Ready to dive at her and shove this heart down her throat, I charge, but when I reach her, it’s as if I’ve run right into a wall, and I fly back in pain. When I hit the ground, Quelala approaches, his shirt torn in half and bloody where I sliced him in two moments ago. He snatches his heart out of my hand, and when I snap out of my stunned state, I go to attack but can’t move.
“You are more powerful than I expected, but you are not more powerful than Ezdalina,” he says, loud enough for her to hear before he leans into my ear and says in a voice like soft velvet, “You’ll come around soon enough, my love.”
He steps away from me and returns to Ezdalina’s side as I rise against my will, walk over, and kneel before them like a dutiful subject. No matter how much I resist, I cannot stand or move anything other than my eyes. I’m not sure I can even speak.
“Nice trick. I see why you’d need to do this. No one would bend the knee to you otherwise.” I guess I can speak.
“Sniveling little brat,” she spits.
“Dusty old hag,” I snap back.
“Oh, I will enjoy this,” she purrs in her nasal voice.
“Eek, that voice. Shrill. No wonder he’s looking to trade you out. I get it now,” I say to Quelala. “My sympathies. Don’t worry. I’ll kill her soon enough. Then your eardrums will be free from suffering.”
“Those are my sister’s boots, my dear. They will never harm me, and neither will you as long as they are on your feet. Now, come with me and see that you mind everything I tell you, for if you do not, I will make an end of you, just as I did of the Axeman and the Zombie.”
At her words and with a wave of her hand, I feel my body do just as she commands. Quelala smirks at me as I follow her with no control over my movements into her golden castle, through many beautiful rooms made entirely of golden marble and decorated with gold moldings and filigreed archways, into the kitchen.
“Now you will clean,” she says and waves her hand before charging out of the room.
Thrown to the floor by her invisible magic, I fall to my knees and begin scrubbing blood covered pots and kettles with no control of my body. When I finish, I sweep the floor while keeping the furnace fed with wood. This goes on all night on repeat as more dishes come in, brought by enslaved Winkies in gold servants' uniforms who are also here under her control.
My body works through the night and the next day. Toward the early hours of the morning, I fall asleep for a short while only to awaken to find myself on my hands and knees scrubbing bloodstains from the floor. Controlled by her spell, I scrub every inch of the kitchen, every corridor, every bedroom throughout the massive castle all day and all night for three days sleeping for as long as I can while I do, moving as her puppet, weeping over the loss of Ardie, Toto, and Nick the entire time.
To my surprise, the vampires do not bite me. They do not even speak to me, nor do the Winkies who are also her slaves, under a spell just like mine, moving against their will. Perhaps if the vampires speak to me, it would threaten the spell and I could fight back. They do, however, bite the Winkies at their will, sucking their blood as if they’re here not only to do the Vampire Witch’s bidding but also to feed her soldiers. Occasionally a vampire drains a Winkie of all their blood and another Winkie slave comes in to take their place.
My involuntary cleaning duties take me up to the Vampire Witch’s quarters, where she and her Winkie slaves are attending to her appearances at her ornate vanity. Decked out in grandiloquent gold from her pointy cap to her elaborate shoes, she wears a smug smile on her ashen face as she watches me through the mirror. An ornate gold staff with a giant golden jewel at the top rests across her massive skirt of gold metal and lace and shining, shimmering fabrics.
Angular and beautiful, her pointed chin juts out with pride as she observes me cleaning her room, but her eyes glow with scarlet rage and she shows her fangs to threaten me—she is a terrifying sight with sharp, narrow features and skin so powdery pale it is as if no blood at all runs through her veins. As she watches me, I scrub her bloody stone floors on my hands and knees, and when I get near her, she raises a gold staff to strike me. The armor that still protects my body raises my arm and catches the staff while a small blade from my other hand slices her wrist. No blood runs from her cut, proving my suspicions. Pure shock crosses her face before she covers and smirks. Looks like my suit of armor allows me to defend myself against her—something she did not expect. As her red glowing eyes narrow at me, she holds her wrist in her other hand, and when she removes her grip, the cut heals before my eyes, and although she smirks in triumph, I can tell she’s scared now.
