《The Arabella Grimsbro Chronicles》 INTRODUCTION. In L. Frank Baum¡¯s intro to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, he claimed his goal was to write a fairy tale without the violence and endless moralizing of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm (he also, for the record, called children ¡°youngsters,¡± and stated that his goal was ¡°to pleasure¡± them, but whatever). If that¡¯s true, I¡¯d say he sucked at his job, because that book contains some fucked up shit. I often wonder what my life would have been like if I¡¯d had the good sense to stay the hell away from a place called Voyages Through Literature, or skipped the godforsaken mall altogether, and told Madeline she could deal with her stupid crush on her own. In the end, though, I suppose you could say the decision was mine. I personally selected The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from a list of truly awful-sounding public domain classics, clicked ¡°yes¡± to agree to whatever the terms and conditions were, and stepped into that tacky neon booth of my own free will. But, in my defense, they offered me money. It was clearly entrapment, and you bet your sweet ass that if I can ever prove that the store actually exists¡ªif it isn¡¯t some portal to an alternate dimension or my own brain finally severing all ties to reality¡ªI fully intend to sue.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. My name is Arabella Grimsbro, and this is the worst thing that¡¯s ever happened to me. 1. THE CYCLONE. First off, I¡¯d like to make it clear that I¡¯ve never even been to Kansas. When you find yourself in a situation as batshit crazy as I did, you kind of roll with it, which I guess is why I brought Kansas up to begin with. For me, every time I said ¡°Kansas,¡± or someone repeated it back to me, it just kind of meant ¡°reality in general.¡± Or, specifically, Calabasas, California, where I lived in a perfectly normal apartment with my Mom. My Mom is the coolest, smartest, and honest-to-God most beautiful human being I¡¯ve ever known. She was born in Peru, looks like a straight-up runway model, and will absolutely punch you in the face if you piss her off. She¡¯s usually working some kind of boring office job, but what she really is, deep down in her soul, is an entrepreneur. She just hasn¡¯t quite gotten any of her business ideas up and running yet. I inherited some of her smarts, all of her ADD, and, despite what she¡¯ll tell you, exactly none of her good looks. In terms of hotness (or lack thereof) I take after my Dad, who is your standard-issue generic pan-European white guy mutt. The truth is, I don¡¯t really know that much about him. And before you start speculating that my Dad is a Secret Fairy Prince from a Faraway Magical Land, he¡¯s not. He¡¯s just some schmo. He used to sell cars, and now he sells syndicated television shows to local affiliate stations. Which I guess is a decent living, because to whatever extent broadcast TV still exists, they still need to fill interminable hours with reruns of The Ghost Whisperer or whatever. He lives, like, barely half an hour away in Studio City, but I never see him. Anyway, this book isn¡¯t about them. It¡¯s about lions and scarecrows and that fucking asshole wizard, and it begins, of all places, at the mall. The reason I even went to the stupid mall that day was because Madeline needed moral support. There are exactly three lesbians in our entire high school, and my friend Madeline and her hopeless crush, Amber Maldonado, are two of them. When Amber Maldonado snaps, Madeline comes running. It¡¯s not that their whole deal threatens our friendship or anything like that¡ªI have my crushes, too. It¡¯s just that I acknowledge that Peter Zamora is a sneering, petulant twit who just happens to look amazing in a black peacoat. Madeline, on the other hand, keeps insisting that Amber Maldonado actually has a single redeeming quality. Amber asked Madeline to join her at the mall with her equally horrible group of friends, and Madeline asked me to come along, because the prospect thrilled and terrified her in equal measure. Only she didn¡¯t want me with her with her¡ªas I said, Amber and her crowd are the literal spawn of Satan, and I¡¯m happy to say that to their faces¡ªso we agreed to meet at the vibrating massage chairs by the food court when she texted me in tears that the whole thing had fallen apart in whatever spectacular way it inevitably would. So there I was, limbs splayed across a currently motionless vibrating chair, scrolling through what I didn¡¯t even know were probably the LAST TUMBLR POSTS I WOULD EVER SEE, when I noticed the sign. I¡¯m about 90 percent sure the place used to be a Build-A-Bear Workshop, but it apparently went out of business (possibly because why, in all of recorded history, would anybody want to build a bear). Now it was something called Voyages Through Literature, which looked like the type of wholesome, educational crap that would be boarded up and replaced with a Hot Dog on a Stick inside of three months. Oh my god¡ªjunk food. It¡¯s been so long. I could tear through a hot dog on a stick like a school of piranha skeletonizing a cow right now. You don¡¯t even know. The place didn¡¯t even seem to have any actual books in it, just various screens displaying videos¡­ about books? I¡¯m certain that I would have never set foot inside it, except some beleaguered dad plopped his screaming toddler down on the chair next to me in an attempt to reattach a shoe or something, and my peaceful, non-vibrating solitude was shattered. At least the abandoned video book store looked quiet. Alas, the woman behind the counter pounced on me the moment I entered. She was maybe forty-ish, with 1950s cat-eye glasses, curves bursting out all over the place, and a red dye job in some kind of weirdly complicated up-do. Her smile was wide, but felt pretty mandatory. ¡°Welcome to Voyages Through Literature!¡± she said with more than a hint of desperation. ¡°Where can we transport you to today? Nineteenth-century England? The frozen wilds of the Canadian wilderness? A pirate frigate adventuring on the high seas?¡± ¡°How about the 74th annual Hunger Games,¡± I said noncommittally, tapping on one of the touch screen kiosks. ¡°I could do some fucking damage with a composite bow.¡±Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°Um, I don¡¯t think we have that one,¡± she said. ¡°But if it¡¯s action you¡¯re looking for, perhaps Alexandre Dumas¡¯s timeless classic, The Three Musketeers?¡± Swiping through the selections, it quickly became clear that the shop didn¡¯t carry a single book that had been published within the past eighty years. Robinson Crusoe? Ivanhoe? Whatever the hell a Scarlet Pimpernel was? A better name for the place would have been Voyages Through Public Domain Books That Are So Old Nobody Owns the Copyright Anymore So We Don¡¯t Have to Pay a Licensing Fee. ¡°You know what? I¡¯m good.¡± ¡°Are you sure?¡± the woman said. ¡°It¡¯s a total immersion experience. You¡¯ll swear that you were actually there!¡± Actually where? Some sweaty old playwright¡¯s creepy imagination? ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m supposed to meet my friend¡­¡± ¡°Listen, we¡¯re still in the market research phase,¡± she said. And this is the part where I should have realized that she was way too desperate. ¡°If you¡¯re willing to fill out a brief survey about your voyage, we can offer you $20 for your trouble.¡± I looked at my phone¡ªMadeline hadn¡¯t texted. For all I knew, it could be hours before she did. And you know, twenty bucks is twenty bucks. At the very least, filling out the form would probably be good for a few laughs. What the hell, I figured. What the hell. I continued browsing through their selection¡ªthere was a lot of stuff I¡¯d never heard of, and most of what I had didn¡¯t sound particularly appealing. The thought of being totally immersed in a Charles Dickens novel sounded like actual punishment, and ugh, definitely nothing by Jane Austen. I almost settled on something called A Princess of Mars, because that sounded like a pretty messed-up fairy tale. But then I saw it. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. I had seen the movie a bunch of times¡ªmy Mom and I used to watch it together about once a year, like a special occasion. When I was really little it genuinely scared me, and even as I got older, the over-the-top campiness and weird sincerity of the whole thing still held a secret, special place in my heart. So I figured I could kill some time on the Yellow Brick Road. At the very least, I¡¯d know the songs. I made my selection on the screen, then scrolled down through eight or ten pages of miniscule text and clicked ¡°accept¡± on the terms and conditions (I can¡¯t even imagine what was actually in there). ¡°So, is there a headset or something?¡± I asked the saleslady. ¡°Is this like an Oculus Rift kind of thing?¡± ¡°Just step inside the booth, sweetie,¡± she said. ¡°We¡¯ll take care of everything.¡± Her expression had changed subtly, with eyes slightly wider, smile just a tad more forced. I suppose this should have been another warning sign, but whatever. Old people are weird. The booth itself was built into the back wall of the shop, and plastered with brightly lit exclamations. WONDER! ADVENTURE! I swear to god, one of them said EDUTAINMENT! It looked exactly like the kind of door you¡¯d build if you were trying to lure children inside to harvest their organs (in retrospect, I wish). Inside, it was so dark I couldn¡¯t even tell how big it was. I reached out my hands for the back wall, but found nothing. ¡°Safe travels,¡± the saleslady said softly as she closed the door behind me. And, just like that, I was engulfed in darkness. We didn¡¯t have cyclones in Southern California, but we did have earthquakes, so when the floor suddenly lurched beneath my feet, that¡¯s what I assumed was happening. Oh my god, I thought, this is how I¡¯m going to die. Trapped under a collapsed ceiling in the back room of a mall shop that I¡¯d be embarrassed to be found dead in, before they can even harvest my organs. Then the room was spinning, and I lost my balance. Somewhere, a little yappy dog barked. To this day, I maintain that I did not faint. I hit my fucking head or something. Either way, though, I was out like a light. 2. THE COUNCIL WITH THE MUNCHKINS. I was awakened with a shock, so sudden and severe that if I had not been lying on a soft bed (somehow?) I probably would have banged my head and knocked out a goddamn tooth or something. First off, there was a gross, wet dog nose in my face, whimpering. Holy shit. ¡°Toto?¡± Sure enough, the dog leapt off the bed, hopped up and down on the dirty wooden floorboards, and barked. It was a small black terrier, and looked exactly like the dog from the movie. I started to remember where I was¡ªor, at least, where I was supposed to be¡ªbut having an actual dog in the room with me seemed over the top. I mean, whose dog was it? Did the saleslady take it with her to work every day, just in case somebody chose The Wizard of Oz? What kind of livestock did she have back there for the sorry sons of bitches who picked The Jungle Book? I clawed at my face briefly, but there was no virtual reality headset or anything. Apparently, the dog really was there. The inside of the EDUTAINMENT! booth turned out to be a dingy room done up like a wooden farmhouse with two beds (bow-chicka-wow-wow), a rusty wooden stove, and not much else. At least it was bright now, with what looked like sunlight flooding the room through a small window. I walked slowly over to it, with Toto yipping at my heels the entire way. The window showed a surprisingly realistic, overwhelmingly colorful nature scene, complete with green hills, lush trees swaying in the breeze, a babbling brook¡ªthe whole deal. So, a video screen to watch the story through, built into a generic, dingy room that could be in just about any book written a million years ago. The setup was actually somewhat charming in its way, I had to admit, but it was hardly ¡°total immersion.