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WesternSFA


Be Sure
Wayward Children #1-3
by Seanan McGuire
Tordotcom, $19.99, 528pp
Published: July 2023

McGuire has been writing about her Wayward Children since 2016 but as the stories are all (so far as I know) novellas, it was an expensive proposition to buy each book.  But now, to delight everywhere, the first three stories have been put into a compilation. This book includes "Every Heart a Doorway", "Down Among the Sticks and Bones", and "Beneath the Sugar Sky".

When children don't fit where they were born, sometimes…just sometimes, that child finds a door - a door that always states:  Be Sure.  If they are, and they step through the door, they will be home; that place where one feels most comfortable, most understood.  And they can be happy forever.  But, sometimes - for one reason or another - they leave and return to their original home, such as it is.  And then they don't fit anymore.  Frustrated parents, unable to accept the changes or understand their child was never who they thought they were, often turn them over to the capable Eleanor West and her school for wayward children, with the empty promise that they would be cured, or fixed, or whatever the parent desired.   Eleanor, having been one of those children once, would never return a child to their parents, unless the child wanted it.  Eleanor's role, as she saw it, was to provide a sanctuary until such time as the child's door reappeared; if it ever does.

The first is our introduction to this charming and unique concept.  Nancy has appeared at the school, having spent several years as a living statue in the Halls of the Dead.  She had been happy, so happy, but the Lord of the Halls of the Dead must've had a reason for sending her back; only telling her that she had to Be Sure.  She thought she was.  Her new roommate is Suni; a veritable vibrating collection of odd ideas who came from a Nonsense world, Confection.  Apparently, she had become embroiled in a war with the Queen of Cakes and was exiled although there's a prophecy that she will return and overthrow the Queen. In the home is also Kade, a tailor and swordsman, who was once a girl; and his parents cannot understand why their girl didn't come home.  Also among the students are Jack and Jill - named Jacqueline and Jillian, with no irony intended.  Jack and Jill's parents were of those who thought they could define their children from birth; so Jack was the "pretty" one while Jill was the "tomboy".  And they never, ever understood how out of place they made their children.  Jack and Jill had entered an underworld type of place and their out-of-place childhood conditioning had rendered them unable to understand the other.  With options, each chose to be what they'd always envied; Jill got to wear the beautiful ball gowns and be pampered as the child of the vampire who lorded over the village.  Jack could have stayed and supported her sister but given an opportunity to learn the secrets of the world, she chose to apprentice to the local Mad Scientist.  Both were quite happy and never wished to leave but Jill harbored some very dark feelings towards her sister and what she felt she'd been cheated of in her childhood.  Those dark feelings caused her to strike out at her sister to hurt her and only ended up having herself outcast with the entire village out for her head. Jack discovered she still felt that she should protect her sister so they ran.  That's how they both ended up at Eleanor's school.

Now into this mix comes a murder most foul.  Sumi is the first with both her hands missing.  Lundy is next, missing her eyes.  And Jack, being the apprentice to a Mad Scientist and accustomed to assembling creatures from parts, is the logical suspect.  When they finally understand what is driving the depravity and the responsible person, it changes everything for Jack and Jill.

The second story "Down Among the Sticks and Bones" is a sort of prequel in that we learn exactly what kind of childhood Jack and Jill had and why.  And then we see their lives in the underworld and just why they were happier.  This was such a well-told story, that I could actually see the satisfaction and delight that Jack discovered even while living in a hovel of a windmill; and why Jillian so desperately craved a life of luxury and longed for the cost of it: to finally become a vampire. 

And the third tale, "Beneath the Sugar Sky" allows us to see Nancy's world where she was able to return to being a living statue in the Halls of the Dead; and to see the world of Confection, where Sumi came from.  A girl lands in the frog pond on school grounds and tells everyone that she is Sumi's daughter but that she just recently learned her mother died before giving birth to her so now she is slowly disappearing, a digit at a time. She begs the students to help her find and restore her mother so she can be born again and so her mother can fulfill the prophecy to overthrow the evil Queen of Cakes.

This was a wonderful imagining.  Kade and Christopher had buried Sumi's bones on school grounds but her shade and her heart didn't go with them.  The children will have to find both of those in order to return Sumi intact to Confection.  They resurrect the bones and take them to Nancy's Halls of the Dead, begging her to help them find Sumi's shade.  Once they have that, they must find her heart.  Her daughter, Rini, is convinced that her mother's heart would have returned to Confection.  But going to Confection will mean they have to face the dreaded Queen of Cakes.  This story really raised the bar on these stories.  The children, all coming from different points on the door's compass, are, in turn, enchanted or repulsed by these different worlds. 

Eleanor has defined some of the worlds using terms such as Logic, Reason, Nonsense, Virtue or Wicked and this is where McGuire's imagination really shines.  There's no way I could've imagined such strange places.  The children are strangely intolerant to each other's preferred worlds and that did make me wonder.  McGuire sets great store on showing different choices of sexual identity and the children are very tolerant of that; I would've thought that tolerance would have extended to their choice of worlds.

Given that these short novellas are a bit episodic, they do advance her world-building and the childrens' back stories.  I rather expect subsequent books to introduce more variations of worlds and more children.  They are quite a bit of fun to read.   ~~ Catherine Book

For more titles in this series click here
For more titles by Seanan McGuire click here

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