Wonderful | wicked | book 2/3

Nessa

Elphaba rushes out into the hallway and Fiyero and Boc look at me bewilderedly.
I shrug my shoulders and push myself over to the adjacent lounge door.
I see Glinda and Elphaba begin to walk back inside, a hooded figure following them.
They're short and walk fairly briskly.
I retreat back into the lounge.
The figure allows there hood and cape to drop, it's an old man.
I don't recognise him but Fiyero seems quite startled.
Glinda and Elphaba both look furious.
"I thought I told you to leave Oz, Albert" Glinda snaps, glaring at the man, who adjusts his glasses and straightens his grey coat, that the absent cloak made visible.

"Glinda," his voice is shaky and frail "I tried believe me I did, but my balloon well."
He stops for a minute and looks down, scraping one of his shoes across the floor,
"My balloon got stuck in a tree,"
Fiyero sniggers but quickly covers his mouth.
"How could you come here?" Elphaba asks angrily, I still don't know who this man is.
"For you," Albert says, turning to Elphaba.
Glinda looks more anxious than angry now, I still don't understand why.
"I'm not going to fall for it again" Elphaba snaps "your not great and powerful and you never were."
The wizard!
I've never even seen his face, admittedly I wasn't expecting a frail old man.
Elphaba told me about what he did to her, about how he tricked her into becoming a villain.
"No, Elphaba you don't understand." Albert says suddenly "your my daughter."
Elphaba looks ill all of a sudden, her shoulders go limp and she begins to sway.
I wish I could jump out and catch her.
"Elphaba!" I shout suddenly, Fiyero jumps up and catches her, she looks as though she's fainted.

"It's true, honestly." Albert says "and I've never been more sorry about anything"
It's been a couple of hours since he first arrived, Elphaba woke up and got straight back into talking with him.
If he's her father, then we aren't proper sisters, that changes nothing but it feels different.
Elphaba is still in her wedding dress, but she has a blanket wrapped around her, she felt terribly cold after she collapsed, so I made sure that she was given a blanket.
I still feel rough, but this is far more important than how I feel.
"So that bottle..." Elphaba begins "is the reason I'm green."
"I'm afraid so," Albert says looking down in shame "your mother really was something special,"
I scowl, he made mother a cheater, I've always saw her as a good honest woman.

Albert scans the room, his eyes settle on me, he looks startled, like he didn't see me when he first came in.
"Nessarose?" He asks, sounding confused.
I nod my head silently, still unnerved by his carelessness with our mother.
"But aren't you..."
"Dead." I finish coldly "I suppose you were apart of that too."
I look around the room angrily,
"Nessa please, he's my."
"Your father." I snap "you're perfectly fine with criticising mine but when it comes to yours I'm not allowed?"
Elphaba looks hurt, I feel hurt.
I feel stupid, I'm so out of line, I know I am but to tell the truth I just feel lonely.
And scared.
This man has come here, in the same week as Moira, and tried to force his way back into my sisters life, he wasn't a kind person.
He hurt her, I don't want him to do it again.
I grumpily push myself towards the door and fumbles around with the handle and trying to open it enough to get through it.
Finally after many attempts, I make it.

The air in the hallway is cold, I'm begging to get a stronger headache, perhaps from all the shouting I just did.
I feel terrible about it but I can't go back in there and look him in the eyes.
A man who never even met me, who was so unbothered about killing me, is now my sisters real father and the reason she was bullied all her life.
No, it's too much, much to much.

The door behind me opens, I don't turn around, I feel my heart beat quicken as footsteps approach me from behind,
"Nessa," it's Glinda, "Nessa are you alright?"
I but my head in my hands and burst into tears.
"Oh what have I done, Elphaba finally found a father who loves her and I ruined it."
Glinda kneels beside me and puts an arm around me.
"She's worried about you, she's not angry."
Of course she's not angry, she's the best sister I could ask for and I was still awful to her.
"If it makes you feel any better, I don't trust him either, I don't think Elphie does, I think she just really wants a father."
That makes me feel so much worse.
"But he was awful to her, she wouldn't have had to run away if he had just loved her from the start," I splutter, scrubbing ferociously at my eyes.
"He didn't know from the start, he only found out after we thought she was dead."
I stare deeply into Glindas gentle blue eyes.
"You knew? Why didn't you say anything?"
Glinda looks anxious again,
"Because I thought it would hurt her, that how Madame Morrible got out" Glinda says, looking as though she may cry as well.
"I don't understand."
"Madame Morrible threatened to tell Elphaba if I didn't let her out, oh Nessa I'm so sorry." Glinda chokes, on the brink of tears.

I look around the hallway, at this house, at the giant stare case that I used to be so terrified of.
All I've ever known, seems so blurry now.
I don't love Elphaba any less, I just hate my own father even more.
I turn back to Glinda, who is muttering something incoherently.
"Glinda," I say coldly "take me back to Shiz,"
"Shouldn't we check with Elpha..."
"Take me back."