“I am not given to sniggering,” snapped Elphaba.
“As it may be. But I still have opinions, and I’m observant even if unschooled. Despite my sheltered life, married at the age of seven as you may know, raised and reared behind castle curtain walls. I trust my own sense of things and won’t be dissuaded. So let me continue,” she said, as Elphaba tried to interrupt. “There is plenty of time and the sun is nice in here, isn’t it? My little hideaway.
“It seems to me that you have come here to—shall we say—relieve yourself of some sad business or other. You have the look about you. Don’t be startled, my dear, if there’s a look I do recognize, it’s the look of someone carrying a burden. Remember, I listen to my sisters, year in and year out, as they graciously share with me all the ways they hate me, and why.” She smiled, amused at her own wit. “You want to throw down your burden, throw it down at my feet, or across my shoulders. You want perhaps to weep a little, to say good-bye, and then to leave. And when you leave here you will walk right out of the world.”
“I will do no such thing,” said Elphie.
“You will indeed, even if you don’t know it. You will have nothing left to tie you to the world. But I know my own limits, Auntie Guest, and I know what you’re here for. You told me. You told me in the hall, you said you felt you were responsible for Fiyero’s death—”
“I—”
“Don’t. Just don’t. This is my home, I am a nominal Dowager Princess of Duckshit, but I have a right to hear and I have a right not to hear. Even to make a traveler feel better.”
“I—”
“Don’t.”
“But I don’t want to burden you, Sarima, I want to unburden you with the truth—if you permit me, you are the larger, the lighter; forgiveness blesses the donor as well as the receiver.”
“I’ll overlook that remark about my being the larger,” said Sarima. “But I still have the right to choose. And I think you wish me ill. You wish me ill and you don’t even know it. You want to punish me for something. Maybe for not being a good enough wife to Fiyero. You wish me ill and you fool yourself to think it’s some therapeutic course of tablets.”
“Do you know how he died, at least?” said Elphaba.
“I know it was a violent action, I know his body was never found, I know it was in a little love nest,” said Sarima, for a minute losing her resolve. “I don’t care to know who it was exactly, but I have heard enough about that vile Sir Chuffrey to have my strong opin—”
“Sir Chuffrey!”
“I said no. I said no more. Now I have an offer to make of you, Auntie, if you will have it. You and the boy may move into the southeast tower if you like. There are a couple of big round rooms with high ceilings, and good light, and you’ll be out of that drafty cobbleshed, and warmer. You’ll have your own staircase to come and go into the main hall, and you won’t bother the girls and they won’t trouble you. You can’t stay in that cobbleshed all winter. The boy has been looking pale and blubbery, I think he’s always cold. You’re there on the condition, I’m afraid, that you accept my firmest word on these matters. I don’t care to discuss my husband or the affairs of his death with you.”
Elphaba looked horror-struck, and beaten. “I have no choice but to accept,” she said, “at least for the time being. But I warn you, I intend to befriend you so thoroughly that you will change your mind. And I do think you need to hear things, you need to talk about them, as I do—and I can’t leave into the wilderness until I have your solemn promise of—”
“Enough!” said Sarima. “Call the porter from the gatehouse and have him bring your luggage to the tower. Come, I’ll show you. You haven’t touched your coffee.” She stood. For an awkward moment there was respect and suspicion, in equal measure, simmering on the carpet like the dust in the sunbeams. “Come,” Sarima said, more softly, “at the very least you need to be warm. You must be able to say that much of us country mice here at Kiamo Ko.”
3
As far as Elphaba was concerned, it was a witch’s room, and she reveled in it. Like all good witch’s rooms in children’s stories, it was a room with bowed walls, following the essential form of a tower. It had one broad window that, since it faced east, away from the wind, could be unbarred and opened without blowing everyone and everything out into the snowy valleys. Beyond, the Great Kells were a rank of sentinels, purple-black when the winter sun rose over them, draining into blue-white screens as the sun moved overhead, and going golden and ruddy in the late afternoon. There were sometimes rumbling collapses of ice and scree.
The winter gripped the house. Elphaba learned soon enough to stay put unless she was sure another room had a warmer fire. And except for Sarima, she didn’t care for the other human company the house afforded. Sarima lived in the west wing, with the children: the boys Irji and Manek, the girl Nor. Sarima’s five sisters lived in the east wing—they were called numbers Two through Six, and if they had ever had other names they had withered away from disuse. By right of their unmarriageability, the sisters claimed the best rooms in the place, although Sarima had the Solar. Where Liir curled up to sleep Elphaba did not know, but he reappeared every morning to change the rags at the bottom of the crows’ perch. He brought her cocoa, too.
Lurlinemas drew near, and out came some tired decorations from which the gilt had all but vanished. The children spent a whole day tying baubles and toys to the archways, making the grown-ups bump their heads and curse. Manek and Irji took a saw and without permission went beyond the castle walls to claim some boughs of spruce and sprigs of holly. Nor stayed behind and painted scenes of happy life in the castle on sheets of paper that she and Liir had found in Auntie Witch’s room. Liir said he couldn’t draw, so he wandered off and disappeared, perhaps to stay clear of Manek and Irji. The house fell still until there was a flurry of copper pans thrown about the kitchen. Nor went running to see, and Liir arrived from some hiding cubby to look too.
It was Chistery. The monkey was having a fit, and all the sisters, baking gingerbread, were throwing gobbets of batter at him, trying to knock him off the wheel that hung, noisy with swinging utensils, above the worktable.
“How’d he get in here?” said Nor.
“Get him out, Liir, call him!” said Two. But Liir had no more authority over Chistery than they did. The monkey flew to the top of a wardrobe, then to a huge dried goods canister, and he pulled open a drawer and found a precious store of raisins, which he stuffed in his mouth. Six said, “Go get the ladder from the hall, you two, and bring it here,” but when they had, Chistery was back on the wheel, making it whirl and clatter like a roundabout at a carnival.
Four put a lump of mashed melon in a bowl. Five and Three took off their aprons, ready to rush him when he came down. Chistery was still eyeing the fruit when the door smacked open against the wall and Elphaba came lolloping in. “All this commotion, how can you hear yourselves think?” she cried, and then took in the sight of Chistery, suddenly abject and remorseful, and of the sisters, poised to ensnare him in their floury aprons.
“What the hell is this?” she said.
“No need to yell,” said Two sulkily, quietly, but they put down their aprons.
“I mean, what is this? What is really going on here? You all look like Killyjoy, with blood lust in your faces! You’re white with rage at this poor beast!”
“I think it’s not rage, it’s flour,” said Five, which made them giggle.
“You filthy savages,” said Elphie. “Chistery come here, come down here. Right now. You women deserve to be unmarried, so you don’t bring any little savage creepy children into the world. Don’t you ever lay a hand on this monkey, do
