Chapter Twenty-Four. Dorothy
TWENTY-FOUR
Dorothy
“A soul?” I repeat, but Henrietta closes her eyes and mutters to herself, her thinning brow furrowed deeply.
After several minutes, her eyes snap open and she says, “There’s nothing else to tell.”
“But—” I start.
“Off you go,” she says, ignoring my question, ushering us out.
We’re led back through the gauzy curtain into the main part of the shop. I’m disappointed, but Rook seems unfazed. I wanted more. I wanted answers. Not nebulous warnings and hazy proclamations.
Rook goes to the front door and pulls it open, and the bell rings.
I move to follow him, but Henrietta grabs me by the wrist and pulls me back. “One moment alone with the girl.”
Rook narrows his eyes.
I frown. Is this some kind of trick? “I don’t have any money to give. The money was his and you said—”
“This one is on the house.”
A seed of excitement blooms in my chest. Maybe she’ll tell me how to get home and I won’t have to travel the rest of this cursed land. I won’t have to beg the wizard to see me.
“Will you wait for me outside?” I ask Rook.
“Of course.” He slips through the door, leaving me alone.
“What did you—”
“Are you in love with him yet?” Henrietta cuts me off.
“What?” The word comes out a shout laced with nervous laughter. “Sorry. I … we’ve just met, he and I.”
Henrietta raises her brow. “I don’t judge love’s timeline.”
My excitement deflates. This has nothing to do with home. In fact, I’m starting to doubt everything she told Rook because this seems so far-fetched as to be a fairy tale.
“We are not lovers,” I tell her. Even though I did technically kiss him and I did technically lust over the man eating a damn raspberry.
Henrietta grabs my other arm, her fingers like a vise.
Skin to skin now, heat races from her touch, and yet, I’m shivering.
“A warning.” She leans in close and lowers her voice.
“Yours is the kind of love that changes the wind and breaks the stars.” Her intensity practically vibrates up my arm.
“Yours is the kind of love that ignites everything it touches.”
A thrill rises up my throat, stealing a breath.
I glance over my shoulder to the mullioned windows in the front of the shop where Rook stands waiting outside. He smiles at a group of Enders as they pass, and several of them turn to each other and whisper, then giggle, their gazes lingering on him as they disappear from sight.
There is a voice in the deep, dark recesses of my mind that says I can’t possibly fall for this enigmatic man when he doesn’t even know who he is, when he could be anyone with any sordid past. And apparently no soul.
But there is another voice, one not so timid, one that is bold and daring, that says, Why not?
Why must I always do the safe, predictable thing?
As if he can sense my attention, Rook turns back to me, catching my gaze through the window. His smile widens and he winks.
The thrilling energy practically hums on the back of my tongue.
He could be anyone, but he could also be mine.
That is, if I believe in fortunes and predictions of the future.
If I believe in love that ignites. I’m not sure I do.
Even Henry and Em, who love each other more deeply than anyone I’ve ever met, don’t have that kind of all-consuming love.
Their love is gentle and quiet and beautiful. There is nothing destructive about it.
I turn back to Henrietta. “I think you’re mistaken.”
“I’m not,” she insists.
“I’m not even from here. I’m going back to Kansas. Back to my aunt and uncle and … and I’m going home.”
She tilts her head. “Are you?”
“Yes? And I have someone there.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” I say again, more forcefully. But even as I say it, it doesn’t feel true. I was going to accept Edward’s marriage proposal before the cyclone blew through the farm, but a part of me is relieved that I didn’t get the chance.
“Dismiss it all you want,” Henrietta says, but I can read between the lines. Dismiss it at your own peril.
“I’ll be careful,” I say just to appease her. Maybe to appease me. I can’t stay in this strange land and fall in love with a strange man who has no memories. Even if he is ridiculously handsome and charming.
Henrietta lets me go.
I hurry to the door, but before I can escape, Henrietta issues one more warning.
“And be careful of the Tinman too.”
“I hope I’m not destined to fall in love with him as well,” I say with a laugh.
The old woman says nothing.
We stare at each other for several long, silent seconds and then she disappears through the curtain, the fabric swallowing her up with a swish of air.
“So?” Rook falls into step beside me. I’m walking fast with no direction. I just need to escape.
Rook’s pace is unhurried. He doesn’t have to exert much effort to keep up with me.
