Authors: Danielle Paige
She scrunched her eyebrows together. “I wonder . . .”
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, who knows. Good for you, getting them. That takes some kind of gumption.”
I put my hand out, and Mombi raised an eyebrow at me, then handed them back. “Someone’s awfully attached,” she said. “Be careful with those. We don’t know what they do, and I don’t trust the Wizard past the length of his pinkie finger.”
I was barely listening as I placed the objects back into my bag.
“Now,” Mombi said. “Do you have anything else to gather up?”
“Gather up?”
“Of course. Belongings. What, you thought you were
staying here? The pool party’s over, sweetie.” She jerked her head toward Ozma. “Wouldn’t be much fun anymore now that your plaything’s packed himself back up in the toy box anyway, am I right?”
I didn’t tell her I was pretty sure I could turn Ozma back into Pete whenever I wanted to. A girl’s got to have a few secrets here and there.
“You’re in no shape to travel,” I said.
“Me?” Mombi laughed. “Who said anything about me? We both know I’m no good to anyone right now. I’m going to stay right where I am until I’m feeling better.”
“I’m not going to just leave you like this,” I said.
Mombi gave a wry, weak chuckle. “Oh, yes you are,” she said. “And don’t think I’m not going to enjoy myself. I deserve a little R & R. If I do say so myself.
You’ve
got work to do, though. I want you to seek out Polychrome, the Daughter of the Rainbow. She’s never been much of a joiner, but she’s helped the Order before and she’ll help us again. She wants Dorothy gone as much as anyone, and she has power. Wouldn’t be surprised if other members of the Order were on their way to find her, too.”
I considered it. I had decided a while back that I was done taking orders from Mombi, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave the comfort and relative safety of the monkeys quite yet. On the other hand, if Nox was headed to find this rainbow lady, that was where I wanted to be, too. “How do I get there?” I finally asked. I hadn’t made up my mind, but I would hear her out.
“Ahh, now
there’s
the rub. The Rainbow Citadel is no easy
place to find. The way it usually works, Polychrome only opens up a door when she wants you there. Unfortunately, I don’t have a way to get in touch with her at the moment. So you’ll have to find the back way in.”
“Okay, fine. So how do I do it?”
“It moves around,” Mombi explained. “That’s what makes the Rainbow Citadel so safe—and it’s how Polychrome gets away with having as much power as she does. Only way to get in uninvited is to find the back door. And no one finds the back door. Dorothy spent a year looking for it a while back. Tore apart half the kingdom, offered up a reward to anyone who could give her a clue, but no cigar. Eventually she gave up—wasn’t worth the hassle, I guess.”
“If Dorothy can’t find it after all that, then how am
I
going to?” I asked.
“You won’t,” Mombi said. “But I have a feeling
she
can.”
The witch crooked a finger at Ozma. “Come to dear old Mombi,” she cooed sweetly. When Ozma kept her distance, Mombi rolled her eyes. “Bring the little darling over here,” she snapped.
I gingerly took the reluctant princess’s hand, eyeing Mombi warily. Ozma didn’t look pleased, but she didn’t resist.
“You’re not going to hurt her, are you?” I asked.
“No, no, no. We
need
her,” Mombi said, looking Ozma up and down wolfishly. “As stupid as she looks, there’s still power in there. Somewhere. She’s a fairy, you know. She’s connected to Oz’s lifeblood in a way that none of the rest of us ever could
be. If anyone can find the Rainbow Citadel, it’s her. It’s magic, she’s magic, it’s the way these things work. She just has to
want
to find it.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” I said. “I don’t think Ozma wants anything. Except maybe to play patty-cake.”
Mombi ignored me and placed her hands on Ozma’s cheeks. Ozma looked like she was going to run away, but the witch held her firm. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I’m just an old woman. Wouldn’t hurt a fly, would I?”
Mombi stared deep into Ozma’s eyes and bit her lip in a look of mild concentration. A small, purple dot of light began to form in the center of the witch’s forehead. Mombi plucked it off like she was removing a piece of dirt and placed it in her palm, closing a tight fist around it.
“Just hold still and close your eyes, my darling.” As if in a trance, Ozma obeyed.
