Page 54 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“We aren’t aimless. We have a goal,” the Lion reminded her. “We’re keeping the Grimmerie out of the hands of the Emperor of Oz. We’re heading south, as the book advised. And, incidentally, whether Mr. Boss likes it or not, we’re rescuing the girl.”

At this they both looked up at her, and Rain found the spiderweb too thin between them. It had become a gunsight that focused her in its crosshairs. Their look of affection was brazen. To break the spell of their myopia, to divert them, she brayed, “I want to keep reading but we got no books. You write stories? Write me some words I can practice on.”

“I don’t write anymore,” said Ilianora in one of those voices. “Ask someone else.”

“Who’s to ask?” Rain felt fussed and hot. “The world en’t gonna write nothing for me. No words in the clouds. No printed page among these dead leaves. Can a spider write letters in a web?”

“What nonsense,” said the dwarf from his distance, pitching his knife through the web a few feet above her head, severing a prominent girder so it collapsed like shucked stockings. “That would be some spider.”

7.

They didn’t dawdle but they moved without haste. The Lion had concluded that attention must still be centered upon the battle for Restwater, since goons with guns hadn’t shown up yet. A few days on, as they entered the hardscrabble terrain known as the Disappointments, they spotted the next oddkin, the latest of Oz’s free-range lunatiktoks. “It was ever thus,” the dwarf averred.

“No, war is driving the entire country nuts,” replied the Lion.

The creature seemed to be a woman, sitting in the only tree on this wide stony plain. She held an umbrella for shade and protection from the rains. Evidence of a cookfire in one direction, a latrine in the other. The place was open enough to appear attractive to lightning. Perhaps she wanted to go out in a blaze of glory.

She scrambled down when they approached and stood her ground. She wore what had once been a rather fine dress of white duck with cerulean blue piping, though the skirt had gone grey and brown. That’s a useful camouflage, thought Brrr. A starched blue bib rode against her bosom. Her shoes were torn open at the toe. “Hail,” she said, and stuck her arm out in a salute, and chopped it once or twice. Her eyes wobbled like puddings not fully set.

The hair piled up on her head reminded Rain of a bird’s nest; the girl half expected a beaky face to peer out from above. She all but clapped with joy.

“Let me guess. You are the Queen of the Disappointments,” said the dwarf. “Well, given our recent history, we must be your loyal subjects.” He spat, but not too rudely.

She looked left and right as if someone might be listening. She appeared familiar to Brrr, but he imagined that most loopy individuals seem recognizable. They mirror the less resolved aspects of ourselves back at us, and the shock of recognition—of ourselves in their eyes—is a cruel dig.

“Are you all right?” asked Ilianora. Ever the tender hand, especially for a female in trouble, Brrr knew.

The woman cawed and flapped her arms. They saw she had stitched some sort of a blanket of feathers to her white serge sleeves.

“Wingses!” said Rain happily.

“She’s so far round the bend, she’s back home already,” muttered Mr. Boss.

“Hush, husband,” said Little Daffy. “Hold your snickering; she’s dehydrated. In need of salts, powder of cinnabar, a tiny dose. Also a brew of yellowroot and garlic to take care of the conjunctivitis.” She dove her hands into her waistband, inspecting the contents of pockets sewn on the inside of her skirt. She had, after all, been a professional apothecaire. “Heat up some water in the pot, Ilianora, and I’ll shave up a few herbs and hairy tubers for the poor Bird Woman.”

The woman wasn’t much frightened by them. After several sips of something red and cloudy that Mr. Boss offered from his private flask, she blinked and rubbed dust out of her eyes as if she were just coming up to room temperature. When she opened her mouth, it was not to twitter but to speak more or less like a fellow citizen. “God damn fuckheads,” she said. “Give me some more of that juice.”

“That’s the ticket,” said Mr. Boss, obliging.

She lifted her chin at the Clock. “What’s that thing, then? A portable guillotine?”

“That’s as good a word for it as any,” said the dwarf. “A cabinet of marvels, once upon a better time.”

The Bird Woman looked it

up and down and walked around it on her toes. That accounts for the condition of the boots, Brrr thought.

“No. I know what this is. I’ve heard tell of it. Never thought it would feature in my path. It’s the Clock of the Time Dragon, isn’t it? What are you doing dragging it out here in Forsaken Acres?” She ruffled her wings as she stepped about, like a marabou stork.

“Brought it here to die,” he said. “And what are you doing here?”

“Oh, more or less the same thing,” she replied. “Isn’t that the general ambition of living things?”

“Hush, there’s a child,” said Ilianora.

The Bird Woman peered at her. “So there is. How grotesque.” She put out a hand and rubbed the side of the Clock. “I figured this sort of entertainment went out once they started doing girlie shows in Ticknor Circus.”

Mr. Boss made a point of humphing. “This isn’t a sort of anything. It’s sui generis.”

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