Page 8 of There's No Place Like Oz

He had a point. Just because his body appeared human, that didn’t mean that he had lost his heightened senses. That could be a useful tool from here on out, I thought.

Still, I hesitated, partially out of distrust and partially because I was too scared to have an appetite. On the contrary, the sight of the strange food almost made me sick just imagining ingesting it. Instead, I offered Tobias to indulge in both of our meals, figuring it would help to keep him at full strength. He had a dog’s stomach after all, and I had a much more sensitive constitution even on a good day.

Tobias finished the food, while I sat on the bed in anticipation. I didn’t know if they’d keep us here for several more days, or if they had more immediate plans to kick start their agriculture, but the uncertainty of it all was almost more terrifying than the threats themselves.

I was sitting in my nerves when the sound of a turning lock caught both of our attention. The door suddenly flew open, slamming into the inside wall with a loud bang. I jumped at the noise, and barely had time to collect myself before a swarm of munchkins filled the room, and immediately took hold of us.

Tobias and I both struggled in their grasp. He tried his best to fight them off, but by sheer numbers, there was nothing either of us could do. Eight men wrestled Tobias to the floor, and I watched in horror as they struck him over the head, hard enough to silence him. It was probably safe to say the food hadn’t been drugged considering the need for such violence. In hindsight, if they were going to bleed us out to feed the fields, they couldn’t risk tainting our bodies.

What a comfort…I internally hissed at such awful thoughts.

Six more men had their mitts on me, and after seeing what they’d done to Tobias, I resigned to my fate. It wouldn’t do me much good to sustain injuries in a fruitless battle. Ifhecouldn’t stop them, my chances were below abysmal, and escaping would only be more difficult if I ended up hurt or unconscious.

No, this was strategic. I’d preserve my strength for whatever they had planned for us, and I’d use it to free myself after the fact.

The munchkins hauled us out of what I soon discovered was the basement of one of their hubble houses, then they marched us across a farmer’s expansive, undulating field. The hills were comprised of thousands, if not millions, of small bean plants sewn in orderly rows. It seemed so ordinary, all things considered. It almost felt a little bit like Kansas in some ways. Our captors surmounted one of the small hills, giving me a much better view of the valley. I’d stopped struggling, and Tobias was limp under the march of the eight men who carried his body through the crops.

In the distance, a rugged cross jutted out of the ground like a spear that had been thrown into the earth from the heavens. As we neared, I got a full view of the crossbeam that formed a rugged crucifix, which was nailed into the surface with bent, over long spikes. The unfinished wood was wrapped heavily in barbed wire that glistened in the light of the still rising sun.

Every blade and coiled string of metal sparkled with pure but subtle violence, and as we rounded that wooden monument of pain, still in the grasp of these awful little men, we saw a man that was already imprisoned upon one of the planks. He hung silently and limply in the field like a corpse who’d been repurposed as a scarecrow.

He was quite a sight. His skin was heavily scarred by the barbed wire, with cut marks across his neck and wrists and shoulders as though he’d been stitched back together after being torn limb from limb. He wore a dark sleeveless shirt, similar to that of the munchkins, but lengthened to match his much more substantial height, and a pair of jeans sat nicely on a trim waist. His head hung as though he was either sleeping or dead—I certainly hoped for the former and not the latter, though the pale greyish hue to his skin and the lack of obvious breathing didn’t give me much confidence. Framing his face was a mess of wild black hair that shot out in every which way, all sprawling out from the bottom of a darkly dyed, wide brim straw hat.

My eyes widened as I took him in. He was a strange juxtaposition of calm and torture. His long eyelashes rested softly over his nicely sculpted cheekbones, and his pale blue lips were parted just a touch.

Is that… is that what they’re about to do to us?

Tobias was thrown onto the ground, still unconscious, while the munchkins who carried him began building a new cross. They built two of them, side by side, using primitive hammers and poorly secured nails. My carriers held me down on the floor, assuring I didn’t escape while the others began hoisting Tobias onto his mount.

Fuck—There was no chance that I would be able to get out of bindings like that. I jerked and thrashed in a fight for my life when I saw exactly how inescapable my prison was about to be. This wasn’t simply a captive situation. This was a human sacrifice situation. They were about to turn us into pretty scarecrows to protect their crops, and I wanted no part of it.

I kicked and bit at my captors, who seemed about as phased as a horse with a fly on its back, while a few of the small men climbed atop the cross they’d chosen for Tobias. The men on the floor hoisted his unconscious body upward, handing him off to those mounted up high, and the munchkins got to work on fastening his wrists to the wood with the barbed wire. I watched the way the metal barbs cut his flesh, and red dripped from the sharp points.

“Stop!” I cried out. “Stop, you can’t do this!” I knew it was futile, but I couldn’t help myself. “I’m your hero. I’m not a scarecrow. We can be so much more useful to you if you let us live.” My voice broke in sobs as they began securing Toto’s other wrist. His head held limply, while another munchkin wrapped the wire around his neck.

“You saved us from the Wicked Witch’s control, and for that we are eternally grateful.” A munchkin spoke harshly into my ear. “And as such a selfless person, we now thank you as you save our food supply from the witch’s evil crows that still remain to torment us.”

No matter how hard I fought, I was completely overpowered. My throat burned under my heavy crying. I was never strong enough when I needed to be. That was par for the course. “You—You’re the ones who are evil!” I shot back. “There has to be a better way.”

“This is the only way. The prophecies have foretold this, and the prophecies are never wrong.” The munchkins, who had just finished securing Tobias to the cross, jumped down, then they started climbing atop the crucifix that would be mine. “We need a sorceress’s blood to scare away a witch’s demons, and you are a sorceress strong enough to defeat their master. Your life force will feed the earth, and her minions won’t dare come here so long as your body hangs.”

I glanced between the unconscious Tobias and the man who died in these bindings, and my heart rate accelerated out of control. I made one last ditch effort to get free, while firm hands began hoisting me upwards.

No use.

They secured me on a pair of hooks, supporting me beneath my underarms, then they held me there while others started to tie the wire around me,

“Let me go!” I screamed through my tears knowing it would fall on deaf ears. “I’m not a sorceress. My blood isn’t magic.”

“Of course it is.” The man who tightened bindings on my right wrist spoke casually. He yanked the wire tight until he was satisfied by the depth of the punctures. “The prophecy clearly foretold that a sorceress would save us from the wicked witch and famine. And here you are.”

“I’m not…” The barbs on my ankles cut in as deeply and easily as needles through cotton cushion, pinning me to the cross like I was a butterfly about to be dissected. “I’m just a girl from the country. I shouldn’t be here at all.” I stopped struggling in an effort to minimize damage. They were determined to keep me trapped, and there was little I could do to stop them now. “Don’t you think if I had magic I would be throwing you all off of me right now!?”

They ignored me. Reason didn’t work on these people. My other wrist was shoved against the wooden cross beam, and the wire was tightened down. My neck and torso were next, and I screamed when those tiny blades cut into me. My blood dripped down through my bust. I held my breath and focused on keeping as still on my hooks as possible, lest gravity deal me the final blow.

The men jumped down from the cross, and they all stopped to admire their handiwork. My eyes were watering out of control, mixing salty tears with my dribbles of blood, and I bit into my quivering lip in an attempt to deny them the satisfaction of being outwardly broken.

I couldn’t believe that this was how I was going to die. Breathing was enough to cut myself on the barbs, and every slight shift of my body made it worse. The metal scraped over my skin viciously and without forgiveness.

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