Standing next to it was the Wizard.

“Right on time,” the Wizard said, seeing Dorothy make her entrance. He flipped his pocket watch closed and tucked it into his lapel. “I knew I could count on you, Your Highness. You’ve always had a way of getting what you want. The only trick is making you think you want it.”

“Shut up, you stupid old man,” Dorothy snapped. “I’m not here to play your games. Step aside, so I can finally do what I should have done years ago—destroy that horrible place once and for all.”

The Wizard just smirked. “But can you?” he asked.

“Enough with your insolence,” Dorothy said, slapping him across the face so hard that the sound echoed across the plaza. “Do what I say and prepare the ritual you promised me, before I decide to stop being so kind.”

The Wizard rubbed his cheek, but didn’t seem injured. “The thing is,” he said as Dorothy’s scowl transformed into an unexpectedly complacent smile, “you’re not the one in charge anymore. Not in here. Since you’ve been away from the city, I’ve been hard at work communing with the Powers That Be. Powers far greater than you, or Glinda, or any of the witches.” He gestured toward the palace, which, even deep in the center of the vast maze, was towering over the hedges. “You see what’s become of the palace, don’t you? It’s not just for show, you know. It’s a symbol of all that I’ve become, and of all that I’ll be.”

Instead of arguing with him, or fighting, Dorothy regarded him curiously. “Tell me,” she said. “What do you have planned?”

She sounded so obsequious and smarmy that I thought it had to be sarcasm, but when she dropped the leash by which she held Ozma and took a step back, I got it. The Wizard was working some serious magic, and Dorothy, who had always enjoyed enslaving people so much, was now at the other end of her own torture: from the glazed, vacant look on her face, it was clear that he had her under some kind of hypnotic spell.

As Ozma stepped to his side, the Wizard looked around. “Just a moment,” he said. “There’s something else, isn’t there? Do I spy a witch lurking in the shadows?” he asked.

He fluttered a hand in the air, and, feeling strangely compelled, I dropped my misdirection charm and moved forward, joining them.

“Ah,” the Wizard said. “How lovely to see you, Miss Gumm! Tell me, what have I done here to deserve not one but two of my favorite people on a day like today?”

“I . . . ,” I began to say. But I stopped. A certain kind of contentedness had come over me—not like my mind was being controlled, exactly, but more like I had been drugged, and nothing in the world could bother me now. “I don’t know,” I finally said. “You tell me, I guess?”

“Yes,” the Wizard said. “I believe I shall.”

He gestured to a place at his feet, and two small stools materialized, each one upholstered in green silk with a golden filigree. I took a seat, and Dorothy sat down next to me. It was unnerving seeing her behave so pliably. But, then, I was behaving the exact same way.

The Wizard gazed at us with fatherly kindness. “Let’s discuss some things,” he said.

TWENTY-SIX

“Have you ever—either of you—looked at the American state of Kansas on a map?” the Wizard asked.

Before either Dorothy or I could answer, or even nod a yes, he went on. “If you have, I’m sure you’ve noticed the shape that it is. Dorothy? Amy?” he prompted us like a doubting schoolteacher. “What shape is Kansas?”

Dorothy answered with confidence. “Oh, something like a round blob with a funny little hole shaped like a jolly fat woman cut right out the side of it,” she said.

I looked at her like she was nuts. If it was anyone except her, I would have felt almost sorry for her to be humiliated like this.

Not that I was in much better shape. I had no idea why the Wizard cared what shape Kansas was, or why I felt so strange, but it wasn’t exactly a hard question, if you were from there. And I knew the answer.

“It’s a rectangle,” I said. “With a little missing chunk out of the top right-hand corner. I don’t know why.” That missing bit had always bothered me; it seemed to set everything a little off balance.

The Wizard smiled dotingly. “Correct,” he said. “Amy gets a gold star. Dorothy wears the dunce cap for spinning foolish taradiddles.”

“But . . . ,” Dorothy said, sounding like a kid in school who just can’t believe she’s spelled an easy word wrong in the last round of the spelling bee. “They must have changed it,” she muttered.

The Wizard shook his head impatiently. I could see that he was getting to a point here—I just didn’t know what it was.

“Now, girls, can you think of another place that’s shaped like a rectangle—wider than it is tall—with a little chunk cut out of the corner?”

It struck me immediately. This time, Dorothy knew what he meant, too. We both answered at the same time.

“Oz,” we both said.

The Wizard gave a golf clap.

“Ding ding ding. Oz is exactly the same shape—and, it just so happens—exactly the same size as the great state of Kansas. There’s only one small difference, which is that in Oz, that little chunk missing from the corner is in the west—right where the legendary valley of Oogaboo would be if it existed, which it doesn’t and never did.”