“Hey,” I said, suddenly curious. “You don’t by any chance keep a giant pair of wings somewhere under there, do you?”
She flapped her arms up and down and hopped on one foot, but no wings sprouted.
So much for that idea. “It was worth a shot, right?” I shrugged, then returned to the subject of myself. Because, really, why not? “The thing is that I don’t even really like him,” I mumbled. “I just think he might be able to . . .” I trailed off without finishing my sentence, suddenly embarrassed that I was trying to get away with such an outrageous lie. Of course I liked him. I didn’t want to find him because he could help; I wanted to find him because I had a crush on him. There, I said it.
I know, I know. How stupid am I?
From the way Ozma was looking at me now, it seemed she wasn’t really buying what I was selling either. She was gazing at me with a deep, bemused kindness that was also a little skeptical, and I had to wonder, yet again, if maybe she actually understood what I’d been saying all along. I stepped closer to her.
“What is it about you?” I asked. She replied by bobbling her neck and twirling her finger at her temple.
Maybe it was because of my dream, but this time I wasn’t quite convinced by her look-how-dumb-I-am act. Was that what the dream had been trying to tell me? That Ozma and her secrets were the key to everything? Or at least the key to something?
I looked her up and down carefully, trying to find a clue. This time, I found one.
At first, it was just a glimpse of something overlaid on top of reality. It was like a double vision, another image that was barely there, hovering around the princess’s body. It reminded me of what I’d seen, for a moment, when I’d defeated the Lion, just before I’d taken his tail. When that had happened, I hadn’t had time to really think about it; I’d been acting totally on instinct. This time I tried to really focus on what I was seeing.
Again, I had to wonder how all this magic was coming so easily to me. Was the fact that Oz was getting its magic back just making it easier to take ahold of, or was I actually finding some kind of power of my own? And if I was, was that a good thing or a bad thing?
As I let myself become distracted by questions, I felt the magic slipping through my grasp. I clenched my fists and tried harder, and then it was gone entirely. But I could tell I was on to something—after all, the instinct I’d had about the Lion’s tail had been right. I wasn’t about to give up now. I narrowed my eyes and tried again.
One of the first lessons Gert had taught me about magic, in the long series of barely successful lessons she’d given me before she’d died, is that it’s hard to hold. Magic is tricky; it will do what it wants to, but not if you boss it around. You have to ask nicely. You have to think it’s the magic’s idea instead of yours. Kind of like Sandie Charlemagne, my old manager at Dusty’s Diner back in Kansas.
It was a funny connection to make, but thinking of Sandie made me think of quicksand, and how the more you struggle the faster you sink, and that made me think about those Chinese finger traps you get when you’re a little kid—the ones you can only get out of if you stop trying. Then I thought of the soap bubble trick from my mother that had helped me fall asleep last night.
I decided to just let all my thoughts drift away, and as my mind began to clear, the glowing aura around Ozma got brighter and clearer while, at the same time, the princess herself became more and more vague.
It wasn’t just Ozma either. Everything in the room was coming in and out, like when you’re driving and the radio reception changes depending on whether you’re going up or down a hill. Why not try adjusting the dial? I thought. And it worked.
When I shifted my attention in one direction, the glowing got stronger while everything else faded away. Everything that had been in the room was still there, except that it was made out of a strange, glittering thread. The screen, the wash basin, the sleeping hammocks, Ozma. Even my own body. All of it was just energy, and all of it was connected to each other.
I knew, on some level, that what I was seeing was the real Oz. I had pulled back the curtain and stepped through it, but instead of finding a humbug wizard, I’d found the controls to the whole operation—and it turned out the whole operation was made out of what appeared to be magical silly string.
Well, that makes it sound kind of lame. It wasn’t lame. It was literally the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. So beautiful that I had to try to touch it: I just reached out in front of me and tried to grasp one of the stray filaments floating randomly in the air. It swayed a little, but it didn’t really move, and my fingers passed right through it. When I tried to grab a fistful of them, I came up empty. But I found that if I sort of brushed my fingers against them, they responded to my touch as long as I didn’t push too hard. And if I was patient enough, I was able to move them around.
