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Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Wayward Children #2
by Seanan McGuire
Tordotcom, $17.99, 192pp
Published: June 2017

I've enjoyed everything that I've read by Seanan McGuire, our upcoming Author Guest of Honor at CoKoCon 2023, and I've read a lot. Some of it has completely blown me away and the most recently that's happened was last month with 'Every Heart a Doorway', the first novella in her multi-award winning 'Wayward Children' series. It told a pretty simple story with a pretty basic mystery poured into it, but the depth behind that simplicity was mind-boggling and I can't remember a book that's as good as examining what it means when people look at you and see someone else.

This book is based on the same mindset, but it focuses in greatly to recount the back story of a pair of characters from 'Every Heart a Doorway', Jack and Jill. As such, it doesn't seem like it's close to being as deep, but there are hidden depths here too and, like the first book, it resonates when we think about it, so that new angles pop up out of nowhere when we're least expecting them, at odd moments in the day, long after we turned the last page.

Jack and Jill were born to Chester and Serena, who brought about their conception for a variety of inappropriate reasons and none of the appropriate ones. Chester wants a son because his law firm partners have them. Serena wants a daughter because her social acquaintances have them. They'd feel more like their vision of what should be if they filled the child shaped gaps in their lives. These children would bring welcome attention to their parents and they would function as smaller, junior versions of themselves.

Which, of course, isn't what happened. For a start, they have twins. And both are girls. They're not really Jack and Jill, to their parents. They're Jacqueline and Jillian. "No daughter of mine", states Chester to the nurse, "will go by something as base and undignified as a nickname." For another, it doesn't occur to Jack to actually be the princess that her mother expects Jacqueline to be, though she's willing to play along. And it doesn't occur to Jill to actually serve as the boy that her father is adamant she'll pretend to be, though she's willing to play along.

Well, kids always play along when they're told what to do and what to be by the primary authority figures in their lives. For a while, anyway. They do what they've learned and that's that. One of the most blistering lines in this novella is this one: "They didn't know how to make it stop," even with a sympathetic ear in Louise, Chester's mother, who moves in when the new parents prove that they have no conception of what a baby is, let alone how to deal with two of them, and doesn't leave for five years, until Chester decides that the girls are under control and they don't need her any more.

Fast forward to the day when the door appears. It's storming out so the twins are in their room, as bored as only kids can be. They decide to explore the huge house they live in and end up in Louise's room, or Gemma Lou, as they called her before mum explained that she'd left because she didn't love them any more. When they see what's left in her room, they learn that was a lie, and they spend a while playing in the steamer trunk of dress-up clothes and accoutrmenets that was clearly meant for them when they were old enough to play in that way.

And then the trunk is empty and there's a winding staircase leading downwards and they follow it all the way until they're somewhere else. And, of course, once they get there, they can't go back.

As we learned in 'Every Heart a Doorway', where we got part of this story, it's a dark place, in both typical meanings of that world. They arrive on the moor under a moon that's red and too close and they find the wall and are led through the silent town by the man who takes them to the castle. He will give them three days and nights as his guests, during which time they won't be harmed, hexed or drained of blood, before they'll then be treated just like anyone else.

That's just the first wake-up call they receive but it's enough time to make the choice they'll each have to make. You see, as we know from the first book, there are a lot of children who go through doorways and find themselves somewhere else. It's happened here before and an agreement was put into place between the Master and Dr. Bleak to state that the latter would have whoever was next through the door to the moor. But there are two twins and a decision will have to be made. It means that the girls must separate, one to stay with the Master and one to go with Dr. Bleak.

And that's how Jack becomes the clinical scientist that we met in 'Every Heart a Doorway', half a hard-working Igor and half a Dr. Frankenstein in training, working for Dr. Bleak the resurrectionist in his windmill laboratory. And that's how Jill becomes the precise and very dark young lady with a certain outlook on life and death that we met in 'Every Heart a Doorway', Dracula's daughter but in name. So much we kinda sorta knew from that first book, fleshed out considerably and given an important context. Then the new story begins.

I liked this a lot and it's resonated with me a good deal too. When I gave my eldest granddaughter a copy of the first novella, I gave her this one too. I don't know what she thinks of them yet but I'm sure that she'll see a lot of personal meaning in them. It's fair to say that I didn't like it as much as the first book or as deeply, but then it is what it is. It's a back story to flesh out a pair of characters we've already met, rather than a groundbreaking beginning to a series. It was never going to have the same punch, even if it came first, and that doesn't affect how damn good this is and how deep it reaches in its affirmation that only you can know who you truly are.

There are currently eight novellas, plus a few short stories, in the 'Wayward Children' series. I may dive into the third in March but I'm probably going to shift sideways to one of the other series that I need to catch up with. Either way, I'm looking forward to whichever Seanan McGuire I read next, a given nowadays. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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

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