Magdalena nodded. Her chin quivered.
“There’s a man named the Rainbow King, and he lives in the heavens. In a beautiful castle. The sun always shines there, and there are so many good things to eat, and the beds are softer than a million feathers…”
Magdalena’s eyes were wide.
“Sometimes he sends his daughter down to us. She walks right along the rainbow and comes down to earth to play. Sometimes her father pulls that rainbow up and she stays on earth for a long time, and she has lots of adventures. But when she really, really needs something, he puts it back down, and she skips right back to her daddy, right across that rainbow bridge.”
Magdalena nodded solemnly.
“Now, I know your life seems hard sometimes, but I want you to remember that if you ever get very worried, just think about that rainbow—and if you use your imagination, you will be able to skip straight over the rainbow to play with the Rainbow King’s daughter, in their beautiful land, and you won’t feel so alone, and when you’re ready to come home, you just have to tap your feet together three times, and he’ll put the rainbow down, and you can come straight home.”
Magdalena’s face had brightened.
She stood up, raised her chin, straightened her braids, and smoothed down her skirt.
“You can do this,” Frank said.
“I can,” she said.
“Thank you,” Maud breathed.
When it was time for them to leave, Maud held on to her little niece a bit longer than she should have, afraid that if she let go too soon, Magdalena would see her tears.
While they murmured their goodbyes, Frank pulled Julia aside. “The moment you don’t feel safe here, Julia, you have a home with us. Promise you’ll remember that?”
Julia and Magdalena stood side by side as Maud and Frank climbed into the hired wagon, the grizzled driver shifting in his seat, anxious to be off. When they were settled, he shook the reins and the pair started to trot. But just after they began to roll, Magdalena bolted toward them so fast that Frank leapt off, catching her so that she wouldn’t get caught up in the wheels.
“Wait!” Magdalena cried, one arm outstretched. “I’m staying here, but Dorothy wants to go with you.”
Maud looked at Frank and signaled him with an almost imperceptible shake of the head.
“I don’t think so, Magdalena,” Frank said gently. “Dorothy needs to stay to keep you company.”
“No!” Magdalena’s voice quavered, her chin all puckered. “She doesn’t want to stay. She wants to go with you! She’s very itty-bitty small. She won’t take up any space at all.”
“But, Magdalena—” Maud protested.
“Auntie M, please!”
“But Dorothy will keep you company. She would miss you, and the prairie dogs, and your house and the fields. She wants to stay with you,” Frank said.
Magdalena stamped her foot and jutted out her chin, eyes flashing. “She says no. She says you’re not listening. She wants to go to Chicago! She’ll skip right back over the rainbow and tell me all about it, whenever she wants. Won’t you, Dorothy?”
Julia stepped toward Magdalena and grasped her arm. “Come now, Magdalena. That’s enough of your woolgathering. Your aunt and uncle need to leave—I’m sure it’s about to rain.”
Magdalena’s face was wrinkled up like a furious prune, her brows knit together. She stamped her foot again. “She wants to go!”
Maud gave Frank a tiny nod. “Well, all right then, missy.” Frank lowered the step and placed his foot on the running board. “Dorothy, say goodbye and then climb on up.”
“And Toto, too!” Magdalena said firmly.
She clasped one hand over her stick-thin arm and watched, her large violet eyes unblinking, as Frank and Maud went through an elaborate pantomime, first making room on the spring seat for Dorothy, next tucking a robe around her imaginary legs, then petting her pretend pup and setting its make-believe basket beside them.
As the wagon began to roll away, Magdalena lifted her hand and slowly began to wave, and Maud held her breath. Suddenly Frank jumped up, shaded his eyes with his hand, and cried out, “Oh, Toto! You naughty little pup! Where are you running so fast?”
Getting impatient, the driver raised his whip. His pair of horses picked up a faster trot; by now they were a good distance from the house. Balancing in the jarring wagon, Frank shouted, “I’m sorry, Magdalena, but that puppy wanted to stay with you. Here!” He scooped up something, a handful of air, and tossed it to the girl. “It’s his basket!” he called out. “I think you might need it.”
