“Elphaba’s tools of the trade,” he urged her. “The broom. The crystal ball. And wasn’t there a book, some book of magic?”

She wasn’t taking the bait. “The elixir had awakened in me the potential to read for meaning. I would read for meaning. It’s as simple as that. You see, I had been waiting for something to focus my attention. I needed to find something in order to sense a meaning to my life, in this earthly prison of Oz. Maybe I was like the orphan duckling who has to find a friendly dog or a hen or something that might serve as a surrogate mother.”

“Take it from me,” said Brrr, “not everyone who is devoid of a mother seeks out a surrogate.”

“Tell it to the judge,” she replied and left the room.

Like many a blind person, her spatial memory seemed keen. She creaked and tottered away toward the chapel. He listened to the hem of her winding sheet whispering along the floorboards.

It would be fun to hear the scream of some young novice who hadn’t yet heard the news that Yackle had risen from the nearly dead. All he could hear, though, was the arpeggios of melody in the oakhair trees.

NOT MANY MILES to the south, on the banks of the Vinkus River, a stand of young deciduous trees grew fairly close together. A forest fire some eight or ten years earlier had leveled the foliage, so what had sprung up in the ashes was of first growth, and all roughly the same height. Had Brrr possessed a spyglass, and had he thought to train his eyes in that direction, he might have caught a glimpse of a strange and troubled head swimming above the tips of the adolescent trees. It had ears like a dragon, and eyes like a dragon, but its tread was continuous, more like a serpent dragging its huge tail than like a quadruped galumphing along. But Brrr had no such spyglass.

6

T HE CLOCK was moving rather slowly; the lads who pushed and pulled it were struggling across the terrain. It felt as if they were hauling the wagon over a series of railway ties without the benefit of steel runner rails, since the ground was fretted with half-submerged roots of oakhair trees.

The dwarf and his new recruit walked ahead, picking out the best route. They would need to stop before long, as the sky was paling.

“We shall want to take special care, Lady Lucky,” said Mr. Boss. “Usually we like to sidestep troublesome neighborhoods, but our advice this time is to thread our way among contentious populations of nasty, armed men. Reach a safe haven just between them-a tall stone house where custom requires we be granted sanctuary.”

“Sanctuary comes at a cost, however hidden,” she replied.

“Oh, our private Missy Prissy condescends to comment!” The dwarf skipped in place. His mockery was affectionate, but it knew no restraints. “Do tell, darling.”

“I mean nothing by it. Just-just that no rescue comes free.”