¡± That was the second criticism I¡¯d put down on my $20 market research form, I decided, right after KNOCKING ME OUT AND ALMOST KILLING ME. I¡¯m not even sure what I thought when I opened the door expecting the interior of the mall, only to discover more majestic wildlife. Before I could even marvel at the scope of it all¡ªseriously, it was a 360 degree, panoramic view, I didn¡¯t even know they made video screens that big¡ªI noticed a group of weird little people approaching. And by little people, I mean like human beings with dwarfism. They were roughly as tall as your average ten-year-old, three men dressed all in blue from their pointy hats to their polished boots, and a little old lady in a sparkly, pleated dress. The men stopped short and looked a bit scared of me, but the woman marched right up close. ¡°You are welcome, most noble Sorceress, to the land of the Munchkins,¡± she said in a sickly-sweet old lady voice. ¡°We are so grateful to you for having killed the Wicked Witch of the East, and for setting our people free from bondage.¡± ¡°Oh, shit,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯re actually doing this. Are you people actors? Do they hire actors for this?¡± It didn¡¯t make any sense. A dog was one thing, but how many public domain books could possibly have little people in them, that they would have four little people actors just hanging around on call? Or did they specifically knock me out so they could call the casting agency and set all this up? Jesus, how long had I been unconscious? The old woman basically ignored me and continued her speech. ¡°Or your house did, anyway,¡± she said, ¡°and that is the same thing.¡± She pointed to the corner of the house behind me. ¡°See! There are her two feet, still sticking out from under a block of wood.¡± I turned to look, and actually screamed. Just as she had said, two feet were sticking out from beneath the house. The shoes on them were silver rather than sparkly red like the ones I remembered from the movie. But what really shocked me was all the blood. Blood was everywhere. And, like, sinews and stuff. Pretty much what you¡¯d expect to see, I guess, if an actual person had been crushed to death by a falling domicile. ¡°What kind of fucked up Wizard of Oz snuff flick is this? Do you let children come in here?¡± ¡°She was the Wicked Witch of the East,¡± the old woman said calmly. ¡°She has held all the Munchkins in bondage for many years, making them slave for her night and day. Now they are all set free, and are grateful to you for the favor.¡± ¡°Right,¡± I said, regaining a bit of my composure. ¡°Of course. You¡¯re a Munchkin.¡± ¡°No, but I am their friend, although I live in the land of the North,¡± she said. ¡°When they saw the Witch of the East was dead, the Munchkins sent a swift messenger to me, and I came at once. I am the Witch of the North.¡± Hmm. Maybe the casting agency was short on 1930s glamor-types, but had plenty of extra little folks. At least it subverted the whole good-witches-are-beautiful, evil-witches-are-hideous-crones trope. This woman was not cute. ¡°Look, I get that you went to a lot of trouble for this,¡± I said. ¡°And hopefully you¡¯ll still get paid. But seriously, get that saleslady back in here. I¡¯m done.¡± ¡°Who is the saleslady?¡± inquired the old woman. ¡°Enough! The saleslady! At the crappy video book store, in the mall!¡± I made a complete circuit, walking all the way around the crashed farmhouse, and didn¡¯t see an exit door anywhere. How big was this place? Could it all be behind the storefront? Holy shit, had they transported me to a second location? The Witch of the North seemed to think for a time, with her head bowed and her eyes on the ground. Then she looked up and said, ¡°I do not know where The Mall is, for I have never heard that country mentioned before. But tell me, is it a civilized country?¡± ¡°Jesus Christ.¡± ¡°In the civilized countries, I believe there are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians,¡± she continued. ¡°But, you see, the Land of Oz has never been civilized, for we are cut off from all the rest of the world. Therefore we still have witches and wizards amongst us.¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°You¡¯re going to make me go see the motherfucking wizard, aren¡¯t you.¡± ¡°You know of Oz, the Great Wizard!¡± the Witch said. Then she sank her voice to a whisper, like she was scared even to mention him in conversation. ¡°He is more powerful than all the rest of us together! He lives in the City of Emeralds.¡± I was about to register another complaint, but suddenly one of the Munchkins gave a loud shout. The three of them had been standing there so quietly the whole time that I had assumed they were being paid as extras and weren¡¯t allowed to talk. ¡°What is it?¡± the old lady asked. Then she looked at the house and started laughing. The feet of the dead witch had disappeared entirely (along with, thankfully, all the blood and gore). Nothing was left but the silver shoes. ¡°She was so old,¡± explained the Witch of the North, ¡°that she dried up quickly in the sun. That is the end of her. But the silver shoes are yours, and you shall have them to wear.¡± She reached down and picked up the shoes, and after shaking some dust out of them (a nice touch), handed them to me. ¡°The Witch of the East was proud of those silver shoes,¡± said one of the blue guys. It turned out he had a speaking part after all. Maybe SAG rules were different for back room mall theater productions. ¡°And there is some charm connected with them, but what it is we never knew.¡± The slippers! Of course! Now I knew how to put an end to this charade. I kicked off my shoes and put them on. They fit surprisingly well, but then again, considering how elaborate this whole thing was, it wouldn¡¯t have been that much extra trouble to measure my sneakers while I was unconscious. As soon as they were on, I stood up straight and clicked my heels together three times. When I opened my mouth to speak, however, no sound would come out. What the fuck? I knew the words well enough. Everybody knew the words. I tried again, and my lips moved just as expected, but once again, silence. I stopped for a moment to think. All of this was clearly from the Wizard of Oz book, rather than the movie. There was no bustling Munchkin township, or creepy candy union representatives, or elaborate dance number. You¡¯d think the movie would be the one to skimp on all this stuff, since a novel didn¡¯t have to pay actors and costume departments and all that, but whatever. The thing was, the book was at least a century old, but the movie hadn¡¯t come out until 1939. The movie stuff wasn¡¯t in the public domain yet. Was it possible that I wasn¡¯t allowed to mention anything that was still under copyright by MGM? How could they physically prevent me from doing so? This was my first hint that I had gotten myself involved with something much, much worse than a goofy-ass hybrid of virtual reality and community theater. It made the notion of a quick exit all that much more appealing. Perhaps I could paraphrase? ¡°There¡¯s no¡­ location¡­ that approximates¡­ the place where you live?¡± I clicked my heels again. Nothing. Of course, if the classic line wasn¡¯t from the original text, there must be some other password altogether. Hmm. What would the moral of a hundred-year-old children¡¯s book be? ¡°There¡¯s no place like eugenics and racism?¡± Historical figures from the previous century were always into eugenics and racism. If I knew as much about L. Frank Baum then as I do now, I might have said, ¡°There¡¯s no place like LITERALLY ADVOCATING GENOCIDE¡± (it¡¯s a real thing, look it up!). Regardless, however, I did not manage to end the simulation, or whatever the hell was going on there. The Munchkins and the old lady just looked at me like I was crazy. ¡°Fine,¡± I said miserably. ¡°How do I get home?¡± The Munchkins and the Witch first looked at one another, and then at me, and then shook their heads. ¡°At the east, not far from here,¡± said one of the Munchkins who hadn¡¯t spoken yet, ¡°there is a great desert, and none could live to cross it.¡± ¡°It is the same at the south,¡± said the other one. At least they were all getting a line in, which hopefully meant they would be making more than TWENTY FUCKING DOLLARS for suffering through this indignity. ¡°I have been there and seen it. The south is the country of the Quadlings.¡± ¡°Sure. Quadlings,¡± I said. ¡°I am told,¡± the original Munchkin who had yelled about the Witch said, ¡°that it is the same at the west. And that country, where the Winkies live, is ruled by the Wicked Witch of the West, who would make you her slave if you passed her way.¡± ¡°The North is my home,¡± said the old lady, ¡°and at its edge is the same great desert that surrounds this Land of Oz. I¡¯m afraid, my dear, you will have to live with us.¡± ¡°Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,¡± I moaned. This wasn¡¯t like the movie at all. ¡°Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.¡± All this cursing seemed to concern the Munchkin guys, who all pulled out their handkerchiefs and kind of just stood there fretting. As for the little old lady, she took off her pointy hat, balanced the end of it on the tip of her nose, and counted to three. The hat disappeared, and was replaced with a small chalkboard in the blink of an eye. The whole thing was goofy as hell, but the special effects were amazing. She took the slate off her nose and read it aloud. ¡°Let Dorothy go to the City of Emeralds,¡± she said. ¡°Is your name Dorothy, my dear?¡± I sighed. ¡°Absolutely.¡± ¡°Then you must go to the City of Emeralds. Perhaps Oz will help you.¡± ¡°Yes! Oz! The wizard! Was I not making myself clear?¡± She ignored my tone. ¡°It is exactly in the center of the country, and is ruled by Oz, the Great Wizard I told you of.¡± ¡°Ugh. Okay.¡± ¡°You must walk there. It is a long journey, through a country that is sometimes pleasant and sometimes dark and terrible. However, I will use all the magic arts I know of to keep you from harm.¡± ¡°You¡¯re a hundred percent sure that you can¡¯t just, like, teleport me there?¡± ¡°No, I cannot do that,¡± she replied, ¡°but I will give you my kiss, and no one will dare injure a person who has been kissed by the Witch of the North.¡± ¡°Whoa, whoa, whoa.¡± It wasn¡¯t that I was freaked out just by the idea of kissing a woman. Madeline and I had actually tried making out once when we were thirteen, just to see if either of us was gay (it didn¡¯t do much of anything for me, for the record, but Madeline liked it KIND OF A LOT). Remember, though, this wasn¡¯t the overly made-up but vaguely attractive 1930s glamor model Good Witch of the North. This was a wrinkled, gray-haired old lady witch, and I was a fifteen-year-old girl. ¡°What exactly do you mean by ¡®give me your kiss¡¯?