Chapter Text
When the door opens—letting her out of the limbo of the inside of the patrol wagon—she is made to step, still barefoot, onto the cold concrete floors of whatever dark den they have taken her to. She immediately is flanked by two guards, one of them the one who had dragged away her back in the audience hall. Glinda makes it a point to control her breathing, keeping the rise and falling of her chest purposefully mechanical. She keeps her head down, eyes glued to the floor. She feels juvenile, like a child giving a parent the silent treatment. Her whole throat is gripped with the heavy tar of anxiety, a viscous pressure keeping her silent.
They march forward, each guard keeping a hold of her arms. She hears the sounds of their footsteps—though hers are silent—synchronised to the rhythm of an imagined military drum which Glinda herself cannot hear. The beating of their steps echoes strangely along the barren corridor, creating a muddled impression of space and sound; Glinda wonders if she truly hears the sound of a third heavy tread behind her or if tricks of acoustics are enough for her to feel its delusive presence.
She walks without resistance, guided by the forceful pull of the Gale Forcers down corridor after corridor in a pattern beyond logic. Something about the featureless hallways and the recurring sound of the boots striking the floor leaves her unmoored, disoriented despite her best efforts to remain composed.
Eventually, they turn into a perpendicular corridor, coming upon a wider room which Glinda is tempted to call an atrium. Painted across the far wall in stark black on the pale concrete is an insignia. Southstairs it reads, looming and frank in its messy lettering; beneath it, in smaller letters, the phrase Detention Center and Correctional Facility runs with irreverent aplomb.
Glinda shivers. She doesn’t know what she’d expected—of course she would end up in Southstairs—but it had yet to hit her that she is ‘one of those people’ now. The agitators, the undesirables, the type of people everyone is supposed to agree deserve to be jailed. She has trouble reconciling such a label with her own person. How farcical. How strange that she still clings to such an obviously erroneous vision of the world: that there are deviants deserving of this treatment, that she is among the good citizens who are not. The lies one must tell oneself to continue living in a flawed society; that violence is expected, nay, necessary for the continued survival of the species. Glinda exhales shakily, and pointedly averts her eyes from the signage, hiding behind the shroud of her hair.
Her eyes land on the desk at the far end of the room, under the dreaded insignia. Behind it sits a weaselly sort of man, fiddling with papers and folders and documents in the perfect image of a busybody at work. Glinda’s eyes linger on him—how like a cog in a machine he is, and how contented he seems too, it's almost comical.
Noticing their arrival, the man perks up. He looks up at one of the guards, his eyes glossing over Glinda. “Rickards! Long time no see, old boy.” He looks over to his partner. “And Stafford too! This is becoming an all stars meet up. How does the outside world treat you?”
The guards don’t respond, much too sombre in their bearing. The clerk raises his arms defensively.
“Oz, you got your knickers in a twist, I was just making small talk” he grumbles. He scratches impudently at his neck. “Is it that time of month, then, Stafford?”
The guard in question sneers. “Just do your fucking job, Caarl. And keep your mouth shut while you’re at it.”
“Gee, fine.” He rolls his eyes, carelessly drawing open a drawer and pulling out a set of forms. He places them on his desk and readies his pen with a bored sigh. “Name?”
Neither respond. The guard at Glinda’s right—the woman, Stafford—scoffs. It’s dry, more disdainful than humorous.
The clerk’s eyes shoot to her. “What? You wanted me to do my job so I’m doing it,” he says. “Giving me the silent treatment won’t make this go any—”
His eyes fall on Glinda.
“OH.” He exhales sharply, eyes fleeting incredulously between the Gale Forcers. “That’s… Okay.”
He looks back at his form, scribbling curtly before stopping abruptly. “Glinda…” His eyes upwards.
She looks away, face carefully neutral. “Upland. It’s Glinda Upland .”
“Good.” He continues with his annotations. Without looking up, he asks, “Cause for arrest?”
The silent guard at her right speaks up. “High treason.”
The clerk’s head rises, mouth hanging half open. Glinda’s eye twitches. Thankfully, he doesn’t dare add more of his running commentary. “Fingerprints please,” he commands instead.
The guards guide her arms into position, re-cuffing her hands at her front and individually manoeuvring each finger onto the ink pad and then the paper.
“This would be significantly easier if you just let me do it,” Glinda mutters, looking at the ceiling aimlessly as they steer her hands this way and that.
“Quiet,” the guard snaps.
She sighs annoyedly, submitting to their manhandling.
