Tales of the Hidden World Read online

  Dorothy sat in her wheelchair, old and frail and very tired, and looked out through the great glass doors at the world beyond. A world that no longer had any place, or any use, for her. There was a lawn, and some trees, all of them carefully cut and pruned and looked after to within an inch of their lives. Dorothy thought she knew how they felt. The doors were always kept closed and locked. Because the home’s residents—never referred to as patients—weren’t allowed outside. Far too risky. They might fall, or hurt themselves. And there was the insurance to think of, after all. So Dorothy sat in her wheelchair, where she’d been put, and looked out at a world she could no longer reach. As far away . . . as Oz.

  Sometimes, when she lay in her narrow bed at night, she would wish for a cyclone to come to carry her away again. But she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Her children told her they chose this particular home because it was the best. It just happened to be so far away that they couldn’t come to visit her very often. Dorothy never missed the weather forecasts on the television, but it seemed there weren’t any cyclones here, in this part of the world.

  Dorothy looked down at her hands. Old, wrinkled, covered with liver spots. Knuckles that ached miserably when it rained. She held her hands up before her and turned them back and forth, almost wonderingly. Whose hands are these? she thought. My hands don’t look like this.

  A young nurse came and brushed Dorothy’s long gray hair with rough, efficient strokes. Suzie, or Shirley, something like that. They all looked the same to Dorothy. Bright young faces, often covered with so much makeup it was a wonder it didn’t crack when they smiled. Dorothy remembered her own first experiences with makeup, so many years ago. Been at the flour barrel again, Uncle Henry would say, trying to sound stern, but smiling in spite of himself. So long ago . . .

  Suzie or Shirley pulled the brush through Dorothy’s fine gray hair, jerking her head this way and that, chattering happily all the time about people Dorothy didn’t know and things she didn’t care about. When the nurse was finished, she showed Dorothy the results of her work in a hand mirror. And Dorothy looked at the sunken, lined face, with its flat gray hair pulled back in a tight bun, and thought, Who’s that old person? That’s not me. I don’t look like that.

  Eventually, the nurse went away and left Dorothy in peace. To sit in a chair she couldn’t get out of without help. Though that didn’t really matter, because it wasn’t as though there was anything she wanted to do. . . . To sit, and think, and remember, because her memories were all she had left. The only things that still mattered.

  Don’t get old, dear, her auntie Em had said, back on the farm. It’s hard work, being old.

  Dorothy hadn’t listened. There was so much she could have learned, from wise, old Aunt Em and hardworking Uncle Henry. But she was always too busy. Always running around, looking for mischief to get into, dreaming of a better place far away from the grim gray plains of Kansas. She dreamed a wonderful dream, once, of a magical land called Oz. Sometimes she remembered Oz the way it really was, and sometimes she remembered it the way they showed it in that movie. . . . She’d seen the movie so many times, after all, and only saw the real Oz once. So it wasn’t surprising that sometimes she got them muddled up in her mind. The movie people made all kinds of mistakes, got so many of the details wrong. They wouldn’t listen to her. Silver shoes, she’d insisted, not that garish red. All the colors in the movie Oz had seemed wrong: candy colors, artificial colors. Nothing like the warm and wonderful world of Oz.

  Dorothy dozed in her wheelchair, and fell asleep; and dreamed a better dream.

  She woke up, and she was back where she belonged: in Oz. A country of almost overwhelming beauty, bright and glorious as the best summer day you ever yearned for. Great stretches of greensward ranged all around her, dotted here and there with groves of tall, stately trees bearing every fruit you could think of. Banks of flowers in a hundred delicate, delightful hues. All kinds of birds singing all kinds of songs, in the trees and in the bushes. Wonderfully patterned butterflies fluttered on the air, like animated scraps of whimsy. A small brook rushed along between the green banks, sparkling in the sunshine, and the open sky was an almost heartbreakingly perfect shade of blue.

