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“Who could have left that door open?” Nessa poses the rhetorical question.
Elphaba answers anyway, “I did.” The mirror through which she can see her sister cracks with the loss of control in her magic.
Seeing her sister again for the first time in years leaves Elphaba startled, her emotions going haywire and her magic following in its path. She freezes at the sight of the bags beneath her eyes, the tension in her shoulders, the shock in her eyes at her sudden appearance. Her little sister, grown so very old and weary in her absence. (She appears the spitting image of their mother. Gone, gone, gone. Her fault.)
Nessa turns away from the mirror first, moving back inside the study proper. The door left open and forgotten as a cold breeze blows past them. Elphaba takes careful steps towards her, hesitant to approach with Nessa avoiding her gaze altogether.
“It’s so good to see you,” Elphaba tells her wistfully.
“Why are you here?” Nessa asks her tiredly, ignoring her words. Elphaba swallows down those same feelings of being unwanted that have haunted her entire life within these walls.
She gathers her thoughts and focuses on the important matters at hand. There is no time for sentimentality. She strides towards her and kneels at her feet, taking her hand in hers, “I’ve tried to keep you out of all of this, but I need you.” (More than you know, I need my sister by my side. She squeezes her hand more securely, remembering the comfort Nessa used to draw from her touch when they were young. But this time the contact is for her. It has been so long since she has felt another person’s touch.)
“I thought you might have come to apologize,” Nessa replies sternly, looking down on her with eyes burning full of judgment.
“Apologize?” Elphaba recoils, aghast at the audacity of the response. (What ought she to apologize for? Are they not both to blame for this estrangement? Nessa has not reached out to her either over these long years.)
Nessa snatches her hand away from Elphaba’s grip and she curls her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms. Her skin burns where her touch has left an imprint. Nessa turns her chair away, avoiding Elphaba’s eyes as she gives her a lecture in that same pedantic tone their father would always employ for her, “Our father died of shame and you didn’t even bother to show up. You might at least pretend to be sorry.”
The tone and the memory of his words make Elphaba flinch more than the actual sentiment of her words. She tries to cover up the moment of weakness, not allowing Nessa to believe for even a clock-tick that she feels guilt over missing their father’s funeral. She has run dry of any tears for those that don’t deserve her grief. Elphaba takes in a steadying breath, scrambling to get up from the floor so she can follow Nessa. She needs to catch her eye, to make her understand. (Where is that sweet girl she took care of so long ago?)
“For what? He hated me,” Elphaba retorts with her own anger barely restrained.
“That’s a wicked thing to say,” Nessa argues vehemently, emphasizing the term that has haunted Elphaba for years now. She has really come to loathe the very syllables that make it up. (She is trying to do what is right, what is just. Why is everybody else so blind to the truth?)
“No, it’s not,” Elphaba holds fast to her stance, adding more calmly, “It’s just the truth. Do you know why?”
“What does it matter now?” Nessa dismisses her words, turning her back to her again. Elphaba wants to yell at her. Look at me, don’t turn away from me like everybody else has always done. She stops herself even as hurt roars to life in her heart at that stinging reminder.
“You’re right,” Elphaba says even as it pains her to let this go, “It doesn’t matter.” (She remembers kind brown eyes absolving her of guilt after she told her the truth about her father’s hatred, her deepest darkest secret. Glinda made her feel like she mattered… Oh how Elphaba misses her, but she has made her choice.)
She rips off the hat that feels like a glaring reminder of that bond and places it on the couch next to the Grimmerie tucked away in her bag. (Her most prized possessions.) Elphaba swallows and returns to the task at hand. She needs support if she is to help the Animals in their plight and oust the Wizard from power.
Elphaba paces back over to Nessa, “Because it’s just us. You’re the Governor. People will listen to you and together we–” (Think of what we could do together, different words said to another person at another time. Will the memory of her ever leave her alone?)
Nessa cuts off her words and her thoughts, “Why should I help you?” The question is less of a question than it is a statement spit at her with cold hatred and derision. Nessa rants at her, “You fly around Oz with that book helping Animals you’ve never even met. And not once have you ever thought to use your powers to help me.” (So perhaps not hatred after all, just hurt.)
“You never wanted my help!” Elphaba yells back at her, indignant at the accusation of her supposed neglect. She remembers her sister’s insistence that she wanted independence, to be left to handle everything on her own. (How dare she throw this back in her face now? How could Elphaba have known? Doubt creeps in.)
