Authors: Danielle Paige
Look, fear’s not always rational, okay? Anyway, there’s a difference between being afraid and being a coward. At least there was one thing I could take comfort in: if you’re afraid, you must still be a little bit human.
When I finally made it up through the canopy, I discovered that the “palace” wasn’t really a palace at all. Just a large, round hut that sat on a spacious platform of planks above the leaves.
Inside, Queen Lulu was sitting on a large throne constructed out of sticks and branches in the middle of a filthy room strewn with banana peels, clothes, and piles upon piles of newspapers, books, toys, and other junk. She wore bright red lipstick, a poufy pink tutu, and pink, rhinestone-encrusted cat-eye sunglasses. She sat there eyeing me, all the while fanning herself with a paper fan.
“Well, well, well,” she squeaked from behind her fan. “If it
isn’t famous Amy Gumm. Welcome to my queendom.”
So she was no Kate Middleton. Still, I wasn’t sure what to expect from her as I approached her throne, and I figured that even a queen in a tutu expects a certain amount of respect. I bowed. “It’s an honor to meet you, Your Highness,” I said.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Queen Lulu said. Her voice was squeaky but tough, too. “I hear you’re a hero type, the real deal. You and your daring rescues! Oh, sure, we’ve heard all about those around these parts.”
“Uh, thanks,” I said. “I don’t know. I was just doing what anyone would have done, I guess.”
“Well, bless your heart,” Lulu said. She set her fan aside and casually scratched her armpit. “Shall we call our debt all settled up here, then?”
“Debt?” I asked.
“Yeah, debt. You saved Ollie and Maude, they saved you. Even-steven. No more monkey business.”
“Oh,” I said, taken aback. “I mean, okay. It wasn’t like I was keeping track or anything.”
Queen Lulu lowered her sunglasses and looked out over them. “Let’s cut the crap,” she said. “You seem like a nice girl, but I want to make sure we have things straight here. I allowed Ollie and Maude to help you out this one little time, but we Wingless Ones aren’t going to get involved in whatever nonsense is brewing in Oz these days. What Dorothy and the rest of them do down there? That’s someone else’s ball of beeswax. We’ve got a good thing going up here in the trees.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? To tell me you’re staying out of it?”
“You got it, sweetheart. I know your type. You come around, you stir up trouble, and before you know it I’ve got all my monkeys wanting a war with the Emerald City. Thanks, but no thanks. You’re lucky I let you come here at all.”
Um, obviously I hadn’t come here trying to get the monkeys to go to war. Come to think of it, I hadn’t even asked to be brought here at all. Really, all I wanted in the world was a nap. A really, really, really long nap. And a shower. And maybe some ice cream and some bad TV.
Even so, Queen Lulu’s attitude was seriously pissing me off. Without really meaning to, I placed my hands indignantly on my hips. “Seriously? How can you act like what Dorothy does isn’t your problem? You may be hidden up here for now, but she’ll burn this place to the ground as soon as she gets around to it. Wouldn’t you rather live somewhere where you didn’t have to hide? Where you didn’t have to cut off your wings?”
Lulu picked up a banana from a bunch that was sitting on a table by her throne and peeled it. Royalty or not, she chewed with her mouth open.
“Come on,” she snorted. “We monkeys have had the short end of the hot dog for as long as Oz has been Oz. I may be the boss-lady now, but in my day I’ve hauled more than one witch around like I was a common chauffeur. Dorothy, the Wizard, Mombi, and her stupid little Order—they’re all the same to me.”
“The Order wants freedom for everyone.”
I surprised myself at how strongly I felt about it. The truth is, I’d never totally trusted the Order myself. Because, sure, Dorothy was evil, but who was to say that they weren’t
more
evil? They used to be wicked witches, after all. Who’s to say they weren’t still?
But look. You have to be loyal to
something
, right? I might have my own doubts about Mombi and the rest of them, but I had thrown my lot in with them, and I had to stand by my choices.
Queen Lulu was giving me a dubious,
I’ve got your number
kind of look.
“Don’t give me the babe-in-the-woods act, babe,” she said. “Let’s just say you and your wicked little friends
do
manage to kill Dorothy. You think I’ll be the one resting my hairy heinie on that shiny emerald throne? Not a chance. I’ve dinged enough dongs in my day to know it’ll be the same as it ever was. Maybe worse. Meet the new witch, same as the old witch.”
