When I’d shown up at my mom’s door a few days ago, I hadn’t offered much of an explanation of where I’d been. After all that time in Oz, it turned out I’d only been gone from Kansas for two days. Time really did pass differently in the two places, but I never could figure out exactly how.
Mom hadn’t pressed me for answers—yet. But I could tell she was watching me carefully and wondering. Maybe she was afraid to ask.
I stepped out of the bathroom and did a dramatic hair flip. “What do you think, Mom?” I asked.
“Wow, Amy, it’s . . . different.” She looked down at her hands. “You’re different. No more pink?”
“I think I was meant to be a blonde.”
I couldn’t really give a damn what color my hair was anymore, but the truth was that I couldn’t let go of Oz. Glamora had magically changed my hair to blond and I liked keeping a reminder with me. This morning I had chopped three inches and it now grazed my shoulders in an edgy bob instead of hanging down my back.
Mom had offered to take me to the mall for the cut and color. But I couldn’t see spending the money.
“You’ll be okay getting to school? Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?”
“I’ll be fine, Mom. It’s a two-minute walk. Besides, Madison is picking me up.”
Mom frowned. For Mom, Madison would always be the girl who had disinvited the entire first grade class from my birthday party.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that I had to go back to school, to add insult to irony, Mom had told me last night that my high school had temporarily moved to empty trailers in the Dusty Acres Trailer Park while the school was being rebuilt. Glamora and the Nome King-as-Assistant-Principal Strachan had caused just a little bit of damage when they had opened a portal between Kansas and Oz. You can take the girl out of the trailer park . . . but then her high school ends up holding classes there.
I slipped my feet into my boots. I wore them every day. They were silver and sparkly and Mom had never asked where I’d gotten them. What would I say if she’d asked?
My mother’s words stopped me before I reached the door.
“Amy? Wherever it was that you went—I know you came back for me. To take care of me. I want you to know that I am okay. That you don’t have to worry about me, darling . . .”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” I said lightly.
“The first time you went I put up posters and I searched for you . . . this time I knew better. You weren’t somewhere I could find you—I’m right, aren’t I?”
I couldn’t answer with words. I nodded.
“Were you happy there?”
“Mom, it was—” How did I sum up Oz? It was scary and amazing and harder and more wonderful than anything I had ever imagined. “It was . . . magical,” I said finally.
“If anyone is overdue some magic . . . it’s you.”
“Well, I’m here now, Mom,” I said, and I meant it. “I’m back.” Some part of me would always be in Oz, but I was determined to find my footing here. My mother kissed me on the forehead and went off to join Jake in the kitchen, where they were making breakfast. I watched her for a few minutes as they huddled over an egg casserole. Every day she was more herself—not the woman I remembered from my youth before the pills, but something new. She seemed to have made it through the storm that we’d lived in for all those years, and she was rebuilding herself from the ground up.
I still had some work to do.
Madison was waiting outside for me with a Starbucks cup and a smile. She knew how hard it had been for me to leave Nox behind, and even though she didn’t bring him up, she was helpful in her way—offering advice I was sure was ripped from one of the pages of a magazine. The articles she read were breakup ones. But I was pretty sure Cosmo didn’t cover “How to Lose a Guy After You Saved His World and Left Him on the Other Side of the Rainbow.”
Dustin was at her side, standing a little closer to her than the last time I’d seen them together. I could see them inching back together, and every touch and laugh and little joke reminded me of what I had had on the other side and lost. But I was happy for them and happy for their companionship. They were the only friends I had.
But my other classmates had not forgotten Salvation Amy, the nickname that Madison had given me before we were BFFs. People whispered and pointed as I walked past. But I shook them off. I was a different Amy.
So when I slipped into my desk in the trailer and someone tapped me on the shoulder, I didn’t even bother to turn around.
The person tapped again.
This time I whipped around, prepared to return fire. But instead, I found I was staring into the only eyes I wanted to see, sitting in the desk right behind mine.
“Nox!”
Without hesitation, I climbed over my desk and into his lap. I pressed my lips to his, and the whole of Dusty Acres melted away.
Nox was laughing and kissing me and trying to talk at the same time.
“You cut your hair!” He ran his fingers through my short strands. I broke away and swatted him.
“That’s the first thing you say to me? What are you doing here? I don’t understand. Aren’t you supposed to be watching over Oz? It’s your home!” I was laughing and almost crying.
Nox just smiled, tucked my hair behind my ear, and filled me in: “Ozma’s in charge now, and she can handle it. She’s the one true ruler. And I’m the only one besides her who remembers everything that happened. Everything that Dorothy did to our home.” He paused, and a tentative smile spread across his face. “But it didn’t feel like home without you, Amy. Oz is safe now, and my place is with you. Wherever you are.”
“Ahem.” The teacher, Mrs. Labine, cleared her throat beside us. But Nox, oblivious to classroom customs—and, well, just being Nox—ignored her. “This is not the time and place for public displays of affection. In my class we sit in our own seats, Ms. Gumm and Mr. . . .”
“I’m Nox. I’m new here.”
And just like that Nox became a student at Dwight D. Eisenhower Senior High. There were logistics of course. Nox had to become an emancipated minor and we had to falsify some documents. The administration didn’t really look that closely—no one would want to go to Dwight D. Eisenhower Senior High unless they really had to. And, frankly, after our assistant principal brought the school down, enrollment was kind of at an all-time low.
Nox, of course, being Nox, had come prepared for life in the Other Place. He had a stash of jewels from Ozma to pawn for cash and use to pay for an apartment. Madison and I took him to the mall and dressed him up like a real Kansas boy. Even in dark jeans and dark T-shirts, he still looked otherworldly in the best possible way.