“I do now!” Nessa admits, almost desperately hopeful. The admission quiets both of them, their harsh words petering off into silence. She looks away from Elphaba, brown eyes covered by a sheen of tears. (How could Elphaba have missed this?)
“I want to go back to the way we were at school,” Nessa confesses, “That night when Boq told me I was beautiful. The first time I ever wore these shoes. It was music.”
(Her smile and expression of hopeful joy make her appear like that young girl again. It takes Elphaba’s breath away, remembering the signs of aging and stress in her own visage she sees every morning she looks in the mirror.
Elphaba reminisces on her own time at Shiz. Warm afternoons in the poppy fields with an even warmer presence pressed to her side. Long study sessions in the library that glows with sunlight in her mind, sessions that only took so long because of her chatter. Sparkling nights at the Ozdust, as she was pulled through the crowd by a hand, their fingers intertwined. Sleepovers filled with laughter. In all of her memories of Shiz, there is always a bright golden presence stuck in her periphery.
She longs just the same for this time Nessa describes. But she has to focus on their present options. What use is it to get lost in wishful thinking? What use are daydreams of her?)
She is shaken out of her reverie by Nessa’s most wistful truth, the one that had struck Elphaba just the same, “And everything was still possible.”
Nessa takes a deep breath as she turns towards the memorabilia gathered on the small table to the side. “That night at the Ozdust, Boq danced with me there and it felt like he loved me then. That night when I felt I was floating on air. I want to feel that again,” Nessa relives those memories with a faraway look in her eyes before turning to Elphaba suddenly desperate and demanding, “Make me feel that again!”
Brown eyes turn towards her, deeply despairing. It makes Elphaba want to act, to help her little sister as she has done her entire life. (As has been expected of her, her heart adds bitterly.) But even if she wished to help, she does not know how she could possibly make that feeling of love and joy return to her. (She herself has been chasing that feeling for years, having left part of her heart behind on that balcony in the Emerald City.)
“Nessa, I wish there was something I could do, but–” Elphaba is interrupted by the Grimmerie slipping from her bag and flipping open to show her a spell. As she is wont to do, Elphaba follows where the book leads her. She strides over determinedly and begins casting the spell without even trying to decipher what it is for. Guided by some trance, the magic dances through her veins in a way that feels addicting.
“What are you doing?” Nessa asks from behind her, but Elphaba is too caught up in her spell to reply. “Ow, my shoes. They feel like they’re on fire!”
The spell ends suddenly, releasing Elphaba from its grasp like a puppet with its strings cut. Her head whips towards the movement visible out of the corner of her eye. Green eyes widen seeing Nessa floating through the air joyfully, just like she wished. (Elphaba feels warmth swelling in her chest, the same feeling of pride she would get when Madame Morrible used to compliment her progress in their magic seminar. She shakes the thought of the damnable woman out of her head to focus on Nessa again.)
“I’m floating on air,” Nessa exclaims with giggles pouring from her throat in excess.
“Oh Nessa, at last,” Elphaba lets out a sigh of relief, “I’d always been unsure I could, but finally from these powers something good.” (Finally a spell that has not gone awry, a spell that has done some good.)
Nessa beams at her, “Thank you, Elphaba!” (She feels like she herself could start levitating at the sound of those words alone. Nessa’s gratitude is like a balm to Elphaba’s soul.)
Her joy is contagious in its magnitude as a smile appears on her face to match Nessa’s. It is wiped away by the sound of Boq’s voice calling for Nessa through the door. (Nobody can know she is here, it isn’t safe. Alarms go off in her head, but she can’t abandon her sister now. Not when she is mending what has been broken between them.)
“He called me Nessa, it’s working,” Nessa tells her overjoyed, completely unaware of the danger that Elphaba’s presence could pose for her reign.
“Nessa, there’s something I have to tell you,” Boq says as he bursts through the door full of determination. He stops in his tracks upon seeing Nessa flying above the ground.
“Look,” Nessa’s elation is not dampened by the sudden interruption.
Boq becomes suddenly aware of Elphaba’s presence in the room as he points at her and exclaims, “You.” He takes a step back in his shock.
“Boq,” Elphaba replies simply, kindly. He was her friend after all, before.
“Stay back!” He calls out as he recoils from her, which makes Elphaba flinch in turn. (Is she doomed to people’s fear of her? Do none of them remember who she used to be? Not even her friends and family?)
