arm.

  “Please, we must leave now!”

  Will shook his head, ready to deliver another gentle gust of reason to bring down her playing card construction.

  But Dorothy would hear none of it. She scooped up the terrier and ran from the room. Will stood up, and reeled from a bout of vertigo. Whatever had been given to him was still having an effect. Still, he was responsible for the old woman and could not allow her to hurt herself.

  He lurched out of the bedroom and down the cramped hallway. The house creaked and swayed under him as if it had become unsettled, and he chalked this up to some residual effect of the drug.

  He came out onto the front porch, but there was no sign of Dorothy. A quick check of the car and the house revealed nothing but the flat dry earth surrounding the gray structure.

  Will reentered the house, thinking Dorothy might be hiding or had relapsed back into catatonia. He began to search each room, checking the closets and the pantry as he went.

  As he was coming out of the kitchen he heard laughter and barking coming from her old bedroom.

  Will entered the room, but it was empty. He crossed to the window and looked out.

  Impossibly, the rear of the house now looked out onto verdant fields filled with fantastic flowers of gold, orange, red and yellow. Beyond this were meadows with grass so green it hurt his eyes, leading to mountains that disappeared into thick, fleecy clouds.

  And there, on a path of shining gold bricks, were Dorothy and the terrier. They were running to three creatures that Will remembered from Dorothy’s descriptions of her traveling companions in Oz: a living scarecrow, a metal woodsman and a large lion with a bow in its mane. They waved and called to her, even the lion.

  If he had had any doubts he was under the influence of some psychedelic drug, he was sure now. What he was seeing was impossible, preposterous. He had memorized every aspect of Dorothy’s make-believe world, and now her delusion was informing his drug-induced fantasy.

  As if a final proof was needed, Dorothy seemed to shrink as she neared her friends. By the time she reached them she was a good eighteen inches shorter, and her hair had darkened to a chestnut brown, tied in pigtails with bright blue ribbons that matched what was now a crisp, gingham dress. Transformed into a little girl of eight or nine, she skipped to the three denizens of Oz and hugged them happily while the little dog capered and barked.

  Will shook his head, wondering how long it would be before the chemicals in his system were absorbed. He ce
rtainly couldn’t drive like this, and he had told Fisk he and Dorothy would be back by dinner time.

  Looking out the window, Will decided that the only things that were actually there were Dorothy and the dog. Though his perception of her was altered under the influence of some unknown substance, he hoped he could still communicate with her.

  “Dorothy!” he called, and she turned to look at him. She waved to him sadly, and he noticed that her friends were frowning at him, even the lion.

  The scarecrow whispered in her ear, and she nodded. She waved to Will one more time, and then she and her companions began to skip away along the golden path. They began to sing a song as they moved away, something about Ozma, the goodly queen of Oz.

  Will ran from the bedroom, intent on preventing her from wandering off. He cared for Dorothy and was worried about her, of course, but at that moment he was more concerned how these events might reflect on his position at Clear Springs and his reputation in the psychiatric community.

  He ran for the front door, barely aware that the house was beginning to pitch and roll under him like a ship caught in foul weather. He tripped as he hit the front porch, and flew out into the dooryard, landing painfully on something hard and smooth, something that broke under him with a loud crack.

  He lay there for a moment, gasping for breath and feeling pain in his knees and elbows. The ground under him felt cool to the touch, and he was shocked to find he was lying on a sheet of glass as black as ink. The areas that had taken the brunt of the impact, elbows, knees, now was marked by spider web patterns of cracks. He looked up, and discovered the “sheet” was in fact a vast plain of black glass, stretching out in all directions. The car was gone, and he heard a slight snapping sound behind him. He looked back, and the house flew up into the sky without a sound, diminishing to a tiny dot within seconds, then it was gone.

  His mind was reeling at the strangeness of what he was experiencing, but there was also a part of him that was calm; quietly observing what happened, coolly collecting data to form a rational hypothesis.