Behind Closed Doors

Chapter 11

Glinda sat up startled because the voice she had heard said that her name was Elphaba. But as Glinda opened her eyes and looked up, to her bitter disappointment, she saw a woman with long brown hair, and brown eyes with pale, plain skin looking down at her worriedly. It must have been her imagination taking off with her sanity, but Glinda still couldn't help to say their names out loud.

"Elphie? Fiyero?"

"Glin, oh Glinda what happened to you?" cried out the woman as she put both her hands to Glinda's face as if to examine it.

Glinda didn't say anything, but she just looked at this woman trying to figure who she was.

"Glinda say something please! Anything," pleaded the woman as she looked worriedly to the Scarecrow man behind her.

That rang a bell in Glinda's mind. The Scarecrow man… now he was Fiyero right? She looked at him more closely, still not speaking. Yes it was he; no one could look that clueless more than Fiyero.

"Glinda, are you alright? Do you know who we are?" asked Fiyero slowly seeing the blonde's utterly confused face.

"You're Fiyero," she said looking at him, but then her eyes drifted towards Elphaba and she paused.

The woman's eyes turned soft, and she looked with a horrified expression to Fiyero.

"What has Cherrystone done to her?" she asked, her voice frayed and broken like she was on the verge of tears.

At that moment, Glinda put a hand to her pounding head only to pull away and find out that she was bleeding quite badly. Her palm was covered in thick red blood, and as she looked at it she felt dizzy.

"Maybe you should change out of your disguise, Fae," suggested Fiyero looking at Elphaba. Both of them had scared looks now. This could not be happening, not now.

Elphaba's face was filled with realization then, and she cried out, "Of course, no wonder she's confused. I'm not green."

With that she mumbled a few words, and within seconds her pale white skin turned green, and she looked at Glinda with her eyebrows raised.

"Does this help, Glinda?" she asked, trying to sound hopeful either way.

Glinda looked at her, her bloodied hand now on her lap.

"Elphie? Is that really you?" she whispered tears brimming her eyes. Elphaba nodded, and hugged her old friend tightly.

"I've missed you so much," whispered Elphaba as a tear fell from her face, and Glinda muffled a half-sob and laugh.

"I missed you too…" Glinda trailed off still dizzy, and in that state she forgot what Chistery had said to her about them still being alive, "So this is what death is like…"

Elphaba's head snapped up, her eyes narrowed, and her nostrils flared.

"Glinda, you're not dead," stated Elphaba.

Glinda looked back at her with a hard glare, "Yes I am. You both are dead, so I must be dead too. I don't even remember how I-"

Fiyero cut her off by putting his over her mouth, and kissing her forehead.

"Glin, stop this. You're making us have a panic attack every-time you talk. Listen to us Glinda, you are not dead. Now snap out of it, you little blonde!"

Glinda reeled back from the comment, and seemed to come back to her senses. She apologized, complaining that her head hurt, and the blood was making her slightly delirious.

"Can you stand?" asked Elphaba concerned.

Glinda shrugged, "Probably not. I don't think I want to anyways. I'm still very dizzy. And before I forget something again, why don't you both explain to me how the hell you both are alive? And the fact that you didn't tell me?"

Her voice was hard, upset, and frayed all at the same time. Fiyero and Elphaba both knew that she was angry with them for not telling her about them not dying, but they had to be safe and they wanted her to be safe too.

"Glinda, we promise we will. But it's just we need to get out of here now before Cherrystone or anyone else comes in and finds us. We don't have much time left," said Elphaba.

"I'd say so," remarked a cruel and harsh male voice from the doorway and all three of them looked to see who it was with fright.

"They're taking an awful long time, aren't they Chistery?" said Faye nervously as she paced around the snow monkey's cell while waiting for Elphaba and Fiyero to return with Glinda. It had been at least two hours, and they hadn't come back yet. Faye knew that Chistery was starting to get anxious.

"Yes, they are. I don't like it one bit," remarked Chistery.

