She runs. She runs blindly once she hits the ground, once tears cloud her eyes and she can't control the broom anymore and she has to descend from the sky. Her feet slam hard against the concrete and she races haphazardly through the streets.
Don't think.
This is the first rule she learns.
Thinking is painful, thinking makes her doubt herself. And if she wants to survive, she cannot do that. She cannot think about what she has done, what it means, or she will fall, she will fall into the snowy gutter and she will not get up.
Keep moving.
The second rule. Momentum is good, momentum keeps her going, keeps her from falling. If she doesn't stop, she won't think, either, and she won't doubt, and she won't fall. So she takes step after step after step, leaving footprints in the dusting of wet snow blanketing the street.
Because, after all, she is barely eighteen, and for all her solitariness she has never been so thoroughly alone before. For all that she has endured, she has never been as mindlessly detested as she knows she now is. And she is afraid, as much as she doesn't want to admit it to herself. She is alone and she is terrified and she is cold and she is exhausted.
And the bitter irony, so palpable she feels its coppery taste in her mouth: this was supposed to be the fulfillment of her dreams. This was supposed to gain her acceptance, normalcy, love.
And here she is, lost and a fugitive in the middle of the Emerald City, sprinting down the street like a madwoman with her hat and her broom, the stupid inexperienced girl that she is. And she is just a girl, and she has nowhere to go, and no one to help her.
And she is alone and she is terrified, and she is cold and she is exhausted.
But she is right, and she clutches that to her chest as if it would support her, warm her, feed her. She is right, and she knows it, and it is her downfall that she is the sort of person who can let everything else go, everything and everyone, except for that. She is right, and they don't want to admit it. She is right, and for this they will call her wicked.