Orlando felt the Cat grow tense in his arms. He tightened his grip. “Ah,” he said. “And Lion, perhaps you could let us know who told you about Tinman’s plans for your forest.”
“Easy,” the king of the beasts replied. “It was Kik-a-Bray the Donkey.”
The donkey stepped forward, embarrassed to be the center of attention. “But I didn’t make it up!” the beast protested. “I heard it from Bullfinch!”
The little bird seemed a bit reluctant to speak up in front of an angry crowd, but after some coaxing from Orlando it fluttered up to a railing and announced, “As for me, I heard it directly from the Glass Cat herself.”
This time the Cat really tried to get away. Orlando held on as tightly as he could, but it was hard to manage without cutting himself, so he borrowed the Wizard’s coat and wrapped it around her until she again stopped struggling. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “You have a lot to answer for.”
“I did nothing wrong!” she said. “I was just trying to help!”
“Trying to help start a fight.”
“Goodness,” said the Wizard. “Goodness! Why would she do such a thing?”
“I’ll get to that,” said Orlando. “But first I think we should fetch Omby Amby’s body and head out to the bridge over the stream on the way into Emerald. I need to show you something.” It was a bit of a risk if he hadn’t figured everything out correctly, but at least it would get the unhappy mob out of City Hall. “Come on, everybody. Follow me.”
Kik-a-Bray the Donkey, perhaps ashamed for his unwitting part in things, allowed himself to be hitched to a cart, and Omby Amby’s motionless, headless body was gently loaded onto it. The large party set off, with Orlando walking in front, still holding the angry but temporarily resigned Glass Cat. The Forest animals and Works workers, along with dozens of curious Emerald Citizens, all fell in behind them. Scarecrow, Lion, and Tinman joined the procession too, muttering grumpily among themselves. The Wizard, in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves as though going to a summer picnic, walked with them to forestall any more arguments.
When they reached the bridge, Orlando had them set Omby Amby’s body down on the ground before he led the party of onlookers down the bank to the stream. He waded out into the gentle, singing current, the Glass Cat struggling mightily now because although she was made of glass, she still hated water (as most cats do), but Orlando retained his grim grip.
“Put me down!” she spat.
“This is your fault, and I don’t want to hear any nonsense from you,” he said in his sternest voice. He knew from experience that the best way to talk to Oz folk in times of crisis was in a firm, parental tone. When Orlando stood thigh-deep in the rushing, burbling stream, he began looking carefully into the water while the Kansas sims lined up along the bank to watch him. At last he found what he was looking for—the longest streamer of wiggling, wavering moss at the bottom of the stream. He leaned over and grabbed it, and when he lifted the dripping green mass from the water, the head of Omby Amby hung upside down at the end of it.
“I should have realized that stuff wasn’t all moss,” said Orlando. “This one was so long! Because it was your beard.”
The eyes of the Policeman with Green Whiskers popped open. “Dear me, many thanks!” he said after he had spat out a great deal of water. “It was terribly boring down there on the bottom of the stream. I slept most of the time. If I’d known you were looking for me, I would have tried to make bubbles for you.”
“I wasn’t looking for you until just now,” Orlando said, wading out of the water with the squirming Cat still clutched securely under one arm and the Policeman’s bearded head cradled in the other. When he reached the spot where Omby Amby’s body lay stretched on the ground, Orlando set the head on top of the neck, and the two parts immediately joined together. The Policeman stood up, unharmed except for the water drizzling from his long, green beard. “Goodness, it’s nice to be back,” he said, rubbing his throat. “I’m not sure what happened. One moment I was kneeling down having a drink; the next I was lying face down in the stones on the bottom of the stream and unable to move. What happened to me?”
“Curiosity,” explained Orlando shortly. “But let’s get you back to Emerald and into a warm bed. Your beard should dry by the time we get back.”
“But I’m not cold!” Omby Amby protested, but then paused to consider. “Well, my body isn’t, but I suppose I do feel a bit of a damp chill on my head...”