¡± She came close and kissed me gently on the forehead, which, I would later discover, left a round, shining mark. ¡°The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow brick,¡± said the Witch, ¡°so you cannot miss it. When you get to Oz, do not be afraid of him, but tell your story and ask him to help you. Goodbye, my dear.¡± The three Munchkins bowed low to her and wished her a pleasant journey, and then just left, walking away through the trees. The Witch gave me a nod, whirled around on her left heel three times, and straight-up disappeared into thin air. Toto started barking like crazy. To be honest, it freaked me out a bit, too. That didn¡¯t seem like an effect you could manage with a community theater actor in the back of a mall store. What the fuck had just happened? 3. HOW ARABELLA SAVED THE SCARECROW. Holograms, I decided. It was all done with holograms. Then again, I had definitely felt the old woman¡¯s wrinkly lips on my forehead when she¡¯d kissed me. Could they be robots? Was it like that one HBO show, with the cowboys? The one I don¡¯t watch? Because it looks stupid? I looked down at the dog. ¡°What do you think, Toto? Are you a robot?¡± Toto barked. Of course, the robot theory couldn¡¯t explain the old woman¡¯s disappearing act, or that business with her hat turning into a chalkboard. Which left two possibilities, neither of them particularly appealing: some kind of drug-induced hallucination, or, I don¡¯t know, the fucking Matrix. My belly let out a growl. If the magical land of Oz was all in my head, then my stomach was definitely in on the con. Why didn¡¯t I get that damned corn dog? I went back to the shack and rummaged through the cabinets to discover some bread and butter, which beat starving to death, at least. I ate some of it and fed some to the dog. Some nearby trees also had borne a variety of juicy and vaguely delicious-looking fruits, but I wasn¡¯t about to take that risk. This place was already proving very different from the movie I¡¯d watched over and over in my youth, and at this point I was about ninety percent sure that random dangling fruit would turn out to be some kind of trap. I stuffed the rest of the bread into a basket along with my old sneakers¡ªif I had to walk all the way to the City of Emeralds, I wasn¡¯t about to do it without magical witch repellent, or whatever it was the shoes did in this story. They were surprisingly comfortable to walk in, too, although they did make an annoying sort of tinkling noise the moment they hit yellow brick. But it¡¯s not like that would get annoying at all, since it was only like a SEVEN-HUNDRED-MILLION-HOUR WALK BEFORE I EVEN GOT OUT OF MUNCHKINLAND. They don¡¯t tell you that in the movie. They just cut straight to the scene with the scarecrow. But I walked and walked and walked, and there were vast expanses of farmland, picturesque as balls, but no scarecrows. Every once in a while I¡¯d pass a domed blue house, and the people inside would come out to stare. I¡¯d be all like, ¡°DO YOU HAVE LIKE A HORSE AND BUGGY OR SOMETHING, I NEED A GODDAMN RIDE,¡± but they¡¯d just wave and bow a lot. Munchkins are super into bowing. Seriously, though, that road went forever. Somewhere past the eight-hour mark my phone went dead from repeatedly checking the time, and I had a disturbing thought. I hadn¡¯t started walking in the middle of a spirally Munchkin town center or anything. Had I been going the wrong direction down the Yellow Brick Road this entire time? The movie had made it seem like the whole trip through Oz was like a one-day thing, but apparently that was not the case. Now it was starting to get dark, and I hadn¡¯t even stumbled across my first song-and-dance number. As if on cue, fiddle music erupted from somewhere up the road. I hoped this meant I would finally find that goddamn scarecrow, but it turned out that a particularly wealthy Munchkin was throwing a party to celebrate my unintentional witch murder. His name was Boq, and he owned what was by far the largest tiny blue house I had seen so far. People were dancing and laughing, and at least five Munchkins were playing fiddles. He invited me to join the feast and spend the night. A big table on the lawn was loaded with pastries and cakes and fruit and nuts and all kinds of amazing-looking food. All I had eaten all day was the bread, and the dog had actually eaten most of it. I was RAVENOUS. I looked at the food, though, and the overeager Munchkins beckoning me to partake of it. Wasn¡¯t there some deal with food in fairy tales? Like, if you eat the food you¡¯re stuck there forever, or get turned into a goat or something? The Wizard of Oz movie obviously differed quite a bit from the book¡ªfor all I knew, that whole don¡¯t-eat-magic-fairy-food thing came from the literature I was currently voyaging through. Also, I had been walking all day, and the theory that this whole thing was some low-rent theater production had been shot to hell within the first couple of miles. I was either being subjected to an elaborate simulation generated by some combination of Star Trek technology and hallucinogens, or I had actually been transported to a magical land. Either way, there must be secret rules that governed all of this, and I wasn¡¯t about to let some fairy lure me into a deadly trap just because I was¡ª ¡°Oh my God, is that a meat pie?¡± Fuck it. In retrospect, I¡¯m pretty sure those things had some kind of enchantment on them, too, because I devoured like eight of them and I was still like, ¡°WHERE DO YOU KEEP THE REST OF THE MEAT PIES?¡± My Munchkin host just laughed. ¡°You must be a great sorceress,¡± he said. ¡°What? Why?¡± ¡°Because you wear silver shoes and have killed the Wicked Witch,¡± he said. ¡°Besides, you have white in your frock, and only witches and sorceresses wear white.¡± I was wearing a black hoodie and jeans. ¡°What are you even talking about?¡± ¡°Your attire,¡± Boq insisted. ¡°It is kind of you to wear that. Blue is the color of the Munchkins, and white is the witch color. So we know you are a friendly witch.¡± I flipped over the empty silver pie tray and checked myself out in its gleaming surface. Sure enough, staring back at me was a cherubic-looking ten-year-old girl in a blue-and-white checkered dress. Judy Garland was actually around my age when she got the part in The Wizard of Oz, but evidently the real Dorothy was quite a bit younger. Also, her face was slathered in beef gravy.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Munchkin dancing and fiddle music actually get old pretty quick, so I was ready to retire as soon as the meat-sleepies kicked in. Boq showed me to a cozy room with a bed that was only about a foot too short for me. The mattress was soft, though, and I was exhausted. I slept soundly until morning, with Toto curled up on a little blue rug beside me. At breakfast I watched a tiny Munchkin baby play with Toto¡ªhe was quite the curiosity, since I guess they don¡¯t have dogs in Oz. I was pretty sure that kid was going to get herself bitten, too, because she kept yanking the dog¡¯s tail, but Toto seemed to have far more patience with this whole thing than I did. ¡°So, like, how far is the Emerald City?¡± I asked. ¡°I do not know,¡± Boq answered gravely, ¡°for I have never been there. It is better for people to keep away from Oz, unless they have business with him. But it is a long way, and it will take you many days. The country here is rich and pleasant, but you must pass through rough and dangerous places before you reach the end of your journey.¡± Awesome. At least he was able to confirm that I was headed in the right direction. Also, I think he was a little bit afraid of me, because he had apparently made his cooks stay up late baking meat pies. They filled my basket and sent me on my way. Several miles later, I was resigning myself to another exhausting day of majestic countryside and slipper blisters, when I finally saw it. In a cornfield not far off the road, stuck up on a pole, was a scarecrow. This wasn¡¯t some pleasant-looking actor in a suit, though, with oddly charming burlap neck-fold makeup. This was, like, a real scarecrow, with a sack for a head that had been hastily painted with kind of a half-ass grimace to scare off birds. It was wearing worn-out blue Munchkin clothes complete with pointy hat, and stuffed with straw that left its entire body lumpy and misshapen. I stared into its dead eyes. Was it possible that this was just a normal, un-enchanted scarecrow? ¡°Uh, do you¡­ speak?¡± ¡°Certainly,¡± answered the Scarecrow, in a surprisingly husky voice. ¡°How do you do?¡± Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. The overall effect was terrifying. ¡°Fine,¡± I murmured. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH. ¡°Uh, how do you do?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not feeling well,¡± said the Scarecrow, his painted mouth curling into a wide smile. ¡°For it is very tedious being perched up here night and day to scare away crows.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± was all I managed to mutter over the sound of my own internal screaming. ¡°Sucks.¡± ¡°Alas,¡± he said, ¡°this pole is stuck up my back. If you will please take away the pole, I shall be greatly obliged to you.¡± Okay Grimsbro, I thought, suck it up. Creepy or not, the Scarecrow was Dorothy¡¯s dearest friend in Oz, and obviously a vital plot point in this whole story. I reached up with both arms and lifted him off the pole¡ªhe actually turned out to be quite light. He also wiggled while I set him down. Yeeeeeeeewwww. ¡°Thank you very much,¡± the Scarecrow said. ¡°I feel like a new man!¡± As off-putting as it was to watch his painted-on scarecrow face speaking and contorting into various expressions, seeing him gyrate and move and bow and walk around on his own was somehow even worse. ¡°Who are you?¡± asked the Scarecrow, stretching, scratching himself and yawning. ¡°And where are you going?¡± ¡°Go ahead and call me Dorothy, I guess? I¡¯m going to the Emerald City to ask the wizard to send me back to¡­ oh, let¡¯s just say Kansas.¡± I was hoping he would at least be able to tell me how much farther Oz was, but the Scarecrow had never even heard of it. The city or the wizard. ¡°I don¡¯t know anything,¡± he said sadly. ¡°You see, I am stuffed, so I have no brains at all.¡± ¡°Ugh. So you¡¯re basically useless to me.¡± His uncanny, painted eyes lit up. ¡°Do you think,¡± he asked, ¡°if I go to the Emerald City with you, that Oz would give me some brains?¡± ¡°Definitely,¡± I said. ¡°Or¡­ maybe? At the very least a half-assed diploma or something that sort of represents brains. Which is better than nothing.¡± ¡°That is true,¡± said the Scarecrow. ¡°You see,¡± he continued confidentially, ¡°I don¡¯t mind my legs and arms and body being stuffed, because I cannot get hurt. If anyone treads on my toes or sticks a pin into me, it doesn¡¯t matter, for I can¡¯t feel it. But I do not want people to call me a fool, and if my head stays stuffed with straw instead of with brains, as yours is, how am I ever to know anything?¡± I was fairly certain that getting him to join me was imperative to somehow finishing this hallucination or video game or whatever the hell it was. Also, something about the way this horrifying nightmare creature truly yearned for more was genuinely touching. ¡°If you come with, me I¡¯ll ask Oz to do everything he can for you,¡± I said. ¡°Thank you,¡± he answered gratefully. I managed to dodge his hug, but had to help him over the fence on the way back to the road. Toto, for the record, was even more freaked out by this new addition to our party than I was. He kept growling, and stopping to launch into full-on barking fits. