I want to share with my readers...my original novel, September Blue, is now available on Amazon and Kindle. The link is available on my profile page or by searching for "September Blue" by Cat Whitney on Amazon. :-)

If you've clicked on this, you might be thinking...what on earth is this about? You might think I've completely derailed and gone insane. However, I hope that some of you will give this a chance. Hopefully you'll take a chance on my ability to create a character that you can love. Please? I promise to give you a rich story. I really do...for those who love Elphie, and those who love Mary. I know some of you tend to follow me no matter how far out in left field I venture. :-)

This idea came about because I am currently working the show Mary Poppins, and I will see it about twenty times before I'm done. Sitting there, watching it over and over, I realized a few things. First, no one knows where Mary goes when she 'flies away'. Second, she's more than good with kids...she's got magic. Third, she can talk to animals. So...my crazy brain starts clicking away, and I think...what if...what if there was a connection with Oz? I'm also a sucker for creating a good back story. There's got to be more beneath the perfection. And I love the bit of an 'edge' they've given her in the show. So I had to write something.

This is intended to be a sequal to A Time for Rain, and Black and White. However, you can read this independently of those. Some cheats you need to know, though: In A Time for Rain, Elphaba finds herself in Kansas after she 'melts'. It takes place at the end of Wicked, bookverse. She is taken in by Mae and Wilbur, and subsequently meets her friends Tessie and Adrian. She and Fiyero reunite there, and they have made a home. Fiyero has several adopted children, who were ophans. Elphaba has used her ability to communicate with Animals to establish herself as a sort-of veterinarian. They have also learned that both she and Dorothy are children of both worlds. This is why they are able to travel to Oz and back. It also means they are related. It's complicated...I know, but it works if you read A Time for Rain. Also, Black and White is the story of what happened to Elphaba in the five years between Shiz and meeting Fiyero. She went through some difficult things in that, and they may come up in this story as well.

Happy reading...and to quote the show Mary Poppins..."Anything can happen, if you let it..."

Chapter 1

Fiyero was a bit surprised at how well Elphaba had adjusted to life on a working farm. He thought perhaps it had something to do with her upbringing in the rough, backcountry of Munchkinland. Whatever the reason, however, she seemed at peace with tending the animals, whom she still called Animals. She'd quickly become a highly sought after doctor to all things furry and feathered, and had earned cautious respect from the community. Surprisingly, she'd also taken on the task of keeping the children out of mischief.

Elphaba had never been very suited for motherhood. Fiyero hadn't expected her to suddenly become doting and sweet. He was proud, however, of how she took ownership of the ragamuffin group of orphans he called his family. She tended them quietly, keeping her distance yet demanding obedience. It was only in rare moments, such as when little John fell and broke his shin bone, that she demonstrated the true depth of her feelings.

She had painstakingly set and bandaged his leg, snapping at him not to cause infection by playing in the mud. Still, they all saw the love and the fear in her eyes. The children saw that she loved Fiyero, and perhaps understood that they were loved vicariously. Somehow, it was enough for them. And it was enough for Fiyero, for whom just a year ago the green woman had been only a painful memory. Now, his house was full, both literally and emotionally. Trudy, whom even Elphaba now called Ma, had welcomed Fiyero's bride into their house in White Springs with open arms. They all settled into a new routine, as a family. However, it was clear that Elphaba missed the relationships she'd formed with Mae and Tessie. They had brought her through some of hardest times of her life, and although she wouldn't easily admit it, she loved them dearly. So, after about a month, the family made the decision to move to Amber Plains, where they could live on the land owned by Mae and Wilbur.

Mae, who never failed to speak her mind, had determined shortly after Elphaba and Fiyero's wedding that Dorothy and her family should be near them as well. With a sparkle in her eye, she had fussed about how many years they'd all spent apart, not realizing there was blood between them. She'd also picked up rather quickly on how destitute Emily and Henry were, and how much Dorothy could benefit from having acres of farmland to explore. So Mae and Wilbur had set themselves to work. With the help of their staff, they rearranged their home a bit, and then set about refurbishing the guest house that overlooked the pond on the western edge of their property. It took them just over a month, with the clear, summer weather helping them along.

And now, just as fall had started to ripen the barley, Fiyero and his family were living in the refurbished guesthouse. Emily, Henry, and young Dorothy had taken up residence in the main house, which was already bustling with Mae, Wilbur, Tessie and Adrian. It was a good, if chaotic, situation, and Mae often looked as content as a hen in a heap of spilled corn. For the woman who had lost her only child so tragically, she had a measure of recompense. To Fiyero, it seemed like they'd filled the hole in her heart, finally.

It was good for all of them, he thought, to have a bit of normalcy. They were an odd menagerie of a family, all sporting a measure of heartbreak. In addition to Mae's tragedy, there was the loss of Dorothy's parents, and Fiyero's stint in a Dallas prison. There was the typhoid that had nearly claimed his life, not to mention Elphaba's trip to the brink of madness before she'd come to Kansas. They had all been a bit broken by what life had given them.

So it's time, Fiyero often told himself, for us all to have some peace, some happiness even.

Still, Fiyero knew Elphaba well. He remembered her untamable zeal from so many years ago, shared with him in the inky darkness of the corn exchange. He remembered how he'd feared she would disappear at any time, without a trace. Now, perhaps that fear had faded some. Still, he saw that she and Dorothy would go for long walks into the scrubby trees on the edge of the barley fields under the premise that they were working on Dorothy's lessons. Fiyero knew, however, that they were pondering things beyond the rolling plains of the great state of Kansas. He knew they were most likely making trips to Oz. After all, they were Children of Both Worlds, and their alliance was growing as strong as their hatred for one another had once been.

He also noticed how Elphaba would sit with Tessie on Mae's porch until well after dark, telling her stories of Oz. He saw the fire in his wife's eyes as she recounted the injustices, the political imbalance, and also the beauty and richness of her homeland. Fiyero also watched her disappear on long rides into the empty fields astride Jasper, her body melding with the stallion's, her black hair mimicking the horse's mane. There was a bond between them that couldn't be understood by those who'd never spoken with an animal.

And in spite of her domestication, Fiyero knew there were things about Elphaba that would never change to fit the society around her. She let her hair fly loose in the wind when she wanted, and she often donned men's trousers, tucked into her riding boots, as she and jasper galloped across the plains. She addressed men and women alike with her quick, sharp tongue, and she refused to concede to those who thought of her as 'colored'. She offered no apologies for being undeniably unique. She was softer, calmer even, than she'd been fifteen years ago when Fiyero had been ripped away from her, but there was still a thirst in her for more than just an average life. Elphaba would do more than just live out her days tending a farmhouse. Fiyero knew that. What he didn't know was when, or how, she would choose her next mission.

So he waited, content in the moment. He let her and Dorothy scheme together. He encouraged her as she and Mae grew closer, and she let herself open up further. He would kiss her softly and leave her to talk for hours with Tessie. He watched with quiet understanding as she sat by the pond and just stared into the western sky. He pretended not to notice when she sat up for hours by the lamplight, pouring over books and muttering what might be spells. Fiyero let Elphaba be. He loved her, fiercely, but he loved her like one loves a great, sky bird. And he never forgot his promise, to let her fly.