Annabeth Nolan regarded her clawed leg with real wonder. She could see bone through the tattered flesh strips and oozing blood. The flying monkeys had settled nearby, and the turrets and towers of Emerald City caught her eyes. Miles yet to go, miles and that damn lion stood in the way.
"You didn't answer my question," the Cowardly Lion rumbled at her.
"The widow. That's the truth."
"I'm saving you, honey," the lion actually said, the words so odd coming from that fanged, feline face.
She took off her Kelly green pure polyester scarf. She had been told by the Emerald City Munchwitches, Chapter 206, Portland, Oregon, to have something green with her. The scarf made a substandard bandage. The blood insisted on oozing anyway and the pain of trying to treat her own mangled leg nearly made her howl like a toddler in a blender. Now why she thought of that now seemed far more pressing than trying to get to the Emerald Widow.
A baby would shriek if being blended. Yes, it would!
"I don't need saving, you silly cat," Annabeth said.
She began to scootch her way along the golden bricks, brushing aside the monkeys gibbering and hooting at her. Oh for a wheelchair or wings. Yes, she'd gladly glue some monkey wings to her back right now.
"It would be far kinder for me to devour your heart than let you drag yourself to Oz."
"You're not kind," Annabeth lay with her cheek to the warm road, her leg a throbbing, aching horror, her fingers hooking into the shallow groove of the brick nearby.
Pull, her mind commanded. Pull, damnit!
Instead, the heavy weight of the Cowardly Lion's paw settled on the middle of her back. The roast beef stink of lion breath shot up her nostrils, the claws of the beast beginning to dig in, dig in. Saliva dripped down her cheek.
"Compared to Dotty, I'm a real sweetie."
The great jaws opened. The yellowed fangs began to frame her neck. How did lions kill? Did they go for the throat? She could not remember right now.
"Frank."
The sweetest of voices, the most honeyed of tones, made that lion go very still, the claws now drawing blood along her back. The spit slimed her face and neck.
"My lady," Frank murmured but he did not withdraw just yet.
"Oh my, did you do that?"
Annabeth caught the flutter of dark green skirts, smelled lilacs and roses. Someone traced over her wounded leg with light fingers. Where had the monkeys all gone? She saw one hiding behind an apple tree, even as the apple tree tried to swat at the winged abomination, make it get away.
"Go, Frank, my good, good boy. I'll see to this."
"I warned you," the lion groused before it retreated to the long grasses beside the Yellow Brick Road, tail twitching and waving as if Frank were just some housecat denied the pleasure of torturing a bird. "Shelf, shelf. Who's on the shelf?"
A woman with a pale green veil obscuring her face peered down at Annabeth. The dark green gown had a belt that seemed made of rubies about her rather wide waist. The gloved hands, green gloves, of course, rested at her sides as her head tilted at being stared at so. The rubies or red glass copies of rubies, caught her eyes. Christmas colors in the land of emeralds and witches seemed so off.
"I'm sorry," Annabeth said, trying to sit up but she could only flop and wiggle on those hard bricks. Her body seemed determined to form into a worm. "Everyone here seems dressed for Ren Faire. Oz Faire. I have to get to Oz. Excuse me."
"I am Oz, dear. You've arrived."
The lion's tummy rumbled and growled very suddenly.
"Go get a monkey, Frank. I have no wish to listen to that while I speak to this nice, nice tourist. Go."
"I had monkey for breakfast," Frank sighed, but he turned toward the forest of apple trees, began to follow the troupe of winged monkeys who seemed to forget they had leathery bat-like wings to escape Cowardly Lions.
Why was he still called that? Maybe now he was just a Lion.
"Are you the Emerald Widow?"
The woman snapped her fingers. Annabeth gasped a bit as a man fashioned of rusty tin, with duct tape here and there, emerged from the muttering apple trees. He carried a golden folding chair. This he unfolded and set on the bricks, without a word. The Tin Man adjusted a flapping bit of the duct tape over a gaping hole along his left arm.

"One of my names, but not a favorite. Yes, more tape, Danny. I haven't forgotten. My friends are so demanding. What do you demand of me…?"
