Enjoy.

It was bloody hot out! And it was dry too. Both were things Gale hated beyond life itself. And this said lot about her momentary predicament as she stood in the Kansas train station with only a backpack full of her stuff and her adopted pet monkey, Felix. Felix chattered excitedly to his mistress and hopped down from her shoulder to look around and cause mischief.

But was stopped short as the harness that held him became taught and was pulled back to Gale's form through the crowd. Felix was a Capuchin and loved his adopted mom like no other, they were inseparable! Her dad had gotten him the year previous from one of his travels and she was seventeen now.

Her mom had sent her to be with her Godparents in Kansas for the summer and she had practically held onto the railing as they dragged her onto the train, pretending to be a snob not wanting to go and tick off her mother. She hated Kansas but loved her Godparents, Uncle Joe and Aunt Helen. She grabbed her luggage up and walked to the bus station a few feet away.

The sun in Kansas smiled down, but she was just hot and irritated in her white sleeveless shirt and worn blue denim jeans that had been rolled to her ankles and showed the black zip up boots she wore all the time. Her short layered brown hair was tied back with a rubber band and made her oval shaped face look more appealing.

She had a few freckles showing on her nose and had blue water eyes that looked like the public pool in summer. A train from Seattle had picked her up and she had waved good-bye to her dad but defiantly not her mother, who was just as cross and sour at her behavior as she made the visit Kansas seem.

"Damned bag! Get up there!" She grumbled to herself as her backpack resisted being put up with the other luggage in the bus. "Here, let me help you with that please." Said a voice to her left. She turned her head and looked over her up stretched arm to see a rather dusty looking young man, her age, ratty blue shirt and denim jeans help her push the bag up.

He had the dorkiest looking grin on his face! And not to mention he was as skinny as a bean pole and would most likely be blown away by the softest breeze. She begrudgingly let him help and tried to sound polite to him as she thanked him for his help. He nodded at Felix and still kept the goofy grin.

"Interesting companion on your shoulder, there Miss." She had to agree and just then the bus began to move, so she took a seat near the window. Felix took the seat next to her and fell asleep to the motion of the rocking bus; after a few stops and more people the bus just continued on.

Gale watched the landscape pass by with heavy eyes, rows of sunflowers that went on for as long as the imagination could come up with, moved in a blur and turned into potato's, onions, wheat, and finally corn that looked just about dead from the heat. She began see surroundings that were familiar to her and she soon had to pull the stop cord near the window to signal her getting off near an up coming dirt road.

Grabbing her stuff and coxing Felix to at least crawl onto her shoulder, she paid for the ride and jumped down the stairs and began walking down the dirt road that led to the farm her Godparents lived on. A few clouds were sweeping in but nothing she really needed to notice at the moment. The wire fences looked old and rusty as they lined the way to the farm, and what few living plants grew along side the fences was mostly brown grass and the occasional dead tree.

Pretty soon she saw bails of hay in the fields, their golden color was a nice break from the dull browns contrasting with the blue sky. Only the power lines were taller then she was and they made thin lines of shade as she walked on. Finally after a good hour of walking did she see the giant barn and the farmhouse. She felt her heart lighten considerably and slung the backpack over her shoulder, disturbing Felix's nap and began to run to her other home.

She opened the rickety old picket gate and stomped up the dry stares to the yellow screen door, which had been repainted again by aunt Helen. She grabbed the door handle and opened the door only to be met with silence. There was no sound of plates being washed in the kitchen and the old gray truck was gone. Glancing back at the squeaky screen door she saw a letter in her aunts hand writing.

Gale

Sorry to not be here when you come, we're all at town hall for a meeting.

Be back a evening. Food's in the fridge.

Love, U.J & A.H

She sighed in disappointment, but her Godparents did have a farm to run. Even if they had three Farmhands to help it was still a task to manage. So she went up stares to her room in the attic and began to unpack her things. Felix was asleep on her bed and she knew he would be alright for the moment. After she was done she flopped down onto the bed with Felix and let out a happy but tired breath.

"No place like home."

It wasn't until late afternoon that Gale felt like getting out of the house. She didn't wake Felix but slipped out of her room as quietly as she could and walked to the barn. She found the old tire swing hanging from the rafters that she loved to play on summers ago. Oh, how she loved the feeling of flying when she dropped from the hayloft, only to be in the safe embrace of the tire swing as it rocked her back and forth for hours on end until she was drowsy from the heat of the day and stopped.

