She was castrated at birth, replied the Tin Woodman calmly. Psychologically warped possessed by demons. Of course, to hear them tell it, it is the surviving sister who is the crazy one, said the Lion. The girl was out of sight behind shifting curtains of the willow. An animated Scarecrow lolled nearby, blowing dandelion heads into the wind. The Tin Woodman was picking nits out of the Lion’s mane, and the Lion was muttering and squirming from the aggravation. She could see a huge Cat of some sort-a Lion, was it?-and a shiny woodman. Wind moved the dangling tendrils of the tree. Crablike and quiet, she scuttled down a little at a time, until she was a mere twenty feet above them. The Witch tucked her broom under her arm. Beneath, hidden by the fronds, her prey had paused to take their rest. She finished up on the topmost bough of a black willow tree. She used the broom as a sort of balustrade, stepping down from the sky like one of her flying monkeys. But it was not up to the Witch to enlighten them. The Witch could see the companions trudging along, maneuvering around the buckled sections, skirting trenches, skipping when the way was clear. Though winter storms and the crowbars of agitators had torn up the road, still it led, relentlessly, to the Emerald City. Below, the Yellow Brick Road looped back on itself, like a relaxed noose. White and purple summer thunderheads mounded around her. A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind’s forward edge, as if she were a green fleck of the land itself, flung up and sent wheeling away by the turbulent air.
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