“I’m sorry, but I think she might be a hack.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
How do I explain all the things Henrietta told me without sounding absolutely crazy? Or maybe he’ll think I’m lying to justify my actions last night when I kissed him.
Or worse, what if he believes her?
“Kansas.” His tone is prodding and slightly disappointed.
I stop walking. We’re in the park now with the Wizard of Oz looming over us. Candlelight from the altar flickers around us. The man selling wands is gone, replaced by a cart offering kettle corn.
I decide I’m not going to tell him the warning about us. There is no us. It’s a ridiculous notion.
“She just reiterated her warning about the Tinman. Did you catch her saying he’s close?”
“I did.”
“Aren’t you worried?”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
He goes to the seller’s cart and hands over a silver coin in exchange for a paper bag of popcorn. He eats as he walks. “She said he loves me.”
I try not to roll my eyes. “He loves you but wants you dead.”
“Love always wins.”
“Does it?”
He tosses a piece of popcorn in the air and catches it in his mouth. “Yes.”
Now I do roll my eyes. “That’s a fool’s sentiment.”
We pass two Enders, a man and a woman. The man whispers something to his companion and she looks up at Rook, her eyes widening. They latch on to one another and dissolve into more whispers as we turn down the next street.
“I’m beginning to think everyone is in love with you,” I mutter.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
He smiles at me over his shoulder and keeps on walking.
When we return to Remy’s inn, we find Ana and another council member waiting for us. Rook and I are to be fitted for new outfits for tonight’s celebration.
They make us separate, since the shops are on two different ends of the Hollow. The other council member takes Rook. Ana hooks her arm through mine and takes me.
She chats as we walk. She tells me about the Hollow’s history, how it was once just an inconsequential town until the Yellow Brick Road was constructed by the wizard and the Cardinal Witches.
Now it’s the heart of the East End, and almost no one gets through the East without traveling through the Hollow because the Yellow Brick Road travels straight through it.
At the dress shop, three young women are waiting for me with tape measures around their necks, pincushions strapped to their wrists, and racks and racks of dresses pulled out behind them.
I’m offered a flute of champagne, then guided to a raised pedestal as the women get to work.
Measurements are taken. Conversations are had about which color would flatter me the most (red), what cut of dress would fit my body the best (ball gown), what length would best suit my height (floor length).
An hour later, I’m standing on the pedestal in a deep red ball gown with a giant skirt and a jewel-encrusted bodice.
“This must cost a fortune.” I turn to the left, then the right, dissecting every inch of the dress in the reflection in the full-length mirror. Taking the skirt gently in hand, I lift it to twirl, and the silver slippers shine brightly against the red.
By some miracle, the dress fits me perfectly, hugging my waist then flaring out from my hips in a puffy skirt. The jewels, silver like the slippers, remind me of stars, and are sewn into the bodice and speckled throughout the skirt.
“There is no cost for our great and powerful liberator,” one of the seamstresses says.
“I wish everyone would stop calling me that.”
“But it’s true,” Ana says.
“I was just in the right place at the right time.” Or the wrong place, depending on how you look at it.
The taller of the three women checks the fit on my back. “We are free because of you. It is a great deed you’ve done for us.”
“Even so, I can’t accept this gift.” Even though I really want to. I’ve never owned something so elegant. All my clothes up until now have either been thrifted or handmade.
Where would I have gone in such a dress anyway? There are no balls in our rural part of Kansas. The closest we have is the harvest festival.
I lift the skirt and do another turn, admiring the craftsmanship, the beauty of the garment. I don’t feel like myself in it. The reflection in the mirror is someone else.
And for some reason, that makes me want to cry.
It’s a reminder of the life I’m returning to, and the one I want but don’t have.
The life I want is … something else. It’s not harvesting crop. It’s not sewing my own dresses out of scraps.
My breathing quickens. I want to return home. I need to return home. Em and Henry will be expecting me and I owe it to them to be there to help.
Ana catches the glassiness of my eyes and misreads it. “Do you not like it?”
“I love it,” I say, almost a whisper.
“Then?”
“I—” My first instinct was to say I didn’t deserve it, but don’t we all deserve to feel pretty? To be adorned in art? “I can’t,” I hear myself saying instead, and suck back the tears.
But the seamstress closest to me, the one wearing a charcoal blazer and bright emeralds in her ear, squeezes my hand. “Please, Dorothy, we insist.”
They all nod in unison. And it’s decided.
The gorgeous red ball gown that must cost more than our Kansas farm is mine.