Bewitched in Oz

by Laura J. Burns

  Zerie felt as if a huge gust of wind was sweeping her off her feet, lifting her up. She gasped in surprise as they rose, all together, into the air. Zerie wished she could cheer on Vashti for doing it, but she didn’t want to break her concentration. So instead she squeezed her friends’ hands tighter and dared to look down.

  They were twenty feet high already, floating straight up along the wall. Below them, the desert and the jungle stretched out together, the boundary between them straight as far as she could see. Zerie looked up. The moon was dark tonight, so she could see a million stars, and she felt as if she was floating right in the middle of them.

  “It’s amazing,” Brink whispered.

  She smiled at him. “It is.”

  The lip of the trench came up sooner than she was expecting. When Vashti set them all back on the ground, Zerie felt a surge of disappointment. “Vashti, that was incredible,” she cried. “I felt like I was flying!”

  Vashti grinned. “I can’t believe I did it!”

  “If you can do it again, that would be great,” Brink said. “Look.”

  The girls both turned to where he was pointing. Zerie felt a wave of dizziness when she realized that the rocky ground they stood on was only about ten feet wide. The lip of the next trench was right in front of them.

  “I thought they’d be getting wider, not narrower,” Vashti said in surprise.

  “The highland is narrower, but that trench is much wider than the last one,” Brink replied. He took a few steps and inched up to the edge of the cliff. “And deeper,” he added, peering over the side.

  Zerie looked down into the trench. She could see the sandy desert bottom far below, because the sand was light enough to show up in the dark. It stretched out for a long time at the bottom of the trench and then stopped at a strange dark border. “What’s on the other side? It’s too dark to see,” she said. “The Glass Cat didn’t tell us what came after the jungle and the desert.”

  “We’ll find out when we get there, I guess,” Brink said. “Should we try to use the ropes to get down?”

  “No, I’ll levitate us down there,” Vashti said. “I’m going to try to move us in the air, so we can land near the boundary instead of having to walk all the way across the desert.”

  “Aren’t you too tired? You just used your talent on all three of us for the first time,” Zerie said.

  “It felt like nothing!” Vashti said happily. “I want to do more. If I can learn how to move us while we’re in the air, I can just fly us right over the rest of The Trenches.”

  Zerie was doubtful, but Brink took Vashti’s hand and grinned at her. “You’re learning fast,” he said.

  Vashti smiled back, and Zerie felt a stab of worry. They were so sweet together, and Vashti was so happy. But Zerie liked Brink, too. It wasn’t fair that they were stuck in this situation again, liking the same boy.

  “Here we go,” Vashti said, taking hold of Zerie. “Float to the border,” she said. “To the border.”

  Zerie wondered if her friend was picturing the route in the air, the same way she would picture it on the ground if she were using her talent. She clung tightly to Vashti and Brink and enjoyed the strange floating sensation all the way down to the floor of the deep trench. When their feet touched the sand, they were only inches from the boundary line.

  This time Vashti sat down as soon as they landed. “Okay, that made me tired,” she said, lying back on the sand.

  “But you did it. You moved us forward. Your talent is getting stronger so fast, just like Tabitha’s did,” Zerie said.

  The second Tabitha’s name left her lips, she felt a stab of worry. They’d been so scared for the past two days that she hadn’t had much time to think about her friend.

  But by now Tabitha must have been taken to Ozma. By now she might have been forced into the dreaded Water of Oblivion. Was Tabitha even Tabitha anymore? It was hard to imagine who she would be without her talent.

  “You’d better rest for a while before we even try walking across to the other side, Vashti,” Brink said, kneeling by the line where the desert ended. “Because this will be tough going. I’m not even sure we can walk here.”

  “Why?” Zerie knelt next to him.

  “Don’t you smell that?” Brink waved his hand in front of his nose. “It’s a swamp.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing the Glass Cat never came through this trench,” Vashti said.

