Chapter 7

Seven

"So, animals talk here?" Dorothy asked, watching the magnificent glide of the stork, her twig legs flying straight out behind her.

The group had been following the bird for some time through quiet coppices, whispering fields, a pear orchard, and across a few smaller streams, but after the "delivering babies" remark, Dorothy had only just mustered the nerve to strike up a conversation again. Not necessarily with Nick, but as he was the one walking beside her, if he happened to be the one to answer—great.

Toto gave her some serious side-eye.

"I swear you're a paid actor." Dorothy chuckled, pressing a kiss between Toto's ears. She'd decided to carry him for a while, though heaving to wrestle Nick off the elm tree bridge had sapped her own energy down to the fumes.

"Some can, some can't," Nick replied. "Same as the trees."

She frowned. "The trees talk?"

"The Fighting Trees do. Didn't you hear them?"

"Not a word," she replied, pausing. "Although, they did seem to understand me."

"No ‘seem' about it. They did understand you."

Lional chimed in, "I should say they did! You gave them quite the scare for Sir Toto's sake."

"I never had to shout," Straw added, almost wistfully. "I wonder if shouting would scare larger birds. I should try it!" He opened his stitched mouth, clearly intending to bellow at the mother stork high above.

Nick took hold of his arm, surprisingly gentle, and shook his head. "Only if the birds are trying to scare us."

"Of course." Straw smacked a hand against his forehead, moving a lump from one side of his brow to the other. "This alive business is really very difficult."

Lional swooped in, taking over Nick's grip. "Tell me of yourself, my good man. I, too, am learning how to live in a new fashion. Perhaps we shall be able to aid one another."

"Tell you of myself?" Straw allowed himself to be led forward, his legs seemingly having a mind of their own. "What a question! I'll have to think about that one."

His attention span wouldn't last, but at least he had Lional holding on to his arm, to prevent him from following his next distraction. As Dorothy watched the floppy man with a fond smile, a grim thought struck her.

"Do you think he was alive at all, before Glinda waved her magic wand at him?" she asked, more to herself than to Nick, who limped beside her. She could've easily walked ahead, twice as fast, but some sense of responsibility told her to keep pace with him.

Nick stared down at the yellow bricks. "I doubt it. Why?"

"Can't imagine it's much of an existence, that's all—being stuck to a pole in a field, in all weathers, with no one to talk to," she replied with a shrug. "She won't turn him back into a scarecrow after, will she? I think that'd be worse."

"I doubt it," he repeated.

"Is it lonely being a woodsman?"

He half paused, mid-step, as if the question had startled him. But he quickly continued on. "I work alone, if that's what you mean."

"You don't have, like, a cutting crew?"

"No."

"I guess that axe makes it easier," she pointed out. "No need for a squad of lumberjacks when you can fell a massive elm in three cuts. Does it always do that?"

"It does." He cleared his throat, his voice raspier than it had been. "The first strike marks the spot, the second hits the mark and cuts deep, the third cuts all the way through."

She chanced a smirk. "Might be useful for trees, but you'd make a shoddy executioner."

"You're right; I did."

She blinked, but he was so stone-faced that she couldn't tell if he was joking or not. He looked at her from the side of his eye, obviously searching for a reaction. Talk about a dry sense of humor, she thought. She managed a stiff laugh and hastily moved past it, just in case it wasn't a joke. "Have you always been a woodsman?"

"No."

"Care to elaborate?" She braced for another disappointing monosyllable.

"I… was a farmer," he said, his tone unnatural: slow and cautious.

She perked up. "You were? Why didn't you tell Straw?"

"There's not much to say. It's farming."

"My aunt and uncle have a farm. There might not be much to say, but there's plenty to do. I bet you got all the heavy-duty jobs, eh?" She laughed to soothe herself.

"I… lifted a lot of sacks." That odd, stilted voice again, even more robotic than his usual tone. "A lot of scything, planting, tilling."

She tried exceptionally hard not to think of him shirtless in a field, scything long stalks of wheat, sweat glistening on sun-browned skin. Silver skin, her mind corrected, but the image was no less pleasant for the alteration. In fact, she could imagine it even more clearly, the sun gleaming off his skin instead, metallic-toned muscles rippling with every swipe of the scythe.

"What changed?" she asked, hoping he hadn't noticed the heat in her cheeks.

His throat bobbed. "What do you mean?"

"Why aren't you a farmer anymore?"

He was silent for a while. "Rebellion," he replied at last. "My father wanted me to take over the farm. I wanted to carve things and sell them from a riverboat shop, traveling all over Oz via the waterways. The woods were my compromise."

"A riverboat?" Her heart jumped. "How come you never did that?"

