Page 12 of Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years 2)

“No,” they all chorused.

“What’ll you do when you find yourself courageous—assuming the Wizard grants you what you wish?” asked the Scarecrow, to change the subject.

“Invest in the market? Join a troupe of music hall buskers? How the hell do I know?” said the Lion. “Strike out on my own, anyway, and find a better class of associates. More simpatico.”

“You?” asked the Scarecrow of the Tin Woodman.

“What will I do if I find myself with a heart?” scoffed the Tin Woodman. “Lose it constantly, I imagine.”

They slopped on. Liir didn’t think it was his place to continue the conversation, since he hadn’t been present at their initial audience with the Wizard. When no one else spoke, though, he said, “Well, Scarecrow, your turn. What’ll you do with your brains?”

“I’m thinking about it,” he answered, and would not discuss it further.

“Oh, Toto!” shrieked Dorothy suddenly. “Where’s Toto?”

“He’s wandered off to do his business,” said the Lion. “Just between you and me, it’s about time he learned to be private about it. I know you dote on him, but there is a limit.”

“He’ll be lost,” she cried. “He couldn’t find his way out of a cracker barrel. He’s not very bright, you know.”

After a respectful pause, the Tin Woodman observed, “I think we’ve all noticed that.”

“I hate to be obvious,” added the Scarecrow, “but you’d have saved yourself a heap of trouble if you weren’t too cheap to invest in a leash, Dorothy.”

“There he is,” she cried, pitching up a small slope.

The clueless creature was finishing his evacuation at the base of what looked like an ancient traveler’s shrine to Lurline. A weathered statue of the pagan goddess gazed blindly out into the storm. The statue was life-size, if you accepted that goddesses have the same stature as humans. Little more than a lean-to for protecting the statue from the elements, the structure could afford no room for the travelers to crawl in out of the downpour. After a while, though, Liir thought of standing on the shoulders of the Lion and slinging the big black cape out over the shrine’s roof. Using the scorched remains of the Witch’s broom as a pole, he rigged up a black tent under which they could huddle. The Lion’s mane reeked, but at least the travelers were protected from the worst of the rain.

“This cape is larger than it looks,” said Dorothy. “And the water isn’t soaking through.”

“Maybe she hexed it waterproof. She didn’t like water,” said Liir.

“So I’ve learned,” said Dorothy.

“Who does?” added the Tin Woodman, squeaking his joints.

“Tell me more about her,” continued Dorothy.

Liir didn’t oblige. He found Dorothy congenial enough—but it had been so long since he’d had anything like friends his own age! At Kiamo Ko, when he’d first arrived with Elphaba, Fiyero’s three children had allowed him into their small society, but slackly, without much interest. The girl, Nor, had been the only one ever really to play with him. Though he had been little more to Nor than that dog was to Dorothy, a presence to boss around, Nor had been kind. That first Lurlinemas, she’d given him the tail of her gingerbread mouse, because no one had thought to make him a gingerbread mouse of his own.

And besides her? No one else to play with, once she and Irji and the rest of the ruling family—Fiyero’s survivors—had been kidnapped by the Wizard’s forces garrisoned at Red Windmill. Yes, he’d bravely followed, but fecklessly. They’d given him the slip. He had had to return to Kiamo Ko and face the screeching. Then the Witch had prohibited Liir from fraternizing any longer with Commander Cherrystone of the Gale Forcers or from making new friends among the lice-ridden urchins of Red Windmill.

So Liir had lived a lonely life. It could have been worse; he was fed and he was clothed more or less warmly. He had his chores, and the winged monkeys, largely inarticulate, at le

ast didn’t go out of their way to move if he sat down nearby. Was there supposed to be more to a childhood? Rehearsing it to tell Dorothy, it seemed a spare, botched thing, and he suppressed most of it.

Of late, the Witch had become more irritable than usual, complaining of sleeping problems. Nanny—her nanny, at one point, and her mother’s nanny before that—was well into her eighties and good for little by way of coherent discussion. Liir had been left to talk to himself, and he’d found himself less than stimulating as a conversationalist.

Dorothy’s curiosity seemed flat to him, though, perhaps artificial. He wasn’t able to tell if she was really curious about his life, about the Witch, or if she was just marking time. Maybe steeling her own nerve by hearing the sound of her voice. He felt leery. Perhaps, the son of the Witch or no, he had inherited from exposure to Elphaba a mild sense of paranoia, as if everyone were after some scrap of vital information that they were unwilling to ask for directly.

He fussed and rolled his eyes and tried to imagine how to change the subject. He didn’t want to talk about his toddler days in the mauntery or his boyhood in Kiamo Ko. He was bereft of family, now, something of a hanger-on to Dorothy’s party, something of a guide without a clue out here in the cruel terrain. He just wanted to concentrate on the job.

He was glad, therefore, when the Lion started and said, “What’s that?”

“It’s night coming on,” said the Tin Woodman.

“Night coming on makes a sound like the Crack of Doom?” complained the Lion. “Never did before. Shhh, everyone. It wasn’t thunder. What was it? Shhh, I tell you.”

The Tin Woodman observed, “You’re the only one who’s talking—”

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