Out of Oz (Wicked Years, #4)

by Gregory Maguire

Once she thought she saw a castle on a ridge, but it was only a tricky rock formation.

I sometimes do this but it's usually a random patch of trees on a hill in the distance.

“The world is wonderful enough without your having to invent an alternative,”

“Who is going to take you in marriage, Dorothy, if you’ve already given yourself over to delusions and visions?”

Here he was. With a good head of hair; she admired that in any man past fifty.

He’d shaved. A missed stand of stubble under one ear betrayed the grey. Shaved—for her? Should she feel flattered? Curious: his eyes were no more guarded than they’d once been.

“I’m not much for correspondence. I could never choose the right stationery, rainbows or butterflies.”

So—if the oldest memories could contaminate one another, could prove impossible—what good was memory at all?

What an uncommon friendship they had had—not quite fulfilling. Yet nothing had ever taken its place.

She studied the cover as if she were Cherrystone looking for the Grimmerie. The author’s name was unintelligible gibberish. Big squarish letters above it, though, which must indicate the book’s title, said Gone with the Wind.

What an intriguing choice to transform into.

Secrets are revealed as you are ready to understand them.

The world rarely shrieks its meaning at you. It whispers, in private languages and obscure modalities, in arcane and quixotic imagery, through symbol systems in which every element has multiple meanings determined by juxtaposition.

“There’s a lot of Oz untraveled by the likes of Ozians. More outback than city centre in Oz, no? And beyond the sands, Fliaan and Ix, and other murky badlands too impossible to imagine.”

First step of reading, after all, is looking.

Can a spider write letters in a web?” “What nonsense,” said the dwarf from his distance, pitching his knife through the web a few feet above her head, severing a prominent girder so it collapsed like shucked stockings. “That would be some spider.”

A nod to Charlotte's Web.

of paper so that Rain could practice reading. “Is this a magic spell?” the girl asked her. “Don’t let me get sappy on you, but when you get right down to it, every collection of letters is a magic spell, even if it’s a moronic proclamation by the Emperor. Words have their impact, girl.

“She’s young even for her age, that’s all. She still lives in the magical universe. She’ll outgrow it, to the tune of pain and suffering. We all do.

Not a sign of green in her skin, not at this hour, not in this sunset attention.

So curious on how her skin changed color...

provided us our only hope, and we arranged to have Rain disguised as a pale human of uncertain lineage.

Ah, so that's how.

What a mystery we are to ourselves, even as we go on, learning more, sorting it out a little.

Liir said, “Are you going to continue to plan your own memorial service or are you going to go on a reconnaissance mission for us?” “That Dosey has made you all military again. If I were a different sort of Goose I’d find it kind of sexy,” said Iskinaary, and took off.

“If we live long enough,” said his half-sister, “we all end up seeing the past. That’s all we can see.”

Why does the day with the brightest blue sky come tagged with a hint of foreboding? Maybe it’s only the ordinary knowledge of transience—all comes to dust, to rot, to rust, to the moth.

“War just seems to crest and crest until a checkmate is reached, and then it stays like that forever. Getting staler and staler. Nobody ever winning.” “Until one side or the other manages a breakthrough strategy.”

And we must remember, as all living and sentient creatures do, that the life we have today may be utterly changed by tomorrow. “Change approaches as inevitably as the seasons.

“Maybe she did charm you to do that,” said Rain, though she didn’t really believe it. “You just haven’t gotten around to it yet.” “If she did, then you cast a stronger charm upon me,” he said. “Stop that. You sound like one of the silly schoolgirls on the second floor.”

“She’s already passed through her second childhood and she’s in her second adolescence now, and has decided to be sprightly again after spending a generation in bed.”

For as long ago as I can remember, I’ve listened better to the animals than to any person.

“What rainbow is she from?”

“Oh, there is one thing,” she said to Tay, as the room settled, the wolf teeth stopped chattering, the crocodrilos stopped its swaying, the phantom dog and bees dissolved and the spiders curled up into little circles, like handbags for lady mice attending a mouse opera. “I didn’t see if you are male or female. I have never known.” “Does it matter?” asked Tay. She didn’t answer.

At least the sacrificed teeth were in the back, so if he ever had to bite a hand he could at least try. And he still had his beautiful smile, ha-ha.)

Or maybe hostilities had been concluded, miraculously. It could happen. Wars stop eventually, don’t they? If not in our own lifetimes, surely peace hies into sight for our children?

Experience revokes our license to return to simpler times. Sooner or later, there’s no place remotely like home.

We really can’t do much about our given circumstances, can we? We may have free will but it isn’t, in the end, very free.

If you’re quiet enough, you will witness history.” “I’ve witnessed enough history,”

“I’m only angling to question the rationale of a court and a throne. The justice of it.” “Writing never helped a soul to do a thing.” “Except, maybe, to think.”

You think it is purer to be one gender or the other? That it makes a difference?