  “Well, if she had, she could have warned us about it. This is bad.” Zerie perched on the edge of the desert and examined the ground. This was the first time she’d looked at one of the boundaries up close. The edge of the desert was completely smooth and straight, like somebody had taken a huge saw and cut the ground in half. Right on the other side of the edge lay something soft and gooey. And smelly. It didn’t look like solid ground. It looked like something else altogether.

  “Ugh.” Zerie gingerly stuck her finger into the dark muck and pulled it back covered in thick red mud. “It’s like a giant mud puddle. I hope it’s not deep.”

  “It’s going to take forever to get through this,” Brink said. “Even if the mud only comes up to our shins, it will be hard to walk in.”

  “I’ll levitate us over it,” Vashti said. “I just need to rest for a while.”

  Brink and Zerie exchanged worried glances. “Are you sure? You’ve been doing so much tonight,” Brink said.

  “I feel fine. Though I’m hungry.” Vashti sat up and rummaged in her pack. “I’m almost out of food. All I have left are some hard peaches I picked back near the Foot Hills.”

  “We’ll have to look for food when we get to the top,” Zerie said. “Though it’ll be a swamp up there, too. Maybe the next trench will have an orchard at the bottom.” Just the idea of going through more trenches made her feel hopeless. It was hard to believe they’d been at the Foot Hills only two days before. She felt as if they’d been traveling in The Trenches forever.

  “Can you make these riper?” Vashti asked, handing Zerie a hard peach. “I can hardly even bite into it. I picked them way before they were ready.”

  “Sure.” Zerie stared at the peach in her hand and willed it to age, for its life cycle to speed up until it was ripe. Nothing happened. Frustrated, she closed her eyes and concentrated harder, picturing the fruit softening, expanding, becoming juicier.

  Nothing.

  Vashti and Brink didn’t say anything as Zerie handed the peach back.

  “My power is wiped out,” Zerie said. “Or it’s gone.”

  “It’s because of what you did to the Kalidah,” Brink told her. “To its body, I mean. You usually age a flower or a fruit, and that’s no big deal. But to age something into nothingness, well, that’s exhausting.”

  “I aged the Foot Hill into sand,” Zerie said. “And I could still use my talent after that.”

  “But you were really tired after the Foot Hill. You slept all day,” Brink reminded her. “And this must have used even more magic, because it was a living creature, not a rock.”

  “A dead living creature,” Vashti said sadly.

  Nobody said anything after that.

  After a while, Vashti ate the hard peach, making a face with each bite. Then they all shared the last piece of bread in Brink’s pack and had a tiny bit of water.

  “I want to get to the top of the trench,” Vashti said. “That swamp is horrible.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t too tired?” Zerie asked, worried. “I don’t want you to drop us into the middle of it.”

  Vashti stuck her tongue out at Zerie. “Yes, I’m sure, Miss Worrywart.”

  She stood up, took their hands, and levitated them over the red ooze and up the steep cliff on the other side.

  Zerie had stopped being worried by the time they reached the top. Maybe it was difficult for Vashti, but the whole experience of levitating made Zerie feel as light as a feather. It felt easy, like floating on the top of a lake in summertime, weightless. Somehow, when Vashti levitated them, it felt lik
e flying.

  Still, they had to walk for more than an hour through the swamp at the top, the thick mud pulling at their shoes with every step. There were annoying flies buzzing everywhere, and Zerie had to force herself to stop trying to decide if every single one was real or clockwork. She had a feeling that even the clockwork spies of Ozma wouldn’t come near this foul-smelling place.

  “It figures these two trenches would be the farthest apart,” Brink complained as they trudged.

  “I’m just glad the Glass Cat isn’t here for this part. Can you imagine how appalled she’d be?” Zerie replied.

  “I hope she’s okay. What do you think happened to her?” Vashti asked from behind them. Her voice sounded tired, and she moved slowly through the mud.

  Brink doubled back and put his arm around Vashti to help her walk. “Thanks.” Vashti smiled at him. “I’m okay, I just want to save my strength so I can get us over the next trench. How many more are there?”

  “The cat didn’t seem sure,” Brink said. “And who knows where she is, anyway. If she even survived.”