"Because I haven't built it yet," he replied flatly. She seemed more excited about his future prospects than him.

She laughed. "I hear you on that. Restoring a boat takes way longer than anyone tells you, so I can only imagine how long it takes to actually build one from scratch."

"Scratch? Is that a kind of wood you have on Earth?" He frowned at her.

"Uh… no. It means… ‘from nothing,' I guess."

He nodded. "I see. Yes, it's difficult. Your boat is… nice. Or, it was."

"I wanted to live on it and study marine life," she explained, her chest clenching. "Sail the open seas, learn about the ocean's secrets. Don't suppose Glinda will be able to send me and the boat back in one piece, will she?"

"Doubtful."

At least it was a two-syllable answer.

They fell into silence again, Dorothy lost in her own world, while Nick's face remained utterly blank. He hadn't bothered to ask her to elaborate on her dreams for the future, and she couldn't deny that stung a little. Was he really this socially inept? Did he not understand that a conversation was a two-way street, some give, some take?

Maybe, he's just not interested… That stung a little more.

"What did you grow?" she tossed out, figuring it was the most neutral of neutral territories.

He sniffed. "Exploding pumpkins, lullaby plums, purple candy cabbages, spun sugar spinach—the usual fare."

"The usual fare?" Dorothy stared at him, but it was Lional who answered.

"What in the name of Oz is a lullaby plum? I have never heard of such a thing. I have never heard of any of those things. Do tell me more of these delicacies, Mr. Woodsman. They sound perfect for a feast—a celebration for my triumphant return, perhaps!"

The very corner of Nick's mouth twitched. The subtlest movement, which might have gone unnoticed if it hadn't been Nick's face that Dorothy was looking at—a face that barely moved at all.

"Are you pulling my leg?" Dorothy asked, incredulous.

"I don't think he is," Straw replied, wobbling back into the conversation. "He isn't touching you."

Nick, however, seemed to understand the idiom this time. "I wondered if you'd believe me." She could practically feel him wanting to smile, but it didn't appear. "We grew pink barley."

"Yeah, good one." Dorothy rolled her eyes, secretly delighted that he'd joked with her. "Pink barley. Not falling for that again."

Lional furrowed his furry brow. "Miss Dorothy, pink barley is the staple crop of Oz. He is quite serious. It makes the finest blushing beer and rosy bread. Simply delicious!"

She gazed at Nick, who wouldn't look back at her. Frankly, she was impressed by the guy. He'd joked here and there, but never at her expense, and she was relishing it. She couldn't think of anything more attractive than a man who looked like a heroic sculpture and made her laugh, with a knack for some light banter. So, why wasn't he smiling, why wasn't he laughing—what part of the story was he leaving out that had left him so… flat? What had robbed him of his joy?

With the others now falling back in step as a group, she didn't feel like she could pry. Nor did she know if it was her business, really.

"I'd have liked to see your farm," she said.

Nick's eyelids flickered. "I wouldn't mind seeing it again, either."

"How long has it been?" She clung to the thread of conversation he'd kept dangling, hopeful that she wouldn't have to pry after all. Maybe he'd keep talking.

"Eight years. Not since—" He stopped, literally stiffening up.

She waited patiently for him to continue, willing him to finish that sentence, however it ended. Instead, determination settled across his face, and with jaw clenched, he lumbered on up the yellow brick road. Apparently, that was all she was going to get—for now or for good, that remained to be seen.

"I don't thinkI can help," the scarecrow said as they took in the turbulent surface of the Munchkin River. This time, it wasn't just an overflowing creek, but a full-fledged river that had swollen to a magically impressive size. Dorothy could barely see the other side.

The evening was a warm, clear one, and three moons hung in stepped stages across the violet dark. Two of them were full, and one was a sliver that was twice the size of the others. All of them worked to light the scarecrow's pained-painted face as he wrestled with being unable to come up with a solution.

"I believe the water would make short work of you," Lional said with a pat to Straw's narrow shoulders.

The scarecrow kicked at a clod of dirt that only succeeded in denting his own straw-stuffed boot. "I just hate being useless. Did you see how unafraid the stork was of me?" He had tried yelling at her earlier, copying Dorothy's technique on the Fighting Trees, to no avail. "My job was to scare off crows and birds and I have failed at that, just like I failed at leading Dorothy to the Emerald City. I'm no good at any of my jobs."

"Your help with chopping down the bridge tree was impressive," Lional offered.

"That was math," he replied. "That stuff is easy. I want to help with hard stuff. Like scaring birds and tiger-bears and whatnot. No one could ever be scared of me."

"Nonsense," the lionman growled. "I find you to be very frightening."

"Really?" the scarecrow asked, suddenly buoyant. "That's so nice." He walked over and put his arms out to the prince-turned-beast.

