EAST OF NOWHERE

Erik paid his driver well, experiencing only a twinge of doubt over his choice of French currency. But it seemed not to matter. The amiable green-clad man tipped his tidy hat, and drove his coach off into the distance, his jolly humming fading off into the distance. Erik had asked the man earlier where the nearest civilization lay. The coachman answered that the small town of Red Windmill hosted a barrack of Gale Force soldiers.

Erik remembered with much more disquiet and uncertainty his second encounter with Elphaba. About a month before he took up at the fair at Nijni-Novgorod, he had ventured back to that mysterious land of Oz. He had been roaming in the foothills of the hauntingly-named Madeleine mountain range when he heard a set of steady solitary footsteps on the nearby road. Anticipating to accomplish an effortless highway robbery, Erik hunkered down and waiting for the traveller.

She was walking alone. Dressed in a dull red homespun frock trimmed with clumsy crochet-work, heavy lace-up brown boots and thick dark stockings, she carried a single battered suitcase. Her hair was in a single, long plait; it looked just like a black silk rope. She wore a pair of delicate silver spectacles perched on her beaklike nose. She was of average height, with a gangly, angular build, that, nonetheless betrayed a faint degree of feminine grace.

But despite the gulf of years that lay between them, Erik would have recognised the green girl anywhere.

"Mademoiselle Elphaba!"

She spun around; now, he saw her hatchet-shaped face, grown even sharper than when he last saw her. It gave her a forbidding air, her dark eyes hooded.

But it seemed that she recognised him, too, as he emerged from the shadows like a shadow himself. "Hello, Erik."

She slowed her pace as he caught up with her, shifting her suitcase to her other hand. "It is you beneath that mask, correct?"

From anyone else, he would have reacted with violence. But, physical looks aside, Elphaba Thropp was different. Her skin still had that faint luminescence of springtime foliage. He remembered the sweet sound of her youthful voice.

"Where are you heading to?"

"Shiz," she answered in her typical laconic fashion. When he glanced at her sharply, she clarified shortly, "University."

He was impressed. He had never heard of female students being admitted to the universities in what he could only think of as "the Other World." But Elphaba was not as amazed as he was.

"I'm really only going so I can be established there for Nessarose next year. Father wants her to get a decent education. She's inherited his self-righteousness and habit of religion, which definitely curries favour with him."

"What's it like? To have a sibling?"

"Physically disabled, and completely reliant on other people to care for her." She smiled, but not happily. "I am a tool of theirs."

Sensing that this was not a subject to pursue, he turned his attention to a more practical one.

"Mademoiselle," Erik began with a trace of unhappiness at his own incompetence. "Your world is very strange to me. I would very much appreciate if you would …" He gestured helplessly at her dark, shapeless shoulder bag.

She tilted her head up at him. "Draw you a map?"

"S'il te plaît."

She crouched down abruptly, withdrawing a flimsy book and a pt of ink from her bag, tearing out the flyleaf. From her pocket she produced a brilliant green quill and dipped it gracefully into the ink. He watched as she easily began to sketch out a map, dividing the page diagonally into four sections which she labelled in tiny, neat handwriting, so different from his careless scrawl. She finished without flourish, and held it out to him at arms' length. He took it, and, despite his care not to touch her, his white fingers brushed her jade ones. For some reason, he looked at the light spilling down on her ebony hair like a rain shower.

He turned away hastily, shoving away thoughts he had banished from his mind years ago. He turned his head and noticed the gentle sound of water flow.

"A waterfall," Erik murmured, pausing, recalling the wounds Elphaba had suffered from wet contact. But still he stepped off the road and neared the small grotto, hidden by leafy trees. The green girl followed him, keeping her distance from the slight spray. When she spoke, he detected a trace of reverence beneath her flippant tone.

"Ozian tradition states that if you lay your hand in the stream and make a wish in Saint Aelphaba's name, it will come true."

"Like wishing upon a star?"

She smiled softly at the utterly foreign idea. "Water wounds me, so I never do so."

"May I make a wish for you?" Erik asked suddenly.

"For me?" She blinked. The idea of anyone doing something optimistic on her behalf was altogether bizarre.

"What would you wish for? For yourself?"

"Wishing is such useless nonsense. It does noting but injury."

"Come now, Miss Elphaba, there must be something you desire. Limitless intelligence? A capacious heart? Nerves of steel? To go beyond the rainbow? A soul?" Erik persisted, trying in vain to ignore the implications of his words to himself, "Everyone longs for something they cannot have."

"Yes, but--" She looked agitated now, her thick black brows knitted. "It's frank futility! I don't believe a word of anything that smacks of higher powers. Only brainless pleasure faithers go for--"

Erik didn't think. He grabbed her hand mid-tirade, and plunged his free hand into the curtain of cool water. And through him, she could have her souhaite. When the shock of contact faded from her velvety eyes, she spoke so softly, he could barely make out the words over the rush of the waterfall.

"I wish … I wish I could be beautiful."

Erik stared at her, suddenly acutely aware that they both no longer children. And despite the chilly and prickly veneer she wore, Elphaba still possessed the emotions she'd like to forsake.

This time the recognition he saw when he looked into her sienna eyes was of an entirely different sort. There was a naked light thrown on her desperate need. Erik felt dizzy. It was not akin to recognising someone else, but seeing one's own self in another. Is this--this need in me, as well? he wondered. He despised it, but it was true. It was the first time he admitted he was not insulated from everyone else by solitude, safely cocooned from caring.

Elphaba slowly lifted her narrow green hand until it hovered just above his shoulder. Erik held his breath, realising that his hand was growing numb beneath the gush of cold water. Her green face was dreadfully sad, But she only shook her head and backed away, dropping her hand. This was not meant to be, and they both knew it.

"I'm sorry, Erik …" she whispered. "You and I are too much alike. And I just hate myself."

Her honesty brought him back to his senses. She was right, of course. The words rang ultimately true, as though he had uttered them himself.

Something shiny winked at him beneath the pool of rippling water. Unthinking, he thrust his hand in and pulled from the river mud a round piece of hematite. It was a stunning piece for being unrefined, nearly flawless. He would have to fashion a setting for it and wear it, as a cufflink, or perhaps a ring …

Attempting to sound as steady as possible, he said, "I must go now, mademoiselle. Good day."

"Wait!" she said suddenly, and fished for something from her bag. It was her emerald green quill pen. She held it out to him. "Take it, please. If anything, as a gift."

He blinked, and hesitated before accepting it. "Thank you."

He watched her retreating form briefly, before turning away himself, deciding that he would head back toward eastern Europe. This encounter had left him shaken badly, and he needed to repair his defences, or he may become prone to accepting people into his life …

In the Vinkus, Erik wandered the narrow, unkempt roads, ambivalent about allowing himself to feel the loneliness that was creeping upon him.

He thought of Elphaba, and her vicarious waterfall wish. He knew that it had been a vain one, but from such an ugly girl, it was heart-rending in its innocent sincerity. He knew. There were times in his youth when he, too, had wished for physical attractiveness. How the world would have laid itself at his feet! If only … what might have been… But reality always set back in with perverse cruelty.

Up ahead, Erik saw a settlement. The distant bells in Red Windmill were ringing steadily.

Ding Dong!