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about the dog,¡± I said. ¡°He hasn¡¯t actually bitten anything yet.¡± ¡°Oh, I¡¯m not afraid,¡± replied the Scarecrow. ¡°He can¡¯t hurt the straw. Do let me carry that basket for you. I shall not mind it, for I can¡¯t get tired.¡± Hmm. At least I wouldn¡¯t have to carry my own pies. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you a secret,¡± he continued as he walked along. ¡°There is only one thing in the world I am afraid of.¡± I stopped in my tracks. ¡°Oh. We¡¯re about due for a Wicked Witch sighting, aren¡¯t we?¡± ¡°No,¡± said the Scarecrow. ¡°The only thing I¡¯m afraid of is a lighted match.¡± He just stood there, staring at me. Okay, that wasn¡¯t ominous at all. . 4. THE ROAD THROUGH THE FOREST. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° 5. THE RESCUE OF THE TIN WOODSMAN. ¡° ¡° Jesus Christ. ¡°Okay, starts with an F. FUH.¡± ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡°The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° 6. THE COWARDLY LION. ¡° ¡° ¡°If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° 7. THE JOURNEY TO THE GREAT OZ. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° 8. THE DEADLY POPPY FIELD. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° Stolen story; please report. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° 9. THE QUEEN OF THE FIELD MICE. I¡¯m not sure how long I was unconscious, but when I woke up I was laying on a grassy hill. I opened my eyes, and the sea of red flowers seemed to have been replaced with stubby brown ones. Wait. Those weren¡¯t flowers. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes, only to discover that I was entirely surrounded by mice. Small mice, big mice, mice in every shade of brown, as well as black and gray and white. Literally thousands of them, and each and every one was staring up at me patiently with a little piece of string in its mouth. What the fuck did I miss while I was asleep? From somewhere behind me, the Scarecrow spoke. ¡°Permit me to introduce to you Her Majesty, the Queen.¡± Was I supposed to be able to tell which one of these rodents was royalty? ¡°Uh, it¡¯s lovely to meet you¡­ Your Majesty?¡± I muttered, just kind of to the assembled mouse crowd in general. One of them made a little curtsey. Upon further inspection, I decided that she did look reasonably dignified. ¡°So, does somebody want to explain to me what¡¯s going on here?¡± I stood up carefully to avoid crushing the sea of rodents, and turned around to find the Scarecrow and Tin Woodsman standing next to the decapitated carcass of a big, yellow cat. ¡°Jesus!¡± That last part came as a bit of a surprise. ¡°What the actual fuck?¡± ¡°I rescued Her Majesty from this ferocious wildcat,¡± the Woodsman said. Now I saw that his axe was thoroughly coated with cat blood. ¡°I have no heart, you know, so I am careful to help all those who may need a friend, even if it happens to be only a mouse.¡± ¡°What about the cat? The cat didn¡¯t need a friend?¡± The whole thing seemed awfully arbitrary. I mean, the Cowardly Lion was off in the woods eating things that were probably at least as sympathetic as these mice were, and certainly much larger. I had been trying to convince myself that maybe deer and some of the other animals in Oz weren¡¯t sentient, and that the Lion was conscientious about which ones he made into dinner. But now I wasn¡¯t so sure. ¡°The beast had two rows of ugly teeth, and its red eyes glowed like balls of fire,¡± the Scarecrow said. ¡°Surely, it was a villain.¡± Okay. I was just going to have to roll with this one. ¡°So now the Mouse Queen is our friend, and we¡¯re having a big mouse party. And the little pieces of string? What¡¯s the deal with those?¡±If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°The Queen and her subjects have agreed to help us rescue the Cowardly Lion from the poppy field,¡± the Woodsman said. ¡°He is too heavy for the Scarecrow and I to move alone, so at first I thought we¡¯d have to abandon him forever¡­¡± ¡°Of course you did.¡± ¡°¡­but then the Scarecrow thought to build a truck from the trees by the riverside, and pull the Lion to safety by the combined strength of a thousand tiny mice.¡± He gestured to the river, and next to it there was indeed a sturdy-looking cart, with wheels made from cross sections of a thick tree trunk. I remembered that it took the Woodsman all night to build a raft. How long had I been asleep? ¡°So, wait,¡± I said. ¡°You had to decapitate a forty-pound housecat to rescue these guys. But they¡¯re cool with carting around a full-sized lion?¡± ¡°I was concerned about this myself,¡± the Mouse Queen said. Oh, good. It talked. ¡°But the funny tin man assured me that he was a coward, and that he would never hurt anyone who is your friend.¡± He literally tried to maul us to death yesterday. I held my tongue. It seemed obvious to me that if the opium poppies knocked me out cold, they would certainly affect tiny rodents much more severely, and we¡¯d quickly wind up with a sleeping lion AND like five thousand sleeping field mice. But my head was groggy, my back was sore, and I had an awful crick in my neck from sleeping on a goddamned hill. ¡°You know what? I¡¯m just going to let this thing play out however it¡¯s going to play out.¡± The Scarecrow and Woodsman started fastening mice to the cart, using all the various strands of string that each mouse had between its teeth (I thought about asking where they¡¯d gotten the string, but ultimately, who cared?). To my great surprise, it worked quite well. With the entire lot of them they were able to pull the cart easily, even with the Scarecrow and Woodsman riding on top of it (which, to be honest, I thought was kind of a dick move). Fortunately, the Lion had almost made it to the edge of the poppies before passing out¡ªI could see him from my spot on the hill. The mouse cart reached him quickly, and with a lot of grunting and groaning, the Woodsman and Scarecrow somehow managed to lift his huge, limp body up on top of it. At first, he proved too heavy for the mice to pull. But the Scarecrow and Woodsman helped push from behind, and they successfully hauled him out of the flowerbed and into fresh air before any of the mice succumbed to the opium haze. It took an absurd amount of time to unfasten each little mouse from its tiny string harness, and to be honest the things kind of gave me the creeps, so I sat down with my back against the sleeping Lion and ate nuts while the others toiled away. It¡¯s not like we were going anywhere until the big guy woke up, anyway. Each mouse scampered away once it was free, and the Mouse Queen was the last one to leave. ¡°If ever you need us again,¡± she said, ¡°come out into the field and call, and we shall hear you and come to your assistance. Goodbye!¡± The Queen ran off, and I had to hold Toto tightly, because he started to chase her, and if I had learned one thing today it was that the Tin Woodsman would chop your fucking head off if you tried that shit. I hadn¡¯t quite decided if this bloodthirsty streak had made him less attractive to me, or more. The Scarecrow went on a fruit run, and the rest of us chilled out by the Lion, waiting for his poppy trance to wear off. 10. THE GUARDIAN OF THE GATE. ¡° ¡° Ugh. ¡°Well, I¡¯m getting pretty tired of nuts and fruit,¡± I said. Also, poor Toto refused to even touch the stuff, so as far as I knew he hadn¡¯t eaten anything since the meat pies, unless he had managed to nab himself a talking field mouse or something. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° really ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° 11. THE WONDERFUL CITY OF OZ. the . ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° 12. THE SEARCH FOR THE WICKED WITCH. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° 13. THE RESCUE. The Lion was thrilled to hear the witch had been melted, and didn¡¯t understand the part about the KGB, so once I flagged down a befuddled Winkie to fetch his key, he was pleased as punch. ¡°If only our friends, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, were with us,¡± he said, ¡°I should be quite happy.¡± Meanwhile, the Winkies were just about losing their shit. I hadn¡¯t heard a single musical number the entire time I¡¯d been in Oz, but I could swear they were just on the verge of breaking out into a chorus of ¡°Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead.¡± Several dozen of them had gathered in the courtyard. ¡°From this day forward,¡± one of them decreed, ¡°We shall keep this date as a holiday to honor the one who freed us from bondage. The Feast of Dorothy!¡± ¡°The Feast of Dorothy!¡± the others cheered. ¡°How about the Feast of Arabella?¡± I said. ¡°I just like the sound of it better. And before you start with the merrymaking, do you think you could help us find our friends?¡± The Winkies were more than delighted to mount a search party. I explained that one was a bundle of clothes tied to the top of a tree near where the flying monkeys had captured us, and the other was made of tin, and possibly laying in the bottom of a ravine. They sent their brightest and fastest to comb the countryside, but it was slow going. Fortunately, the Witch¡¯s castle was even more comfortable than our rooms in the Emerald City had been. Late on our third day, I was in the kitchen trying to explain to the cooks what a proper meat pie should look like (the closest they had come so far was sort of a pile of beef on top of a flaky pastry crust, which actually tasted pretty good, but would hardly travel well). There was a sudden commotion out in the hallway. ¡°We¡¯ve found the Tin Man!¡± someone shouted. I rushed out to greet them, and saw the Cowardly Lion bounding in from across the castle. Four Winkies tenderly carried the Woodsman in their arms, but he didn¡¯t look good. His body was battered and bent, and his eyes were open, staring, lifeless. A fifth Winkie carried his axe on her shoulder, but the blade was rusted and the handle broken off short. I struggled to keep my composure. ¡°In Munchkinland,¡± I stuttered. ¡°A tinsmith. A really good tinsmith¡­¡± ¡°Oh, we Winkies are famous for our smithery!¡± the woman with the axe said. ¡°I¡¯m sure we can straighten out those dents, and bend him back into shape again, and weld him together where he is broken! Give us time, and we shall mend him so he will be as good as ever.¡± They set up shop in a big, yellow room in the castle, hammering and twisting and bending and soldering and polishing and pounding the hell out of the Tin Woodsman. It was not quick work, however. Three more days passed, and four more nights, until a Winkie messenger arrived with news of the Scarecrow. ¡°We¡¯ve found the tree at last!¡± he said. ¡°Alas, it is a very tall tree, and the trunk is so smooth that none of us can climb it.¡± ¡°Then I suppose I¡¯ll have to chop that futhermucker down,¡± a familiar voice said from behind me. The Tin Woodsman swept me up in a huge embrace, and he was crying, and I was crying, and the Lion appeared from somewhere and was also crying, and trying so hard to wipe the tears off the Woodsman¡¯s face with his tail that it became sopping wet, and he had to go out and dry it in the courtyard. The Winkie Tinsmiths had done excellent work. Sure, there was a bit of rough soldering, and some sections of him looked a little patched, but if anything, it made him look rugged. His joints worked just as well as ever, and, more importantly, he was his same old tragic, emo self. He went on for several minutes about how he had been certain that he¡¯d been abandoned forever, and the very specific details of his imagined destiny, broken to pieces on the jagged rocks. ¡°But listen to me,¡± he said at last, ¡°wasting time when there is precious little time to waste! We must hurry to save our friend the Scarecrow, lest he should suffer the fate I have very happily avoided!