Relieved to find it had all been a mistake, or at least that their accusations against each other had been untrue, Tinman and Lion led their charges back to the Works and Forest. Orlando and Scarecrow returned to the Wizard’s white house on the hill to talk things over, the Cat still wrapped firmly in the Wizard’s coat.
“You wanted things to be exciting, didn’t you?” Orlando asked the Cat. “You liked being the center of things.”
“What if I did?” She turned her head away. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“There is if you manufacture a quarrel so things will become even more exciting,” said Orlando.
“I am very disappointed in you, Glass Cat,” Scarecrow added as they entered the Wizard’s parlor. The Mayor of Emerald was doing his best to make his painted smile turn downward but without much success. “I always thought your good intentions were crystal clear.”
“But what about Omby Amby?” asked the Wizard. “What did she do to him?”
After the doors and windows were locked so she couldn’t escape, Orlando set the Cat down in a chair and let her wriggle free of the imprisoning coat. She wouldn’t even look at him and groomed her long glass tail as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“The Glass Cat had just come back from Ev, where she had forgotten to give your message to the King and Queen. The reason she’d forgotten, I suspect, is because she had been visiting with Princess Langwidere.”
“Oh, goodness, of course!” said the Wizard.
“What do you mean? I don’t understand.” Scarecrow still couldn’t make his mouth do anything other than smile, so he was doing his best to squeeze his painted cloth face into an expression of incomprehension. “What does Princess Langwidere have to do with any of this?”
“You might or might not remember, but Langwidere has a collection of heads she likes to wear, one for every day of the month. She simply takes one off and puts another on. She keeps them in glass cabinets—she even once threatened to take Dorothy’s, although Dorothy wasn’t having it.”
“No, I dare say she wasn’t,” said the Wizard with a chuckle.
“I suspect that the Glass Cat begged Langwidere to teach her the trick, because she thought it would be an entertaining mischief. On her way back to Emerald, she came across Omby Amby having a drink at the stream and decided to play the head-off trick on him that she’d learned from the Princess. But when Omby Amby’s head came loose, it rolled into the water. Even though she’s made of glass, she wouldn’t have wanted to go in after it. Am I right, Cat?”
The Cat looked up long enough to let out a tinkling sniff, then returned to her grooming.
“But that wasn’t enough for her, I suspect. She realized that with Omby Amby unable to perform his duties, she’d have a lot more to do. She likes being in the center of things. And if there was going to be a fight, and arguing, and people upset with each other—well, she’d have even more to do.”
“Is this true, Glass Cat?” asked the Wizard. “If so, it was very wicked of you.”
“You people are silly,” she said. “You simply don’t have the sense of humor to appreciate a clever prank.”
“A clever prank that almost started a war.” Scarecrow was obviously troubled and stared carefully at the Cat for a long time. Meanwhile Orlando was beginning to worry all over again. At first he had been relieved just to have solved the mystery, but the Glass Cat had proven that things could go wrong in the simulation, even if she hadn’t meant to cause as much harm as had resulted. How could they deal wit
h her here? What if she decided to cause more trouble as soon as Orlando left? And even if Orlando simply removed the Glass Cat from the Kansas simworld—something he was seriously considering—who was to say someone else wouldn’t just start in where she’d left off? The simple-minded, simple-hearted characters could easily be led astray again.
“Ha! My excellent brains, which you gave to me, Senator Wizard, have thought of a possible solution,” the Scarecrow said abruptly. “Do you still have that gift that the Shaggy Man brought back to you from the shores of Nonestic Lake?”
The Wizard looked puzzled for a moment. Then he brightened and nodded. “Yes, yes!” he said. “I do indeed. But before we do anything else, I want the Cat to prove she can actually do what she claims, because I am not sure I believe her.”
“What are you talking about?” the Cat demanded. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“Well, I’ve never seen such a thing—making someone’s head come off with no harm to them.” The Wizard shook his head in wonder. “I find it hard to believe such a thing is even possible.”
“I’ll show you,” the Cat said, jumping abruptly from the chair to his desk. “I’ll have your head off in a flash.”
