No Place Like Oz Read online

  I trailed off. I didn’t know how to end the sentence without hurting her feelings more.

  “You know that things have been tough,” Aunt Em said. “We just have to get through this rough patch. I promise, there will be a new dress someday soon. A dress and a bigger cake, and—”

  “How?” I asked before I could stop myself. “How will we get any of those things? What’s going to be different about tomorrow or the next day? Every day is the same!”

  Aunt Em’s face fell even further than it already had, further than even seemed possible.

  “Our luck will turn,” she said. “Maybe next year will be a good crop, and we’ll be able to go into town and buy you whatever dress you want.”

  It all came rushing out. “It’s not about a dress or a cake, Aunt Em. It’s about this whole place. Nothing ever changes around here, and everyone likes it just the way it is. But I’m sixteen now, and I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life here. Doing the same thing every single day, never wanting more.”

  I was starting to cry now. “I just wish you could see what it’s like,” I said. “Then you’d understand, and Uncle Henry would, too. There’s magic out there in the world, Aunt Em. There’re things so wonderful that you could spend your whole life trying to think them up and you’d never come close.”

  The tears in Aunt Em’s eyes evaporated in an instant. Her gaze went steely. It’s a trick my aunt has. She’s not as much of a pushover as she first appears. I had to get it from somewhere, didn’t I?

  “Dorothy Gale,” she said. “You are indeed sixteen now, and it’s time you put your tall tales aside. There is no such thing as magic.”

  There was just no arguing with her like this. “I’m not feeling well,” I said, turning away from her. “Could you give my apologies to my guests? I need to lie down.”

  She just shook her head in frustration as she closed the door behind her.

  I didn’t need to say anything to Toto as I pulled him up into my arms and collapsed into bed. He understood. His big, wet eyes said as much. They said he missed it as much as I did.

  As angry as I was—at Mitzi and Marian and Suzanna and even at Aunt Em and Uncle Henry—I knew that Aunt Em was right about one thing.

  It didn’t matter that it had been real. I was never going back there.

  Kansas may not have felt like home anymore, but it was where I lived, and it was where I was going to live. I knew I had to put everything else in the past where it belonged.

  I knew all those things, and yet there was a part of me that couldn’t let go.

  “There’s no place like Oz,” I mumbled, pulling Toto even closer to my chest. I barely knew I was saying it. I might have already been asleep.

  Four

  When I woke up, the sky outside my window was black. I didn’t know how long I’d slept for or what time it was, and Toto was licking my face.

  “Oh, Toto,” I said sleepily. “I was having the nicest dream—let me go back to sleep.”

  My dog wasn’t listening. He was spinning in circles on the old quilt that Aunt Em had made for me right after I’d come to live with her and Uncle Henry after my parents died, when I was just a baby.

  He was trying to get my attention.

  “What is it?” I sat up sluggishly and dropped my legs to the floor as Toto jumped down in excitement and scampered under the bed. When he came back out a few seconds later, he was huffing and puffing and dragging something in his mouth. It was a box.

  It was wrapped in glittering, red paper that looked thick and expensive, with every corner perfectly creased. The package was tied with a bright green bow. “What in the world?” I gasped.

  I took the box from him and carefully ripped through the paper to the box beneath. It was pink, the color of a perfect sunset.

  Where had it come from? Was Uncle Henry trying to cheer me up? Had he snuck in here and hidden the box under my bed while I’d been asleep?

  No. I knew instinctively that this was something else. The shade of pink looked so familiar. But there was no way . . . was there?

  Or maybe there was.

  I pulled the lid off and found myself looking at a pair of shoes. That was when I was certain.

  Because they weren’t just any shoes. They were the most beautiful shoes I’d ever seen. They were red to match the wrapping paper and had sharp, pointy heels—the highest I’d ever seen, high enough that they would scandalize all of Kansas if I ever tried wearing them out of my bedroom.

  They were lacquered and shinier than the glossiest patent leather, glowing with a warm radiance that seemed to come from within. No—not from within. It seemed to come from somewhere else. From another world.

