Chapter 5

Five

It seemed Nick was content to walk indefinitely without trading a single word with Dorothy, responding solely in grunts and under-the-breath grumbles to any innocuous question she'd dared to ask across the last few hours. Honestly, he was proving to be moodier than her mother when she couldn't get a table at the latest hotspot, after swearing blind to her friends that she knew the ma?tre d'.

She'd tried to talk to the scarecrow, once she'd got past the zombie-puppet creepiness of his floppy limbs and absolute lack of coordination—not to mention that constantly smiling, wide-eyed face—but all she managed to do was distract the poor thing from learning how to walk on legs that used to be nailed to a beam. He reminded her a little of college nights out, girls stumbling on too-high heels, ankles perpetually on the brink of snapping.

After the third time he tripped on the reasonably flat yellow brick road, and she had to help his still rain-soaked body to his shaky feet, politely ignoring the pungent scent of wet straw, Dorothy gave up trying. For his sake.

But that didn't mean she had to give up on trying to pierce her silver companion's grumpy armor. If they had days of walking ahead of them, she wasn't about to set a precedent of stony, boring silence. He could play the brooding loner all he liked on someone else's time.

Come on, Dot. Maybe she could talk the handsome stranger into some distraction of his own. Maybe get him to trip over his own feet. Oops. You seem to have fallen there. Let me just help you get up… Goodness, what hard biceps you have. All the better to carry me to the Emerald City with. The idea felt like such an elementary school recess plan that she should have been embarrassed, but that same immature streak was also the one that was dying to find an excuse to touch him and see if his skin was metal in color only or whether it was cold against her fingertips, unforgiving steel instead of warm flesh.

Her next thought was to reach up and tap his shoulder to get his attention, so not much better. Oh, what strong shoulders you have—you must pump some serious iron. But his leather duster, with its long, cloak-like tail that brushed the back of calves, seemed to have shoulder protection underneath anyway.

She guessed she could just reach out and grab his hand to bring him to a stop and find out that way?

Great, now you're just like Gary Felch, always trying to force a hug whenever he sees you.

If she was going to be a twenty-four-year-old woman about it, she could just straight up ask Nick about his odd skin—odd to her Earth sensibilities, anyway. But before she could stumble her way through what was bound to be an awkward conversation, since she didn't know if that kind of question was frowned upon around here, she decided that the truly mature course of action might be to actually get to know him first. Broach the subject slowly, before she went around asking to grope him.

Dorothy coughed into her hand to get his attention.

He looked back at her, the silver of his skin carrying a hint of the afternoon sunshine on the peaks of his cheeks, outlining the dimple in his chin.

"Mind if I ask a question?" she asked.

"You can ask what you like," Nick replied. An improvement. Actual words, this time.

He sidestepped a large puddle that had collected on the slick road and continued walking again. Dorothy stepped around it as well, wondering if the somehow-dry silver shoes would have stayed so if she splashed about in it. Toto, meanwhile, shoeless and not giving a hoot about getting wet, plowed right through the puddle, chasing his rippling reflection, barking delightedly.

"Toto, come!" Dorothy called, almost missing Nick's quietly said follow-up.

"There are some answers I won't be able to give, though," he whispered.

Toto came running, shaking himself off, and hurried to keep pace with Nick.

"Fair enough," she said, falling silent as she tried to come up with something to say, some small talk to work through before she could muster the nerve to ask the big question.

After a minute, he spoke up again. "Did you have a question?"

"I do."

The group kept walking as she worded and reworded the question again and again in her mind, unable to think of anything else. Asking about his skin was the figurative giant red button in her head, begging to be pushed.

"Is it coming anytime soon?" Nick came to a stop and looked at her.

Toto yipped in surprise as he ran into the back of Dorothy's legs. The scarecrow nearly pitched over trying to swerve. The suddenness of it all made her spit out the last question she had thought up and mentally thrown away, not realizing that her startled mouth was the trash can.

"Are you human?" Dorothy couldn't believe she'd let that whopper of a stupid question slip.

