Dorothy Must Die (28 page)

The hunt was already on when I woke up. From the tiny window in my room, I watched the monkeys circling the grounds. There were dozens of them in the air, swooping and diving. I couldn’t help realize that even though winged monkeys are controlled by magic, today they were tethered to long metal chains that fastened in thick collars at their necks and were being held from the ground by the Tin Soldiers, who just stood there looking up at their prisoners like they were flying kites at the beach. I guess with one runaway monkey, they didn’t want to take any chances that their magical power over the monkeys might be slipping.

They were searching for her.

I dressed slowly, feeling achy all over, and took an extra second to look at myself in the mirror. I half hoped that maybe Nox would appear there, but he didn’t. I kissed Star on the nose and tucked her away safely in her drawer. I think she was getting used to it, or at least had stopped trying to scratch her way out of it.

As I exited my room, I tried to inject a little extra pep in my step to make up for the worn-out feeling in my bones. Maybe I could borrow some of Jellia’s PermaSmile.

That reminded me. I had to get her keys back to her. I’d find a way to do it at breakfast. My stomach growled; apparently, starting a fire, overusing magic, and chopping the wings off a monkey made a girl extremely hungry.

Except, there was no breakfast: instead, the maid staff was lined up from one end of the hall to the other, no food in sight.

“What’s going on?” I asked Sindra, the maid next to me, as I joined the line.

“Surprise uniform inspection,” she replied. Sindra blinked her extra-long eyelashes and shrugged. She didn’t seem to have any clue that anything was up. Part of me envied her ignorance.

Jellia marched up and down the line, making sure everyone was in order for the inspection. Her scent was vastly improved; Dorothy must have finally let her take the mouse out of her pocket. She looked sharper than she had in days, but not quite chipper. Jellia knew something was up and it made her nervous.

When she passed me, I saw the tiniest look of alarm flit across her eyes. Her mouth, probably slathered with PermaSmile, didn’t move. My pulse raced as I tried to say calm. Had I missed something? Did I have one of Maude’s feathers stuck in my hair?

Jellia stepped toward me. She licked her thumb, and brusquely rubbed a spot behind my ear. A spot I couldn’t have seen in my mirror.

“Astrid,” she spoke quietly, without venom. “You’ve been slipping in your appearance lately. You’re really going to have to learn to be tidier.”

When she got close, I took the opportunity to slip Jellia’s keys back in her pocket. Her eyebrow arched at me—maybe she felt the tug against her smock—but she didn’t say anything more, just studied my face for a moment longer to make sure I was clean. I breathed a sigh of relief as she turned her back on me and continued her march down the line.

The clomping shuffle of metal against marble approached and then I knew for sure that this was no ordinary uniform inspection. Jellia stepped back and faced us. I felt the other girls tensing up at my side as they began to realize it wouldn’t be Jellia conducting the inspection.

Jellia cleared her throat. “Ladies, the Tin Woodman and his men are going to ask you some questions. Be honest and concise. As long as you tell the truth, no harm will come to you.”

I’d known this might happen, but I hadn’t expected it so quickly. I thought I’d have some time to prepare my story. I steeled myself, willing my heart to slow, willing my face to stay smiling and placid as the Tin Woodman came lurching into the room, all business. Jellia curtsied as he approached. The Tin Woodman didn’t acknowledge the gesture.

The Tin Woodman made quick work of the line, showing each of us a small picture of Maude and asking each of us about her whereabouts last night.

“Well, I don’t know if I recognize the funny little creature!” Sindra said, her turn right before mine. “It’s a monkey! They all look the same to me.”

I wanted to reach over and slap her. Of course, I didn’t. I didn’t even turn my head.

A moment later, the Tin Woodman shoved the picture in my face, and I realized that I didn’t have to lie about whether I recognized her. The drawing of Maude was nothing like the Maude I’d rescued the night before. Her fur was neatly combed, and her wings were folded behind her back. She had a pink bow in her hair and was wearing a little pair of green glasses. The little half smile on her face was knowing and shy at the same time.

I looked up at the Tin Woodman. I studied the seams that held his metal face together.