“So, you are Dorothy, the witch who has killed my sister and stolen her boots,” she says with a haughty air of superiority.
“Not that I care anymore, but it was an accident,” I say as I make her bed.
It is the dead of night at the moment and everyone is awake in this palace. They all seem to sleep during the day, being night creatures, as Nick called them.
“I came here by mistake on a cyclone from another realm and my house landed on her. It was not intentional.”
“And then you stole her footwear,” she adds.
“Again, it was not purposeful. These boots appeared on my feet and I can’t get them off. Although I am grateful for that fact at the moment,” I admit. What does it matter at this point? The people I love are dead and I have no recourse. None that I can see. I may as well be honest because why not?
“Ah, yes, you must die for them to come off your feet. That will happen soon enough, my dear.”
“I am not your dear,” I snap.
“You are my slave,” she smirks.
“And you have issues. That’s obvious,” I say and snort.
“Issues? Do I? What might they be?” she says, amusement lighting up her pinched face. That smug attitude of hers makes me sick. Everything about her sickens me.
“All right, you asked for it. One, you are a psycho enslaving people, turning people, and it seems you are doing it all for a guy who is so clearly using you it makes you look pathetic. You’re a sucker on every level.”
“What did you call me?” she asks with a shrill burst of laughter.
“A sucker, you know, a patsy, a gullible mark, easily bamboozled, conned, hoodwinked. You’re a sucker because you let a man turn you into a vampire, steal your soul, manipulate you into everything you do, and he doesn’t even like you that much.”
“I suppose you believe he loves you now,” she says, enjoying this conversation too much.
“Quelala wants me because he thinks I can give him what he wants.”
“And what is that? Your body, your soul, your heart perhaps?”
“No, he wants to rule all the realms, and I have the boots on my feet already, and I’m young, and supple, without a single ashy or dry patch of skin on my body. Then there’s you, the witch he is long tired of who’s as old as the hills and a dusty, scraggly mess of a hag who can’t inspire a single person, living or dead, to follow her without compulsion. No charisma—that’s another one of your many issues. I think I might almost feel sorry for you. You’re just so stupid and pathetic. It’s hard not to pity you.”
“Oh, my dear, you are adorable. The Axeman’s interest in you makes sense now. Funny, I tried to turn your Axeman many times strictly for the purpose of making him my lover. Too bad I had to have him killed. He would have been quite something. Tell me, was he all they say he was?”
I want to kill her so bad I could burst. An all-penetrating desire to destroy her brings tears to my eyes, but my body won’t let me do a damn thing about it.
“He would have rather died than have come within ten paces of your dried up dusty old snatch, monstrous hag,” I say as I pound her pillows, the dust from her dead skin flying about me.
This upsets her, her eyes narrowing at me. Guess I hit a soft spot. If I can just get her to attack me, I can fight back. That’s one thing I’ve learned.
“Just like with Quelala, you’
re not Nick’s type. He prefers beautiful women with parts that aren’t dried-up raisins. Beauty and moisture are not your strong suits,” I say, and she seethes.
“Perhaps I shall put you in a dark dungeon and leave you there until you die. Five days have passed now. No food or water. All your tireless work. It is only a matter of time, my dear,” she says, satisfied with herself.
What she doesn’t know is I drank water—found a bucket of clean water in the kitchen while I was scrubbing and my armor allowed me to grab it to drink from for a moment. My armor seems to allow me to do what I must do to survive, including defend myself.
“Perhaps,” I shrug as if I don’t care at all, and I don’t.
Although I want to kill her for revenge, and for the good of the realm, I cannot help but wonder what the point is. I wanted to get back to Kansas, but I don’t foresee that happening, and I don’t want to be here without Nick or Toto. Maybe if I survived, I could find Ardie, maybe even Toto, if he’s still alive somehow, but I can’t help but think maybe I am meant to die too. The three human beings I’ve loved most in this life have died. If there’s an afterlife, I wouldn’t mind being there with them. But if I can help people, if I can fight back and rid this realm of this evil, I will. And Werelion needs my help. He’s so close by, maybe I can save him if I can save myself. From there, I just don’t care what happens to me. Not even a little. But if I can help Werelion, I will. I wonder why she didn’t kill Werelion like she did the others.
