Dorothy Gale's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Dorothy followed the palace wall, running her hand along the smooth white stone. Every fifty feet or so, she found a door. Some opened into courtyards with fountains. Some led to hallways that curved back toward the throne room. One took her to a library where dust gathered on books no one read. None of them led out. She turned a corner and stopped. Ahead, a massive gate rose from the ground, emerald green and covered in fresh poppies. The flowers cascaded down the bars like a warning she'd already learned to read. Beyond it, she could see open ground—not the endless red field, but actual earth and the dark line of a forest thick with thorns and green leaves. A way that wasn't through the poppies. The gate was still rising, closing off the gap between its top edge and the archway above. She had maybe a minute before it sealed completely. Dorothy ran. Her boots hit the white stone hard, and she fixed her eyes on the shrinking space. Thirty feet. Twenty. She could make it if she was fast enough, if she didn't think about what the forest might hold or whether this was another trap. Ten feet from the gate, her foot caught on something and she stumbled. A shoe. Silver, delicate, lying on its side like someone had kicked it off in a hurry. She didn't stop to pick it up. Someone else had tried to run. Someone else had failed. The gate was still moving. She hit the closing gap at full speed and squeezed through sideways, her shoulder scraping against emerald bars, poppy petals brushing her face. The gate slammed shut behind her with a sound like a door locking. Dorothy stood on the other side, breathing hard, staring at the forest ahead. She'd gotten out of the palace. But she had no idea what she'd gotten into, and there was no going back now. The choice had been made for her the second she'd started running.