Nanny took a deep breath. “Now don’t be angry at Nanny. It’s not Nanny’s fault. Those soldiers suddenly decided that their exercises were finished. I don’t know how, maybe Nor told them you were gone? She told us; she’d been sneaking around looking for your broom, and she said you weren’t here. So maybe she mentioned it to them. You know how nice they were to her, how they adored her. The soldiers came to the front door and said that they needed to escort the entire family, Sarima and her sisters and Nor and Irji, back to their base camp, wherever it is. They didn’t require me, they said, which was very insulting indeed, and I let them know as much. Sarima asked why, and that nice Commander Cherrystone said that it was for their own protection. In case a fighting battalion comes through, he said, it won’t do to have any members of the ruling family still here, or there might be a bloody incident.”
“Coming through, a battalion? When?” Elphie hit the windowsill with her open palm.
“I’m trying to tell you. No time soon, he said
; this is just advance planning. They became insistent. Those soldiers scattered the peasants in the village—I don’t think there was any killing, it all seemed quite humane, except for the chains—and only I was left behind, being too old to march down a mountain, and no relation besides. Also, they left Liir, since he was no threat and I think they’d become fond of him. But a few days later Liir disappeared, too. I’m sure he was desperately lonely for them, and he must have followed them to their camp.”
“And nobody protested?” shrieked Elphie.
“Don’t yell at me. Of course they protested. Well, Sarima fell in a heap, fainting dead away, and Irji and Nor looked after her. But the sisters, that mealy-mouthed lot, they barricaded the dining room and set fire to the chapel wing, trying to draw attention, and Three slammed a sharpening stone on the hand of Commander Cherrystone and broke every bone in his wrist, I bet. Five and Six rang the bell, but the shepherds are too far away, and it all happened too fast. Two wrote messages and tried to tie them to the feet of your crows, but they wouldn’t be liberated, they just kept roosting on the windowsills again, useless old things. Four had a great idea about boiling oil, but they couldn’t get the flame high enough. Oh, it was a merry chase here for a day or two, but of course the soldiers won. Men always win.”
Nanny continued petulantly, “And we all thought they’d ambushed you earlier, to get you out of the way. You’re the only effective one here, everyone knows that. They all think you’re a Witch. The townspeople told me that if you come back you’re to be in touch with the hamlet of Red Windmill down below the dam, you know the one. They seem to think you can rescue their royal family, such as they are. I told them it was misplaced trust, that you wouldn’t be interested, but I promised to give you the message, so there it is.”
Elphaba strode back and forth. She pulled her hair from its customary knot and shook it out, as if trying to shake away what she was hearing. “And Chistery?” she said at last.
“Cowering behind the piano in the music room, no doubt.”
“Well, this is a fine kettle of fish.”
She strode, she sat, she stroked her chin, she kicked Nanny’s chamber pot and broke it. “What have I got,” she mumbled. “There’s the broom. There’s the bees. There’s the monkey. There’s Killyjoy—did they hurt Killyjoy? There’s Killyjoy. There’s the crows. There’s Nanny. There’s the villagers, if they’re unharmed. There’s the questionable Grimmerie. It’s not a lot.”
“No, it’s not,” said Nanny, sighing. “Doom, doom, I say.”
“We can get them back,” said Elphie. “We will.”
“Count Nanny in,” said Nanny, “though I never did like those sisters, I’ll tell you.”
Elphie clenched her fists and tried to keep from striking herself. “Liir gone too,” she said. “I came here to make my apologies to Sarima, and I lost Liir in the bargain. Am I good for nothing in this life?”
Kiamo Ko was deathly still, except for old Nanny’s labored breathing as she took a catnap in her rocking chair. Killyjoy thumped his tail on the floor, happy to see his mistress. The sky was broad and hopeless beyond the windows. Elphaba was tired herself, but she couldn’t sleep. For, from time to time, she imagined she could hear the sound of water lapping against the sides of the fishwell, as if the legendary underground lake were rising to drown them all.
1
Afterward, there was a lot of discussion about what people had thought it was. The noise had seemed to come from all corners of the sky at once.
Journalists, armed with the thesaurus and apocalyptic scriptures, fumbled and were defeated by it. “A gulfy deliquescence of deranged and harnessed air” . . . “A volcano of the invisible, darkly construed” . . .
To the pleasure faithers with tiktok affections, it was the sound of clockworks uncoiling their springs and running down at a terrible speed. It was the release of vengeful energy.
To the essentialists, it seemed as if the world had suddenly found itself too crammed with life, with cells splitting by the billions, molecules uncoupling to annihilation, atoms shuddering and juggernauting in their casings.
To the superstitious it was the collapsing of time. It was the oozing of the ills of the world into one crepuscular muscle, intent on stabbing the world to its core for once and for all.
To the more traditionally religious it was the blitzkrieg of vengeful angel armies, the awful name of the Unnamed God sounding itself at last—surprise—and the evaporation of all hopes for mercy.
One or two pretended to think it was squadrons of flying dragons overhead, trained for attack, breaking the sky from its moorings by the thrash of tripartite wings.
In the wake of the destruction it caused, no one had the hubris or courage (or the prior experience) to lie and claim to have known the act of terror for what it was: a wind twisted up in a vortical braid.
In short: a tornado.
The lives of many Munchkinlanders were lost—along with square miles of topsoil from hundred of years of cultivation. The shifting margins of sand in the eastern desert covered several villages without a trace, and no survivors were left to tell the tale of their suffering. Whirling like something from a nightmare, the wind funnel drove into Oz thirty miles north of Stonespar End, and delicately maneuvered around Colwen Grounds, leaving every rose petal attached and every thorn in place. The tornado sliced through the Corn Basket, devastating the basis of the economy of the renegade nation, and petered out, as if by design, not only at the eastern terminus of the largely defunct Yellow Brick Road, but also at the precise spot—the hamlet of Center Munch—where, outside a local chapel, Nessarose was awarding prizes for perfect attendance at religious education classes. The storm dropped a house on her head.
All the children survived to pray for Nessarose’s soul at the memorial service. Perfect attendance was never more perfect.
There were a great many jokes about the disaster, naturally. “You can’t hide from destiny,” some said, “that house had her name on it.” “That Nessarose, she was giving such a good speech about religious lessons, she really brought down the house!” “Everybody needs to grow up and leave home sometimes, but sometimes HOME DOESN’T LIKE IT.” “What’s the difference between a shooting star and a falling house?” “One which is propitious grants delicious wishes, the other which is vicious squishes witches.” “What’s big, thick, makes the earth move, and wants to have its way with you?” “I don’t know, but can you introduce me?”
Such a maelstrom had not been known in Oz before. Various terrorist groups claimed credit, especially when news got around that the Wicked Witch of the East—also known as the Eminent Thropp, depending on your political stripe—had been snuffed out. It was not widely understood at first that the house carried passengers. The mere presence of a house of exotic design, set down almost intact upon the platform rigged up for the visiting dignitaries, was stretching credulity enough. That creatures might have survived such a fall was either patently unbelievable or a clear indication of the hand of the Unnamed God in the affair. Predictably, there were a few blind people who suddenly cried “I can see!” a lame Pig that stood and danced a jig, only to be led away—that sort of thing. The alien girl—she called herself Dorothy—was by virtue of her survival elevated to living sainthood. The dog was merely annoying.