She pushed it with her hands absent minded and continued around the farm and animal pens. The hogs grunted to her as she bent over the fence to scratch their ears and snouts affectionately, the few chickens that were still on the farm cackled as she walked near them and to the corn field.

Summers ago she had liked to think of it as a maze with it's endless rows of the tall stalks. She moved aside the rows of dried stalks and walked into it, feeling the closeness of the plants around her like a room filled with people. She had missed the quietness of her other home and was more than happy to be back again.

Up ahead was a clearing and a figure in it or rather above it. She pushed more corn away and saw that it was a scarecrow on a raised beanpole. She knew that it had been there longer than she had, and liked to talk to it when she was younger. She pretended to be Dorthy from Wizard of Oz and imagine that she was on the yellow brick road to the fabled Emerald city.

For old times sake she curtsied in an imaginary dress to it and imagined it bowed to her. "Hello again Scarecrow! Have you been keeping the nasty black crows away while I've been gone?" She giggled and felt a warm wind pickup and stir the field so that everything rustled like the leaves in autome. She smiled and walked around it as if she were looking for something importing near the base of the bean pole.

She knelt down behind it and cleared the dry hay from the ground, only to find a hole that had been covered by it. She reached into it a drew from it the strange pendant necklace she had buried the last time she had been there. The pendant was very strange because it was the shape of a large O and in the middle was a zig-zag of the letter Z.

It was the ennblement of Oz. Or at least that's what it looked like to her and always had since she had found it at the base of the Scarecrow when she was there last. It was a tarnished silver color and the chain was slightly rusted around the clasp, but it was large enough to slip over her head, so she did.

Just then the wind really began to whistle and become almost a hot blast. She felt the air become thicker and made her feel ill; she looked up and the sky had darkened to an emence black shape on the horizon moving faster every second. The clouds looked almost compressed and sickly green color as the blue sky vanished and was replaced with ominous blackness.

"Oh my God! It's a Cyclone!!!" And without giving a second thought, Gale ran to pens and let the animals loose to run and then the house as fast as her legs would carry her to it. In the distance, thunder rumbled like a drum had been beaten hard. She managed to wrench open the back door and scramble inside and up the stares again to her room.

Felix watched as his mom opened all the windows in the little attic room and then grab him by the scruff to her trembling frame. Gale was about to race back down the stares to open more windows, but another hot blast of wind knocked the screen off her window and it bashed her hard on the back of her noggin. She held him and her head for about ten seconds before collapsing onto the bed unconscious from the blow.

Felix didn't know what to do, so he laid down next to her and held on as the rumbling of thunder and fast wind drowned out anything else. A few moments later the cyclone ripped the house off its foundations and they were swept away with it to unknow lands beyond.

Gale woke to the worst headache she had ever had in her life! It practically made her reach up to the back of her head and cradle the injury for a few moments before it went away to a dull ache. She opened her eyes and squinted into the sunlight that filled her little room in the attic. Had the cyclone passed already? She felt a bit dizzy as she sat up on her bed and felt Felix stir against her and then climb up her shoulder and wrap his tail around her arm.

Everything should have been quiet but the sounds of birds and rushing water puzzled her. She slid off the bed and looked out her open window to see what and where she had landed and was met by colors that she never knew were imaginable. A garden of huge flowers and houses near by were where she had landed.

"Felix, I'm not about to quote, but this is not Kansas here." She felt rather silly for not saying the famous pickup line from the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. A rustling sound from the garden drew her attention to it, she stood still afraid of what creature might attack her if she provoked it.

"Sweet Ozma in a basket! Would you have a look at that house!" And from the bushes and greens came a middle aged man no taller then her hips, and Gale was six foot two without the boots on. Soon more short people emerged from hiding and began to whisper and point at her with facination and awe.

"Who is she?"

"What is she!"

"What strange cloths she has!"

"Is that a monkey?"

"She must be a sorceress!"

"Look what she did to my rhubarbs!"

But the one clear voice that caught her attention was of a child holding onto her mothers apron as she pointed to the neckless visible against her white shirt. "Momma! Momma! Look at her necklace Momma! Look!" She hopped up and down exitedly as she saw the pendent. Everyone noticed and a visible gasp was hear through the crowed of small people.

