“No,” I said. “I’m okay.” I realized with surprise that I was telling the truth for once. Sleeping in had done me good, and I was feeling weirdly energized to be home. My mom clapped her hands together.

“Then today calls for a special treat. Why don’t you get cleaned up, and I’ll take you out to buy some new clothes. Tonight we can order pizza and watch old movies.”

Back in the pre-accident days, my mom and I had loved watching corny old black-and-white movies together. Our favorites were always the funny ones, where Audrey Hepburn or some other super-glamorous actress goofed around while rich, handsome guys fell all over her. Sometimes it seemed like things might not work out for her for a minute, but the handsome guy always came to the rescue at the end.

Part of me felt way too old for that now. No, not even too old. Too tired. Too experienced. I’d fought in a war. I’d seen too much of the world to believe in any of that crap, even for an hour.

But at the same time, being back home, and seeing my mom like this, was doing something funny to me. It was like everything that had happened in Oz was drifting away. It was like I was waking up and looking around and realizing, slowly, that it all had just been a weird, terrible dream.

It hadn’t been a dream. But I did need new clothes. If I was going to try being a high school student again, I needed something to wear. And it had been so long since I’d seen a movie.

“I don’t need anything new,” I said. “We can just go to the thrift store.” Salvation Amy strikes again, I thought bitterly. My mom might have changed, but nothing else in Kansas had. I tried not to think about the clothes I’d worn in Oz. My fighting gear, the way I’d been able to magic myself into a glittering, unrecognizable version of that sad, poor, trailer-trash girl I used to be.

“No,” my mom said firmly. “I want things to be different, Amy. I mean it.”

“Sure,” I said. “That sounds good.”

SIX

I took a long, hot shower in my mom’s new bathroom. She’d even bought a bottle of the strawberry body wash I liked, although now the glitter suspended in the thick pink liquid, so reminiscent of Glinda, made me want to puke. I’d had enough of glitter for the next few lifetimes. I shampooed my hair twice. Maybe the real thing was more effective than magic. I wondered how witches and princesses dealt with scalp buildup in Oz, and collapsed into near-hysterical giggles on the bathtub floor while the hot water turned slowly cold. Okay, maybe I wasn’t handling this return-to-Kansas thing with as much badass attitude as I’d thought. I’d have to look for a post-travel-to-a-fictional-kingdom PTSD support group. But the fact that I might be this close to falling apart was just one of the many things I couldn’t tell my mom about what I’d been up to in the month of Kansas time I’d been gone. Mom, I really need therapy—between literally turning into a monster and killing a bunch of people in a magical world you only think is made up, I’m not feeling too great? Yeah, right.

Come on, Amy, I told myself, picking myself up off the floor of the tub. Get it together. If I lost it in front of my mom, there was no telling what she might do or where she might send me. I couldn’t talk about anything that had happened to me and I couldn’t let what I’d been through show. I had to keep being a warrior. This was what I’d practiced for. This was what I’d trained for. And this was no time to forget that.

As I brushed out my long hair—no invisible magic stylists in Kansas, sadly—I saw myself as my mom must have seen me, standing on her threshold. There were dark circles under my eyes that no amount of sleep was going to erase anytime soon. I looked about ten years older than I had before that tornado had plucked me out of Dusty Acres. Mostly, I just looked sad. Without magic to hide behind, I was going to have to do my best with concealer.

I spent a long time doing my makeup. I’d never cared about it before, but my mom loved girly stuff, and I knew she’d know I was doing it for her. I remembered suddenly the way Nox had looked at me what felt like a million years ago, when Glamora had taught me how to glam out with magic, and felt a quick, sharp pang. I tugged the brush through my hair with one last savage yank, pulled on the dirty clothes I’d been wearing, and opened the bathroom door. My mom’s smile was so bright and so genuine that I was glad I’d gone to the trouble of borrowing her mascara and lipstick.

Of course there was no mall in Flat Hill. There wasn’t even a place to buy clothes, unless you counted the overalls they sold at the feed store. There was a bus, though, that ran once an hour to the biggest nearby town, where you could stock up on slightly outdated ensembles at one of those giant box stores that also sold kitchenware, hunting rifles, and kids’ toys. <