¡±Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Unfortunately, the trip was much longer by foot than by flying monkey, and it would take several days just to reach the Scarecrow¡¯s tree. ¡°I shall make the journey alone,¡± the Woodsman said. ¡°For I can travel night and day without tiring, and cut the time in half.¡± ¡°We shall post footmen along your path, and keep them well-rested, so you shall always have a fresh guide to lead your way,¡± the Winkie messenger said. ¡°The land around this castle has fallen to ruin, and in the bleak countryside it is treacherously easy to lose one¡¯s way.¡± The Winkies brought the Woodsman his axe¡ªwhile the tinsmiths had been repairing him, other craftsmen had been polishing it, and fitting it with a handle made of solid gold. It was kind of nuts. Then he made his farewells, and there was nothing for the Lion and I to do but settle in and continue freeloading. It was a terrible imposition. After three full days, the Woodsman returned with the Scarecrow¡¯s clothes (including, thankfully, his emptied-out face sack, which was somehow looked even creepier than when it was properly stuffed). Now all we could hope was that whatever enchantment had brought him to life was on the cloth, and not in the stuffing, which was long gone by the time the Woodsman had reached him. The Scarecrow¡¯s repairs were much quicker than the Tin Woodsman¡¯s had been¡ªwe crammed him full of straw from the Lion¡¯s bedding, and he bounded to life, good as ever. There were more hugs, more tears, and more wiping and soaking and drying of tails. The Winkies seemed every bit as delighted as the four of us were. ¡°Now may we begin the Feast of Arabella?¡± one of them asked. ¡°Yes, now you may begin the Feast of Arabella.¡± The Feast of Arabella, I have to say, was raging. There was music, and dancing, and drink, and proper meat pies that put the original Munchkin delicacies to shame. I have no idea how long the revelry lasted, but at some point I collapsed, only to awaken the following morning and discover that the festivities were still going strong. The Scarecrow and Woodsman, as tireless as ever, had partied straight through the night. They took a break to join the Lion and me at our breakfast, and the Woodsman sighed. ¡°I don¡¯t know about the rest of you, but I think I¡¯d be content to stay in this castle forever.¡± It was a really nice castle. I considered the prospect. There certainly wasn¡¯t anything back in Calabasas that compared to this life of luxury, being waited on by grateful Winkies hand and foot. I thought about Madeline, though, and my Mom. The thing was, none of this quite felt real. And, although I loved my new friends as much as I loved the characters in a really good book, I couldn¡¯t avoid the feeling that they weren¡¯t real either. Not really. The thought came with a pang of loneliness. ¡°I think we have to go back to the Emerald City,¡± I said. ¡°And make that Wizard pay up.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± the Woodsman said. ¡°At last I shall get my heart!¡± ¡°And I shall get my brains!¡± added the Scarecrow joyfully. ¡°And I shall get my courage!¡± the Lion agreed. And I shall get the fuck out of here, I thought. As much as I was going to miss the sporadic nice parts, it was time. ¡°We¡¯ll head out tomorrow morning.¡± We informed the Winkies of our plan to leave, and they seemed genuinely heartbroken. The following day, they presented each of us with a gift. They gave Toto a golden collar, and me a bracelet studded with diamonds. They gave the Scarecrow a gold-headed walking stick, so he wouldn¡¯t fall over so much, which was pretty thoughtful. And they gave the Tin Woodsman a silver oil can, inlaid with gold and set with all different kinds of precious jewels. (They seemed super into the Tin Woodsman.) They gave the Cowardly Lion a gold collar that looked just like Toto¡¯s but bigger, and by the look on his face I was afraid for a moment that he was going to bite one of them. On the way out I swung by the kitchen to load up on snacks for the trip, and found the Witch¡¯s weird golden hat in one of the cupboards. I¡¯m not above a little casual looting, so I stuffed it into my basket on a whim. And with that, we were off. 14. THE WINGED MONKEYS. The neighborhood surrounding the Witch¡¯s castle was bleak as shit. The sun rises in the east, though, so we kept it in front of us (and directly in our eyes, hooray), and plodded forward. Until about noon, when the sun had risen to its peak, and we had no idea where the hell we were going. We marched on as best we could¡ªthe Tin Woodsman had made this trip like two days before, but he was no help with directions at all¡ªonly to discover when the sun began sinking again that we had been traveling mostly south, and slightly back west, for at least an hour and a half. Ugh. We corrected course, but I wasn¡¯t sure if we should try to point a tiny bit northward to make up for lost time. The whole thing was a giant clusterfuck. The next day was cloudy, and as much as we tried, we couldn¡¯t pinpoint the sun anywhere. ¡°Fuck it,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯ll just walk, and if we don¡¯t find the Emerald City, at least we¡¯ll eventually run into something.¡± But the day passed away, and we didn¡¯t run into shit. ¡°We have surely lost our way,¡± the Scarecrow said mournfully. ¡°And unless we find it again in time to reach the Emerald City, I shall never get my brains.¡± ¡°Nor I my heart¡­¡± the Woodsman started. ¡°Jesus, can we not list all the things we¡¯re asking the Wizard for? Just this once?¡± There was a brief pause. ¡°I haven¡¯t the courage to keep tramping forever,¡± the Cowardly Lion whispered, ¡°without getting anywhere at all.¡± I plopped down onto the dirt and groaned. Toto sat beside me, and when a butterfly fluttered past his little head, he didn¡¯t have the energy to frolic around and chase it, even though that was pretty much his whole deal. Even though the day was overcast, it was somehow still blisteringly hot, so I tried in vain to fan myself with the Witch¡¯s gaudy-ass hat. ¡°If anybody has any ideas,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m all ears.¡± ¡°Perhaps we could call upon the mice,¡± the Woodsman said. ¡°What mice?¡± ¡°The field mice, who helped us rescue the Lion from the poppy field. Their Queen said we could call upon them any time, and they would be happy to aid us.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± I said. ¡°Sure. How do we call the field mice?¡± ¡°With this whistle the queen gave me.¡± He pulled out a little whistle on a chain, and blew it, making an almost inaudible sound. ¡°When did she give you a whistle?¡± I decided that it didn¡¯t matter. Within minutes, we heard the pattering of tiny feet, and mice came running up from every direction. Apparently one of them was the Queen herself, although I still couldn¡¯t really tell them apart. ¡°What can I do for my friends?¡± she asked in her squeaky mouse voice. ¡°We need directions,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯re trying to get back to the Emerald City.¡± ¡°Certainly,¡± answered the Queen, ¡°but it is a great way off, and you have had it at your backs all this time.¡± Which, of course, begged the question of how the mice were able to get to us so quickly. Had they been following us? But then the Queen noticed the Witch¡¯s hat. ¡°Why don¡¯t you use the charm of the Cap, and call the Winged Monkeys to you? They will carry you to the City of Oz in less than an hour.¡± ¡°Wait, what?¡± ¡°The spell is written inside the golden cap,¡± she said. ¡°But if you are going to call the Winged Monkeys we must run away, for they are full of mischief and think it great fun to plague us.¡± The whole business reminded me of some stupid computer game. I didn¡¯t play them much (because, like I said, stupid), but Madeline liked them, so I occasionally got stuck watching her play. And I couldn¡¯t escape the feeling that the mouse whistle was the cheat function, where you got a hint when you couldn¡¯t figure out what to do next. Was I overthinking the whole thing? Sure, desensitizing you to wanton violence and forcing you into situations where you had to murder was probably how the KGB brainwashed assassins. But it also described most video games, as far as I could tell. If all this was just some super-advanced virtual reality game (again, possibly enhanced with hallucinogens?), I¡¯d be¡ªThis book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Well, I wasn¡¯t sure if I¡¯d be relieved or pissed. But the idea did make me want to finally be done with it as soon as possible. The Scarecrow and Woodsman were exchanging frightened glances and shaking their heads. ¡°No Winged Monkeys,¡± the Woodsman pleaded. ¡°Oh, do not worry,¡± the Mouse Queen said. ¡°They must obey the wearer of the Cap, and will not harm you. Goodbye!¡± She scampered out of sight, with all the mice hurrying after her. I looked inside the Golden Cap, and sure enough, instructions were stitched in there, with some gibberish to speak and a small amount of hopping. ¡°Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke,¡± I said, standing on my left foot. I felt like an asshole. ¡°I don¡¯t know what that means,¡± the Scarecrow said. I ignored him, and continued the spell, shifting to my right foot. ¡°Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo.¡± ¡°Hello!¡± The Woodsman waved back at me. I hopped back onto both feet ¡°Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!¡± That was the end of it, and I immediately heard flapping wings, and the Flying Monkeys¡¯ trademark chattering. Moments later, the sky was riddled with them. The Monkey King came in for a landing, and bowed at my feet, ¡°What is your command?¡± ¡°Take us to the Emerald City,¡± I said. ¡°Carefully. And don¡¯t kill any of us this time.¡± ¡°As you wish,¡± he said. If he was at all bitter about being ordered around by a girl in a stupid hat, he certainly didn¡¯t show it. Another big monkey flew in, and the two of them picked me up gently and carried me into the sky. Others swooped down and lifted the Scarecrow, Woodsman and Lion. A smallish one picked up Toto, and damn near got himself bitten for his trouble. Even by air, the trip wasn¡¯t short. Eventually I got bored with majestic vistas, and turned to the Monkey King. ¡°So what¡¯s the whole deal with the goofy hat?¡± ¡°That is a long story,¡± he said. ¡°But as we have a long journey before us, I will pass the time by telling you about it, if you wish.¡± Ugh. ¡°Sure, why not.¡± ¡°Once,¡± he began, ¡°we were a free people, living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit, and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master.¡± The Monkey King wasn¡¯t kidding when he said that his story was long. But the gist of it was that there was a beautiful princess/powerful sorceress named Gayelette who everybody loved, but who couldn¡¯t find anyone to love in return because all the men were stupid and ugly, and she was probably a lesbian. ¡°At last, however,¡± the Monkey King continued, ¡°she found a boy who was handsome and manly and wise beyond his years. Gayelette made up her mind that when he grew to be a man she would make him her husband.