There was a hesitant moment—one that the scarecrow probably took to mean Lional was actually scared of him, but was likely the prince's royal nature keeping him from so readily accepting a straw-prickling hug—but the lionman eventually gave their farm companion a quick back pat.

"Yeah, he looks very scared," Nick said as he shook his head. A split second later, he flinched and reached up, rubbing the back of his neck as if he had thrown it out with the movement.

The scarecrow broke his embrace with Lional and walked over to Nick next.

"Are you scared of me?" he asked hopefully.

"No."

The scarecrow's shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Hey! Now's not the time," Dorothy told them. "Thinking caps on, people! We've got baby storks to save!" And it was true; they didn't really have time to fluff up the poor field decoration's personal withering crisis. The mother stork had been right to worry for her nest of eggs and the fact she wouldn't be able to save them herself.

The water had swept fallen logs—thankfully, their little group was now upriver from their makeshift tree crossing, so the hacked-up elm couldn't be one of them—into the root system of a large willow tree, near what had once been a curved channel full of cattail weeds and freshwater mangroves. Dorothy knew because most of the plants were now debris, swept up like trash at a bottleneck, tangled around the problem they were facing: The impact and rushing water had severed the willow from its secure hold on the muddy riverbank, and the whole thing had tumbled across the stork's nest, pinning it beneath water that had risen to its hidden place in the upper reeds.

Luck was the only thing that had kept the eggs themselves from being crushed by tree limbs, and even more luck had knotted the long willow-whip branches around the nest, securing it all in place—for the moment—against the whirlpool rush of water in the river-bend alcove of the once-quiet wade pool.

Someone was going to have to dive in and bring the eggs up one at a time. A neat trick considering the same person was going to have to cut loose the willow branches while keeping the eggs from being smashed or sending them sailing down river.

Toto went to the edge of the embankment and barked a couple of times before running in a frustrated circle.

"They do seem to be deep into the water," Lional announced.

"I'm not going to be any good here," Nick said before anyone even asked. "I may be able to wade out a little ways and trim the branches off in sections to release the eggs, but as deep as the water is, if I were to fall in, I doubt I'd come back up again."

His statement muddled Dorothy's mind. She'd felt his hand in hers—it hadn't been metal, so why was he worried about sinking? It hadn't felt like metal, anyway. Was it some special Oz-type metal that Earth didn't have an equivalent for?

But those were thoughts for another time. The stork was practically prancing on one leg and then the other, swooning with worry for her unborn chicks.

Dorothy scanned the area for ideas.

The channel off the main river looked like it had been dug out decades, if not centuries, prior to feed a stone-laid channel that ran under the paddlewheel of a river-mill further down the bank. The large wooden wheel was rolling fast in the swollen water, wood straining and creaking on a thick round-timber axle. The shutters to the building were closed, but one had broken free, hanging crooked on its surviving hinge and leaving a triangle-shaped gap she might be able to scrape through.

Maybe there was something in there they could use.

She jogged the thirty or so feet to the mill and stole a glance inside. The ancient building was empty of everything save curtains of cobwebs hanging from the slat ceiling. And true to Oz's wacky aesthetic, the webs were glowing and iridescent, shifting colors and hues as they illuminated the dark within the mill.

"No good," Dorothy said as she ran back to the main group. "Nothing in there to help us." She had her hiking pack, and it had some tools and her rope. Maybe someone could be tied and held onto at the bank?

A surge of water washed up the river, and one of the eggs slipped out of the nest. Everyone stopped and stared, breaths held, as the precious egg got snagged into a current… and straight into a secondary net of willow fronds.

The mother stork moaned out a heart-wrenching wail of fear, while everyone else exhaled.

"No need for grief right now," Nick told her, his flat voice sounding almost cruel. "We'll save them." He unhooked his axe and dropped his own travel pack onto the ground before stepping onto the fallen tree and making his way toward the nest.

Dorothy's hiking pack joined his as she crouched down to remove her shoes. No matter what she did, they wouldn't budge, magically adhered to her feet thanks to Glinda's enchantment. An answer to another question Dorothy had been having about the shoes. Well, if ever there was a time to put their water-repellent nature to the test, this was it. She couldn't think of a better cause, even if she ended up with soggy feet.

She ditched the rope idea, since her pack was a mess, and she couldn't waste time digging around for it. Nick was already on the willow trunk, and another surge would take the first egg down the river with the rest following quickly thereafter. So, she jumped, leaping empty-handed and determined onto the log, ready to do whatever she could for the eggs.

"Why aren't you doing something to help?" the stork asked the rest of their group, panicked.

"I'm not sure how," the scarecrow moaned forlornly. "The water would take me away!"