“Why didn’t you kill the Werelion? Want to have sex with him too?” I say and she laughs.
“He is being broken to serve me, as are you,” she says satisfied with herself. I hate her.
“Your smell is repugnant,” I say, and she narrows her eyes at me, and wow, she really stinks. “Horrendous. Ugh. It’s like my dog’s breath after he licks his own butt. You frigging stink. No wonder Quelala’s ready to move on. That’s a rank stench that sticks to everything you come into contact with. Cheese Louise,” I say and gag a little.
“To the dungeon with you!” she roars and the Winkie slaves around the room herd me out. My body walks without my control, as do theirs, and I carry my bucket of water and brush with me.
When I am thrown behind a gate and locked in, my body immediately scrubs. All night and day I scrub, but this place is impossible to get clean—this is torture. As it was, I hated cleaning, but this… No, I will never clean again. If I ever get out of here, I will hire a maid to do this for me. This week I have cleaned enough to last me a lifetime.
I won’t live to hire a cleaning lady though, or get a job, an apartment, none of it. How will I? My best hope is to have her attack me so I can fight back or she can kill me. That I can do by irritating her as best as I can. That I can do by insulting her. Otherwise, I’ll die here without food or water in these dungeons. I should tell the Winkie guard to tell her I’ll give her the boots and I have information about an attack from Oz or something.
“Hey, Winkie,” I call to the guard who stands at the door.
“Ya?” he asks with an accent that sounds German or Swedish or something.
“Tell that necrotic stench of a Vampire Witch I’ve learned my lesson and I have some information about an attack from the Wizard. If she lets me out, I’ll tell it to her.”
“Oh, I cannot speak to her for she will feed on me.”
“Tell a vampire—they’ll want to get in good with her.”
“Oh, no, they will feed on me!”
“Tell one of her ladies then. The Winkies that attend to her. They are living and must have some kind of in with her,” I say, and he thinks it over.
“I will,” he says.
“Or you could just let me out,” I say.
“But they will kill me.”
“You can say I escaped.”
“Either way, they will kill me,” he says, and I sigh as I scrub the floor beside him. “But I have no control over my body, the same as you. Even if I wanted to, I could not. All I can do is hope I pass one of her ladies to give her your message. That is the best I can promise you.”
I am on the verge of breaking, and I know that is her goal, but I will never bend to her will. Except I’ll die if this keeps up. I’m starving—my stomach grumbles every second and I am in pain from severe hunger and constant work—and I must be so thin already. If I didn’t have that water, I would be dead by now.
Six days and nights have passed and still all I can think about is my multitude of regrets—I regret never having done the things I dreamed of, never traveling to the places in my realm I dreamed of going, never graduating high school. But at least I fell in love. That’s something, even if my biggest regret of all is allowing pride to hold me back from telling him how I felt, and I will miss him for the rest of my very short existence.
When I think of him, how beautiful he was, his perfect face, his perfect lips, his even more perfect body, I know I loved him. I even love him for how he’d get angry when I’d fight alongside him because he wanted me to stay safe. Him holding me, kissing me, touching me—that is what I miss most. Those were the best feelings I have ever felt. Even though we started out wrong, looking back it’s kinda cute he told me such a ridiculous lie to get me to make out with him. Even though he’s gone, my feelings for him are desperate still, but at least I got to fall in love once in my life.
I miss Toto too, so much, and as I have been for the past six days, I pray he is safe somewhere. And I pray for Ardie again and give thanks for how paternal and protective he was of me. And I pray for the Werelion again, hoping he is not too afraid or injured as they try to break him to serve her, praying he finds the courage he sought inside him somewhere to make it through.
