Hold It In
Chapter 1:
Elphaba stood outside of her father’s study trying to build the courage to go in. It wasn’t that she feared him. No. It was the way he looked at her, like her very presence sickened him. Like he hated even breathing the same air she breathed. That she looked similar to pictures of their mother but was otherwise so different and disgusting from the top of her braided hair to the tip of her green toes. She always left his presence feeling smaller and wishing she could disappear. So she usually avoided him and he her outside of the breakfast and dinner they had together with Nessarose. He’d keep her from them entirely if it weren’t for Nessa who liked to have her there to chat with. She always tried to sit at an angle to stay out of his direct line of sight.
But today she couldn’t do that. It was too important. Her nanny, Dulcibear was gone. She’d been the only comforting presence in the home since Elphaba was a baby, but now she hadn’t seen her in more than a week. She usually didn’t take long trips without saying goodbye to Elphaba so if anything happened to her…
Elphaba raised a shaking hand to shoulder height and knocked lightly on the solid wooden door.
“Come in,” Governor Thropp called absently.
Elphaba opened the door, her hands twirling together to keep busy and steady. She could tell when her father realized it was her as the solid heel of her boot rang out against the flooring. His shoulders stiffened and his pen froze over the document he’d been working on.
“Father…”
His mouth turned down at the corners. He hated when she called him that but she had no other name to call him by.
“Dulcibear… I haven’t seen her. Do you know where-”
“She’s gone and she’s not coming back!” he snapped. “Now get out of my office.”
Elphaba flinched, “Gone?”
“Gone. Like I wish you’d go.”
Her long nails pinched into the skin of her palms. “Did she say why she left or where she was going? She didn’t-” Her father wouldn’t care that she hadn’t been told goodbye so Elphaba clamped her mouth shut.
The governor slammed down his pen, ink spilling across his desk, his irritation with her growing.
Elphaba realized it had been pointless to come here and hurriedly backed out of the room, closing the door tightly behind herself. Her breaths were coming in short and tight as she tried to hold together her emotions. The last time she’d lost control she’d accidentally blown out a window, a maid who’d been passing by had ended up with numerous cuts along the left side of her face. She squeezed her eyes shut, counting back from ten. Then from ten again. The air around her seemed to tremble.
She ran outside to the garden, throwing herself beneath her favorite tree, the rough bark catching on the tattered ruffles of her black dress, always in need of mending due to plants grabbing at her as she roamed the small patch of woods around their home when she could no longer stand the solitude of her room but couldn’t bring herself to venture into town. She’d once gone to market by herself. It had been Dulcibear’s birthday and she’d wanted to get her a present.
The roots of the tree began to rise from the ground and Elphaba pushed the memory aside, wrapping her arms around herself and pressing her nails into her skin to ground herself. No moment existed but this one. No thoughts. No memories. Just the bite of pain and the soft earth losing the battle against her boots.
“Elphaba?”
The tender voice of her little sister made her look up. Nessarose was beautiful. Soft skin the color of autumn acorns and large eyes.
“Did you fight with dad again?”
Elphaba’s chin wobbled and she turned her face away.
Nessa pushed her chair closer though the job was made a little harder in the soft ground. “What’s wrong?”
“Dulcibear’s gone and I don’t think she’s coming back.”
“Yeah, dad fired her.”
“What?!” Elphaba’s head whipped around so fast that something cracked painfully in her neck.
“I was doing my homework in his study when he did it. He called her in and told her she no longer had a job here and had to leave right away.”
Elphaba lurched to her feet, “You didn’t tell me?” Leaves shivered on the tree and debris began to whirl around her ankles. Nessa shrank back.
“What does it matter? We have the rest of the staff looking after us. We’ll be fine.”
Elphaba’s heart felt like it was separating into small pieces in her chest leaving something very brittle behind.
“Did he say why he fired her?”
Nessa shrugged, clearly done with the topic and a spark of rage tried to fan itself to life within Elphaba. How could she not care? If not about Dulcibear, at least about how Elphaba would feel with her gone? But even as she thought it, Elphaba noted the small jeweled pins in her sister’s perfect shining dark curls and the perfect tailoring of her lacey white dress made from some of the finest fabrics to be found in Munchkinland.
Elphaba’s long nails tangled in the folds of her own dark rough dress and all the anger against her sister disappeared like smoke in the wind. Nessa didn’t care because Dulcibear didn’t mean anything to her and Elphaba was starting to wonder if she meant anything either. Nessa had father and the rest of the staff to pamper her. Elphaba had only had Dulcibear. The rest of the staff treated her like a ghost when they weren’t playing pranks on her outside of the governor's eyesight. Trying to see what all they could get away with. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d gone to put on her boots only to find rocks or sharp bits of shell in them.
Nessa’s hand on hers caused her to jump.
“Come on. I asked the cook to make a pie. It should be ready now. I love when they’re warm from the oven. It’s your favorite, blueberry.”