As they finish, she speaks up. “Can I at least have something to clean this up?” She presents her blackened fingertips. With a grumble, the clerk offers her a tissue which she is allowed to use herself. What a luxury.
Meanwhile, the clerk reaches under his desk. He pulls up a case from which he removes a placard and sets of letters that he slides into the board’s slots. “Mugshots, now, please.”
With a nod, the guards guide her to an adjacent room, placing her in front of a camera settled atop a wooden tripod. Soon enough, the clerk comes in with the finished placard, placing it into Glinda’s hands and tilting it into position. He mumbles, “There we go.”
Glinda feels a bit ridiculous, holding up the board with her cuffed hands held together as if in prayer. She feels her face want to twitch into a frown, but she tries to keep herself expressionless. With a bit of faff to his movement, the clerk positions himself behind the camera, throwing the camera-hood over himself.
He flicks his finger to get her attention. “Eyes up here,” he calls. With the gleam of a flash and the clank of a shutter, the picture is taken. Glinda stares deep into her own eyes, reflected back to her in the dark lens of the camera.
She still looks gorgeous—
No, not gorgeous, that’s not exactly the term. This is something less proper than that, less clean cut. Handsome would be close, though Glinda struggles to attribute such a label to anyone other than Elphaba; the word and the woman are much too synonymous in her mind for it to be applied to herself.
Her rumpled hair and her coloured cheeks in the lens of the camera look almost sultry. The result is bewitching, but its allure would be incongruous anywhere less private than a lover’s arms. She’s not gorgeous, she’s entrancing in a way a camera lens, or a propaganda poster, or the idolising masses could never capture.
“Face left, please,” the clerk directs from beneath his cloak.
She turns, letting him capture her profile. With a huff, he exits from under the dark mantle. He industriously checks over his form, humming considerately. “Put her over there,” he says to the guards, dully waving his hand towards a bench in the corner. “You know how security check goes.”
Glinda hurries to the bench herself, wanting to avoid any additional manhandling. She sits primly there, though the guards seldom stray from her side, both standing tall around her. The clerk, meanwhile, continues with his forms, busy with a bureaucracy that is beyond even Glinda.
Brutishly, Stafford reaches for Glinda’s shoulder, pulling her brusquely forward.
“What—” Glinda is cut off with another quick “Quiet,” hissed by the guard. Meanwhile, her partner mutters to himself—something about “these fucking pins”—as he reaches for her hair. Fingers dig through her locks, picking hair pins and ties. Strand by strand, whatever remained of her hairdo falls around her shoulders. It’s been quite a long time since she’s last worn her hair down in polite society; she feels almost naked under the harsh fluorescent lights of Southstairs.
Another hair pin, along with a still-clinging flower, is pulled from her hair, gleaming for a second before her eyes. She’d hardly considered lockpicking her way out of her handcuffs—not that she’d know how to—but seeing that possibility taken from her is somehow agonising.
Past the industrious figures of the guards, she still glimpses the clerk, tapping his pen against his lips as he considers the document. “Spell caster…?” He mutters, eyes fleeting to Glinda. “Well, obviously she is.” He scratches something onto his paper, visibly crossing out a section of the page. “This does streamline the process, huh.”
The clerk calls to the Guards, “Are you done with all that? I’ve got other things to do, you know?”
Stafford doesn’t respond, still busy with confiscating all of Glinda’s remaining jewellery, but the other guard stands upright, looking at him over his shoulder. “Stop complaining,” he grunts lowly, “and pass me the stupid thing.”
The clerk withdraws a strange object—a smallish cylindrical box covered with carved insignia—and tosses it over to the guard who catches it one handed. Glinda eyes it suspiciously. The guard twists its lid open, revealing what resembles a stamp—a dark wooden stub topped by a rubber base, tinged in colour by an ink pad held at the bottom of the box’s lid. Glinda catches a glimpse of the design at the bottom of the object; she can hardly make out its meaning, the symbol inverted to her eyes, but she can distinctly recognize the arched lines characteristic of magical sigils.
Glinda clamps down on the urge to protest—to demand to know what will be done to her, what all these aimless procedures are supposed to lead to—though she knows quite well any objection on her part will be dismissed.
Stafford moves away, carrying her pins and jewels, and Glinda’s eyes thoughtlessly follow her. Preoccupied with that guard’s movements, she doesn't notice the other bring down the charmed stamp on her, pressing it firmly against the exposed skin of her shoulder blade. She instinctively tries to jerk away though she is held there by the guard’s unyielding grip, her widened eyes frantically trying to glimpse at the man’s actions. The man holds the device down firmly for a few lingering seconds.
