Page 150 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“Oh, my dear, Frex went off to the Quadling lands to bring faith to the noble heathen, don’t you know.”

“My father,” she said. “I’m talking about Liir. Liir Ko.”

“Liir Thropp, you mean,” she said. “Elphaba’s boy. When the soldiers came and kidnapped the family, and little Nor among them, Elphaba was out somewhere. Shopping, or raising mayhem. Or conducting lessons in sedition. I don’t want to talk about that part. Liir followed them and got kidnapped too, but then they let him go because they didn’t know who he was. They thought he was a kitchen boy. Well, he always was grubby, I’ll give them that. They’d have saved themselves a lot of bother if they’d kept him when they had him.”

“That was then,” she said. “What about this time? Did you hear them arrive, did they say anything that would give you a clue about where they were taking him?”

“I’ve always been a very sound sleeper. It’s my best talent.” She took out a few teeth and cleaned them with her thumb, and then reinserted them. “Popcorn kernels, you know; the old gums can’t take it anymore.”

“What do you think?”

“I think,” said Nanny, “that there is nothing more I would like right now than to tell you what you want to know. But I can’t. So the next best thing I would like is to have a nap in this sunlight. I feel the winter chill something fierce, you know. If when I wake I find I’ve remembered anything further, I’ll call for you. What did you say your name was?”

“Rain.”

“I don’t think so.” She squinted at the bright summer sun. “Snow, perhaps, or hail; it’s too cold for rain at this time of year.” She pulled a tippet about her shoulders and almost immediately began to snore.

Rain continued her circuit, stopping to press Iskinaary for his opinions. “Why didn’t you go with him? You’re supposed to be his familiar, aren’t you?”

“Only a witch has a familiar, and he’s not a witch.”

“That’s no answer, and you know it.”

Iskinaary refused to budge on the matter, but Rain pestered. “It doesn’t make sense. You’ve always stayed by his side. You could have followed him from a height and seen where he was being taken. I can’t believe you failed him at this point in your long friendship, if that’s what you call it.”

She goaded him further until finally he hissed, “If you must know, I wanted to go with him, but he yelled at me to stay behind and take care of Candle. So I followed his word though it broke my heart.”

“You’re a big fat liar. You didn’t follow his word at all, or you’d be traveling with my mother down to Nether How, to get that broom. You broke your promise to him. You are as cowardly as the Lion.”

“I resent that,” called the Lion, who wasn’t listening although certain phrases do carry.

“Save it for the magistrate.” Iskinaary drew himself up to his full height. His cheeks were sunken in a way they had not been before, but his eye was steely menace still. “Candle told me to stay here because you were likely to show up. She has that talent. She sensed your approaching.”

“And so she left,” said Rain, without mercy, for what mercy had her mother ever shown her? “A talent for lighting out just when I show up. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“She wanted to protect you. She said you were more important than she was.”

“I doubt you believe that,” said Rain.

“I never said I believe it.”

The senior flying monkey, Rain learned, was called Chistery. He was so stooped that his chin nearly touched his knees. He was devoted to Nanny and agreed with her that Rain had something of Elphaba about her. “Frankly, when I first saw you, I thought you were Elphaba returning.”

“As I understand it, Elphaba was green.”

“So I’ve heard. But flying monkeys are color-blind, so I wasn’t going by your pallor. You do have something of Elphaba about you. I can’t quite name what it is.”

“The talent of being in the wrong place almost all the time?”

“Maybe, Rain, a feeling for magic. Have you ever tried it?”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“Or maybe it’s your air of disdain. Elphaba was strong in that department.”

Perhaps to distract the disconsolate group, Dorothy told Rain and Tip about her day in court. The subject of her trial and her conviction bore heavily on her. At lunch one day, Dorothy turned to Nanny and said, “You were present, Nanny. You were here when Elphaba disappeared. The day her skirts went up in flames and I threw the bucket of water on her. I ran weeping away when I saw her disappear, but you came rushing up the stairs as I went down.”

“Oh yes, I used to have very good knees. An attractive domestic, according to certain opinions posted anonymously to me.”

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