  I knew in my heart that that was exactly where it came from.

  I reached down and ran my fingers over the heels. The shoes were smooth and strangely warm to the touch. These were the heels of a young woman who had never set foot inside a chicken coop. These were shoes fit for a princess. A fairy princess, if it would make Mitzi Blair happy to hear me say it.

  I could barely breathe as I pulled them out of the box and set them on the floor, slipping off my worn, brown flats.

  I heard a knocking at my door, but it sounded like it was coming from very far away.

  I sat there, paralyzed, afraid that if I reached out to touch them again they would disappear, like food you try to eat in a dream. All I could do was stare at them in awe.

  The spell was only broken when Toto barked one more time and dove into the box, emerging a few seconds later with a pink slip of paper in his mouth. He dropped it in my lap. It was a note written in fastidious cursive handwriting, the ink red and sparkly.

  Dear Dorothy,

  Happy birthday! I hope you like these. I thought about silver to match the ones you lost, but in the end I decided that red was more your color. I think you know what to do with them.

  G

  P.S. If anyone happens to ask, let’s keep this just between us girls.

  When another knock came at the door, louder this time, I ignored it again.

  Trembling, I lifted my feet and, one by one, slid them into the red heels. They fit perfectly. The warmth I’d felt when I’d touched them before now coursed through my body, rising up through my toes, into my legs, and beyond. A smile spread across my face. I felt like my heart was expanding by the second.

  The knocking on the door got louder. “Dorothy? Everyone’s gone now.” It was Uncle Henry’s voice, anxious and urgent. “Can you open up the door, please?”

  I rose to my feet. “Come in,” I said, my voice strong and commanding, reverberating through the room. The sound of it surprised even me.

  Uncle Henry opened the door and stepped into the room with Aunt Em right behind him. At first, he opened his arms to give me a hug, but then he gasped when he saw my feet. A split second later, Aunt Em gasped, too.

  Aunt Em’s hand flew to her bosom. “Oh my word,” she said.

  “Where . . . ,” Uncle Henry trailed off.

  Toto yapped and sprung into the air. Without even thinking about it, I scooped him into my arms and drew him to my chest.

  “You were wrong, Aunt Em,” I said softly. “You both were. It is real.”

  I knew what I had to do. I knew how I could get back. And I knew I wanted to go back. Before either of them could reply, I knocked the heels together. Once. Twice.

  Three times.

  The shoes constricted around my feet like they wanted to be part of me. A red glow began to snake through the room like smoke. The shoes took three steps forward. Aunt Em and Uncle Henry both grabbed my arms, trying to stop me, but I wouldn’t let them. I couldn’t let them.

  “Dorothy!” Uncle Henry yelled. “What in the world . . . ?”

  “There’s no place like Oz,” I whispered. The room exploded in a crimson flash.

  Five

  Everything around me blurred and folded in on itself, twisting into a hazy whirlpool of brilliant light and color. Aunt Em was screaming. Toto
was barking madly, squirming in my arms. Somewhere, I heard Uncle Henry’s voice. “Dorothy!” he bellowed.

  I couldn’t see any of them. All I saw was red and blue and green and purple and yellow as I plunged headlong into a liquid rainbow with no idea which way was up and which was down.

  And then the colors stopped swirling and a new world constructed itself below me as I fell. I was just opening my mouth to scream when I hit the ground with a crash. Toto went flying out of my grip.

  When I sat up a moment later, in the middle of a field, my head was still spinning but everything else was finally still again. I rubbed my eyes, trying to piece it all together.

  Toto, though, had recovered himself more quickly, and was already bounding through the grass toward me. He jumped right up, barking wildly, and licked my face in excitement.

  The grass underneath us was bluish green. The sky above was even bluer. Not gray. Not white. Not whitish gray. But blue. The sun was warm on my face, and a light breeze ruffled the tall grass around me.

  It wasn’t a dream or a fantasy. I knew it as well as I’d ever known anything. I could feel magic in every blade of grass.

