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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 scrambling 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.
    “You can come back and get it later,” he said.
    “She’ll never find it, ever,” said Dorothy. She squished mud between her toes. Wilbur’s hand reached back for her.
    “What have you got on?”