The Lion promised to come back and rule over the animals as soon as I was safely on my way to Kansas. So now I had two kings slumming it with me (although I suppose the Scarecrow was technically a mayor). We passed through the forest safely, and when we stepped out of its gloom we found ourselves at the bottom of a steep, rocky hill.

  “That will be a hard climb,” the Scarecrow said. “But we must get over the hill, nevertheless.”

  So we started climbing. We had barely made it to the first rock, however, when a rough voice called out from behind it.

  “Keep back!” A head peeked over the rock. “This hill belongs to us, and we don’t allow anyone to cross it.”

  “Oh, we’re crossing it,” I said. I had been a bit out of sorts since watching the Lion kill the giant spider. Part of me suspected that the incident put a cap on the “Oz as a metaphor for my troubled mental state” portion of the journey, or possibly even disproved the entire theory of it. But I was tired of trying to figure out what all of this was supposed to be on an existential level. And at that point I had approximately zero patience for weird-looking dudes behind rocks telling me where I could and couldn’t go.

  “But you shall not!” the man insisted, stepping out from behind his outcropping. And “weird-looking” didn’t even begin to describe him.

  He was short and stout and had a big, flat head supported by a thick, wrinkly neck. He also had no arms at all. Was this a Quadling? No, I seemed to remember Beard Soldier saying something about odd people who prevented travelers from crossing their land. This guy seemed to fit the bill.

  The Scarecrow, apparently, decided that he didn’t look like much of a threat. “I’m sorry not to do as you wish,” he said, “but we must pass over your hill whether you like it or not.” He took one step forward, and as quick as lightning the man’s head shot forward and his neck stretched out, hitting the Scarecrow like a battering ram and sending him tumbling back down the hill.

  The Hammer Head guy just chuckled, and a chorus of boisterous laughter came from behind the other rocks. Hundreds of the armless little shits popped their heads up, all over the hillside.

  The Lion roared and charged, but another head shot out, and he went rolling down the hill as if he’d been hit by a cannonball. The Tin Woodsman lifted his axe and tried to look threatening, but was hit in the gut by a head rocket before he could even take his first step, and went tumbling after.

  Fuck that. I turned around and made my way slowly down the hill to join them.

  We tried to find a pathway around the hill, but we were surrounded by rocks to the left and the right, and each one hid a sneering Hammer Head waiting to thwart our progress. There was no road open to us, except to the north, back into the forest.

  “Perhaps it’s time to call upon the Winged Monkeys,” the Tin Woodsman suggested. “You have still the right to command them once more.”

  Ugh. Was this the challenge I had been saving my final monkey wish for the entire time? Or was this the challenge I needed my second monkey wish for, the one I’d wasted on balloon sewing, and I still had another impossible task left to undertake? To make it all worse, I was acutely aware that if I used the monkeys to get to Glinda now, I could have just as well called them back in the Emerald City and saved myself two days’ worth of fucking hassle.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Of course, none of that was what I was really worried about. Would calling the monkeys mean I was giving up? Was it a signal to the book, or the coma, or the universe or whatever that I didn’t have the strength left to go on, or the wits left to figure this out, so fuck it, leave me stranded in Oz forever?

  I was starting to freak myself out again, so I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Forget about all the stupid theories. Forget about the book, the video game, the brainwashing, the coma, the madness. Forget it all. You’ve been transported to the magical land of Oz. You saw the Wizard, killed the Wicked Witch, missed your balloon ride, and Glinda is your last chance to get back home. Now you’re stuck at the bottom of this hill. What do you do?

  You call the stupid Flying Monkeys.

  I put on the cap, did the chant and the dance, and the sky immediately went dark with the silhouettes of winged primates. In a few moments the entire band stood before me.

  “What are your commands?” inquired the King of the Monkeys, bowing low.

  “You know,” I said, “I had hoped to use my final wish to set you free.”

  “I knew as much the moment I looked into your eyes,” he said. “All you must do to make it so is to command us never to obey the wearer of the Golden Cap again. Then we shall be free forever.”

  “Can I make, like, a deal with you? I set you free, and you promise to take me where I need to go, just as a favor?”

  “It would behoove me to agree,” the King said, “but Gayelette’s spell forbade us to ever lie to the Cap’s owner. Without the binding magic, the Winged Monkeys take orders from no one. We would just as soon leave you here to rot, and be on our way.”

  Nice. “Therefore, you must decide what you value more highly,” he continued. “Our freedom, or your own desire.”

  I looked him straight in the eyes. “Carry me and my friends to Glinda the Good Witch.”

  You know what? Fuck that guy and his guilt trip. I had offered him what I thought was a square deal, but he decided he needed to be shitty about it. I wasn’t the one who put the spell on them in the first place. And by my math, they had been commanded to do exactly six things in however many decades it had been since they were enchanted, and four of those were just in the last week. And they weren’t particularly difficult.

  The Winged Monkeys took the four of us, plus Toto, into their arms and flew us into the sky. It pissed off the Hammer Heads like crazy too—they yelled at us as we flew over, and shot their heads high into the air, hoping to knock us out of the monkeys’ grasp. We flew over the hill, and into a country of lush fields, well-paved roads, and rippling brooks with strong, stone bridges across them. Everything was painted bright red, because of course they all color-coordinated. This must be land of the Quadlings.

  They set us down at the gates of a big, handsome red castle. “This is the last time you can summon us,” the Monkey King said. “So goodbye and good luck to you.”

  “Goodbye,” I said. The monkeys rose into the air and flapped off toward the horizon. “And don’t let the clouds hit you in the ass on the way out.”