She opened her eyes, and everything was bleary, and they still stung around the edges.
Aunty Em was opening her suitcase. "Now, Dorothy," she said. "You come from a household with diphtheria. It killed your mama and your little brother, and it will kill us too, you especially, if we don't get rid of it. So we got to burn your clothes."
"My clothes," Dorothy whispered. There seemed to be no point crying.
"I am going to have to scrub the skin off my own hands after dealing with you. It just ain't clean."
"It's cleaner than this place," said Dorothy, numb.
"I expect my sister didn't have to cope with a valley full of dust or mud," said Aunty Em. She swung open the red rusty door of the stove. Dorothy saw the fire. She saw her white theater dress, sequins flickering in firelight. Dorothy grabbed it and ran, wet and naked. She jumped sprawling down from the front door and fell onto the ground. The dust was splattered with drops of rain.
Toto was gasping. There was a rope around his neck, and he had pulled and pulled against it. He tried to bark and could only cough. Dorothy tried to untie the rope. It hurt her hands. She saw Uncle Henry on the doorstep. She screamed as if she had seen a monster. He came down the steps toward her.
Dorothy turned and ran. She knew she had lost. Her clothes would be burned-except for the white dress that had been worn only once by a fairy in a play.
It was night now, black. Dorothy ran clothed in darkness, as the rain came, hard. "Dorothy!" called Uncle Henry.
"Dorothy!" called Aunty Em.
Down in the fields, there was death. Dorothy ran uphill, feet pattering in mud. She slipped and the mud peeled away in a damp layer, like flour. She stood, coated in mud, still clutching the fairy dress, now besmirched.
Sssssh, said the rain, as if comforting her.
Suddenly branches clawed at her face, catching her half-chopped hair. She plunged through a thicket, her face scratched, and her hands were suddenly scrabbling at the rough bark of a tree trunk. She went deeper into the woods. She would stay in the woods; she would live there like an Indian; she would never go back.
"Do-ro-thee!" called a voice down the valley.
"Holy Jesus," said a voice closer at hand.
Dorothy stopped running and looked around her. Rain ran over her face. She imagined wolves or giants.
"Is that Dorothy?" It was Wilbur's voice. "Is that you crying?"
"She's burning my clothes," said Dorothy.
Rain like tiny people running on the leaves.
"It's raining. You better go back."
"I don't want her to burn my clothes."
"I guess it's because your papa and mama died."
"My papa didn't die. He left."
Wilbur said nothing for a moment, in the dark.
"Oh. I thought that's what your aunty said."
"I've got my fairy dress. I want to hide it."
"I know a place," whispered Wilbur. "There's a hollow tree just around here. Hold on to my hand." Dorothy reached out and their hands met. He seemed to be carrying a big stick. She could hear something thrashing the leaves.
"Ow!" cried Dorothy as she skidded barefoot over a gnarled branch. There was a hollow thump as Wilbur's stick hit something.
"Give me the dress," said Wilbur. He took it from her. Dorothy had an impression that it was lifted over her head.
"You can come back and get it later," he said.
"She'll never find it, ever," said Dorothy. She squished mud between her toes. Wilbur's hand reached back for her.
"What have you got on?" Wilbur asked, feeling her shoulders. He gave her his shirt. It was huge and wet, clammy and musty at once, but at least it covered her. They walked blindly, feeling their way down the hill.
They came to the lane and saw a lamp.
"We're over here, Mr. Gulch," called Wilbur.
Uncle Henry had a coat draped over his face, over the lamp. Dorothy saw his face solemn in its red light.
"Thankee, Wilbur," said Uncle Henry. He took Dorothy's hand.
"You be all right, Dorothy," said Wilbur. He and Dorothy had a secret.
Aunty Em was sitting at the table, reading by candlelight. She wore steel spectacles.
"Time for bed, Dorothy," she said.
"Yes, Ma'am."
Aunty Em stood up, pulling back her chair. She pulled back the old blanket that hung across the room. She pointed to the straw.
"This is where you sleep. We will be getting you a bed as soon as we can afford it, but for now you'll have to sleep on straw. Not what you're used to, but it is good clean Kansas straw." She took a rag, soaked in the bathwater, and used it to wipe the mud from Dorothy's feet. "At least the rain got you clean," she said. She gave Dorothy one of her own old, darned nightdresses. "This has already been cut down for you."
Aunty Em unfolded blankets over the straw. She stood up, wincing, hands pressed against the small of her back. "Good night, Dorothy," she said.
"Good night, Ma'am."
"That was quite an introduction we had."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Dorothy crawled onto the blanket, and felt the straw underneath it. She pretended to go to sleep. She listened. She wanted to hear what Aunty Em said. She heard pots banging on the stove. She smelled food burning. She heard the rain on the roof.
"I'd say that was as thorough a job as she could manage of showing me up, with the Jewells," Aunty Em said, a long time later.
Uncle Henry sighed. "I don't reckon Wilbur will say anything about it."
"She had a scarlet dress. Scarlet. For a child. God knows what sort of life she had in St. Louis with that man."
Dorothy heard creaking. Uncle Henry was crawling onto the bed.
"Work," he mumbled.
And Dorothy heard Aunty Em pace. She heard her boots clunking back and forth, back and forth on the hollow floor. She heard Aunty Em weep, brief, breathless sobs. She heard the garments slip off. She heard the lamp being blown out. Everything went dark. She waited until she heard Aunty Em snore. Aunty Em's snores were loud, enraged. Then Dorothy took off the sour old nightdress and she padded on light child's feet across the floor, and she stepped out into the rain again, and she slipped under the house. It was fairly dry under the house, except for where the water trickled in little streams like blood.
"Toto," she whispered. "Toto."
He crawled toward her whimpering. She hugged him and he licked her face. He shivered. They both shivered. Dorothy had to be loyal.
I will wait, Dorothy promised Aunty Em. I will wait until you are sick and old, and I'll put lye soap in your eyes, and I'll take some shears, and I'll cut all your hair off, and you won't be able to do a thing, and I'll say, It's for your own good, Aunty Em, because you're dirty. And I'll just let you cry.
Dorothy had learned how to hate.
Lancaster, California-Christmas 1987
1876-When the Southern Pacific Railroad Company laid its tracks through what was to be Lancaster in the summer of 1876, many of the early settlers stated the railroad named the train stop at that time… The Southern Pacific also built the first house in Lancaster, for their employees.