“No, no, I am too old for such tricks,” said the Wizard. “And everyone knows it is no difficulty to get the Scarecrow’s head off, as it is barely sewn on.”
“Comes off all the time,” agreed Scarecrow cheerfully. “Frightened one of my council members quite badly just the other day.”
Orlando was beginning to get the drift. “And it won’t work on me,” he said. “Because...um...Ozma put a spell on me to protect me against such things.”
“Very well,” said the Cat, “since you are all such scaredy-people, I’ll demonstrate on myself.” And without so much as a word of a magical spell or the hint of a magical gesture (although she might have whispered something to herself), the Glass Cat turned her head all the way around once on her neck, and it fell off like the lid of an unscrewed jar. Her body slumped down onto the desk, but her head shot them a look of superior self-satisfaction from where it now lay, bloodless and quite alive, on the Wizard’s blotter. “See?” she said. “Easy as pie.”
The Wizard lifted her head and examined it. Then he turned it neck-side-down and shook it (the head complaining loudly all the while) until the Glass Cat’s pink brains rolled out of it and onto the desk. She immediately stopped speaking, and her emerald eyes closed; even her pretty little ruby heart seemed to stop beating. Then the Wizard opened a drawer in his desk and removed a small jar of what looked like transparent glass marbles.
“Shaggy Man brought back these beautiful crystal pearls from the salty shallows of Nonestic Lake,” the Wizard said. “They are made by the very cultured oysters who live there. The oysters are happy in the warm waters, so their pearls are lovely and clear, and I doubt there is an evil or even mischievous thought in them.” He cupped the pearls in his hand and poured them into the Cat’s head in place of the pink brains. The old brains went into the jar and back in his desk. Then he set the Cat’s head back on its neck. “There,” said the Wizard. “How do you feel now, Glass Cat?”
She blinked and looked around. “I feel...good. Thank you for asking. It has suddenly occurred to me that I owe a number of apologies, including one to you, Senator Wizard, and one to you, Mayor Scarecrow. But I have upset others, too, and I must get right to work telling them that I’m sorry.” She turned to Orlando before jumping down. “Nice to see you again, Orlando. Please give Ozma my love and best wishes.”
“What will you do when you’ve finished apologizing?” the Wizard asked.
“Something useful, I expect,” she said. “Something that will make others happy.” She jumped down, landed lightly, and walked out the door without a trace of her former swagger.
“But is it real?” Orlando asked. “Has she really changed, just like that?”
“Oh, no need to worry,” said the Wizard. “Those pearls will let only the clear light of Truth into her head, which everyone knows makes it impossible to be wicked. I doubt we will have any more trouble from her.”
“It is miraculous what brains can do to improve things,” said Scarecrow. “Even if they are hand-me-downs.”
A little while later, as Orlando was preparing to leave not just the Wizard’s white house but the entire simulation, his host stopped him. “Just one more question, if you don’t mind.”
Orlando smiled. “Of course, Senator Wizard.”
“We were wondering how you knew that something was wrong here in the first place? Did the Glass Cat call for you?”
“No—in fact, she seemed a bit surprised to see me.” But as soon as he said it he wished he hadn’t. How could he tell them about all the ways he was monitoring Kansas and the other simworlds? He fell back instead on an old catchall. “Princess Ozma saw it in her magic mirror, of course, and sent me to help straighten things out. She sees everything that happens.”
Scarecrow scratched at his head with an understuffed finger. “But if Ozma saw it in her mirror, why didn’t she tell you before you left what had really transpired? Why would she keep the Cat’s trick a secret from you?” He seemed genuinely puzzled.
Orlando had been formulating another lie, but the deception was beginning to make him feel shabby. “You know, I don’t actually know the answer to that. I’ll try to find out from Ozma herself. I’ll let you know what she says.”
“Ah,” said the Wizard. “Ah.” He exchanged a glance with Scarecrow. “Of course, Orlando. We shall be...interested to hear.”
“Is something wrong?” Orlando suddenly felt himself on shaky ground and wasn’t sure why.
