Elphaba blinks, opens her mouth, closes it. She swallows and tries again. “You came.”
Glinda’s dress is torn and dirty, her pretty blonde curls matter with sweat, but she doesn’t look tired or hesitant; she looks defiant, one fist clutched in the material of her skirt to lift it up off her filthy bare feet, the other tight and white-knuckled around her wand.
“You asked me to come,” she reminds Elphaba haughtily. “I’m only a teensy, weensy, tiny bit late. It was a long walk. Would you mind if I freshen up?”
“Yes, no, of course – come in.”
Glinda seems to be all in, every ounce of propriety cast to the wind; she sashays past Elphaba into the tower, calling casually over her shoulder, “Any chance you’d want to join me in the tub? Or do you still have that ‘allergy’?”
The derisive way she says allergy tells Elphaba everything she needs to know. “You knew that was a lie?”
“I went to school with you, Elphie. If you’d been skipping the showers for all those years, I’d’ve noticed.” Glinda spins dramatically to smirk at her. “And before you start saying ‘oh, Glinda, how could you send a harmless girl here to get captured when you knew she couldn’t defeat me’ – I’ve seen you with baby animals, Elphaba Thropp. I knew you’d set her free.”
Elphaba’s heart clenches, a fist in her chest. “But the shoes, Glinda. Nessa’s shoes!”
“Oh. Yes. Right.” The smile slides off Glinda’s face. She shifts her weight to one foot, then the other. She lifts her wand delicately with two fingers and a thumb, her eyes taking on a faraway look; her lips move silently for a few moments, and then she flicks her wrist, and the ruby slippers clack to the floor in front of her.
For the first time, Glinda looks hesitant, sheepish even.
“I’m so sorry about Nessarose, Elphie,” she says softly. “I didn’t have anything to do with her death, I swear. And Dorothy… it was an accident. She’s just a little girl.” She makes a guilty face at the shoes glinting innocently on the floor. “Little Dotty needed a way home, and I wanted to help her, and… well, we’ve all made bad choices. But I wouldn’t have given away Nessa’s shoes for good. I always planned to bring them back to you.”
Published
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