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YEAR ONE
Glinda is sure Elphaba is alive somewhere, in some form. Maybe the water did melt her physical body and her spirit is floating in the aether, sending her messages through the Grimmerie, looking for a way to return. Or maybe she pulled some sleight of hand and disappeared in a puff of smoke, only to turn up perfectly fine on the other end of some tunnel or trap door. She was her father’s daughter, after all.
Oz wants a celebration to mark the anniversary of the Wicked Witch’s death. Glinda absolutely does not want this. But. Somehow Elphaba’s death has been useful in ending the apartheid. Before Elphaba went rogue and began her campaign, there were rumors and whispers of Something Bad, and the Animals were doing everything they could to speak out and resist, but it was all buried. Most humans didn’t know anything about it. Glinda certainly didn’t. So it had been easy to let Oz draw the conclusion that the Wicked Witch was the one who had started all the fighting, and now that she was gone, there was peace between humans and Animals again just like always.
Glinda hates it to her very core. But she understands that this was exactly what Elphaba had foreseen. That this was what she had meant when she said Oz needed her to be wicked so Glinda could be good.
So she gives Oz their celebration. She makes an appearance with the Tin Man and the Lion, the only Witch Hunters left in Oz. Boq is Governor of Munchkinland now, leading the reintegration efforts there. She stands back and lets him tell the story as he remembers it. She’s never let him tell the whole story to her before. She couldn’t bear it. Some odd little things stand out to her. The Scarecrow’s insistence that he isn’t afraid of witches. The Scarecrow knowing exactly how to get to Kiamo Ko, the fastest way through the castle, and how to disable or reset all the traps. The Scarecrow carrying a pistol and being curiously adept with it.
Well after sunset, Glinda rides Feldspur to Munchkin City. The two of them quietly lay three lilies, two in the town square and one in a nearby cornfield.
YEAR TWO
Glinda wants a ceremony even less this year than she did the year before. But it’s what the people want. She gives a short speech from the Emerald Palace praising the reintegration work. She reframes the Yellow Brick Road, saying that if you follow the Road, it will always lead you home.
YEAR THREE
Glinda has tried to move on. There has been one attempt at another man and many attempts at other women. None of them have lasted long.
Everyone who works closely with Glinda has noticed how unhappy she is. They wonder if she's up for presiding over this year's anniversary celebration. Of course she is. She gives a very short speech, ending with the admonition that they can't let good just be a word, it has to mean something. She attributes the sentiment to an anonymous Someone She Loved.
YEAR FOUR
There have been rumors and whispers that, every year, Glinda lays a lily for Prince Fiyero, Governor Nessarose Thropp, and the Wicked Witch. At this year's anniversary celebration, she is pressed to address the rumors.
She tells them the rumors are true. That however imperfect these people were and whatever harm they had done to her and to others, it was no secret that they were people she had loved. She no longer masks her sorrow. She lets all of Oz see that this day is a day of mourning for her.
The people are enthralled with Glinda’s goodness, so pure and so strong that she could love two wicked witches and a traitor.
YEAR FIVE
Glinda’s professional success has continued in proportion to her personal decline. At this year's anniversary celebration, people remark on how only someone as good as Glinda could mourn the wicked as she does.
Glinda, ever closer to her breaking point, tells the crowd that she forgives them for driving out her dear friend with their hatred.
YEAR SIX
Oz has grown more and more concerned for Glinda, who sinks ever deeper in mourning. Her words about the Wicked Witch being destroyed by hatred have taken root. Was the Witch really, most sincerely dead? If hatred had driven her out, could love bring her back?
For their dearest Glinda’s sake, the people demand a posthumous pardon for the Wicked Witch of the West. Glinda acquiesces and announces the pardon at this year's anniversary celebration.
In Munchkin City’s town square, Glinda presides over the unveiling of a monument on the spot where she once burned the Wicked Witch in effigy. It's a statue of Elphaba as Glinda remembers her, carved from the green marble that adorns the Emerald Palace. Elphaba is mounted on her broom in flight. She is great and terrible, yet small and vulnerable. Most of all, she is beautiful.
A plaque on the base of the sculpture reads, Elphaba Thropp, child of two worlds, love of two lives.
In the light of day before the somber crowd, Glinda lays a lily at the foot of the monument.
YEAR SEVEN
Glinda holds this year's anniversary ceremony at Elphaba’s monument. This time when she lays a lily, hundreds of humans and Animals alike do the same. Even Boq, who's had a long time to consider the events that led to his transformation, comes forward to mourn his friend.
YEAR EIGHT
Ozians from every corner of the Four Countries come to Munchkin City to join Glinda in laying a lily on Elphaba’s grave. Everyone in the land is obsessulated with Glinda’s devotion, with the beautiful tragedy of the Good mourning the Wicked.
Why had anyone wanted to kill the Witch back then? Did anyone even remember? What had she even done that was so wicked? Surely it was nothing that Glinda’s goodness couldn't have overcome if their love had been given a chance to blossom.
YEAR NINE
At this year's ceremony, Glinda dares to share some of the ways her friendship with Elphaba changed her for the better. How it made her braver, how it opened her eyes to beauty in unexpected places, how it drove her to become the person everyone already believed she was.
People who knew Elphaba and finally feel safe saying so come forward to share their own stories. Dulcibear remembers her as a bright, brave child who would fight the whole world to defend her little sister. Dr. Dillamond remembers her as a kindly, idealistic young woman and his most promising student. Pfannee and ShenShen remember her as a lot of fun at parties and a fashion maverick.
Boq and the Lion admit she saved their lives.
YEAR TEN
It's the morning of the anniversary celebration. Glinda is in her penthouse, preparing to leave for Munchkinland. Out of nowhere, the glass in her balcony door cracks and shatters. For the first time in years, Glinda feels her face melt into a genuine smile.
YEAR FIFTEEN
Glinda has given up politics. She’s the Dean of the Sorcery Department at Shiz University now. Elphaba and Fiyero and their family have fully rejoined Ozian society, and Glinda is an inextricable part of their love again. No one can imagine Glinda without her Elphie. People hardly remember a time that Elphaba was known as the Wicked Witch. They vaguely remember that, for some reason, other people had thought she was wicked. They had always known better.
One of Glinda’s students in her sorcery seminar, a young Munchkin woman, remembers all of it. She was the child who asked Glinda all those years ago why wickedness happens, and her older sister had asked if it was true that Elphaba was Glinda’s friend. Glinda’s student reminds her of that day and asks why she didn’t tell Oz the whole story back then.
“Because you wouldn’t have believed me. You had to learn it for yourself.”