Annabeth made herself sit up. Her heart pounded, her head swirled. Her leg seemed far away and yet jammed into her body.
"I want world peace," she told the Emerald Widow. "I'm Annabeth."
"Annabeth wants? Oh dear, oh my. Not that leg fixed? Or a winning lottery ticket? Or someone killed or ruined? Or a new house? World peace??"
The Widow snorted, before giggling into her gloved hands. The Lion roared, the ground shook beneath Annabeth.
"Yes."
"Close your eyes, dear. Dorothy's got you, as they say. They say that a lot here. Where it's peaceful. It's so peaceful here."
Annabeth did as instructed. Her dreams of a world where love ruled the day would be made manifest. Her sister's smug cackling and delight over immigrant children being hauled off to Eviction Centers, as the concentration camps were now called, would turn into screeches of outrage. How glorious that sound would be. Revenge as the world shook off whatever evil spell had held it in thrall for so long. Brittany would shit her slim-fit jeans. Yes, dear Jesus, yes!
Oh damn, her leg sure did hurt and that green scarf did nothing stuffed into the wound to staunch the gush of blood.
A monkey's paw gripped her hair.
The click of claws on the golden bricks made Annabeth open her eyes. She stared into the big golden orbs of Frank before he tore her head clean off with a single bite.
Except the darkness did not blot out Annabeth.
Dorothy picked up Annabeth's head, the scarlet river staining her pretty lace gloves for all time.
Annabeth Nolan somehow blinked, her eyes yet seeing. Danny lurched toward the woman in the fancy dress holding her severed head.
Dorothy swept the veil away from her face.
It was the face of some Frankenstein's bride movie monster. There were elderly scars that ran from the left temple to underneath the chin, with rounded lumps of skin. Patches of white, little stiff hairs marked that river of ruined skin. The left eye had a milky opaqueness. The scarlet lips seemed fixed in a permanent sneer. The right side had once been torn and repaired badly.
"Nothing really dies in Oz…oh, I don't remember your forgettable name! Mm. What shall we call her, Danny? Yes, you need more tape. You always need more tape, you rusting twithoggle. Frank, manners! Eat her quietly, please."
Annabeth watched as the Lion gulped down chunks of her intestines. Her blood stained the ochre of his face. Her headless body jerked and trembled as the lion sucked down her intestines the way one would slurp long noodles off a fork.
She opened her mouth to scream but she had no vocal cords left. Her brain seemed far too aware, far too aware of everything around her, including the fingers that held her suspended in the air.
Flying monkeys observed all this from the living apple trees. The trees rolled very blue eyes and their maws that lacked teeth. They hissed and wiggled, ripping their own roots from the fragrant earth to slap at the little beasts perched on their branches.
Danny accepted the head from the Emerald Widow. Annabeth got a whiff of Dorothy's lilac and rose perfume, as well as some stench of an oil used to lubricate rusty joints.
The wide black eyes in the gray-rusty face turned to the Widow.
"She goes on shelf, like others?"
The Tin Man had a low, grating voice, which seemed the most normal thing here in the Land of Oz.
"No. I'm bored with that collection. Just toss her. World peace, my Aunt Em! Crunch those bones quieter, Frank. I'm getting one of my headaches. Danny, toss her!"
Annabeth went ass over tea kettle, a phrase her sister loved to use.
***
Luckily, Annabeth had landed eyes-side up. Night flowed above her through the agitated branches of the apple tree nearest her severed head. Her brain refused to quiet or grow calm. How to get out of this Oz and back to Portland? Roll herself there?
She had done as instructed by the pale folks of Chapter 206 of the Munchwitches. Find the green door on the backside of Mount Hood. Knock eleven times while reciting that there was no place like home. Go through into the nothingness, fall, and land, hours later, on the side of the Yellow Brick Road.
She had heard that if you went to Kansas and used the tornado provided by Chapter 1 of the Munchwitches, you landed in the Emerald City's market square, right in front of the palace. But, finding Chapter 1 seemed more a legend than dull fact. Also, it was said a real tornado could also drop you in the mountains around one of the bad witch's castles. As in let you smash all over the peaks of those mountains like an egg dropped on the floor-- why take that chance?