Glinda holds herself forcibly still, now, trying to perceive the effects of the obscure sigil. She remains hushed, even between the heaves of her ragged breaths, and focuses on the affected area. It radiates heat but in a dismally unremarkable way, born of friction and anxious sweat. Other than that? Nothing. Glinda tightly presses her eyes closed, but she cannot sense even a spark of magic which might hint at the enchantment that may have taken place. The item is visibly charmed, of course, but she expected to be able to perceive its artifice, or at least its charged magical presence. But no. All she feels are the painfully clammy fingers of the guard digging into her flesh, the weight of the handcuffs around her wrists, and the impersonal touch of the rubber stamp on her skin.
Finally, its pressure is taken away, the guard sliding the mysterious stamp back into its box and passing it to the clerk. The other guard walks back towards her, holding a folded set of clothes. With a jerk of her head, she points to the corner of the room where a drab grey curtain delineates a changing space. Glinda hurries to follow her unspoken directions, marching quickly to the dressing room, eager to put warmer clothes on, even if they are prisoner's garb. When in position behind the drape, the guard momentarily frees her from the handcuffs. Glinda seizes the short moment of privacy and reaches over her shoulder, gently fingering the cryptic impression. Her fingers come back tainted an uninteresting blue—just a simple and easily washable ink—how strange. Still, she prefers to take no chances, so she reaches back again and forcefully rubs her finger over her goosebumped skin, breaking the painted insignia on her back.
She hastens to get dressed. The bright red colour of the garments—supposed to be highly visible in contrast to the green city—does not exactly do her complexion any favours, but it does offer some much needed warmth. She even gets a pair of soft sole shoes; a step up from her previous unshod state. She makes it a point to not think on her appearance—her mussed unbound hair, the ill-fitting long sleeved shirt, the blooms of rosacea on her cheeks—instead pointedly focusing on her practical physical state. She is warm enough, and that should be all that matters. She knows that if she lingers too much on her current presentation, she would only compound her distress. Now is the worst of times to start on a spiral of self consciousness.
She hurriedly steps from behind the curtain, presenting her wrists dutifully to be once again handcuffed. The guards subject her to one last tap down search before proceeding with the rest of their operation.
“There we go,” the clerk mutters, scratching his final addendums onto the form. He addresses himself to the guards. “She’ll be on 90187, eastern wing. You know what to do.”
And with that, they are back on their funerary march. Glinda, escorted on both sides by the tight-gripping guards, is guided forward—out of the room, past the clerk’s desk, down more indistinguishable corridors—to places beyond her ken.
꧁ ꧂
She’s always known that Southstairs sprawled wide through the underground vaults of the capital—there has long been a certain overblown mythos around the penitentiary facility—but she’d never imagined the actual experience of existing within it. There is an atemporal limbo which is somehow constructed from the constant artificial lighting, the unchanging featureless brick and mortar, and the damning absence of any clock.
She has no idea how long she has been in this room.
She’d been escorted into this chamber, made to sit in the uncomfortable metal chair, and promptly handcuffed to the table. Hours have passed since then, she guesses, though time seems to distend and bow like rubber at the whims of her listlessness. There is something heavy at the bottom of her gut—it doesn’t move but its presence is felt—a subtle but constant dread which rests there and is allowed to grow in the interim hours.
She taps her finger on the cold metal table, a nervous aria of restless tedium. Her hair has started to frizz, her locks coiling haphazardly with the slight humidity of the room. The iciness of the metal chair has long since penetrated through the clothes she has been given. Her shoulder blade, where the guard had impressed his mark, has started to itch—an absurdly ordinary itch which drives Glinda to distraction. Her fingers—their tips icy cold—reach under her shirt to the affected area. She feels a swelling there, a raised patch of skin almost like an insect’s bite, or stinging nettle welts on the shins of wild children. She traces along its length—its curvature and convoluted shape. It’s hard to know, but Glinda wonders if it mimics the sigil, like a ghost imprint, her body rebelling at whatever spell has been cast upon it.
Suddenly, she hears the click of the door. Her eyes snap to the entrance and her hands hastily drop to her lap. A woman—dark hair in a dreary bob and eyes covered by cat-eye glasses—shuffles into the room, carrying a lopsided briefcase close to the lapels of her muted cardigan. Glinda perks up, observing her dispiriting closing of the door and the subsequent amble across the room.
