Archive of Our Own

In the years after her final moments with Elphaba, in the quiet of her new private suite, Galinda indulges in the fantasy of saying yes.

She imagines reaching out and grasping Elphaba. Stopping her from leaving. Explaining to the Wizard, to Morrible, coming to an understanding. Fantasises of a diplomatic peace process, healing the monkeys, and putting the whole horrendible affair behind them.

She imagines going back to Shiz and unlocking their dorm room, falling into a single bed that barely holds them both and sleeping until dawn breaks through her gauzy pink curtains. Continuing with her spell work, spending seminars watching emerald hands move through the air with a natural flair that always eluded her. She imagines not being the only Good Witch - being a pair. A team.

Most often, she imagines clasping green fingers in hers and allowing herself to be pulled onto the broom. Wrapping her arms around a slim waist and burying her face in the musty black cloak. She imagines being braver than she was, feeling stronger than she does now. Feeling her feet leave the floor, feeling her stomach swoop as they rise, high above Oz, above the Emerald City, above cornfields and flower fields and Munchkinland, flying into the horizon. No set destination, soaring into an uncertain future.

Now her future is certain. It is set in stone, carved by Morrible and the Wizard, with no room for deviation. She will marry Fiyero, the love of her life. Her prince, her perfect fiancé, a man who dances through life without a care in the world.

Although that’s not true anymore, is it? It has been a long time since Fiyero truly looked carefree. There are dark shadows cast beneath his eyes and a permanent line worrying his forehead when he returns from long days leading the Gale Force. When they lie in bed together he is stiff and rigid. For someone who took pride in being brainless, even Galinda can hear his mind running a mile a minute.

She remembers him arriving in the Emerald City amidst the chaos. How she shook off Madame Morrible’s bruising grip and threw herself into his arms; she let him hold her and whisper in her ear that it was fine, they could sort this out, they could find Elphaba and put all this right. She remembers shaking her head, gripping his bicep and whispering to him that he must go along with this, until they can talk in private. She remembers Morrible’s satisfied nod, seeing Galinda twist herself to the narrative at little more than a knowing glance.

She hopes beyond hope that Elphaba is happier than she is. Somehow she doubts it.

***

Her wedding dress is ruined.

The white silk is stained with debris and remnants of a shattered celebration. How furious she would have been on any other day, to have her festivities dashed and her beautiful dress stained beyond repair. No cleaning spell could fix this (not that she could cast one).

The stampede of animals that followed her down the aisle could only be the work of Elphaba. But why, when they were so sure things could be fixed? When they were so close to working together, to clearing her name, to finally being Wonderful?

She runs after Fiyero to the Wizard’s quarters. There will be answers here, she’s sure of it. The Wizard may not be magical, but he will honour his word. Elphaba will come home.

At the top of the stairs, she sees it. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Elphie’s broom at his throat, choking him, pressing him against a cage. Fiyero, gun aloft, eyes blazing with a rage only matched by the Wicked Witch of the West. How her voice crackles with the power that comes to her fingertips effortlessly. If it were anyone else, she would be terrified. But this is Elphie. There is no one more gentle.

“What’s going on?” All eyes on her. This she can do - she can command a room, pull people back from the edge. Galinda is many things, but she is not afraid to be seen. And then -

“I’m going with her.” The world shatters at her feet.

How many times has she said the same four words in her mind? But that doesn’t count. When the opportunity landed at her feet, she couldn’t take it. She couldn’t give all of this up. She was never quite brave enough to follow along, and certainly not to lead the way.

The moment lasts an eternity. Galinda remembers the coldness that has grown between her and Fiyero in the intervening years. How he begged her to come with him, to end this farce and find Elphaba and fix all of this. How she just couldn’t bear it. The fights, the shouting, the tears, how they held each other on the floor of the suite and wondered if they would always be haunted by the green girl they let go.

And now he makes his choice. He goes. He does what she is not brave enough to do. He follows Elphaba away from the farce, he gets on the broom, he lets her soft braids tickle his face as they leave. He chooses his side. She will defend hers.

“Her sister,” Galinda whispers, and the rage that clouds her vision is directed at Elphaba, at Fiyero, at the betrayal, providing a perfect smokescreen for the real culprit. She is not the girl who follows Elphaba. She is the girl who stays behind.

***

There is a familiar face in the crowd of witch hunters. His skin, she realises, is no longer the ruddy colour that she knew at Shiz, but a jarring silver studded with bolts and fixings.

The mob moves through the emerald streets like a python, consuming everyone in their path, growing larger and angrier. Torches cast jagged shadows across the flagstones. Boq leads the march, his axe catching the light and reflecting it onto the rusty tin that now makes up his body. Elphaba’s magic has done this, created this monster of metal from a munchkin she knew and loved.

The lion that cowers as Boq speaks for him looks nothing like the frightened cub Galinda remembers from Shiz. She had drifted into unconsciousness and Elphaba had run ahead like she always did, taking the present into her hands to mould a better future. And where did that get them? A mob riled up by Morrible’s propaganda, off to show Elphaba what happens to witches who make trouble. Who step out of line. Who just can’t sit back and let the horrendible things happen.

Another figure lopes along behind Boq. Their limbs are uncoordinated and they stumble with each step. They don’t seem rabid with anger: they walk with purpose even as their weakened body halts their progress. Through their dark green shirt, Galinda can see what looks to be straw. They are looking at her too, not with the hate of Boq, but with a reproach that suggests they know more about her than she does them. She breaks eye contact, fixes her gaze on the farm girl thrust into the middle of all this horror and hate.

