The Wizard of OZ

by S. D. Stuart

  Dorothy shifted her focus to the fourth man, who positioned himself at the rear of the group. Still more than twice her size, he was decidedly the weakest of the four.

  That settled it.

  The first thing she had to do was thin the herd and generate a little intimidation of her own.

  It would not help her to stand there and wait until the men reached her. She needed to build a little kinetic energy of her own.

  So she rushed at them.

  The leader half crouched with an evil grin on his face. He was obviously enjoying her making the first move.

  She ducked under his swing and darted past him. She ran across the alley diagonally and then hopped up and took two steps along the wall, which propelled her past the next two men.

  She launched herself off the wall and came straight down onto the last man. This caught him utterly by surprise as she aimed her elbow right for the bridge of his nose. His nose flattened in an instant and became a crimson river as he stumbled backward and crumpled to the ground. Dorothy snatched one of his arms, stuck it between her legs and twisted it until she heard the satisfying crack of bones breaking.

  One down three to go, she thought to herself as she crouched ready for the next attack.

  The remaining three men spun around and looked at their friend lying unconscious at her feet, his face covered in his own blood.

  The leader sneered at her. “You got lucky, little girl.”

  She sneered back. “I can take you all together or one at a time. Your choice.”

  Two of the men simultaneously rushed her, each gripping a dagger in their hand.

  When fighting multiple assailants, the tactics she used had to change. She darted toward them, causing them to spread out so they would not stab each other when they slashed at her.

  She leaped in the air and kicked one in the face while the other slashed at her with his dagger. The first man fell backward from her boot in his face, leaving her to only worry about the one trying to gut her at the moment. Once the dagger swept past her, she grabbed the arm and twisted it as she fell back down to the ground, pulling him down with her. Before her feet touched the ground, she heard the snapping sound. The man cried out in pain and his dagger clattered noisily to the ground. She kicked him sideways and he slammed into the wall and fell to the ground without moving again.

  She spun around ready to defend herself against the man she kicked in the face, but saw that when he went down his head had collided with a barrel and he lay unconscious.

  She heard the faint sound of wind whistling and ducked just before the leader’s dagger sliced her throat.

  He tossed the dagger back and forth from hand-to-hand. “You are pretty feisty for a girl. I am going to enjoy our time together.”

  He was incredibly fast for someone so big. He continued to slash at her, cutting her coat into ribbons as she ducked and dodged.

  She punched and kicked him repeatedly, but he never reacted.

  She started backing up as he continued to slash at her with his dagger.

  He was keeping her off balance. It was step number two in Edward’s self defense essentials.

  And she was on the receiving end of it.

  He smiled at her with an evil grin because he knew he had gained the advantage. He swung the dagger wide and, as her eyes tracked it, he punched her on the side of her head with his other hand.

  She went down hard but used the momentum to roll back up to her feet. Her ears rang from the blow to her head and, just as she focused on her attacker, he hit her with another two punches and a solid kick to her stomach.

  She sprawled backward from the impact and landed on her back in the middle of the alley.

  He towered over her and gripped the dagger tightly in his hand. He knelt on her chest and held the dagger up against her cheek. He still wore that evil grin as he looked down at her. “This has been fun. But I can think of something you and I can do that is much more fun.”

  He slid the dagger down and tucked the blade under her coat. She tried to struggle but all he did was apply more pressure with his knee and forced the wind out of her.

  He pulled up on the dagger and she heard the front of her coat being torn open. She had never seen this kind of look in a man’s eyes before and she was terrified.

  He started to apply all his weight on her chest, choking the last remaining breath out of her, when he suddenly roared out in pain. He released his grip on the dagger and clawed at something on his back. He fell sideways and, with his knee gone, she sucked hungrily at the air as she rolled to one side to get away from him.

  When her body no longer demanded oxygen, she forced her eyes to focus on the writhing shapes before her. The man had torn the boy off his back and was now slamming him repeatedly against the wall.

  She snatched the dagger from the ground in front of her and rammed it into the back of the large man. He bellowed out in a rage before collapsing at her feet in an expanding pool of his own blood.

  She took two steps and then collapsed to the ground herself. The boy was immediately at her side and lifted her up into his arms. “Let’s get you home.”

  Henry slammed his fist onto the dining room table. “You can’t do that!”

  Emma flinched and reached to steady the salt shaker that teetered in the center of the table from the impact. She glanced over to Ms. Butterfield, who didn’t seem the least bit phased by his outburst.

  Instead, she sat quietly with her hands folded in her lap. Even her voice stayed calm when she spoke, as if she knew she held all the power. Which she did.

  “I can and I will.”

  And she would, thought Emma.

  Emma placed a hand on Henry’s arm and looked into Ms. Butterfield’s eyes for any hint of sympathy.

  “She’s family.”

  Ms. Butterfield’s eyes were cold and dark. There would be no sympathy from her.

