Down Among the Sticks and Bones

Part of Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series, this novella tells the origin story of twin sisters Jacqueline and Jillian Wolcott and the dark fairy-tale world that shaped them.

Chester and Serena Wolcott decide to have children not out of love but out of social ambition. They conceive twins and privately assume they will get one child of each sex. At a scheduled induction, Serena delivers Jacqueline first, followed by Jillian, a second girl. Both parents are devastated.

Unable to soothe the crying newborns, Chester calls his mother, Louise Wolcott, whom the twins will come to call Gemma Lou. She stays for five years, assuring the girls they are loved exactly as they are. As the twins grow, Chester and Serena distinguish them according to rigid expectations: Jillian, bolder and more physical, is cast as the tomboy-athlete; Jacqueline, quieter and more cautious, is cast as the little princess. Neither role reflects what the girls want. Jacqueline secretly longs to run and play freely, while Jillian wants to be seen as pretty. On the twins' fifth birthday, Chester and Serena dismiss Louise. Her disappearance teaches the twins that adults cannot be trusted.

Over the next seven years, the sisters grow into constrained versions of their imposed roles. Jacqueline learns that being pretty earns affection but not intellectual respect, and she develops a deep fear of getting dirty. Jillian learns that being a tomboy earns rejection from both girls and boys. The twins still share a room, but resentment and competition fill the space between them.

On a rainy day when they are twelve, Jillian persuades Jacqueline to sneak up to Gemma Lou's old locked room, a refuge they have visited secretly for years. Inside a trunk that once held dress-up clothes, they find a winding wooden staircase descending into darkness. Because their parents never allowed them fairy tales, neither girl recognizes the danger. Jacqueline decides to go down; Jillian follows. They descend hand in hand for hours, past tree roots and ancient bones. At the bottom, they find a pine door bearing a sign that reads "Be Sure." The door swings open on its own, and they step through onto a vast, flower-strewn moorland beneath an enormous red moon.

Both girls run freely through the flowers, briefly liberated. When they wake from sleeping in the undergrowth, they walk until they find a massive wall of sharpened tree trunks bound with iron. Jacqueline knocks; the gate opens to reveal a medieval courtyard. A man appears behind them: tall, deathly pale, with orange eyes and a very red mouth. He tells them that by the law of the Moors, the eerie twilight world they have entered, they are guests for three moonrises, during which no one will harm them or draw upon their blood.

At dinner, a second figure arrives: Dr. Bleak, a sturdy, scarred man who lives in a windmill on the moor. The two men reveal a standing arrangement to divide foundling children, travelers from other worlds, between them. The man, whom everyone calls "the Master," won the previous foundling and agreed that Dr. Bleak would receive the next. The Master wants to keep both twins, but Dr. Bleak offers a different life: hard work, no luxury, but honest teaching and safety.

That night, locked in a tower room, the twins argue. Jack, as Jacqueline now begins to think of herself, wants to go with Dr. Bleak; Jill wants to stay in the castle. Mary, a servant and former foundling who refused the Master's offer to become his vampire child, warns Jack that the Master prefers her. She urges Jack to go to Dr. Bleak to protect both Jack and Jill. Jack formally chooses Dr. Bleak. The Master threatens to kill her, but Dr. Bleak argues she is more useful alive as her sister's genetic mirror and insurance for Jill's survival. Left behind, Jill tells herself she chose the Master first and feels kinship with him as someone also always "selected second."

The sisters begin separate lives. In the castle, Jill is dressed in silk and fitted with a purple choker that Mary insists she always wear around others. At Dr. Bleak's windmill laboratory, Jack becomes a skilled apprentice, learning to assist in reanimation experiments. She develops a compulsive need for cleanliness, wearing gloves constantly, and grows strong and lean in men's clothing. Jill becomes the Master's prized protégée, walking the battlements in gossamer gowns. When both girls begin menstruating on the same day, their paths diverge: Jack develops a chemical solution to mask the smell of blood, crucial in a world of vampires, while the Master reveals his vampire teeth to Jill and promises to make her like him when she is old enough. Jill bares her throat in acceptance.

Jack assists Dr. Bleak in resurrecting Alexis, a village girl whose heart was stopped by a supernatural attack. They use lightning to restart her heart, and Jack and Alexis fall in love. Through Alexis's warmth, Jack relearns how to connect with others. Meanwhile, the Master kills any village children seen playing with Jill, jealously eliminating rivals for her attention. When Dr. Bleak sends Jack into the village for supplies, she sees firsthand how dangerous Jill has become: Jill mocks Alexis, threatens the villagers, and bullies merchants into submission.

On the fifth anniversary of their arrival, Jill, now seventeen, learns the Master will not transform her for several more months, until the bells of the Drowned Abbey ring for the change of seasons. Furious, Jill resolves to prove her ruthlessness by killing Alexis, a plan she believes will also set Jack on the "right path" and eliminate a rival for Jack's attention. She follows Alexis onto the open moor, approaches while Alexis mistakes her for Jack, draws a knife, and attacks.

Jack discovers Alexis's body and begins howling. Dr. Bleak arrives and offers to attempt a dangerous second resurrection. He sends Jack to follow the blood trail, and she tracks it to the village, where a mob has surrounded Jill. Mary announces that the Master has revoked his protection. Despite everything, Jack remembers Gemma Lou's words about looking out for each other. She grabs Jill's hand and pulls her across the moor.

At the windmill, Dr. Bleak explains that if the mob finds Jill, they will kill her, and the Master will burn the village in revenge. He reveals he has built a device to open a door between worlds. Jack is stunned they could have gone back anytime; Dr. Bleak replies that going back would not have been going home. He opens the door, revealing the familiar staircase, and instructs Jack to stay away for at least a year and not to bring Jill back alive. Jack promises to return and steps through, carrying her unconscious sister.

Halfway up the climb, Jill wakes and tries to fling herself back down the stairs. Jack restrains her and forces her upward. They emerge into Gemma Lou's room, and Jack notices the stairs below have vanished. The trunk slams shut; Jill frantically tears it open but finds only old clothes. No stairway, no door. Jack puts a hand on her sister's shoulder and says, "Come." The house feels alien after five years in the Moors. They walk downstairs and find their parents at the dining table with a small, well-groomed boy. Chester and Serena recognize their blood-covered daughters. The twins cling to each other and weep as rain pours down outside.