The barking of a little dog stirred Dorothy Gale from the most amount of sleep she had managed since coming back from a place so real, she refused to dismiss it…as her Uncle Henry advised her to do…as nothing more than a fever dream.
The past couple of days were tough for the young girl. Her memories of being in Oz hung very heavily upon her mind, and it made getting any semblance of sleep difficult. Even for all the peril she had experienced, she genuinely wanted to go back.
But in returning home, she found that the tornado that had ripped through the Gale farm had caused far more damage than what was visibly apparent. The once-fertile land was now a shambles. Although the twister provided Dorothy with her unexpected trip to Oz, its destructive power had made any hope of restoration difficult. At least, when it came to the expenses necessary to make repairs.
The young girl was still lost to her melancholy of being away from Oz when her Aunt and Uncle made a decision which they both knew would upset Dorothy. The expenses they worked out required an unfortunate sacrifice.
The three farmhands…Hickory, Zeke, and Hunk…needed to be let go.
They went to see Dorothy, sitting all alone in her room with Toto resting at her feet, before they left. The overall mood was sullen, particularly when Hunk stepped over to say goodbye.
Hunk turned to his two friends standing by the door. "Why don't you wait for me outside, fellas? I'll be right out."
Hickory nodded, and then gestured for Zeke to follow him over to the front door of the farmhouse.
Hunk tenderly placed a hand upon Dorothy's shoulder. "Listen…I wanted to let you know that I'm gonna try and get into that agricultural university I told you about last week. I'll try to keep in touch, OK?"
Although Dorothy struggled to keep from crying, the tears began to flow freely.
Hunk wrapped the young girl in a tight, affectionate hug as Dorothy began sobbing. "I'll miss you…" she whispered. "…I'll miss you so much…"
A single tear trickled down Hunk's cheek as well as he held Dorothy tightly. "I'll write you. I promise."
Hunk then stepped away slowly, his eyes still on Dorothy. He wiped the single tear from his cheek.
Dorothy sniffled, wiping away the streams of tears under her right eye. She didn't want to say it. Not in front of Hunk.
After a long moment, however, Hunk stepped away and headed towards the front door.
It was a little easier for her to say…in a weak and shaky voice…once he was gone.
"Goodbye, Scarecrow."
Dorothy had been quiet and withdrawn since that day, and although she had emerged from her room to eat with her Aunt and Uncle, she did not say much to either one of them.
Aunt Em was entirely hesitant to begin looking for a bit of professional help for Dorothy, but between her melancholy and the departure of the farmhands, she needed to share the subject, privately, with her husband.
Unbeknownst to Dorothy, however, Uncle Henry knew someone that he figured might be of some help…and when the Kansas girl was roused from her sleep by Toto, the little dog led her over to where her Aunt and Uncle were talking to this considerably well-dressed woman, who was sipping from a cup of tea.
"But Henry…this cure he's talkin' about in the newspaper is s'posed t' be revolutionary!" Em remarked to her husband as Dorothy approached.
"Now, now, Em…if Miss Dawson says Dr. Worley is dangerous, that's all the convincin' I need." Henry replied.
He was the first to spot Dorothy as she wearily walked over in her nightgown and slippers, and the eyes of all three…the Dawson woman, Uncle Henry, and Aunt Em…all turned to the Kansas girl. "Ah, G'mornin', Dor'thy. I'd like you t' meet a friend of a friend." He gestured to the well-dressed woman, who wore a fashionably wide-brimmed hat. "This is Regina Dawson. She'd like t' talk to ya once you've dress'd up."
Initially hesitant to open up to the visitor, it was when Regina lifted her head…and the front brim of her hat, which was the same red color as her skirt and dress jacket…that Dorothy's eyes widened.
Her smiling face, and curly red hair, bore a striking resemblance to that of Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.
"Good morning, Dorothy." Regina began, in a sweet and pleasant tone that significantly matched Glinda's the moment the Kansas girl heard it. "Take your time in dressing up, dear. Good mental health should never be rushed."
