confusifying | wicked | book 3/3

Elphie

Boc stands in the doorway, he peers into the room and fixates his eyes on my sister.
He always looks at her.
There's a genuine love and admiration in his eyes.
Though I wonder if Nessa minds being observed all the time.
"Am I intruding?" Boc asks slowly.
I want to be blunt and say yes, but Nessa seems keen for him to stay.
"Not at all." Nessa splutters, the words practically flying from her mouth, she races towards him.
Boc smiles strangely at me.
I shuffle to the other side of the room and look at the side of a dresser.

There's a small wooden box on it with a golden latch, on the side there are beautiful flowers carved out of it.
Slowly I flick the latch open, it makes a satisfying clicking sound.
"What are you doing Elphaba?" Nessa quizzes me from the side of the room.
I reply with a simple "Nothing." And continuing my search of this box.
Carefully, I open the lid of the box, and pick it up.
Quite suddenly I drop the box, some small glass object falls out of it and shatters upon the floor.
"Elphaba!" Nessa barks, soon she appears by my side, evaluating the broken glass.
"Sorry I..."
"What even was it?" Boc ponders, cutting me off mid sentence.
"Can't say that I know, I'm just annoyed that there's broken glass on the floor, I can't move or I run the risk of it getting stuck in one of my wheels." Nessa huffs.

I apologise profusely and offer to clean up the glass, knowing that Nessa is unable to do it herself.
Nessa watches carefully as I pick up the glass, cursing myself as I do so.
Boc left the room for whatever reason and now there's this unusual silence between my sister and I.
"Elphie." Nessa suddenly mumbles, it catches me off guard slightly as I wasn't expecting her to talk to me. "There's a whole other world out there, all we know is Oz."
I ponder on that thought for a moment.
"Well I know that the farm girl came from a place called Kansas and that's nowhere near Oz." I reply, still enthused but Nessas statement.
"The girl from Kansas" Nessa mumbles "the one that killed me?"
I nod my head, though the girl also believed that she had killed me too.

I finally finish clearing the broken glass, I turn to look at Nessarose but she's gone.
I stand up suddenly and walk out into the hallway.
"Ness?" I call but she doesn't answer.
I stroll through the hallway, it's deathly quiet.
Everyone must have gone downstairs, but Nessa can't have, I only looked away for a few seconds at most.
"Nessa?" I raise my voice slightly more this time.
Still no answer.
I glance towards the end of the hallway, the door to Frexpar's study is open.
I tiptoe inside.
There I see my sister sat behind the desk, a large map spread out upon the table.
She looks almost as focused as when she's at Shiz, but this time there's an element of uncertainty in what she's doing.
I examine as she traces the map with her fingers, in a seemingly precise and though out way.

"Nessa what are you doing?" I don't mean to startle her but I must have disturbed a deep thought as she flinches rather severely.
Once Nessa gathers that it's me, she smiles feebly and lays her head in her hands upon the desk.
"I used to be scared of this room." Nessa whispers from within her arms, her voice shudders slightly.
"You did?"
"After Father died I preserved it, anyone who entered this room was harshly reprimanded by me." Nessa takes a deep breath as her words catch in her throat and turn to tears "I was so scared of loosing what salvable memories of Father that I had left, that the very notion of disturbing this room was terrifying to me."

I take a couple steps forward, startlingly Nessa again.
I feel bad for doing it but I make no attempt to apologise.
"We barley even left Oz." Nessa murmurs into her arms "we had the whole world and we barley left Oz."
"People would still hunt us no matter where we went." I reply solemnly.
Sadly the greenness of my skin will always plague my family.
"Do you wish we could leave Oz?" I ask cautiously.
Nessa props her head up on her hands.
"I have a Job Elphie."
"I didn't say we were leaving right this second."
Nessa sighs deeply, I can practically hear how hard she's thinking.
"I have no reason to leave, I have no reason to do anyone. You don't judge me so I've got nothing to work towards. I just feel unfulfilled."

That makes so little and yet so much sense to me.
Nessa was always trying to better herself as a child, trying to prove that she wasn't helpless.
Though people never played any attention to it, they were too busy getting over excited if she said please and batted a cut little eyelashes.
She could do no wrong in anyone's eyes.
"Nessa, were you unhappy when we lived in our cottage?"
Ness shrugs, she sighs glumly and stared down at the map, she places a finger upon it.
"I don't know, I guess there was less to care about," she mumbles, "I wish I'd never became Governess."
I take another step towards my sister.
"I've not felt quite right ever since..." Nessa pauses, I'm anticipating her to say something about her fathers death or even Bocs departure. "Since you went to see the wizard."

She's right, if I had never have gone to see the wizard, then I'd never have abandoned my sister, Frexpar wouldn't have died the way that he did.
Everything's my fault.
"No, but it's my fault you went." Nessa whispers suddenly.
"Nessa what are you talking about?"
"You asked for my permission and I gave it to you, it's my fault you met Madame Morrible. It's my fault we went to Shiz."
There's an eerie silence before Nessa speaks again.
"Oh my goodness, it's all my fault!"