In one sudden motion, she picked up the clock and threw it hard into the pool. “No!” Nox shouted. The clock disappeared noiselessly into the black water without even making a splash. For a second, everything held completely still.
And then the water of the pool began to bubble violently. A black cloud formed over it, whirling faster and faster in the red light of Dorothy’s shoes. She raised both arms over her head, and the cloud above us split open. I could see through it—straight through to Dusty Acres, still as abandoned and sad-looking as the day the Wizard had pulled me and Dorothy through to the Other Place. Arcing sparks of red light shot from Dorothy’s fingers into the black mass, landing on the ground in Kansas and flaring up into fires that quickly caught in the dead grass. Huge fissures cracked open and spread through the parched earth. I had to do something. I had to stop her, before she destroyed Oz and Kansas both. But how?
The shoes. Dorothy’s shoes. They’d had the power to take Dorothy back to Kansas. Maybe they had the power to save it. It was a stretch, but the connection was there, and right now it was the only idea I had. I had to save my mom and I had to save Nox. I couldn’t let Dorothy take them away from me. “I love you!” I yelled at Nox, yanking my hand from his grip.
“Amy, stop! What are you doing?” He threw himself at me but I dodged his arms. Maybe I could get the clock back. Maybe the shoes would help me. Maybe I was about to die. There was only one way to find out. I took a deep breath, got a running start, and jumped.
“No!” Dorothy and Nox screamed at the same time as I plunged into darkness and everything went black.
THIRTY-TWO
When I opened my eyes, I was standing on a golden road in the middle of a jungle. Dorothy and Nox were gone. The sun filtered down through a green canopy of leaves. Birds sang in the branches, and the trees around me dripped frothy masses of green moss. The air was as warm as bathwater. The road beneath my feet looked like the perfect version of the Road of Yellow Brick; it was smooth and seamless, made out of some translucent material that caught and held the sunlight that made it down through the trees to the forest floor.
“Welcome, Amy,” someone said behind me. Startled, I turned around.
“Ozma?” I asked in surprise. But I quickly realized the creature in front of me, though she looked almost exactly like the fairy queen, was someone else. Her face was Ozma’s, youthful and pretty. Her bearing was Ozma’s, too, in her clear moments: regal and serene and confident. A pair of golden wings fluttered from her back. But her eyes were a stranger’s. Unlike Ozma’s green eyes, hers were the same pale gold as the road and far, far more ancient than her face suggested. The depths of wisdom and compassion in that unearthly golden gaze were startling. She practically radiated peace. For a while, my mom had been really into Amma, a Hindu guru who could transform people’s lives by hugging them. I got the same feeling from the fairy in front of me.
“Ozma is my great-great-great-granddaughter,” she said, holding out one hand to me. “I am Lurline, the creator of Oz. Come, Amy. Let us walk a little while.”
Bemused, I took her hand, and she led me down the golden path. “But Dorothy—” I began.
Lurline smiled. “Dorothy will still be there when you return, child. We are in a time outside of time now. She cannot touch you here.” Ahead of us, water glinted through the trees and as we approached, I realized that it was a spring. Like the road, it was somehow a more beautiful version of the pool I’d jumped into. The water was clear and pure and depthless. On the far side of the pool, two trees had grown together to form a kind of bench carpeted in soft green moss. Lurline indicated for me to sit, and then tucked in her golden wings and sat down next to me.
I leaned back into the warm embrace of the branches that supported my back. The moss smelled delicious, warm and earthy. The bench was unbelievably comfortable. I could have fallen asleep in the dappled sunlight and stayed there for a hundred years.
Lurline picked up a wooden cup that rested on the ground beside the bench, scooped a cupful of water directly out of the spring, and handed it to me. “Drink,” she said.
I didn’t realize how thirsty I was until she said the word. I took a cautious sip of water. It was delicious: cool and crisp and incredibly refreshing. A soothing feeling spread through me as I drained the cup. My aches and pains faded away, and my thoughts cleared. I felt as sharp and fresh as if I’d slept for a week.
“Are we in heaven?” I asked.
Lurline laughed. Her laughter was like the sound of the wind in the trees, beautiful and wild. “No, child. You are in a place between your world and Oz. After I brought magic to the Deadly Desert and created the land of Oz, I traveled to this place. All fairies come here when they are ready to move on from the mortal world. But I look in on Oz from time to time.” She gestured toward the pool. “My spring is a window between worlds.”