confusifying | wicked | book 3/3

Elphie

This house seems so much quieter without Glinda.
She was like some insanely energetic ball of light.
Somehow I think she brings out the best in me.
She was my first really friend, who actually cared about me as a person.
I miss her so badly, I know she's not dead but everyone seems to leave me.

Nessa understands that feeling, I suppose Glinda does too.
She lost me and Nessarose I'm very quick succession for two years.
I can't imagine what it must be like to morn for two years and then find out that they are not actually dead and you wasted so much energy.
Nessa can.
I left her for two years, father died and she mourned alone, no one understood why she changed so drastically.
The whole of Munchkin Land loves her so much, when father governed she was the flower of Munchkin Land.
Everyone adored her because they all saw her as this sweet girl making the most of her disadvantaged life.
Nessa always hated that they saw her had weak, feeble or disadvantaged.
She never used to see it like that, until they put it into her head, the people didn't do it deliberately, they thought they were being kind, but Nessa didn't want pity, she wanted to be seen as an equal.
Though even when Nessa used to lie in bed and wail for hours on end, she wasn't upset because she thought less of herself, she was upset because people thought less of her.
Even at five years old she knew what people thought of her.

Nessa was and still is very smart, she used to play it down because she knew that they didn't care about that, the older lady's who would stop us on our walks just to smile at Nessa and tell her how strong she was.
They didn't want to discuss anything with her.
They just wanted to through some pity her way and coo at her a bit.
It must have been exhausting.
But I know that my younger self would have given anything to be in her position.
When people started at Nessa it was because of pity or love.
When people started at me, their eyes piercing through me, it was because of genuine fear or resentment.
I always struggled to see Nessa as someone with genuine problems, besides her not being able to walk.
She had everything.
Everyone she met loved her, but it wasn't the love she wanted.

Glinda made me the most jealous, Nessa said the same thing.
She was pretty, had no trouble fitting in and people stared at her in awe.
I miss her.
She's merely been gone a day but it feels like a life time, I hope it's not two years before I get to see her again.
I do know how unfair it was to pretend to be dead.
I still think that Nessa is less happy here than she was in the cottage outside of Oz.
She spent her entire day in an armchair, not moving, not doing anything.
But she didn't seem to mind.
It was blissful simplicity.
But if we hadn't have come back, Nessa wouldn't have forgiven herself for what happened with Boc, Glinda would have never known we were okay, I would have never met my father and our mother would still be dead.
I rarely see then now, my mother and father, I believe they were given a house by Glinda that they spend most of their time in.

And now, with just me and Fiyero this massive house seems all the more empty.
I understand how Nessa was driven to the edge.
I still think she's there, but she's better at hiding it.
She's carrying a lot and she won't fully let me take a load off for her.
Mother still feels guilty for not watching us grow up, but I think she's realised that Nessa doesn't want people around her all the time.
Because solitude by choice is much better than having it thrust upon you.
Though it still bothers me that she lets Boc stay as much as he pleases.
Perhaps I'm just trying to cling onto my family before it all leaves me.
Though I'm blessed with the greatest husband.

Thinking of that, I've got no idea where he is.
He could be out in the garden or in the town.
This house just seems to get scarier the less people are in it.
It's like a giant landmark full of unresolved emotions.
No one knows us better than us, they may call us wicked but they haven't and will never see what lead us to do what we did.
No one will ever completely understand and that's fine by me.

I've always said that even though I have used magic, the one power i want is to be able to read minds.
It would make it easier to know if I've upset people.
I'm sure Glinda would want that too as she has more trouble than me with reading people's emotions.
Though towards the weeks leading up to my escape out of Oz, I had it easier.
I had everything under control.
The whole Land thought it had me backed into a corner but I'd always had a plan.
Since I used the levitation spell correctly, I had a plan.
But Nessa, Nessa was just caught up in it all.
For a while I had suppressed my need to take care of her because I thought she was with father and the only reason I went to visit her was because I needed something from Frexpar and I knew she could convince him to help me.
It's my fault she died.
But I suppose, like many things here, it was in the past, we must forgive and forget in order to move on.
Though it's hard to move on, it's common knowledge that to move on you have to accept that you've done wrong.
I've accepted it.
But I haven't accepted that Nessa may not need me anymore.