The quill scratched slowly over the paper.
Dear DG,
I hope that you are well, and that you have managed to get some rest before setting off round the O.Z. I arrived safely at the Northern Island a couple of days ago. It is very cold here, so cold that I can hardly move my hands to write this letter! I am afraid that I have been having trouble making fire. Yesterday, my fire got out of control and the kitchen table set on fire …
The quill stopped, and the author of the letter read it over and then crumpled up the sheet.
Dear DG,
I hope that you are well, and that you have managed to get some rest before starting off your journey round the O.Z.
I have been learning how to cook. It is more difficult than I had thought, although there are several useful books in the library. The stock of food here is a little limited at the moment – only that which was left after Mother froze the palace. Yesterday, I tried to make an omelette, but it was mostly burned by the time I finished. I must admit to being a little hungry at the moment. Still that was an improvement on the day before, when I think I nearly poisoned myself!
The quill stopped again, and the writer dropped her head into her hands. She started on a fresh sheet the next day.
Dear DG,
I hope that you are well, and that you have managed to get some rest before starting off your journey round the O.Z. There is plenty of food here as well, and so I have been eating well.
The journey here was fine, although the weather was very bad. I think I have an injury in my stomach from before, but it is not hurting as much now.
A new sheet.
Dear DG,
I hope that you are well, and that you have managed to get some rest before starting off your journey round the O.Z. The journey here was fine, although the weather was very bad. We were caught in a blizzard, and had to stay in a cave overnight. I must admit that I was terrified, but once we were inside, it was not so bad. I was able to start a fire…
The paper was torn in two.
Dear DG,
I hope that you are well, and that you have managed to get some rest before starting off your journey round the O.Z. The journey here was fine, although the weather was very bad. I am not really sure what to write, as I know almost nothing about the person you are today. I have never been to the Other Side, but from the stories that Father used to tell us before, it is very different to the O.Z. I hope that you do not miss it too much. I would also be interested to hear about your travels in the O.Z. both recently and currently. I can't remember where you are visiting first. I hope that Mother and Tutor are helping you with your magic. If you haven't used it at all in the last fifteen years I suppose it will be difficult to do what you need to do. I guess you will need to practice a lot if you are to reverse a lot of the damage that I caused.
Azkadellia growled and stalked away from her writing table. She started again the next day.
Dear DG,
I hope that you are well, and that you have managed to get some rest before starting off your journey round the O.Z. The journey here was fine, although the weather was very bad. We were caught in a blizzard.
I have been eating well. It is very quiet here, with only the howling wind for company. I hope that you will be able to visit during your tour of the O.Z. It has only been a few days and yet already I feel very lonely. There's no one to talk to. At least before, there was the Witch
Azkadellia clenched her fist and snapped the quill. She took up all of the unfinished letters and threw them on to the small, carefully controlled fire in the hearth.
DG looked extremely surprised when the letter arrived, by messenger crow. The Queen let Glitch explain the principle to her, and then insisted that she read them all the letter. DG skimmed it first, and then started reading.
"Dear DG,
I hope that you are well, and that you have managed to get some rest before starting off your journey round the O.Z. I arrived safely at the Northern Island a few days ago. It is very cold here, as you may imagine, although Mr. Cain made sure to leave a good stock of firewood. Please give him my thanks for his assistance when you see him next.
Please give my greetings to our parents,
Your sister,
Azkadellia
PS My apologies for the delay in sending this; it took me some time to locate a crow."
DG stopped. "Well, that was short." She glanced over at Cain, and said, over formally, "Thank you, Mr. Cain."
Then she scowled at her mother. "She should have come with us."
The Queen sighed. "We've already been through this, DG, darling. Mr. Cain agrees with our assessment, no?"
Cain nodded sparely. DG shook her head and walked away. After a nod from the Queen, Cain followed quickly.
"DG?"
She tensed up and then turned to face him. "It's all too much, you know, Cain. I can't do these things. It's all too much. In like, a week, I've gone from a nobody to a princess with a kingdom that's been in ruin for ten years, new parents, a crazy sister…. I don't know what to do."
A crow flew in through the broken window and settled beside the woman who was staring regally out over the frozen lake. She removed the letter, and thanked the crow seriously.
Dear Az,
Thank you for your letter. I was so surprised to have the crow arrive with the letter. Back in Kansas, we don't have anything like that. We talk by telephone, or else letters are delivered by people. Actually, people don't really send letters that much. I'm not used to this quill and ink business either, so don't mind my poor handwriting.
The O.Z. is pretty strange for me. If I hadn't bumped into Glitch, Cain and Raw at the beginning, God only knows what would have happened to me! Without them, there's no way I would have got past the Fields of the Papay. We're headed that way at the moment, actually. Mother wants me to try getting the rest of the trees to bloom. I got one to bloom at one point during my journey. At the moment, we haven't actually got very far from Central City. There are a lot of places to stop at, and a lot of the farmland is in poor condition. Soon, we should be arriving in Milltown, the robot town. It was pretty creepy when I was there before. I don't quite understand their role in the local area, and the local humans (!) who are still around here won't say much.
I've been doing a little bit of magic every now and then, and Tutor and Mother have both been helping me as much as they can, but I find it pretty tough to actually do stuff. I can react to things happening, but can't really create. The only time I can really channel the magic is when I think of you helping me make a doll spin when we were kids – do you remember that day? Do you have any idea how I can get a lot of the trees to bloom in the Fields of the Papay? I know that I managed to get one to do so only on pain of death, and I have no clue how I did it.
The other thing that I am worrying about a lot is Glitch's brain. The doctor who took it out is dead, and apparently no-one has any experience at this kind of thing. Cain told me that in the old days, they would just throw the brains away. I was so angry with Mother for allowing this to be used as a punishment, but she said that it had always been done, and when I told her about the methods we use in Kansas for dealing with the worst type of criminals, she said that she thought that lobotomizing people was better than killing them. I don't really know what to think of that. Actually, we've been arguing quite a lot, about all kinds of things.
A lot of my childhood memories of the O.Z. have come back. Just today we were riding along a path, and I remembered that we had traveled along there in a carriage once. I'm not sure where we were going, but as I recall, we stopped for lunch, and I immediately dashed out. You followed me, because no-one else was paying attention. I don't really understand why that was. Anyway, I remember finding a river in a copse of trees. I hid behind one of the trees, and you came running along and fell right into the river! Do you remember?
Anyway, it is late now, so I will send this off. I await your response eagerly. Also, Mother and Father say that they will write to you soon. I promise to visit as soon as possible.
Love,
DG