Dorothy slowly nodded and hurried back to her room to begin changing. Acting on her hunch, she decided to dress in the exact same outfit she wore when she was stranded in Oz, and she arranged her hair similarly. A few minutes later, Dorothy re-emerged and hurried back over to where Regina sat waiting for her. She was reaching down to run her slender hand along Toto's black fur when Dorothy returned.
"We'll be outside if y' need us, Dor'thy!" Henry reminded as he and Emily left the orphan girl alone with Regina. They busied themselves with crops, livestock and repairs as Dorothy and Regina began to speak to one another.
Regina was the first to break the ice. "So…I understand you had quite a little adventure when that tornado came through here? Why don't you tell me all about it?"
Dorothy then went into as much detail as she could in sharing her memories of Oz. She told Regina of how the twister pulled the house up from its foundations, and then deposited it in a faraway place which existed over the rainbow. She spoke of how she wanted to get back home to Kansas, and she shared her memories of the Good Witch who had helped her, and the Wicked Witch of the West who had wanted to destroy her.
She said nothing, however, of how the three friends she had met resembled the farmhands, nor of how the Wizard resembled Professor Marvel, and she especially refrained from revealing the fact that Regina was pretty much a mirror-image of Glinda.
Regina just kept nodding as Dorothy spoke, listening with great interest, and never once reacting with incredulous expressions of any kind. She had also produced a pad of paper, in which she was writing notes as the Kansas girl continued speaking of her experiences in the colorful realm she had abandoned for the sake of getting back home.
"How did you manage to return to Kansas?" Regina then asked.
Dorothy frowned, at first, but then she reminded herself that even though Regina looked like the one who showed the Kansas girl how to return…
"Glinda gave me a pair of shoes." Dorothy replied. "Slippers, made of rubies. They were on the feet of a witch my house crushed. She was the sister of the Wicked Witch of the West, which is why she wanted to…to kill me."
"Mmmm. Revenge." Regina observed as she continued to write notes on her pad. "And I imagine these slippers were more than just…slippers?"
Dorothy nodded. "Glinda showed me how to use them. Click the heels together three times, and keep saying 'there's no place like home'. I woke up in my bed, and all my friends and family were around me. Told me I had come out of a long dream."
Regina nodded, and then looked Dorothy right in her eyes as she made this next inquiry. "But you don't believe it was all a dream, do you?
Dorothy went quiet, lowering her head for a long moment before she raised her head back up to give her answer. "No. I don't."
"Yet, you were instructed to say the words 'there's no place like home' before those slippers returned you to Kansas." Regina reasoned. "From what I know of the legends of magic use, the effects of magic are partially based on belief. Tell me, dear…did you find anything about this other place appealing? Was there anything about it that you liked?"
"Well…I did make friends, as I told you, and there were other people there who were just as nice…"
"And these friends of yours…" Regina closed the notepad and placed it next to the teacup saucer on the nearby table. She then leaned closer to Dorothy. "…do you miss them?"
After a moment, Dorothy slowly nodded, her eyes angled downward. "Yes, I do. They…they didn't want me to go, but…Aunt Em and Uncle Henry would have been terribly worried about me if I didn't come back…"
"What if you were able to take them with you, Dorothy?" Regina then asked. "If you ever found a way to return to…what was this place called again?"
"Oz."
"If you ever found a way to return to Oz, and you had the chance to have your Aunt and Uncle join you, would that make you happy, Dorothy?"
Again, Dorothy needed a moment to think on Regina's inquiry. "Well…I don't think Aunt Em would go anywhere without her hens, and she'd probably be real scared of the lion anyway."
"But let's assume, for a moment, that Oz actually exists. Just as you feel it does." Regina remarked. "You believe in it, even if your Aunt and Uncle may not. Do you think it is a better place compared to Kansas?"
After another long moment of thought, Dorothy nodded. "I do."
"Let me ask you this, then." Regina continued. "After everything that has happened since you came back from Oz, which your Aunt and Uncle told me about…is there still 'no place like home'?"