  A few feet away a grove of trees bore strange and luscious-looking fruit that cycled steadily through a rainbow of colors. Farther off was a gurgling brook that I could have sworn was singing to me, saying, “Welcome home.” On the banks of the stream, enormous flowers swayed in the wind, their giant blue blossoms—some as big as beach balls—opening and closing hypnotically, as if they were breathing.

  Their scent wafted toward me on the breeze. I took a deep breath. It smelled like the ocean and fresh-baked blueberry pie and like the aftershave Uncle Henry wore for special occasions. It smelled like all those things at once, in a good way.

  As if all that wasn’t enough to tell me I was back in Munchkin Country, the only real proof I needed was staring right at me. Not ten paces from the stream, a little old farmhouse was situated crookedly in a patch of dirt.

  Just where I had left it.

  The wood was rotting, the roof was beginning to cave in, and huge tangles of twisting vines crawled out from every crevice. The windows were broken, the porch was near collapse, and the whole place appeared to be well on its way to sinking into the ground.

  It had only been two years since I’d landed here, but the house looked like it had been sitting here for a century.

  Still, there was no mistaking it. And I wasn’t the only one who recognized it.

  I heard a high-pitched gasp, and I turned around to see Aunt Em sprawled out in a bank of wildflowers, her eyes wide in astonishment, one hand covering her mouth and the other pointing at the crumbling shack.

  “Henry! Look!”

  At her side, Uncle Henry rubbed his forehead as he sat up creakily. “Now see here, Dorothy,” he said irritably. Then he saw it, too.

  “Well I’ll be,” he muttered. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, like he was expecting to get a different picture this time. When nothing had changed, he jerked his head back and let out a wheezing noise that was a little like a burp. “Oh my,” he said. “I knew I shouldn’t have had that drink at your party. . . . I never did have a taste for the strong stuff.”

  I laughed. “Don’t you see?” I exclaimed. “We’re here! We’re all here.”

  After the disastrous start my birthday had gotten off to, I was now sure I’d never been so happy in my life. I was back in Oz and this time my family had come with me. Now that Aunt Em and Uncle Henry were here, we could finally all be happy together. We would never need to go home, because home had come with me.

  Aunt Em stood up, carefully dusting off her gray smocked dress.

  She looked unsteady, and began to fan herself with her hand. For a second I worried that she was about to faint, but Uncle Henry stood, too, and put an arm around her waist. “There, there, Emily,” he said. “Take a minute. Breathe.” He gave me a strange look. “What have you gotten us into?” he asked. His gaze dropped to my feet accusingly. “And where on earth did you get those preposterous shoes?”

  Aunt Em didn’t seem to care about the how or the why of any of this, though. Once she managed to catch her breath, she pulled herself from his grip, suddenly back in perfect form, and marched straight for the old house.

  “Just look,” she marveled. “Henry, can you even believe it?”

  Henry hurried after, her but he wasn’t as easy on his feet as she was, and he stumbled a few times as he tried to catch up.

  “No, I can’t believe it,” he said, wheezing breathlessly.

  Aunt Em pressed her palm to the weathered shingles in awe.

  “Remember when you painted the window frames?”

  “Yes, dear,” he replied. “But I don’t think you’re in your right mind at the moment. We have more important things to worry about. Like where we are and how we got here.”

  She brushed him off with a wave of her hand.

  I furrowed my brow and raced over to join them. “Excuse me,” I said. “I know it’s a wonderful house and everything. But haven’t you noticed that we’re not exactly in Kansas anymore?”

  Henry jerked his face toward me sharply. “I did indeed notice, young lady. And we’re going to have a talk about that in a bit. But as you can see, your aunt isn’t well. Let’s just let her get her bearings.”

  “I do have my bearings,” Aunt Em said. “Look! I’d forgotten all about this door knocker! The one you bought in Topeka just after you came home from the Great War!”

