The Wicked Will Rise

TWENTY-SEVEN


Have you ever looked at the American state of Kansas on a map?

The answer, at least for me, was, of course, yes. Obviously. In fourth grade, we’d spent at least a month of social studies on what Mrs. Hooper called our “Kansas Unit.” During which, we’d had to memorize the Kansas state flower (the wild sunflower), the state bird (the western meadowlark), the state song (“Home on the Range”—that one was easy), and stupid trivia like where the name Kansas was derived from. (Either Native Americans or French people, or both; I forget).

In addition to memorizing all that trivia, each one of us had to give an oral report on a famous Kansan in history.

Until now, I had completely forgotten it, but in this moment the memory came back to me fully formed.

I had wanted to do my famous Kansan report on Dorothy from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I’d had my heart set on it, in fact. But Madison Pendleton had gotten to school early and had called dibs on it before anyone else could even get a chance.

Then, when I’d asked Mrs. Hooper if I could do Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island instead, Mrs. Hooper had told me it wasn’t allowed, because Mary Ann Summers isn’t a real person.

Dorothy Gale from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz isn’t a real person either, I’d said.

But Mrs. Hooper loved Madison Pendleton. She loved her so much that she would sometimes let her sit next to her at lunch so that they could brush each other’s hair.

Mrs. Hooper hated me. “Dorothy isn’t real, but she’s important. She’s one of our most famous Kansans,” she said. “Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island is not important. In fact, Amy, I always thought Mary Ann was from Oklahoma. Are you sure you’re not thinking of the Howells?”

I knew it wasn’t worth arguing, so I asked if I could do Amelia Earhart. If you thought about it, she seemed, at the time at least, to be a little bit like Dorothy, except real. But Mrs. Hooper gave that one to Candy Sinclair, her second favorite fourth grader after Madison Pendleton, and finally assigned me Bob Dole just to be mean.

Kansas had never been particularly kind to me.

And now I was back there. I was back home— if you could still call it that—and I had been brought there the way I’d left it: through a tornado.

The only thing is, it didn’t feel much like Kansas anymore.

And I wasn’t alone.

The two of us stood there, together: me and Dorothy, right where we had both started. In Kansas. In the Dusty Acres trailer park, to be exact. Not that there was much left of it: I guess when the tornado had taken me to Oz, it had made quick work of this place. Now it was just an empty expanse of gray dust, with a sign: Dusty Acres, it read. If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now.

The only other thing that remained of the place I’d once lived was the concrete barbecue that no one ever used except for on the Fourth of July. Only now, it was blazing with fire, and a single dark figure was hunched over it. The figure was both clear and indistinct at the same time—solid, but blurry at the edges. Then the figure broke apart, and I saw that it wasn’t one but three: from out of the darkness, a trio of women emerged, each of them wearing a heavy cloak in a different color: red, gold, and blue. Another cloak, a purple one, was lying in the dirt next to them, without an owner.

Witches. I recognized the one in red. It was Glamora.

In the distance, I thought I heard another voice calling my name—a voice that seemed familiar, but that I couldn’t quite place. It was a boy. A man. It was someone important, someone who mattered to me, but I couldn’t remember why.

“Rise, little witch,” Glamora said. “Take your place among us.”

I stepped forward.