Synopsis
Oatsie Manglehand, a woman who leads the Grasstrail Train, discovers the body of a young man, badly bruised and near death, by the side of a road in the Vinkus. The Vinkus has lately become dangerous due to "scrapings", mysterious killings that involve the removal of the head's facial features, but this man's face has not been scraped. Oatsie brings the man to the Cloister of Saint Glinda in the Shale Shallows. The Superior Maunt recognizes the young man and identifies him as Liir, the young boy who left the Cloister with Elphaba a decade or so ago.
The narrative is not chronological for the first part of the book: in the first two sections ("Under the Jackal Moon" and "The Service") the narrative shifts between the time when Liir left Kiamo Ko after the death of Elphaba to the time when Candle and Liir leave the Cloister. The second two sections ("The Emperor Apostle" and "No Place Like It") tell the story chronologically from Candle and Liir's arrival at Apple Press Farm to the end. An explanation for this narrative structure in the first part of the book is provided by references that Candle, in playing the domingon while Liir is in his coma-like state, is "guiding" him through his recollection of his past, and to the numerous and complex references in the novel to connections between past and present in the lives of individuals.
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