I watched the whole scene with a slightly sick feeling in my stomach. “Ozma’s shielded from most magic,” Mombi explained nonchalantly. “But when you’re dumb as a brick like she is, certain spells can get through well enough.”
She opened her hand, revealing that the pinprick of energy had taken the form of a glowing indigo spider the size of a nickel. She plucked its wriggling body up and placed it on Ozma’s temple, where it sat for a second and then crawled down, across her cheekbone and onto her earlobe, finally skittering into her ear canal and disappearing.
“Yuck.” I shuddered.
“Oh, don’t be a ninny,” Mombi scoffed. “It’s just a little spell of intention. She won’t even feel it. Barely does anything except give her a little push in the right direction. Think of it like this: if I whispered
I want doughnuts
in your ear while you were asleep, you’d wake up craving doughnuts, isn’t that so? This isn’t much different, except that I’m too old a woman to stay up all night muttering in Ozma’s ear, especially with those enormous flower earmuffs she loves to wear. Just wait—she’ll be able to guide you to the Rainbow Citadel now. Just follow where she leads, and keep an eye on her along the way. Make sure she doesn’t walk off any cliffs or into any glass doors. And for god’s sake don’t let her get captured. She’s more important than she looks, you know.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “So let’s say I agree to go looking for this Polly character?” I asked. “What do I do once I find her?” I asked.
“You ask her to help you find Nox and Glamora, not to mention any other stray Order members she can get a line on. You show her those little trinkets you’ve got in your goody bag, and see what she makes of them. You have her point you in the direction of Dorothy, who, may I remind you, still needs to be disposed of. You ask her to return the shawl she borrowed from me last time she paid me a visit. Oh, and have her take a look at Princess Dumbbell. Polychrome knows a fair bit of fairy magic. Now that we’ve finally got Ozma out from Dorothy’s watch, maybe we can fix whatever spell Dorothy used to turn our beloved monarch’s brains into royal scrambled eggs.”
“Oh,
that’s
all?”
“Should I give you a list, or will you remember?”
I didn’t say anything.
I looked from Mombi to Ozma and back. I weighed my options. I could stay here. I could go off looking for Nox on my own. I could look for the Scarecrow and Dorothy without any clue where either of them were. Or I could just take a nap.
Call me stubborn, but I didn’t really feel like obeying Mombi just for the sake of following orders. On the other hand, what if
orders
were, in this case, also the right thing to do?
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go. But I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for Ozma.” I looked over at her. If there was a chance of fixing her, I wanted to give her that chance. I was doing it for Nox, too, but Mombi didn’t need to know that.
“I don’t care why you’re doing it,” Mombi said. “Just go! I’ll find you when I’m myself again.”
“Now?” I asked. “Can’t we wait till the morning?”
“Certainly not. Leave in the middle of the night and no one will notice or ask questions. Secrecy, my dove! Even up here, you never know who’s watching. Anyway”—Mombi looked around pointedly—“I only see two hammocks, and three of us. What would you propose to sleep on?”
“Can I at least say good-bye to Ollie and Maude?”
“Can’t you see I’m too weak and weary for all this tiresome chitchat? Tell no one! And if you encounter anyone on your journey, keep your trap shut. Or, better yet, kill them.”
I wasn’t prepared for this. I’d been looking forward to
one
more comfortable night’s sleep, at the very least. But Nox was out there somewhere, needing my help. And the bug Mombi had dropped in Ozma’s ear must already have been working, because she was making for the door.
I knew it was no use. I took a look at my dirty clothes heaped in the corner and decided I was better off traveling without them. I turned to Mombi, but she had already fallen asleep, and was now loudly emitting an unpleasant combination of a snore and a moan.
It was time to get moving. I followed Ozma out of the Princess Suite. This time, I took a page from my mother’s book and didn’t look back.
It was the dead of night, and Ozma and I were making our way through the jungle. Yet again, I was reminded of the dream I’d had that wasn’t quite a dream. The feeling of déjà vu was so visceral, tingling in my pores, setting the hairs on my arms on end. I ignored it and pushed ahead, following Ozma, and tried not to let it get to me.
