“She’s a witch, but she’s Good,” Mom always said. “Now that’s what I call the best of both worlds.”

Finally, Oz was living up to its name. I had to see her up close.

As I stepped off the road and began to push my way through the thick mass of gnarled and twisted trees, I saw that they had sickly pale blue bark. They were thorny, too, and I had to gingerly push the branches aside, being careful not to cut myself. The whole time, I stared into the sky, mesmerized by the sight of Glinda. I couldn’t wait to meet her. I didn’t even care about the fact that my skull was vibrating from the noise the machine was making.

As I wound my way toward her, Star began to get uneasy. She clawed and fidgeted at my shoulder. There was something about all this that she didn’t like.

“Will you stop it?” I whispered to her. “It’s Glinda. Jeez.”

I could somehow hear Glinda’s voice echoing over the deafening noise, like she was speaking through a megaphone.

“There is no crying, little ones,” I heard Glinda call out, her lilting voice full of kind, gentle encouragement.

The Munchkin boy she was talking to couldn’t have been older than seven or eight. He was sitting in a little chair near the top of the seesaw, and from his red cheeks and puffy eyes, it was clear he’d just finished one major sob session and was working himself up for another. Glinda was talking him down from it. “What we do, we do for the good of Oz,” she cooed. “You do love Oz, don’t you?”

The kid nodded, sniffing up his tears and wiping the snot from his nose, and then he threw himself back into the motion of the seesaw.

The clanging began again. My skull was vibrating so hard that I thought it might explode. My hands flew to cover my ears, but that did virtually nothing.

I was close enough to really see her now. Her dress was even more extraordinary from this vantage than it had appeared in the distance. Instead of the beautiful, flowing dress that the character had worn in the book, this gown was more like armor: thin metallic petals made up the voluminous skirt while magenta jewels dipped and curved across her chest in a tight, plunging bodice. It wasn’t my style, okay, but it was still pretty amazing.

She seemed perfect. And yet, as I approached, an uneasy feeling prevented me from calling out her name.

Something wasn’t right. From far off, she looked beautiful, ethereal, otherworldly. But up close, there was something ugly about her. Something was wrong with her face.

Yes, she was delicate-featured with exquisite bone structure, her perfect strawberry-blonde curls escaping from underneath a blinged-out golden crown as she smiled benevolently down at her loyal subjects. But that smile. It was—I don’t know how else to put it—kind of super-gross.

It stretched unnaturally wide, spreading out maniacally all the way across her jaw from one cheekbone to the other, and it was twitching at the corners like her lips had been pinned into place.

Other than the twitching, it didn’t move. At all. Even when she talked.

“What’s with her mouth?” I asked Star under my breath, after the machine had halted its banging once again.

I jumped when an actual voice answered in a hoarse whisper from behind me.

“(A) it’s PermaSmile, and (B) are you out of your dumbass mind?”

I whirled around to see Indigo’s bright, aquamarine eyes staring out at me from somewhere within the shadowy web of the tree branches.

“Have you been following me?” I whispered back at my stalker, and then—my curiosity winning out over my annoyance—added, “And what’s PermaSmile?”

“I wasn’t following you,” Indigo replied with a petulant scowl. “I was just going in the same direction you were going in.” She paused. “Besides, I couldn’t let you just wander up to Glinda like she’s going to give you a kiss and a cookie. I’m a softer touch than you think. And this is PermaSmile.”

She pulled out a small tube and held it up. “I never wear it, but it comes in handy to have around,” she said, uncapping the top and smearing it across her mouth like lipstick. As she did, her scowling lips stretched like putty into a wide, maniacal grin and stayed that way.

“Ew,” I said, unable to help myself.

“I know,” she said. “I hate it.” Her huge grin barely moved as she spoke. It was like Botox in a tube. Then she drew it across her face again, in the opposite direction this time, and, just like that, her mouth returned to its customary half scowl. “Everyone wears it in the city, and since that’s where I’m going, I’ll need it.”

“The Emerald City?”

“Yes, the Emerald City,” she mimicked. “Where else? Now come on. We can’t just hang around down here. She could smell us at any second.”

“Smell us?” I asked, genuinely confused. “What is she, a hunting dog? Besides, isn’t she supposed to be a good witch?”

“Sure,” Indigo snorted. “Good. Like that means anything around here. I hate to break it to you, but just because someone has pretty hair and good skin tone and a crown instead of a pointy hat doesn’t mean she’s not the baddest bitch this side of the Emerald City. Seriously. I can’t believe I’m risking my own neck to help you out.”

“But—” I said.

“No buts,” Indigo said. “Look, I’m giving you a chance. If you want to stay here and hope she takes a liking to you, be my guest. If you’d rather not get killed, follow me.”