It was weird and very cool, but I didn’t really see the point until I noticed that the wayward strings of magic that had seemed to be floating randomly through the air—the ones I’d been playing with—were actually slowly gravitating toward something. And that something was Ozma.
They were flowing into her, sort of, but they were also twisting around her body, which was the brightest thing in the whole room. When I looked closely, I saw that she was just one big knot of magic.
And what do you do with knots? Well, duh. You untie them.
I didn’t want to hurt her. I just wanted to see what would happen. And so I hovered my fingers around Ozma, trying to see if I could get the jumbled lines of magic to untangle themselves.
At first, it seemed like it wasn’t doing anything, but after a few minutes, I noticed that one tiny thread was now twisting out from her elbow, and I managed to catch it on my finger, and I tugged on it, feeling just the slightest bit of give.
I bit my lip in concentration, careful not to pull too hard. And, just like I was tugging on a loose string on an old sweater from the thrift store, Ozma began to unravel.
No—it wasn’t her that was unraveling, exactly. It was more like I was unraveling some kind of spell. Meanwhile, Ozma herself was changing shape. She was getting bigger. Taller. Her shoulders broadened into a man’s. Well, a boy’s, I guess. And I could tell from his slouch and the tilt of his head that it was a boy I knew.
“Pete,” I muttered under my breath.
As soon as I spoke, it all slipped away. I was back in the real world, Ozma was gone, and Pete was standing right in front of me, wide-eyed in surprise. He took a step backward toward the door and held up his hands, looking as guilty and sheepish as someone who has just been caught shoplifting a Hostess Twinkie from the Piggly Wiggly.
“Um, hey?” he said. “So, uh, that was pretty weird, huh?” He scanned me up and down. “Nice outfit,” he said, grinning.
I didn’t know what to think. All I knew was that Pete had played me one too many times already, even if I didn’t know why, and I wasn’t going to let him do it again.
Still, I couldn’t help it if I was just a little bit happy to see him. Because it was Pete, who had saved my life about five minutes after I’d first arrived in Oz. Pete, who had kept me from going crazy when I’d been trapped in Dorothy’s dungeons. Pete, who had been the only person I could talk to when I had been posing as a servant in the Emerald Palace.
“Forget the outfit,” I said shortly. I took a step back and felt a sizzle of heat in my palm as my knife appeared without me even calling for it. “I think it’s time for you to do some talking.”
He brushed his dark hair from his green eyes. The same exact eyes that belonged to Ozma. He looked away and took a deep breath. When our eyes met again, I suddenly saw a sadness in him that I recognized from somewhere. “It’s kind of a long story,” he said. “Don’t we have better things to talk about?”
“Dude,” I said. I took a step toward him, and I saw him glance at my knife. I didn’t want to fight him, but I would, if it came to it. “I’ve known you longer than anyone else in this whole messed-up fairyland,
and I still don’t know you at all. All you’ve done is lie to me. So yeah,” I spat. “I like you. I think. But I think you’d better start giving me some explanations.”
Pete just nodded with resigned understanding. He took a deep breath and slumped against the wall, folding his tense, sinewy arms across his chest. “Okay,” he said. “But you might as well have a seat, ’cause I wasn’t kidding when I said it was a long story. And I don’t even know the whole thing.”
I considered it, and then sat back down in the hammock I’d slept in, leaving my bare feet firm on the ground to steady myself. For now, I kept my knife in my hand. I didn’t think I would need it, but you could never be too safe around here.
“Let’s hear it,” I said. “Just tell me everything you do know.”
“Where should I start?”
“The beginning.”
So Pete started at the beginning. “Once upon a time . . . ,” he said.