A much longer moment of silence followed as Dorothy's eyes angled downward again. With the three farmhands gone…Hunk in particular…there was no clear answer to Regina's inquiry, even if Hunk had promised to write. The future for the farm in general was uncertain, too, given its state following the damage the tornado had inflicted. The answer she finally gave was about as accurate an answer as she could give.
"I don't know." Dorothy quietly replied. "Now that things have changed, I…I just don't know, Regina."
The woman nodded. She then picked her notepad and pencil back up, pulling away from the Kansas girl, and opened it up to continue writing. "Dorothy…I've always believed, and I will note that this is a personal belief, that for every little misfortune a person experiences, twice as many better things…perhaps even more than that…await said persons in the long run of life."
"Do you believe me, Regina?" Dorothy suddenly asked, her eyes staring right into the older woman's. "Do you believe Oz exists?"
Now it was Regina's turn to go silent, and think of the most appropriate answer in her own quiet moment. She certainly did not want to come right out with a straight dismissal, though. In her own experience as a therapist, going against the grain of a client's thinking was perilous.
"I couldn't say, Dorothy." Regina finally answered. "I have never actually been there, as you have, after all. I suppose that would be an easier question to answer, however, if I actually had proof…and by that, I do mean something tangible…that I was there."
Dorothy slowly nodded in understanding as Regina finished her tea, and then closed her notepad once more. She then rose up from her seat, holding the pad under her arm. "I must go for the moment, but I'd like to continue this tomorrow morning, dear. I think it would be to your benefit, and I do promise that…as it was today…it will continue to be between us, and us alone."
Dorothy rose up, nodding in understanding. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then."
With a nod and a pleasant smile, Regina turned and began clicking her heels toward the house's front door.
Dorothy also turned, but headed back to her room slowly and thoughtfully after all that had been shared between her and Regina. She wondered if she could have somehow hinted at how similar Glinda and Regina looked, or perhaps hinted that Regina was Glinda.
Still, she reasoned to herself that it certainly wasn't too late to make such attempts. Since, after all, Regina was to return the next day.
But one thought lingered on her mind as she slowly stepped into her room, closing the door behind her, and then moving to the window of her room to pull its shade down.
Dorothy then went to her room's closet, opening it, and then pulling what looked to be a bundle concealed within a white pillowcase. It had been buried deep in the Kansas girl's closet, completely outside of common notice.
Pulling the item…or rather, the items…out of the pillowcase, she positioned the matching items beside each other on the bed.
She then stared thoughtfully down at the glittering ruby slippers, which she had found lingering on her feet under the covers of the bed once her aunt, her uncle, and all her friends left her alone in the room following her return to consciousness.
She never let anyone ever dare see this irrefutable proof that her experiences were in no way a mere fever dream…but at the same time, she began to think on Regina's words. About returning to the marvelous land of Oz. Returning to those friends she had made who so selflessly helped her in her perilous journey to get back home.
Abandoning her friends and family, however, was hardly something she wanted to consider. With the farm a shambles from the tornado's rampage, her aunt and uncle really needed her for whatever help she could offer. There was also the notion of waiting for Hunk's first correspondence to her.
With a sigh, Dorothy wrapped the slippers back up, placed it back in the closet, and closed the closet door. Re-opening the shade, the Kansas girl left her room and then went outside to see about offering whatever assistance she could to her aunt and uncle.
"Ahhh, there you are, you murderous little meddler." The old man once again flashed his horrible yellow grin as he stared upon the image of Dorothy Gale in the enchanted mirror. The girl was staring thoughtfully upon the ruby slippers as he watched. "And you have my shoes with you, don't you?"
The old cobbler turned away from the mirror, however, for the miserly man now had a more perplexing thought on his mind. Would they still work outside of Oz? He had likewise confirmed that Dorothy was now in Kansas, and consequently very far from the land she was once stranded in. In her world, magic was impossible.
