"WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S GONE?" Elphaba pounded her temples, praying that it was all a nightmare.
"We mean that she left. Ran away. Vamoose," Cook replied casually. Although he was fond of Rose, he believed her escape was for the better. However, that didn't mean he would simplify the news into a series of gentle euphemisms for her mother. "You know, in most phylums when a cub wanders off it means they're ready to leave the nest."
"SHE'S SEVEN!"
"Now, now, now," Zebra intervened, "I'm sure you'll find her."
"WHY DIDN'T YOU FIND HER!" Elphaba screeched.
"Because we didn't know she was gone," said the Gorilla obviously. "You humans. Always blaming the 'lesser-'" he formed quotations with his thick fingers, "-species."
"She said she something about a window...opening it or something," Zebra remembered. What he didn't mention was that Zebras have extremely poor memories. He couldn't even recall what little Rose looked like. Was she even little anymore?
"AND YOU TRUSTED HER?" Elphaba couldn't control her rage. This on top of everything else was too much to handle.
"Well, she's your daughter," Zebra pointed out.
"EXACTLY! THAT'S EXACTLY WHY YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TRUSTED HER!" Elphaba rested her face in her palms picturing all of the horrible ends that Rose had met. It was below zero. She definitely froze. It was the bad part of town. Kidnapped. What were the chances that she had exhibited some more of Elphaba's intelligence and survived? Low. What were the chances that she had at least shown some of her father's charisma and weaselled her way into the protected inner circle of Oz? That was even less likely.
"Now, I don't mean to rub anything in- well who are we kidding? I completely mean every word, but perhaps you gave Rose some kind of incentive for running away? For example, being the most negligent mother to walk the face of Oz? Depriving her of a father? Refusing to properly educate her? Ignoring her all the time? Honestly, you've blamed her for your own mistakes," Cook explained bluntly. His reasoning was simple: Elphaba had promised him freedom and taken a vacation instead.
Elphaba rubbed her eyes and held back tears. She knew it was true. Every single part of it and she refused to accept it.
Zebra neighed softly. "But let's look on the brighter side of things! Elphaba was the first one of us to get mail!"
She looked up incredulously and took the note Zebra was holding out hesitantly in the cleft of his hoof. It couldn't be good. Nothing was ever good. She hadn't had much luck with letters lately. Leaving the room, Elphaba decided to lock herself up before reading it. That way some of her dignity might be spared.
It started off simple. No "Dear Elphaba" or "Greetings!" But the signature at the end of the letter made Elphaba cry out. How the Wizard got this address she would never know and was too scared to find out.
You tried to kill me and I almost killed you. We seem to be evenly matched in that hand. However, you have something of mine and I have something of yours. You seem to know the layout of my palace quite well. Meet me in the throneroom with the Grimmerie and I'll consider not returning your "cub" to Southstairs.
Elphaba didn't cry, but she felt the need to scream into her pillow for years. Tearing up the note into fragments, she let them fall to the ground and left her spot on the edge of the bed to pace around the room and collect her thoughts.
The most prominent being that Rose hadn't run away; she had followed her mother. But Rose's mother was too much of a failure to ever recognize the little girl's wasted devotion.
Done with that and eager to move on, Elphaba tied a scarf around her neck and threw her on cloak. Racing down the stairs, she called out from the doorway, "I'm leaving the Grimmerie here. If it grows legs and wants to leave, don't let it get away!" Her tone was cold as the air that was blowing in through the open door.
"Don't count on it," Elphaba heard Cook retort and briefly wondered why she was wasting so much of her life on these ungrateful Animals.
"Oh, Fiyero!" Glinda cried. "Please tell me what's wrong with us!"
"Glinda, don't take that tone. There's nothing wrong," Fiyero replied irritably, not bothering to put down his pen and halt his work.
"If there was nothing wrong, you'd stop working and face me for one minute. Just in case you've forgotten, you deplore work," Glinda stated matter-of-factly. She put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips, not caring that he couldn't see her pose. It was the type of facade one could feel without looking.
"Glinda, I'll speak to you later."
"You'll speak to me now! You can't just wander off on some imaginary military mission for two weeks and come back angry and all...self-obsessed!" Glinda shot back dramatically.
Fiyero turned around to face her. "No," he responded evenly, "but I can be assigned a mission for two weeks and return to a shitload of things that the Wizard decided to ask me to do."
"Then tell the Wizard to stop!" Glinda ordered.
"You can't tell the Wizard to stop! He's the Wizard!" Fiyero's voice got louder and Glinda stepped forward.
"What has happened to you?" Her eyes shone. "I don't know what I did wrong!"
Fiyero softened. "It's nothing to do with you. I'm just overworked, okay?" He thought of approaching her, but stayed rooted to the spot.
"In that case there's something I think we need to seriously consider." Glinda still sounded hurt, but she was recovering herself. She crossed the office to where Fiyero sat and leaned against his desk, so that he had no choice but to face her. "I think...we should seriously consider...adoption."
