In Quadling Country

Quadling country. Miles of muddy land punctuated by muddier swamps. Around these swamps—swamps that ooze and steep and breathe—is a scattering of communes: rings of earthen huts, poorly thatched, windowless.

It is raining. The ceilings soften and drip thickly into the grass. The air is sticky and chill and the wind is gone, woven back into the clouds for now.

Inside one of the huts—the smallest one, the most hastily built, farther from the others—sits Elphaba Thropp. She hunches on the floor in a corner, leaning back against the wall, resembling more a patch of moss than a girl. Baby Nessarose, gaunt and pearlescent, is propped up in her lap.

Drops of rain slither through holes in the ceiling, birthing muddy puddles here and there on the floor. A few spatter near the sisters, and Elphaba recoils, drawing her dirty foot beneath her. The rain beats a dull cadence on the roof. Elphaba swallows her panic, focusing on calming her finicky sister, who twists discontentedly in her arms—clearly hungry and cold. They both are. Elphaba rubs her sister's back vigorously to keep her blood circulating. It warms her hand a little, at least.

With her other hand, the five-year-old girl twirls a rough wooden top on a patch of dry earth in front of them, trying to distract Nessarose. It spins in the dirt, a toy vortex, the red stripe painted on top winding around like a ribbon in the air.

The toy teeters and falls; Elphaba scoops it up and sets it in motion again. Her fingers are caked with mud now, more brown than green. She doesn't mind. Brown is a human color, at least. The mud, she muses, is certainly not the worst thing about this land; it's useful, harmless. And she has noticed that somehow, when it rains, the earth nullifies that property of water that distresses her—mud doesn't burn her skin. It feels nice, in fact, to draw tribal mud markings on her face when she plays. She feels wild. Best of all, though, she feels hidden. Masked. When she is covered with mud, she looks like every other dirty child playing near the swamps. She blends in.

The top whirls. Nessa's eyes follow the toy as it dances in the dirt. The girl is calm, now, leaning back against her sister. The rain is not so loud. Her heartbeat slows a little, a tiny drum inside her chest, in time with Elphaba's. They curl closer together. The older girl's hair falls in a curtain around the other. This is close to love.

Frex comes in, soaked. He plucks Nessa fondly from Elphaba's lap. A few drops of water slide from his cloak onto her green arms—she winces and wipes them furiously on her frock. Frex gently picks clumps of dry mud from Nessa's thin hair, twirling her. She grins toothlessly, cooing. He offers Elphaba a fatherly smile without touching her.

Elphie tosses the toy aside, into the mud. She scoops up a handful of damp earth and molds it with her palms, forming walls and roofs and towers. Windows and turrets and more than one room. An ugly mud castle. Hers alone.

Someday, she knows, she will leave the swamps and huts and even her father. She'll care for herself and herself alone. She looks down at the castle at her feet.

Someday.