Nevertheless, the cobbler knew enough about magic that he surmised the possibility of a very strong belief and/or desire being able to re-ignite the dormant magic within his powerfully-enchanted, ruby-encrusted creation…even in Dorothy's world…to the point where it really could bring the Kansas girl and the slippers back to Oz.
He could hardly send anything within Oz outside of the land to acquire her, either, and he knew sending the winged monkeys to get her would do him no good at all, as they could not fly anywhere outside of Oz. He had already effectively wasted a wish, since the ruby slippers he had tasked the flying simians to find were now confirmed to be outside of the land's lethal, sand-swept boundaries.
His chain of deep thought was then interrupted by the growling of an old woman at the front door of the cobbler's shop. A pained whining…in the voice of a certain young boy who had successfully learned and reported the name of the Kansas girl…accompanied the wicked old woman's merciless scolding.
Chuckling menacingly, the old cobbler grabbed Mombi's finished shoes and stepped towards the front door. He was able to make out words as he neared it.
"…will be the LAST time I send you out on errands, boy! The next time I hear of any mischief, I'll have you turned into a marble statue!"
The old man burst out of the door. "What is all this racket?" Confirming that it was indeed Mombi, the purple-robed witch of the northern Gillikin Country, his tone softened. "Ahhh, Mombi. Your little brat just wandered off as I was working. Kept going on and on about how he wanted to go to the Emerald City, didn't you? How you were tired of waiting! How you were finished waiting!"
The young boy looked entirely horrified. "But…but you…"
The cobbler openly mocked the boy's nervous tone. "Buh-buh-buh-butbutbutbut! That's all you whine! Butbutbutbut!" He shook his head ashamedly as the boy continued to stare back at the cobbler in disbelief. "Petulant brat! You ought to have your legs turned to marble, at least! Then you wouldn't go running off when you should have been waiting for me to finish!"
The old man finally caught the sound of tapping, which he had missed as he was growling at the shocked boy. The tapping came from the tip of a single boot, one half of an old pair of tattered and worn boots Mombi was currently wearing. The old crone's arms were crossed in front of her, and her frowning gaze was staring right at the cobbler.
Blushing, the cobbler presented Mombi with his completed work on her shoes with a more cordial grin. "As per your request, dear." He calmly remarked as Mombi grabbed them, quickly pulling the boots off her stinky old feet and slipping them into the inner spaces of the comfortably re-padded shoes. "Any more work I can do for you, madam?" He then asked, maintaining his cordial yellow smile.
"Mmmmm. Not bad." Mombi observed as she sampled the fit and feel of the shoes. She then looked to the cobbler. "Not unless you can find me a fresh supply of hay. My four-horned cow is being stubborn about it with me."
"Oh, but I've heard your ability to perform transformations has no equal in your country, dear." The cobbler offered, in his deceptively cordial voice. "What's to stop you from turning, say, a petulant little boy into a perfectly good hay bale?" The wicked old man angled an evil eye towards the quivering boy as he made this observation.
"In a name? Glinda." Mombi growled back. "I don't know how she finds out these things, but it's said there's nothing anyone does in Oz that can escape her notice, and she particularly hates transformation magic."
The cobbler nodded in agreement, being all too aware of the magnitude of Glinda's own magic power. "If only there was a way she could be dealt with."
"If anyone is to be 'dealt' with for the moment, it's this little brat." Mombi indicated the boy, and her eyes again turned to her young servant, leering wickedly. "And when I get back from the Doctor's office, I'll have made up my mind as to how you will be punished!"
Mombi then grabbed the little boy's ear painfully and pulled him with her, ignoring his cries of pain outright as they stepped away from the cobbler's shop, leaving the old man shaking his head as he disappeared behind the shop's front door.
He decided to let any further scheming wait until the rest of his day's work on shoes were completed.
Although Mombi was quite correct in telling the nasty old cobbler of Glinda's habit of learning anything that goes on within…and outside…the land of Oz through a most unique and volumnious form of scrying, the Good Witch of the North was not constantly in front of her large magical journal, for she only consulted it when she was made aware of possible problems manifesting.
