3. Elphaba
Nessarose.
This is the child's name. Melena is given no say in it and has never met the relative from whom it is derived, but she approves nonetheless. It's versatile enough to bridge the gap between adorable baby and elegant stateswoman – and Nessa is nothing if not an adorable baby, all dimples and smiles. Melena, however, does not know what to make of her own reaction to these charms. She spends whole days in the nursery during her convalescence, fascinated by every movement, every murmur, and yet she is not swayed to any great affection for her daughter. There are too many factors against it.
To hold her child, Melena must pry her from the nanny, who lingers nearby and extends her arms at an awkward angle, as if readying to lunge to the rescue. Nor is Melena allowed to nurse. She supposes this was determined by the doctor, then agreed to by Frex, for she saw it in both of their faces when the doctor assessed her vitals and speculated that the toxic elements had not yet cycled out of her system. They bowed their heads together, discussing, until the doctor cleared his throat and informed her that incaution could damage the baby.
This is the word he used: damage.
And so Melena is shut out of her daughter's infancy, just as she was shut out of the pregnancy. She spoils Nessa, naturally, and observes every tiny milestone with a quiet rush of pride, but she is never the first to witness them and does not anticipate them – not at this stage, when teeth stab through barren gums and the rest rely on mobility. There will be no crawling, no tottering first steps, no hard falls, but there will eventually be gibberish and words and sentences. When that day arrives, Melena hopes that Nessa will not find cause to refer to her as anything more than mmm.
Besides, Nessa is not lacking for love. Frex withdraws from his governing duties in the weeks that follow the birth, appointing each new member of the household based on his own discretion and personally responding to Nessa's cries at all hours of the night. It surprises Melena that he is not a terrible father and does not cease to be. As Nessa grows, he relaxes into each new phase: reading her stories, stroking her hair, raising her the way you're supposed to raise a little girl – as if she'll be a little girl forever.
Things improve in their marriage too. They settle. He develops a tendency to fret about Melena's fragility without addressing the underlying cause, dancing around her and never too close, but it is far more bearable than the months of torment they inflicted on each other prior to the pregnancy. He's punished her with milkflowers and she's restored the heart in him through Nessarose. It's an arrangement that neither finds comfortable to ponder at length, but the result is almost equilibrium. Only, not quite: she still has leverage.
Melena guards it closely, biding time until a worthy crisis emerges, and commends her own decision when an invitation arrives from the Emerald City. Frex misses the emblem on the envelope and sorts it into his "frivolous" pile to be read later – or by Melena, as is usually the case. She slices it open during lunch and her eyes instantly fall to the date of the function, a chill sliding down her spine. She prepares to make a scene, but a firm no suffices. Frex invents his own reasons – she's ill, she's opposed to tramping around the capital with a toddler in tow (let alone one of Nessa's temperament), she's never left Munchkinland before.
Either way, he fights for her, but the result is the same: the invitation was a formality, this is a summons.
After some debate, Nessa is left behind, all too happy to have the run of Colwen Grounds, and Melena climbs into the carriage without a backward glance. Her mind is racing, her palms are damp. But Frex does not notice her agitation, despite their proximity, and decides to regale her with everything he knows about the benevolent man said to have ended the Great Drought and spared Oz a nasty descent from the frail hands of Ozma. It isn't much to go on, Frex admits, but he's witnessed a thing or two in his dealings with the Wizard's people to poke holes in that fable.
His grumbling doesn't let up until the smoke and the spires of the capital loom on the horizon, when he pauses to acknowledge the view and his complaints follow course. "There's nothing natural about this city," he tells her, as if priming her for something she hasn't seen.
Melena listens to the crunch of gravel beneath the wheels, to the patter of rain against the roof, and swallows the urge to let him in on a thing or two of her own.
Once they arrive at the inn, they separate to freshen up and then reconvene by the carriage, inhaling the oppressive haze of city life. They are not staying an hour longer than is necessary – not with Nessa tyrannizing the staff back home – and both breathe a sigh of relief when they are ushered to a table that is not far from the doors of the ballroom. Frex does a sweep of his surroundings and finds at least ten new things to gripe over, even in the midst of exchanging pleasantries with the Ugaban count to his left. Melena perches on the edge of her seat, waiting for him to notice, to accuse, but he does not stop until he happens to glance down the length of the hall.
If he is surprised to see a green child who is the same age as the one Melena birthed precisely four years ago, the one he expelled from his home precisely four years ago, he gives no verbal indication. In fact, but for the first momentary lapse, he ignores the girl so convincingly that one might be inclined to doubt his memory.
Melena does not have this ability.
She is uncomfortable, furious even, and the heat of it builds and builds until she is writhing inside of herself, suffocating from the smoke, but outwardly composed so as to be another face in the crowd. She nudges the food around her plate and listens to the prattling in her vicinity. She can't bear the prattling and requests another glass of wine. People drum their fingers and mutter theories and wait anxiously for the Wizard to make the rounds with the girl, to rise and present her to the company, but this does not happen. The two of them sit contentedly, speaking between mouthfuls. The girl draws patterns in the condensation on a glass of water, laughing, smiling, gazing up at her father with genuine admiration. Melena tries her best to contemplate the centerpiece, her guts twisting and untwisting.
