Shadows of the Emerald City Read Free Page B

in the rain.
    Eyes dark and merry were regarding him as he opened his own. He sat up, and the small, dark terrier barked and capered around him.
    “ Toto, let him stand up!” Dorothy called out, laughing.
    The dog ran to her and whined until she picked him up. Will’s head was throbbing and he wondered if she had bludgeoned him. Perhaps he had been drugged?
    “ Oh, Doctor Price, it’s so wonderful, so incredibly wonderful!” Her cheeks were flushed, and again he noticed that she had once been an incredible beauty.
    “ Hit my head,” he said, framing it midway between a question and a statement.
    “ I’m sorry,” she said, kneeling near him. “The first trip is always the most difficult.”
    “ Trip?” He remembered the poppy and wondered if he had ingested LSD somehow. Perhaps Dorothy had spiked the lemonade he had bought them at the fruit stand down the road from the insitute. The idea of her having access to hallucinogens explained a lot, but would also mean someone at the institute was her accomplice and supplier.
    Dorothy looked at him, her face filled with concern.
    “ You don’t believe me, do you? Oh, Doctor Price, you must! Please, come to the window and see!”
    “ See what, Dorothy?”
    “ Oz, of course! We set down near the outskirts of Munchkin Land! They’ve been keeping Toto for me, and…”
    “ Dorothy, you must know that’s not your dog,” he said gently. “This is a puppy, and your Toto would be over sixty years old. No dog lives that long.”
    “ But this is Oz, Doctor Price, Oz. It’s a wonderful place, please come to the window and see!”
    Will knew this was a crucial juncture in her therapy. If he went to the window, he would be giving her fantasy some credence. It might undo all they had achieved here today, and put her back in that delusional state of isolation and confinement.
    “ Dorothy,” he said slowly, “I will come to the window if you tell me if anyone at the institute has been supplying you with hallucinogens.”
    Dorothy looked at him, puzzled.
    “ I’m not sure I know what that word means, Doctor Price.”
    “ It’s a chemical that causes you to hallucinate, to see and/or hear things that are not there.”
    “ Like a dream,” she said, the animation leaving her face.
    “ Yes, but a waking dream.”
    Dorothy hugged the dog, and the little animal wagged its tail furiously and licked her neck.
    “ The Scarecrow told me you wouldn’t believe,” she said sadly “He said you’re too concerned with your brain to listen to your heart.”
    “ Dorothy, I only want what’s best for you.”
    She looked at him, and put Toto down. She stood and offered him her hand.
    “ Please, Doctor Price, come with me. My friends will protect you.”
    “ From what, Dorothy?” He tried to project as much compassion and empathy as he could. Patience for patients, the golden rule.
    “ From the Witches ,” she hissed, her eyes darting nervously as if some hag might even now be crawling along the ceiling.
    “ But you told me both the witches were dead,” he said calmly. Gently, he reminded himself, she has had years to craft this fantasy, but there are flaws. Oz for all its grandeur is merely a trauma-inspired house of cards.
    “ New witches always arise in the West and East,” she said. “Please, come with me to the North, where Ozma and Glinda can look after you.”
    “ And what about the Wizard?” he asked.
    “ Wizard,” she spat. “He’s the reason I came back. He convinced me that this is where I belonged. He was a horrible man and Oz is well rid of him.”
    He heard a flock of crows cawing outside, their raucous din a reminder of their location, a dreary and deserted farmhouse in Dryden, Kansas.
    Dorothy tugged on his arm.
    “ Please, we must leave now!”
    Will shook his head, ready to deliver another gentle gust of reason to bring down her playing card construction.
    But Dorothy would hear none of it. She scooped up the terrier and ran from the room. Will