(no subject)
What follows is a story about Lady Glinda.
Dig it if you dare...
Part I.
The Seven Day Storm
By E.M. Lord
Rated Mature for adult language and content
Disclaimer: Characters and places written are based on the Oz of LF Baum and Gregory Maguire. They are copywritten by those authors and entitled to all ownership and enterprise.
I.
THE STORM BLEW OPEN THE WINDOWS THAT WERE
thought to be sealed tight. Despite being wrought with thick Kells’ Iron, the intrepid violence of the storm blew open the doubled hatch and brought with it a cutting chill and an onslaught of water that pelted on the cold stones of the camber. The sudden blast startled Lady Glinda, who, at the sound, let out an illustrious yet earnest shriek. She flailed from her perch on her decadent Vanity, dropping wads of powder and rouge on the floor that mixed with the dashing rain. She scrounged to recover them, but decided it would be safer to preserve her already finished face.
She retreated from the open window to get assistance from one of the maunts, when she bumped into an unexpected lumpy substance behind her. The suspense was followed by a disturbing and familiar cackle. Turning, Lady Glinda saw the dog-like features, the doughy nose and the milky glazed eyes that belonged to the old dodgy Yackle woman. Why must she disturb me? Thought Glinda with more horror than annoyance.
“Oh, dear me! You startled me Mother Yackle,” began Glinda, wanting to quickly dismiss the crone. She had only run into the creature on rare occasions, and had decided that they were each disturbing and unpleasant. She would make this one briefer than any prior encounters. Taking corners of used bed sheets from the hamper in the linen closet, she wrapped them around her hands to form a barrier between herself and the disagreeable old crone.
“Off you go!” sang Glinda as cheerfully as she could muster, “And careful on the stairs, dear, get one of the Sisters to aid you!”
Lady Glinda released her breath. She had held it in so as not to breathe in the noxious odor that followed the crone. Shutting the door proved suddenly impossible, and upon inspection she realized it was being propped by the end of a wooden stick. Thunder shook her and the light from the window revealed the face of the Yackle woman pressing through the crack of the open door. Her walking stick had been the culprit. Glinda’s face was now inches from the old woman’s, and her heart crept into her mouth.
“She’s calling,” muttered Mother Yackle in a hoarse whisper, “can’t you hear her calling?”
“Who is calling?” stammered Lady Glinda frantically, but the unsettling old crone had gone. The long hallway was vacant. Glinda’s eyes filled with tears at the shear impossibility of it. Perhaps she merely darted around a corner, although there wasn’t a nearby corner at all. The Lady Glinda’s chamber rested at the end of a long hall, and the probability of a blind, old, batty sack-of-bones retreating from sight seemed farfetched. She brushed it off and remembered the more pressing dilemma; her makeup.
Ringing the bell for a maunt, she took the now dirtied sheets, with residue of Yackle, and threw them on the floor to try to soak up the excess water. She covered her face with a veil and rushed to rescue her jars and tinctures that had fallen from the gust. She let out a heavy sigh.
This will never dry! Thought Lady Glinda to herself, although it was perhaps a more of an ancillary thought to that of her deeper fear. She hadn’t seen a tempest like this since those many years ago; the night of the Whirlwind; the night when that Dorothy girl came from that Somewhere Else; that same surge that dropped a house on the unfortunate and armless Nessarose Thropp (the Eminent Thropp and the late governess in residence of the now Free State of Munchkinland, or the Wicked Witch of the East to some). The same storm that began the dreaded, envy-driven events over a pair of shoes (a somewhat vulgar and agreeably tacky pair of shoes at that) or as Lady Glinda preferred to describe them: deliciously camp.
She huddled underneath her nightgown, staring through the open windows into the now drenched Shallows, remembering those times that were intrinsically foreboding and hopeful. She forgot all about her face, for the veil had blown off and she melted into a daze. An inexplicable feeling overcame her. Like the tines of destiny, plucking at the strings that awakened her inner self, the self she kept well preserved, well hid, had stopped and allowed itself to emerge and answer the storm. She kept thinking of those shoes.
Those shoes retraced themselves perfectly in her mind. They were luscious, daring and dazzling, sparkling like twin whores, a succulent fuck-me-beat-me red. And though they certainly distracted any onlookers, they were definitely fun. Fun, they had been, yes, but at what cost? Fun certainly has its abusive side. They had been the catalyst for the death of her only true friend, if even that was an apt term for the woman that she had mourned for the last decade or so. The very thought of the shoes, or anything that reminded her of her dear friend, caused her to collapse into a melancholy that could last anywhere from a few days to a week. These frequent funks were amicably referred to by the maunts as Lady Glinda’s other time-of-the-month, though she failed to see the humor.