I was holding a tiny orb of flame in my palm, just bright enough to light our way. But still, the woods around us were black, and we were moving more quickly than I thought possible. Ozma walked ahead of me with a strange purpose, not seeming to even need my light to see by. She didn’t hesitate with a single step, but she didn’t seem to be following any particular path either; she was weaving and zigzagging through the thick clusters of trees, sometimes doubling back on herself, sometimes groping oddly at the air as if feeling for something. In her flowing white dress, with her luminous ivory skin flickering in the
glow of my flame, she looked like a teenaged ghost.
I just hoped she knew what she was doing, because I thought there was a distinct possibility that she was leading me in a circle.
With every step we took, I second-guessed myself. Was I doing the right thing? It didn’t feel like it. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so alone. I wished I had Star. I wished I had Indigo, or Ollie, or anyone. I wished I had Nox.
Ozma didn’t count. Tomorrow I would try to summon Pete back—at least he would be someone to talk to—but for now, I just wanted to get out of the woods, find a place to rest, and take stock of things in the daylight.
So I walked, letting Ozma lead the way. My hand was clenched hard around my knife, which had appeared in my hand without even being summoned, the way it always did when I sensed danger or felt out of my element. The knife was beginning to feel so much like a part of me—like an extension of my body—that it was easy to forget Nox was the one who had given it to me, had spent hours carving the bird-shaped hilt himself not just because he wanted me to be able to protect myself, but because he wanted me to have something that he had made; something that was just mine.
I felt a pang of loneliness at the thought, but instead of getting sad, I tried to take that feeling and use it, to shape the pointless emotion into something more like determination. It felt almost like working with magic—the way you could take it and mold it into something different from what it had started as. Into something you could actually use.
The thing about Nox was that I didn’t even know him that well. I really didn’t.
We had kissed, what—twice? Three times? And most of the time that we
hadn’t
been kissing, it wasn’t even obvious that we were friends. Much less anything more than that.
Look, it didn’t matter
what
we were to each other. It didn’t matter whether I really knew him or not. I just knew that I wanted to find him.
But Nox wasn’t why I was roaming through the dark forest in the middle of the night. I wasn’t doing it for Mombi either, or for the Order, or for Ozma, although I had to admit I was starting to feel a certain amount of protectiveness toward her. I wasn’t doing it for Oz, or for justice. Some of those things were part of it, but they weren’t the main reason.
For some reason, I had kept it from myself, because it had made me feel somehow selfish, but isn’t everyone allowed to be selfish sometimes?
The real person I was doing this for was me.
In my old life, I had been picked on by Madison Pendleton, taken advantage of by my mother, and ignored by pretty much everyone else. Because I had never been special. I had never been powerful.
When I’d dreamed of getting away from Kansas, what I’d really wanted was to find a place I could
matter.
Where I could be someone, and have a purpose.
Now I had found the place where I belonged. Yeah, it might have been nice if it had been a fairyland with fewer
problems—someplace a little harder to mistake for a nightmare—but on the other hand, the more I settled into this nightmare, the more I began to realize that the insanity of the place was what gave me this feeling of purpose that I’d never had before.
Before Oz, I’d never been needed by anyone other than my mother, and apparently I wasn’t even much of a help to her. Oz, though, I could try to fix, and I was going to.
Some people spend their whole lives searching for the one thing that they can do to say,
I changed the world
. I had found that thing. I might not be able to accomplish it, but I was going to die trying. So call me selfish.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t scared. I tried not to think about what else was out there in the woods, in the dark, beyond the glow cast by my fire. The jungle might not have been the Lion’s domain anymore, but there were still monsters who lived here, and they didn’t need the King of Beasts to tell them I would make a delicious snack.
Lions, tigers, bears. None of those really bothered me. It was the thought of things I wouldn’t even be able to put a name to.
It wasn’t just an abstract fear of creepy-crawlies. Ever since we’d left the monkeys’ treetop village, I’d had the sensation that we weren’t alone. I couldn’t quite place the feeling, or give any evidence to prove my suspicion was right. But I could feel a lurking, heavy presence somewhere just over my shoulder, creeping behind me through the trees, almost close enough to reach out and grab me.