Who had told her that the Emerald Widow could help in revenge plots that were actually just a wish for a better world? If one could get both, why, everyone would be helped. Except those who were not. What exactly would world peace be? Who would be in charge? The same old men with all the money? Would money become goods to be traded and exchanged for wants and needs?
What if world peace meant being still alive inside one's own head while watching comets blaze through the black cloth of the night sky? Did comets blaze through cloth? Was that just poetic jibberdyjabber? What was jibberdyjabber? Was that even a word, was that a word used by serious people intent on solving the world's peace problems?
"I warned you," Frank said, arriving to sit nearby, face turning toward the beautiful darkness. "Danny, Dotty's asleep. Let us mice come out to play."
The Tin Man clunked closer but he did not sit. His left hand placed a lit candle near the trunk of the apple tree, which hissed and tried to yank itself away from that small fire. Danny thumped the tree with a fist and it settled uneasily back into being a stationary tree.
He had holes rusted through his body and arms. He opened his jaws but nothing emerged. Not even a sigh slunk out from that hollow, empty throat of his. He had spoken his last words earlier that day? How did being a man of tin work?
Where was the scarecrow? Wasn't there a scarecrow?
"Where's the scarecrow, you asked? Your lips formed it. Annabeth, wasn't it? Just blink once. Your lips asked where's the scarecrow. Dotty burned him alive. Dotty is one heck of a gal. She, well, had her way with him that last time."
Danny nodded, creaks and groans rising from that simple action.
"But we're not here to discuss Dotty's wicked ways. The city turned her evil, the Yellow Brick Road stripped her of niceness and the very air here poisoned her."
"You forgot she was already evil and wicked and not at all nice," came a new, squeaky voice.
A small dog emerged from the tree shadows. He had one ear missing. His fur had a patchy, moldy look and his dark eyes burned.
"Toto, are the rest coming? What of the Munchkins, the last witch, the horses?"
"It's just us, boys," Toto sat near Annabeth's head, sniffing the air, as if he wanted to sniff her ragged new neckline. "Why is this here? Did Dorothy run out of shelving?"
"Said she didn't want this one. I think she gets a bit unnerved by the blinking eyes and the moving lips. One or two have even managed to roll about and off the shelves. I was told that by a monkey. They see everything. Everything."
Chirps and hisses came from the night. Annabeth tried to see the winged monkeys but they kept out of the small circle of the candle.
"Do we await her death or get her beheaded by Frank's teeth or Danny's ax? Where is your ax?"
Both Toto and the lion turned to Danny, who stared at the earth beneath his flat, tin feet.
"She killed most of the witches," Frank sat, licked a giant paw, ran it over his ears. He did this over and over. "And there's been rumblings that whatever would replace her as the Top High Oznian would be just as bad. Start wars, inflation, murder citizens, roast Munchkins alive just for fun."
"Indeed," said the Emerald Widow, carrying a giant axe into the candlelight.
"We have a right to meet," Toto announced.
Annabeth had to swivel her gaze as hard as she could. Her mind filled with thunderstorms she had loved as a child. Her thoughts threw out her sister crying because Ramsey Sexybuns had gone to the Prom with Misty Sparkles. Was that the correct name? Misty Sparkles seemed the name of some housecat fed only tuna and cream. Ramsey Sexybuns did not seem right, either.
Danny fell to the ground, trying to pull his lower half toward his upper half.
Frank bellowed, leaving his severed tail behind.
Toto had backed into a tree, teeth bared, glaring up at Dorothy Gale, with her ax ready to go.
"My little dog has big britches these days. Oh yes he does! Who's got big britches?? TOTO DOES. Toto has biggie biggie britches--"
The Widow turned slowly as flying monkeys landed nearby, her cutesy diatribe fading.
Toto screamed that now was a good time.
