Toto rises to his full height—several inches taller than Henry’s six-foot form—and makes his way over to my uncle. He moves much like he did as a dog, like he’s made of shadows, like his muscles are liquid, his joints oiled pistons.
This time, he puts his hand around my uncle’s throat.
“I pray the storm takes you,” he says, his voice cutting through the shriek of wind and the frantic, wild warning from the TV. As easily as I might lift one of Aunt Em’s paperback romances, Toto raises Uncle Henry up from the floor, drags him toward the door, and kicks it open. With a shove, he pushes my uncle out into the storm, and yanks the door closed behind him before turning to me.
Somehow, someway, I manage to find my feet, debris swirling all around me. A mug hits me in the side of the head, and the house shakes so hard that I lose my footing, sitting down hard on the floor again.
Then a strange thing happens.
Toto is there, wrapping me in his strong arms, pulling me close. At least … I think it’s still Toto. He’s naked, and male—very, very male—and most definitely not a dog anymore. But those eyes, those eyes are the same.
The house seems to whirl around me, like it’s not just the winds spinning outside, but like we’re spinning, too.
“You’re a very powerful wizard, Ozora. Just like I always knew you would be.”
The deep male voice whispering in my ear makes me shiver, but my head is spinning, blood dripping down my temple and across my lips. I can taste it, as metallic as the ringing in my head, the screaming of the winds.
The house tips, like it’s not quite stable on the ground anymore, and I can tell right away that Toto doesn’t like it. It’s dark, and the sound of the wind is horrible, like it was that night, when the boat sank and everyone I ever loved drowned just a few feet away from me.
Hour after hour passes, and slowly, I find that paralyzing fear in my limbs fading away. Looking up, I find Toto’s face, stoic but strong, as if he’s oblivious to the feeling of floating, of spinning, of the storm that seems like it’ll never stop.
When I move to push away from him, he resists, banding those strong arms around me.
“Come with me,” I whisper, searching for Auntie Em, but finding no sign of her. Instead, I crawl and sway my way over to the steps, with Toto’s right arm around my waist. At last, we get to the bed, collapsing down on top of it with this naked beast of a man behind me.
In spite of the swaying of the house and the wailing of the wind, I soon close my eyes and fall fast asleep.
The last thing I hear before I drift off is Toto’s strong, deep voice rumbling through me.
“It’s a bad storm, Oz, a bad storm, but that’s only because you’re a powerful wizard. A very powerful wizard.”
The Council with the Munchkins and a Douchebag Witch
I’m awakened by a shock so sudden and severe that if I hadn’t passed out on my bed, I might’ve broken some goddamn bones. Oh, and also, there’s a naked man passed out and pressed tight against me; when he breathes, his warm breath tickles my hair around my face.
I shove him back and fall off the edge of the bed with a curse, ignoring the dismal groaning he’s making in his sleep. There’s blood everywhere, and it’s quite clear that he’s hurt, but I’m too disoriented to make much sense of that.
Instead, I spring to my feet and open the front door—or what’s left of it.
“What in the ever-loving hell?” I breathe, my heart thundering with a mix of shock and excitement. I have no idea where I am, but one thing’s for sure: we are not in fucking Kansas anymore.
Instead of gray muck and cracked, dead earth, there are thick, lush patches of green grass billowing in the wind, shining in the sun. Stately trees tower above us, their limbs locked like skeletal fingers, strange, fat fruits dangling. Bright yellow sunshine sparkles from above, reflecting off the surface of a meandering brook that bubbles and breaks gently across smooth stones that glimmer and sparkle like jewels. Banks of gorgeous flowers color the landscape with vibrant ruby reds, rich-hued purples, and deeply saturated oranges while birds with rare and brilliant plumage sing and flutter in the trees and bushes.
“I’m on an acid trip,” I murmur, stumbling back and putting myself against the wall under the coat rack, the one item in this whole house that seems to have stayed where it was put. My breath comes in violent panting heaves as I look around for my aunt. “Aunt Em!” I call out, but there’s no reply.
At least, not from inside the house.
“Welcome, most noble Sorceress,” a voice calls blandly from just beyond the door. I push up off the wall, head spinning, and peer out into the endless sunshine to find a group of people approaching the house. There’s a man leading them, slow-clapping in dramatic fashion as he rolls his lavender eyes at me. “Welcome to the land of the Munchkins.”
The … fucking what?
I blink at him in shock as my eyes stray from his admittedly handsome face and down to the group surrounding him. They’re all men, all short, about the same size as my little sister was before she died. Four and a half feet tall, at most.
Oh, and they all have gossamer fucking wings on their backs. My eyes scan across the crowd, each of them dressed in blue hats with little bells that tinkle when they move.
This isn’t fucking happening to me, I think, realizing that this could all very well be a delusion brought on by the mug that smashed me upside the head.
The man in front, the only one who’s not significantly shorter than me—he’s taller, actually—yawns and reaches up to adjust the white witch hat on his head.
“We’re so very grateful to you”—just to be clear, he doesn’t sound grateful in the least, more like bored out of his mind—”for having killed the Wicked Witch of the East, and for setting our people free from bondage, yada, yada, yada, so on and so forth.”
“Uh, say what?” I ask, blinking back at him in shock. “I haven’t killed anyone.”
“Your house did anyway,” he replies, gesturing at me with pale skin that glints with a hint of gold in the sunshine, like he’s covered in glitter or something. “And that’s the same damn thing. Don’t believe me? Look for yourself.” He nods in the direction of the house, and even though I’m pretty sure I’m hallucinating things, I step outside and glance over to find a pair of legs sticking out from beneath the gray-painted walls of Aunt Em’s cottage.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” I clamp both hands over my mouth as I stare at the mangled legs, the shimmer of white bone, and the wash of blood staining the green grass beneath them. “What the fuck am I supposed to do about that?!”
“Well, there’s nothing to be done. Ding dong, the bitch is dead.” The man pauses beside me, smelling like my favorite body spray from Victoria’s Secret, this coconut and gardenia mix called Bronzed Coconut. Swear to god, that freaks me out almost as much as the corpse.
Sliding away from door, I put my back to the wall to keep some distance between myself and the weird little fae men as I sidle along toward the legs protruding from underneath my goddamn house. It’s a long shot, but I should at least see if the person is still alive, right?
As I get a little closer though, I can already tell there’s about as much chance of this person still being alive as there is that I’m not hallucinating. As in, none at all. None.