ONE

Sometimes you just have to cut your losses, the Wizard thought, as the rolling green fields of Oz dropped away below his balloon. It had been a decent run: parties in the palace, everyone scampering to and fro at his command, all the banquets. One merged into the other now in his memory: the smeary blur of china platters and singing toast, pastries bursting into flames, wine pouring in waves down the sparkling white tablecloths without leaving a stain and hurling itself into goblets. But in the end none of it had ever been enough. There had been too many late nights in the dark of his vast chambers, staring down the bleak interminable chasm of the future; day after day, never changing, all the sycophants and toadies, the yammering masses, the damn monkeys—he shuddered, and closed his eyes against the memory. Never another monkey. The best thing he’d ever done in his entire tenure in Oz was sell them out to the Wicked Witch.

He closed his eyes. Who was he fooling? He didn’t want to go back to the Other Place. It was a hard step in the wrong direction, going from Wizard of Oz to the tired sidewalk con artist he’d been before he came here. The dusty streets of Omaha, that tired blue sky. The circus he had traveled with—its dispirited, jaundiced elephant; the aging aerialists in their shabby old costumes; the strongman, who could only manage barbells made of tin painted to look like iron. He might have detested Oz, but it had been a vast improvement over his old life. Its people, fools that they were, had thought he was a magician capable of anything. They had rushed to do his bidding. He’d been a king—and now he was nothing.

And he had the girl to thank for it.

That awful girl in her awful checkered dress and her whining, high-pitched voice. He had been quite content to rule the childlike citizenry of Oz until she came along with her little dog and revealed him for what he truly was: only a man like any other, though perhaps a little less kind and a little more clever than most. He’d left her standing in the courtyard of his palace, her mouth a round, astonished O as his balloon rose into the sky. He’d promised her a way home, but he’d never been one to keep his promises.

Now he leaned his head against the ropes of the hot air balloon, rough hemp scratchy against his ear, and looked carelessly out at the horizon. The Emerald City still sparkled on the horizon like a cheap necklace in the distance; far below, a golden plain gave way to a vast red field of poppies. But what caught his gaze were the storm clouds massing in heavy gray drifts. Even at this distance he could see their unnatural—though everything in this disgusting country was unnatural—sheen. Their staticky haze of magic, real magic, sparking across the roiling surface of the storm.

The clouds moved closer at a surreal pace, swelling like ink spreading through water, rolling across the sky until the clear summery blue was swallowed up in darkness. The cool breeze that had carried the balloon at a brisk clip away from the Emerald City picked up, gusts howling past his ears and jerking the balloon wildly until the basket swung madly below it like a yo-yo on a string and he was thrown against the ropes. A menacing rumble of thunder was followed by an earsplitting crack of white-purple lightning so close to the basket that he could feel his hair standing on end. The wind whipped at his clothes. In its fury he thought he could almost make out a taunting chorus of voices—but what words they snarled, or in what language they spoke, he could not have said.

Holding fast to one of the ropes, he struggled grimly to lower the burner, thinking he might try and safely land the balloon. Lightning snapped furiously and the wind swirled around in a terrifying vortex with the balloon at its heart, spinning him faster and faster like a top—but when he looked up from the burner he saw that the clouds that had streaked across the sky were gathered directly overhead. Past their edges, the sky was as clear and calm as it had been only moments earlier. Whatever this storm was, it wasn’t ordinary.

Perhaps this unexpected development was the chance he was hoping for: Oz wasn’t ready to let him go. Someone had sent the storm to keep him here.

Resigned, he settled back into the heaving basket, concentrating firmly on not being sick over its edge, and waited for the inevitable. It was only a matter of time before the balloon went down. With a grim sense of satisfaction, he watched as one particularly spectacular streak of lightning tore through the silk of his balloon, leaving a smoking rent that only widened as the wind pulled at it. With a slow, majestic shudder the balloon held for a moment, caught in an updraft, and then it began to plummet toward the sea of poppies below. As quickly as it had come upon him, the storm blew itself out like a birthday candle: the wind died, the lightning popped and vanished, and the clouds dissipated into faint gray wisps that dawdled off toward the horizon. One last gust cupped the balloon, buffering its fall to earth. “Please,” he said aloud, in the event he was being watched by whatever entity had sent the storm. “Just no more monkeys. It’s all I ask.” He could have sworn the gust snorted.

With a bone-jarring thud, the balloon hit the ground and bounced into the air once—sending poppies flying—before thumping down again. The Wizard was flung from the basket and went head over heels into the poppy field, tumbling through a rich red cloud of petals and at last coming to rest in a drift of seed heads and silvery-green leaves. He lay there for a moment, stunned, and then took stock of all his limbs. Nothing seemed to be broken, or even bruised. Whatever magical force had brought down the balloon had apparently had no intention of harming him. He sat up, and found that the heady smell of the poppies had induced a wonderful languor; his limbs seemed deliciously heavy. The golden sunlight poured over him like butter and his eyelids began to drift closed. He sank back into the poppies as if into the most decadent and luxurious of feather beds.