  “She’s not blood family. I have several witnesses that say she attacked a group of men in town.”

  Henry laughed out loud. “A 15-year-old girl attacked a group of men all by herself, without provocation, beat them up and walked away without a scratch?”

  “I visited the victims myself in the hospital. A couple of them had broken bones, one of them was still unconscious, and another looked like he had been bitten on the neck and stabbed in the back. It was a very savage attack.”

  Henry’s face portrayed a mixture of amusement and shock. “Are you even listening to what you’re saying?”

  “If you can’t control her, it is my responsibility to …”

  He cut her off. “If any of this is true, then why are you here and not the police?”

  Ms. Butterfield sat up a little straighter in her chair. “They refuse to press any charges.”

  Henry leaned back in his own chair with a tiny smirk. “I wonder why that is?”

  The front door opened and they all turned at once to see who it was.

  Emma was the first to jump up. “Oh my God, Dorothy!”

  She was a horrific sight. Her clothes torn, her face covered in grime and streaked with tears. She leaned heavily on an old tree branch as she hobbled in through the doorway, favoring her left leg. She was not the same girl who left twelve hours earlier.

  Emma rushed over and hugged her tightly. Dorothy mumbled something into her shoulder.

  She pulled back. “What?”

  “I’m sorry Aunt Em. I promise I won’t try to run away again.”

  Emma smiled, tears rolling down her cheeks. “It’s okay honey. We just want you safe.”

  Henry snapped his head from Dorothy to Ms. Butterfield. “I hardly think that anyone in that condition could have done even half of what these men claim.”

  Ms. Butterfield cleared her throat. Emma turned around to see her looking down her nose at them. “If she should run away again, I will have no choice but to place her into a new home.”

  Ms. Butterfield gathered her small bag and strode past them and out the door without so
much as a goodbye.

  Henry dropped down to Dorothy’s eye level.

  “Did you hear what she said?”

  Dorothy nodded her head. “I promise. From now on, I will be the best kid you have here.”

  Emma smiled. “You were always the best. But don’t tell any of the rest of them I said that.”

  Despite the pain she was obviously experiencing, Dorothy let out a small laugh.

  Chapter 4

  William Sipes was roused from a deep sleep by the alarm bell of his nickel-plated Ansonia ‘Peep O Day’ carriage clock. He smacked a sleepy hand around to the back of the carriage clock and reset the alarm lever.

  He tossed the comforter over the edge of the bed. He sat up yawning and stretching as he swung his feet over the edge to the cold hardwood floor. He scratched in all the inappropriate places as he headed out of the sparsely furnished bedroom and down the hall to the parlor room.

  The parlor room looked more like a mad scientist’s laboratory than a room where Victorian society gathered at night to play games and converse about politics. Various pieces of electronic equipment were scattered about the room in a seemingly haphazard layout. Every piece of equipment was connected by wires to every other piece of equipment and there was a constant buzzing sound emanating from the largest contraptions.

  All of this equipment was wired to the focal point of the parlor room, a specially designed Tesla oscillator capable of detecting the faintest wireless electronic transmission from halfway around the world.

  There were three such specially designed Tesla oscillators in the entire world. The first one was in the Americas, the second was in Eastern Europe and the last one was right here, in New Kansas. Together, they covered nearly 80% of the civilized world. They were designed to listen for one signal and one signal alone.

  He stepped into the parlor and froze. Leaning back in the chair in front of the Tesla oscillator in New Kansas was Reginald. His sole job for the past six hours was to listen for that signal. But instead of doing that, he was asleep.

  William kicked the legs of the chair and it collapsed backward. Reginald was awake before he hit the ground.

  Reginald rolled to his hands and knees and looked up at him. “What’d you do that for?”

  William reached down, grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and hauled him to his feet. “Do you think what we’re doing is a game?”

  Reginald shook himself out of William’s grip. “I don’t know what your problem is …”

  “My problem?” He shook his head and barked out a laugh. “My problem is that you don’t take this job seriously enough.”

  “Not serious enough?” Reginald pointed to the large speaker that emitted a faint hiss. “We have been listening to that radio frequency 24 hours a day for seven years. And do you know what we’ve heard in all that time? Nothing.”

  “Do you want to be the one to tell a 17-year-old girl the only reason we never heard from her father is that we were asleep at the wheel when something finally came through?

  “We’ll never have to say that.”

  “And what makes you think that?”

  Reginald shook his head. “Nothing’s happening William. Nothing ever has and nothing ever will.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes I do. We all do.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  Reginald smoothed the lapels of his coat. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a great recession. Jobs are hard to come by since the panic of ’93. I’ll take anything that pays, even if it’s on the other side of the world.”

  “Pack your stuff and get out.”

  Reginald smiled. “Don’t be like that William; it won’t happen again I swear.”

  William stared hard at him. “You’re right. It won’t.”

  “William I …”

  “Maybe you do not understand me. You’re fired Reggie.”

