Page 167 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

She never passed through us, said the Ozmists. It is believed here that she has not died.

“She’d be a thousand and eighty,” said Little Daffy wonderingly.

“No one is that old, except Nanny,” said Rain.

“Baby Ozma might have taken an omnibus to hell. You Ozmists aren’t the only filter to the Other Side,” said Dorothy staunchly, in that bullishly public voice she sometimes had.

If there could be said to be a pause in a hissle of ghostly fragments, there was a pause.

“What happened to my parents, then?” asked Dorothy. “If you’re so comprehensive? They died at sea, in a boat going to the old country. It sunk, and that was that. Where are they? What did they want to know about me? I don’t believe you have a thing to say about it.”

The Ozmists had nothing to say about it. Neither, noticed Brrr, did they pester Dorothy for news. Perhaps they didn’t want to know about the Other Side that Dorothy hailed from. Even ghosts have their limits of tolerance.

“Tell us about Elphaba,” said Rain.

Barter, said the Ozmists, a sense of relief in their voices.

“The head of St. Prowd’s, Proctor Gadfry, has gone for a soldier.”

That’s of no significance to us.

“It is to him, and it’s his history,” said Rain. “Unless he’s died and is with you now, it’s as significant as anything else. The history of this war hinges on what every single person alive chooses to do or not to do. Now tell me about Elphaba.”

Still they resisted. Clangingly, silent-noisily, dark-lightly.

Rain said, “Okay, my great-uncle Shell is Throne Minister of Oz. He is Elphaba’s brother. That’s current events, up to the minute. But we can’t find out what happened to Elphaba Thropp, my grandmother, once Dorothy threw a pail of mucky water at her. She’s been dead and gone almost twenty years, I’m told. Why is there no evidence of it?”

When the Ozmists spoke, they were cautious, even a little apologetic.

In all of history, of most human lives, there is no proof of passage, they said, neither coming in nor going out. Don’t be offended if someone you love has left no trace. That doesn’t mean they were absent in their own time.

“So you’re going to be coy about it too?” asked Rain. “Figures. Useless phantoms.”

You think that someone with the capacity of Elphaba Thropp would let us gossip about her, even if she were here in our midst? In life she paid no attention to the rules of the game. In death she’d not suddenly go corporate.

“So she’s not dead? Or is she?” asked Rain. But this they wouldn’t answer.

You strayed at the stand of four beeches, several miles back, they said, relenting.

“I don’t remember four beeches,” said the Lion.

We’ve been moving while we’ve been congregating. Ghosts can’t keep still. You won’t find the beeches again. But keep the stream on your left and you’ll soon be on the right track.

“And what track is that?” asked Dorothy.

To the future, they said, wistfully. And, you? With the shell?

“Yes,” said Rain.

Blow it once, they said.

She did. It had almost no sound in this cloaking paleness, but the Ozmists took on a glow like that of lights in water, a wetter look. A blueness, as of heat lightning.

If you need

us, blow the horn for us, they said. We will come if we can.

“Why would you do that? I’ve given nothing to you. It’s all about barter, isn’t it?

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