He barks again.
We continue walking, finding no discernible path in the field. The silver slippers are a dream to walk in, and their comfort helps me avoid the fact that they were just on the feet of a dead woman not that many hours ago. A dead woman I killed.
We cut through a field with large blue flowers and then catch the distinct sound of running water.
Toto and I pause long enough to look at one another and then we’re running.
The river quickly comes into view and we slide down its steep bank, scrambling to the edge. I dip my cupped hand into the current and drink the water down.
“Oh my god,” I say, then drink down another gulp. “This is the freshest, coldest water I’ve ever had. I was so thirsty—”
Toto leaps into the river, then dunks his head beneath the surface.
“Toto! Get back here!”
Cairn terriers are not designed to be great swimmers. I’ve never had to worry about him disappearing into a body of water back in Kansas. It’s just cornfields as far as the eye can see.
“Toto!”
There’s a splash. His head pops up, then dips down again.
When he comes up a second time, he has a fish trapped in his jaws. He swims over. The fish flaps its tail, slapping him in the face. He isn’t bothered by it. He climbs out, dragging the fish with him. He gives his head a quick jerk, disorienting the fish,before tossing it into the air, catching it on the descent, then devouring it in three quick bites, bones and all.
I grimace at the crunching. “Satisfied now?”
His tongue darts out, licking the carnage from his mouth.
“That’s disgusting.”
I swear he’s practically smiling at me.
“You will find something to murder wherever we go, won’t you?”
He sits back on his hind legs, tongue hanging out of his mouth.
Yellow has never been a favorite color, but when it pops up on the landscape, breaking up the never-ending midnight-blue horizon, I want to shout in delight. It feels like we’ve been walking for hours. Maybe we have. I don’t wear a watch to know.
I jog the rest of the way, the picnic basket banging against my thigh.
I come to a stop at the edge of the road and look left, then right.
The road disappears in both directions. It’s not wide enough to accommodate a car or a wagon, barely wide as I am tall. But the bricks are laid evenly in the ground, not a single one out of place.
After spending so many hours surrounded by fields edged in blue, seeing so much yellow almost feels like a hallucination.
I kneel in the grass, set the picnic basket aside, and reach out with tentative fingers.
I don’t know what to expect in this place.
Maybe the road is a mirage and it’ll disappear, shrivel up, just like the body of the Witch of the East.
But when my fingers make contact, nothing happens.
The stone is cool to the touch. It’s yellow, like the witch said it would be, but that’s not quite accurate. The color glitters as if the paint has been mixed with gold.
“Follow the Yellow Brick Road,they said. What could possibly go wrong?”
The blue horizon slowly fades to black and the air grows chillier.
