I am much more afraid that it…may finish up by describing an entirely fictitious country.

—Alexis de Tocqueville,

Democracy in America, 1835, 1840

ALL COWSwere like all other cows,all tigers like all other tigers—what on earth has happened to human beings?

—Harry Mulisch,

Siegfried, 2001

Contents

Map

L. FRANK BAUM’Ssecond Oz novel,The Marvelous Land of Oz…

I HAVE NO FEAR…

ALL COWSwere like all other cows…

Under the Jackal Moon

The House of Saint Glinda

Abroad

Southstairs

The Service

The Emperor Apostle

One Plus One Equals Both

The Conference of the Birds

Kumbricia’s Cradle

Dragonfings

Siege

The Eye of the Witch

Raising Voices

No Place Like It

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Gregory Maguire

Copyright

About the Publisher

MAP

Under the Jackal Moon

The House of Saint Glinda

1

SO THE TALK OF RANDOM BRUTALITYwasn’t just talk. At noontime they discovered the bodies of three young women, out on some mission of conversion that appeared to have gone awry. The novice maunts had been strangled by their ropes of holy beads, and their faces removed.

Her nerve being shaken at last, Oatsie Manglehand now caved in to the demands of her paying customers. She told the team drivers they’d pause only long enough to dig some shallow graves while the horses slaked their thirst. Then the caravan would press on across the scrubby flats known, for the failed farmsteads abandoned here and there, as the Disappointments.

Moving by night, at least they wouldn’t make a sitting target, though they might as easily wander into trouble as sidestep it. Still, Oatsie’s party was antsy. Hunker down all night and wait for horse hoofs, spears? Too hard on everyone. Oatsie consoled herself: If the caravan kept moving, she could sit forward with her eyes peeled, out of range of the carping, the second-guessing, the worrying.

With the benefit of height, therefore, Oatsie spotted the gully before anyone else did. The cloudburst at sunset had fed a small trackside rivulet that flowed around a flank of skin, water-lacquered in the new moonlight. An island, she feared, of human flesh.

I ought to turn aside before the others notice, she thought; how much more can they take? There is nothing I can do for that human soul. The digging of another trench would require an hour, minimum. An additional few moments for prayers. The project would only further agitate these clients as they obsess about their own precious mortality.

Upon the knee of the horizon balanced the head of a jackal moon, so-called because, once every generation or so, a smear of celestial flotsam converged behind the crescent moon of early autumn. The impact was creepy, a look of a brow and a snout. As the moon rounded out over a period of weeks, the starveling would turn into a successful hunter, its cheeks bulging.

Always a fearsome sight, the jackal moon tonight spooked Oatsie Manglehand further.Don’t stop for this next casualty. Get through the Disappointments, deliver these paying customers to the gates of the Emerald City . But she resisted giving in to superstition. Be scared of the real jackals, she reminded herself, not frets and nocturnal portents.