Yep, yep, that has to be it. That makes sense, right? I mean, my dog didn’t turn into a hot dude and get shot by my crazy uncle. Never happened. Just a dream.
“Are you blind and deaf? Do I look like a fucking Munchkin to you?” The man facepalms into his glittering fingers and curses under his breath in another language before looking back up at me. “I’m the Witch of the North—obviously.”
“A … witch?” I echo, before looking back down at the supposed dead witch on the ground beneath my house, ragged bone sticking up and gleaming in the sun from the ruined flesh of her legs.
“Yes, indeed,” he says, still sounding like he’d rather be anywhere else but here. Sentiment noted, taken, and reciprocated, bro. “But I,” he says haughtily, touching long, elegant fingers to his chest, “am a good witch. And the people love me.” He pauses a moment to frown, his face darkening in a way that’s almost scary. “I’m, unfortunately, not as powerful as the Wicked Witch was who ruled here, or else I’d have set the Munchkins free myself.”
“How many of you are there?” I ask, hating the way the Munchkins are staring at me, like I’m some sort of savior or something. One of them flutters his translucent wings, and I jump.
“Witches?” the man asks, like I’m too stupid to live. “There were only four witches in the Land of Oz. Two good witches in the North and South—I know this is true because, obviously, I am one myself and cannot be mistaken—and two wicked witches, in the East and West. But now that you’ve brutally murdered one, there’s only one wicked witch left—that dickhead from the West.”
“As if witches are even real,” I murmur, closing my eyes and reaching up to rub at my temples. If I just ride this out, eventually the illusion will fade, and I’ll wake up at Aunt Em’s in my bed in the attic. “Certainly never met any in friggin’ Kansas.”
“Kansas? Never heard of that country before,” the supposed good witch says, his voice dripping with arrogance. “But tell me, is it a civilized country?”
“Depends on which side of the political spectrum you’re asking,” I mutter, opening my eyes back up. The joke is lost on the witch and he sniffs derisively. “But yeah, sure, whatever. Civilized enough.”
“Then that accounts for it. In the civilized countries, there are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. But, you see, the Land of Oz has never been civilized, for we’re cut off from all the rest of the worlds. Therefore we still have witches and wizards amongst us—obviously.”
My eye twitches. This guy’s said the word obviously like five times already. It’s driving me nuts.
“Wizards?” I scoff skeptically, and the man sighs, his almond-shaped eyes narrowing even further.
“You should know, considering you are one yourself,” he continues, his voice just this side of pleasant, like if he weren’t yawning and being bored and full of himself all the time, that it’d be like tinkling bells. “Oz the Great Wizard.”
“How do you know my name?” I ask as the Munchkins begin to murmur amongst themselves in another language. By the way, their teeth are razor sharp, and white as pearl. I swallow hard and glance back at the witch. Just more proof that I’m riding some sort of delusion; I never gave him my name.
“You’re more powerful than the rest of us put together, much as it pains me to say.” This time, it’s his turn to twitch an eye in irritation. “You’ll need to visit the City of Emeralds to register, however.”
I open my mouth to ask what strain of weed this guy must be smoking to come up with this crap when the Munchkins start shouting and pointing, chattering in that strange language of theirs. My eyes flick over to the legs of the wicked witch, and a scream gets caught in my throat.
“Oh, what is it now?” the good witch asks, following the pointing fingers of the Munchkins. The flesh on the legs bubbles, the bone cracking, as the body begins to decompose in super speed, melting into the ground like it was never there. It’s like one of those documentaries where they film a dead mouse for months and speed it all back up.
I’ve lost my fucking mind.
I slide down the side of the house as the witch picks up the silver shoes by hooking two fingers in them, and then holds them out my way, dropping them to the ground in front of me.
“The Witch of the East was proud of these ugly shoes. There’s some charm connected with them, but what it is, we never knew.”
“Are you joking?! I don’t want some dead broad’s shoes; they’re covered in blood!”
The Munchkins and the witch first look at each other, and then at me, shaking their heads and clucking their tongues.
