“Will you tell us or we’ll do it.”
“Don’t push me off the tower, you oafs.”
“If the broom is magic it’ll come flying by and save you. Besides, you’re so fat you’d probably bounce.”
Irji and Nor laughed at that, despite themselves. It made a very funny picture in their minds.
“We only want to know what secrets the broom says to you,” said Manek with a big smile. “So tell us. Or we’ll push you off.”
“You’re not being nice, he’s company,” said Nor. “Come on, let’s go find some mice in the pantry and make friends.”
“In a minute. Let’s push Liir off the roof first.”
“No,” said Nor, beginning to cry. “You boys are so mean. Are you sure that broom is magic, Liir?”
But Liir by now didn’t want to say any more.
Manek tossed a pebble off the roof and it seemed a very long time before the ping of impact.
Liir’s face had, in a matter of moments, developed deep black pockets under the eyes. He held his hands down by his sides like a traitor at a court martial. “The Witch’ll be so mad at you that she will hate you,” Liir said.
“I don’t think so,” said Manek, taking a step forward. “She won’t care. She likes the monkey more than she likes you. She won’t even notice if you’re dead.”
Liir gasped for air. Although he had just peed, the front of his baggy trousers turned dark with wet. “Look, Irji,” said Manek, and his older brother looked. “He’s not even very good at being alive is he? It’s not like it would be much of a loss. Come on, Liir, tell me. What did the damned broom say to you?”
Liir’s upper torso was going in and out like a bellows. He whispered, “The broom told me—that—that—you’re all going to die!”
“Oh, is that all,” said Manek. “We already knew that. Everybody dies. We knew that already.”
“You did?” said Liir, who hadn’t.
“Come on,” Irji said, “come on, let’s catch some mice in the pantry and we can cut off their tails and use Nor’s magic straw to prick their eyes.”
“No!” said Nor, but Irji had swiped the straw from her. Manek and Irji went clattering, loose-limbed as marionettes, along the parapet
and down the stairs. With a huge, aggrieved sigh, Liir composed himself and adjusted his clothes, and followed them like a condemned dwarf laborer in the emerald mines. Nor stayed behind, her arms folded defiantly, her chin working with frustration. Then she spit over the edge and felt better, and chased after the boys.
At midmorning, Six showed the guest into the Solar. With a smirk behind Auntie’s back, she deposited a tray of cruel little biscuits, hard as slate, on a table covered with a carpet gone brown and patternless. Sarima, having made her way through what she could of her daily spiritual ablutions, felt ready.
“You’ve been here a week and it’s likely to be longer,” said Sarima, allowing Six to pour out some gallroot coffee before dismissing her. “The trail north is snowed in by now, and there’s not a safe haven between here and the plains. The winters are hard in the mountains, and while we can make do with our stores and our own company, we treasure a change. Milk? I do not know exactly what you had—intended. Once you had visited us sufficiently, I mean.”
“There are rumors of caves in these Kells,” Elphaba said, almost more to herself than to Sarima. “I lived for some years at the Cloister of Saint Glinda in the Shale Shallows, outside of the Emerald City. Dignitaries would visit, and while we were often under a vow of silence, nonetheless people would talk of what they knew. Monastic cells. I had thought, when I was done here, that I might take myself to a cave and—and—”
“And set up housekeeping,” said Sarima, as if this were as usual as marrying and bearing babies. “Some do it, I know. There’s an old hermit on the western slope of Broken Bottle—that’s a peak nearby—they say he’s been there for some years, and has reverted to a more primitive moment of nature. Of his nature, I mean.”
“A life without words,” Elphie said, looking in her coffee and not drinking it.
“They say this hermit has forgotten about personal hygiene,” said Sarima, “which, given how the boys smell when they go unwashed for a couple of weeks, strikes me as nature’s defense against marauding beasts.”
“I didn’t expect to be here for a long time,” Elphie said, twisting her head on her neck like a parrot and looking at Sarima in an odd way. Oh, beware, thought Sarima carefully, though she tended to like this guest: Beware, she’s taking the direction of the discussion into her own hands. This won’t do. But the guest went on: “I had thought that I would have a night or two, maybe three, and could find myself a hidey-hole before winter set in. I was working on the wrong calendar, I was thinking of how, and when, winter came to Shiz and the Emerald City. But you’re six weeks ahead here.”
“Ahead in the autumn and behind in the spring, alas,” said Sarima. She took her feet off her hassock and placed them on the floor, flatly, to indicate seriousness. “Now, my new friend, there are some things I need to say to you.”
“I have things too,” Elphie said, but Sarima went on this time.
“You will think me an unpolished person, and you are right of course. Oh, when I was selected to be a child bride, a good gover
ness was hired from Gillikin to teach me and my sisters how to use verbs and pronouns and salad forks. And lately I have begun to master reading. But most of what I picked up about polite behavior was from what Fiyero was good enough to instruct me in when he returned from his education. No doubt I make social mistakes. You have every right to snigger behind my back.”
