Cleo thought the house was meant to kill her, but when Delphine’s shrill voice filtered out through the broken window, Cleo’s heart sunk.
Until the girl…
The girl is standing in the middle of the field drenched in blood.
Who is she?
Her hair is dark brown, her nightgown white with flowers in red. Or at least they would be if she weren’t standing beneath the cursed darkness that has covered the land of Oz since the Great and Terrible War.
Everything always looks cast in silver-blue and the girl can’t escape the curse. None of them can.
Dorothy, she said her name was. Wasn’t that what Cleo heard?
Dorothy Gale.
The name means nothing.
There is a look on Dorothy’s face, like she is annoyed to have had to take a life.
Cleo turns back to the witch.
Her eyes are open, staring up at the sky. She hasn’t moved in several minutes and the knife is still sticking out of her neck where all the blood has seeped from her body.
Is she truly dead?
How did the girl manage it with just a kitchen blade?
There is nothing magical about the weapon and there is nothing magical about the girl.
Other than her indifference at having murdered someone in her nightgown.
Cleo steps forward. In Oz, she is short, but standing next to Dorothy, she feelssmalleven though the girl has only a few inches on her.
Cleo has to resist the urge to fall to her knees in supplication.Bow, her knees seem to say.Bow and show your respect.
No, Cleo thinks and locks her knees in place.
Never again.
“What is happening?” Dorothy asks again. She scans the East Enders behind Cleo. These are the country men and women, the farmers. They must have come when they heard the house crash.
What is happening?
A beginning. An end. A betrayal, a retribution.
All these words jumble up in Cleo’s head. She’s not confident she knows how to pronounce them. She had to teach herself how to read, how to sound out the words. They don’t always come out right.
But the girl is looking at her expectantly, waiting as blood drips from her hands.
She has to say something.
Cleo clears her throat and speaks, her voice wobbling. “You’ve saved us. The witch is dead.”
SEVEN
Dorothy
It’s not time to panic…yet.