“Do you know of my friend Werelion by any chance?” I ask the Winkie guard.
“There was a Werelion brought into the werebeast pen who is making quite a ruckus from what I understand. Vicious roars ring through the courtyard at all hours since he arrived. Anyone who dares go near him loses their life. He has taken out many of the vampires. All the Winkies are talking about it.”
“He is?” I say, so surprised and so proud—he’s getting braver.
“Yes. Like you, he is being starved out. The Vampire Witch is hoping to break him that way.”
“Of course,” I sigh, so worried about him.
“Her control spells do not work the same on the werebeasts, so she must break them like animals,” he tells me.
“At least that’s something,” I sigh. “Is it possible to get food to him?”
“No, I cannot for I do not move from this spot except to sleep. I go straight to the guard quarters and get right into my bunk. If I pass one of her maidens, I can relay the message. That is the best I can do for you. I am sorry.”
A sad sigh leaves me as I see how hopeless it all is. I wish Nick were here. He’d know how to fix things I’d bet. Visions of him holding me and comforting me fill my thoughts, playing in my mind’s eye, and I cry myself to sleep as I scrub the iron bars of the dungeon.
A ruckus wakes me up to find my body still scrubbing and the Winkie guard still posted at the lock of the dungeon I am in.
“What is this?” the Winkie Guard says alarmed and I hear barking. It’s my Toto!
“Toto!” I say as he runs to the cell gate and barks again and again. He must have sniffed me out. “Toto, shh! They’ll find you! Hide or she’ll turn you into something awful, or kill you, or drink your blood. Go! Run, Toto! Run!” I say to him in an alarmed whisper, but he continues to howl.
When I see Ardie dressed in a Vampire Soldier’s leather uniform rush in with the Werelion behind him, I cry with gratitude that they are here and alive. Even though Werelion looks tired and thin, like me, the fierce look in his eyes surprises me.
“You came for me,” I say so grateful, but I have this spell on me and I’m still cleaning furiously, as I have been for days.
“Dorothy, stop! Why are you scrubbing?” Ardie asks me confused.
“It’s a spell
—I have been like this since I got here—it’s never ending. Even in my sleep, I scrub. I’ve scrubbed the entire castle,” I say, so tired, my body vigorously scrubbing.
An even louder ruckus comes from the passageway leading to the dungeons—they’re coming.
“Hide! Take Toto and hide. Please, I can hear them coming for you!”
When Nick comes rushing in, my heart stops with my breath. Sobs rack my body as tears burst from my eyes, and I bawl at the sight of him, thanking God he isn’t dead. How? How is it possible he’s alive?
“You’re not dead,” I croak out through my tears, and he rushes over to the door of the dungeon and chops the lock off with his axe.
“She’s under a spell. She can’t stop cleaning,” the Werelion explains when Nick throws open the cell door, takes the scrub brush from my hands, and tosses it on the floor before he takes me into his arms and kisses me with so much passion my heart feels as though it bursts in my chest. With everything I’ve got, all the love in my heart, I kiss him back.
I love him, so much, and I don’t want to wait another second to tell him. At any moment, we could die here, and it’s a regret I do not want to have.
“I love you, and I don’t care if you don’t feel the same. Just, please, I need you to know that I do. I love you, Nick, with my entire soul and all my heart,” I tell him, tears in my eyes and he smiles at me.
“Dorothy—”
“Ah! How convenient! You have incarcerated yourselves. Now I won’t have to have you all dragged up here,” the Vampire Witch says as she enters, her bony white fingers twiddling with glee.
Nick turns and stands in front of me, his axes drawn.
“Axeman, how lovely to see you. You are even more exquisite than I had hoped. I will enjoy adding you to my collection,” the Vampire Witch says to him, and with a wave of her hand she pulls him to her, his feet dragging as she draws him forward with an invisible force.
Ugh, I despise her! Never will I ever allow her to hurt him. I try to command a stake to shoot forth from my fist but it doesn’t. Nothing I do seems to make any difference.
Dorothy In the Land of Monsters Page 35