“Excuse me?” Glinda calls. Her perky tone sounds dissonant in this cold chamber, but she knows no other timbre to employ. “Excuse me, Miss? Could you tell me what is going on? And the time too? I’ve been here for quite a while and I…”
She trails off, watching the woman—completely unresponsive to her address—drift uninterestedly across the room and past Glinda’s fixed position to a small writing desk in the far corner of the room. Over her shoulder, she can see the woman settle there, opening her briefcase on the tabletop to reveal a typewriter. It strains her neck to twist it in this way, but Glinda ignores the ache—better to watch the tedious huffs of the fussy woman, puttering with her machine, than the blank wall.
The door draws open again. A man walks in; clothed in a severe uniform, his dark sage vest and florid golden-brown livery are marks of a denomination Glinda does not recognise. He keeps the door open behind him—a mechanical facsimile of chivalry. Through the gaping doorway—the dark opening too obscure to glimpse the world beyond it—Morrible emerges. She blazes with colour; her vivid hyde and gaudy red lipstick a charring flame across the room. The bustle of her dress and its trailing overskirt stream behind her almost organically, like a beast’s tail swaying while on the prowl.
Glinda steels herself, pressing her nails into the flesh of her palm. She’s come to know Morrible during her years under her thumb—she can detect her irritated bearing from the tightness around her mouth, her stress from the haggard falling of her lapels, her bloodlust from the gleaming of her depthless eyes. Glinda can easily see through Morrible’s front of poised command to the broiling frustration just beneath. It is plain to see: something tumultuous is brewing on the surface—beyond what Glinda can see, and what Morrible can control. Glinda knows her well, reading between her lines is simple.
That, however, does not make her any less terrifying.
She walks slowly into the room, almost leisurely in her pace. Behind her, the man pushes the door closed and comes to stand rigidly behind Glinda. A soldier at attention. Morrible’s grey eyes—watery wells—are fixed upon Glinda as she settles on the chair opposite her, placing her clasped hands upon the table. Glinda fights to maintain her breathing to its natural rhythm, eyes fixed upon the papery skin which covers skeletal knuckles and protuberant veins.
“How quaint,” Morrible hisses, contemplating. “I’d never thought you capable of this.”
Glinda gazes at her somberly, her brows furrowed and lips pressed closed.
“I’ve always known you to be simple, but to do something so idiotic…”
The spectre of Glinda’s days at Shiz clouds her vision, and the subsequent dissonance between its nostalgic fumes and the situation at hand leaves her light headed. There is a horror in seeing her illustrious schoolmaster scold her for crimes against the state with the same austerity as if she had broken curfew. Even the way the woman holds herself—the clasped fingers and pursed lips—brings Glinda back to a time she wishes could be untainted by these foul games of politics.
Morrible gestures grandly with her hand—Glinda’s eyes shoot to her. The motion is fanciful, almost out of a dinner party, like the pompous flourish of a conversationalist vying for the guest’s undivided attention. “You’ve been working for our Great Wizard for years now,” Morrible starts, voice sickly sweet, the tone one uses when talking to children, ”like a little clockwork puppet, dancing in place with each striking of the hour, waving uselessly at giggling children—day after day, speech after speech.”
Morrible pauses, the sweetened tone of her voice dissolving into nothing as her face distorts into a sneer. “And, for all that time, not an ounce of gratitude to him? For giving you this calling? This raison d’être?”
“That seems excessive,” Glinda scoffs dryly.
“You would’ve been nothing if not for him, Glinda,” she spits through raised lips. “Disgustingly unremarkable. There have been thousands just like you, and there will be thousands more.” Glinda doesn’t flinch, staring impassively into the grotesque contortions of Morrible’s face. “You are a spoiled girl, Glinda. And one of the most odious sort—the kind unaware of their own entitlement—and I fear we may be partly at fault, to have indulged in your conceited delusions.”
Glinda looks up through her eyelashes, illuminated into a golden glow by the cell’s artificial light. “I’m tied to a table,” she says, “I hardly see myself as high and mighty.”
Morrible sneers. “Insolent too.”
“And here I thought I’d been perfectly obedient all these years.”
“Obedient, yes.” Morrible lingers on the words—coiling them in her mouth, pushing them against her teeth, pressing at them with her tongue. “You are too easily led. Influenced—like sodden clay—by stronger hands.”
“You think the ultimatum you posed to me when I was barely eighteen is a testament to my being easily suggestible?”
“No, I think your little tantrum is a testament to that.” Morrible leans back in her chair. “It's just a shame that it had to happen so publicly. I thought you of better breeding than that.”
Glinda speaks curtly, letting her disdain—usually kept firmly under wraps—show in her voice, “This has nothing to do with breeding—with contrived politeness—it's much more than that.”
Morrible scoffs, raising her eyebrow disdainfully.
