“Who … who is this?” I whisper, choking on bile as the sharp smell of copper stings my nostrils. I hate the smell of blood. Hate it. It reminds me that we’re all mortal, that my family was mortal, that they’re no longer here.
Although, to be fair, when they died, there wasn’t any blood at all, just cold water and an endless darkness spiraling in.
“Like I said, the Wicked Witch of the East,” the man with the lavender eyes repeats, looking like he’d very much enjoy slapping some sense into me. That is, if he could bother working up the energy to do so in the first place. “Are you deaf or something? She held the Munchkins in bondage for years, made them her slaves day and night. They’re free now. It’s a blessing to see her bloodied corpse.” He moves forward and kicks one of the sparkly silver shoes on the dead person’s feet.
“The … Munchkins?” I ask, turning my wide-eyed gaze back to the group of winged men. They’ve all got a bluish tint to their skins, from a pale robin’s egg blue to a navy and everything in between. I swallow hard and turn back to the tall man, finding his narrowed eyes watching me with undisguised irritation.
“The people who live in this land—obviously.”
“Are you a Munchkin?” I ask, still trying to figure out why my brain is hallucinating some fucked-up version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Heh. I saw Wicked at the theater once and liked it, so maybe that’s what this is? Some delusion brought on by head trauma.
Yep, yep, that has to be it. That makes sense, right? I mean, my dog didn’t turn into a hot dude and get shot by my crazy uncle. Never happened. Just a dream.
“Are you blind and deaf? Do I look like a fucking Munchkin to you?” The man facepalms into his glittering fingers and curses under his breath in another language before looking back up at me. “I’m the Witch of the North—obviously.”
“A … witch?” I echo, before looking back down at the supposed dead witch on the ground beneath my house, ragged bone sticking up and gleaming in the sun from the ruined flesh of her legs.
“Yes, indeed,” he says, still sounding like he’d rather be anywhere else but here. Sentiment noted, taken, and reciprocated, bro. “But I,” he says haughtily, touching long, elegant fingers to his chest, “am a good witch. And the people love me.” He pauses a moment to frown, his face darkening in a way that’s almost scary. “I’m, unfortunately, not as powerful as the Wicked Witch was who ruled here, or else I’d have set the Munchkins free myself.”
“How many of you are there?” I ask, hating the way the Munchkins are staring at me, like I’m some sort of savior or something. One of them flutters his translucent wings, and I jump.
“Witches?” the man asks, like I’m too stupid to live. “There were only four witches in the Land of Oz. Two good witches in the North and South—I know this is true because, obviously, I am one myself and cannot be mistaken—and two wicked witches, in the East and West. But now that you’ve brutally murdered one, there’s only one wicked witch left—that dickhead from the West.”
“As if witches are even real,” I murmur, closing my eyes and reaching up to rub at my temples. If I just ride this out, eventually the illusion will fade, and I’ll wake up at Aunt Em’s in my bed in the attic. “Certainly never met any in friggin’ Kansas.”
“Kansas? Never heard of that country before,” the supposed good witch says, his voice dripping with arrogance. “But tell me, is it a civilized country?”
“Depends on which side of the political spectrum you’re asking,” I mutter, opening my eyes back up. The joke is lost on the witch and he sniffs derisively. “But yeah, sure, whatever. Civilized enough.”
“Then that accounts for it. In the civilized countries, there are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. But, you see, the Land of Oz has never been civilized, for we’re cut off from all the rest of the worlds. Therefore we still have witches and wizards amongst us—obviously.”
My eye twitches. This guy’s said the word obviously like five times already. It’s driving me nuts.
“Wizards?” I scoff skeptically, and the man sighs, his almond-shaped eyes narrowing even further.
“You should know, considering you are one yourself,” he continues, his voice just this side of pleasant, like if he weren’t yawning and being bored and full of himself all the time, that it’d be like tinkling bells. “Oz the Great Wizard.”
“How do you know my name?” I ask as the Munchkins begin to murmur amongst themselves in another language. By the way, their teeth are razor sharp, and white as pearl. I swallow hard and glance back at the witch. Just more proof that I’m riding some sort of delusion; I never gave him my name.
“You’re more powerful than the rest of us put together, much as it pains me to say.” This time, it’s his turn to twitch an eye in irritation. “You’ll need to visit the City of Emeralds to register, however.”
I open my mouth to ask what strain of weed this guy must be smoking to come up with this crap when the Munchkins start shouting and pointing, chattering in that strange language of theirs. My eyes flick over to the legs of the wicked witch, and a scream gets caught in my throat.
“Oh, what is it now?” the good witch asks, following the pointing fingers of the Munchkins. The flesh on the legs bubbles, the bone cracking, as the body begins to decompose in super speed, melting into the ground like it was never there. It’s like one of those documentaries where they film a dead mouse for months and speed it all back up.
I’ve lost my fucking mind.
I slide down the side of the house as the witch picks up the silver shoes by hooking two fingers in them, and then holds them out my way, dropping them to the ground in front of me.
“The Witch of the East was proud of these ugly shoes. There’s some charm connected with them, but what it is, we never knew.”
“Are you joking?! I don’t want some dead broad’s shoes; they’re covered in blood!”
The Munchkins and the witch first look at each other, and then at me, shaking their heads and clucking their tongues.
The self-proclaimed good witch bends at the waist and puts his hands on his knees, looking at me with a very patronizing sort of expression.
“Listen here, you spoiled brat from another world. You’re not the first wizard to come through here.” He stands back up and crosses his arms over his chest. “Another sorceress already passed this way once and tried to save the land of Oz from its own, wretched self. But that one was not promising. Dorothy, the Small and Meek, is nothing but a loudmouthed goody-goody bitch. You are Oz, the Great and Terrible. Now stand your ass up and head for the city.”
“Wh-what?” I ask, blinking up at him as I try to remember the basic storyline in The Wizard of Oz. If I’m going to hallucinate a story, maybe I should know the ending first? “Dorothy? No, no, fuck all of this shit. I want to go home.” Well, not that I’d ever really call Kansas home, but this place is deranged … And where the fuck is my aunt?!
“Home?” he asks, sighing dramatically. “Well, it’s your funeral, I suppose. Head for the East,” the witch says, gesturing vaguely back in my direction, a long, gold braid hanging down his back. “There’s a great desert, not far from here. None could live to cross it.”