Faye turned to face him, "Should we have followed them?"

"No, not me I can't even get out of this cage, and you… no you're too suspicious. I'm sure they'll be back soon," reassured Chistery even though he didn't really believe it. Something inside of him told him that something bad had happened.

Faye sat down on the ground, and played with some stones on the floor to occupy her time.

"So how did you get involved with all of this?" asked the girl while playing with her hair absentmindedly.

"With all of what?" asked the snow monkey a bit testily.

"With Elphaba and Fiyero, of course."

Chistery sat up, and paused, "I was brought here from the Other World by the Wizard. He was in a traveling circus and his act was the flying balloon act. He used to have us monkeys help him out with selling tickets and whatnot. But in the Other World I never used to be able to speak, I didn't even know I could. But then one day at the circus there was a cyclone-"

"Like Dorothy's cyclone?" interrupted Faye, moving closer to the bars of the cell so she could hear more clearly.

"Yes just like Dorothy's. But we, the monkey servants and I, and the Wizard were all in his balloon that day and we literally drifted to Oz. The Wizard was declared His Ozness, and he appointed us to help him whenever he needed us. He kept us in his cellar of the palace, and we were only brought out that one time… the time that Elphaba and Glinda came to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard. He picked me to come out of the cellar, and I was so glad. I thought I was finally getting out. I guess I was a bit overexcited when I saw Elphaba and Glinda standing in the Throne Room, and I was just glad to see light. Well then Madame Morrible and The Wizard asked Elphaba to perform a spell on me, a spell to make me fly. She did so; she didn't want to disappoint them. But it was immensely painful, my shoulder blades felt like they were on fire, and I screeched out in pain. Then I grew my wings, and I could fly. But the Wizard had done a very tricky and deceitful thing. He had Elphaba unknowingly give all of us monkeys' wings. But she didn't want us to be spies so she left to defy the Wizard and Madame Morrible. I stayed at the Palace, back down in cellar again and sometimes flying around Oz spying on people I didn't know for the Wizard. Five years later, Elphaba returns back to the Palace and she frees us monkeys'. We follow her back to Kiamo Ko after the death of her sister, and we decide that we were going to help her since she helped us."

Chistery took a breath at this part, and Faye let all of that sink in.

"So did you know that they faked their deaths?" was Faye's next question.

He nodded and wheezed in a breath, "Yes. We made sure to get the witch hunters out of the castle so that Fiyero and Elphaba could be reunited later that night. But we were sworn to secrecy not to tell Lady Glinda, or anyone else for that matter. Elphaba said that they might return back to Kiamo Ko, and she wanted us to stay there just in case something were to happen."

"So you've known all along," said Faye with a thoughtful expression on her face.

The snow monkey gave her a grim smile; "It was tough keeping it from everyone, especially Lady Glinda when things got rough. But we managed to stay true to Elphaba and Fiyero's wishes."

"Do you miss the Other World? What was it like?" asked Faye, who had never really heard of the Other World and was intrigued at the thought of a place other than Oz, like Can-zis like Dorothy had been from.

"Well," started Chistery with a small grin, "It's no place like home. It's so very different from Oz. Animals don't talk; there are no tictok creatures, no Tin Mans, Lions, nor Scarecrows. No flying houses either," he chuckled darkly at this, "but there are twisters. People are nice as long as you stay out of their way. And that's mostly it."

"Do they have an Emerald City like Oz?"

"Something like it. It's called The White House. It's where their ruler lives, called the President."

Faye bit her lip and thought for a moment while the snow monkey reveled in his memories of his time in the Other World.

"Do you think that the Wizard went-" Faye started her question when suddenly the door to hallway that they were in burst open, and she stopped mid-sentence, hiding the Grimmerie in the pocket of her apron.

A guard, General Teaville to be exact came in, roughly dragging another prisoner into the cell next to Chistery's. He took notice of Faye, and gave her a look that was soft yet harsh at the same time.