She tries to reason with him, “It’s just me, I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Nessa comes to her defense, “Boq, don’t be afraid. Elphaba just came to lift my spirits.” (Her support warms Elphaba’s heart.)
“You did this to make her happy?” Boq asks, full of surprise. Elphaba just nods.
“I know now anything is possible for both of us,” Nessa speaks to him, which draws his attention back to her.
“Nessa,” Boq begins, pausing to swallow thickly before forging on, “Surely now I’ll matter less to you and you won’t mind my leaving here tonight.”
“Leaving?” Nessa inquires, appalled at the very notion.
“The moment when I read Glinda’s going to be wed to Fiyero,” Boq continues. Elphaba’s head whips towards him at the words. (Glinda marrying Fiyero… She feels a sudden stabbing pain near her sternum.)
“Glinda?” Nessa pronounces her name like it is the most disgustifying thing she has ever said. It makes Elphaba dig her nails harder into her palm.
“Yes, Nessa, that’s right,” Boq answers somehow oblivious to Nessa’s cold tone, “And I’ve got to go appeal to her, express the way I feel to her.” (As if that will matter, Elphaba wants to scoff at him, at his presumption of Glinda’s affections. She remembers the girl’s absolute disregard for the boy and she can’t imagine that has changed for the man that now stands before her. Why must he hold on to some youthful infatuation? Elphaba decidedly ignores the irony.)
She turns back to Elphaba as she sees her slowly begin to float down to her chair again, her dejection plain as day on her face. (She wants to tell Boq to be quiet.)
And yet he soldiers on, “Nessa, I lost my heart to Glinda the moment I first saw her.”
“Lost your heart? We’ll see about that,” Nessa retorts ominously.
Elphaba shakes her head stepping between them to try to diffuse the situation, “Let him go.” (It won’t matter if he goes or if he stays, he is lost to her anyway.)
“Don’t come any closer,” Boq yells at her as he hisses at both of them, gesturing wildly, “You and your sister, she is as wicked as you are. Keeping me here like a prisoner.”
Elphaba wishes she could shake him, these words are not helping his case. (Why can’t he accept her assistance? She is trying to help him, trying to help everybody and where does it get her? Alone and reviled.)
It takes her a clock-tick to register his final words, prisoner? She asks him, hoping it is not as she fears that her sister has lost her way completely, “What are you talking about?”
“I am talking about my life!” Boq yells out of pure frustration, before adding in a whimper, “The little that’s left of it.”
“You’re going to lose your heart to me, I tell you,” Nessa commands him as if anybody has prerogative over another’s feelings, “I have to, I have to. A magic spell here, there must be a magic spell in here to capture your heart.”
Nessa wheels over to the Grimmerie and flips some of the pages. Elphaba is so startled by the turn of events, the revelation of Nessa’s horrendible actions, that she doesn’t interfere on time. She calls out to her, “Nessa, no that’s dangerous!” But it is too late, when Nessa begins casting the spell. (Does some part of her blood call towards that book the same way it does to Elphaba?)
“What is she doing?” Boq asks, but Elphaba has no time to answer him.
“Stop, Nessa!” Elphaba rushes over to her and pulls at her sister’s shoulder trying to get her to stop, “You’re pronouncing the words all wrong.”
“What is she saying?” Boq asks again before making up his mind to get out of dodge, “I’m going.” Elphaba sees him turn away only to freeze in place suddenly as Nessa keeps using magic she cannot begin to comprehend. He doubles over as noises of pain spill from his lips. Only his pained cries pull Nessa out of her daze, fear evident in her voice, “Boq, what is it?”
“Ow, my heart, it feels like it’s shrinking,” Boq stutters out as he collapses to his knees clutching his chest.
“Do something,” Nessa pleads with her. She sounds suddenly so reminiscent of that scared little girl that Elphaba would help through her nightmares. (But this nightmare is all too real.)
“I can’t. A spell from the Grimmerie can never be reversed,” Elphaba echoes Morrible’s words that haunt her together with the Monkeys’ distressed screeching.
“Boq!” Nessa cries out in anguish before turning the blame back on Elphaba, “This is all your fault if you hadn’t come here…” (Elphaba is used to it by now, resigned always to shoulder the blame. She wishes she could fly away, leaving Nessa to her mistakes. But she stays, because Boq used to be her friend and he does not deserve to die like this. If there is anything she can do, she must. A bitter pill to swallow, but she does it all the same.)
