Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire Read Free Book Online Page A

customary retiring ways in my presence.”
    “Yes, Mum,” they chorused.
    “And yet, and yet.” She wanted a conspiratorial chumminess without a breakdown in authority. She must step softly. “We are now bound together in some unprecedented manner, and we must come to rely on one another. So . I shal ask you al to refrain from fraternizing with the military who wil be bunking in the servants’ quarters, in tents in the meadows, in the barns and stables. I shal ask you to be no more than minimaly polite and responsive to the officers who have taken up lodging in the guest quarters. If they ask for food, you must procure it. You must cook it, Chef. You need not season it and you must not poison it. Do you understand?”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it, Mum.”
    “I daresay. If they request their shirts and stockings done…” She looked about. She had forgotten about laundry. “Wel, they wil have to do it themselves, or hire a laundress. No doubt they wil try to cozy up to some of you.” She took a dim view of cozying these days, though soldiers probably got lonely. She didn’t think Miss Murth was in danger of being meddled with, and as for the girl… “You, Rain,” she said,
    “how old are you?”
    Rain shrugged. “I believe she is eight, Lady Glinda,” said Miss Murth.
    “That should be safe enough, but even so, Rain, I’d like you to stick near to Miss Murth or to one of the rest of us. Chef, Puggles. No running about and getting into mischief. I’ve kept you here because you have work to do. Sweeping up. You’re the broomgirl. Remember that.”
    “Yes, Mum.” The girl’s gaze lowered to the polished floor. She wasn’t overly bright, to judge by appearances, thought Glinda, but then some had said that about her, in her day. And look where she’d ended up.
    In virtual prison, she concluded, sorry she’d begun the train of thought. “That’l do. To your work, then. Hands to your task, eyes ever open, but keep custody of the lips. If you should hear anything useful, do tel me. Are there any questions?”
    “Are we under house arrest too?” asked Puggles.
    “Open up a bottle of something bubbly,” she replied. “When I figure out the answer to your question, I’l let you know. You are dismissed.” She stood for a moment as the foyer emptied. Then, mounting the first flight of the broad fleckstone staircase to her apartments, her eye drifted through the doors of the banquet hal. Before she knew what she was doing she had turned and pitter-patted down the steps and marched into the room. “Officer!” she shouted. She had never raised her voice in her own home before. Ever.
    A soldier snapped to and saluted her. “Where is Cherrystone?” she barked.
    “Not here, Mum.”
    “You’re not in my staff. I’m not Mum to you. I am Lady Glinda. I can see he is not here. Where is he, I asked you.”
    “That’s privileged information, Mum.”
    She might have to throttle him. “Officer. I see charts and maps al over my banquet table. I am sure occupying armies need charts and maps. I am also sure they do not need to be held down flat by early Dixxi House spindle-thread vases. Do you know how rare these are? No more than thirty exist in al of Oz, I’l wager.”
    “Do not approach the table, Mum.”
    She approached the table and she snatched up first one porcelain vase and then the second. They were almost four hundred years old. Handworked by artisans whose skil had been lost when Dixxi House went factory. “I wil not have magnificent art used as … as paperweights. You put your boots on al the other furniture. Use your boots.” The maps had roled up.
    “Begging your pardon, Mum, you’re striding in where you’ve no—”
    “I don’t stride, young man. I never stride. I glide. Now you heard what I told you to do. Take off your boots and put them on the stupid maps.” He did as he was told. She was impressed. She stil had some little authority, then. She turned and left without addressing him