“It’s to do with what is right,” Glinda continues, leaning forward. “With the freedom of the people—”
Morrible cuts her off. “Spare me the artless talk— repeating the words of some romantic heroine won’t make you sound less frivolous. You squandered your lot in life, swayed by some naive revolutionary, no pretty words will make it rightful.”
Glinda’s tone is acerbic. “Do you really think me so stupid that I cannot act of my own volition?”
A cackle bursts out of Morrible, her lips stretching into an ugly smile. “I doubt you will appreciate my answer to that question”
Glinda scoffs, scornful, a mocking smile on her face. “It was rhetorical.”
Morrible waves her off cooly. “You were always a fickle girl, bending to the whims of others.”
“What happened in City Centre was entirely my own doing.”
“A convenient lie—for both your ego's sake and for your self preservation.”
“You would give credit to an imagined evil doer rather than to the self-admitted perpetrator in your custody?” Glinda derides, haughtily raising her eyebrows. “I'm hardly shocked, you've always had the knack for creating an imagined threat.”
“Imagined ?” Morrible exclaims, incensed. “Bombings. Lootings. Kidnappings . ” Glinda scoffs, but Morrible charges on. “Do not tell me these are imagined simply because you ignore them when building yourself as a revolutionary.”
“Censorship, segregation, assassinations,” Glinda retorts. “Two can play this game. You have waged war on our people—this is but defensive action.”
Morrible looks at her, calculating, contemplating. Slowly shaking her head in disappointment, she remains quiet for a time, allowing a silence—only permeated by the hum of the artificial lights—to set in.
She heaves a sigh. “What a waste you are…” She clicks her tongue. She savours disillusionment like a decadent wine, narrowing her eyes indulgently. “Just like your little friend—
Glinda’s eye twitches. “Don't you dare.”
“—all this opportunity—and I say opportunity, not talent—thrown away for temperamental fits. Stupid children, the both of you.”
Glinda seethes, but keeps quiet.
“At least you have the saving grace of being pretty enough. Elphaba, on the other hand, with that vile skin of hers—”
Glinda snarls, “Keep her name out of your mouth.” The words are spit from between exposed teeth, clenched in anger. She feels like an animal. She jerks forward, the chains at her wrists rattling, but she is held back, forced into her seat by the heavy hand of the man who stands behind her.
Morrible doesn’t even spare her a glance, instead looking past her to make eye contact with the man, subtly shaking her head no. The hand doesn’t retreat, but its force lessens.
Glinda sits messily, chair pushed too far from the table; body splayed unsteadily and arms dangling from her bonds.
Morrible cackles. It’s full bodied—her throat exposed and her chest heaving—spasms racking her body in a perverted form of mirth. Her peals of laughter fill the room. Glinda feels it in her bones, excruciating lacerations on her very being.
In time, her cackle dissipates, giving away to satisfied sighs interspersed with contented chuckles. “It’s hilarious the depths to which a human can sink,” she says, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. With a last chuckle, she waves her hand. “We’ve dawdled enough, let’s get this started.”
Glinda’s eyes narrow, alarmed.
“Mirim, open the record,” Morrible calls to the woman in the corner. Dutifully, the perfunctory noises of the typewriter saturate the air—impersonal and to the point. “Fourth day of High Winter, 21:38, Questioning of Glinda Upland. Do you have the casefile and ID number?”
“Yes, Madam.”
“Good. Let’s begin,” she turns to Glinda, “you, Glinda—née Galinda—Upland, have been arrested for the crimes of Treason and Incitement to Seditious Acts which you performed this same day at 15:00. Do you confirm the accuracy of these statements?”
Glinda stares silently at the woman for a few seconds, shaken by her brusqueness, but ultimately responds in the affirmative.
“Can you, then, share the names of any co-conspirators involved in your infraction?”
“I’ve already said—”
“No, you haven’t. Not on record,” Morrible says. She turns to the typist, “Do omit that, will you?”
Glinda sighs, morose. “I was alone. All actions were my own.”
Morrible hums, nonplussed, tapping her finger meditatively. “Did you know, Glinda,” she starts, “that about a fortnight ago Lord Gulbarrow received, at the door of his private quarters, a threat to his life?”
Glinda’s head tilts calculatingly. “No, I can’t say I was.”
“You are of course aware he is a member of the Hall of Approval, much like yourse—” She cuts herself off with a chuckle. “Excuse me. Much like you were . ”
“I wish you’d get to the point.”
“You might also remember the closed cabinet meeting on the twentieth day of Winter Rising.”
