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Okay, so its kind of complicated.
Like, really complicated.
Believe me, I know.
Below us, the fields and villages of Oz were a moonlit patchwork quilt of silvery green and gold.
In the far distance, I could see the snowcapped peaks of the Traveling Mountains.
And beyond that, I could almost glimpse the sandy dunes of the Deadly Desert.
The air was cool and we were moving fast, but I didnt feel cold.
Just tired, and hungry, and worried about what wed left behind.
The chaos after Ozmas coronation.
But all of that stuff was currently my secondary concern.
What the fuck was that?
She stared at me, her eyes wild.
What did Assistant Principal Strachan just turn into?
She pointed at Nox.
Im Nox, Nox said unhelpfully.
He yawned and carefully sat down, stretching his legs and holding on to the yellow bricks.
Madison whirled toward me, almost losing her balance on the narrow road.
Were, like, flying?
I dont know if you noticed but thats not possible?
Where is my kid?
I think Dustin Jr. is safe, I said, picking the easiest question out of her barrage.
At least shed stopped screaming.
His dad caught him, I said.
Im sure hes fine.
And the Nome King is here now.
So, um, Kansas is definitely, totally safe.
What do you mean, here?
WHY ARE WE FLYING?
Youre not going to believe me, I said, but were in Oz.
She stared at me.
super not funny, Amy.
And what kind of name is Nox?
What kind of name is Madison?
Im not joking about the Oz thing, I interrupted hastily.
Madison was looking at Nox sort of like she wanted to eat him.
I knew the feeling.
She looked down at the landscape flying by beneath us.
She looked like she wanted to start screaming again but was carefully reconsidering wasting that much energy.
She took a deep breath.
Seriously, whats going on?
Youre in Oz, Nox said curtly.
Madison looked back and forth between the two of us.
Madison, youre on a flying road, I pointed out.
I know it sounds totally crazy, but Oz is real, and youre in it.
Madison sat down abruptly with a thump.
A brick jolted loose from the road and tumbled away.
Careful, I said sharply.
We have no idea if this thing will actually hold together.
She watched the brick fall until we could no longer see it.
She patted the road as if checking whether it was real.
And then she pinched herself.
Youre not dreaming, I said gently, sitting down next to her.
I felt like this the first time I came here, too.
Like the Scarecrow and the Lion and Emerald City and Munchkins and all of that shit?
Yeah, I said.
The Scarecrow and the Lion are dead, though.
Dorothy is definitely real, Nox said darkly.
Way too real, if you ask me.
Totos actually dead, too, I clarified.
I trailed off, catching sight of the expression on Mads face.
Uh, anyway, I dont think we have to worry about them anymore.
Your research project, Madison said abruptly.
Your whole thing with the archive at the high school.
You wereyou were serious.
You thought all that stuff was real.
She looked down at the countryside flying by below us and swallowed hard.
When you disappeared after the tornado, she said slowly.
Yeah, I said.
I had just as much trouble believing it was real at first, too.
I mean, it sounds ridiculous.
A tornado picked up my moms trailer and dumped me here?
I thought suddenly of Star, my moms beloved pet rat.
Like a lot of other people and things I cared about, she hadnt made it.
Madison had nothing like that.
Nothing, anyway, except me.
Its all crazy, I know.
The thing is that Dorothy iswasactually evil.
I mean, Dorothys dead now, too.
But the fight isnt over.
We still have to clean up the mess she left behind.
Is anyone not dead?
You know what, dont answer that, Madison said.
Okay, so lets say theoretically were in Oz and I believe you.
How do we get home?
Nox and I exchanged glances.
I dont know, I said.
You did it before, Madison said expectantly.
You came back to high school.
You were here and you went back to Flat Hill?
What were you thinking?
Its really, really complicated, I said.
I went back when the Wizard opened this portal
The Wizard?
Like, the actual Wizard of Oz?
Yeah, but hes dead, too, Nox said quietly.
Madison looked at both of us again.
She was silent for a minute.
And then she started to laugh.
She laughed so hard she bent over, propping herself up on her hands.