¡± Ew. She took the kid back to her castle and basically raised him, and when he was eventually far enough past puberty, got ready to marry him. Awesome. ¡°My grandfather was at that time the King of the Winged Monkeys which lived in the forest near Gayelette¡¯s palace,¡± the Monkey King said. ¡°And the old fellow loved a joke better than a good dinner.¡± So he picked up the Prince, or whatever he was, and dumped him in the river, which I guess seemed hilarious at the time. The Prince actually thought it was funny too, and was super chill about it, but Gayelette lost her shit, because the water ruined his fancy clothes. At first I thought Gayelette sounded pretty cool, but clearly she was the worst. I remembered the Wicked Witch¡ªpowerful women in these old stories were always the worst. Imagine that. Anyway, Gayelette sentenced every single Flying Monkey to be tied up, dumped in the river and drowned. But the Prince talked her out of it, so instead they all agreed to grant three wishes to whoever owned the gold hat (it had been a wedding present or something) for all eternity. Three wishes? ¡°Hey, can you fly me all the way out of Oz, and back to my home in Calabasas?¡± ¡°That cannot be done,¡± he said. ¡°We belong to this country alone, and cannot leave it. There has never been a Winged Monkey in Calabasas yet, and I suppose there never will be, for they don¡¯t belong there.¡± Well, it was worth a shot. He finished his story. ¡°The Prince was the first owner of the Golden Cap, and after he was married he ordered us always to fly far away and keep where the Princess could never again set eyes on a Winged Monkey. Which we were glad to do, for we were all afraid of her.¡± Fair enough. ¡°This was all we ever had to do until the Golden Cap fell into the hands of the Wicked Witch of the West,¡± he continued. ¡°She made us enslave the Winkies, and afterward drive Oz himself out of the Land of the West. Now the Golden Cap is yours, and three times you have the right to lay your wishes upon us.¡± And with that, we had arrived at the Emerald City. The Monkeys set us down carefully at the gates, the King bowed low, and they flew away. I decided that, if things went as planned and we were close to the end of this thing, I¡¯d do that thing where I used my last wish to free the Monkeys from having to grant any more wishes. ¡°That was a good ride,¡± the Scarecrow said. ¡°Yes, and a quick way out of our troubles,¡± the Lion agreed. ¡°How lucky it was you brought away that wonderful cap!¡± I mean, we were almost done, right? In the movie, this was the part where the Wizard gave us half-assed diplomas and watches and stuff, and then fucked off in a balloon while Glinda came and told me the secret shoe password, and I got the hell back to Kansas. If this was a video game, though, it really felt like I¡¯d have to use the Golden Cap two more times. Which meant there could be a whole bunch of stuff left to do that wasn¡¯t in the film. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. 15. THE DISCOVERY OF OZ, THE TERRIBLE. We rang the bell at the front gate, and were greeted by the same Guardian Dude from¡ªwhat was it, a week ago? Two weeks? I couldn¡¯t even keep track. ¡°What! Are you back again?¡± he asked. ¡°Don¡¯t act so surprised.¡± ¡°But I thought you had gone to visit the Wicked Witch of the West.¡± ¡°We did visit her,¡± the Scarecrow said. ¡°And she let you go again?¡± ¡°She could not help it, for she is melted,¡± the Scarecrow explained. ¡°From a bucket of water,¡± I added. ¡°It was not that hard.¡± ¡°Good gracious!¡± He bowed very low, then brought us into the room with the box full of gross, sweaty sunglasses to affix to our faces. I was pretty much done with that part, though. ¡°I am Dorothy the Witchkiller,¡± I said. ¡°I melted one, and crushed the other beneath a house. My eyes cannot be blinded by even the gaudiest interior design, so I¡¯m all set, thanks.¡± I never did manage to convince the others that the whole thing was just a hoax, so they all took the green shades, and I let them put a pair on Toto, too, so they wouldn¡¯t sic Munchkin PETA on my ass or whatever. Once we entered the city proper and were on our way to the Wizard¡¯s palace, I almost regretted my decision. Without the glasses, the place didn¡¯t look any greener than your average fairy tale metropolis, but all those glittering gems made it bright as balls. News spread quickly of the witch melting, and by the time we reached the palace we were surrounded by a cheering crowd. So that was kind of rad. The soldier¡ªwhose beard was actually brown with flecks of gray, incidentally¡ªwent straight to alert the Wizard to our presence, while Concierge Girl brought us to our usual parlor to wait for him. And wait we did. Two hours later, I was about ready to sneak out and find a bath somewhere to wash the Flying Monkey off me. Finally, the soldier popped his head into the room and whispered something into Concierge Girl¡¯s ear. ¡°Oz the Great and Terrible needs time to prepare for you,¡± she said. ¡°I will show you to your rooms, and he¡¯ll be ready to receive you in the morning.¡± She winced. ¡°Or perhaps the next day, or the day after that.¡± Like hell. If I¡¯d wanted any more days of lounging around doing nothing, I would have done it back at Winkie Castle. And as eager as I was to bathe¡ª Actually, the faint whiff of monkey reminded me of something. Didn¡¯t the Monkey King say one of his jobs for the Wicked Witch was to shoo Oz off her land? ¡°You tell that Wizard that I command the Flying Monkeys,¡± I said, ¡°and if there¡¯s some reason he can¡¯t see us today, he can explain it to them.¡± That seemed to do the trick, because she disappeared, and moments later we were hurried into Oz¡¯s throne room. Inside, we didn¡¯t find a big floating head, a hot girl, a giant monster or a ball of fire. In fact, the place was empty. Had the Wizard just taken off? After a minute, a voice came from a hidden speaker somewhere near the top of the domed room. ¡°I am Oz, the Great and Terrible! Why do you seek me?¡± I looked around and didn¡¯t see a curtain anywhere. There was, however, a little screen set up in one corner. ¡°You know why we seek you,¡± I said. ¡°Why don¡¯t you come out from your hiding place so we can get this over with?¡± ¡°I am not hiding!¡± he said. ¡°I am everywhere! But to the eyes of common mortals I am invisible. I will now seat myself upon my throne, that you may converse with me.¡± Sure enough, the last line sounded like it came from the throne. The Wizard was leaning on his hidden speaker trick hard. Whatever. ¡°We killed your witch, and we¡¯re back for our rewards.¡± ¡°What rewards?¡± he demanded. The Scarecrow seemed almost as tired of getting dicked around as I was. ¡°You promised to give me brains!¡± ¡°And you promised to give me a heart!¡± the Woodsman said. ¡°And you promised to give me courage!¡± added the Lion. ¡°And you promised to send me home,¡± I said. ¡°We will also accept hollow platitudes and incompetent balloon piloting if it finally gets this fucking plot moving.¡± There was a pause. ¡°Is the Wicked Witch really destroyed?¡± Now there was definitely a tremble in the voice. ¡°Yup,¡± I said. ¡°Melted with a bucket of water.¡± ¡°Oh, man,¡± said the Voice. ¡°Man! Well, come to me tomorrow, for I must have time to think it over.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve had plenty of time already,¡± the Tin Woodsman said angrily. ¡°We shan¡¯t wait a day longer!¡± the Scarecrow agreed. The Lion chimed in with a fierce roar, which was so loud that Toto jumped away from him in alarm and tipped over the screen in the corner. Sure enough, behind it was a frumpy little man. He wasn¡¯t, like, Wizard of Oz old, but maybe thirty-five or forty, with a scruffy red beard all over his face and neck, like no one had ever taught him how to shave.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°I am Oz, the Great and Terrible,¡± he said, his voice trembling even more now. ¡°Please don¡¯t hit me.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± I said. ¡°What the hell?¡± ¡°Hush, my dear,¡± he said. I decided right then and there that if he called me ¡°my dear¡± one more time, I would punch him. ¡°Don¡¯t speak so loud,¡± he continued, ¡°or you will be overheard, and I should be ruined. I¡¯m supposed to be a Great Wizard!¡± ¡°And aren¡¯t you?¡± the Scarecrow asked. ¡°Not a bit. I¡¯m just a common man.¡± ¡°You¡¯re more than that,¡± I said. ¡°You¡¯re a fucking douchebag.¡± ¡°Yeah, I guess I am,¡± he said. ¡°But this is terrible!¡± said the Woodsman. ¡°How shall I ever get my heart?¡± ¡°Or I my courage?¡± asked the Lion. ¡°Or I my brains?¡± wailed the Scarecrow, wiping the tears from his eyes with his coat sleeve. ¡°You think you have problems?¡± said Oz, ¡°What about me? What about the terrible trouble I¡¯m going to be in now that I¡¯ve been found out?¡± ¡°You mean nobody else has figured out that you¡¯re a douchebag?¡± I asked. ¡°No one knows it but you four¡ªand myself,¡± he said. ¡°I have fooled everyone so long that I thought I¡¯d never be found out. I guess it was a mistake my ever letting you into the throne room. Usually I won¡¯t even see my subjects, and so they believe I¡¯m something terrible.¡± He showed us a small chamber in the back of the throne room where he hid all of his tricks¡ªthe giant head was just paper mache, with obvious wires that worked the eyes and mouth. The one I saw back when we first arrived definitely had better special effects than this one did, but it¡¯s not like I was fooled anyway, so I didn¡¯t make a stink. He also showed us the mask and dress he had worn to appear as a beautiful woman to the Scarecrow, and when the Woodsman saw it, he actually shuddered. He clearly had a fair amount of fantasy time invested in the mysterious Lady, based solely on the Scarecrow¡¯s description. ¡°And the Beast was a statue, and the fireball was a bag of flaming trash, we get it,¡± I said. ¡°And you have speakers in the walls and chair to make your voice come from wherever.¡± ¡°Oh, there are no speakers in Oz,¡± he said. ¡°I am a trained ventriloquist! I can throw the sound of my voice wherever I wish! Sit down, please, there are plenty of chairs. I will tell you my story.¡± ¡°Ugh. Fine, but make it quick.¡± ¡°I was born in the faraway land of Van Nuys, California¡ª¡± Van Nuys? ¡°That¡¯s right by Studio City, where my Dad lives!¡± ¡°Wait. You¡¯re from the real world?¡± His face went white. ¡°Oh my god. It¡¯s been so long.¡± He grabbed me by my hoodie. ¡°Tell me the news! Did the Super Nintendo ever come out? Was Mode 7 as revolutionary as they said? And what of Final Fantasy II?¡± He was shaking now. ¡°Tell me, what of Final Fantasy II?¡± If Final Fantasy was the video game I was thinking of, I was pretty sure they were up to like fifteen or twenty by now. This guy had been in Oz a long time. ¡°It¡¯s so good,¡± I said. ¡°You should come back and play it with me. You¡¯ll love it.¡± He shook his head gravely. ¡°I was just a kid,¡± he said. ¡°I went into a new shop in the Galleria, and they said they had the latest virtual reality technology, but when I went into the booth I blacked out, and woke up on a hot air balloon, floating over a strange and beautiful country.