“They think she bears herself again and again like a pfenix,” said Frex. “Hah and double hah. There’ve been three hundred years of very different Ozmas. Ozma the Mendacious was a dedicated maunt, who lowered rulings in a bucket down from the topmost chamber in a cloister tower. She was as mad as a bung beetle. Ozma the Warrior conquered the Glikkus, at least for a time, and commandeered the emeralds with which to decorate the Emerald City. Ozma the Librarian did nothing but read genealogies for her whole life long. Then there was Ozma the Scarcely Beloved, who kept pet ermines. She overtaxed the farmers to begin the road system of yellow brick that they’re still struggling to complete, and much luck to them, I say.”
“Who is Ozma now?” asked Turtle Heart.
“Actually,” said Melena, “I had the pleasure to meet the last Ozma at a social season in the Emerald City—my grandfather the Eminent Thropp had a town house. The winter I was fifteen I was brought out into society there. She was Ozma the Bilious, because of a bad stomach. She was the size of a lake narwhal, but she dressed beautifully. I saw her with her husband, Pastorius, at the Oz Festival of Song and Sentiment.”
“She is no longer the Queen?” asked Turtle Heart, confused.
“She died in an unfortunate accident involving some rat poison,” said Frex.
“Died,” said Nanny, “or her spirit moved next into her child, Ozma Tippetarius.”
“The current Ozma is just about the age of Elphaba,” said Melena, “so her father, Pastorius, is the Ozma Regent. The good man will rule until Ozma Tippetarius is old enough to take the throne.”
Turtle Heart shook his head. Frex was annoyed because they had spent so much time talking about the worldly ruler and ignored the eternal realm, and Nanny lapsed into a bout of indigestion for which they all were very sorry, olfactorily speaking.
Anyway, even being irritated, Frex was glad to be home. Because of the beauty of Melena—she was almost glowing tonight as the sun left the sky—and because of the surprise of Turtle Heart, smiling and un-self-conscious next to him. Maybe because of Turtle Heart’s religious emptiness, which Frex found challenging and appealing, almost tempting.
“Then there’s the dragon beneath Oz, in a hidden cavern,” Nanny was saying to Turtle Heart. “The dragon who has dreamt the world, and who will burn it in flames when he awakes—”
“Shut up that superstitious codswallop!” shouted Frex.
Elphaba, on all fours, advanced on the uneven planks of the flooring. She bared her teeth—as if she knew what a dragon was, as if she were pretending—and roared. Her green skin made her more persuasive, as if she were a dragon child. She roared again—“Oh sweetheart, don’t,” said Frex—and she peed on the floor, and sniffed her urine with satisfaction and disgust.
Child’s
Play
One afternoon toward the end of summer, Nanny said, “There’s a beast abroad. I’ve seen it at dusk several times, lurking about in the ferns. What sorts of creatures are native to these hills anyway?”
“You don’t find anything larger than a gopher,” said Melena. They were at the side of the brook, working at laundry. The small spring wetness had long since ceased, and the drought had clamped its hand down again. The stream was only a thin trickle. Elphaba, who would not come near the water, was stripping a wild pear tree of its stunted crop. She clung to the trunk with her hands and out-turned feet, and threw her head around, catching the sour fruit with her teeth and then spitting seeds and stem on the ground.
“This is larger than a gopher,” said Nanny. “Trust me. Have you bears? It could have been a bear cub, though it moved mighty fast.”
“No bears. There’s the rumor of rock tigers on the felltop, but they tell me not a single one has been sighted in ages. And rock tigers are notoriously skittish and shy. They don’t come near human dwellings.”
“A wolf then? Are there wolves?” Nanny let the sheet droo
p in the water. “It could have been a wolf.”
“Nanny, you think you’re in the desert. Wend Hardings is desolate, I agree, but it’s a tame barrenness for all that. You’re alarming me with your wolf and your tiger talk.”
Elphaba, who would not speak yet, made a low growl in the pocket of her throat.
“I don’t like it,” said Nanny. “Let’s finish up and dry these things back at the house. Enough is enough. Besides, I have other things I want to say to you. Let’s give the child to Turtle Heart and let’s go off somewhere.” She shuddered. “Somewhere safe.”
“What you have to say you can say within earshot of Elphaba,” said Melena. “You know she doesn’t understand a word.”
“You confuse not speaking with not listening,” said Nanny. “I think she understands plenty.”
“Look, she’s smearing fruit on her neck, like a cologne—”
“Like a war paint, you mean.”
“Oh, dour Nanny, stop being such a goose and scrub those sheets harder. They’re filthy.”
“I need hardly ask whose sweat and leakage this is . . .”
“Oh you, no you needn’t ask, but don’t start moralizing at me—”