At first, the speculation is innocent – a ward, perhaps, or adoption. A charity case. Then someone, a Gillikinese margreave, approaches the head table and the information does not take long to circulate. There's no mistaking the introduction, as it is soon ricocheting off every tongue: And this is my daughter. What follows is not scandal, it is astonishment. Melena's hands fidget with the cloth napkin spread across her lap. She stares at the centerpiece, at the drooping petals of the roses, and thinks about how lovely Nessa is when she sleeps, how warm she is in those rare moments they spend alone.
Melena does not know this girl's name.
Her heart pounds as she strains her ears, parsing out the hum of simultaneous conversations, but she does not catch it anywhere. There is only mindless conjecture.
"…perhaps in the balloon."
"He managed to keep her hidden for four years and now…"
"They say she has his powers."
"I suppose…an heir…"
"…contemplating a marriage?"
Melena shifts in her seat, stifled by the flurry of unwitting allegations, but it is not until the phrase foreign concubine is deployed that she rises, her chair skidding loudly against the tiles.
"I need air," she says.
Frex grabs her wrist. "I trust you won't make a spectacle of yourself."
She wrenches herself free and retorts with a withering glare. Although there's been no sign of malice from him, no obvious revelling in her distress, she can tell from his tone that she will not be garnering any sympathy. She can practically hear him thinking: You brought this on yourself. Or maybe: This is what you buy with your insolence. No, that one is her father, speaking to her from the past.
As Melena flees, nearly tripping over a little Vinkun boy scurrying beneath the tables, she feels the floor shake beneath her feet and stabilizes herself against the wall. She turns toward the dais and sees that the little girl has been swarmed in the process of making her own escape. Her eyes go wide and seek out her father, who watches her as the hungry sycophants pack tighter and tighter around them. The girl has never seen a crowd like this before, it's clear, and her eyelids squeeze shut.
He's blooding her early, Melena thinks.
The floor shakes beneath them again, and the chandeliers flash and die into darkness. A chorus of dismayed cries echoes through the void and china clatters to the floor, and when the lights flicker to life again, the girl is gone. Her father stands in the midst of the crowd, the picture of poise.
"She did that," Melena hears someone say.
"Her father's powers."
Melena reaches for the door handle, but she is obstructed by a man, who grins at her and then gestures towards the empty space where the girl was. "Isn't it extraordinary?" he prompts.
"It's a sign," she says thinly.
"Yes! A sign!"
Melena leaves him to impart her contribution to the next fifty people who happen onto his path and finally makes it out of the ballroom, darting straight to the window and pressing her forehead against the cool glass. The air is fresher out here and she begins to roam, further and further, until the flush in her cheeks fades and she can grasp her thoughts again. She wanders down corridors, her palm trailing over every surface it comes across, and ascends the nearest staircase when she tires of the gaudy green decor.
As she does so, she spots a maid with an armful of fresh linens and follows at a distance. She presses herself against the wall, peering past each door into the empty chambers, and then turns a corner and finds what she has been seeking.
She knows it is the girl's room, though she does not quite know how she is able to intuit this – not without any markers. There's furniture, but nothing bespeaking the personality of a little girl; not one like Nessa, at any rate, who attaches herself to anything pink and frilled.
Melena steps in carefully, trespassing and all too aware of it, but she cannot resist crossing to the bedside table and running her fingers over the book that sits by the base of the lamp. Alice in Wonderland, she reads, scouring her mind for any recollection of the title and turning up nothing. Her thumb reaches the worn corner of the cover and she flips it open, squinting through the sparse light that leaks in through the doorway, for there is something written on the inside.
This is how Melena Thropp learns her daughter's name.
She rubs her fingers over the scrawl, taking in the shaky lines, the clumsy circles, the upwards slant of the letters from start to finish—
"I did the B backwards."
Melena yelps, rent from her daze, and whirls to face the head that is poking out of the wardrobe. Elphaba stares with wide owl eyes and Melena scrambles for the right words to explain her presence. She says, in a strange pitch, "I have a daughter. Almost your age."
Elphaba unfolds herself, blinking.
"She likes dolls. You – you like books."
"I do."
"What kinds of books?"
Elphaba shrugs.
Melena waits.
"My father says I need to talk to people more," Elphaba says, moving out of the shadow of the wardrobe. She is no less green than she was four years ago, but her hair is long and dark now, tangling over her thin little shoulders, and there's an odd daintiness to her movements, as if she considers every step before she takes it.
"Is that why he arranged this party?"
Elphaba nods and then goes still, deliberating. "I don't think I like birthdays anymore," she says. "I've never seen so many people. I was scared."
"You'll learn to control yourself."
Those owl eyes rise to Melena's face, searching, and Melena suddenly feels transparent. "You don't like them either," Elphaba says.
Melena shrugs.
Elphaba waits.
"Do you mind if I sit here a moment?" Melena says.
Elphaba's head tilts in a noncommittal way and she scuttles onto the bed, her back against the headboard, reaching for Alice in Wonderland and propping it open in her lap. Melena switches on the lamp and settles by one of the posts, watching as Elphaba gingerly turns the pages, murmuring the difficult words aloud in stretches of careful syllables. No further acknowledgement passes between them, but they are at peace, far removed from the world of the people two levels below, and Melena feels something open in her chest that she immediately slams shut.
"Well…happy birthday," she says, leaping to her feet.
But she lingers in the doorway, her hand wrapped around the frame. She doesn't know what is wrong until the amendment surfaces to her lips. She says, instead, "Happy birthday, Elphaba."