  Zerie took Vashti’s pack and slung it over her shoulder, but she wasn’t sure if she should try to help Vashti walk—she and Brink might be having a romantic moment.

  Zerie felt uncomfortable even thinking about that. Instead, she tried to keep their minds off the mud.

  “I bet the Glass Cat is fine. She ran off once before, remember? She likes to roam.”

  “There’s the edge. Let’s hope this is the last one,” Brink said.

  The next trench was the weirdest one yet, shaped more like a shallow bowl than a split in the earth. But there was still a boundary line through the middle of it where the swamp ended and something else began—something dazzling in the darkness, gleaming white and silver with odd greenish patches. Zerie couldn’t make out the wall on the other side of the trench.

  “What is that? Snow?” Zerie asked.

  “Whatever it is, it’s got to be cleaner than this swamp. I’m taking us straight across this time,” Vashti said.

  “You’re too tired,” Brink protested.

  “I’ll sleep on the other side. Come on!” Vashti grabbed their hands, but it took a minute for her to be able to lift them all out of the thick red mud. Once they were free, they floated quickly across the bowl-like trench. Zerie marveled at how far her friend’s talent had come in only one day.

  Vashti set them down in the snow, except as soon as they touched it they knew it wasn’t snow. It was ice.

  “A glacier!” Brink cried, thrilled.

  “I didn’t know glaciers were that exciting,” Zerie said. “It’s just one more landscape where we can’t find any food.”

  “But there’s only one glacier in the Land of Oz, and I’ve seen it before,” Brink said. “This is the glacier that lies on the border of the Tilted Forest. It means we’re done. We’re finished with The Trenches!”

  “Oh, thank goodness. I need to sleep,” Vashti said. “How far is it to the woods?”

  “I don’t know, but I think we can make your bow-vine ropes into a sled and get there faster,” he said. “From what I remember, the glacier sort of slopes down right into the Tilted Forest. Are you too tired to weave, Vashti?”

  He took Vashti’s pack and rummaged through it, pulling out the coiled ropes she’d made. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll weave them,” he suggested.

  “No, I can weave in my sleep,” Vashti said. “I just hope they hold up long enough.” She set her pack on the ice, sat on top of it, and started unraveling the ropes and weaving the bow-vines into a sort of basket.

  “You’ve been here before?” Zerie asked Brink. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “I never knew about The Trenches. I just saw the glacier from the Tilted Forest,” Brink replied. “My father took us there once when Ned and I were kids. It’s a really crazy place. All the trees grow sideways.”

  “But . . . you didn’t tell us you’d been there when the Glass Cat mentioned it.” Zerie wasn’t sure why that fact bothered her, but it definitely did.

  “It was a long time ago, and we took our horse and cart down the road of yellow brick to get to the forest,” Brink said. “We weren’t on the run from the Winged Monkeys, and we didn’t have to cut through Foot Hills and The Trenches.” He looked at her and frowned.

  “So it’s near the road?” Vashti asked, her fingers flying over the vines.

  “I don’t think there’s anything south of the Tilted Forest except for Glinda’s Palace,” Brink replied. “We’ll have no choice but to take the road once we make it through the woods.”

  Thinking about the road reminded Zerie of Ozma’s spies—they’d almost caught up to her and her friends the last time they tried to follow the road. She glanced up at the sky, looking for birds or flying clockwork animals.

  Then she looked down again and gasped. “Our feet are all muddy!”

  “Well, yeah. We just slogged through a swamp,” Brink said.

  “No, I mean, we’ve left muddy prints all over the ice and snow.” Zerie frantically grabbed a handful of snow and began scrubbing her shoes with it.

  “You’re right, anything watching from above would see our prints.” Brink joined in, cleaning off his shoes and doing Vashti’s while she worked on the sled.

  Zerie took several more handfuls of snow and spread them over any footprints she could see. “No more walking,” she told her friends. “We have to climb into the sled as soon as it’s finished. We can’t risk leaving footprints.”

  Vashti yawned. “I’m so tired, but it can’t be past midnight.”