  Dorothy was just a little disappointed. When she’d imagined returning to Oz in the past, she’d always thought there would be a great crowd of Munchkins waiting for her, with flags and banners and songs, happy to welcome her back. Those marvelous child-sized people, in their tall hats with little bells around the brim. But there was no one there to greet her. No one at all.

  Dorothy was surprised to find herself a young woman, in a smart blue-and-white dress and silver shoes, rather than the small child she’d been the last time she visited Oz. Though this was how she’d thought of herself for many years, long after she stopped seeing that image in the mirror. She patted herself down, vaguely, and was surprised at how solid and real she felt. And not a pain or an ache anywhere . . .

  She jumped up and down and spun around in circles, waving her arms around and laughing out loud, glorying in the simple joy of easy movement. And then she stopped abruptly, as a dog came running up to her, wagging its tail furiously. A little black dog, with long, silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled so very merrily. It danced around her, jumping up at her, almost exploding with joy, and Dorothy knelt down to smile at it.

  “You look just like the dog I used to have when I was just a little girl,” she said. “Its name was Toto.”

  The dog sat back on its haunches and grinned at her. “That’s because I am Toto,” said the dog, in a rough breathy voice. “Hello, Dorothy! I’ve been waiting here for such a long time for you to come and join me.”

  Dorothy stared at him blankly. “You can talk?”

  “Of course!” said Toto, scratching himself briskly. “This is Oz, after all. . . .”

  “But you’re dead, Toto,” Dorothy said slowly. “You died . . . a long time ago.”

  “What does that matter, where Oz is concerned?” said the little dog. “Aren’t you glad to see me again?”

  Dorothy gathered the little dog up in her arms and hugged him to her tightly, as though to make sure no one could ever take him away from her again. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and Toto lapped them up gently with his little pink tongue.

  Finally, she had to let him go, if only so she could look at him again, and Toto backed away, to regard her seriously with his head cocked on one side.

  “You have to come with me now, Dorothy.”

  “Where?” said Dorothy.

  “Along the yellow brick road, of course,” said Toto. “To where all your old friends are waiting, to meet you again.”

  Dorothy straightened up and looked, and sure enough there it was: a long straight road stretching off into the distance, paved with yellow bricks. A soft, butter yellow, easy and inviting on the eye. Nothing like the gaudy shade in the movie. Dorothy smiled and set off briskly down the road, with Toto scampering happily along beside her. She had no doubt the road would lead her to answers, just as it always had.

  The sun shone brightly, with not a cloud anywhere in that most perfect of skies. Birds sang sweetly, a cool breeze caressed her face, and Dorothy’s heart was so full of simple happiness it felt like it might break apart at any moment. It felt good to be just striding along, stretching her legs, after so long in that damned wheelchair. Neat fences stretched along either side of the yellow brick road, painted a delicate duck’s-egg blue, just as she remembered. Beyond them lay huge open fields full of every kind of crop, so that the whole land was one great checkerboard of primary colors.

  Soon enough, she came to a small summerhouse of gleaming white wood, standing stiff and upright all on its own at the side of the road. Bright green jade and rich blue lapis lazuli made delicate patterns over the gleaming white. And there, inside the summer house, sitting at a table, were two women she recognized immediately. Glinda the Good Witch, an
d the Wicked Witch. They were taking tea together and chatting quite companionably. They stopped their conversation and put down their teacups to smile brightly at Dorothy.

  She stopped a cautious distance away and studied them both carefully. Toto sat down at her feet, apparently entirely undisturbed. The witches looked pleasant enough: two cheerful young women who didn’t seem any older than Dorothy was. Now. Glinda wore white, and the Wicked Witch wore green, but otherwise there wasn’t much to choose between them. They might have been sisters. Dorothy remembered them as being much older the first time she encountered them, but then, she had been just a small child at the time. All adults seemed old, then. Dorothy crossed her arms tightly and gave both witches her best hard look.

  “It seems to me,” she said firmly, “that an explanation is in order.”

