Within the Pages

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

They bring me straight through the large front gates of the Emerald City.

As we fly past the guards, I'm terrified to see that their eyes are a bright red. Like when you take a picture of someone and their eyes turn red. Even as the wind cause by us flying brushes into them, they don't move a muscle, not even to blink. They must be enchanted.

We fly through the city that I think would be quite beautiful, if not for the dozens of guards walking up and down the streets with their red eyes glowing brightly.

The witches push us to fly up higher and we fly through an opening of the green castle. The witches land on the floor while I am still floating in the air.

They begin walking quickly down the corridor with me following them while rolling through the air. The corridor is so long and we seem to walk down it for the longest time. The witches talk in hushed voices. I wish I could hear what they were saying.

When we finally reach about halfway down the corridor, they turn into a side room with me following behind. The inside of this room looks almost like a torture chamber. There are all sorts of deadly, sharp looking tools laid out on a table and a metal cage that looks just big enough to fit my dad in. They fly me toward the cage. With a flick of my sister's hand, the cage doors open and I find myself thrown into it, before it closes and locks behind me. "We'll be back in a while after we take care of your friends." My sister says as the witches walk out of the room, cackling loudly.

My head fills with sweat as I am suddenly very fearful. My eyes survey the room. In the far corner I notice another cage. This cage, has a whole bunch of metallic looking objects. I think it's tin. Scrunching my eyes, I make out more details about the objects. One of the tin objects looks long and narrow and has a bigger object attached to it. Looking almost like a foot.

Could this be....the tin man. No. Course it wouldn't be. The tin man was found by Dorothy earlier on in the book. He wasn't captured. Although Dorothy wasn't fighting monkeys this early, the wicked witch of the East got crushed under a house, and her dog was with her the whole time. Has every story that I've been a part of really been told differently in my world? Seems like what I've read really wasn't as accurate of a telling that I thought it was.

My eyes register a flash of movement as I'm staring off in the direction of the other cage. Looking closer, I see the shape of a tin head begin to form out of the shadows filling the cage. Where the eyes are, I see blinking. How can something without a body blink. The eyes look at me and I see the mouth open, as well as hear the slow grinding of tin against tin.

"Hello Charlie." The tin man says.

My eyes open wide with even more shock. I didn't even think I could get more shocked at this point. "How do you know my name?"

He seems to almost chuckle. In a weird tin scraping tin kind of way. "I was there when you were born Charlie. When your father was in this land as the great ruler of Oz." His face turns down. "Before he disappeared and left us to suffer the pain of the Wicked Witch. He was a good king, but in the end it seemed like he had just about as much heart as I do."

"I won't allow anyone to speak poorly of my dad." Realizing I might be a bit harsh to the man that's been trapped in a cage for who knows how long I add a bit more. "I'm sure he must have had some important reason for leaving. I don't think he is that uncaring if he was a good wizard for so long."

The dungeon-like room is silent for a few moments before I hear the grinding of tin again. "I guess you are right. He was good to us for quite a while. Just when he left it hurt. I shouldn't have doubted him so quickly."

"It's ok. Now do you want to try to help me get out of here?"

"I thought you'd never ask."