  “Let’s just get to the forest. Then you can sleep until morning,” Brink said sympathetically. “We don’t need to travel at night in the Tilted Forest.”

  “Why not?” Zerie asked.

  “The trees grow at an angle there. It’s almost like the whole woods is inside one gigantic trench. The trees grow sideways out from the walls, so if you’re walking on the bottom, there’s a whole layer of them crisscrossing above you. Nothing in the air will see us on the bottom of the forest.” Brink took a vine from Vashti and began helping her weave, though he did it at a much slower pace.

  Zerie grabbed another vine and pitched in, and soon they had a long, shallow basket that would fit the three of them sitting in a line.

  “I’ll go in front,” Brink said. “Then Vashti in the middle and Zerie in back.”

  As they climbed into the sled, Zerie couldn’t help thinking about the fact that he’d placed Vashti next to him, with her arms around his waist. But any thoughts like that flew out of her head as soon as they started sledding down the glacier. The ice was more slippery than any snow Zerie had ever played in, and the woven basket flew over it, bouncing up and down like mad.

  Brink let out a whoop, and Zerie had to hang on to Vashti tightly to keep herself from shooting right out of the sled. The air whipped her curly hair into a frenzy, and Zerie thought for a moment that it was like using her talent, they were going so fast. She smiled and let herself enjoy it.

  It was over too soon. The sled skidded to the bottom of the icy hill, dumping them all out onto a pile of frozen snow. The bow-vines were cut to shreds, but they had held up long enough.

  Brink helped Vashti to her feet and led the way inside the bizarre forest that lay at the foot of the glacier.

  The trees were mostly pines and oaks, their trunks sticking straight out across the friends’ path. “Will we have to climb over every single one of them?” Zerie asked.

  “Yes, but not now. Vashti’s ready to pass out.” Brink climbed over one tree trunk and ducked underneath another one. “I think this is far enough into the woods. If we sleep here, we should be safe from airships seeing us.”

  Zerie looked up. Above her was tree after tree after tree, all of them growing sideways. It was like looking at the rungs of a ladder made by giants. She couldn’t even see the sky.

  Brink came over and stood next to her, following her gaze. “My father said there wa
s an earthquake long, long ago, and that it split the land right down the middle. The whole forest fell into the hole and just kept growing. Some of the trees go left, and some go right, and some go up, and some go down. They used to point at the sky, but ever since they fell into the hole, they point at one another.”

  “And we’re at the bottom of the hole. We couldn’t go through here at night. It’s pitch black under all these trees,” Zerie said.

  “I told you daytime would be better,” Brink whispered. “Besides, Vashti’s already asleep. Do you want me to take first watch?”

  “No, I will. You sleep,” Zerie said.

  Brink lay down next to Vashti and began snoring in about two minutes. Zerie sat on the closest tree trunk and watched them for a little while.

  She really liked Brink. They hadn’t talked about the other night, when she’d fallen asleep in his arms. It had felt wonderful at the time, but now she wasn’t sure what to think. Because it was pretty obvious that Vashti liked Brink, too.

  Zerie picked up an acorn and stared at it. She imagined it sprouting, growing, turning into a tall, strong oak. But nothing happened. Her talent didn’t work at all.

  Brink and Vashti say it’s because I exhausted myself, Zerie thought. But I know they’re wrong.

  She remembered how it had felt to age the Kalidah’s body. She’d been filled with rage—and sorrow, too, but it was mostly rage. She’d felt the anger coursing through her body, and she’d known it would give her magic strength. She’d known she could use it to do something extreme . . . and she’d also known that she shouldn’t.

  Grammy had always said magic came from feeling good. That using your talent made you happy, and the happiness gave you strength to use your talent. That’s why magic was there to help people—because it was good.

  But Zerie knew there had to be another side to it, as well. She’d never realized it back home, but after all she’d been through, she realized it now. If good feelings led to good magic, then bad feelings had to lead to bad magic. And her anger at Ozma had been a bad feeling. She’d felt all the negative energy, and she’d used it to blast that Kalidah into dust.