“I’ve never seen her,” I lied confidently, then tried to copy some of Sindra’s stupidity. “I don’t have any contact with the monkeys. They have lice.”

I remembered what I’d seen of the Tin Woodman in the magic picture in Dorothy’s parlor, mooning over the princess. I knew his weakness. It should’ve been like picturing him in his metal underwear, thinking about him writing bad love poetry to Dorothy in motor oil. At that moment, it didn’t make me feel much better. He lingered in front of me, taking longer than he had with the other girls.

“The last time this monkey was seen, she no longer had her fur,” the Tin Woodman said. “Or her wings. Use your imagination.”

I didn’t have to imagine. The image would never leave me.

“No fur or wings?” I asked, trying to conceal a wince at the horrible memory. “Shouldn’t she be dead?”

The Tin Woodman’s eyes flickered. “She will be.”

He stepped away from me then, holding up the picture for everyone to take a second look.

“This monkey escaped from the Scarecrow’s lab late last night,” he said. “She was gravely injured. She could not have escaped without help from someone inside the palace.”

No one said anything. Abruptly, the Tin Woodman changed gears, his voice coldly demanding.

“Who is responsible for delivering hay to the Scarecrow’s chambers? Step forward.”

Everyone in the line hesitated, but one by one, four of us stepped forward, including me and Sindra. The Tin Woodman stared right at me, though. He stepped close again.

“You smell like smoke,” he said dispassionately.

Could he even smell with that metal face? Was this a ploy?

I blinked up at him innocently. “My room was close to the fire, sir,” I replied.

“Tell me your name, little maid.”

“Astrid,” I said, feeling less secure in my disguise spell than I had in days.

“Where are you from?”

“Gillikin Country,” I said.

Before he could ask any more questions, Jellia cleared her throat loudly behind him. “Your Greatness,” she said, addressing the Tin Woodman. “We have duties to attend to and we’re already off to a late start. Dorothy will be very disappointed if we don’t . . .”

The Tin Woodman gave me a last look. A long one. “Maids, so good at getting every single detail right,” he mused. He stepped away from me, addressing the rest of the line. “If any of you have information on our escaped monkey, you know where to find me. And don’t put the hay near the lanterns, you little fools.”

Metal hands clasped behind his back, the Tin Woodman strode from the room.

“Off to your duties, girls,” Jellia singsonged when he was gone. “Don’t dillydally. There’s more work to be done than ever.”

I was turning to follow Sindra when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Jellia.

“Come with me,” she said. “I have a special task that you can help me with.”

That was unusual. My chest tightened, paranoia fluttering through me. Did Jellia know? Had she figured out that I swiped her keys? That I used them to help Maude escape? I studied her face, but it was as placid and cheerful as ever.

I didn’t have any choice except to go with her. As she led me out of the dining hall, I felt my knife whispering for me to call it. But I didn’t, not yet. I wasn’t entirely sure what Jellia was up to, but I didn’t totally distrust her. I would only have one chance to run. I had to make sure I took the right one.

“Of course this has to happen just so close to the ball,” Jellia chattered airily as we walked. “The Tin Woodman and his men are ripping apart every room. Turning over every cushion. They don’t care that we’ll have to clean it all up before Dorothy’s guests arrive. And Her Highness will not be pleased if even the slightest thing is out of place. Not to mention that mess in the Scarecrow’s room.”

It was the closest she’d ever come to complaining about anything. I followed along and listened, wondering what she was getting at.

“You know,” she continued. “I’ve worked in the palace for a long time. I was here before the Wizard, even. I was here during the Scarecrow’s rule. I was here when Ozma was still herself. I was here when Dorothy returned.”

“That is a long time,” I said, trying to sound noncommittal, but I was curious just the same, and not only about why she could appear to be a young girl after so many years working in the palace. I wondered why she was telling me all this—she had never opened up around me before. Maybe that hug yesterday really had made a difference. Maybe she just wanted to talk?

“Oz has been through many changes,” she went on. “Oh, people talk about the
real
Oz, but I don’t even know what they mean by that. Oz has rarely stayed the same for long. That’s the magic, of course. Always changing.”

We were climbing the stairs now. Jellia’s smile was different from her usual phony mannequin-grin. It was sad and faraway.