"Who's going to adopt us?" Fiyero spat out.
"No, don't rush to attack me all the time!" Glinda cried. She rubbed her forearms nervously. "I mean I think we should adopt a child for ourselves."
Fiyero narrowed his eyes. "Where the hell did that come from?"
Glinda threw up her arms. "See? This is what I mean! We never acted like this before! Our marriage is falling apart!" She was hysterical. "I really can't deal with this, Fiyero!"
Has charity work and being adored by everyone in Oz suddenly become too strenuous for you, my dear? "So how is this going to fix it?"
"Children are the glue that hold relationships together," Glinda replied simply, clutching folds of her skirt in her hands, preparing for another argument.
"And your point?"
"We need that kind of glue right now."
Fiyero shook his head. "No. Glinda don't look at me like that. You can't just wake up one day and decide you want to be a parent. And for the record, I don't want to be a parent."
"You say that now, but I know you'll change your mind!" Glinda said to herself as much as him. Her desperation was obvious.
"Glinda, the world doesn't revolve around you, as much as it hurts to hear. You can't just make that your executive decision of the month," Fiyero argued heatedly.
Gasp. "The world revolves around me? The world revolves around you! I've known you for how long? You're always the one who demands attention! Even back at Shiz, you could never go a minute without interrupting someone's conversations. Mine and Elphie's-"
"We're not university students anymore and we don't talk to Elphaba. What's done is done." Fiyero tried not to raise his voice, but wasn't succeeding very well.
"I didn't mean it that way! Would you just hear me out for once?"
"I have work to do," Fiyero said with a note of cold finality in his voice.
Glinda closed her lips and lingered for a moment before clearing her throat and leaving the room with her head held high.
"The Wizard's been waiting for you," one of the guards mocked, "was so worried you didn't get his letter."
"Or that you didn't really care about your little kiddie," another added.
Elphaba pushed past them roughly and into the throneroom. Pacing back and forth to the silence of the hollow room, Elphaba gritted her teeth and finally shouted, "Didn't your parents teach you it was rude to make your guests wait?"
The head in the centre of the room came to life and swung back and forth. "Didn't your parents ever teach you to use your indoor voice?"
Elphaba crossed her arms and waited. She had seen this act before and she would never fall for it again.
"I see you're not so easily fooled anymore." The voice wasn't mechanical. "A shame."
"Were you planning on facing me or hiding behind your machine again?" Elphaba fought back the shakiness in her voice.
The head died down and the old man that had been operating it stepped out from behind. "My dear, it has been far too long!" He held out a hand as if to shake hers and then pulled it back when there was no response. "I see you've recovered quite nicely."
Elphaba stayed silent.
"The cold shoulder? Very well." The Wizard signalled to a guard. "Bring out the goods."
A guard disappeared behind a door that seemed to be cut into the wall as a secret escape room, or perhaps a storage room, and reappeared a few seconds later forcefully dragging a chain behind him.
The girl on the other end was snapping at the guards like the Animals she had grown up with. Her long, brown hair had been cut jaggedly to a length just below her ears. Her face and hands were smeared with dirt and ash. Her dress was frayed and ripped. Her arms and legs were chained tightly. Her knees covered in blood. But the worst was the look in her eyes. She wouldn't look up, but she was blinking furiously from the light of the lamps, even though they were dim. Still, she was so lost and frightened. It was clear. Her eyes were wide and tortured. Even Elphaba, who had seen the worst torture the Wizard had to offer, wanted to break down.
The Wizard clicked his tongue. "Three weeks in Southstairs. Pains me. It really does." He patted his chest. "Every time I see one of my children thrown into prison..." He blinked as if holding back tears. "Let's end this inhumanity right now." He held out his hands. "The Grimmerie please."
Elphaba could hardly tear her eyes away from Rose. It took her time to find her voice because it was lost in all of the buried sobs. "I don't...I don't have it," she choked out.
The Wizard whistled. "Oh, dear. Oh my, my, my. That isn't good now, is it?" He casually approached Rose, who had fallen to her knees and wasn't making any noise. He forced her face upward and traced her jawline. "Rose, is it? Beautiful, beautiful name. After your sister? Well, Nessarose Thropp and your daughter have two things in common. They're both tough and they've both been abandoned by you." He signalled to the guards with a nod.
"NO, WAIT!" Elphaba cried, finding her voice, but just barely.
"I'm afraid this was a onetime offer," the Wizard said sadly. "Now, on the count of ten I send guards. So, please, run back to your organization and plan another assassination. They amuse me to no end."
"You bastard! You have nothing better to do than imprison children and you call yourself the conscience of Oz?" Elphaba yelled and ran towards the door they had taken Rose through. She felt for a handle, but it wasn't there. The wall had swallowed her daughter whole.
"Ten...nine...eight..."
Elphaba had no choice but to do what she did best.