Page 50 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

The snowflake patterns pulled apart like theater curtains, revealing a dark blue background that filled the whole page, like a night sky during Lurlinemas. Stars shone in midnight ink. “If this is an advertisement for classes in faith formation, honeyclams, I’m taking a match to the whole damn thing,” whispered Mr. Boss.

“Shut up,” said Brrr politely.

A single dot of white began to grow larger, as if nearing from a great distance across the heavens. It looked like a sort of snow globe, of the type Brrr had seen in the shops at holidays. An ice bubble, maybe? A perfect crystal drop. Hovering. It swelled almost to the margins of the page. When it stopped, they could see that the globe was clear, and a hunched figure imprisoned within.

“The Z in the O,” said Rain.

They couldn’t quite tell who it was.

“It’s meant to be Lady Glinda,” said Mr. Boss, despite himself. “People said she used to come and go by bubble. Though it was really a White Pfenix.”

“No, it’s meant to be Elphaba, only you can’t see she’s green,” said Ilianora, “not behind that icy white window. It reminds me of her crystal globe at Kiamo Ko.”

“It’s neither.” The Lion didn’t know why he felt so decisive about it. “It’s Yackle. Old Mother Yackle, the senile sage of the mauntery. She’s the one who took up lodging within these very pages, if you recall. And the glass ball—maybe that’s what’s become of Shadowpuppet—Malky, the glass cat. It has swallowed her up as if she were a bird. Well, she had those wings, remember.”

The figure—it was surely a she—pointed out at them as if she could see them from the book. One finger at Brrr, one at Ilianora, one at the dwarf, and one at Rain. With her other hand she collected four upright fingers and bunched them together like asparagus spears tied with string. She gripped them, indicating—quite cleary—together. Together.

Then she raised her right hand and pointed over their shoulders. South. She made a shooing motion with her hand, a farmwife annoyed by chickens. Go! Go. Together. South.

Flee.

Hurry!

“She could get a job at Ticknor Circus doing charades,” admitted the dwarf. “She’s pretty good, though who’s to say she’s not some dybbuk tempting us to our doom?”

The snowflakes began to close in, obscuring the figure. The Grimmerie became stiff, the pages blocked. Nothing to do but close the damn book before the ground around it began to ice up and the Grimmerie froze to the earth.

“I’m going south,” said Brrr. “With Ilianora and with Rain. I’ll haul the Clock if you choose to come along, Mr. Boss. If you can’t bring yourself to join us, well, it’s been jolly when it hasn’t been a total nightmare.”

The dwarf pulled at his hands, all but whimpering, “The Clock said no girl.”

“Haven’t you ever known a Clock to tell the wrong time?” Though Brrr stopped there.

“All right. I’m beat.” The dwarf walked up to Rain; their faces were almost the same height. He waggled a finger. “But hey? Little funny kid? You’re not to touch this book again. I don’t like that look of entitlement on your smug face.”

“It’s called reading,” she retorted.

Whatever else they griped about—whoever the image had meant to remind them of, and they argued over it—they’d come to agreement about this much, at least: better to be caught on the road headed for other mischief than to be found squatting in a cul-de-sac like mice in a tin bucket. Since the battle for Restwater might be joined again at Haugaard’s Keep, to the east, then they’d head around the western tip of the lake, until they could follow the book’s advice and turn south.

Now the Lion discovered that the boys had been letting him do all the work since the day he arrived a half a year ago, back when the autumn came upon them to the sound of gunpowder explosions and the odd bugle bravocatory. The harness strained against his shoulders no less than it had last week.

The dwarf walked on one side of the wagon, Rain on the other.

Some lives are like steps and stairs, every period an achievement built on a previous success.

Other lives hum with the arc of the swift spear. Only ever one thing, that dedicated life, from start to finish, but how magnificently concentrated its journey. The trajectory seems so true as to be proof of predestination.

Still other lives are more like the progress of a child scrabbling over boulders at a lakeside—now up, now down, always the destination blocked from view. Now a wrenched ankle, now a spilled sandwich, now a fishhook in the face.

And that would be my method of locomotion, the Lion concluded. Not diplomas earned, but friendships bungled. Campaigns aborted. Errors in judgment and public humiliations. Not for nothing does the assignment of hauling the Clock of the Time Dragon between the shafts of a wooden cart seem a sort of vacation. A Lion in Oz glows in the gloom: hustlers and harlots, here’s your mark! But adjacent to the Time Dragon, however slackened it might be, a Lion could enjoy being overshadowed.

5.

Deciding on a destination always makes the weather improve, or seem to improve. Though the sun remained brutal and the winds weak, and the humidity felt heaped on like a sodden coat, the uncompanionable companions stepped sprightly. The farther they got from Mockbeggar Hall, the better off they’d be. The pines gave way to long gravelly stretches, like dried-up streambeds, perhaps evidence of a flow that had once moved from Kellswater into Restwater. The companions camped by day if they could find shade; by night they trod, wordless and lost but not, Brrr thought, in despair. Or not yet, anyway. As soon as the moon sank they stopped and rested too. No matter how hot it was, Rain slept against Brrr as if she were his kit.

Some days later, on the horizon, the first of the great oakhair trees began to lift their frondish heads. Brrr remembered this terrain from last fall. At noontime, they came within sight of the mauntery where Brrr had interviewed Yackle, and she him.

It sat and sulked by itself on its flat, like an armoire set out on a lawn. It looked deserted, but Brrr didn’t propose going nearer to satisfy his curiosity. Neither did anyone else. They kept to one side of the establishment, pushing south, deeper into the oakhair forest.

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