Over the hill, I could see the village in the distance, tucked into a little nook between two hills, like a little cul de sac. Melsha hummed a little song as we walked, and it was all I could do to keep up. She moved through the grass effortlessly, and it wasn’t like it was harder for me as a bigger person. Just..I couldn’t stop staring. Pink and gray trees, little outcroppings of yellowish-brown rock like islands in a sea of grass. There were mountains in the distance, black and foreboding, a little snow on top of the largest, and something about them made me think of Afghanistan. And just to our, well, maybe it was West -- dark clouds seemed to churn in the sky.

Turning, I creak into a run, eyes on the sky, tripping my way toward the shadow that is the Great Kells, the black divide that hides that horrible place from so long ago.

There it was -- the black phone behind my desk. The one that had been used only one other time.

It was the phone that would only bring unwanted news. There were two who knew this number, but I already knew which of them would be waiting for me on the other line.

I picked up the phone.

But one monkey refused to go on the grounds that his family had suffered under Dorothy’s hands. He pleaded refugee status and pointed to another long-dead edict that backed up his case. I had to deal with him quickly and quietly. The last thing I needed was a back-log of similar cases. So I did the only thing I could do in this situation: I made him my pet. I called him Turlo because I think that’s what his name sounded like. I couldn’t speak monkey. I still can’t.

Her rose-pink skin blushed bright red, and she said, “I am only Melsha from Bright Lettina. I am no one. I come here to visit the water in this branch and remember.”

‘Whatever treasure one sought,’ he was always apt to say, ‘one could find it on the Travel Kart.’

I chop the wood to raise the roof to raise her eyes to mine, for smile. Her mistress’s hands rain down blows on my lover’s face, her arms, her hair. My lover stares down the lane, waiting for a time my time her time that never came.

I have committed some truly heinous acts in my life, usually against humans. It's not that I'm terribly partial to other creatures- it's just a human thing. Humans insist on taking more than they need, often at any expense, and it is this drive that invites violence among them and to them.

“Turnbuckle, you test my patience.” Glinda looked up from her massive marble perch, the candlelight dancing in her eyes, sparks of fury. She glared at the little clockwork and huffed.

I take my head out from the vat Munchkinlander wine and let it soak into what's left of my brains. The brains that bastard Wizard cursed me with.

Newsflash!

Hello, my name is Dot Gale. But don’t get me mixed up with Dorothy Gale, my grandmother. She was a sweetheart; I’m not.

Welcome back to Oz!