Elphaba didn’t particularly like blueberry but it was the sort of dessert served most because the governor and Nessa liked it. She couldn’t swallow past a lump in her throat remembering how Dulcibear had brought her fresh strawberries coated in cream for each of her birthdays. A strawberry for each year of her age. She wouldn’t get to expect fifteen strawberries for her next birthday.
“Actually-”
Nessa cut her off. “Come on, before it gets cool.” She whirled herself around not looking back as she expected Elphaba to follow as she always had. “And I can tell you about school today. There was a munchkin boy not much taller standing than I am sitting in this chair, His hair is a shade of red I’ve never seen before. He -”
Elphaba let the words whirl around her as she followed the torn trails in the grass the wheel’s of her sister’s chair made towards the kitchens at the back of the house before reaching the smooth patch the governor had installed around much of the property. Wherever you are, Dulcibear, I hope you’ll always be happy.
_
“University?!” Nessa squealed in excitement, completely abandoning her spoon to sink into her soup.
Governor Thropp smiled at her fondly while Ellphaba kept her eyes on the grain of the dining table.
“I’ve just received your acceptance letter from Shiz sweetheart,” the governor said, grasping Nessa’s small hand in his. “You start in the fall so we have plenty of time to get your uniforms made. My Nessa! Going to Shiz!”
Elphaba wondered what university would be like. She’d only attended classes sporadically, the teasing or being ignored being too much so she’d skip. The teachers hadn’t been much better than the students. Dulcibear had been her main teacher before she’d gone so Elphaba had done as much learning as she could with their home library. She probably wouldn’t do well at university.
“I’m going to Shiz! Can you believe it Elphaba?!”
Only half of Elphaba’s mouth could seem to smile these days. “I’m happy for you.”
“You’ll come to see me off won’t you?”
She mustered up a full grin for her little sister. “Of course.”
Elphaba envisioned going to the train station and being surrounded by other families dropping off their child, avoiding looking in their direction. That imagining had been bad enough. When the day finally came around months later and she had to first deal with the stares on the way to the dock, then the crew that ferried them to the university, then Nessa’s future classmates gasping and shrinking away from her once they docked, she was a few seconds away from having a meltdown.
She stomped through the crowd, running her long nails through her braid to try to soothe herself before the curse inside her lashed out at the widened eyes around her. Elphaba was so overwhelmed she got turned around. Rather than heading back to the relative solitude of the boat, she ended up deeper in the crowd. Her breathing was shallow and fast. Please. I don’t want to hurt anyone else. Please.
“Ah!”
The high pitched scream caused her to focus to snap to a pink and blue wrapped blonde figure.
“What?!”
Brown eyes that reminded her of the chubby little squirrels occupying her favorite tree scanned her from head to toe. “You’re green?” Confusion. Observation. Shock.
“I am?” She examined her own hands. Despair nearly swallowing her as she tried not to panic. Always… Always… Her face settled into a smirk as she looked at the blonde. Always…
“I’m so sorry you’ve had to deal with this your whole life.” The blonde girl spoke to the crowd. “I intend to major in sorcery,” her attention came back to Elphaba, her smile almost blinding, “So I can help with problems like these.”
She could tell the girl felt proud of herself. That she was waiting for Elphaba to thank her. Elphaba wanted to pull all the little blond hairs from that perfect head so that she wouldn’t be the only one standing in the crowd with a ‘problem’. She clamped down on the thought. On the anger.
“Offering to help someone you don’t know with powers you don’t have… I’m sure everyone is impressed.”
The blonde girl tossed her silken hair. “I could care less what anyone thinks.”
“Couldn’t,” Elphaba accidentally corrected as Dulcibear had corrected her so many times when she was young. Her heart was sore and she just wanted this moment to end. “Couldn’t care less, but I doubt that.”
Relief swept over Elphaba as her sister was wheeled into view by their father. “Here’s my little sister Nessarose,” she said as she hurried to her sister’s side. “She’s a perfectly acceptable color.”
“Elphaba Thropp! Stop making a spectacle of yourself!”
Elphaba shrank back, her hands twisting together. Always…
Her mother’s jeweled shoes being passed to her sister, her father’s back to her as it often was. The rocks of the Shiz courtyard shifted beneath her feet. Sharp reflections of light from the lake pricked at her eyes. Surely it was that making her eyes sting.
“Go with her.”
Her head shaped up and she realized she’d lost track of time. Her sister was across the courtyard chatting with other students.
“What?”
“Make sure she has everything she needs.”
“She’s on her own now,” Elphaba protested, knowing that even though her sister had wanted Elphaba to see her off, she was also glad to be away from her. The reputation of having the green sister had not earned Nessa many friends though being the governor's daughter had gotten her a few.
“Stop jabbering! If anything happens to her…”
His worry hung in the air like the scent of rotten fish. His first daughter was born green and a blight on his life, his second daughter in a wheelchair because of her existence and his beautiful wife...dead. A fresh scar opened on Elphaba’s hand as she nodded and turned to do what he asked.