“I do not have an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything that goes on in office, no.”
“We spoke of amendments to statute n°5 of the Brox Hall Bill.”
Part of the Animal Adverse Packet. Dreadful reactionary thing. Glinda purses her lips.
“What I find fascinating, my dear Glinda, is that this statute—in its most recent form—was referenced by name and with some specificity in the threat directed to Lord Gulbarow, who you may recall is one of the chief authors of the ordinance.”
“That’s to be expected. You know very well this legislature is cause for controversy.”
“You forget, Glinda,” Morrible says. A grin stretches across her face. “It was a closed cabinet meeting. This information had yet to be released to the press.”
Drat it all. Glinda bites her tongue, but keeps her face expressionless despite the rising tempo of her heartbeat echoing to her temples. What an oversight—they’d practically told the authorities about the presence of a mole in the Hall of Approval. She breathes in deeply.
“So there are spies in the Hall. You’ve suspected this for ages— what’s the issue?”
Morrible laughs. “What’s new is that you very kindly exposed yourself as a dissident. It does simplify our half of the work.”
“So I’ve defected. Lovely. I hardly see how this information is in any way valuable—most people in the city can tell you that by now.”
Morrible clicks her tongue. “Don’t be obtuse, you’re wasting my time. You’re the mole, Glinda, that’s plain to see. What’s left to be discovered is who you are disclosing classified information to.”
“No one.”
“We both know you’re lying. I know for a fact you haven’t been going around leaving death threats at your colleague’s door. Who, then, has?”
Glinda remains stubbornly quiet, lips pressed closed.
“Really?” Morrible sneers. “How childish.”
The heavy hand on Glinda’s shoulder presses harder, each finger digging deeper into her flesh.
“Do you not have an ounce of patriotism? Of love for your country?”
“You mistake loyalty for dogmatism; I love my country, I simply do not subscribe to your backwards doctrine,” Glinda retorts, fitfully jerking her shoulder, trying to dislodge the man’s grip to no avail.
“You abet those obstinate on ripping apart the very fabric of our society.”
“And rightfully so,” Glinda spits. She leans forward, forearms on the table, her hand tightening into a fist. “Your so-called society is sick, Madam.”
“Now listen here, missy.” Morrible lurches forward, reaching over the table and digging her talons into her arm, jerkily pulling her towards herself. Her face—bestial in its snarl and bared teeth, synthetic in its caked powder and garish colours—is inches from Glinda’s. “You know not of what you speak. What you do know—and what we will wring out of you—is the name and location of the foul creatures you were stupid enough to aid.”
Her hand tightens painfully on her wrist—a shackle twice as solid as the handcuffs which bind her. Glinda almost expects to feel the stinging heat of magic emanate from the clutching hand, but she feels nothing. She holds back a whimper, instead swallowing forcefully and spitting out, “Never.”
Glinda is wrenched backwards, the man’s hold on her shoulder pulling her forcefully to the backrest while his other hand grabs ahold of her neck. She is immobilised there, useless tremors wracking through her body.
“Who, Glinda? Who?”
She tries to shake her head, pressing her eyes closed.
“Who did you aid?”
“No one,” she chokes. She looks through barely opened eyes; Morrible’s gaze is cold, a frozen lake hiding frigid depths beneath its indurate exterior, though the frostbite of its focus is not on Glinda, but on the man that holds her captive. She nods—cold as snow, hard as rock—in his direction.
The grip on her shoulder changes—not as solid, but more precise—the individual tips of each of the man’s fingers cinching her flesh. The man starts whispering something, she can feel the resonance of his strangely melodic phrases vibrating from his chest to where the back of her head is held.
“Who was it, Glinda?” Glinda’s tearful eyes shoot to her.
“No one—” A pain shoots through her shoulder.
“Don’t lie. Who?”
Glinda opens her mouth to repeat her litany of denial, but the words are strangled in her throat. The pain in her shoulder grows—wildfire eating hungrily at each of her singular nerves as if they were dry bramble on an arid high summer day—it spreads from its five prickling points of inception down her arm, and to her fingers, and up her neck, and to the very centre of her chest. It radiates—beyond conception or description—all over, equally as strong wherever it reaches, mechanically uniform in its intensity.
“Stop—” She gasps. “Make it—”
And it does. The affliction disappears instantaneously—like the smog of the city suddenly blown away by a storming gust of wind—the jolt of its sudden absence is a pain in and of itself. In her fingers, her neck, her chest—she feels nothing, simply the lingering expectation of something that the body thinks should be there, but isn’t.
Morrible speaks. “Who?”