SEVEN
“Once upon a time,” Pete began, “there was a little girl—a fairy, actually, but who knows what a fairy really even is? I’ve always been sort of fuzzy on that. Anyway. She was a princess. Or, well, really she wasn’t a princess at all, because she had no parents, so technically she was the queen. But everyone thought it seemed dumb to call her a queen, because she was just a baby. I mean, she couldn’t even walk. So they called her Princess Ozma.”
“How can a baby be queen?” I asked. “Was she just crawling around the palace by herself? Who was taking care of her? And, like, who was ruling Oz?”
“She had a nursemaid,” Pete explained. “A winged monkey named Lulu whose family had worked for the royal family for ages. She took care of Ozma, and after a time, Lulu came to think of Ozma as her own.”
I did a double take. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Queen Lulu?”
“I guess that’s what she’s calling herself these days,” Pete said with a rueful smile. “Everyone and their babysitter’s got a crown in this stupid fairyland, huh?”
“Actually, Queen Lulu wears a tutu and cat-eye sunglasses,” I pointed out.
Pete snickered. “I meant, like, a metaphorical crown,” he said. “Because, look, the thing about Oz that you have to understand is there’s only one true queen. It didn’t matter that Ozma was a baby or whatever. She’s the only living descendant of the fairy Lurline, so that makes her the one in charge. It’s like the law or something. They call it Old Magic. Look, I don’t totally understand it either, but I don’t have to. Everything sort of depends on it, you know?”
“Not really,” I said. “But keep going. Maybe I’ll get it later.”
“The point is that basically no one was in charge. So when the Wizard showed up from god knows where, well—let’s just say the people of Oz were ready for some real leadership. Didn’t even really matter that he wasn’t a wizard at all. So he sets himself up in the palace, takes the baby Ozma, sells her to Mombi, and—”
“Hold up,” I interjected. This story was getting more confusing by the second. “He just takes the baby?”
Pete raised his eyebrows in consternation. “If I have to give you every little detail it’s going to take all day.”
“But what about Lulu?” I asked. “If she was supposed to be taking care of Ozma, why didn’t she stop him?”
Pete shook his head sadly. “He found this magic hat thing. If you have the hat, you control the monkeys. This was a long time ago, remember—Dorothy must still have the hat lying around somewhere nowadays. Anyway, the Wizard gave the magic hat to the Wicked Witch of the West in exchange for her help, and she made all the monkeys into her slaves. So that got rid of Lulu, and then the Wizard could do what he wanted.”
“I never realized the Wizard was such a total dick,” I said. “Although, I guess by now I should know better.” Pete just gave me a look, annoyed.
I settled back in my seat and willed myself to shut up. I was sort of glad I did, because it was a good story. Crazy, but good. This is what he told me:
Once upon a time and long ago (but not that long ago), in the land that may by now be familiar to you, there lived a fairy princess who, like every fairy queen before her, had been born from a flower that grew from the center of an ancient fountain that sat in the center of a maze where the land’s magic was at its strongest. Because of certain unbendable principles of this very magic, the kingdom was the girl’s to protect and rule.
Her name was Ozma, and, the fact is, she was far too small to be much of a leader.
Despite this deficit, the princess was beloved by all, and most of all by her loyal nanny, a flying monkey by the name of Lulu. Lulu doted on Ozma and cared for her fiercely in the absence of parents, governing Oz herself as Ozma’s proxy until the day that the little princess was old enough to take over the job.
Lulu was pragmatic and fair, and although all was not perfect, all should have at least been well. But it was not, for there were other forces at work. Yes, there were witches involved—if there’s something to be involved in, you can be sure that witches will always be lurking nearby. But in this case, the witches were not the real problem. The real problem was a newcomer to the kingdom who had arrived in a strange, colorful flying machine and took to falsely calling himself a wizard.
At first, this false Wizard went unnoticed as he traveled through the wondrous kingdom, exploring its customs, its outlands, and, naturally, its magic. And when he had decided that the time was right, he journeyed to a city made of emeralds to seek an audience with the queen.
It wasn’t until he saw Ozma that he realized she wasn’t much of a queen at all. He had heard she was young, but this, he thought, was ridiculous.
