“Wait, the Saint didn’t emerge as the tales say she did,” said the Witch. “I want my money’s worth or not at all, please.”
“Act Two: The Birth of Evil.”
Lights came up on another little stage. There was a credible likeness of Colwen Grounds painted on a cardboard backdrop beyond. A figurine who was Melena kissed her parents good-bye and went off with Frex, a handsome little puppet with a short black beard and a jaunty step. They stopped in a small hut, and Frex kissed her and continued on to preach. All through the rest of the scene he was off to one side, yammering away to some peasants who were busy screwing each other on the ground before him, hacking each other to pieces and eating their sexual parts, which ran with a real gravy; you could smell the garlic and sauteed mushrooms. Melena, at home, yawned and waited, and teased her pretty hair. Along came a man whom the Witch could not identify at first. He had a small black bag and from it he extracted a green glass bottle. He gave it to Melena to drink, and when she had, she fell into his arms, either stupe
fied and drunk as the Witch was tonight, or liberated. It wasn’t clear. The traveler and Melena made love in the same bouncy rhythm as Frex’s parishioners. Frex started to dance to the rhythm himself. Then, when the act of love was done, the traveler pulled himself off Melena. He snapped his fingers, and a balloon with a basket beneath descended from the fly space above. The traveler got in. It was the Wizard.
“Oh, nonsense,” said the Witch. “This is pure poppycock.”
The lights dimmed. The voice of the dwarf sounded from inside the contraption. “Act Three,” he said. “The Marriage of the Sacred and the Wicked.”
She waited, but no area was illuminated, no puppet moved.
“Well?” she said.
“Well what?” he answered.
“Where’s the end of the play?”
He stuck his head out of a trap door and winked at her. “Who said the end was written yet?” he answered, and slammed the door shut. Another door opened, just by the Witch’s hand, and a tray slid out. Lying on it was an oval looking glass, cracked along one side, scratched on its surfaces. It looked like the glass she had had since childhood, the one she used to imagine she could see the Other Land in, back when she believed in such a thing. The last she remembered of the oval glass was in her hideaway digs in the Emerald City. Inside the glass lived reflections of a young and beautiful Fiyero, and a young and impassioned Fae. The Witch took the mirror and hid it in her apron, and wandered away.
There was nothing in the morning papers about the death of Madame Morrible. The Witch, with a treacherous headache, decided that she could wait no longer. Either Avaric and his beastly companions would spread the rumors, or they wouldn’t. There was nothing left to be done.
Just let word get to the Wizard, though, said the Witch to herself. I would like to be a fly on the wall of his bunker when that happens. Let him think I killed her. Let that be how the news goes.
9
She returned to Munchkinland in a punishing journey, exhausting herself. She had slept so little, and her head still throbbed. But she was proud of herself. She arrived in the front yard of Boq’s cottage, and called for the family to come.
Boq was out in the field, and one of his children had to be dispatched to fetch him. When he came running, he had an adze in one hand. “I wasn’t expecting you, it took me a minute,” he said, panting.
“You’d have run quicker if you’d left your blade behind,” she noted.
But he didn’t drop it. “Elphie, why have you come back?”
“To tell you what I have done,” she said. “I thought you would like to know. I have killed Madame Morrible, and she can no longer harm anyone.”
But Boq did not look pleased. “You took against that old woman?” he said. “Surely she was beyond the point of hurting anyone now?”
“You’ve made the mistake that everyone makes,” said the Witch, cruelly disappointed. “Don’t you know there is no such point?”
“You had worked to protect the Animals,” said Boq. “But you did not intend to sink to the level of those who brutalized them.”
“I have fought fire with fire,” said the Witch, “and I ought to have done it sooner! Boq, you’ve become an equivocating fool.”
“Children,” said Boq, “run inside and find your mother.”
He was scared of her.
“You’re sitting on the fence,” she said. “Here your precious Munch-kinland is going to be sucked back into the folds of Royal Oz, under His Highness the Emperor Wizard. And you see what Glinda is up to, and you send that child on her way with the shoes that belong to me. You took a stand when you were young, Boq! How can you have—spoiled so!”
“Elphie,” said Boq, “look at me. You are beside yourself. Have you been drinking? Dorothy is just a child. You may not retell this to make her into some sort of fiend!”
Milla, alerted to the tension in the front yard, came out and stood behind Boq. She carried a kitchen knife. Whispering noisily, the children watched from the window.
“You do not need to defend yourselves with knives and adzes,” said the Witch coldly. “I had thought you would care to know about Madame Morrible.”
“You are shaking,” said Boq. “Look, I will put down this thing. Clearly you are upset. Nessa’s death has been hard on you. But you must get control of yourself, Elphie. Don’t take against Dorothy. She is an innocent creature. She’s all alone. I beg of you.”
