Join us in a return to Oz by the granddaughter of the famous Dorothy Gale, the heroine of her own story and the naive nemesis of the beautiful green goddess of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked.
Dorothy: Locked & Loaded is a more modern tale, if you will, more adult, more twisted; a two-year multi-author tour de force that will make you forget Kansas ever existed in the first place.
She shook the bag and then spilled its contents. The bones clattered onto the stone floor, bouncing off her toes and coming to rest in a pattern that was at once familiar and yet wholly unexpected. So that was it then, she thought. The bones were always right. The bones had never lied to her, and now they were telling her that she was about to face the thing she feared most.
By the time Oli Phant Cob, Chief Engineer of the Yellow Brick Express, saw the purple fog, it was too late to stop the train. Instinctively he reached for the hand-brake, but he knew that jerking on the brake lever could easily send the train off the tracks. They’d never gotten around to working on the braking system, even though both he and Smalls knew it was lacking the necessary maintenance.
I got down on my knees and lowered my head. Is this what it all comes down to? I thought. From rags to riches, then back to rags again? Not for the first time I wished I had never laid eyes on that damned girl and her belligerent dog. I prayed that my end would come quick. As the mob was almost on top of me, they stopped and hummed in unison. I looked up and took in their un-dead stares. I felt their misguided (well, I thought so, anyway) hatred toward me and knew I wasn’t in any position to appeal to their better natures – they obviously didn’t have any. The fog, I thought, it has to be the fog. Otherwise they would take me to a safe place and offer me food and drink. That got me thinking about a drink: Munchkinlander wine, to be precise. Oh how I wanted just one more dunk in a vat of that sweet, sweet nectar.
Munchkins were scrambling out of their seats trying to push to the entrance and into the purple fog. Still others broke windows to climb out, letting more of the purple fog in as they attempted to escape. The reaction of their bodies to the fog was almost instantaneous, and I sat there dumbfounded, watching as more and more munchkins dove into the fog. They screeched and screamed, clawing at their throats, tearing their clothes, but it was over in seconds, and I watched as one after another, those trying to flee through the main door, fell down dead.
We were all made murderers that day. The first of many kills for me, for her. Poor Elphalba never had a chance. Hind sight is 20/20; if only we weren’t so foolish then. If only we had been able to see the true evil glimmering in a sparkling gown behind an angelic face and a tight ass. I have to give credit to Glinda. She pulled our strings to get her way. Now that psycho bitch rules Emerald City and all the lands. Taking the throne from straw face was easy for her. She had spun her lies so they were easily believed. If only we could go back, maybe things would have turned out differently. Now the psychotic witch is up to her tricks again. What the hell does she want?
‘Stay indoors. Do not attempt to travel to Bright Lettins or its outlying villages. Lock your doors.’
It had been lighting just like this when he’d come to her. The brush had fallen to the floor when he’d touched her naked shoulder, softer at first that she had expected – not a rushed, crushing, ragged onslaught.
I think now would be the best time to say that I don’t have much of a head for heights. Hanging from a pole in a field is one thing; hurtling through the air via monkey-power is another. Memories of my adventures with little Dorothy and the others came flooding back. Only this time there was no Wicked Witch of the West overseeing proceedings. It was just me, Turlo and a purple fog you’d need a knife and fork to wade through. I didn’t want to look down; so I looked up at my pilot.
Over the hill, I could see the village in the distance, tucked into a little nook between two hills, like a little cul de sac. Melsha hummed a little song as we walked, and it was all I could do to keep up. She moved through the grass effortlessly, and it wasn’t like it was harder for me as a bigger person. Just..I couldn’t stop staring. Pink and gray trees, little outcroppings of yellowish-brown rock like islands in a sea of grass. There were mountains in the distance, black and foreboding, a little snow on top of the largest, and something about them made me think of Afghanistan. And just to our, well, maybe it was West -- dark clouds seemed to churn in the sky.
Turning, I creak into a run, eyes on the sky, tripping my way toward the shadow that is the Great Kells, the black divide that hides that horrible place from so long ago.
There it was -- the black phone behind my desk. The one that had been used only one other time.
It was the phone that would only bring unwanted news. There were two who knew this number, but I already knew which of them would be waiting for me on the other line.
I picked up the phone.
But one monkey refused to go on the grounds that his family had suffered under Dorothy’s hands. He pleaded refugee status and pointed to another long-dead edict that backed up his case. I had to deal with him quickly and quietly. The last thing I needed was a back-log of similar cases. So I did the only thing I could do in this situation: I made him my pet. I called him Turlo because I think that’s what his name sounded like. I couldn’t speak monkey. I still can’t.
Her rose-pink skin blushed bright red, and she said, “I am only Melsha from Bright Lettina. I am no one. I come here to visit the water in this branch and remember.”
‘Whatever treasure one sought,’ he was always apt to say, ‘one could find it on the Travel Kart.’
I chop the wood to raise the roof to raise her eyes to mine, for smile. Her mistress’s hands rain down blows on my lover’s face, her arms, her hair. My lover stares down the lane, waiting for a time my time her time that never came.
I have committed some truly heinous acts in my life, usually against humans. It's not that I'm terribly partial to other creatures- it's just a human thing. Humans insist on taking more than they need, often at any expense, and it is this drive that invites violence among them and to them.
“Turnbuckle, you test my patience.” Glinda looked up from her massive marble perch, the candlelight dancing in her eyes, sparks of fury. She glared at the little clockwork and huffed.
I take my head out from the vat Munchkinlander wine and let it soak into what's left of my brains. The brains that bastard Wizard cursed me with.
Hello, my name is Dot Gale. But don’t get me mixed up with Dorothy Gale, my grandmother. She was a sweetheart; I’m not.