“I have some fairy blood, too, you know,” she said. By now I wasn’t even sure if she was talking to me or talking to herself. “Not anywhere near as much as Ozma, of course. Not enough to make much of a difference. But enough to know that things could have been different.”

Finally, we were at my room. I looked over at Jellia questioningly. Why had she brought me here?

“I want you to be sure that your room is tidy,” she explained. There was no hint in her voice that anything was out of the ordinary. “They’ll be searching all of them, of course, and I know that you can be sloppy from time to time. I wouldn’t want them to find it out of order. It would reflect badly on me.”

She stared at me meaningfully. This was a warning. I don’t know how much Jellia knew, but she’d brought me here, taken me away from my chores so that I could make sure everything was in order. So that I wouldn’t get busted.

“Jellia, I—”

She held up her hand. “I’ll expect you in the kitchen for dishes shortly.”

Without another word, she walked away. But when I opened the door and stepped inside, I realized I was too late. Everything was out of place. The sheets had been stripped. The mattress had been cut down the center, feathers spilling everywhere.

When I saw the open drawers, overturned on the floor, I felt like I was going to throw up.

Star was gone.

Outside the window, the sky turned from blue to purple to black. Even though it was barely after breakfast, Dorothy had turned the clock.

I couldn’t bring myself to care. Star was gone. My room had been ransacked. I was sure they knew about me—about who I really was. The Tin Woodman already seemed suspicious of me. They’d put it all together.

I had to get out of here.

I turned to face the mirror, which was basically the only thing in the room that had been left undisturbed. Could it be the way out, too?

I ran my fingers over the smooth, reflective surface, hoping some kind of answer would reveal itself. “Nox,” I said, knowing in my heart that it was useless. “Please help me. Tell me what to do. I need you.”

I thought I saw my image ripple, just barely, like when you drop a penny in a pool, and a quick surge of hope rushed through me. But the mirror remained unchanged. Any movement I’d seen had just been my imagination.

I looked at my face, the face that wasn’t really my own, and tried to remember what I really looked like. For some reason, it made me wonder what my mother was doing. I wondered how much time had passed since I’d left—I knew that time didn’t work the same here as it did back home. Was she an old woman now? Had she found a new life without me? Or maybe a hundred years had passed back in Kansas and she was now long dead. I shivered.

Suddenly I found myself longing for my real face. I thought about taking out the knife and cutting myself to reverse the spell, just to get a glimpse of the girl I had been. If I was going to be captured, or have to fight my way out, I decided I would do it as Amy.

The blade came to me eagerly. It glinted in the mirror.

I was just about to slice my palm open when I heard something behind me. First a rustle, then a squeak. I spun around to see Star emerging from a crevice between the floorboards and the wall, a tiny little space I had never noticed before.

“Star!” I cried. “Where the hell were you? Where did you come from?” I was so overjoyed to see her that I didn’t even care that I was talking to a rat that had no way of answering any of my questions. She must have escaped somehow. That’s one good thing you can say about rodents: they know how to make a quick getaway. I just hoped she’d done it
before
they’d searched my dresser. Somehow I didn’t think Dorothy would take kindly to a maid harboring a rat in her room.

I knelt down to pick her up, but she darted away from me.

“Star?” I stood back up and watched her closely. Something was up—she was frantically running around in a circle like she was trying to get my attention.

“What are you trying to tell me?” I asked.

As if she understood what I was asking, she scurried over to the door and began scratching at it.

She wanted me to follow.

“Are you serious? Now?”

It was a bad idea. Worse than bad. Colossally bad. The Tin Woodman was tearing the rooms apart one by one, the whole palace was in chaos over the missing monkey, and I wasn’t sure whether or not I was a suspect. Plus, Jellia had already covered for me once this morning, and I still wasn’t sure exactly what
that
was all about. The safest course of action, for now, was to keep my head down and be ready to run.

Or ready to fight.

“Star . . . ,” I said.

She squeaked. She’d never behaved like this before. It was a far cry from her lethargic Dusty Acres days, usually spent napping in her exercise ball. Maybe there was some natural phenomena in Oz that made animals smarter. I mean, the monkeys talk after all.