Glinda squints. A haze seems to cloud the world around her. “What?”
“Who did you leak classified information to, Glinda? Who was it?”
“No—”
Morrible rolls her eyes. “Again.”
“No!”
The pain resurfaces, a blinding force emanating from her shoulder with unnatural vigour. Glinda writhes, like a drowning victim gesticulating hysterically to try and swim back to the surface.
“No,” she weeps, “stop. Stop.”
“I don’t have to, dear,” Morrible says. “You can make it ‘stop’—” she mimics her pitiful speech— “yourself!”
Glinda wheezes. “Please, plea—”
“All you have to do is answer, dear.” Morrible leans closer, whispering conspiratorially. “Who, Glinda, who was it?”
Her throat is frozen solid, incomprehensible sounds which might or might not be half-formed remnants of words tumble from her mouth in a disgusting heap.
“It’s a simple question, dear, don’t be stupid. Who was it?”
Glinda chokes, and hurts, and— “Elphaba! It was Elphaba!”
The pain evaporates. She heaves gasping breaths, letting her head hang low, hidden beneath the shroud of her hair—damp with her cold sweat—as she tries to gain even a modicum of composure. Her senses are dulled, she feels caged in her own body, contained in a relentless litany of ‘I’ve betrayed her, I’ve betrayed her, I’ve betrayed her’ echoing angrily through her hollow insides. Only by measures do her faculties return to her. She notices then that the hands that held her have retreated, the infernal sound of the impersonal typewriter, and peals of laughter that Morrible lets out into the air.
“How predictable, how tiresome you two are.” Morrible sighs contentedly. “This does answer a few questions. That was always a point of contention, you know— Which flavour of dissident she fell into after her fall from grace. And so the Witch chose to align herself with the Animal Liberation Front.”
Glinda doesn’t answer. She is still reeling—ears ringing a strident refrain—and Morrible’s startlingly conversational tone only serves to add to her turmoil.
“And it must be the ALF that you correspond with. It could only have started during that farcical kidnapping business. Did it not?”
Glinda feebly raises her head. Morrible looks upon her expectantly while behind her, the man once again rests his hand on her right shoulder, foreboding.
Glinda violently jerks away, breathlessly blurting out, “Yes! Yes, it did.”
“There we go, you finally understand how this is to work. I ask questions, you respond. It’s as easy as that.”
Glinda shakes her head—a weak and pathetic gesture. “No, no, I won’t…” She trails off, aimless.
Morrible ignores her completely, instead forging on with her train of thought and questioning. “Knowing it is the Animal Liberation Front which assails us is splendid, yes, but there is more yet to learn. You see, dear, your infamous collaborators are known for their sealed lips.” She laughs shortly. “You, however, are not.”
Glinda feels something heavy in her stomach. It makes her nauseous. She doesn’t know if it can be called apprehension, or guilt, or just plain old fear, but its volume within her grows, taking up space, pushing her lungs into a corner of her ribcage, her guts against her spine, and her heart into her throat.
“I knew you were being much too coy with your excuses and your vague statements.” Morrible leans back on her chair. The light plays off the textures of her face, each groove and hill casting a shadow in sharp contrast with her pasty white skin. “You know more about your so-called kidnapping than you have let on. Let’s get back in position, shall we?”
Glinda’s body tenses immediately, anticipating the inevitability of incoming agony. The sorcerer’s arms—for that is what he is, a caster employed for the most heinous of purposes—wrap around her. She feels like cattle, manhandled into position with a tight grip on her shoulder and around her neck—surely to keep her from writhing excessively. She vaguely wonders if his grasp has left a mark, red indentations on her milky skin, which might brand her permanently.
“So, Glinda,” Morrible starts, that dark intensity shadowing her gaze once more, “reach into your feeble mind and try to recall. Where were you held?”
Glinda inhales slowly, controlling her breath carefully. “I said this already. I was blindfolded; I saw nothing.”
“But you were lying, weren’t you?” Morrible leans closer, almost delicate in her bearing. “You know more than you let on.”
Glinda blinks her eyes slowly, feeling the tears pooled in her eyes cluster just under her eyelashes. She presses her lips together. “No matter what I say, you'll think me a liar.”
“Because that is what you are, girl. There is no pleasant way about it.” Morrible steeples her fingers, the arches of her digits gothic and cavernous like the cold edifices erected in honour of the Unnamed God. “But you’ll squeal it all out, sooner or later; there is no doubt about it.”
“So,” Morrible restarts, “share with the class, Glinda dear. Where is the ALF base located?”
