They all share a look and then Ana claps her hands. “All right. Let’s be on our way! The carriage is waiting.”
I have never ridden in a carriage like this. When I was little, Henry and Em had a used car that barely passed as an automobile. Every bump jostled us. The brakes were temperamental, so we always had to go slow. And there was a crack in the roof so any weather other than sunshine was a huge inconvenience.
It wasn’t until my later teen years that Henry finally splurged and bought a new truck. Everything changed after that. We felt like kings.
But even though in Kansas, a carriage would be taking a step back from the truck, this somehow feels like a stepup. Like we truly are royalty.
The carriage exterior is lacquered black with wheels painted green. A driver sits on the bench up top, holding the reins for two giant black horses.
Rook offers me his hand to help get me up and inside the carriage.
The interior is plush, lined in green velvet with leather bench seats that face each other. The leather is supple and soft beneath my fingertips as I settle onto the back bench. Beside me, a tiny glass sconce flickers with golden light. It helps drive away that ever-present feeling of foreboding beneath the dark, ominous sky of Oz.
Ana sits at the front of the carriage, while Rook settles in beside me. The provost taps the roof and the driver clicks his tongue, spurring the two horses forward.
“How many people will be at this celebration?” I ask as the carriage turns onto the next street.
“Oh, a lot. Hundreds.” Ana peers out the window as we pass a two-story house with a stone portico. “The Hollow hasn’t had cause for celebration in quite a long time. We used to have balls every season. We loved a good party.”
It’s impossible to miss the wistfulness in her voice.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Well, the war, of course.”
I fidget with my skirt. “How long ago was it? The war. Was it before you were born?”
“Oh no.” Ana turns away from the window and sits back against the leather bench. “I was fourteen when the gods disappeared, sixteen when war broke out.”
“What was it like when the gods disappeared?”
The carriage rolls to a stop as a group of children cross the street carrying purple-swirled lollipops.
“At first…” Ana trails off, her gaze soft and unfocused. “At first it was nothing. There was silence. Stillness. Like all the air had been stolen from the world. Then the weather came. Catastrophic floods. Ice storms. Cyclones. One day itwould be sweltering and the next everything was blanketed in snow. A lot of people started migrating at that point, trying to escape the weather. But those people quickly returned, reporting a desert in every direction. No one has been able to pass through it.”
The driver lifts the reins and the horses soldier forward.
“There were years when the crop was so bad, we starved.” Ana laughs, but there is no humor in the sound. “We subsisted on our preserved vegetables and our livestock. Sometimes we could squeeze a stew out of a chicken or a rabbit, but it was just meat and broth. As a kid I hated vegetables, but let me tell you, a stew is not a stew without carrots and corn and pumpkin and potatoes.
“One catastrophe after another resulted in the witches blaming the royal family, and war broke out. Power and magic clashed. Even the Witch of the West and the Great Wizard himself fought against one another. There are many stories around their battle, some of them in his favor, some in hers. But everyone seems to agree that it was their battle, the clashing of their magic, that created the dark cloud overhead.”
“Was he trying to defeat her?”
Ana shrugs. “It’s not for me to speculate on the motivations of the magical.”
The carriage slows to pause at a busy intersection. There are several more carriages here, and most of them headed in the same direction.
“By the time the war ended,” Ana goes on, “we were all exhausted. We would have accepted radishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if it meant having a reliable food source.”
The carriage pulls forward again and I lurch against Rook. He adjusts his body, spreading his arm out behind me, bracing me against him.
I ignore the new cluster of wings in my stomach and try to focus on Ana.
“That’s when the Cardinal Witches signed the treaty with the wizard,” she continues. “No matter what they did, they couldn’t undo the dark cloud overhead, so they turned their attention to creating new systems using magic that produced crops without the sun. Industry returned. Food returned. I was finally able to make a pot of sancocho!” She closes her eyes briefly as if remembering the return of flavor, savoring it. “We settled back into life. Though”—she spreads out her hands—“it’s been irrevocably changed. And, of course, no one is immune to the lure of power. Some of them… in charge… have exploited their positions.”
“Like the Witch of the East?” I ask.
“Yes. She certainly used her power against us. And it grew worse by the day.”