The Wizard could see that Oz was in desperate need of a true leader. With no one minding the shop except a monkey and an infant, he was certain that the kingdom would quickly fall into disrepair. So he considered it his solemn duty—perhaps his destiny?—to save this strange and beautiful fairyland from itself.
Why shouldn’t he be king? he wondered. (Never mind that, in all its history, Oz had only had queens. The Wizard was from a place called America, and to him, a female ruler was a strange and unsettling notion.) Other than the witches, who were too consumed with squabbling with each other to be in charge of anything, no one seemed much interested in leadership, least of all baby Ozma.
So the Wizard hatched a scheme.
Before we get to that scheme, let us return, for a moment, to the witches. There were four of them. Two were evil, two were good (supposedly), and all of them were silly and petty, if fearsome. The wickedest of them, the Western Witch, was also somewhat less silly than the rest, and so it was she with whom the Wizard chose to conspire. Through this conspiracy, the Wizard snatched Princess Ozma from the monkey Lulu, and conscripted the poor beast, along with her winged brothers and sisters, into the Western Witch’s enslavement.
Then, because the Wizard knew that the people of Oz would never accept him as their king so long as they believed the princess was alive, and because the Old Magic that courses through everything in the land would not allow him to kill the princess outright, he sent her north, to the hag Mombi, who had her own motives for taking the baby in. To ensure that Ozma would remain safely hidden, it was decided that old Mombi would enchant the child and keep her far away from the eyes of the world.
And so many years passed. Meanwhile, changes were afoot in Oz, brought on once again by a visitor from the Other Place: not the Wizard, this time, but a plucky and plainspoken farm girl named Dorothy Gale. Within weeks of her arrival, Dorothy made short work of killing two witches and, finally, exposing the Wizard himself and banishing him.
With the Wizard deposed, Dorothy could have held the crown herself. But being of sentimental and truly generous spirit, Dorothy was of the belief that there was No Place Like Home. Thus, she chose to forgo a seat on the emerald throne in order to return to the place your people call Kansas. So again, there was a vacuum of power.
This time it was filled by Dorothy’s companion
the Scarecrow—who, even having been blessed by the Wizard with a set of artificial brains, was a few bales short of a haystack and was not much up to the task of kingship. Chaos ran rampant.
During all these goings-on, Tippetarius, the princess formerly known as Ozma, who by now had come to be known simply as Tip, was in Gillikin Country, far away from the tumult and intrigue of the Emerald City.
Tip had grown weary of his lot in life. And so he left Mombi, and set out to seek his fortune.
Remember this: Old Magic runs deep. It finds a way to prevail. Perhaps it was Old Magic that compelled Tip to leave the only home he’d ever known. Either way, Tip wound his way down a strange and treacherous path through Oz, surviving trial after trial, until he finally found himself in the Emerald City.
There, Tip came face-to-face with the sorceress Glinda, who was easily able to see through Mombi’s shoddy enchantment. Tippetarius was revealed as Ozma, and with that, the rightful queen was restored to her throne, and for the first time in many years, Oz was a truly happy place.
But with all the turmoil in the land, Glinda’s hold on power had been dwindling, and she had thought that young and inexperienced Ozma would make a suitable pawn. She was incorrect. And so, being unable to rid herself of the princess, Glinda arranged for Dorothy’s return.
At first, the kingdom was overjoyed to have their beloved heroine back, and Ozma welcomed the girl into the palace. Soon, though, the princess discovered that Dorothy was no longer the bright-eyed, kindhearted girl that she had been on her first voyage. Something had changed. Like the Wizard before her, she lusted for power, fame, and, above all, magic. Soon, Ozma decided that it would be better for all if Dorothy returned to Kansas.
This displeased Dorothy greatly. In fact, it drove her into a wild fury. In a fit of rage, Dorothy—who had great power but little experience with magic—cast a wild and unpredictable spell on Ozma that left the princess in the dim-witted state in which she can now be found. And Dorothy got the thing that she had come to desire most: Oz.