Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire Page A

a thread on her shawl as she spoke and didn’t look up. She could hear Murth settle on her heels in front of the fire and let out a worried hiss between those old wel-chewed lips. “And does she have any family, do you think?”

    “To the best of my awareness, she has no more family than you and I,” replied Miss Murth, vaguely.
    7.
    The first time a dinner invitation arrived from General Cherrystone, Glinda folded up the paper and said, “Thank you, Puggles. There wil be no reply.” The second time she had Murth write a note to decline.
    “How shal I sign it?” asked Miss Murth. “Lady Glinda, or just Glinda?”
    “The scandal of you. Sign it Lady Glinda Chuffrey of Mockbeggar Hal. And none of those twee little hearts and daisies and such.” But the next night Glinda sent him an invitation. “Dinner at ten, on the roof of the south porch.” She had Puggles and Chef take apart the salowwood table from the card salon, put it through the windows leg by leg, and reassemble it on the graveled flat of the porch roof. Then she arranged herself upon the balustraded area ahead of time so she wouldn’t have to be seen clambering through a window like a day laborer. The stars were out and the moon was wafery. She wore her midnight blue scalopier with eyelet fenestrae and a ruched bodice the color of wet sand. Chef would serve lake garmot stuffed with snails. “Is it a mistake about the candles?” caled Murth through the lace swags. “They’l drip wax al over the food.”
    “Don’t hector me,” said Glinda. “I know what I’m doing.” The two precious spindle-thread vases held a bounty of prettibels and delphiniums selected for their vigor. They better not so much as drop a single petal if they knew what was good for them.
    Cherrystone came up the grand staircase just at ten. She could hear the clongs of the grandmother clock strike and the clicking of his heels as he turned at the landing. The windows were wide but the sils two feet high, so he had to sit and swivel to get his long legs across. “A novel place to host a dinner guest. Perhaps you intend to push me over the rail as a divertissement,” he said. “Good evening, Lady Glinda.”
    “General. You understand that a person of my position doesn’t entertain in her private apartment, and in any case I notice that the banquet hal has been requisitioned as a strategy center. So I’ve improvised.
    We dine at my invitation, as this is my home, but we dine neither in my own apartments nor in the spaces you have appropriated. Instead, a neutral territory. Above it al, as it were. Won’t you have a seat?” He offered a bottle of wine. “Not from Mockbeggar celars, so I apologize if it doesn’t suit. It’s Highmeadow blanc, a good year. I don’t travel without it. I hope you approve.”
    “My butler is a bit stout to be climbing through windows. So this is something of an evening picnic, I’m afraid. Wil you do the honors? There’s a cork-pul just here.” The candles were guttering madly for the first ten minutes. Glinda took care to sip sparingly. “While I understand the intent toward courtesy in your recent notes to me, General, I can’t bring myself to accept an invitation to dine in my own home. My study of etiquette provides no precedent. So I thought I should be cordial and explain this to you in person.”
    “Damned awkward I’m sure, but you’re being a brick, as I knew you would be.”
    “The meal wil grow cold, so please, shal we sit?” She waited for him to pul out her chair. From over his shoulder she could see the campfires of soldiers beyond the ha-ha. The distant sound of singing, more rowdy than tuneful. “How wil you keep al these men occupied and out of trouble, General? You’ve clearly settled in for a while, and no matter what construction you’re overseeing in the barns, you can’t be employing more than a smattering of this large number.”
    “I trust they’re being no bother. You let me know if they