"Like all cats and royalty," Lional responded, "I do not know how to swim."

Toto barked.

"It is best if we let those two proceed alone," Lional said. "They will be well. All will be well. Let us fear not."

Dorothy held onto the lionman's words. She wasn't afraid of water and swam so often that Uncle Henry often joked she was part fish, but this wasn't the kind of water she was used to. Even though she weighed more than the scarecrow, she was in just as much danger of getting swept away if she wasn't careful.

All will be well…

"I'll cut loose the branches as you need me to," Nick told her as she neared him on the tree. His calm voice was as comforting as the bright triple moonlight illuminating their rescue. "Stay on the embankment side of the tree as you pass me. That way, the tree will shield you from the rushing water."

Dorothy slipped into the water on the shallower side, the icy water sinking deep into her clothes until every inch of her was soaked, her teeth chattering.

But Nick was right; the current on the embankment side was less vicious, though if she lost hold of the branches or he cut the wrong one at the wrong time, she would wind up sailing toward the stone channel and right under the thrashing spin of the waterwheel.

She swung under the first few branches, like submerged monkey bars, shaking the water from her eyes every time she came back up. Nick matched her every step of the way, on the willow trunk, until the first of the tree limbs stalled her. He quickly dispatched it with a wet thwack, thwack, thwack. The branch joined the river and was swept away down the stone channel. A second branch soon joined it. But not a third.

"I can't do any more yet," Nick called down to her. "If I cut the next one, the main part of the nest will be free to the water current."

Dorothy nodded, saving her breath, and put her swimming skills to their ultimate test.

Hanging on to a thin branch, she made sure she had the nest in view, the white eggs gleaming beneath the surface. That done, she took a deep breath, said a quick prayer, and dove down. She fumbled blindly in the still-considerable current, flailing and feeling, frog-kicking to keep herself under.

Just as her lungs were about to give up, demanding breath, her fingertips grazed something prickly. Then, something smooth. She opened her eyes under the water, noting the blurry white hue to the cluster right in front of her, and reached for the first egg. She carefully gripped the smooth treasure and pulled it to her chest, holding it with both hands as she kicked upward like hell.

Four dives under the water, and four eggs came to the surface, one at a time. She handed them to Nick, who held them up for the stork. The lionman had a hold of the scarecrow, who had a hold of the graceful bird, and the three of them managed to create a small bridge to grab the eggs, the stork taking each one into her wide beak before passing them back.

Dorothy couldn't bear to watch the moment Straw almost fumbled one, wondering if having him in the center was wise. Still, she had other things to worry about.

"One to go," she said breathlessly as she ducked under a few more branches and toward the cradle of willow fronds that had tentative hold of the final egg; the one that had slipped from the nest.

To get to it, it would require letting the river take her to the very edge of the tree, and then she would have to pull herself back again by white-knuckle handfuls of whip-thin branches by more whip-thin branches.

She submerged under a thick limb and came up near the top of the fallen tree. All her days of swimming in the high school pool hadn't prepared her for the leg-straining, lung-burning ferocity of that moment, but it helped. There, seconds later, she had the egg in hand. She tucked it into the large top-pocket of her coveralls and began pulling herself back, frond by flimsy frond.

The river had other ideas.

It surged again, refusing to relinquish its prize. The tree shifted and Nick's legs faltered, his body listing too far toward the water before he could even think of righting himself. He joined her in the river with a massive black-water splash. The look of surprise on his moon-silvered face matched her own as he was sucked downward, plummeting toward the bottom.

Diving under the surface, Dorothy managed to grab a handful of rippling brown shirt and pulled with all her might until she could get an arm hooked under his, seconds before he sank to where she couldn't follow. Lungs ablaze, her entire being now functioning on the fumes of fumes, she curved her other arm under his and kicked for the moonlight gleaming above. He weighed twice what she'd anticipated, but he was kicking his powerful legs as well and, against all probability, they made inch by inch progress to the top.

They broke the surface and gasped life back into their lungs in perfect tandem, Nick driving his axe into the willow, forging a handhold. Meanwhile, Dorothy clung to the trunk of him. As they panted and spluttered, Nick's free arm slipping around her waist to keep her extra safe from floating off, the willow fronds wrapped around them like the embrace of countless undulating water creatures, holding them as readily as they had the egg.

Still breathing hard, Nick loosened his grip on the axe handle and brought his hand to her face, brushing some river schmutz from her cheek as he looked into her eyes. In those steely pools, she saw gratitude and something else, something that looked like it had not found his face in a near-decade. But before she could figure out what it meant, his expression quickly turned to shock as he seemed to double in weight again, pulling them both under.

The river surged one more time, rolling the cut-limb tree on top of them.