Scarecrow cleared his throat with a rustling noise. “It’s just...well, we are very grateful for your help, Orlando. You’ve always been a good friend to Emerald and the other counties of Kansas...”
He heard the unspoken. “But?”
“But...” Scarecrow looked embarrassed, or at least as much so as a painted feed sack could. “Well, we...we wondered...”
“We wondered why we never see anyone else from Oz,” said the Wizard. His familiar face was kindly, but there was something behind the eyes Orlando hadn’t seen before, or perhaps hadn’t noticed: a glint of keen intelligence. “Only you. Not that we’re unhappy with that, but, well...it does seem strange.”
The two best thinkers in Oz had been thinking; that was clear. Orlando wasn’t too sure he liked what they’d been thinking about. “I’m sure that will change one day, Senator Wizard. Surely you don’t think that Ozma has forgotten about you?”
“No,” said the Wizard. “Of course not. Whether in Oz or Kansas, we’re all Ozma’s subjects, and our lives are good.” But something still lurked beneath his words—perhaps doubt, perhaps something more complex. “We miss her, though. We miss our Princess. And all our other friends who don’t visit any more, like Jellia Jamb and Sawhorse and Tiktok...”
“And Trot and Button-Bright,” finished the Scarecrow sadly. “I cannot remember the last time I saw them. We wonder why they don’t come to visit us.”
“I’ll be sure to mention it to Ozma.” Now Orlando wanted only to get out as quickly as he could, before these uppity Turing machines began to ask him to prove his own existence. “I’m sure she’ll find a way for your friends to come see you.” At the very least, Orlando thought he could reanimate a few more characters from the original simulation without causing any real continuity problems. Which reminded him...
false alarm, mr. k—it was something that came completely out of the system itself, not a murder at all. the character wasn’t even really dead. no repeat of the kansas war, you’ll be glad to hear. (or maybe you won’t.) no need to shut it down—it’s doing all right. really. nothing to worry about. i’ll finish the official report after i get some sleep.
your obedient ranger,
o.
Nothing wrong with a half-truth every now and then, right? For a good cause?
Scarecrow and the Wizar
d came out onto the veranda of the Wizard’s white house to wave good-bye to him, but Orlando couldn’t help feeling they would be discussing what he’d said for days, pulling it apart, trying to tease out hidden meanings. Perhaps the Oz folk weren’t quite as childlike as he’d assumed.
So was there a moral to this story? Orlando headed down the hill from the Wizard’s house and into the outskirts of Forest. Every Eden, he supposed, even the most blissful, was likely to have a snake—in this case the curious, manipulative, and self-absorbed Glass Cat. But Orlando had been so worried that this particular snake would ruin things that he had been willing to consider shutting down the whole garden. Instead the peculiar logic of the place had absorbed the conflict and—with a little assist from Orlando Gardiner, Dead Boy Detective— had resolved the mystery without any drastic remedies. But Orlando had also learned that these sims were not always going to take his word for everything, at least not the cleverest of them. Was that good? Bad? Or just the way things were going to be in this brave, new world?
Oh, well, he thought. Plenty of time for Orlando Gardiner, the only Dead Boy Detective in existence, to think about such things later, after a little well-deserved rest.
Plenty of time. Maybe even an eternity.
Three Duets for Virgin and Nosehorn
Father Joao contemplates the box, a wooden crate taller than the priest himself and as long as two men lying down, lashed with ropes as if to keep its occupant prisoner. Something is hidden inside, something dead yet extraordinary. It is a Wonder, or so he has been told, but it is meant for another and much greater man. Joao must care for it, but he is not allowed to see it. Like Something Else he could name.
Father Joao is weary and sick and full of heretical thoughts.
Rain drums on the deck above his head. The ship pitches forward, descending into a trough between waves, and the ropes that hold the great box in place creak. After a week he is quite accustomed to the ship’s drunken wallowing, and his stomach no longer crawls into his throat at every shudder, but for all of his traveling, he will never feel happy on the sea.