“You’re not a member of the fae; you can quite easily lie which, I suspect, you’re doing now. Oz, my recommendation is that we leave this man where he is, to suffer whatever fate he’s brought on himself.” Taavi turns back toward the blue fence and the road, but I hesitate, studying the scarecrow’s ragged face.
“I see you’re traveling the Y.B.R. Perhaps you’re heading for the City of Emeralds? If so, I might offer some caution. Dorothy is not quite the saint that she pretends to be. She’s the one that had me burned alive, after all.”
“Burned alive?” I study the blue suit of clothes he’s wearing, very similar to those worn by the Munchkins, the bits of hay sticking out from beneath it, the paint smeared across his face. He doesn’t look like he’s been burnt, but I guess there’s not really any visible skin showing. There is, however, a pungent fucking smell.
“Dorothy, the Small and Meek?” Taavi asks incredulously, his voice rife with suspicion. “With her morality laws and high ideals?”
“Like you said to me,” the scarecrow continues, lifting his chin up slightly to look at the slowly setting sun. “She’s not fae, is she? She’s capable of telling lies. If you’re going to Emerald City to register, just remember that if you fight in her tournament and lose, you could very well find yourself staked to a pole in a field of corn. As an aside, I feel I should also warn you that the other scarecrows are as alive as I am, though in a different way. As soon as night falls, they’ll be up and after you. Best you remain on the other side of the blue fence.”
“Let’s take him down,” I tell Taavi who, I gotta admit, looks like he wants to kill me right about now. “He knows shit that might be helpful to us, doesn’t he?”
“So he says.” Taavi comes up to stand in front of the scarecrow, the yellow cornstalks waving around him in the breeze. “If you’re so eager to prove your trustworthiness, put your words into magic.”
“If I could cast from up here, don’t you think I’d have already gotten myself down by now?” The man on the pole seems supremely irritated at this point. I mean, I can’t say I blame him. His arms are nailed to the wood, brown-red stains tainting his long-sleeved jacket, a very clear sign of blood and trauma. “This pole behind me drains my magic into the soil; it was the only way for me to heal after what Dorothy did to me. Every Wizard has their weakness, and mine just so happens to be fire. If you have need to kill me, you know how to go about it.”
“Oh, come on, Taavi,” I say, gesturing up at the guy. “Get him down and hear what he has to say.”
With a snarl, Taavi moves over to the wooden pole stuck into the dirt, and I realize that I’ve just given him a direct command without even meaning to. This is, like, some Ella Enchanted type shit. I need to be more careful with my words. What happens if I absently say die mad about it or something?
See.
Another life lesson: be careful with your words.
Taavi digs his bare feet into the dirt, braces his shoulder against the wooden pole, and shoves, muscles rippling beneath his skin. With a groaning creak, the wood shifts in the dirt and the entire structure falls backward.
“Taavi!” I shout, but he’s way ahead of me, moving with lightning speed to stop the descent of the pole before it crashes into the waving golden arms of the cornfield. He very carefully sets it down and steps back, using two fingers to pull first one nail out of the scarecrow’s arm, and then the other. Fresh blood pools on the dirt as the scarecrow rolls to one side, coughing and choking as Taavi goes about untying his ankles. “Are you okay?” I ask, realizing even as I do that that’s a pretty relative sort of question.
Is he okay?
Well, he smells like burnt hair and death, he’s bleeding profusely, and he’s covered in paint and stuck-on hay. My guess is the answer to that question is a resounding no.
“I will be, shortly,” the scarecrow says, sitting up and leaning over to put his head on his knees. He groans, half in pain, half in pleasure. “It’s been so long since I was able to move like this.”
Scarecrow Bro (the name works, okay?) sits up and blinks at us, his real eyes a vibrant almost metallic gold color behind the blue paint splotched onto his lids and face. The painted eyes are lopsided, as is the crooked, grinning mouth, but this close up, I can see the wrinkled, ruined skin beneath the color.
He really is covered in burn scars, isn’t he?
