Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

Author:Gregory Maguire [Maguire, Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, Fiction, Oz (Imaginary Place), Witches, General, Fiction / General, Witchcraft & Wicca, Body; Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 9780061350962
Google: E_90o7hjkvsC
Amazon: 0061350966
Publisher: Harper
Published: 1995-09-29T08:00:00+00:00

"What is your object?" he breathed, kissing her, loosening his trousers again, as if this were the first time, his tongue tracing the twisting funnel of her ear.

"Kill the Wizard," she answered, looping her legs around him. "I am not the arrowhead, I am not the dart, I am just the shaft, the quiver-" She cupped more oil in her hand and as they slid and fell into the light, she made him bright and anguished with oil, took him deeper in than ever before.

"Even after all this time, you could be an agent for the Palace," she said later.

"I'm not," he said. "I'm good."

A little snow fell one week, then some more the next. The feast of Lurlinemas drew nearer. The unionist chapels, having appropriated and transformed the most visible parts of the old pagan beliefs, hung themselves shamelessly in green and gold, set out green candles and golden gongs and greenberry wreaths and gilded fruit, Along Merchant Row, shops outdid themselves (and the churches) in decor, with displays of fashionable clothes, and useless and expensive trinkets. In display windows, papier-machr figures evoked the good Fairy Queen Lurline in her winged chariot, and her assistant, the minor fairy Preenella, who strewed gift-wrapped delights from her capacious magic basket.

He asked himself, again and again, if he was in love with Elphaba.

He also asked himself why he was so late coming to this question, after two months of a passionate affair; and if he knew what the words even meant; and if it mattered.

He chose more gifts for the kids and for sulky Sarima, that well-fed malcontent, that monster. He missed her a little; his feelings for Elphaba seemed not to vie with those for Sarima, but to complement them.

No two women could be more unlike, Flphaba demonstrated the proud independence of Arjiki mountain women that Sarima, married so young, had never developed. And Elphie wasn't just a different (not to say novel) provincial type-she seemed an advance on the gender, she seemed a different species sometimes. He caught himself with a mammoth erection just remembering that last time, and he had to hide himself behind some ladies' scarves in a shop until it subsided.

He bought three, four, six scarves for Sarima, who didn't wear scarves.

He bought six scarves for Fiphaba, who did.

The shop girl, a dull Munchkinlander midget who had to stand on a chair to reach the till, said over his shoulder, 'just in a minute, ma'am." He turned to make room at the counter for the other customer.

"But Master Fiyero!" cried Glinda.

"Miss Glinda," he said, flabbergasted. "What a surprise."

"A dozen scarves," she said. "Look, Crope, look who's here!"

And there was Crope, a little jowly though he couldn't be twenty-five yet, could he?-looking guiltily up from a display of feathery, plumy things.

"We must have tea," said Glinda, "we must. Come now. Pay the nice little lady and off we fly." In her voluminous skirts she rustled like a corps of ballerinas.

He hadn't remembered her quite so giddy; maybe this was married life.

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