His face was a blank canvas. If her awkward question had shocked him or offended him or amused him, it was impossible to tell.

"I mean," she blurted out, "that tailor guy looked human. Sort of short, but human for sure. Glinda did, as well. But the Wicked Witch lady sure didn't. And you. Well, you know. You don't look… You know…"

"Human?" he supplied.

"Yeah." The houseboat had turned fewer circles in the storm than her mouth.

"That's because I'm actually a statue that came to life when a princess kissed me."

"Really?"

"No."

He turned back in the direction they'd been heading and started to walk again. The road had a steep camber as it followed the curvature of the rolling hills that undulated for miles ahead, and he was carefully navigating the slick road. Something she should've been doing as well, lest she end up in the rain flooded culvert that curved alongside. The water wasn't deep, but it frothed and churned, the current ready to whisk a person away, nonetheless.

Might get to the Emerald City quicker… She shook the thought off.

"Now I know you're human…" she said to his back.

"And how's that?"

"Only a donkey or an immature joker could be such a smart-ass. And you don't have four legs."

"Then I guess I'm as human as the next man," he replied.

He was infuriating. First, he didn't even want to help a damsel in distress. Not that she liked to think of herself as a damsel, but the distressed part had been real enough. And then, when he did finally break down to help because she threatened to swipe his axe, he became a walking wall of silence.

She knew the type all too well: young and handsome, confident that they could get by on their looks and not actually have to be nice or have a decent personality. Probably plays his silver look up with the local girls. "Solid steel in every way, baby," while catching every eye by standing at the right angle in bright sunlight. Blinding a few, so they'll overlook his dismal conversation skills. She almost said so aloud, to see if she could rile him, even a little bit.

"Well, when we meet the next man, maybe he can lead me to the Emerald City, since you seem so put out by the idea," Dorothy said instead.

"That might be for the best," he responded blandly.

It was like he was specifically choosing his words for maximum annoyance.

"I'm sorry I'm such a problem for you." She let the acid drip from her voice, hoping to make him corrode. "I hate to think my life being torn upside down by a tornado, and witches, and wicked magic, and all this crap, has inconvenienced you in some way."

"You're not the rarity you think you are when it comes to being affected by Wicked magic," he said.

His gait slowed a touch, and he rubbed his side down to his hip like he was trying to loosen a tight muscle before it became problematic. Too late.

Guilt washed over her as she saw the slight limp. She vaguely remembered seeing it before when he went to check on the tailor after things had settled. Was he wounded in some way? Did he have a disability that was being aggravated by Glinda's eighty-mile escort quest? Was that why he'd been reluctant?

Oh heck…

"Do you want to stop for a second?" Dorothy asked.

Nick looked back at her, obviously confused about the sudden shift in attitude. She tried not to do it, but her eyes flicked to his leg and his truncated gait.

"Ah," he said. "I see."

"I'm sorry," she added. "I didn't know this might actually be difficult for you."

"Apology accepted," he replied, his tone unchanged. "Don't worry about me. I'll walk it off soon enough."

Having failed so spectacularly in getting to know him, Dorothy let herself fall silent again, listening to the shuffling walk of the scarecrow behind her and the nails-on-brick clicks of Toto's feet.

"Walk what off? Your legs?" the scarecrow asked. "I would not suggest it. Legs of some kind are necessary for walking."

"I don't think he can walk his legs off. Don't worry," Dorothy replied, chuckling.

"I bet mine come off," the magical automaton said. "Ah! Is that what you meant, friend of Dorothy? You can borrow mine if you need to!"

Nick didn't respond.

"That's very nice of you, Mr. Scarecrow," Dorothy said on his behalf. "But you keep your legs for now. You need them for walking."

"Silly me!" the scarecrow replied. "Of course, I?—"

He took that moment to trip again, splashing face first into a puddle. Thankfully, he stopped short of sliding down into the rain-swollen culvert. "Oops," the scarecrow spluttered, flailing helplessly. "How clumsy of me. Perhaps he wouldn't want my tripping feet anyway."