As she’d been talking, Queen Lulu had been working herself up into a frenzy; now she sprang to her feet and bared her teeth, her sunglasses askew.
I knew I should just nod and agree with her. I wasn’t going to change her mind, and she looked about one wrong word away from swinging across the room and wrestling me to the ground. But I’ve always been pretty bad at shutting up and smiling. Come to think of it, that might have been part of how I’d gotten myself into all this in the first place.
“What about Ozma?” I asked. “Things were good when she was in charge, right? Not all leaders are the same.”
Lulu cackled uproariously. She laughed until she was wheezing, and then, when she was tired out, she collapsed back into her seat and kicked her legs up. “Sure. Ozma was a doll way back when. But we all know that broad’s about six stamps short of first class these days. She’s great if you want to hear a whole lot of nonsense, but she’s not exactly monarch material, am I right?”
Okay, fine, she was right. But that didn’t change my point.
“So what? Should we just be on our way then?”
“Aw, don’t get all bent out of shape. You and Miss Princess can stay as long as you want. I do have my principles, after all, and anyway I’m a big softie. But I don’t want any trouble—and that means no magic while you’re here, got it? We don’t go in for that type of thing. And I know the kind of magic you do.”
“Fine,” I said. “No magic.”
Queen Lulu looked pretty much totally unconvinced. “Show me your hands.”
“My hands?”
“You think I was born yesterday? For all I know you’ve got your fingers crossed behind your back. Don’t think you can pull one over on me.”
I stared at her. Next was she going to knock twice on her throne and call
no take-backs
? But as ridiculous as it all sounded, I could tell from the way she was glaring at me that she meant business.
I dutifully held my hands out to show I was on the up-and-up. Lulu cleared her throat, like,
I’m waiting.
I sighed. “I promise not to use magic while I’m in the village—”
“
Queendom.
”
“Queendom of the Wingless Ones. No take-backs,” I added for good measure.
At that, the queen nodded smugly and picked up her fan again. She fluttered it in front of her face. “Very well,” she said. “Now if you please, I must meet with my high council. I’m a very busy majesty, you know.”
I turned to leave, and then, with my hand on the door, I thought of something and spun around.
“Have you heard anything about the Order?” I asked.
“Not a peep,” she said dismissively. “They’re probably all pushing up daisies. Now skedaddle.”
“You must have heard
something
,” I pleaded. “Mombi told me nothing happens in Oz without the Wingless Ones getting wind of it.” When in doubt, lay it on thick.
That was a lie, of course. Mombi had never once mentioned Queen Lulu. But royal types can never resist flattery. Lulu’s eyes softened.
“Well,” she mused. “It’s true that I try to keep up with the latest news. The Order isn’t the only one with spies. Even up here, it does pay to have the scoop—and I
am
the queen.”
“Please,” I pushed. “I just want to know—I
need
to know where they are.”
Lulu just sighed. “Sorry, toots,” she said. “Only thing I know is that your hag Mombi worked her old abracadabra and went right up in smoke. Took her pals with her. Poof! All I’ve heard since are the sweetest nothings.”
“What about . . . ,” I started.
She put a hand up to stop me and checked an imaginary watch at her wrist. “I believe my next appointment is coming up,” she said irritably. “Now shoo. I’m a very busy monarch. If you want someone who can sit around making small talk, I’d try the Duchess of Tree People. She’s the biggest blabbermouth you’ll ever find.”
When I still didn’t move to leave, Lulu’s patience finally decided she was over it. “Begone!” she yelled, picking up a banana and hurling it across the room like a boomerang, aiming right for my face. I ducked just in time for it to bounce off my head.
I was done. I’d heard about the types of things monkeys liked to fling, and I was pretty sure I was getting off easy with just a banana. This was my cue to leave.
But as I was heading out into the night, ready to make my way back down into the jungle, I heard a rustling in the trees, and then the low chirping of monkey voices. The queen’s council. I couldn’t quite hear what they were saying, but from the tone of their whispers, it sounded important.