  Glinda and the Wicked Witch shared an understanding smile and then both of them beamed sweetly at Dorothy.

  “You were just a child when you came here, my dear,” said Glinda. “And you wanted an adventure. So we provided one. In a form you could understand. You can have anything you want here.”

  “Glinda played the Good Witch, so I played the Bad,” said the witch in green. “Though you were never in any danger, of course.”

  “So nothing that happened here was real?” said Dorothy.

  “Well,” said Toto, carelessly, “there’s real; and then there’s real. I always found reality very limiting. I couldn’t talk when I was real.”

  “When you were alive . . .” said Dorothy, slowly.

  “Yes,” said Toto. He waited a minute, as though for her to grasp something obvious, and then he sighed and got to his feet again. “Look! Here come some more of your old friends!”

  Dorothy looked around, and her heart jumped in her breast as she saw the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Lion, hurrying down the yellow brick road to join her, waving and laughing. They all looked just as she remembered them. The Scarecrow was out in front, lurching along, all bulgy and misshapen in his blue suit and pointed blue hat, his head just a sack stuffed with straw with the features painted on. She jumped up and down on the spot, clapping her hands together, until she couldn’t wait any longer, and ran forward to grab the Scarecrow and hug him fiercely, burying her face in his yielding shoulder. He scrunched comfortably in her arms.

  The Tin Man was waiting for her when she finally let go of the Scarecrow. All shining metal, with his head and arms and legs jointed on, and not an ounce of give in him anywhere, but she still hugged him as best she could. He patted her back carefully with his heavy hands. And finally, there was the Lion. He towered over her, standing tall on his two legs, a great shaggy beast; and when Dorothy went to hug him, she couldn’t get her arms halfway around him. His breath smelled sweetly of grass.

  But when she finally stepped back from her friends, Dorothy was shocked again when they strolled over to the summerhouse and greeted both witches warmly, as old friends. Dorothy’s heart ran suddenly cold. She folded her arms again and hit them all with her hard stare.

  “So,” she said harshly. “If you two just pretended to be Good and Bad Witches, does that mean you three just pretended to be my friends?”

  “Of course we were your friends,” said the Scarecrow, in his soft, husky voice. “That’s what we were there for. To keep you company, so you wouldn’t be alone and scared. So you could enjoy your adventure.”

  “Right,” said the Tin Man. “A doll to hug, a metal man to protect you, and a cowardly lion to feel superior to.”

  “Wait just a minute,” said the Lion. “There was a lot more to my role than that. . . .”

  “I don’t understand,” said Dorothy, suddenly close to tears.

  “Then let me explain,” said a familiar voice.

  And when Dorothy looked around, there he was, of course. Oz, the Great and Terrible. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. A little old man with a bald head and a wrinkled face, in the kind of clothes no one had worn . . . since Dorothy was a child. He smiled kindly on Dorothy, and there was such obvious warmth and compassion in the smile that she couldn’t help but smile back. She felt better, in spite of herself.

  “I thought you went back to Omaha,” said Dorothy. “In your balloon.”

  “Just another part of your adventure,” said the Wizard. “I never really left. I’m always here, in one form or another.”

  “Then . . . you were just playing a role, like all the others?”

  “I am Oz, the Great and Terrible, the Kind and Beneficent, and everything else you need me to be. I am the man with all the answers. Come walk with me, Dorothy, and all will be made clear.”

  Reluctantly, Dorothy allowed the little old man to lead her out along the yellow brick road, and they walked along together, the little old man moving easily beside her. It bothered her, on some level, that all her old friends stayed behind. That even Toto didn’t come with her. As though the little old man had things to tell her that could only be said in private. Or perhaps, because they already knew. As though . . . they shared some great and terrible secret that only the Wizard himself could tell her.

  “I always was the one with all the answers,” said the Wizard. “Even if I wasn’t necessarily what I seemed.”