"Leave, now please," he asked her, his face tired and weary.

Faye bit her lip, looked at Chistery who nodded with the slightest jerk of his head, and she left with her head and eyes on the floor without another word even though inside she was screaming because Elphaba and Fiyero hadn't come back yet.

Chistery watched as the new prisoner got into his cell, his face concealed with his extremely high collared grey waistcoat, and a black top hat.

"Here you are sir. I'm truly very sorry about this," remarked Teaville as he locked the cell and walked away.

The prisoner remained silent and still, sitting up against the cold stone with his top hat over his face, and his coat wrapped around him.

Chistery grew silent as well then, and tried to come up with reasons why Elphaba and Fiyero weren't back yet. But there was only one that he could think of, and it was the one that he didn't want to happen.

'Maybe they got out, and forgot about us' thought Chistery, 'or maybe they're still looking.'

Still the nagging theory laid at the front of his mind, and would taunt him.

'No, they did not get captured. Elphaba and Fiyero are too smart for that.' But even as he thought those words, he had a horrible feeling that it was true.

He glanced again at the prisoner next to him, thinking that he was fast asleep and half whispered, "Fae, Yero, where are you?"

The other prisoner then stirred awake, and sleepily looked to Chistery. Chistery avoided eye contact hoping that he wasn't a serial killer or something like that.

"You're a flying monkey aren't you?" asked the prisoner with his voice that was old, yet charming in a old man like way.

Chistery turned to look, only because he was curious how this man knew that he was a flying monkey without wings.

"Yes, I am. But who, may I ask, are you?" said Chistery tentatively.

He studied the profile of the man's face, the small nose, warm brown eyes, graying hair, and it clicked.

"Who me?" asked the man as he sighed, "I'm just a sentimental man… who always longed to be…" He trailed off, obviously not planning to say anymore. A moment of silence passed.

"A father," finished Chistery and the man looked at him in utter surprise.

"Yes, that's me," answered The Wizard taking off his top hat to reveal himself to Chistery slowly…

Chuffrey was locked away in his rooms when he heard a commotion from the upstairs balcony overlooking the center of the Emerald City. He made his way to the only window in his room, opened it just a crack so he could hear, and listened to what was going on.

"Citizens of Oz," rang out a very familiar voice and Chuffrey recoiled knowing that it could only belong to Cherrystone, "Today is a day for our great history books. Today is the day that the truth is revealed. Except for one problem. I require a book, a book called The Grimmerie. Now every household, every man, woman, and child will be checked to see if they have this book. The one who has it and gives it up willingly will be rewarded," Cherrystone paused, and Chuffrey could hear the crowd tense up, "If you don't… well that's not important now," he laughed, a bit forced if you asked Chuffrey, "Now comes the matter at hand… the Gale Force and I would like to put rest to the rumors that the Wicked Witch Of The West, and the Scarecrow are back in Oz."

Cherrystone let a dramatic pause of silence fill the crowd, and the air around him felt many different emotions, fear, fright, angry, anxious but none that felt sorry for the Wicked Witch.

"It seems like the rumors started when she died, those some odd years ago and haven't stopped since. It's seems that since no one mourns the wicked that we can frighten our children by the wicked by making up stories about them. I have learned the truth about the Wicked Witch Of The West. And I plan to tell you all about it…"

Another pause, the crowd was literally leaning towards him now, and Cherrystone knew he had them listening to every word.

Chuffrey on the other hand, held his breath and hoped to Lurline that Cherrystone really didn't catch the Wicked Witch, or the Scarecrow for he knew that that meant death for all of them. The Witch, Scarecrow, Glinda, and himself would all be dead if this was true.

"The Wicked Witch Of The West…" said Cherrystone gleefully, "is-"

I know I'm going to get angry rants for leaving the chapter like this, but it has to be done. A lot was introduced in this chapter, and there will be more in the next one! Thanks for everyone who reviewed! All of you silent readers should send me a review too! It would make me smile real big! : D

Bubble