Geoff Ryman: Was

"It was so too hot!" Didn't she know that adults and children felt heat differently? Her mama knew that.

Bath time here was not going to be nice. Aunty Em stopped smiling. She dumped a pail of cold water into the tub. "Now let's try again," said Aunty Em. She didn't let Dorothy climb in by herself, but yanked her up and dropped her, as she had dropped the cornbread. The water was now too cold, as Dorothy had known it would be. She said nothing and sat down. Aunty Em came at her with the soap.

Kansas soap smelled like the stew and burned. "Ow!" Dorothy yelped. Aunty Em kept scrubbing grimly. "Dorothy," she said. "You came from a house where there was sickness. That means we got to get you extra clean."

There was a pig-bristle brush, and Aunty Em began to scrub her with it. That was too much for Dorothy. Bath time or not, she was leaving. She began to crawl out of the tub. Aunty Em pushed her back down. She probably didn't mean to hurt her, Dorothy knew that, but she slipped anyway and landed, hard, on the bottom of the tub. Was everything in Kansas hateful? It was that thought, more than the pain, that set Dorothy wailing again.

"I have never known a creature to make such a fuss," said Aunty Em. She scrubbed anyway. She imagined she was stripping away a miasmatic coating of contamination. The bristles bit deep, scraping away skin.

Dorothy knew. She was being punished. Punished for being here, for being Dorothy, for coming from a household with the Dip. She bore as much as she could. "Ow oooh. Ow," she kept saying, knowing it would do no good, trying not to do it, but the brush hurt so badly. Aunty Em held her hand out flat and buffed away at it with the brush.

"And I do believe this hair of yours has never been cut."

Dorothy had black shiny hair, down the middle of her back. Her mother used to sing to her as she combed it. Dorothy knew she would lose that too.

"You can't have long hair like that trailing everywhere in the dirt," said Aunty Em.

"Are you going to cut it off?"

"Seems a good time," said Aunty Em. She imagined disease could linger in hair like perfume. "Now hold still."

"I don't want it cut off."

"Well, you're a big girl now. Big girls have their hair cut."

Dorothy was in simple terror now. It froze her. She saw the scissors, big and black. Aunty Em held Dorothy by the hair. The scissors came. Dorothy could feel them as they closed, cutting through part of her. She made a kind of screech and bounced forward. Her hair caught in the joint of the scissors and was torn out. That really hurt. She squealed.

"Hold still!" Aunty Em was beginning to lose patience. Dorothy began to fight again, not because she wanted to be bad, but simply because she couldn't help it. She began to beat her hands around her head and to jerk her head.

"Hold still!" The scissors bit again, Dorothy pulled again, more hair was torn, and Dorothy screamed as she had never screamed, a high-pitched squeak that was like nails on a blackboard.

"Stop that!" quailed Aunty Em. It was a sound she could not stand.

Uncle Henry stomped in. "Em. What are you doing to the child?"

That was all it took. Aunty Em threw a towel at him. "I am trying to get this child clean!" she shouted. "I guess we'll just have to leave it like that, half-cut, until tomorrow. But it is going to be clean, at least." She worked the soap up into a lather. "Keep your eyes closed," she told Dorothy.

The lather went into her hair and into her eyes and seemed to scald them, worse than the water.

"I told you to keep them closed," said Aunty Em, as the battle started. Dorothy was beyond thinking of anything at this point. She hit and kicked and tried to clamber out of the bath.

"Hold her, Henry," said Aunty Em. Uncle Henry's hands, as rough as the soap, grabbed Dorothy by the elbows. Aunty Em worked the hair. Dorothy's eyes seemed to sizzle like eggs. Then suddenly she was pushed underwater. She swallowed and coughed and came up coughing. They let her go.

"I never saw the like," said Aunty Em. "Never!"

"She's still got lye soap in her eyes," said Henry. He clunked away and came back.

"Put your face in this, Dorothy," he said.

"No," she whimpered.

"You got to wash the soap out."

"It hurts."

"Everything hurts," said Aunty Em.

"You got to."

Dorothy did as she was told. She put her face in the water and opened her eyes. They stung like before. But maybe, maybe, they were a bit better as well. Had she been good enough now? Would they leave her alone, now?

She opened her eyes, and everything was bleary, and they still stung around the edges.

Aunty Em was opening her suitcase. "Now, Dorothy," she said. "You come from a household with diphtheria. It killed your mama and your little brother, and it will kill us too, you especially, if we don't get rid of it. So we got to burn your clothes."

"My clothes," Dorothy whispered. There seemed to be no point crying.

"I am going to have to scrub the skin off my own hands after dealing with you. It just ain't clean."

"It's cleaner than this place," said Dorothy, numb.

"I expect my sister didn't have to cope with a valley full of dust or mud," said Aunty Em. She swung open the red rusty door of the stove. Dorothy saw the fire. She saw her white theater dress, sequins flickering in firelight. Dorothy grabbed it and ran, wet and naked. She jumped sprawling down from the front door and fell onto the ground. The dust was splattered with drops of rain.

Toto was gasping. There was a rope around his neck, and he had pulled and pulled against it. He tried to bark and could only cough. Dorothy tried to untie the rope. It hurt her hands. She saw Uncle Henry on the doorstep. She screamed as if she had seen a monster. He came down the steps toward her.

Dorothy turned and ran. She knew she had lost. Her clothes would be burned-except for the white dress that had been worn only once by a fairy in a play.

It was night now, black. Dorothy ran clothed in darkness, as the rain came, hard. "Dorothy!" called Uncle Henry.

"Dorothy!" called Aunty Em.

Down in the fields, there was death. Dorothy ran uphill, feet pattering in mud. She slipped and the mud peeled away in a damp layer, like flour. She stood, coated in mud, still clutching the fairy dress, now besmirched.

Sssssh, said the rain, as if comforting her.

Suddenly branches clawed at her face, catching her half-chopped hair. She plunged through a thicket, her face scratched, and her hands were suddenly scrabbling at the rough bark of a tree trunk. She went deeper into the woods. She would stay in the woods; she would live there like an Indian; she would never go back.

"Do-ro-thee!" called a voice down the valley.

"Holy Jesus," said a voice closer at hand.

Dorothy stopped running and looked around her. Rain ran over her face. She imagined wolves or giants.

"Is that Dorothy?" It was Wilbur's voice. "Is that you crying?"

"She's burning my clothes," said Dorothy.

Rain like tiny people running on the leaves.

"It's raining. You better go back."

"I don't want her to burn my clothes."

"I guess it's because your papa and mama died."

"My papa didn't die. He left."

Wilbur said nothing for a moment, in the dark.

"Oh. I thought that's what your aunty said."

"I've got my fairy dress. I want to hide it."

"I know a place," whispered Wilbur. "There's a hollow tree just around here. Hold on to my hand." Dorothy reached out and their hands met. He seemed to be carrying a big stick. She could hear something thrashing the leaves.

"Ow!" cried Dorothy as she skidded barefoot over a gnarled branch. There was a hollow thump as Wilbur's stick hit something.

"Give me the dress," said Wilbur. He took it from her. Dorothy had an impression that it was lifted over her head.