Dorothy looked to Nick, waiting to see if he would stop, or even acknowledge anything had just occurred, but he kept walking forward, silent as ever before. Bristling with the kind of anger she usually reserved for people who didn't pull over when there was an ambulance coming, Dorothy helped the poor scarecrow back up. The continued lack of response from their supposed trail-leader set her teeth on edge. It was far too reminiscent of her father's old "let everyone fend for themselves" ideology.

But then he did speak, and it shattered the comparison before it formed as solid as his skin looked.

"Is he going to make it?" Nick asked, though he still had not turned around, and his words had sounded more like a middle manager asking if a late employee was going to show up.

"He's fine," she replied for the scarecrow. "Aren't you, my guy?"

"I think I might be more rough-textured than fine," the scarecrow replied as he rubbed his gloved hands over the flannel shirt he wore. Pellets of icy rain started to strafe down from newly gathering storm clouds, each drop sucked up into the scarecrow's already water-heavy form.

"Great," Dorothy muttered, swinging her camping backpack around to her front. She teased out a crumpled, bright-blue poncho and pulled it on, tightening the hood around her face. She looked ridiculous, but figured she was in good company.

"It must be four o'clock," Nick said as he looked up at the clouds.

Then she heard it, the rapid tink-tink-tink of heavy rain striking metal, as it struck his face. Holy crap, he is some kind of silver or something.

"Why must it be four o'clock?" she asked.

"The four o'clock shower, to cool the last heat of the day and water Munchkin crops," he answered, as if it should've been obvious.

Toto sprinted forward and back again, running through the raindrops, summertime happy and quickly becoming soaked. Dorothy would've picked him up and shoved him under her poncho, but she remembered that she didn't have to make sure he was dry before he was allowed back into the farmhouse. The Gale farm was… She couldn't even guess how far away.

As the light shower became a battery, shivers began to tremor their way through her, seeping straight through the flimsy waterproof fabric of her poncho, and were going to become full-sized shakes soon enough. Despite it apparently being the height of summer, no one had informed the rain clouds to turn up the temperature on the downpour. Likely magical and meant for some kind of Ozian purpose.

Nick subtly frowned at her, but it was so small, she might have been imagining it.

Streaks of rust-like color ran down the lengths of the raindrop channels in his face. He pulled out a rag and wiped the water off, the reddish stains instantly disappearing.

"Come here," he told her, but he didn't wait, walking over to her instead.

Nick took off his travel pack, wedging it between his feet. He reached for Dorothy's poncho and paused. "May I?" he asked.

She numbly nodded. He continued his movement, grabbing the edges of the plastic "rain guard" and peeling it away from her soaked skin and up over her head in a way that left her breathless. He was so close. Closer than he had ever been before, though she didn't lean in to see if he smelled of engine oil. She didn't need to; he smelled of the beach after a storm, with a hint of freshly shredded cedar sawdust and… something so familiar to her, that she couldn't place.

Camphor… she realized a moment later. Auntie Em used camphor oil on the silverware to stop it tarnishing. Had Nick done the same?

She didn't have the headspace to dwell on it, as he scrunched up the useless poncho and rammed it into a pocket in the side of his bag and stood back up to his full height. With his eyes fixed on hers, he eased the straps of her backpack off her shoulders, his hands grazing her T-shirt and, just once, the bare curve of her neck. He passed the backpack to the scarecrow, who wobbled and bent under the weight, but somehow managed to keep upright.

Nick's throat bobbed imperceptibly as he shrugged off his leather duster-style coat, and, stepping so close that she was convinced he was about to embrace her, he wrapped the coat around her shoulders. He stayed there for a moment longer, holding the lapels, before he let them fall onto her chest and stepped away.

The hem of the duster trailed on the glistening ground, but it was warm and dry on the inside. For a split second, she was going to protest, especially seeing his singed, threadbare, beige cotton shirt suddenly becoming damp as the rain lashed down harder on them, but he was already putting on both camping packs, one over his front, one over his back… quickly hiding anything that the wet fabric might highlight.