On this day, however, it was at the unique request of a most talented munchkinland resident…the good Doctor Pipt…that Glinda opted to travel by way of one of her magic bubbles to the doorstep of the Doctor's home, where his wife Margolotte waited to open the door of his residence to let her in.
From a distance, however, Mombi was on the approach, and spotted the settling of the bubble from afar. Whyever was she here, Mombi wondered?
Perhaps she needed to use the kind of magic Glinda despised just to find out…
"Look who's here, dear!" Margolotte chimed in her tinny voice as she and Glinda moved into the somewhat cramped quarters of Doctor Pipt's workspace. The sweet-voiced munchkin turned to the red-haired witch, who had subtly shrunk herself to munchkin size prior to entering. "Would you like some tea?"
"Not at the moment, Margolotte." Glinda replied, smiling. "As I have other matters to attend to, I am anxious to see what your husband does with the…admittedly odd items he has requested of me."
"Trust me, Glinda! It will all make sense when I'm done!" The male munchkin voice remarked as the speaker…Doctor Pipt, a munchkin with somewhat crooked body features, this a side effect from another of his risky experiments…stepped into his workspace from the adjoining room. A younger munchkin boy wearing colorfully festive clothes was behind him, and he turned to this munchkin boy as he entered the workspace. "Now Ojo, I need you to be very careful with that glass figure. Walk slowly, and place it right on that table there."
The handsome boy, Ojo, nodded and made very slow and careful steps toward the indicated table, where he placed the glass-wrought rendering he had in his hands upon its four feet.
The rendering was revealed to be that of a cat.
Doctor Pipt then looked to Glinda, who now cast a curious glance upon the cat statue. "Would you be so kind as to install those items, please? I'll explain everything once I have them in place."
Glinda nodded slowly, admittedly intrigued at the uncertainty of the old munchkin Doctor's intentions, as she produced the three items he had requested.
Two of them were identical-looking emeralds with long black slits carved into each of them. The third was a series of small pink cubes constructed in a manner that made it possible for them to move around each other with a silent friction.
"Where are the cubes going?" Glinda asked. "And what will be their purpose, if any?"
"Tut, tut! Not yet!" Doctor Pipt's crooked index finger wiggled back and forth. "My creation needs eyes first! Place the emeralds in the sockets, please."
Glinda nodded, and carefully placed the emeralds where indicated, making sure the slits were properly positioned. As they were created according to Doctor Pipt's specifications, they snapped in perfectly, and even had a slight gap so they could move around as if they were real eyes.
"And NOW, we can place the cubes." Doctor Pipt then confirmed. "I trust the material was not too difficult to find?"
"I should warn you, Doctor…the material came from a place in Oz renowned for its insufferable vanity." Glinda noted as she pulled her wand and waved it above the cube, the tip of the wand glowing with magical energy. The cubes, placed next to the cat statue, began to float upwards. Once it hovered next to the cat statue's head, Glinda closed her eyes and concentrated, very slowly moving the wand towards the space just above the cat's head. The cube array moved with the wand, and then became slightly transparent, moving through the glass until it hovered at a position just behind…and slightly above…the emerald eyes. The cubes then began to shift in place, moving of their own accord as Glinda opened her eyes and moved the wand away.
Glinda then turned her head, smiling, to Doctor Pipt. "Brains, yes?"
The munchkin doctor nodded in amazement. "How did you…?"
Glinda giggled in response. "Wild guess!"
Doctor Pipt, after comically acknowledging Glinda's reply, then stepped over to procure another glass bottle, this one cylindrical in shape with a cork upon the top lip. "I created this for a client, but she's not here yet, and I have never tested it!"
Glinda nodded. "And, 'this' is…?"
The Doctor took a melodramatic pose. "I call it…the POW-derrrr of LIIIIIFFFFE!" He dramatically announced, flourishing a hand to the bottle, which was indeed filled with a sparkling powder. "It is capable of imbuing inanimate objects with the gift of magical life!"