All these years Glinda had preened the spotlight, yet she had not been the harbinger of change like Elphaba had been. It stung her to think that all the effort she put to curl her hair, and pluck dead any hint of grays, was in vain. It had gotten her attention only, and no results. And now, years later, Elphie was gone and Glinda had only minimally changed. Still as vainglorious and knee-deep as ever yet somehow less brilliant and faded. Lady Glinda no longer lived in the lives of the present, she had been cursed to live life in the past, sipping its moments vicariously through open windows on stormy evenings, longing for times without regret.
“M’lady,” said Sister Maid, “You called for― oh why in the name of the Unnamed God are you standing there! You’ll catch a chill and end up with a case of the sink!”
Sister Maid darted to the window and snapped shut the pair of iron-wrought windows and closed the latch. The rain ran in horizontal rivulets down the side of Cloister, and the shift had made Lady Glinda return from her daydreaming. Something had changed within her in that moment, or rather; something had awoken in that moment. She felt an uneasy foreboding of the future. Yes that was it… she had thought of the future, and with genuine concern and she felt ready.
“Lady Glinda, are you well? It’s not oft one finds you gazing into the rain, letting that expensive face-paint of yours run from your cheeks. Have you taken your medicine?”
“No,” said Glinda caustically, “I won’t be needing that anymore.”
“Well that’s for Sister Doctor and Sister Apothecaire to decide, not for you ma’am. Oh, but with no disrespect to your ladyship!”
Lady Glinda huffed and suddenly felt embarrassed for letting herself go in front of an audience, but then she corrected herself. No more self-editing. No more dabbling in the past. It only causes pain and is an utter waste of precious time. Elphaba never would have dwelled. She always acted, though maybe too drastically, but nonetheless, without dwelling. No…no she was most certainly a dweller…
“You needn’t worry, Sister, for I feel rather refreshed by the rain.”
“Good, then I assume you’ll feel right as rain for the services this evening?” chuckled Sister Maid. Lady Glinda was not amused.
“Don’t be cheeky, Sister Maid,” snorted Glinda, “I am in no mood.”
“Fine. Then I’ll be blunt. Don’t wear anything too bright. Those diamond studded garments you wear would be unfit for a funeral. Besides the service is in the Chapel and you wouldn’t want to get those treasures of yours ruined from the rain―”
“Mother Yackle was here,” said Glinda over Sister Maid’s droning. She hadn’t been paying any attention to the context and only heard singular words like funeral, chapel and treasures. She continued with her complaint, “I’ve asked that she not come to my chambers, she gives me a rash! There seems to be a blatant disregard for my request!
Sister Maid looked annoyed and somehow doubtful as to the truth of this statement. She pulled back the soaked sheets from the floor and as she wrung them down the drainage chute. She turned sideways to make sure the Lady Glinda could see her mouth move, in case she chose to tune her out.
“Lady Glinda, Mother Yackle has been in the kitchen asleep all morning. She was there when I left.”
“No. That’s not possible, I just―”
“Oh my,” gasped Sister Maid, looking down towards Lady Glinda’s lower regions. Upon further investigation they both noticed an ungainly red stain showing through the thigh creases of Glinda’s nightgown. I’ll wake up soon thought Glinda. She hadn’t bled in a few years. Her window for motherhood had since closed.
“What can it mean?”
“That’s a question for Sister Doctor,” stamped Sister Maid, “In the meantime wash up and be ready for the service. Please try to come with at least the semblance of piety.”
“I shall do my best.”
“Please do.”
Sister Maid left with the dirty sheets and gave her a worrisome glance as she disappeared down the hall.
The Lady Glinda was left with the red stain that plagued her nightgown. She peered into the Vanity’s silvery mirror and thought she looked younger. Her skin seemed to glow. She felt like the star that she had been in her youth, but with the grace and dignified stance that age can give. Her eyes still said, Oh, the things I’ve seen! The depth that she had long wanted in her youth had somehow appeared to her in this instance of maturation. Who was this new and fierce-looking Glinda? Who was this brazened fire star that seemed to glisten, even with wet stringy hair, ruined make-up and a bloody stain on the crotch of her cotton nightgown? It certainly was not the Glinda that she used to know, but something entirely new. There was an edge that even Sister Maid was keen to pick up. It was the Glinda that Elphaba knew had been hidden beneath the flashy surface.