Galinda, on the balcony, above it all. She could close the doors and pretend this wasn’t happening, let them dole out their justice and return to her role of shimmering above Oz. Let them make an example of the Wicked Witch of the West, like they did with Fiyero-

Her wrist stings from Morrible’s tight grip. How long it has been since anyone touched her with tenderness, not rage or control or a frigid coolness or deference. Galinda knows what she must do.

***

Kiamo Ko is silent as a graveyard. Frozen in time, derelict and abandoned, it is the perfect place for Elphie to hide and the only place Galinda could think to look. Fiyero had told her about it years prior. He waxed lyrical about its mysterious passages and imposing silhouette, the last barrier between the Vinkus and the Impassable Desert.

She’s ready now, ready to go with her green girl, to step onto the broom and follow her wherever. She has had everything she ever wanted and it was hollow and grey and meaningless and she doesn’t want any of it anymore.

Elphie is manic, until she isn’t. Until a calm settles over her and she squares her shoulders in a manner reminiscent of their days at Shiz, where she would steel herself against the stares and Galinda would tangle their fingers together and pull her forwards. She does so now, pulling them closer, so they orbit each other.

They can go together. Galinda can fix this, she can tell the truth and Oz will believe her, will see Elphaba as she really is and embrace her again. And if they don’t, Galinda will run. She will take that Oz-forsaken bubble and burst it, mount the broom and this time she won’t look back. There is time to make all this right.

But it’s too late.

“Everything is going to be fine. I love you.” She can only reply in kind. Suddenly her back is pressed against the wood of a closet, her vision narrowed only to the keyhole.

A bucket of water thrown - a broom held aloft - a small girl and a smaller dog and a puddle of water that once was someone and is now no one.

It is too late. She is always too late. Always too late to come to the right conclusion. Too late to stop her cruel prank at the Ozdust, too late to realise what really mattered, too late to throw caution to the wind and follow her witch.

She falls to her knees and grips the hat in her hands. Remembers giving it to Elphie as a joke, only for her to hold her head high and dance in the centre of the ballroom as the brim cast shadows over her tear stained face. It is the only time Galinda has ever done anything brave. How good it felt to step forward, to press her hand to a tender green cheek and follow her fluid movements. To cast aside fickle loathing and walk into something new.

Back in Munchkinland there is only revelry and joy. Relief that the wicked one is dead, smugness that she died alone. Galinda throws the torch. How strange, to see a witch burn and melt on the same day.

***

In the weeks that follow, Galinda refuses to open the Grimmerie.

All that time she spent desperate for magic. Now the book sits on her vanity, next to a small green bottle and a hat that smells of the forest.

It haunts her, a reminder of the horrendible mutilation of the monkeys; seeing Elphaba’s powers twisted for cruelty. If even Elphaba couldn’t harness the magic of that awful book, how could she? She thinks of Boq’s silver skin and furious eyes and shudders.

Ascending the stairs in what was once the Wizard’s palace, she notes how empty it looks without the balloon. Good riddance, she huffs.

Finally alone. Nowadays it is exhausting to have so many eyes on her. Before, she had Fiyero by her side to absorb their gazes, a steadfast, unwavering figure. She had extracted his last known whereabouts from the now-disbanded Gale Force members, but when she arrived the pillory was empty. The barren ground was tinged with red. When she collapsed by the unfurled ropes, the only remnants of her prince were his discarded epaulettes carelessly thrown onto a heap of what seemed to be straw. When she closed her eyes she could still feel the cold barrel of his gun against her forehead - she had known he would not shoot, and she had never been more disappointed in him.

For a moment Galinda remembers a fleeting conversation with Elphaba in the sorcery seminar. A familiar feeling of jealousy flickers in her gut when she remembers how simply magic formed at Elphaba’s fingertips, while she struggled to eke out a minor incantation.

“Maybe it’s harder for you to make magic because things have been kind of easy for you, so you don’t need it.”

That spark of jealousy twists back to her ever present companion - a solid weight of guilt that curls across her shoulders. As much as she had resented the insinuation, it held no untruth.

A rainbow had emerged on the horizon. She tries fruitlessly to calm her racing heart. Finally alone, and she realises this is how she will stay. The only person alive who remembers the wry, wise wit Fiyero kept hidden. The last witness of the real Elphaba, behind the cape and the broom, who held her softly and whose bright laughter was nothing short of magical. Who used her final moments to wink at Galinda and tell her she loved her. Who forgave her for always being too scared, too comfortable, too accustomed to an easy life to chase a wonderful one.

Not for the first time that day, she begins to cry. The skies above Oz are darkening, a cold evening setting in. She wonders if it is worth going back inside. Considers staying out here, alone, until she freezes, until she never has to move again.

Pages rustle and she turns. The Grimmerie is open, its aged leaves moving as though guided by an invisible hand, spine cracking to reveal its secrets to her. What were once indecipherable shapes contort before her eyes. Now they are letters, familiar and legible, but if she squints her eyes she can see that they have not changed on the paper.

She laughs bitterly. Finally, then, magic has revealed itself to her. Perhaps it was always buried under a shallow surface, bubbling under her skin as she pranced and preened. How unfair that Elphaba could not see this. That only when they are separated for good can she finally be useful. Another revelation unlocked long after it is needed.

She fixes her gaze on the colourful arc that stretches across the sky, casting a glow over the distant desert. Somewhere inside her chest, magic blooms, a tiny seed breaking through, that she knows she must nourish lest it be lost forever.

It is not the first time she is too late. It will be the last.

There is good to be done.