She pushed her arms through the coat sleeves and was amused to see that the very end of her fingertips barely poked past the cuffs, and only when she stretched her arms to the fullest. Something she did to try and stretch out the funny feeling that wriggled in her chest, lingering after his unexpected closeness and those accidental touches. Yet, for the life of her, she couldn't remember whether his touch had been cold or warm; she'd been too frozen to process it.

The coat smelled like leather, but nothing else. None of the unusual perfume she'd inhaled a moment ago: cedar, petrichor, camphor. Apparently, having silver skin stopped his scent from transferring. But its residual heat answered her earlier question: his touch had been warm. In fact, it was making her a little hotter, just thinking about it.

How sad is my life that this might be the sweetest gesture a guy my age has ever made for me?

"Let's go," Nick ordered them in that flat voice and continued into the pelting rain, pressing them forward.

"Thank you," she said lamely.

He nodded once, but as every time before, stayed silent as he led the way.

"Just Nick?Or is there a last name?" Dorothy asked as they marched onward, the evening balmy despite the "four o'clock cooling shower." She was glad of the warmth, her clothes now dry, the chill in her bones fully thawed.

Nick was wearing his coat again, and the packs had been redistributed. The silence, however, had been much more uneven. She had spent some time talking to the scarecrow, careful not to laugh or get frustrated if he misunderstood something, but explaining herself too many times had left her hungry for something a little more two-sided.

Still, she didn't really expect Nick to answer, and nearly leaped hip deep into the hope of an actual conversation when he did.

"Chopper," he said calmly.

Dorothy tried hard not to smirk, but he must have noticed her struggle.

"Yes," he added, "I'm fully aware of the irony."

"Because of the axe on your hip?" she asked.

"That, and I'm a woodsman."

"Like going-out-camping type of woodsman or the lumberjack type?"

"Like the chopping-down-trees type."

"I wonder if that actually makes your name ironic or just coincidental. I'm always confused about that kind of thing."

The scarecrow chimed in at that moment. "I seem to be confused about a lot of things."

Dorothy offered a sympathetic smile. "Happens to the best of us. Go easy on yourself—you're brand new to this being alive business."

The scarecrow furrowed his lopsided eyebrows, considering the comment. As he lumbered along, she heard him murmuring, "Being alive… What is being alive?" But he didn't seem to want any input, and Dorothy doubted she was any authority on that kind of existential crisis. "Toto, do you know?"

The dog barked and the scarecrow nodded, continuing his thoughtful murmuring. Dorothy hid a grin at the interaction as a more companionable silence settled across the group.

She was prepared to walk next to Nick without saying a word again and was pleasantly surprised when he spoke up of his own accord. "So, is it just Dorothy?"

"Gale," she answered. She waited for him to smirk, as she had unsuccessfully kept herself from doing, but his control was stoic.

"Gale, huh?A little double irony between the two of us."

"I wonder if it's a hat trick of irony," she said.

"Hat trick?"

"Three of something," Dorothy replied.

It was going to take some getting used to, that a lot of her idioms flew over their heads. Which brought up the question: Why was everyone speaking English? Or were they speaking something else, and her magical arrival had done something to her so she could understand them? If she hadn't been so cold during the rainstorm, she still wouldn't have discounted that this was all a dream.

"Three?" Nick asked.

"Let's find out if the irony goes for each of us." Dorothy glanced over her shoulder at the scarecrow. "What's your name? I don't suppose it's first name Scare, last name Crow?"

The scarecrow seemed concerned, patting himself down as if he'd lost his keys. "I don't think I have one."

She was about to tell the jittery walking mess of used farm clothes and straw that everyone had a name when she realized he had just been created a few hours earlier. It was entirely possible he didn't have one.

"Should I have one?" The scarecrow lifted his hat and scratched his tuft of straw hair. "Oh dear. I really don't think I do. I must have lost it in the field. I bet a crow stole it!"

"Maybe we could help give you a name," Dorothy said hurriedly. "What do you think it should be?"

The scarecrow blinked his painted-on eyes, so like a cartoon. "I can choose?"

Dorothy nodded.

