“You said that Dorothy punished you to scare away the C.R.O.W.S—tell us about that,” Taavi says, and then he must catch the questioning expression on my face because he adds, “C.R.O.W.S. stands for the Central Regiment of Wizards & Sorcerers.”
“Pardon me for a second,” Stryker says, lifting up a hand and holding his palm out. Several small glowing balls gather there, and he tosses them up to float above our heads, casting enough light for us to see the craggy surface of the Y.B.R. My mouth is hanging open, but I snap it shut when he turns back to look at me. “You’re a Wizard, but you’ve never heard of C.R.O.W.S?”
“I’m not from here,” I say at a slight nod from Taavi, shrugging my shoulders. “To be honest with you, I’m pretty much convinced that none of this exists—except for in my mind, of course.”
Stryker stops walking for a moment, looking me over again, like he’s seeing me for the very first time.
“You’re not from Oz?” he asks, pointing a matte black fingernail in my direction and then tapping it against his chin. “Interesting. Tell me something about yourself and the country you came from, and I swear on my magic that I’ll truthfully answer any question you have for the next three hours.”
He extends a hand, and with a quick look at Taavi, I reach out and take it, my fingers tingling as Stryker slides his thumb across my knuckles. Slowly, I draw my hand back, feeling lightheaded and out of breath. He might be weird, but he’s charismatic as hell.
I feel drawn to him in a way I haven’t been drawn to anyone in a long time.
Is this my unconscious mind telling me to let go of the past? To make new connections and forge a future? Is this a subtle message from my inner psyche, begging me to try dating again?
Or maybe it’s just my body telling me to get laid?
Either way …
I tuck my hands in the pockets of the gingham dress, starting us off on our walk again. Stryker moves a bit closer to the blue fence, the glowing balls above his head casting light into the corn field. Crawly things skitter away from the light and back into the shadows before I can even get a glimpse of what they are; the scarecrows hiss and fall back, too, which is a relief.
The fence is starting to look a bit worse for wear, the paint peeling, a rotten post here and there.
“The Perimeter Fence fails soon enough. Best to be on alert.” Stryker runs his nail along the peeling paint and tsks under his breath. “Hopefully, the Munchkins will get a good witch to replace the Witch of the East. If not, the entire fence is likely to fail without repair. It’ll be a bloodbath.” He turns back to me. “Now, where were we?”
“You said you wanted me to tell you something about myself and where I came from,” I reply with another shrug. I decide to tell him about Kansas and how gray everything was there, how the cyclone carried me to this queer Land of Oz.
Stryker listens carefully, and then looks curiously in my direction.
“You want to go back there?” he asks, looking for clarification.
“There’s no place like home,” I respond with a sigh. I mean, I have to wake up eventually, don’t I?
“Again, pardon my intrusiveness, but I can’t understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas.”
“Maybe your head is too stuffed up with straw to understand?” Taavi quips, obviously on high alert. His muscles are tense, and I know he’s on the lookout for someplace we could stop for the night. His casual mention that last night might be the only time I get a bed during this trip has me worried.
“Of course, of course,” Stryker says, holding up his hands in a placating gesture, one of them tattooed like his face. “If your heads were stuffed with straw—like mine apparently is—you’d probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It’s fortunate for Kansas that you have brains, isn’t it?”
“You’re a snarky asshole, aren’t you?” I ask, and Stryker smiles.
“I said I’d be truthful when I answered your questions, didn’t I? Well, the answer to that one is a resounding yes.” He pauses at a fork in the road, waiting as Taavi examines the wooden signs on either side. One road continues along the edge of the farmland while the other disappears into a great forest, the trees so big and close together that their branches meet over the road of yellow brick. It’s dark as hell in there, under the trees.
If such horrible things live in the cornfields, then what the fuck might be waiting in there?