  “When I first met you, I saw a huge disembodied Head,” said Dorothy. “The Scarecrow said he saw a lovely Lady. The Tin Woodman, he saw an awful Beast, with the head of a rhinoceros, and five arms and five legs growing out of a hairy hide. And the Lion saw a Ball of Fire. But in the end, you turned out to be just an old humbug, a man hiding behind a curtain. Why do you insist we had to kill the Wicked Witch, before we could all have what we needed?”

  “Because gifts must be earned, and good must triumph over evil, if an adventure is to have an end,” said the Wizard. “Did you never wonder why the Wicked Witch, so afraid of water, would keep a bucket of water nearby?”

  “It was a dream,” said Dorothy. “You don’t question what happens in a dream.”

  “Do you remember being old, Dorothy?” the Wizard said gently.

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “Though that seems like the dream, now.”

  “You have finally woken up from that nightmare and come home. Where you belong. This is the good place, Dorothy. Where good things happen every day, and the day never ends. Unless you want it to, of course. Look . . . See . . .”

  Dorothy looked where he was pointing, out across the great green plain before them. Off in the distance, two young girls were dancing with a huge and noble Lion. A young girl in sensible Victorian clothes was conversing solemnly with a great White Rabbit. And a boy and his Bear played happily together at the edge of a great Forest.

  “I know them . . .” said Dorothy. “Don’t I . . . ?”

  “Of course,” said the little old man. “Everyone knows them, and their stories. Just as everyone knows you, and your story. All these children dreamed a great dream, of a wonderful place where magical things happened. And some author wrote the stories down, to share their dreams with others. All of you, in your own ways, caught just a glimpse of this place, this good place yet to come. For a moment, you left your world and came to mine. And because all of you are my children, you all get to come home again, in the end.”

  Dorothy looked steadily at the Wizard. “Who are you . . . really?”

  He smiled on her, his eyes and his smile full of all the love there is. “Don’t you know? Really?”

  “And this is . . . ?”

  “Yes. This is Heaven, and you’ll never have to leave it again.”

  “I’m dead, aren’t I? Like Toto.”

  “Of course. Or to put it another way, you have woken up from the dream of living, into a better dream. Everyone you ever loved, everyone you ever lost, is here waiting for you. Look: there is your auntie Em, and your uncle Henry.”

  Dorothy looked down the road, to where four young people were waiting. She
recognized Em and Henry immediately, though they didn’t seem much older than she.

  “Who’s that with them?” she said.

  “Your mother and your father,” said the old man. “They’ve been waiting for you for so long, Dorothy. Go and be with them. And then we’ll all go on to the Emerald City. Because your adventures are only just beginning.”

  Dorothy was already off and running, down the yellow brick road, in that perfect land, in that most perfect of dreams.

  I was asked to write a story about Dorothy and Oz, and it started me thinking about all the famous stories of children who went off to have amazing adventures in fantasy lands. Where were they going, really? What if they were all going to the same place . . . ? Another happy story about an old person dying.

  Down and Out in Dead Town

  Why don’t the dead lie still?

  I suppose everyone remembers where they were, and what they were doing, the day the dead came back. Mostly, I still remember it as the day I got laid off. It came out of nowhere, just like the newly risen dead. The boss called me into his office and told me I didn’t have a job anymore. The company was sending all our jobs abroad, where they wouldn’t cost as much. And that was that. One minute I had a job and a regular wage, a future and prospects, and the next my whole life was over. I went home early, because nobody cared anymore, and watched the dead walk on television. Just like everyone else.

  It was pretty scary at first. We all gathered together in front of the set, the whole family, to watch blurred pictures of dead people stumbling around with blank faces and outstretched arms, trying to eat people. Luckily, that didn’t last long. Just a few last hungers and instincts firing in damaged brains, the experts said. The dead calmed down soon enough, as they forgot the last vestiges of who and what they had been. They stopped being scary and just stood around looking sad and pitiful, hanging around on street corners with nowhere to go.