After that, we walked in silence. Every time I tried to find another avenue for conversation, she shot me right down.

I thought about what she’d said about Dorothy. The explanation that she’d given me was barely any explanation at all: it was one thing to believe that Oz had been corrupted by someone truly evil, but Dorothy had been good once. She had fought the Wicked Witch of the West and freed Oz. How had things gone so wrong for her?

Suddenly my mother’s face flashed into my head, and I remembered what it had been like for her.

It hadn’t happened overnight. She’d been in a lot of pain after the car accident, and at first the pills just made her happy again. In some ways, it was happier than I’d seen her since my dad had left and we’d sold the house. Which made me happy, too.

It always wore off, though, and then it started wearing off faster and faster. She always wanted more. When she got more, she wanted more than that. And that was the end of life as we knew it. Every time I came home to find her sprawled out on the couch, or on the floor, the orange bottle still in her hands, I found myself amazed that something so tiny could hold so much power over her.

If what Indigo said was true, Dorothy had gotten a taste of magic, and when it was gone, it had left her hollow. How much magic did she have now?

It wasn’t a question worth asking. To someone like her, or someone like my mom, it wasn’t a matter of how much she had. It was how much she didn’t have.

All of this was making me wonder where my mom was. I hoped she was okay.

It felt like we’d been walking for hours. My feet were shooting with pain but the sun showed no signs of waning. Although our surroundings had brightened up considerably, it was monotonous and unchanging. The novelty was wearing off. I was too bored to even be creeped out anymore.

I kept waiting to come across a unicorn or a talking scarecrow or a river of lemonade, or some other magical Oz thing. I would have settled for a regular tree or a river made out of water. Or even, maybe, a monster.

So far, there was nothing.

“I have to sit,” I said finally. Indigo twisted her lips and then nodded.

“Fine,” she said, plopping herself down onto a rock by the side of the road. I sat down next to her. I took Star off my shoulder and placed her on the ground, and she took the opportunity to scamper away into a patch of weeds. I knew she’d be back.

“How far is the city?” I asked. “We’ve been walking forever.”

“Dunno,” Indigo said. “I’ve never been.”

So we sat in silence. I wished I could pull my phone out just to have something to do, but my phone, along with everything else I’d ever owned, was at the bottom of the pit. If the pit even had a bottom. Instead, I found myself studying the Munchkin’s tattooed arms, trying to untangle the elaborate, inky swirls that were etched into them, but it was weird—the more I stared at the designs, the more they seemed to be a blur. It was like they didn’t want me to understand them; like they were hiding their true meaning from me.

Indigo noticed me staring, and she rolled up her T-shirt sleeves to let me take a better look. “It’s Oz. The real Oz,” she said. “I wanted to remember how it used to be. So I got it inked. They’ll have to skin me if they want me to forget now.”

As she spoke, the tattoos began to form themselves into a picture before my eyes and I saw what she was talking about: her arms were a history. It was a beautiful, picturesque panorama, filled with flowers and animals—some of which I didn’t even recognize—and happy, smiling people. The craziest part was that the picture was moving. Just barely, but moving for sure. The Munchkins on Indigo’s biceps were dancing a jig. The animals were frolicking; the flowers were rustling in the breeze. There was even a witch, green and wicked with a pointy black hat, cheerfully dancing something like a hula.

“Magic ink,” she said. “Cool, right?” She said it like it was no big deal, like she was talking about the new shoes she’d just bought at the outlet mall. She waved her hand in the air, gesturing at the landscape around us. “It’s better here since we’re farther away from the mines, but nothing’s what it used to be. It’ll just be one big pit soon.”

She looked so sad. It was the worst kind of sad, too—the kind where you’re sad about something that you know will never change. The kind of sad you can’t even bother getting angry about anymore.

Did all of Oz feel this way? If so, it must be a terrible place to live.

I stood up and brushed myself off. “Come on,” I said. “We’re going to the Emerald City.”

Indigo stared up at the sky like she was looking for a clue. I was beginning to wonder when the sun was going to go down. The sky was just as light as it had been when we’d started walking. It didn’t even feel like it was the same day, much less the same afternoon.

“I don’t know,” she said after a while of just looking. It sounded more like she was talking to herself than to me. “I don’t actually really know anything. I don’t even really know why I want to go. We’ll probably get caught before we make it there anyway. She has spies everywhere.” She sighed a long sigh. But she followed me back onto the road.

“You asked why they work for her,” she said. “You asked why the Munchkins don’t just tell Glinda to fuck off and take her machine somewhere else.”

“Yeah. I was wondering that. Maybe it was stupid of me.”