Page 12 of The Great and Terrible

When the cobblestone path forked, Mr. West went straight. Hogg prodded me until I veered right.

“Ensure the new girl behaves. Brand her, clean her up, and bring her to my office,” Mr. West called without looking back. “Make sure she looks her best. She’ll be meeting Henry.”

Surely “brand her” didn’t mean what I thought it meant. “Who’s Henry?”

“Here are the rules,” Hogg said, clasping my arm and squeezing to ensure I paid attention. “Do what you’re told, when you’re told. If you run, breaking your word to act as Mr. West’s substitute, another substitute will die for yourcrime and you’ll be next in line. Because yes, you’ll be caught, punished andwishyou’d died before you do, in fact, die. If your presence isn’t required in the house, you will stay here.” He waved to indicate the large green barn at the end of our path.

A muscle jumped in my jaw. Okay. Yes. Mr. West totally might have meant what I suspected. The man kept his substitutes in an actual stable. Whywouldn’the burn his mark into human beings as if we were cattle? Looked like I’d be doing some fighting, after all.

Inside the structure, I discovered a hay-covered floor and twenty-five stalls, a few occupied by green horses, the rest inhabited by surprisingly upbeat people, both young and old. Like Patch and the boys, they wore potato sacks. I wasn’t looking forward to obtaining a fashion travesty of my own.

At the end of the corridor, a wide-open space housed two carts and various equipment.

“Well, well. West found a new toy for Henry,” an older woman called. She leaned over a wooden railing in a loft. “Even better, Patch has returned. You and the boys beat Tandi to the rear of the cart, did you? Gotta admit, I didn’t expect that. You’re scrappy, but she was mean.”

Who was this Henry everyone kept mentioning, and what did she mean, toy?

“Shut up, Nelva!” Patch swiped up a stone and tossed it, nailing the old woman in the chest. “You don’t know nothin’.”

Nelva’s scowl promised swift retribution.

Their interaction painted a clearer picture of what happened today. Hogg hadn’t picked a specific substitute; he’d just grabbed the one closest to the door. Perhaps Brunette—Tandi—had even wedged her chained body in front of the boys to the best of her ability. The only other viable option had been hanging on a pole.

No wonder these death-surrogates didn’t make friends with each other. They were caught up in a zero-sum game.

“Stop lallygagging.” Hogg tightened his grip on my bicep and hauled me into an office. An unexpectedly normal workplace with a desk covered in papers, a chair on each side, and a set of filing cabinets that lined the walls.

“Sit,” he barked, giving me a push toward a chair.

I obeyed, ready to get this over with. Although, maybe, finally, I might learn where, exactly, I’d landed. Was Hakeldama even located on modern Earth? The very idea that I’d traveled to another world or time or dimension struck me as absurd and yet…not.

My companion plopped into the seat behind the desk and gathered a leather-bound book and a feather pen. “Name, age, and village of birth.”

“Moriah Shaker. Twenty. Ozworld, Kansas.” No reason to risk a crimen with a lie. Hopeful, I asked, “Have you met anyone else from Kansas?” If a tornado had whiskedmehere, it might’ve done the same to others in the past. Though I scoured my brain, I couldn’t recall the name of the local woman who’d spurred the original rumors.

“I have,” he replied as he recorded my information. “I’m not surprised you hail from such a savage land. Your fellow Kansans were just as mouthy.”

I blinked at him. Savage? Wait. Others had been here! “What happened to them?” I rushed out, puffing up as excitement brewed.

“What else? They either died or got traded.” His indifferent tone deflated my internal balloon. “No more questions. I don’t recall giving you permission to speak. Give me your hand.”

What, they used fingerprint ID here? Willing to play nice for answers, I obeyed, offering my hand. But I didn’t stay quiet. “I’d like to read your logbook to search for names I might recognize. And that wasn’t a question but a request.”

“You may not.” He clasped my wrist and stamped white-hot iron into my palm. “No more requests, either.”

I screeched, unprepared for the flare of scorching pain. What the—He released me, and I snatched back my throbbing appendage.

A bomb of fury detonated inside me when I spotted the design seared into my flesh. OZ. As in…

No! No, no, no. “What does this mean?” I demanded.

Hogg motioned to a filing cabinet marked O-Z. The cabinet next to it read A-N. I worked my jaw as realization dawned. OZ referenced an alphabetical filing system.

“You belong to Mr. West now,” Hogg said. “Your actions are a reflection upon him, so you will conduct yourself with dignity and decorum at all times.”

“I belong tomyself.” And I highly doubted Mr. West was known as a man of “dignity” and “decorum.”

Hogg continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You are not to ever commit a crime.”

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