She sighs, “I have to find another spell. It’s the only thing that might work. Go now! Go!” Elphaba ushers her sister out of the room. She needs her safely out of harm's way in case the magic decides to go awry again. (She could never forgive herself if Nessa were to get hurt, because of her.) She slams the door shut behind her before turning back to the Grimmerie.
Desperately she begs it for help and it flips open to a new page. Elphaba begins casting the spell, hearing Boq stumbling around as he grapples with the magic that is winding itself around him. She sees the tin items scattered around the room begin to stick to him as his body is transformed into something else. A way for him to survive without his heart that keeps his spirit intact. His cries of pain fade away as he loses consciousness. She feels that familiar horror at the damage that magic can do.
Elphaba quickly gathers her stuff and leaves the room with the knowledge that he will live. (If this can be called living at all. She repeats to herself that she did what she could.) Now she needs to get out, she has already overstayed her welcome. Too much noise will soon draw the staff of Colwen Grounds to them, before that happens she needs to get out.
She steps out into the hallway to find Nessa waiting for her. Elphaba answers her unspoken question, “He’s sleeping now.”
“What about his heart?” Nessa implores, hoping against hope that her mistake could be fixed.
Elphaba tries to shield her as she has always done, avoiding the horrendible display she just left behind, “It’s alright. He won’t need one now.” (Cold dread grips her by the throat, such great power with such terrifying consequences. This magic should not be wielded by any of them.)
Nessa is at a loss for words, perplexed at this new reality where she has lost the one she loved anyway, the one that didn’t love her in return. (We can’t all get what we want, Elphaba keeps the snide words locked behind her teeth.)
“The wedding,” Elphaba mumbles absently to herself as she begins to walk past Nessa. She has to get there in time, her eyes already drifting towards the sunroof.
“Where are you going?” Nessa demands her attention.
“All the most influential people in Oz will be there,” Elphaba replies, “It’s the perfect opportunity to show them all the truth about the Wizard.”
“Oh please, stop lying to yourself,” Nessa throws her explanation back with cutting words.
For a moment Elphaba thinks she will call her out on her hidden motives for going to the wedding. Her need to see those brown eyes again. (Perhaps to stop the wedd–, she shuts that thought down.)
“You’re going there to find Fiyero, but it’s too late,” Nessa throws out the words, aiming to hurt her the way she is hurting. Jealousy underlying her motives in an obvious gambit to tear Elphaba down.
Her words do not have the desired effect. Fiyero’s name catches her by surprise when her mind is occupied with the vision of golden curls and dark brown orbs that hold all the twinkling stars in the universe. (Elphaba tries to brush past Nessa’s words, it is better to lie to her than for her to know her most closely guarded secret. For her to admit that this half-baked excuse for political action is but a thin veneer to cover up her true desires. Namely that she is really going there to seek out the only person who has ever believed in her in the hope that she still does. Elphaba remembers seeing the posters of Glinda the Good, reading her pretty speeches filled with drivel in the papers. Does she believe everything she is saying about wickedness, about her? It makes her wonder if the person she loved is still in there, just hidden by layers and layers of this facade.)
“Nessa, I have done everything I could for you and it hasn’t been enough,” (I have never been enough for you.) “Nothing ever will be,” Elphaba sighs with resignation, looking at her sister with sorrow for what they could never have. Silence reigns between them as they stare at each other across this cavern of old wounds and ancient grievances, none of which ever healed right if they healed at all. Festering, more like.
“Elphaba, don’t leave me!” Her little sister calls out for her desperately, wretched in her impending loneliness. Elphaba almost gives in to that call which she has answered all her life. But enough is enough, for once she must choose herself.
“Goodbye, Nessa. I’m off to see the Wizard,” Elphaba tells her matter-of-factly. She turns away from her and flies off in a blur of movement using her broom to take off through the sunroof above her. It takes her far far away from her childhood home with all its horrid and beautiful memories left behind.
Perhaps once they have both had time to compose themselves, they can begin to heal this newest rift, Elphaba thinks to herself as she turns towards the Emerald City. The wind whipping past her face feels cold and cuts against her cheeks, drying the tears as they fall from her eyes.
(Except they never got the chance to try again. It would be the last time they saw each other.)
When she learns later of Nessa’s death, Elphaba feels numb. Their last words were spoken in anger. Was any of it ever going to turn out differently for them? Cursed and doomed they were, the Thropp sisters, from the moment they both drew breath. (I’m sorry, Nessa.)