I knew I had promised, but I couldn’t help myself. It came so easily this time that I barely even thought about what I was doing: I felt myself sinking into the shadows. As four monkeys approached the queen’s chambers, I slithered after them. They let the door slam shut behind them, and didn’t even notice when I passed right through it.
Everything was different in my shadow world—wherever it was. It was sort of like back home when we tried to steal cable
from the trailer next door and everything came out kind of staticky and garbled and sometimes upside down, but you could make it out if you kind of squinted and moved your face really close to the screen.
The queen’s throne room flickered and wavered, but I saw four monkeys clustered around at her feet. At first it sounded like they were all speaking some other language, but the longer I listened the more I was able to catch snatches of the conversation until finally I managed to make some sense of it.
“We cannot have her here,” a monkey in green corduroy overalls and a propeller beanie was saying. “You didn’t see her . . .”
Lulu waved him off. “I wish I had,” she said. “You want the truth, I wish she’d finished him right off. The Lion can rot. See if I care.”
“You don’t understand. She was . . . she was not human. Something overtook her—a darkness unlike anything I have ever encountered.”
I jolted. They were talking about me. Even though I had some idea of how I’d looked when I’d been fighting the Lion, I didn’t like to hear it described like this.
But it was true. I had touched the dark, and I had liked it. And as much as I wanted to think that it was just a case of getting carried away in the fight, it wasn’t so simple. How could it be, when I was watching them through this cold, eerie veil of shadows?
“I must agree, Queen Lulu,” said a monkey in a curly red wig. “Princess Ozma is one thing, but the presence of the other
one puts all of us in danger.”
“She is a—”
“Enough!” Lulu snapped. “I’m the boss, applesauce, and the boss-lady has made up her mind. The little witch stays. The princess stays. I have my reasons. Now tell me what you hear of the rest of Oz. Has Dorothy been found?”
A monkey wearing a pink velour sweat suit rose to her feet. “We believe that Princess Dorothy has fled the city, along with the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. No one has seen them since last night.”
“Glinda?”
“Glinda was gravely wounded in battle and is thought to have returned to her fortress.”
“Oh, of course,” Lulu sniffed. “That witch talks a big game, but she couldn’t be a bigger candy-ass if she dropped her pink little undies and sat on a pile of gumdrops. Now what about the rest of the witches—what about the Order?”
I held my breath, and then realized I had no breath to hold. When I was a shadow, I didn’t have a body.
The monkey council exchanged a look amongst themselves. “We . . . ,” the one in the sweat suit began. “We don’t know. They may be dead. Or they may be alive. We simply—”
Lulu screeched and gnashed her teeth, waving her fan wildly. “If I wanted a load of baloney, I would’ve had a cold cut platter brought in!” she screamed. “Are any of you going to tell me something useful?”
Finally the smallest of the monkeys, a tiny marmoset in a
fez and a red bolero who had been silent until now, spoke up. “Funny things are afoot across the land, Your Highness,” she said carefully.
Queen Lulu raised an eyebrow, which was strange because until that moment I hadn’t even realized that she had eyebrows. “Funny . . .
ha-ha
?” she asked hopefully.
“Not exactly. Funny strange. As we suspected, the magic that Glinda and Dorothy had been siphoning off seems to be coming back—we believe it has something to do with the actions of the Order. They must have destroyed some mechanism that was piping it into the city. It’s having some odd effects. We need to be aware of it in case it causes any disruptions to our home.”
“More magic,” Queen Lulu sighed. “Whoopee. Just what we need.”
But my ears perked up. This was the first I had heard of anything like that. I’d thought that last night was just about killing Dorothy. No one had told me about any plan beyond that.
“There’s something else,” the monkey in the bolero said. “With Dorothy and her allies gone, it’s unclear who is occupying the palace—but something is happening there.”
“Cut to the chase, please,” Lulu said. “I don’t know what ‘something’ means.
What’s
happening to the palace?”
The monkey looked nervous. “Well,” she said. “For one thing, it seems to be growing.”
As it turned out, there really
was
a giant waterfall up here in the trees. It was easy to find; I only had to follow a series of signs that led through the maze of walkways in the trees until I heard the sound of rushing water in the distance. Ollie hadn’t been kidding around. Even though we were so high up that it was hard to imagine there was anything above us, a bright blue river was raging down from the sky.