Annabeth rose in the air, cupped by a lion's gigantic paw. She flew toward the Widow. The Widow turned and Annabeth's gaping lips opened even wider. Some residual instinct had her teeth clamp onto the longish nose. Gristle and skin were passed down her gullet to drop to the grass below but she kept chomping. Her mind calmed. Her living death seemed not that bad for a bit as she chewed into the face of Oz's most terrible tyrant.
But.
Dorothy's free hand caught at Annabeth's stylish bobbed hair. The other yet held the ax.
Those hand yanked Annabeth free. Before the Emerald Widow could stomp her into true oblivion, the lion sprung, the tin man clamped a hand about the ankle of the widow and Toto leaped up, over and over, trying to reach the bleeding horror of her now-noseless face.
Frank knocked the widow down. She brought the ax toward the lion's back as the lion savaged her, the stump of its tail turning and twisting.
Comets streaked through the sky. Annabeth wiggled her tongue to free some nose from her teeth.
Brittany cried and cried in her whirling head. That little green door she should have left closed whirled and bobbed in her head. That ignoring of an actual lion's words danced in her head.
Why was Dorothy a widow? Where was the Scarecrow? Dorothy and the Alpha Scarecrow Do It! That seemed some porn written by a little brown dog with a missing ear, oh my. Some questions might never get answered, even after death. Or was she still alive? If the brain kept chugging onward, if the eyes kept seeing, if the teeth tore flesh yet, how could one be deceased?
Something turned her over, so she could not see the battle between the lion and the widow. Nothing blocked her ears. Every growl, every whimper, every curse, every plea, every promise wafted her way, the air smelling of apples and pennies. The metal hand of Danny smoothed her hair into place. Toto licked the blood from her lips, whispering how all of this was planned, how none of it was certain.
Something dragged itself across the earth toward her.
Annabeth smelled lilacs and roses.
"Kill me," the Emerald Widow commanded but the Cowardly Lion died with the ax of the Tin Man buried in his long back.
Danny lay beside Annabeth's head, torn apart. He did not seem interested in repairing himself. Toto panted and nosed the body of the large feline.
Two of the flying monkeys approached. Annabeth saw one wrench the ax from Frank flesh, before beheading the lion with a single, powerful blow.
She rested now in a pile of heads and the half-body of Danny.
Eyes moved, voices had gone silent. The lion kept widening his jaws as if to snap at the head of the widow just behind Annabeth.
We're all alive, yet we're dead, she thought, wanting to laugh but no sound followed her attempt.
Why had she really risked so much to come here to Oz? Jealousy? Rage that her awful sister seemed to succeed no matter what? Hadn't Brittany replaced that Ramsey with the basketball star from the rival town? Or was that a movie badly made by Hallmark? Did she even have a sister? Was Brittany real? La la la, magic seemed missing in Oz. Just blood and spaghetti guts and people made of tin. Oh and the flying monkeys.
"Ryan was the only thing keeping her sane," Toto sat by Annabeth, panting now.
Who's Ryan, her lips formed before she could keep them still.
"She turned Ryan into a leg to be humped, but he was straw and itchy." Toto stretched and lay down, to lick at his small paws. "Now she can stare at the back of your head. I'll take her place in Oz. I've been waiting. Waiting. I'd do an evil laugh but I'm a dog," and Toto trotted off, barking with such a joyous noise.
Teeth tugged at Annabeth's hair. The tin hand plucked her upward and tossed her. One of the monkeys yet nearby caught her.
Annabeth watched the earth below her, shadowed and rippled with night, the flap of the wings soothing and yet eerie. Why had she come here? When would her brain stop swirling with thoughts and notions and questions?
Great owls the size of horses winged toward the monkey taking her for a night ride for reasons she did not know.
Down she fell, turning over and over and over.
The fight between monkey and giant owl above her grew smaller and smaller. Splat she went against the Yellow Brick Road, bones breaking, her skull splitting open. Her
brain kept spinning like a windmill. Just like a windmill on a hill of apple trees, and she could not help but laugh that she had gone splat on the Yellow Brick Road about five miles from the gates to the Emerald City. She should have just gone to Seattle. Oh yes, next time. World peace by then. Oh yes, world peace even for heads blinking at dull yellow bricks in a magical land.

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