Wonder
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Sometimes she wondered.
Wondered, as she swept the wide wood porch and curled up in the window seat beside Auntie Em in her rocker, whether it was real. But that was only sometimes. A rather rare sometimes when she questioned what she knew as reality.
But more often, she wondered, who was the Wicked Witch of the West? Could someone be born wicked? And if not, what had made her who she was?
She had no answers and the questions only circled restlessly, endlessly, around her thoughts. Yet, she could not help but to wonder and to question and to imagine, to dream up lives and events which could have possibly created a Wicked Witch.
As for her sister, the Witch of the East's existence itself made her wonder. For truly, how could someone who clearly loved their sister, who was willing to fight and die for the only thing left of her, for a single pair of glitzy red shoes, possibly be wicked?
And still she had no answers. Though she would, on occasion, dream in the darkest hours—the witching hours—of the night, of two sisters who lived in a fantastical world, but for whom everything possible had fallen to pieces. And she would wake with simple, grieving, guilty, tears streaming quietly down her cheeks as she wondered how she lived with herself.
Because no matter what her intentions, whether it had all been just another pointless, unpredictable tragedy far beyond her control, in the lives of a pair of cursed sisters—Dorothy knew that she could never, ever forgive herself. Wicked or not, witch or not, in her dreams, her nightmares, all the little farm girl could do was watch as she murdered a desperate, grieving woman who only wanted the last reminder of her dead sister.
Sometimes she wondered whether it was real. Sometimes, even a rare sometimes, she questioned what she knew was real…if only because she sometimes wished with all her heart that it wasn't.
And in the end, she could not help but wonder, if she kept her eyes open and had never dreamt of a dark and glittering fantasyland, would two sisters, two Wicked Witches still live?
But then she would sigh, and close her eyes, and wonder if she would ever stop wondering.