  Henry’s face spread into an involuntary grin at the mention of the knocker. “Yes,” he replied softly. “I sure do remember that.”

  It was just like Aunt Em and Uncle Henry to be so wrapped up in fond feelings toward our old house that they didn’t even notice where we were. You had to give it to them—my aunt and uncle had heart.

  Still, I wanted them to understand the gravity of the situation. I wanted them to be as happy as I was.

  “Look over here,” I said, trying to shift their attention to a bush that had sprung up next to what used to be the kitchen window. “This shrub is growing little puffballs with eyes instead of fruit.”

  One of the puffballs sneezed right in my face. I jumped back in surprise, but my aunt and uncle went on ignoring me. Uncle Henry rubbed Aunt Em’s back as she examined the molding around the door frame, remarking admiringly on the craftsmanship.

  Then, before I could say anything else, something happened that not even they could ignore. On the little ramshackle porch, the air began to shimmer with energy. It was pink and glittery, like a little pink fish was swimming through the air, twisting and looping in little spirals, growing brighter and stronger and pinker by the second until Aunt Em was moved to shield her eyes.

  Henry clenched his fists at his sides as if preparing for a fight. I wasn’t worried. I’d already seen such strange things in this land that I just watched in excited curiosity as the energy crackled and glittered and grew until, slowly, it began to resolve itself into something resembling a form. Into something resembling a person.

  Her face appeared first, pushing its way through the light as though emerging from a pool of water. Next came her golden crown, then finally the rest of her. She was standing right there on the porch, regal and glowing, just as beautiful as I remembered her. Her face was porcelain-white, punctuated with piercing blue eyes and a perfectly red, perfectly tiny little mouth. She was sheathed in a slinky pink evening gown that looked almost liquid and hugged her body scandalously.

  “My oh my,” Henry said under his breath.

  I knew exactly who it was. And I can’t say I was very surprised to see her. “Glinda!” I exclaimed joyfully, running to hug her.

  I stopped in my tracks when I saw that she wasn’t responding. She wasn’t even looking at me. It was like she hadn’t heard me at all.

  Then I noticed that her image was flickering and translucent. I could even see the faint impression of Henry’s prized door knocker shining through her image from
somewhere behind her rib cage. She was fading in and out, getting clearer but then more indistinct, like she wasn’t entirely here yet.

  “Dorothy,” she said, still not turning her face to meet mine. “Help me.” Her voice was a hoarse, urgent whisper.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, moving instinctively toward her. “What do you need from me? How do I help?”

  Now I was standing right in front of her, but her eyes remained unfocused. She still didn’t hear me. “Help,” she repeated. “Help.” Her image came fully into focus for a last, brief moment. I lunged forward and reached for her, trying to grab her hand.

  “Glinda!” I screamed.

  But before I reached her, there was a bright flash of pink light, and with that, she was gone.

  Six

  “Well,” Aunt Em said shakily, as if it had just dawned on her that something funny was going on. “That was unusual. Was that woman some kind of actress?”

  “Of course not,” I said. I do try not to lose my patience with them, but sometimes it’s an effort. “She’s a sorceress. I’ve told you all about Glinda, remember?”

  She and Henry both stared back at me with a look of blank confusion.

  “A . . . sorceress?” Aunt Em seemed hesitant. “I suppose it did seem magical. . . .”

  “It seems magical because we’re in Oz. You may have noticed the sneezing flower and the fruit that changes colors?”

  My aunt and uncle exchanged a look. “Now see here, young lady,” Henry said. “I don’t care if this is Oz or Shangri-la or Timbuktu. You can’t just go spiriting people away like that with not so much as a how-do-you-do. It’s the busiest time of year and I have work to do tomorrow. I need to get a good night’s sleep if I’m going to be up before dawn to milk the cows.”

  Aunt Em was nodding along with him as he spoke. “I’m not quite sure what’s going on here,” she said slowly. “But it’s all very strange and, well, I would feel a lot better if I could sleep in my own bed tonight. Wouldn’t you, dear? It’s been a long day for you.”