confusifying | wicked | book 3/3

Elphie

Nessarose pushes herself triumphantly into the lounge, followed by our rather cheerful mother.
"Everyone is free to irritate me within the next half an hour to forty five minutes." Nessa comments jokingly "whilst my arms aren't hurting me I am fully able to slap someone, so irritate away."
Albert lets out a hearty laugh though I know that Nessa would jump at the chance to slap anyone in this room, perhaps not Boc or mother but Glinda or I would get the full force of Nessasoses wrath.
"I'm glad to hear your feeling better." Glinda says awkwardly.
Nessa goes over to Glinda and looks at her calmly.
"Where is this contract then?" Nessarose asks softly "are we going to do this or not?"
Glinda smiles excitedly and claps her hands together like a small infant and produces a small scroll-esque contract thing from thin air, she unravels it to reveal that it's a map of Oz lacking in detail, instead of the names of places, small rectangles are in their places, what seems like lazy map creation is actually places for signatures.

There are five boxes, boxes for the North, East, South, West and finally a box in the middle to represent the emerald city and a line at the top of the page, probably for the name of whoever is insane enough to want ownership of Oz.
The contract itself is rather mundane in appearance, though upon closer inspection it's not made of paper but rather material and bound by a shiny golden thread.
"This is the key to the ownership of Oz." Glinda says, sounding slightly awestruck despite being the one who informed us about the contract.
Albert seems to avert his eyes from it, avoiding looking at the scroll.
Glinda reaches behind her back and pulls out a quill, it's long, slender and made with a peacock feather.
I hope that the poor bird had either passed before the feather was taken or it had already dropped it.
"It must be signed with this quill, or the spell will not work." Glinda says sternly, Nessarose nods and examines the scroll, tracing it gently with her fingertips.
Glinda takes hold of the quill and carefully signs the box of the south.

Glinda the good.

"You must sign the box with your full title." Glinda whispers to Nessa "the magic is very specific."
"The magic is picky." Nessa grumbles, though she smiles and takes the quill from Glinda and signs in the box of the east.

Eminence of Munchkinland.

"And now you must sign your name on this line here." Glinda announces, pointing to the line at the top of the scroll.
Nessa hesitates before doing so.
"No going back now." She mutters fearfully, "this is it."
Hurriedly she writes her name down upon the map.

Nessarose Thropp.

The scroll at once begins to glow a vibrant golden light shines out onto my sisters face and within an instant it's gone but where the black ink from the quill had written my sisters name, the words are now a deep red.
My sister gasps loudly, holding up her hand for the room to see, the tip of her index finger having a spot of fresh blood on the end of it.
Boc scowls and Glinda who cries out in her defence.
"I didn't know that would happen!" She exclaims, grappling at Nessarose's hand "oh Nessa I'm sorry, I hope it didn't hurt you to much."
My sister stares at her bloody finger and everyone else joins in too.
We're all very flabbergasted as to what just happened, Nessa didn't seem to feel any pain, just seemed to be in a bit of shock.
Nessa suddenly looks at me in alarm.
"I'm going to get blood on my dress!" She panics.
That's enough to send me shooting out of my seat towards my sister, handing her a handkerchief to soak up her bleeding.
Mother looks horrified, grappling into Albert who has finally decided to look at what's happening, I'm sure it was Ness's gasp of  fright that made him stare at the scroll.

"Are you alright Nessarose?" Mother asks, albeit very delayed.
Nessa stares blankly at the bloody handkerchief in disbelief.
"Does this map have my soul now?" Nessarose asks, trying to be comical whilst also sounding genuinely concerned.
Mother seems quite worried that Nessa hasn't answered her question and looks to me to get Nessa to talk to her, I'm slightly flattered that mother assumes I'm more likely to get an answer out of my sister.
"Ness." I call, raising my voice slightly.
My sister turns her head towards me and the two of us lock eyes.
I shift my eyes rather obviously back and forth between Nessa and my mother, it takes a few seconds for Nessa to click that I'm trying to get her to talk to mother.
"Sorry mother." Nessa mumbles "did you say something to me?"
Mother mouths a thank you to me and quickly abandons Albert to bed by Nessas side.
"I asked if your finger was okay Nessarose." Mother repeats.
Nessa looks down at it and then over at mother.
"If we give it a couple more minutes it should be fine." Nessa replies calmly, she's been holding her finger out in front of her for such a while that I'd let it slip my mind that her arms have been hurting, so when Nessa finally lays her hand back on her lap, it alarms me more than Necessary that she seems in agony.

"Nessa you alright?" Boc asks, finally making himself known to the conversation.
Nessa winces.
"There's significantly more mobility but they've started to ache again." Nessa answers muttering a nasty word under her breath.
Mother jumps into action, matching straight to the kitchen and fetching a second lot of hot towels from the stove.
I must admit, I'm impressed by her preparation.
Nessa gasps a bit at the sudden heat but she soon breathes a deep sigh of relief.
"There you go my sweet little Nessarose."
A cacophony of strange looks are exchanged around the room.