¡± His story sounded awfully familiar. ¡°It came down gradually,¡± he continued, ¡°and I was not hurt a bit. But I found myself in the midst of a strange people, who, seeing me come from the clouds, thought I was a great Wizard. Of course I let them think I was, because they were afraid of me, and promised to do anything I wished. I ordered them to build this city, and my palace, and they did it all happily.¡± ¡°And when we finally showed up, you didn¡¯t figure out that you were inside the plot of The Wizard of Oz?¡± ¡°I never watched The Wizard of Oz! My sister watched it a lot, so I knew a little something about it, but it always seemed like kind of a girl thing.¡± He explained that he had spent decades afraid of the evil Witches from the east and west, so when I came and killed one of them, he was willing to offer me whatever I wanted to take care of the other. ¡°But, now that you have melted her,¡± he said, ¡°I¡¯m ashamed to say that I can¡¯t keep my promises.¡± ¡°Because you¡¯re a douchebag,¡± I said. ¡°No!¡± he insisted. ¡°I¡¯m a really nice guy! But I¡¯m a very bad Wizard, I must admit.¡± The Scarecrow was forlorn. ¡°Can¡¯t you give me brains?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t need them! You¡¯re learning something every day. A baby has brains, but it doesn¡¯t know much. Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you get.¡± ¡°That may all be true,¡± said the Scarecrow, ¡°but I shall be very unhappy unless you give me brains.¡± The Wizard looked at him carefully and scratched his beard. ¡°Well,¡± he said with a sigh, ¡°I¡¯m not much of a magician, but if you come to me tomorrow morning, I will stuff your head with brains. I cannot tell you how to use them, however. You must find that out for yourself.¡± The Scarecrow was over the moon. ¡°Oh, thank you¡ªthank you! I¡¯ll find a way to use them, never fear!¡± ¡°But how about my courage?¡± the Lion asked. ¡°You have plenty of courage, man,¡± answered Oz. ¡°All you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. True courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty.¡± ¡°Perhaps. But can you give some of the other kind?¡± ¡°Very well, I will give you that sort of courage tomorrow,¡± he said. I was about ninety percent sure that by tomorrow we¡¯d discover that the Wizard had skipped town. ¡°How about my heart?¡± the Tin Woodsman asked. ¡°Why, as for that,¡± Oz said, ¡°I think you are wrong to want a heart. It makes most people unhappy.¡± ¡°That must be a matter of opinion,¡± said the Woodsman. ¡°For my part, I will bear all the unhappiness without a murmur, if you will give me the heart.¡± ¡°Very well. Come to me tomorrow and you shall have a heart. I have played Wizard for so many years that I may as well continue the part a bit longer.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± I said. ¡°So how are you going to get me home?¡± ¡°We shall have to think about that,¡± he said. ¡°Give me two or three days to consider the matter and I¡¯ll try to find a way to carry you over the desert.¡± ¡°What about the balloon? Do you still have the balloon?¡± ¡°I said I need time to think! In the meantime you shall all be treated as my guests. There is only one thing I ask in return for my help, such as it is. You must keep my secret and tell no one I am a fake.¡± We agreed. I was fairly confident that the next part would follow the book, and he¡¯d balloon off by himself and I¡¯d have to somehow figure out how to use the shoes to get home. But I looked at my friends, whose faces were all filled with hope. If he tried to ditch us without giving them each their magic feather or whatever, I was going to kick that little gremlin¡¯s ass. 16. THE MAGIC ART OF THE GREAT DOUCHEBAG. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡°This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° 17. How the Balloon Was Launched. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡°Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. ¡°This is the second time you have called us,¡± he said. ¡°What do you wish?¡± ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° I was okay with that. I ordered them to spread a thin coating inside the balloon, then hang it up on the domed ceiling to dry. I had to admit, it looked magnificent, with alternating patterns of silk, and flawless workmanship. The Wizard begrudgingly agreed, and deemed the craft skyworthy. With another bow, the Monkey King spread his wings and flew out through the window, followed by each of his subjects in turn. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° 19. Away to the South. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° 20. Attacked by the Fighting Trees. The next morning, Concierge Girl brought my freshly-laundered clothes, then just stood kind of awkwardly by the door. It would be my last night in the Emerald City¡ªwas I expected to tip her? Did they even have money in Oz? She was kind of sticking one cheek out a little, like she was expecting a kiss or something? I gave her a meat pie. She looked at it like it was a dead rat, then thanked me profusely and left. We swung by the front gates to drop off the sunglasses that my companions still had bolted over their eyes, and this time the Guardian seemed absolutely heartbroken to see us go. ¡°You are now our ruler,¡± he said to the Scarecrow. ¡°You must come back to us as soon as possible!¡± ¡°I certainly shall if I am able,¡± the Scarecrow replied. ¡°But I must help Dorothy to get home, first.¡± It was all very charming, but the truth was, I had other things weighing on my mind. We headed due south¡ªthere was technically a road going in our general direction, but the countryside was pleasant enough, and by now we had gotten used to off-roading it. The sun was shining, the air was so fresh you could almost taste it, and Toto ran around us in circles, chasing moths and butterflies, barking merrily all the time. I had settled into a bit of a funk. After a few minutes we turned to take a last look at the Emerald City, a mass of towers and steeples and that big-ass dome of the Wizard¡¯s palace rising up above the city walls. At least it all looked green from the outside. ¡°Oz was not such a bad Wizard, after all,¡± the Woodsman said, tapping his tin chest. ¡°He knew how to give me brains, and very good brains, too,¡± the Scarecrow said. ¡°If Oz had taken a dose of the same courage he gave me,¡± the Lion added, ¡°he would have been a brave man.¡± I left it alone. As far as I was concerned, that guy was a fucking dick. He had been dropped into this land just like I had, but instead of spending any effort to get home, or even treating the people he met with basic human decency, he pretended to be a god, made them build a city for him, and then hid in his throne room for literally decades so they wouldn¡¯t find out he was a fraud. Fuck that guy. If I was being honest, though, it wasn¡¯t the futhermucking Wizard that was bothering me. I¡¯d had a restless night, and while I¡¯d lain awake staring at hideous, ornate wainscoting, I was pretty sure I¡¯d figured out what was really going on. I had made it to the end of the story, but the story hadn¡¯t ended. And it wasn¡¯t because I was playing a video game and I hadn¡¯t done the puzzles right. When that happens in a game, you just lose, and either quit or start over. You¡¯re not trapped there forever. No one would ever design a game like that. No, the reason my stay in Oz hadn¡¯t ended after I¡¯d killed the Wicked Witch was because in the real world I was laying in a hospital bed somewhere, and my head wound was too severe to recover from the coma. It made more sense than any of my other theories. There was no way virtual reality technology had advanced enough that it encompassed all five of your senses and was utterly indistinguishable from the real world. And KGB brainwashing? Come on. At first I had discounted the idea that I was in a dream, because I¡¯m pretty sure that, if anything, my subconscious would have gone with the Judy Garland version. But if I was stuck in a coma, you know what my loved ones would probably do while they waited tearfully by my side, hoping against hope that I¡¯d recover? Fucking read to me. And although L. Frank Baum wasn¡¯t the sort of thing my Mom would choose, it was totally up Madeline¡¯s alley. She had received an off-brand Kindle knockoff for her birthday one year, and stuffed it full of free public domain shit. Plus, she was always trying to get me to read more. And my Mom would think it was all heartwarming and adorable, too¡ªmy Mom loved Madeline¡ªso she¡¯d just sit there and let her read whatever. My broken head was constructing a reality from this continuous audio input, but when it got to the part where it was supposed to wake up, it couldn¡¯t. And it might never be able to. The plot was over, but the story just kept going. We walked all day, through gorgeous, boring farmland, and nothing fucking happened. That night, asleep on the soft, long grass with nothing but the stars over me, I dreamed. I dreamed that I was back at the mall, browsing through shitty band t-shirts at Spencer¡¯s with Glinda the Good Witch from the movie and Madeline, who had such a big crush on Glinda that she could barely speak. But I knew it was a dream. So I tried a trick I had been using to wake up from nightmares ever since I was a little girl. I had always loved my occasional flying dreams, and every once in a while I had a scary falling one. But at some point I picked up on the fact that in my dreams I never actually landed. I climbed up on a mall bench and jumped off. Sure enough, before I hit tile, I found myself awake, lying in a field with the Scarecrow staring down at me creepily, as per usual. My sudden waking must have startled him. ¡°Dorothy? Are you feeling well?¡± ¡°Shut up. I need to try something.¡± The Lion was snoring away on his belly beside me, so I carefully climbed up on his back, planted my bare feet in his mane, and jumped.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I hit the ground hard, scraping the bottom of my foot on a rock. Stupid. If I was trapped in a coma, of course I wouldn¡¯t be able to just snap myself out of it willingly. The thing was, once I knew I was in a dream, I could usually control what happened in it. But this¡­ it definitely wasn¡¯t the real world, but it didn¡¯t exactly follow dream logic, either. Were the rules different for coma dreams? Compared to the hazy mall scene I had just woken from¡ªthe details of which were already dissipating in my head like cotton candy¡ªthis felt utterly real. My foot was throbbing at that very moment, and after I rubbed it to inspect the damage, and lifted my fingers to my lips, I could taste the blood. It was completely unlike any dream I¡¯d ever had, coma or otherwise. I mean, if Oz wasn¡¯t a real place, it was certainly indistinguishable from one. And as much as I had idly speculated about hallucinogenic drugs, people who were actually tripping could tell that their senses were wacked out. This wasn¡¯t like that at all. There was a word for people who weren¡¯t able to distinguish between fantasy and reality. But I wasn¡¯t ready to start exploring that theory yet. Needless to say, I didn¡¯t sleep much for the rest of the night. When morning came, I poked a little at my breakfast, and we resumed our journey south. My friends could see that something was wrong, but I laughed off their inquiries and claimed that I was only tired. Still, ever since we had left the Emerald City, I had been distant, and I¡¯m sure they felt it acutely. My Mom always said I should go into construction, I was so good at putting up¡ª Walls? We crested a small hill and found ourselves staring at an impenetrably thick forest, cutting across the fields like a sheer cliff, extending to the east and west as far as the eye could see. Oh, shit. It was like my subconscious mind felt threatened by all my random questioning and introspection, and was shoving literal barriers up through cracks I had bored into my psyche. ¡°What shall we do now?