While part of me really wants Seanan McGuire to explore the structure of the universe that she's created with the 'Wayward Children' series, magnificently introduced in 'Every Heart a Doorway' and tantalisingly enhanced in 'Beneath the Sugar Sky', I can't say that I'm unhappy about how she has chosen to craft side stories instead. This fourth novella is focused on Lundy, who led the group therapy at Eleanor West's School for Wayward children in 'Every Heart a Doorway'. Given how her story arc runs, this has to be a prequel and it takes us back quite a way.

This series keeps connecting to me in bizarre ways and this one is no exception. Lundy's first name is Katherine and she doesn't have a great time of it as a six-year-old in the small town America of 1962 because she's her school principal's daughter and that sets her apart, so she dives into books instead. When my family moved from the south of England to the north as children, it was because my dad had taken the job as the headmaster of the village primary school. I was too old to attend at that point, but my sister was exactly the right age to spend a year not only at our dad's school but also in his class. I should have her read this, even though, unlike this Katherine, I remember a bunch of other kids showing up for her birthday parties.

While Sumi in 'Beneath the Sugar Sky' found her home, like so many other wayward children, in a high-chaos world, Katherine was only ever destined for a high-logic world, making this book quite a contrast to its predecessor. The first reason that makes it tasty is that high logic does not equate to easy. Sure, Lundy knows exactly where she stands as soon as she walks through the doorway in a tree to arrive at the Goblin Market. After all, the rules are published on signs in the corridor she's just walked through to get there. However, adhering absolutely to the rules can be tricky and this place has a way to address those who don't.

The rules seem relatively simple. 1. Ask for nothing. 2. Names have power. 3. Always give fair value. 4. Take what is offered and be grateful. 5. Remember the curfew. The first rule is easy enough as it transforms every interaction into a transaction with potential abuse countered by the third rule, a balance that's as much art as science. After all, this applies to information given as much as goods provided and fair value is relative. The same item could be worthless to one person but incredibly valuable to another. Lundy learns that when she buys twenty meat pies and twenty fruit pies for a price, trivial to her, of two pencils.

Fortunately for Lundy, she lucks into meeting Moon soon after arriving in this world, a young lady with unusually large orange eyes like those of an owl, who swiftly becomes her best friend. She's a bright child, Lundy, bright enough to follow Moon's advice to keep her mouth shut and follow her to see the Archivist, who can explain the rules with nuance enough without her falling into verbal traps and inadvertently incurring substantial debt. Because of rule two, she identifies herself as Lundy, at which point she learns that she isn't the first child with that name to find her way to the Goblin Market. Her father was here before her.

So far so good. Lundy and Moon make wonderful friends and they're both absolutely at home here at the Goblin Market, because that's how this universe works. It knows where children belong and opens doorways for them to find happiness somewhere that's more home than home. However, it's fair to say that this series exists because it can also be cruel and send them back again. That's why Eleanor West's school exists, for children who find themselves back in our world where they don't fit but unable to travel back to where they do.

In this instance, the rules are that children who travel to the Goblin Market can come and go freely until they turn eighteen, after which they must make a choice. And so, after glorious days in which Lundy and Moon embark upon grand adventures, she finds herself going back to her parents. After all, while they had defeated the wicked Wasp Queen for the safety of the pomegranate groves, the battle had left their friend Mockery, who we were never privileged to meet, dead on the ground, a trauma large enough for a six-year-old girl to want the comfort of family.

In our world, it had been a mere eight days since Katherine had mysteriously vanished, traumatic ones for Mr. & Mrs. Lundy, even if the former understood where she must have gone just as he has to know that she may not be back for good. These traumas build, of course, in ways that reminded me of the impeccable horror movie 'Absentia'. Losing someone is hard, especially without any sort of explanation, but for that person to miraculously return just as you might be finally adjusting to the fact that they're gone is brutal. Most cruel is when they vanish again, as Lundy soon does. She knows that she has to go home.

I won't delve much deeper than that into the synopsis because there's plenty more happiness and plenty more cruelty to come and you should explore that yourself. What I will say is that I enjoyed this more than any books in the 'Wayward Children's series after the first and it may well count as a better story, even if it doesn't have the benefit of serving to introduce us to something special. I haven't read Christina Rossetti's poem 'Goblin Market' in decades, perhaps since my own time at school, but I remember some of its fundamental themes. Setting a 'Wayward Children' novella in the Goblin Market is an inspired choice, one that allows McGuire to do much more than it initially seems.

In most ways, it's a fantasy story. The idea of doors opening to children to allow them to adventure the way they must is fantasy to begin with, but this setting provides a more traditional framework for a fantasy tale, one that's richly imagined for novella length. It's an easy way for her to expand her fictional universe by adding a very different world to the growing list of those visited by young people who are outsiders in their own worlds. The high-logic environment is likely just as relatable to many children, especially those on the spectrum, as the freedom of a high-chaos world like that in 'Beneath the Sugar Sky' might be for the most imaginative. I found it the closest yet to where I might end up.

And, of course, McGuire can look at deeper issues too. The Goblin Market is a counter to capitalism but not necessarily a solution. It blatantly tackles the inherent unfairness of modern day America by building an entire world on the concept of fair value. However, it isn't a utopian vision that says hey folks, let's just do this instead and we'll be golden. It may well solve some problems but it does not solve all of them and it introduces new ones that only be avoided by following the rules, which many would absolutely fail to do.

Less obviously, it tackles loss and it does so in blistering fashion from a variety of angles. It's there for Lundy and her family, of course, because the latter lose Lundy more than once in this book and in more than one way; but then she loses them too, which has a different resonance. The trigger for her to return the first time is loss too; cleverly, of a character we never meet so has no meaning to us but has all the meaning in the world to Lundy. There's also loss between Lundy and Moon each time the former leaves the Goblin Market. This loss means change too and it drives much of what happens there for both of them. The more we think about this book, the more loss becomes a key driving force for almost everything.

And the more I think about it, the more this one absolutely cements this series as special to me. I was blown away by 'Every Heart a Doorway', which may be the single book I've thought most about since reading it, because it has so much relevance to me. While I enjoyed 'Down Among the Sticks and Bones' and 'Beneath the Sugar Sky', they didn't have the same impact for me. However, 'In an Absent Dream' does, quickly and with increasing vehemence as it runs on. It's a very personal gem. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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