The Wicked Will Rise

Then, before I could decide what to do next, I heard a squeal. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something white streak through the grass as Star scurried away, and felt the Lion’s weight on my body lighten, as he leaned over and shot a paw out.

“No!” I screamed, suddenly realizing what was coming. But there was nothing I could do. He had grabbed my rat by the tail, and she wriggled and screeched as he held her over my face.

“Dorothy wants you alive, brave little Amy,” he said. “And while I haven’t decided yet whether to let her have her way this time, in the meantime, this one will make a nice appetizer.”

The Lion snapped his jaw open. Star’s final scream sounded almost human as he dangled her over his toothy, gaping maw.

First the fear left her. It went streaming from her trembling body into the Lion’s open mouth in a wispy burst like a puff of smoke from a cigarette. Then she was still, looking down at me with wide, placid eyes.

There wasn’t much left of her, but at least I knew that she wasn’t afraid when she died. The Lion dropped her into his mouth and chomped hard. A trickle of blood made its way down his chin.

“Not very filling,” he said with a laugh. “But I hear rats are actually a delicacy in some parts of Oz.” He paused and licked a stray bit of my poor dead rat’s white fur from his lips. “Now, I’ve made a decision. On to the main course.”

“No,” I said as something strange came over me. I felt more lucid than ever, like the volume had been turned up on all of my senses. I felt like I was looking down on myself, watching the scene unfold from somewhere far away. “Wrong. Fucking. Move.” With that, I blinked myself out of his clutches.

The Lion lurched in surprise and twisted around to face me where I was now standing, a few yards away, my back to the trees. He pawed at the ground.

Somewhere in my peripheral vision—somewhere on the edge of my consciousness—I saw that Ollie and Maude were both clinging to Ozma under the protection of her bubble. They were safe, but I hardly cared anymore.

I didn’t care about them, I didn’t care about Oz. I didn’t even care about myself. All I cared about was my dead rat.

That stupid little rat was the last connection I had to home. In some ways she was the only friend I had left. She had made it through Dorothy’s dungeons with me. She had helped me survive. Now she was gone. The Lion had eaten her as easily as a marshmallow Easter Peep.

Now I was alone for real. But suddenly I knew that it was really no different from before. It was no different from Kansas, even.

I had always been alone and I would always be alone. It had just taken me this long to figure it out.

All I cared about now was revenge.

The Lion bounded for me with a thundering growl so loud it shook the trees. I didn’t move to step aside. If the Lion thought eating my rat and creating a racket was going to make me afraid, he couldn’t have been more wrong. I was less afraid than ever.

I was ready to kill, and I suddenly had no doubt what the outcome would be.

My heart opened up into an endless pit. I looked over the edge into the void, and then I jumped right in.

Brandishing my knife, I silently called out for more fire—for the white-hot flames of the sun. The Lion was going to burn.

The fire didn’t come. Instead, like a glass filling with ink, my blade turned from polished, flashing silver to an obsidian so deep and dark that it seemed to be sucking the light right out of the sky.

It wasn’t what I had been expecting, but that was how magic sometimes worked. Magic is tricky. It’s not as simple as saying abracadabra and waving a wand. When you cast the spell, the magic becomes a part of you. Who you are can change it. And I was different now.

Once, I had been an angry, righteous little ball of fire. Now I was something else.

But what?