"This is exciting!" He clapped his gloved hands together. "This is my first decision I get to make."

There was a long pause as he seemed to be deep in thought, but apparently his mind wandered off, just like he started to do. A small bunny had hopped close to the rain-filled duct near the side of the yellow brick road and the scarecrow loped off after it. Toto would have, too, if Dorothy hadn't clicked her tongue to keep him at heel. He'd sulk for a while, before the new smells made him forget all about the bunny.

"Hello," the scarecrow spoke to the rabbit. "You seem like you are lost. Would you like to join us?"

Nick blew a breath out through his nose in an almost-sigh and stepped over to the scarecrow, guiding him by the elbow away from the deep channel that he was likely to fall into.

"How about you concentrate on where we're going for now," Nick said. "Dorothy is still waiting on your answer."

"Oh!" He looked back at her, his peculiar eyes somewhat panicked. "I'm sorry, Miss Dorothy. What was the question?"

"What do you think your name should be?"

"I like Nick," the scarecrow said. "You can call me that if you want."

"I like Nick as well, but that's taken already, thanks," Nick said and then shivered his shoulders as if they suddenly pinched. It threw his gait off, and he stumbled for a second but quickly recovered. Still, he was walking much smoother than when they had first started.

Leave it to Dorothy's mind to immediately want to add, I like Nick too. She shook her head. Jesus, you've known him for like twenty-three minutes. I wonder if it's some kind of Oz pheromone or a hero thing. She hadn't forgotten the way he'd stepped in front of her, or the gesture with the coat. Or maybe I've secretly got a thing for guys who look like they could pilot a steampunk starship.

"I don't think we can call you Nick, scarecrow. That'll get confusing," she told him.

He palmed his gloved hand into his thick, bulbous forehead, swollen from the rain. "Of course. Why didn't I think of that? I don't seem to have a lick of brains in here."

As if to prove the point, he became distracted by a six-winged dragonfly and nearly wandered into the thrashing storm culvert again. Nick didn't even look up from his stride to adjust the scarecrow and put him back on the right path.

Nick's neutral voice seemed rather thoughtful as he asked, "Maybe if we knew what you want to do with your new life, once you're finished helping Dorothy with her quest, we could come up with something."

"You said you wanted to be a farmer," Dorothy offered. "Could be a name in there somewhere. How about Dean? Or Cole?"

The scarecrow's cartoon eyes were blank. "What's a Dean? Who is Cole?"

"Possible names for you. I know a pair of farmer brothers down the road from where I come from. One was named Dean, the other was named Cole."

"He doesn't look like a Dean or a Cole," Nick chimed in bluntly. "More like a Bean and a Pole. Or a sack of straw."

His unexpected sense of humor was so deadpan that it kept creeping up on Dorothy too late to laugh.

"I like that name!" The scarecrow peeked up. "Straw. Can I have that?"

"Why not? I'm sure no one else is using it," Nick said.

Having sorted out a name for Straw, they continued on their way in silence again for a little while.

The storm channel following the road had slightly broken its banks during their conversation, and the water was ankle deep, washing across the bricks and collecting in the gentle valleys of the sloping hills. Her question as to whether the silver shoes repelled water was answered. Apparently, the magic was going to keep her toes warm and dry. Her pants and calves were a different matter altogether though.

Passing the hills, a dark battalion of trees rolled into view. The line of the forest was so straight and perfect there was no doubt that it was intentionally kept that way. Its immaculate formation rubbed Dorothy the wrong way; there was something sinister about those woods. Even at a distance, she saw that none of the evening's guttering light filtered down through the top branches, and there was no way to see how deep the forest went.

"What have we here?" Dorothy tried to make her voice as carefree as possible. "A magical forest where we have to hold our breath as we walk through? Or do these trees throw rotten pears at you if you don't say the magic passwords? Oh, I know, they ask you riddles and if you don't answer correctly, they make you pick out a switch."

She wasn't exactly making fun of Nick and the laundry list of dangers that Glinda had tossed out, when he didn't want to escort her in the first place, but she wasn't not making fun of it. Looking back at the moment, she had to be honest with herself—his attempts to avoid escorting her had hurt more than she'd let on.

