"Your dress is too short," Nessarose said. "You should ask for a new one, Papa would get it for you."
"No," said Elphaba frankly, "Papa would get it for you." She pulled at her dress again and helped Nessa to stand, putting her long green fingers on the small of her sister's back to offer much-needed support. With Elphaba's help Nessarose walked into the watery daylight of Quadling Country and sat daintily on a bench outside their hut.
Elphaba sat down beside her sister, swatting away mosquitoes and gnats for the both of them and looking irritated. The air outside was dead and thick; the water in muddy pools still and stagnant, with a thin layer of green scum; the sky laden with heavy clouds. Elphaba squinted around at her dreary surroundings and sighed.
"I like it here," said Nessarose after a while. "It's almost pretty, don't you think? The trees. And the natives are very nice, once they accept the Unnamed God into their hearts."
Elphaba stared ferociously out at the gray sky. "I hate it," she said softly.
"Oh, Elphie, you always say that. You hate everything." Nessa was frustrated; she squirmed to sit up straight and bit her lip tightly. "Papa would hate to hear you talk like that."
"Papa isn't here!" Elphaba barked sharply, and then her voice softened when Nessarose's face melted into a squinty, almost tearful pout. "Look, I'm sorry. I know you like it. I should too. Nessa, please." Elphaba shook her thin black hair away from her face and looking pleadingly at Nessarose.
But Nessa wasn't looking at Elphaba any longer. She stared into the murky, muggy forest beyond, her eyes wide, an expression of terror on her face. "Elphie…" she said, softly, hoarsely.
Elphaba looked automatically to where Nessa was staring—where the small girl would have been pointing, had she any arms. There was a rustling in the muddy undergrowth. In a moment, the rose-colored head of a Quadling poked through the brush, its face streaked in mud, hair falling in greasy hanks down its back. His back, Elphaba corrected herself—it was a thin man dressed in sparse, oily gray loincloth and shirt. Papa hasn't got to him, yet, Elphaba thought, searching his rosy skin for a tattoo of conversion and finding nothing. What's he doing here?
"Elphaba…" Nessarose whined softly. "Papa's not here. What are you going to do?"
Elphaba watched the Quadling struggle out from the forest into their clearing, splashing through puddles and tripping over stones. "Why are you still scared of them, Nessa, after all this time?" she asked.
"There's no tattoo," Nessarose whispered, as if this explained everything. "He's a heathen, Elphie. He's dangerous."
Elphaba stood and stalked to where the Quadling was squatting on his haunches, breathing heavily, staring at the two girls outside their hut. "What do you want?" she asked, bravely, staring the native man in his muddy brown eyes.
The Quadling shrunk back away from the green girl and made a noise in the pocket of his throat before speaking. "I to be looking for the man who calls himself minister," he said. The man craned his neck to look behind Elphaba at Nessarose's thin, armless figure, slumped again against the wall and watching them with wide eyes.
"He's not here," Elphaba said. "What are you called? I can tell him you came."
The Quadling watched Ephaba with his head cocked curiously to one side. "They to call me River Son," said the Quadling softly, his accent thick and distinctive. "And they to call you the green girl. Your skin is to be like the grass of the new season."
"Do you want something?" Elphaba asked, not at all fazed. "We don't have any food, any more than you do." She pulled at the hem of her dress again—it was becoming a nervous habit—and itched the back of her leg with the sole of her calfskin boot.
"I to have food, little girl. It is to be a question, a question I am wanting to be asking. To the man who is to call himself minister." Papa will be pleased, Elphaba thought bitterly. He will be a convertite soon, terrified of burning in the afterlife, longing for the comfort of immortality in the hand of the Unnamed God.
"Come back tomorrow," Elphaba said, and turned away from River Son. "Come back tomorrow, and he'll answer your question."
The Quadling slunk back into the bushes, thanking her in his thick, awkward way, and Elphaba watched him go. Then she turned to Nessarose. "Are you all right?"
She bent before her sister and pushed stringy brown hair from Nessarose's face. The small girl's eyes were the size of saucers, full of a kind of horrified awe. "Are you all right? Oh, Elphie, I was so scared for you, I thought he might kidnap you."
"He's just a Quadling," said Elphaba reassuringly. "Don't be afraid of a Quadling, they can barely stand up straight."
"He didn't have a tattoo, Elphie, he's a heathen," said Nessarose knowingly. "He doesn't know the way of the Unnamed God, he hasn't—"
"Nessa, please. You know I don't…" Elphaba trailed off. "Look, Nanny and Shell are home." She squinted into the forest, where old, white-haired Nanny was picking her way through the underbrush, holding a rucksack full of greens and fruits and with Shell trailing in her wake.