Page 95 of Witch Queens: Tales from Oz

CHAPTER 34 - PART 3 – Glinda

“Icannot believe yousent my sister on a wild goose chase!”

I was beyond frustrated with Gregory.

“What did you want me to say, Lin? That there was no magical Wizard of Oz? That it was a ruse made up so that I could come into Emerald City and be close to you without anyone knowing?”

“Why didn’t you just say that you would permit for Dorothy to leave?”

He ground his teeth, “First off, that bitch lied, the third trustee is not Nessa Rose. Second, how was I to know what Dorothy wanted? She had just destroyed the majority of our crops!”

“So, you just refused to see her, and now we are in this mess,” my head was starting to pound. “What are we going to do now?”

“We are going to see your father, which is what you girls should have done in the first place.”

Self-righteous son of a gun, “I did suggest that we go to Daddy, but my sisters were insistent that they could take care of it.”

A vein in Gregory’s forehead threatened to burst.

“Your sisters are three of the most pig headed, stubborn women on the face of the earth. They would walk into hell, barefoot, before asking for help.”

“That wasn’t nice!”

Although he wasn’t wrong, and I too had the stubborn streak of independence.

“We have a mass murder on the loose, Lin. The time for nice has long since passed,” Gregory sighed, blowing out an exasperated breath. “I am sorry, I don’t mean to take my frustration out on you.”

He ran a hand through his tousled blonde curls. Then turning to me sheepishly, he added, “And I am sorry I locked your sister in the dungeon. She just rubs me the wrong way.”

I didn’t want my sister rubbing Gregory in any way. But I kept that to myself.

“You called me,” I said softly, “instead of leaving her there. Thank you for that.”

“Listen,” Gregory’s eyes were insistent, “I know that you wanted space.”

I raised a hand, “No, not here. I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”

The fact of the matter was, that Gregory has been trying to marry me for years now. I think he proposed for the first time when I was eleven. We all grew up together in a way. But my sisters hated him, and there was no end to the nasty tricks played on both sides.

I have always felt a bit disconnected from my sisters. My eldest sister, Mombi, was always so assured and confident. The twins had each other. It was odd, the way they had often communicated without speaking a word.

And then I came. Think about the timid kid, who got so tongue-tied, that they hardly ever spoke and when they did it, was always a garbled mess.

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