"It's the Fighting Trees, actually," Nick deadpanned. "They don't have pears, that I'm aware of. These ones throw apples."

His straight-man delivery made her wonder if he was teasing her. But he quickly followed up with, "The good news is that they'll see the axe and will likely leave us alone. The bad news is, we'll still get the occasional apple core slap if they think they can throw one without me seeing who did it."

"Nick, if that's a joke, it's the funniest one I've heard since landing in this upside-down place."

"Saying that you landed implies flying," he replied. "The boat-house thing you arrived in was more projectile than hot air balloon."

"Okay." Dorothy stopped walking. The anachronism of the place was just too much. "You guys have hot air balloons here? And you know about Earth."

"We do," Nick said in his usual calm voice. "And we do. In fact, there's an annual hot air balloon race that journeys from the Gaylette's palace to Glinda's."

"How do you know about Earth?" she prompted.

"We've had visitors get swept into Oz before," he answered. "Usually because of a magical accident, but sometimes they're summoned by one of the witches. I remember stories of a teenage girl that stayed with Gaylette the Good when I was a kid. In fact, they say the Wizard himself came in on a hot air balloon fifteen years ago. And it was another hot air balloon that brought in the original Wizard a hundred plus years ago."

The scarecrow joined in at that. "What is a hot air balloon? Will we ride in one soon?"

"You might not want to," Dorothy told him. "It involves a naked flame."

"Oh!" Straw replied. "Should someone fetch it some clothes?"

Nick sighed. "She means it'll burn you."

"Well, I don't want to do that anymore!" The scarecrow started stuffing the loose straw back into the undone button of his shirt as if he expected it to spontaneously catch just from talking about it.

"We should keep going," Nick said.

Dorothy let him drag them forward, but she also wanted to keep the conversation moving as well. Maybe it would help with the dark dread of the forest that seemed to be swaying in the distance despite the lack of breeze.

"If the Wizard is from Earth…" she said.

"All Wizards are from Earth," he interrupted her. "It's a tradition. We don't always have a Wizard though. The last one died twenty-five years ago, and the new one has only had the post for a decade or so."

"But he studies wands? That's what Glinda said, I think." Dorothy shook her shoulder to remind them of her pack and the precious wand stuck deep inside it, wrapped in dish towels and carefully slotted inside a tube that once housed a collapsible telescope. Any and all protection to stop it from breaking accidentally.

"From what I've heard, he's made a study of all things magical," Nick confirmed. "He can't use the wands, but he's collected more of them, and more books on their construction, than anyone in Oz."

The forest loomed closer, and even Dorothy fell quiet in its shadow. A thick silence swelled out from the trees. Not an absence of noise—there was plenty of rustling and creaking to fill the still air—but the silence of stagnant rainwater and dead animals.

"You know what?" Dorothy whispered. "Maybe I should just rent a little cottage back there in that village and forget this whole thing."

"I'll be happy to stay in the yard and scare off the crows!" Straw enthusiastically replied. His stuffed voice rolled sharply through the boughs of the forest, and the swaying wood turned into aggravated shaking.

"The trees can't reach into the road," Nick told her. "Nothing to be afraid of." He appeared to be trying to convince himself as much as her. And she couldn't help but notice he hadn't taken his eyes off the tunnel-like-absence-of-branches that carried the yellow road beneath it as if he were second guessing just how far they could reach.

Easy to say "nothing to be afraid of" when you don't seem to feel anything, Dorothy thought.

"I'm not afraid," Dorothy quickly replied. Too quickly.

"I'm not afraid either!" the scarecrow chirped.

"Nor I," a new baritone voice said, rising up behind them.

Dorothy whipped around, a scream lodged in her throat, and even the irrepressible scarecrow and the emotionally distant Nick seemed to be rattled for a second. Facing the new arrival—that had snuck up so readily behind them—Dorothy's fight or flight instinct rocketed through her.

They had been stalked, and caught, by a walking, talking lionman.