Stuffing herself with a piece cloth, she changed attention to her closet. She sifted through musty old boxes and piles and piles of last season’s fashions until she came upon a small lockbox that had been shoved in the back. Glinda had not touched it in years, but the eager observer would note that it went with her even on the most mundane of travels. Every servant of hers had been ordered to take the box with the strictest of care, and even though she came months ago to the Cloister of Saint Glinda without escort, the box had followed. One of the maunts had been issued to take it and stuff it away, explicitly where it might be difficult for Lady Glinda to find in a hurry.
Dialing the code, she slid the lock open and laid the box on the bed. With two hands, she carefully opened the black lacquered lid, revealing what lay inside. They shimmered, casting a faint red tint on Glinda’s face. Taunting her from inside the box like slender candied apples, like bloody gum drops from the Gardens of Lurline, those infamous magicked shoes lay naked and raw before her; the Ruby Slippers.
She didn’t put them on at first, she only watched them glisten and remembered joyfully how she had enchanted them and selflessly given them to Nessarose to allow her to be able to stand on her own two feet. After all, balance is quite difficult when you lack certain appendages. She felt a twinge of guilt, however, for Elphaba had once told her that the rubies used to fashion those slippers had been part of the raping of the Quadlings. Those shoes were blood money. The color certainly helped to remind her of that. But they hardly represented something so negative to her. They were more a memento of one of her past, a red flag in the prime of her life; a red flag of her ultimate failure. It was all her fault! If only she hadn’t coddled Dorothy Gale! Though, the girl did confess the murder to be wholly accidental, which Glinda thought to be somewhat forgivable, and in some way…endearing?
The young Liir had just blown through the Cloister of Saint Glinda, and on Elphaba’s broom no doubt. Whether or not he was her true maternal offspring, he was definitely Elphaba’s son. And how is it that he could utilize her broom? She wondered if the boy had her Grimmoire? It brought hope to her, to think how they had stood tall against the Emperor’s Guards, and hid the golden Trism boy as one of her own servants. Even the Sisters banded together in defiance. It made her feel whole again, and of course the drama was entertaining.
In tribute to the Wicked Witch, Lady Glinda went to her closets and picked out a dark red dress; so dark it was almost black. It had always reminded her of Elphaba, for it was the most sensible and conservative of all her attires. It was hugging at the waist, and tapered out in deep waves down past the feet and flowed with a small trail behind. It has a nice low neckline that I shall lace with pearls!
She laid the gown upon the bed next to the shoes. They didn’t match, but nothing ever did match those shoes. Luckily the lower tread would cover up any evidence of her feet. The slippers would be her dirty little secret.
The dress fit her with perfection and had an agreeable slimming effect. The dark red was sensuous against her cream skin and golden locks. Around her neck she fastened a loop of black pearls and earrings, and fixed her face. She donned it with extreme subtlety, but wore very dark red on the lips to match the gown. She was going for the theme. Her hair she left wild and windswept, for she liked how anxious it had made her seem.
The final glance in the mirror had come. Looking at herself, the Lady Glinda did not recognize any trace of the old Galinda Upland. She had been peeled open like an onion, and shed her outer layer. She felt like a Wicked Queen, beautiful yet terrible to behold. At the base she could see the tips of the glowing shoes, and it made her giggle mischievously. She appeared to have poise and stateliness that she had previously lacked. If only Lord Chuffrey would see her now. No longer a banged up trophy wife. Hah! Things were going to change, and she knew it. She would make it so.
“Men make such a mess of things don’t they?” gurgled Mother Yackle. Glinda could see her in the reflection of the mirror, though she did not recall just when she appeared.
“Yes…” began Glinda, sounding as if she had expected her arrival, “They certainly do. But Women will always be there to clean up.”
“Make a mess of your own,” replied the crone.
“Perhaps,” Glinda answered back, lips pursed in a smile, “Or perhaps prevent them all together.”
“Perspective,poppet.”
Glinda huffed and turned to meet the Yackle woman head on, but she was not there. As before, she heard no scuffling of feet or stick on stone echoing down the hallway, just as if the old bat had never been there. She did one last stroke through her hair with her hand and opened the door to leave. She had a service to attend, and then who knows? She clicked her heels three times. If one had been in the room they would have heard the soft tap of jewel-encrusted, hand-me-down shoes against the gritty hallowed stones of a Cloister.
The windows burst open again and the storm reentered. For some reason the daring weather and stubborn latch only gave her strength. With conviction she bellowed to the latch,
“I’ll deal with you later.”
Rather to resist a mighty storm than deal with the wrath of an angry woman, the window shrank away with fear, guilty of its trespass, and closed.
* * *