¡± the Lion asked. ¡°The Flying Monkeys could carry us over these woods quite easily,¡± the Woodsman said. ¡°No Flying Monkeys,¡± I said. ¡°Not yet.¡± I hadn¡¯t walked for a goddamned day and a half so that I could waste my last monkey wish on a forest. We walked through forests all the time. Besides, if it was my stupid brain making these woods, I should be able to make a pathway through it, right? I closed my eyes and concentrated. Make a pathway, make a pathway, make a pathway. ¡°Hey,¡± the Scarecrow called out. ¡°I found a pathway!¡± Crap. I had kind of been hoping that wouldn¡¯t work. ¡°There¡¯s a big tree with such wide-spreading branches that there¡¯s room to pass beneath,¡± he said. ¡°Right here! Follow me and I¡¯ll¡ªAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!¡± Just as he came under the first branches, they reached down, twisted around his limbs, picked him up and flung him over our heads into the field behind us. The Scarecrow wasn¡¯t injured, of course, but did have a bit of the stuffing knocked out of him. Oh, that¡¯s how you want to play this, subconscious? ¡°There¡¯s another space between the trees over here,¡± the Lion said. ¡°Let me try again,¡± the Scarecrow said. ¡°Perhaps this time I¡¯ll¡ªAAAAAAAAAAAAH!¡± The branches immediately seized him and tossed him back out again. The Scarecrow picked himself up and smoothed out a few lumps. ¡°Surely a third attempt won¡¯t¡ª¡± ¡°Whoa, whoa, whoa,¡± I said. ¡°Let¡¯s try a different strategy.¡± I stepped up to the treeline, just out of the reach of any wooden limbs. ¡°Trees?¡± I shouted into the forest (and, you know, whatever else needed shouting into). ¡°Trees are your big play here? We LITERALLY brought a TREE-CUTTING MACHINE. Woodsman! How many trees have you chopped down since I¡¯ve met you?¡± The Tin Woodsman planted his feet beside me and put his hands on his hips. ¡°One hundred and seven,¡± he said. ¡°One hundred and¡ªwait, what?¡± I was going to say, like, six. Was the guy chopping trees down all night, every night, just out of spite? Well, whatever. ¡°What I¡¯m trying to say is, DO NOT FUCK with this guy.¡± The Woodsman lifted his axe and approached the treeline slowly, and when a big branch grabbed at him, he cut it in two with a single swing. The entire tree shook, as if in pain. ¡°Come on!¡± he shouted. ¡°Be quick!¡± We rushed under the tree without a scratch, except for Toto, who yelped as he was caught by a small branch. But the Woodsman quickly put his axe through it and set the little dog free. After that, the trees left us alone. Either it was just the outer row that was enchanted to keep out intruders, or we had scared this forest shitless. Either way, we were able to travel through the woods without trouble. It was dark in there, and the foliage looked ugly and twisted. Subtle. If the symbolism of bringing my friends through the barriers of my subconscious mind was supposed to bring us closer together, though, it wasn¡¯t working. If anything, I was feeling even more alone. Because if all of this was a figment of my imagination, that included the three of them. How do you have a heart-to-heart with someone you suspect you may have made up? Like, if the Scarecrow asked me if something was wrong, was that just part of my brain trying to psychoanalyze? Or was he the part of me that knew I hated people asking me if something was wrong, throwing up a red flag? Or was he the coma, trying to distract me from the fact that I was in a fucking coma? I was starting to freak myself out. I have no idea how long we walked¡ªit could have been minutes or hours. I was completely lost in my thoughts, few of which made logical sense. Was I supposed to bring the others with me into this forest? Should I be here alone? Should I be here at all? Suddenly we came to the edge of the woods, only to find a high, white wall as bright and smooth as porcelain. Again, it stretched as far as the eye could see. ¡°I cannot think why this wall is here,¡± the Scarecrow said, befuddled. ¡°Nor what country it conceals.¡± I just stared at it, my eyes wide. ¡°The wall is my sanity,¡± I said. ¡°Beyond it lies madness.¡± 21. The Dainty China Country. ¡° ¡°Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° 22. The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts. On the other side of the wall, the terrain was boggy and marshy, and smelled like ass. It was difficult to get through without stepping into muddy holes, but we persevered. Eventually we came to solid ground, and walked through the underbrush into another fucking forest. The trees here were taller and older than any we¡¯d seen yet. ¡°This forest is perfectly delightful,¡± declared the Lion. ¡°Never have I seen a more beautiful place.¡± ¡°It seems gloomy to me,¡± the Scarecrow said. ¡°Not a bit,¡± the Lion answered. ¡°I should like to live here all my life. See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet, and how rich and green the moss is that clings to these old trees? Surely no wild beast could wish a pleasanter home.¡± If that were true, no one had told the other wild beasts about it. We didn¡¯t encounter a single one for the rest of the day. When it became too dark to go any farther, Toto and I snuggled up against the Lion¡¯s hide to sleep, with the Woodsman and Scarecrow keeping watch as usual. I was exhausted. At least the day¡¯s long trek had pushed some of the dark thoughts out of my mind. I had really started to lose my shit back in forest number one that morning, but the whole thing with the porcelain village was so weird and dumb that it actually kind of shook me out of my funk. And the more I thought about it, the more I decided that if Coma Patient Theater was a shitty trope, Mentally Ill Person Who Has Magical Adventures in Her Mind was an even shittier one. Schizophrenia was a very real, very tragic condition that a lot of people struggled with, but I was pretty sure it didn¡¯t manifest itself as a Wizard of Oz fantasy that looked and sounded and smelled like you were actually living it. Which left me¡­ well, I wasn¡¯t sure where it left me. But my feet were sore, I had kind of a dull ache all over my body, and my current plan was to fall asleep cuddling this lion and worry about it in the morning. When morning came, I still had nothing. So we kept walking south. We¡¯d eventually have to get to Glinda the Good Witch, or at least something. Right? Before long we heard a low rumbling of growling and snorting, and we discovered what had happened to all the animals in this forest. They had all assembled for a big ancient forest animal meeting. There were tigers and elephants and bears and wolves and foxes and all kinds of stuff, some of which belonged in a forest and some of which didn¡¯t. They were all sort of snarling at each other¡ªI guess when animals spoke among themselves they didn¡¯t bother with English? Several of the beasts caught sight of the Cowardly Lion, and at once the great assemblage hushed as if by magic. The biggest of the tigers came up to the Lion and bowed. ¡°Welcome, o King of Beasts,¡± he said. ¡°You have come in good time to fight our enemy and bring peace to all the animals of the forest once more.¡± Okay, this should be good. ¡°What is your trouble?¡± the Lion asked. His tone was statesmanlike.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. ¡°We are all threatened by a fierce enemy which has lately come into this forest,¡± the tiger said. ¡°It is a most tremendous monster, like a great spider, with a body as big as an elephant and eight legs as long as a tree trunk. As the monster crawls through the forest he seizes an animal with one of his legs and drags it to his mouth, where he eats it as a spider does a fly. Not one of us is safe while this fierce creature is alive, and we had called a meeting to decide how to take care of ourselves when you came among us.¡± The Tin Woodsman¡¯s face lit up. ¡°The Flying Monkeys!¡± he said. ¡°Surely an army of them could conquer this horrible beast.¡± Here was the thing about the Flying Monkeys. I had told myself that I would need my last wish to win some video game I was playing, and as long as I hung onto it, some tiny part of me could still believe that was true. Or, even if I was trapped here by a head injury or undiagnosed psychosis or whatever, playing by the rules I had imposed upon myself meant that I was trying to get through it, the only way I knew how. Using up my last deus ex monkeyna would feel like I was giving up, and somehow surrendering to Oz. Fortunately, the Lion saved me from having to make that decision. ¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°This is my battle.¡± He addressed the tiger. ¡°If I put an end to your enemy, will you bow down to me and obey me as King of the Forest?¡± ¡°We will do that gladly,¡± the tiger said. And all the other beasts roared mightily: ¡°We will!¡± ¡°Where is this great spider of yours now?¡± ¡°Yonder, among the oak trees,¡± the tiger said, pointing with his paw. ¡°Take good care of these friends of mine,¡± the Lion said, ¡°and I will go at once to fight the monster.¡± ¡°Hold up,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m coming with.¡± The Lion protested, whispering to me that if he didn¡¯t go alone, the other animals might not accept him as their lord and ruler. But I convinced him that they couldn¡¯t possibly dock him points for bringing along a ten-year-old girl. If anything, it was more impressive that he could dispatch a horrible beast while having to worry about keeping me safe while he did it. The fact was, I was desperate to find some whiff of plot that would give me the slightest hope that I was still voyaging through literature, and I could just get to the end of the book and go home. It was a long shot, sure, but the giant spider was the closest thing to actual story structure we¡¯d come across since leaving the Emerald City, and I wasn¡¯t about to sit around waiting to hear how it turned out. We crept through the forest as quietly as possible, and when we found the beast, it was as huge as the tiger claimed, and twice as ugly¡ªlegs like telephone poles, teeth a foot long, and all covered in coarse, black hair. If anything represented all my dark thoughts, or head wound or mental illness or whatever, it was this monstrosity. And it was asleep. The Lion put one claw up to his mouth in a silent shush, then quietly padded up to the spot where the beast¡¯s head was joined to its massive body with a neck as narrow as a wasp¡¯s waist. (I was fairly certain that whoever came up with this thing had never seen a close-up picture of actual spider anatomy, but that was neither here nor there.) He popped all five claws, raised his paw, and with one great blow cut the spider¡¯s head right off its body. The headless, elephantine spider thrashed about for a minute, then finally curled its legs up under its torso and lay still. And that was it. We made our way back to the clearing where all the beasts of the forest were waiting for us to return. The Lion just gazed upon them regally and smiled. ¡°You¡¯re welcome,¡± he said.