  “You can’t fire me. I’m the only one who knows how to tune this thing when the frequency creeps out of alignment.”

  “We can find someone else who will treat this with the seriousness it deserves.”

  “You know what? This was a stupid job anyway. Sitting here six hours a day and listening to that speaker do nothing but … “

  The speaker crackled to life and a faint voice could barely be heard. William lifted the chair back to a sitting position and sat down in it. He twisted the dial trying to get the voice to come in more clearly. The speaker responded with a squelch and the voice faded away.

  Reginald hovered over his shoulder. “You’re turning it the wrong way.”

  He turned to face Reginald. “Didn’t I fire you?”

  Reginald looked at him with a half-smile. “That was before anything happened. Now you need me.”

  He put a hand on William’s shoulder. “I can get that voice to come in loud and clear. If you want to hear what Professor Gale has to say, you better let me back into that chair.”

  He moved out of the chair and watched as Reginald’s expert hands twisted the dial and the voice became clear.

  “… in OZ …”

  He leaned into the speaker and turned to Reginald. “It’s cutting in and out. Can you get the complete signal?”

  Reginald was furiously flipping switches and twisting dials. “What do you think I’m doing?”

  He twisted the dial some more and the speaker came back to life.” … bring the emerald …”

  “It cut out again!”

  “I’m working as fast as I can.” Reginald twisted the dial slowly trying to focus on the signal.” … spin it … find me …”

  The voice stopped and there was nothing but static coming from the speaker. Reginald flipped a few more switches and spun the dial. Nothing but static came out of the speaker. For five minutes Reginald continued to flip switches and turn dials until he finally sat back in his chair. “I’m sorry William, he’s not transmitting anymore.”

  William stared at the wall, lost in thought. His head spun with the possibility that, after all this time, they would finally find Professor Gale. He had prepared for this moment and he was ready. He was practically bouncing up and down on his feet in anticipation for the rescue of his old friend.

  He looked at Reginald. “Alert the strike team. We leave before dawn.”

  Reginald gave him a quizzical look. “Whoa, slow down. Where are we going exactly?”

  “You heard the Professor. He’s in OZ.”

  “You can’t take the strike team in there. It’s a prison. We’ll be killed.”

  “If that’s where Professor Gale is, then that’s where I’m going.”

  “Do you know how big the penal colony is? How do you expect to find him there based on a couple of garbled words?”

  “He said all we had to do was spin the emerald to find him.”

  “I didn’t hear that.”

  He clapped Reginald on the shoulder and smiled. It was the first truly happy smile he’d had in the past seven years. “Well that’s what I heard.”

  Chapter 5

  A hand clamped over Dorothy’s mouth. It stifled her scream as she became instantly awake.

  She felt the breath of someone moving to whisper in her ear in the darkness.

  “Shh, Dorothy, it’s William.”

  He released her mouth and flipped the switch on the portable lamp by the side of her bed. The soft warm glow of the incandescent bulb made him look years younger than he was. Her heart began to thump harder. There was only one reason he would be here.

  “You found my father!”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  “But you found him right?”

  “Not yet. We heard from him and he told me something I need to verify. Do you have the emerald he gave you?”

  It had taken her a couple of years to save up enough money to buy a necklace and have the emerald heart mounted in it. Ever since that day, she kept her father’s emerald heart next to her own heart.

  She slipped it
out from under her shirt. “Always.”

  He smiled and held out his hand. “Let me see it for a moment.”

  She slipped the necklace over her head and handed it to him. She watched as he popped the emerald heart out of the necklace and looked around the room.

  Curiosity was getting the better of her. “What are you looking for?”

  He glanced at her. “I need a small piece of glass. Anything smooth that I can lay down flat.”

  She pointed toward her dresser. “What about my hand mirror?”

  He smiled. “Perfect.”

  He placed the emerald onto the surface of the mirror. He looked hesitantly at her and then gripped the emerald with his thumb and forefinger and spun it.

  She walked over and looked down at it spinning. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  “Testing a theory,” he whispered back.

  She watched as the emerald spun effortlessly on the smooth mirror until it slowed and came to an abrupt stop. William looked in the direction that the point of the heart was facing and then glanced out the window to get his bearings.

  He smiled and then spun the emerald again, this time even faster.

  She watched again as the emerald slowed and stopped abruptly, pointing in the same direction it had before.

  He smiled bigger. “Now you spin it.”

  Dorothy gripped the emerald between her thumb and forefinger and spun it. Her finger slipped and the emerald wobbled without spinning very quickly.

  “Whoops,” she said as she reached for it to spin it again.

  William grabbed her wrist. “No, let it go.”

  It wobbled unsteadily for a couple of revolutions before it wobbled to a stop. William’s grin threatened to spread to his ears.

  It was pointing in the exact same direction it had pointed the last two times they spun it.

  She stared at the emerald, her mind trying to deny what she had seen.