Magdalena teetered there for a moment longer, as if undecided, but at last Maud saw her grab the imaginary basket by its handle and disappear around the back of the house and out of sight.
They rode along in silence for a good long while, and they were almost back to the Edgeley depot when the rainbow reappeared, this time not just a piece of it but a semicircle, arching all the way across the big prairie sky, its vivid colors in sharp contrast to the gray landscape.
“You see that rainbow?”
Maud nodded miserably.
“You know where I’d like to live?” Frank said.
“Where, Frank?” Maud said.
“If one end of this rainbow lives on this bleak and soulless plain, then I’d like to be clear out at the far end of it. Somewhere, somewhere over there is a place that is better. I’m just sure of it, Maudie.”
Maud scooched her way across the bare wooden bench until she was leaning up against him.
“Do you really think so?” she asked.
“I’m just sure of it,” Frank said. “And another thing, Maudie, as hard as this may be for you—that godforsaken shack on the prairie, your cranky, bent-over sister, that field full of prairie dogs? That’s home for Magdalena. Nothing can change that.”
“We’ve let her down.”
“No, we did the best we could,” Frank said. “And you know what we’ll do now?” he asked, miming that he was tucking a blanket around a child’s legs. “We’ll look after Dorothy. Together.”
He regarded her, his eyes the same shade as the slate-colored sky. “Promise?”
Maud looked up at the rainbow. It appeared to start just over the cluster of lonely buildings that made up the town of Edgeley, but then it arched up and disappeared into the clouds. Was it possible? Was there really somewhere else—somewhere at the far end of the rainbow that was better than this place? She certainly hoped so.
“Maudie?”
She nodded morosely. “I promise.”
CHAPTER
21
HOLLYWOOD
1939
Maud entered the sound stage and saw a painted yellow road that ended at the feet of a giant plywood gate, and she realized with a start that this was it. The filming had literally reached the end of the Yellow Brick Road, the Emerald City. In yellow paint, she could read the truth. She was running out of time.
Maud saw no actors about—just a crew of workers. A fellow in paint-splattered coveralls had just pried open a can of paint and had left a broad swath of green across one of the white walls.
“Oh, no!” Maud cried out, forgetting herself. “What are you doing? Are you mad? The Emerald City is not supposed to be green!”
The painter looked up in surprise as Maud approached, handbag in the crook of her arm, a stern look on her face.
He stood up with the expression of a guilty schoolboy, tucked his paint rag in his back pocket, and stood at attention as if expecting a scolding. “Beg pardon, ma’am?”
“The Emerald City is not green!” Maud said.
The man doffed his cap, pulled a bandanna back out of his pocket, and wiped his brow.
“Not green, you say?”
Looking puzzled, he called over to his painter partner. “Hey, Ray! The lady says it’s not supposed to be green.” He turned back to Maud. “Well, what color is it?”
“Well…” Maud said. “It’s white.”
“White, you say?” The painter’s head was cocked as he squinted at Maud. “I’ve got orders for No. 2309. Emerald green.”
“The spectacles are green. But the Emerald City is white.”
The painter seemed to take it on Maud’s authority. He shrugged, replaced the lid on the paint can, and prepared to leave. “Emerald City is white!” the fellow muttered. “It don’t figure.”
But at that moment, the director, Victor Fleming, strode onto the set.
“We’ll need to see how that shade of green looks with the Technicolor. Just finish up that one wall and we’ll give it a test.”
“The lady said it’s supposed to be white.”
“What lady?”
The painter jerked his head in Maud’s direction.
Fleming did not look amused. “Mrs. Baum?”
“Well, of course the Emerald City is white! Haven’t you read the book? It’s the Wizard who plays a trick on the inhabitants of Oz by making them all wear green spectacles.”
“Green spectacles,” Fleming said, frowning. “That’s not in the script.”
“That’s the problem,” Maud said. “It should be!”