“But the Eminent Thropp had daughters, and the rights of inheritance pass down through the female line. Even I remember that much.”

“Ah, but Shell is the last of the line, and both his sisters, Elphaba and Nessarose, died without issue.”

“But did they?” cried Yackle.

“What do you know about it,” he asked, “and furthermore, to the point, why do you care?”

His voice was brutal, even in his own ear. He must be anxious, more than he wants to show, she thought. But she had no room for him right now, when her own tinderbox of memories was flaring to the strike. Her eyes, which had not yielded up moisture for a decade, went gummy, and her heart went hard and soft by turns.

“Tell me when you first became aware of them all,” he said. “Why not? It might help. You may be an oracle, but no oracle can know everything.”

At that remark of his, her sloppy tears did fall. When they dropped on her immaculate winding sheet, small tear-shaped holes burned through, showing shadowy flesh, rucked like flaky pastry.

“I will hold you to your promise,” she said, when she could speak, “or I will kill you.” Standing, she gripped the back of the chair as if she were at a Testimonial Pulpit. What was left of her irises rolled up into her head, slowly. It turned his stomach so far around he felt he could taste his own shit.

She didn’t begin to speak until there was nothing left but the whites of her eyes, like bloodshot stones embedded in her skull.

W HEN DID I first become aware of them? Of the witches of Oz?

No Good Old Days to Speak Of

1

Y OU CAN start with your own origins.” He kept his voice soft, almost a purr. “Name, place, and date of birth. The usual jolly rigamarole.”

“Well, I don’t know my origins.” Her voice sounded faraway. Maybe she was speaking slowly because she was manufacturing lies, or maybe it took her a while to reclaim a notion of the past. “Lost in the mists of time, I’m afraid.”

“You mock me, you mock the Court.”

“I mock nothing and no one. First thing I can remember, I woke from a stupor and I sat up. Like a newborn I was naked, stupid, and without control of my bowels and bladder. But I was resplendently wrinkled and I wasn’t blind the way babies are. My breasts pointed at my toes. I wriggled my toes and I tried to wriggle my breasts. I smelled of ginger and pearlfruit jelly and I was devilishly hungry, so I got up and began to explore. I found a mirror on a wall and noticed that I had eyes, and I saw the flaccid skin barely managing to hold these eyes in their sockets. I had moles on my earlobes, and my hair was lank and grey, and my back hurt. I could talk, so I knew how to curse. I was already well on my way to bodily corruption, you see.”