SOMEWHERE OVER
Dorothy’s eyes wavered slightly as they took in the faces occupying her blurred field of vision. She stammered her reply to the suggestion just now put to her.
“No. But it wasn’t a dream . . . it was a place. And you, and you, and you-“ she turned her head to glance at the bewhiskered and bewildered-looking man leaning in through the window of her bedroom. “-And you were there.”
“Oh . . .” said the man, who Dorothy dimly remembered was called Professor Oz. No- Wizard Marvel- no Professor Marvel- that was it. Flustered, Professor Marvel exchanged glances with Uncle Henry standing right next to the window. The chuckle that followed his “oh” was perhaps indulgent, perhaps embarrassed, and perhaps nervous. Dorothy could not discern exactly, but at least the haze was dissipating.
Hickory, with his metal-bright eyes smiled sadly, and said, “You couldn’t forget this face, could you?” while indicating his head with his left hand. He kept his heavily bandaged right arm out of sight.
Dorothy wasn’t listening to him. Her eyes focused on the woman leaning over the bed in front of her. She cocked her head a little as the woman spoke to her.
“No Aunt Em,” Dorothy exclaimed, her eyes wide and in earnest, “this was a real, truly live place!”
A ripple passed through all the men in the room, as well as the one still leaning through the window. They looked at each other with sorrowful eyes. Large but shy Zeke took a step back, taking in a shaky breath. Uncle Henry closed his eyes, refusing to look out the window at the freshly upturned patch of dirt. The only way to know that the mound was new was the texture of the soil, because it had the same sepia and gray colors as everything else all around them.
“And I remember,” continued the girl as she struggled to sit further upright, “that some of it wasn’t very nice.” A tear trickled out of Hickory’s eye. Professor Marvel shuffled, extremely uncomfortable. Dorothy continued to stare at the empty space above her, still speaking to the Auntie Em that only she could perceive. “But most of it was beautiful.”
Hunk rubbed his scalp in a perplexed manner. He wasn’t the prize turnip of the crop, but he could tell which way a weathervane was blowing. He opened his mouth to speak, but Dorothy rambled on. “But just the same, all I kept saying to everybody was, I want to go home.” Uncle Henry suddenly released the breath he’d been holding, and Zeke flinched at the explosive hiss.
“And they sent me home,” concluded the girl. Suddenly her countenance darkened. Her eyes caught a flash of the dying sunlight outside as they flickered over the fidgeting men. Suddenly she reached out with both arms, and the three farmhands drew back slowly, glancing together at Uncle Henry. Dorothy embraced something invisible in her arms; Toto’s ghost. Toto hadn’t survived the tornado. Rubbing her cheek against the phantom terrier, Dorothy turned her attention to Uncle Henry just as he gave the farmhands a curt jerk of his head. The three men silently withdrew from the room, all wearing sad smiles with eyes that shone, but not with joy or relief.
“Doesn’t anybody believe me?” Dorothy demanded, her voice rising, nearing strident range. Her eyes returned to the empty space which Uncle Henry understood to be where Dorothy thought the woman that had been his wife for nearly thirty years stood, the woman Dorothy had killed two days before, drowning her in the pig trough, screaming the epithet witch all the while. Uncle Henry clenched his fists and forced himself to sound gentle.
“Of course we believe you, Dorothy,” he said, pretending to look at his beloved wife’s face. The girl sank back in her bed, her braids splayed upon her pillow, uttering an “Oh”. Professor Marvel took one look at the darkness in Uncle Henry’s eyes, cleared his throat and disappeared from the window.
“But anyway, Toto, we’re home!” the girl chirped, her eyes already drooping. She’d fallen into a fugue almost right after the tornado had caused her to knock herself unconscious while looking for Toto. When she’d awakened, she had awakened into a world that only existed in her head. Since then, she had alternated between wild, frenzied dialogues with the bewildered farm residents and movements through a land only she could see, fueled by motives only she knew, and deep coma-like sleep periods. It appeared that Dorothy was about to drop off into slumber again.
Indeed, as she mumbled on, Uncle Henry could see Dorothy’s eyes losing focus and starting to roll back in her head. “Home! And this is my room, and you’re all here! And I’m not going to leave here ever, ever again, because I love you all! And, Oh, Auntie Em, there’s no place like home!” With these final words, Dorothy sank into stupor, lost to the world.
“Yes,” Uncle Henry said, his voice trembling with hatred, “you’re not going to leave here ever, ever again.” He picked up the pillow next to Dorothy’s head, and placed it swiftly over Dorothy’s face. When she started convulsing and grasping at his arms with her hands, Uncle Henry almost released the pillow. She was after all, just a little girl.
A little girl who had attacked Hickory with an ax, nearly taking off half his right arm. A little girl who had tried to set Hunk on fire. A little girl who had- well- no wonder Zeke was afraid to even be in the same room with her. A little girl who had extinguished the only light in Uncle Henry’s dreary life. Taken the rainbow out of his gray sky. A teardrop splashed upon the pillow and was immediately absorbed by the dry, dusty cotton, as Henry pushed down even harder.
“From dust thou art . . .” he whispered.
Darren tossed the card aside. "Dammit," he muttered. "You sure do like the darkness, Mister Weirdo Shark."
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