I sighed. They
do
say rats are extremely intelligent. If she wanted me to follow, I would follow.

As soon as I opened the door, Star raced out without hesitation. I chased after her. I guess if anyone caught me, I could tell them I was trying to strangle the rat on Dorothy’s behalf.

I was nervous, still unsure what exactly was going on. But Star wasn’t. Star moved quickly and hugged the side of the hall as if she knew that she was supposed to be inconspicuous—as if she knew exactly where she was going, exactly what she was doing.

After a couple of turns, past rooms where other maids were too busy diligently cleaning to notice us, Star came to an unexpected stop, right in front of a life-size statue of Dorothy. I’d probably dusted this a few times—there were others like it scattered all over the palace. In this one, Dorothy peered hopefully toward the horizon (the wall), while clutching a picnic basket, Toto’s scruffy head poking out of it. This version of Dorothy reminded me of the sweet, innocent one I was familiar with, the way most people back home thought of her: sweet and smiling, her hair pulled into two plaits. Too bad she was fictional. I looked at the statue. I looked down at Star. She was twitching in expectation.

“Okay,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Now what?”

Star rolled over onto her back, then back to her feet, and looked up at me.

I didn’t understand rat sign language, but I knew she was trying to show me something. I looked at the statue again. I thought about all those movies where a statue conceals a hidden door and almost laughed, looking down at Star.

“Is this when I, like, lean on the statue and fall through a trapdoor?” I poked stone Dorothy in the eye for emphasis, and nothing happened.

In response, Star started running around in a circle, chasing her tail.

“Star, I don’t have time for this,” I said. “Things are already screwed up and why am I talking to you, you’re a rat.”

Star stopped chasing her tail and looked at me, lifting one of her front legs off the ground. It was like she wanted to shake hands.

Rolling over. Chasing her tail. Shaking hands. These were dog tricks.

I looked back at the statue. Toto’s front paw was sticking out of the basket. I looked dubiously back at Star, who squeaked. Feeling a little dumb for humoring my pet rat, I shook Toto’s paw.

It moved under my hand like a lever. Something inside the statue clicked, and then an almost imperceptible ripple went through the marble, like the shimmer of heat coming off a sidewalk in the summer.

Star squeaked and raced up to the statue’s base, running right through it, almost like the statue was a hologram. Tentatively, I reached out and touched what seconds ago had been cold, solid marble. Although it looked no different to the naked eye, now my hand passed right through it.

I glanced down the hallway in either direction. The coast was still clear.

Well, I’d followed Star this far.

I took a deep breath, fighting back the instinct that said I was about to smash my face against a rock, and walked through Dorothy’s statue.

I found myself on a stone staircase lit by glowing, shimmering orbs of energy that lined the cracked, ancient walls. I glanced over my shoulder and for a moment I could see the back of the Dorothy statue, but then it faded into solid rock. In front of me was a staircase that led nowhere but down. Great.

I heard Star chittering up ahead, so I pressed on. The ceiling above the staircase was so low and cramped that I had to duck my head to walk down it.
Probably built for Munchkins,
I thought.

I caught up with Star at the bottom. The ceiling opened up down here, the same orbs from the staircase illuminating an ancient chamber with a dirt floor. Dust tickled my nostrils. It didn’t seem like anyone had been down here for a long time. I wondered if this was like one of the tunnels Ollie and Maude had disappeared into last night.

“What did you get me into?” I muttered to Star.

We followed the tunnel, the only sounds my soft footfalls and Star’s clicking nails. I glanced over my shoulder once and watched as my footprints quickly filled back in, like some invisible force was making sure to erase all trace of my passing. I started walking a lot faster after that. I had the constant sense that something might start chasing me at any moment.

After only a few minutes, the tunnel came to an abrupt dead end. I looked back again and couldn’t see the staircase we’d come from, even though it didn’t seem like we’d gone that far. Instead, the tunnel stretched on forever behind me. Something told me there was no going back.

A ladder was built into the wall in front of me. It was wooden and rickety and led up through a narrow hole in the ceiling. I tested it, rattling it hesitantly to be sure it would support my weight.