Glinda's eyebrows raised high, her eyes now wide. "Dear me! And…you intend on bringing this…cat…to life with this powder?"
"That's at my request, Glinda." Margolotte noted. "I've always wanted a cat! Just like that girl Dorothy had a dog!"
And that was all Margolotte was wiling to share. The truth…which she knew Glinda would not like hearing…was that she and her husband were having problems with mice as of late, and she needed a cat in hopes of dealing with them.
"I…hope that's OK?" Margolotte added, seeing the wary expression on Glinda's face.
"Well…I…suppose that would be fine." Glinda relented. "So long as this cat does not cause too much trouble."
Once the Doctor heard Glinda's hesitant approval, he uncorked the bottle and carefully sprinkled the enchanted dust upon the glass-wrought sculpture, which began to glow with a soft blue light.
Behind them, Ojo looked a little more curious about a series of matching bottles on a high shelf, and he had stepped up on a nearby chair to get a closer look at the label.
Liquid…of…Pet…Petrif…
The glass cat let out a loud feline yowl as her glass-wrought joints began to move, and the pink cubes in her head wildly shuffled about in recognition of the cat's apparent shock, which made both Margolotte and the Doctor lurch back in surprise…
…which in turn sent Ojo teetering out of balance! Desperate for a handhold, he grabbed the wooden shelf, which held his weight for all of two seconds before the shelf snapped down, sending the three bottles on the shelf down to the ground.
All three of them shattered, spilling their contents upon the ground. With Ojo barely comprehending what the labels had read, the munchkin boy leapt away from the free-flowing contents that spread all over the floor…
…and, once the spilled liquid came into contact with three pairs of feet, began working their terrible magic upwards, transmuting footwear, cloth, and flesh to solid marble.
And one of those three marble statues, much to Ojo's shock, was Glinda.
Standing next to Glinda, with equal expressions of marble-wrought horror, were Doctor Pipt and Margolotte.
Also staring upon the three marble statues, with a more curious expression, was the glass-wrought feline the Powder of Life had successfully animated. She tilted her head to the side, having instinctively leapt to a space that had not been affected by the liquid spillage.
Ojo was also spared the effect of the spillage, but he was utterly speechless, his expression of horror frozen on his face.
"Such marvelous detail, don't you think?"
Ojo blinked, hearing the female voice purring forth. He slowly turned his head to the only thing in the room that could have possibly spoken those words.
Although Ojo's expression remained horrified. "What…what have I done?"
The glass cat stared back at him with her now-gleaming emerald eyes. "Indeed. This is terrible! But…I think I know of a way to correct this. You'll have to get me something I will need."
Ojo blinked again, tilting his own head to the side. "What?"
"A mirror, of course!" The glass cat replied. "I've GOT to see how purrrrr-fect I look!"
It was from a perch that a curious owl was able to look through a window from afar to see the calamity that had turned three unsuspecting individuals into solid marble statues.
Once the lone survivor of the calamity…a munchkin boy…dashed away from the scene alongside an odd four-legged creature that followed him out, the owl glided over to get a closer look at the statues without entering the home.
The bird's binocular eyesight confirmed that one of them was shockingly familiar.
The owl hovered down to the ground, and purple magic energy began to mist and sparkle all around the avian creature, its form bloating and mutating out of shape until a black-furred gargantuan animal…a large ape…stood where the owl had landed.
The ape took great care in plucking the Glinda statue from the drying remnants of the liquid below. Obviously, the creature had no interest in neither Doctor Pipt nor Margolotte. Glinda was by far the more important prize, and the large simian needed to get her out of sight.
For such was the first step in old Mombi's developing scheme, which continued to build in the large ape's mind as the creature quickly distanced herself from Munchkinland…the statue of Glinda on her back…before Ojo brought the Mayor over.
With no Glinda to stop her, and plenty of terrible magic power at her disposal, she could become a most wicked witch!