Glinda’s mouth opens—to maintain her claims to ignorance, or fabricate some credible lie, she doesn’t know—but her throat seems to have petrified, robbing her of voice. She truly doesn’t know where she had been held—she can hazard a clumsy guess, perhaps, but she doubts it will be the satisfying resolution Morrible craves. Unlike her previous question whose answer rests forever at the tip of her tongue—Elphaba, Elphaba, Elphaba—this one leaves Glinda unmoored, grasping at phantasms and conjectures.
Before she can emit even a noise, she sees Morrible’s imperative nod, perceives the placement of the dreaded fingers on her shoulder, and feels the eruption of excruciating palpitations along her limbs, tearing a scream from her.
She is jolted into silence again, but the pain rises, and rises, and rises until it pushes out a blubber of words. “I don’t know. I swear I don’t know where—” A sob tears itself from her.
“Liar.”
“I swear. I swear to Lurline I—”
Morrible wrinkles her nose in disgust. “I don’t want to hear your royalist drivel. Where were you held?”
Glinda frantically presses her eyes closed. Her mind seems dulled; it is slowed as if underwater, each thought and vision shadowed by stray incisive beams of light piercing from the cruel surface. She reaches blindly for something—anything which might make it stop, which might let her see clearly once more. “There were— Vats, dyeing vats,” she heaves.
“That’s not what I asked for.”
“It was a textile factory. An old textile factory with crenulated ceilings.”
“That’s better. But where, Glinda, where was it?”
“What? I…” Glinda chokes on her own spit. She tries to double over, but she is held in place, left to cough uselessly—large hacking coughs which rock her ailing body. She gasps for breath, but her throat, still clenched in pain, renders her attempt useless. She can’t feel the fingertips of her right hand. It would be a relief from the pain were it not for the crushing terror which overpowers everything else, it crashes into her with the absurd thought that she might never feel them again. She dives once more into the far reaches of her mind, fueled by desperation and the frenzied need for this to stop. Words and sounds and memories and dreams amalgamate into a viscous paste of impregnable information. She stutters, sodden mucus clogging her airways—she feels the need to spit it out, spit it all out so she can finally be done with this excruciating dance. “There was— I remember something about— Burntpork, it was in Burntpork—”
“No, it wasn’t. That was where you were found by the Force.”
An infuriated cry bursts out of Glinda. “I don’t know. I swear I don’t. Just stop.” She writhes in place, though she is barely aware of her surroundings, only tethered to this damp abominable place by Morrible’s taunting voice. “Please, just stop. Please—”
“You only have to answer this simple question, Glinda. It’s not that hard.”
There exists nothing more than that: the voice, the questions, the involuntary spasms that rack her body, and the pain—oh, the pain. She can feel the words—charged with more noise than meaning—crawl inside her skull, almost indistinguishable from her own disjointed thoughts. Phrases dash though her—chapel, arcade, factory—each singular volley cutting deep and drawing blood—Stoat, Fox, Badger—each bringing with it the harrowing realisation that this won’t be enough to make it stop. She just wants it all to stop.
“Elphaba.” It seeps out of her, languid like the first raindrop of a monsoon.
“What’s that?” Morrible asks, almost to herself. “What did she say?”
“Elphaba!” It bursts out despite herself, an unintentional torrent too passionate to be halted. “Elphaba!” It might be a muddled answer, or a call for help, or a prayer—Glinda herself doesn’t know—but its recitation is relentless, as if it is the only source of release possible. “Elphaba!”
“She’s incoherent,” Morrible sneers, leaning back on her chair disdainfully. “This is useless.”
“Should I cease, Madam?”
She throws her hands up discontentedly.
“Elphaba!” All ignore her.
Morrible scoffs. “Does it matter?”
“Elphaba!”
“What a useless—” She takes a deep breath. “Couldn’t even be bothered to croak out a location before descending into imbecility. Just shut her up. Oz.”
The sorcerer does as he is told. The agony—its drowning omnipresence and clinging effects—recedes like the waning crescent moon. Glinda takes a gasping breath, though her desperate inhales snag on each other in the hurry, each heave impeding the other. Her body races to revive itself—shifting and readjusting to try and find a sense of normality—but the process is nauseating, leaving her dumb in a dizzy haze.
The man’s hands retreat, and Glinda sags, slumping forward till her head hits the table. For a few lingering seconds—her chest convulsing with gasps and sobs—she notes the bracing coolness of the metal against her cheek damp with sweat, but before long, her eyes droop, her ears continue ringing, and darkness envelops her, lulled into unconsciousness by the constant sounds of the uncaring typewriter.