They weren't dwarfs, they looked like normal people, just smaller and brightly dressed in beaded gowns for the women and girls and handsome shirts and pants for the men and boys. She felt all eye's on her and was getting nervous at all the attention. At last a woman in a purple summer dress stepped forward to her and bowed low in front of her.

Soon all the people were on their knees and were bowing or curtsying to her. The woman had lovely red hair the color of polished brass and she looked up at her with joyful eyes.

"My lady, I am so deeply honored to meet you at last in my lifetime! Welcome, welcome to Oz!" Now things were getting interesting by the moment. First a cyclone comes and scoops her up out of nowhere only to drop her right in the middle of the supposed Munchkin Land now and she was being addressed as Lady!

Then quite suddenly it went dark again and all the people ran in front of her to make a wall of sorts as a strange shadow emerged from thin air before them. It was a man in a black robes and what looked to be a pilgrims hat on his head which was also black. His silver hair hung from over the sides of his collar and swirled around him without a breeze in the air to stir it. She could only see from under the shadow of his hat, a long face with iridescent green skin and a gleam in his eyes.

She had to do a double take on the eye count for a moment and realized he had one in the very middle of his forehead! He smiled like a wolf and walked to the edge of the crowd until he was eye level to her. Felix gripped her shirt tightly in his palms and screeched at the shadow to leave his mom alone!

The shadow cast a hand in his direction and with a sudden unwarned zap from his fingers made him fall into the crowd, who made a new fuss over him. Gale was frightened and mad at the stranger for hurting him and took a stand.

"Hey! Why did you zap him, you ass hole!" Her voice was raised and firm to the intruder. It just laughed and made chills spread over her skin like ice water being dumped over her. the voice that came from it was like an echo from a deep cave, the kind that's from the pit of your stomache.

"It annoyed me. And now my dear, I believe you have something that belongs to me!"

Gale did a quick search about her and the only thing she had was the necklace. "I-I don't understa-"

"THE PENDENT GIRL! GIVE ME THE PENDENT, NOW!!!" It roared at her and the crowd pushed back further against her and she trembled with fear at it. The woman in purple marched to the front of the crowd and stood with her hands on her hips looking up at him.

"You will not touch her majesty! You hear me Witch! You won't lay so much as a slimy double knuckled finger on her in the name of the great Wizard that was and will be again!" She huffed with a nod and the shadow leaned down to her slowly. "And who is to stop me, hmm?" And before any one could a shape darted from the crowd and onto the shadow.

It fought, scrambled and scratched at the shadow with determination and didn't dived out of it's reach until it had done enough and returned to the crowd. The shadow was more then pissed as it yelled at them before disappearing again.

"Hear me, Ozians! I will get that pendent from you girl! And when I do, mark me, you will pay dearly!!! And all who wish to help you!" And it dissapeared, leaving the beautiful country again and the sun to shine down on them all.

The lady turned to her and embraced her around the legs until Gale felt she would tople over. "OH! Oh, your majesty! Thank you for at least trying to stand up against him."

"What about you Ma'am? You're the real person who defended me against that terrible thing. And Felix-Oh, Felix! Where is he? Where's Felix?" The instant the monkey heard it's name, a flash zoomed past her and then landed on her shoulder again chattering and shrieking. It was Felix, alive and more then whole. Gale looked at him and realized that he had wings!

They were great and leathery wings too, like that of a bats. And he could fly around so easy with them now. She looked down to the purple woman and began asking questions about why she was there, what did the pendent mean, who was that etc.

The woman took her gently by the hand and made her sit on the porch steps of her house to listen about Oz and how it had changed drastically from a time of Wizards, good witches, talking Lions and so much more. But most importantly about her pendent and it's origin.

Miles away, in the Vinkus country and nestled in the Lesser Kells mountains a figure in black apeared on the battlments of a large castle. It walked ridgedly to the door wich led into the castle and choss to retire to it's study for the time being. He swept his long silverhair from his face as he took the hat off and placed it on a table.

That little brat had the one of the legendary Oz Pendents! He sat down in one of the chairs by the Magicked blue fire and let his hands massage the pound in his temples.

"I will have that pendent. One way or another."