I couldnt help it.
I started laughing, too.
Nox rolled his eyes.
Finally Madison sat up, still giggling, and wiped tears from her eyes.
Okay, I tell you what, she said.
Why dont you start at the beginning, and then well take it from there.
Two
It took a long time to tell Madison the entire history of me and Oz.
No surprise there, considering how much had happened.
And talking about Oz made me realize how much Id missed it.
Back in Kansas, Id resigned myself to never being able to return to Oz.
But that was where the similarity stopped.
Dorothy was a killer and I wasnt.
Well, not unless I had to be.
Ozs weirder wonders could wait.
So you were in a prison?
And some magic dude just showed up?
And then a witch appeared?
Madison interrupted my reverie, impatiently waiting for me to finish my story.
More like a dungeon.
The witch was Mombi.
I glanced over at Nox, wondering what he was feeling.
More importantly, shed raised Nox.
If my feelings about her were tangled, his had to be a labyrinth.
I moved on quickly to the rest of my story.
Nox understood so much about me, but he was from Oz.
To him, learning magic and fighting monsters was just a part of life.
Being able to tell someone from Kansas what had happened in Oz felt totally different.
And then I went back to the Emerald City to fight Dorothy once and for all, I continued.
But the Wizard was there, too, controlling Dorothy.
He was crazyhe wanted to merge Oz and Kansas, he thought they were the same place.
Well, in a way they are the same place, I amended.
Kansas and Oz overlap.
But he was going to destroy them both with his spell.
Was that how I thought of Oz now?
What about my mom?
And then you decided to go back to high school?
Madison prompted, her voice skeptical.
The witches thought Dorothys original shoes were somewhere in Flat Hill, I explained.
The ones that took her home the first time she came to Oz.
And I did find the shoes, in the high schooljust where the witches thought theyd be.
The shoes brought us all back to Oz.
Madison asked in disbelief.
I know it sounds super-weird.
But Im telling you, things work differently here.
How Nox and I had left her there to die as the palace crumbled around us.
Whoa, Madison said softly.
Nox looked at her, his eyes narrowing.
Are you listening to anything Amys telling you?
About how evil Dorothy is?
She tortured people to death, Madison.
She murdered whole families, whole towns.
She
Nox, its okay, I said gently.
Its just a lot to take in all at once.
Remember, it took me a long time to get used to killing people, too.
And Im still not sure its a good thing I did.
How did you know Dorothy was dead?
If you just left her there?
She looked pretty dead to me, Nox muttered.
Wait a minute, Madison said, realizing what Id just said.
not just by accident?
Yeah, I said.
I couldnt meet her eyes.
Wow, she said.
Um, am I going to have to kill people?
And you still havent answered my question.
How do I get home?
How do I get back to my kid?
No offense, but this place isnt really my style.
She looked around again, and I peered over the side of the road.
The landscape below us was completely unfamiliarsparse, leafless trees sprouted out of the hard, moonlit ground.
I could see a few ratlike animals scurrying for cover as the road flew by overhead.
The Witchs Wastelands, Nox said, in answer to my unspoken question.
No one I know has been this close to the edge of Oz.
Amy, Mad prompted.
I dont need a geography lesson.
I didnt know how to tell her that the questions shed asked were impossible to answer.
So instead, I settled for telling the last part of my story as if she hadnt asked.
We thought wed finally saved Oz when Dorothy died, I said.
Madison asked in disbelief.
Tell me about it, Nox said.
Everybodys Wicked, I said.
Here, I mean.
Good means Wicked, and Wicked means Good .
Madison was staring at me as if Id started speaking Sanskrit.
Like I said, its complicated, I amended.
We dont know what the Nome King wants, exactly.
He definitely wants these.
And he wants to kill me, too?
I dont think that was personal, Nox said.
He wanted to get to Amy.
He didnt care about you.
Madison rolled her eyes.
So Im not special.
Amys the Chosen One, or whatever.
Ames, Im really starting to like you, but this story is bonkers.
And, spoiler alert, whatevers going on here is not my problem.
