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“Which bit?”
“The tree falling on the witch, for a start.”
“Well, it wasn’t supposed to fall that way, but it’s always a bit of a delicate balance when it comes to the last few strokes of the axe—and you hit it pretty high up.”
“Why was there even a witch standing close enough to get squashed?” Rose asked.
“She had to stay and watch in case her spell wore off,” the woodsman said.
“Spell?”
“The one she was controlling me with. You think I wanted to chop down all these trees?”
“Well…” Rose had been on the point of saying “Well, you are a woodsman, after all” but decided to let it drop. Perhaps he was choosy when it came to felling.
“She forced me to fell them. And you saved me. Thank you!”
“You’re…welcome?” Rose wasn’t exactly comfortable with having killed someone, but it didn’t really feel as if it were her fault. She looked around at the forest, the acres of stumps, the distant fields. “Where are we again?”
“Oz!” The woodsman banged his tin chest with an air of pride.
“Oz?” Rose frowned. “It sounds…familiar?”
“I should hope so!” the woodsman said. “We’re…that is to say…” He looked confused. “Our glorious ruler is the Great Smith of Oz. He lives in a tower with a huge eye of flame on top of it and surrounds himself with witches…” He tapped absently at the side of his head. “No…that doesn’t sound quite right, does it?”
A shadow stole away the sunshine, and Rose glanced up at the sky. A spot of rain hit her on the forehead, dead center.
“Head for the trees!” the woodsman cried out with sudden urgency.
“It’s just rain?” Rose glanced skyward once more, worried now that it might be the storm that heralded the worm’s arrival, but it looked like an isolated cloud, with bright skies behind it.
“I’ll rust up solid if I get wet!” the woodsman shouted over his shoulder as she followed him toward the base of the tree and the gloom between the legions of still-standing conifers beyond.
“Steel doesn’t rust that fast?” She slowed up her pace.
“I’m tin, remember?” He rapped his chest.
“But…tin doesn’t rust at all…does it?” A raindrop or two was hitting her every second now.
The tin man, having reached the shelter of the canopy, turned to beckon her forward. “Quickly! If I rust up, there’s a can of oil on my belt. You’ll have to oil all of—”
Rose stopped in her tracks. Her upbringing had been odd. She had been assured of that, although she had no real basis for comparison. But Miss Havisham, who had been left at the altar by a man who had stolen the majority of her wealth, had issued many and varied warnings against the male of the species. It took little imagination to predict what advice she would offer in this case. A strange man, calling himself Mr. Chopper, was trying to entice a young woman into the tree line to oil him up, on the basis that tin rusts within minutes in a light rain.
“I…I have to go!” She turned away.
“Wait, have a heart! I need help!”
“I’m sorry.” Rose started to hurry back to the far end of the fallen tree. “I have to go. My witch is melting!”
Chapter 10
Red
I waited for the vagrant to go before I left the Blue Flag. We’re supposed to call them homeless people, and even saying “them” feels wrong, as if there’s a divide between “us” and “them,” a barrier that honest, sensible folk like “us” couldn’t possibly fall through. In truth I was pretty close to that boundary myself. The next stop for children in the care system is often becoming adults on the street. Even so, while “homeless person” was a perfectly good title for nearly everyone living without a roof, this particular homeless person felt, purely on the basis of having watched him through a window, as if the word “vagrant” fitted him like a glove—a dirty, fingerless glove.
In short, he’d given me the willies, and I’d lurked at that table with a cold and empty cup, suffering the disapproval of the waitress, trying to read my book as I outstayed both my welcome and the vagrant’s presence at the window.
I might have won the battle in this little waiting game, but I lost the war. The man was watching for me around the very next corner. I left the café and nearly walked right into him fifty yards later.
