Glynnis (Empire of Oz series, #1)

Glynnis by Ellie Bernard - Chapter Six

        What Glynnis really wanted was to just go home.  Home to Glinda.  Even if it was never real to these Americans in New York - of course it was real!  And Glynnis was too.  After all, if she didn't exist, Abes Braun could have never touched her breast.

        Glynnis felt her eyes burn and her nose leak, she honestly did not know how she had come to be fallen upon her knees facing an old oak shelf.  An old oak shelf that was attached to the wall right below the glass cabinet of Oz artifacts.  She noticed several copies of books facing her, as they were not behind glass, Glynnis reached for them.  Impulsive, she grasped a thick paper volume embellished with photographed stitching.

        That's odd, thought Glynnis, realizing the paper not only looked  like embroidery, but had somehow been pressed to feel like embroidery as well.

        "Why didn't they just embroider it for real?" she mused aloud, noticing the words Penguin Threads on the bottom of the front cover.

        "Just read it!" screamed the red dots, dancing frantically across the book's embossed cover.

        "Okay," she smiled, wiping her eyes and nose on a corner of her cape.  Glynnis rose from the floor with book in hand, crossed the balcony, and settled herself at an empty table.  Looking more closely at the book's cover, she noticed it was a copy of THE WIZARD OF OZ AND OTHER WONDERFUL BOOKS OF OZ: THE EMERALD CITY OF OZ AND GLINDA OF OZ by L. FRANK BAUM.

        "Three books in one?" she wondered, opening its pages.  Having never read a book with an academic introduction, she skipped it, stopping only when she came to Baum's own Introduction.  She silently read,

        "Folklore, legends, myths, and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous, and manifestly unreal.

        He sounds nice, thought Glynnis as she took another deep breath, wondering as she did so if there was an animal that breathed a lot.   She just didn't seem to remember ever having to be so aware of getting oxygen to her brain.  Or perhaps her deep breaths were a symbol, a symbol of her willingness to plunge into the unknown.

        "Yeah, that's it, " she smiled, breathing again, punctuating to herself she was no coward, especially when it came to attempting to understand another's perception, regarding her own hometown.  And with that symbolic deep breath, Glynnis began to read.

        She read and read and read.  For three days and three nights, she read that stitched paper volume of three Oz books in one, inside the library which - as a designated Safe Place - stayed open 24 hours, serving free snacks at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

        At the end of those three days in the library, Glynnis went back to the beginning of the Oz volume, reading the academic pages, where she learned that The Wizard of Oz was published in 1900.  Then she read the very last pages, the academic footnotes, which clarified a few details regarding the rest of Baum's Oz books.  From the footnotes, she came to understand that Dorothy had acquired from the Winkies, "...a beautiful bracelet, studded with diamonds..."

        Turning the book's pages back to "Glinda of Oz", Glynnis reread the first paragraph where Baum describes Glinda's Palace.  She smiled ruefully to herself and for the first time since landing in New York City, felt a genuine sprig of lasting hope firmly take root in her heart.  Knowing Glinda as sister, Glynnis recognized the irony of Glinda - she would never have lots of young women sitting around doing embroidery for no good reason!

        "She's honoring me," Glynnis mused, remembering of course, Glinda did not actually know that Glynnis loved to embroider.  "Somehow, I must return to Oz...reunite with Glinda...but what happens then?  As I'm not mentioned in any later Oz volume, or the academic footnotes, do I go into hiding again?  Do I leave Oz a second time?  Is that why Glinda has embroiderers surround her?  What about that bracelet?  Baum never mentions it again...could it be Augustine's?  The one from her wedding day?"