Ill tell your momwell, Ill tell her whatever you want.
Ill tell her youre coming home soon if you want me to.
But I want to get back to my kid, and my ex-boyfriend, and my life.
We cant, Nox said.
Amy already told you.
We dont know how.
I know its all .
a lot, I said.
Basically, I said apologetically.
Fine, sign me up, Madison said briskly.
Do I get to learn magic, too?
You cant, Nox said.
Ozs magic corrupts people from your world who use it.
For some reason, Dorothys shoes let me use magic again, I explained.
But before I found them, things got .
I dont believe this crap.
All right, fine.
At least teach me how to use a knife or something.
Thats The Lord of the Rings, I said.
And only dwarves use those.
You are such a freak, Madison said.
Takes one to know one, I said.
But we were both smiling.
Look, Nox said suddenly, pointing over the edge of the road.
I think were flying over the Deadly Desert.
We crowded next to him, staring down at the vista below us.
Madison and I both gasped aloud.
Id assumed that the Deadly Desert was an empty, desolate wasteland.
Id been completely, totally wrong.
At the far edge of the horizon, the sky was lightening with the coming dawn.
And far below, the faint illumination hinted at the extraordinary place we were flying over.
Huge dunes of multicolored sand stretched as far as I could see in either direction.
Directly below us was a cobalt-blue wave of sand.
The dune next to it was crimson red, and the one after that a bright, saffron-tinted yellow.
I saw dunes of apple green, sky blue, velvety purple, and brilliant turquoise.
I followed his finger and gasped again, this time in delight.
Its beautiful, Madison breathed.
For a moment, the precariousness of our situation fell away, and her face was suffused with wonder.
As if I was trying, in some way, to convince her to stay.
Its gorgeous, Nox agreed.
But as far as anyone in Oz knows, its lethal.
Its impossible to cross on foot.
The dunes are constantly shifting, and they swallow anyone who attempts it.
No ones ever tried to navigate the Deadly Desert and survived.
Not without magic, anyway.
The Wizard did it, I said, remembering the original story.
In his hot air balloon?
And the fairies, way back in the day.
So did Dorothy, Nox said darkly.
So that part was true, too.
I wished Id thought to pick up the complete set of Wizard of Oz books back in Kansas.
They might have helped solve a few problems.
Id been too busy trying to find the shoes hidden in my high school.
But the Dorothy of those books was nothing like the Dorothy I knew.
I thought again about Madisons question.
How did we know she was dead?
Nox and I both knew how tough Dorothy wasand how hard she was to kill.
Wed left her behind when the Emerald Palace collapsed.
Was it possible she didnt actually die down there?
No way, I thought to myself.
The whole palace came down on top of her.
She had to be.
As the sun rose in the sky, the landscape below us grew even more dazzling.
Soon the hot morning light beat down on our shoulders.
Without shade or shelter, our flight became uncomfortably warm.
Madison pulled off her pink, bedazzled sweatshirt and draped it over her head to ward off the sun.
I sweated miserably in the soft gray dress Id worn to Ozmas coronation.
How quickly things could change here.
Look, sandworms, Nox said, pointing again.
They can grow as tall as the Emerald Palace, he added helpfully.
Madison was looking a little pale; neither one of us was very interested in Noxs nature lesson.
Is it just me, or are we sinking?
Madisons voice was strained.
Shes right, Nox said.
The road was unmistakably slowing down.
And it was sinking.
Toward the desertand the huge, yawning mouths of the sandworms.
God, this place sucks, Madison muttered under her breath.
Well be fine, I said with a confidence I didnt feel.
The road was bucking and twisting as it lurched downward.
I squatted down before it could toss me off, clutching tightly to its golden bricks.
Madison was clinging tight, too, looking a little green.
Nox said, standing up so suddenly he was almost thrown off the writhing road.
I grabbed his ankles as an upheaval nearly sent him over the side.
But we were falling fast.
The worms seemed to sense our predicament and gathered beneath the road, yawning and snapping their huge teeth.
I closed my eyes, trying to summon something.
The barest scrap of magic to keep us safe.