It shook, but it didn’t give way. So I put Star in my pocket and began to climb, not knowing where it would lead me. It was a tight squeeze; like the staircase, this tunnel was basically Munchkin-size. I’d never been claustrophobic before, but I was still supremely relieved to see a square of light overhead.

At the top of the ladder, I reached up and lifted a square door. I opened it slowly, peeking out, not sure where I’d be popping up. From above, dirt shook loose into my face.

It was a flap carved into the grass, just like the one Ollie had used the night before. Except this one appeared to lead into a bunch of shrubs. Well, at least no one would be able to see me emerging from the earth.

I crawled and clawed my way up and out, through leaves and thorns and branches. When I was finally able to stand, I looked around, pulled a bunch of leaves from my hair, dusted myself off, and found that I was in the palace’s sculpture garden, a place I’d seen in the distance, out the window, but had never been in before. It wasn’t that far from the greenhouse, and I was a little nervous to be in the proximity of the Scarecrow’s lab again so soon, but no one was around. The search for Maude must have gone to the other side of the palace—to the Royal Gardens—where they’d probably discovered her mutilated wings by now.

The sculpture garden had always looked green and peaceful from a distance. Up close, it was nothing like that at all. Giant topiaries trimmed into the figures of Oz luminaries—the Lion, the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow and Glinda, as well as others that I didn’t recognize—all towered over my head, all of them dark and shadowy in the moonlight as they stared creepily down at me.

Life-size stone statues were mixed in among them. They were made from a flaky, brittle shale; all of them with eyes that seemed strangely lifelike, as if they were watching me sneak through their ranks. I pushed down the sudden desire to draw my dagger.

The statues were carefully arranged along a spiraling stone path through the hedges. They appeared to represent every race and creature in Oz—humans, Munchkins, Quadlings—and also stranger humanoids like an armless brute with a hammer-shaped head, and a gang of sprite-size people with horns sticking out of their foreheads.

As I moved quickly down the path, Star wriggled in my pocket. I reached down for her, but she squirmed free of my hand and jumped onto the stone path. She darted on ahead: this wild-goose chase wasn’t over. This time, I didn’t question it. Clearly, she had a destination in mind.

So I followed her as she scurried along, trying not to look at the gruesome faces of the statues staring at me until we reached the entrance to the hedge maze.

There I stopped short. This was one place I
didn’t
want to go. While the sculpture garden had always looked like a peaceful retreat from the vantage point of the palace windows, the hedge maze, on the other hand—even from a distance—had
always
given me the creeps.

I don’t know why. Maybe it was just the way it exuded magic; the way it seemed to change and rearrange itself every time you looked away from it. Even in the dark, the leaves of the hedges were Technicolor-green, so saturated that the color almost bled into the atmosphere.

It seemed like the kind of place you could get lost in. The kind of place you could enter and never leave.

Unfortunately, Star didn’t seem to share my fear—she was already several yards ahead of me, and if I didn’t hurry, she would be out of sight before I knew it.

“Slow down!” I hissed after her, but she didn’t listen. I took a deep breath and followed her into the maze.

As soon as I stepped inside, the leafy walls on either side of me began to rustle, suddenly sprouting little pink buds. The climbing ivy grew and twisted.

My heart pounding, I looked back. The opening I’d just run through was no longer there. It had sealed up behind me with new growth.

“Damn,” I swore under my breath. I’d almost expected those frozen statues to come to life, but I hadn’t expected the
maze
to.

Keeping Star in my sights suddenly seemed more important than ever—it was no longer just a matter of not losing her. It was a matter of
me
not getting lost. Rats were supposed to be naturally good at mazes, right? Star seemed to have some sense of where she was going, but I knew that, on my own, I would be stuck in here for good.

There was no point in looking back, so I didn’t bother.

Relying on a rat to guide me through a magic maze pretty much summed up my last twenty-four hours. I felt out of control, isolated, and uncertain where I was headed. I plunged forward regardless. Sometimes the path was narrow and claustrophobic, the hedges so high I couldn’t even see their tops. Then I’d turn a corner into a sweeping cobblestone boulevard where the topiary walls were short enough that it seemed like I might be able to dive over them with a running start.