I opened my eyes and saw Nox looking at me.
I shook my head.
Nothing, I said.
I cant do anything.
From his expression, I knew hed been trying, too.
We have to trust the road, he said quietly.
Before I could reply, the road plunged suddenly downward.
Madison screamed in terror.
The desert was hurtling toward us at a terrifying speed.
The worms were just waiting for us to drop within reach of their serrated teeth.
Nox yelled, pulling us to our feet.
Instantly, I saw what he meant.
The three of us staggered forward, tripping and stumbling as the road bucked wildly beneath us.
I half pulled, half carried Madison forward.
Where the desert ended, I could see hard, rocky ground that the sandworms couldnt move through.
But we had to get there first.
And it was a long way to safety.
Were going to have to jump!
Solid ground seemed impossibly far.
In a flash, she was on her feet and running.
The worm turned to us.
Amy, we have to go, now!
The road was breaking apart even as I got my footing.
Bricks tumbled to the ground, sinking into the shifting sand and swallowed immediately.
Nox grabbed my hand and we jumped.
I hit the ground with a thud that knocked the wind out of my lungs.
A worms teeth snapped shut inches from my foot.
The huge worm bellowed in disappointment as both of us took off running after Madison.
But we slowed down as soon as we realized the worms couldnt pursue us on the rocky soil.
Madison and I were panting and out of breath, but Nox had barely broken a sweat.
Sometimes he drove me nuts.
Nox made even the most impossible feat look easy.
It was alternately infuriating and sexy.
He looked up at the sky, where the remains of the road were rising quickly away from us.
Ugh, Madison said.
I dont understand why it took us this far and then just dumped us, I said.
And what happened back there?
What went wrong with our magic?
Nox was looking at his fingers, wiggling them experimentally.
I think the road is bound to Oz, he said slowly.
Took us where, though?
Is this some part of the mountains?
Why couldnt it go any farther?
Nox shook his head.
Amy, I think the road took us all the way across the desert.
Thats why our magic isnt working.
Thats why the road collapsed.
Youre saying we arent in Oz anymore, I said slowly.
We crossed the entire desert.
That means were in Ev.
The Nome Kings kingdom.
I didnt even believe it was real.
Then again, the Nome King was supposed to be a legend, too.
The word stirred something in my memory.
Had Lurline told me about Ev?
About the Nome King, and what he wanted?
But whatever the memory was, it was gone.
I still dont understand what that has to do with our magic, I said.
Or why the road would dump us here.
We tried to defeat the Nome King in Oz, but he was too powerful.
Maybe Evs magic is different somehow?
Or theres something here we can use to defeat the Nome King?
If Evs magic is different, that would explain why were having trouble using ours, Nox agreed.
And the road doesnt do anything without a reason.
But as far as we know, the Nome King isnt here.
The last time we saw him was in Oz.
It was a lot to figure out.
But there had to be a reason we were here.
And if the Nome King was from Ev, that had to be a part of it.
They dont have, like, treasure maps in Oz, do they?
Nox rolled his eyes at Madison.
My magic comes from Oz, Nox said.
I think thats why its so hard to reach here.
Ev must have a different kind of power.
The shoes are part of Oz, too.
He didnt finish, but I knew what he was thinking.
My magic was part Oz, part me.
And I was from the Other Place.
But if I tried to access it without the shoes, it might also just kill me.
Why is this place ugly as hell?
Madison asked, looking around.
I thought there were supposed to be, like, singing Muppets or something.
Munchkins, I said automatically.
If this was Ev, it was a total dump.
Dorothy had been draining the magic out of Oz for awhile.
The trees had stopped talking and the river was running in reverse.
But there was still some magic and color left in Oz.
In Ev it was as if there had never been any color or magic.
The landscape was bleak and twisted.
In the distance, dilapidated shacks dotted the horizon like scabs.
There was nothing green and growing.
No sign of life.
If were in Ev, the road brought us here for a reason, Nox began.
Maybe Amys right and theres a
But he didnt get a chance to finish his sentence.
Because right then the Wheelers came.
