Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children #2)(14)

The lining of his cloak was the same red color as his mouth, and his suit was as black as his hair, and he held himself so perfectly still that he didn’t seem human.

“Please, sir, we didn’t mean to go anywhere we aren’t supposed to be,” said Jillian, who had, after all, spent years pretending she knew how to be brave. She tried so hard that sometimes she forgot that she was lying. “We thought we were still in our house.”

The man tilted his head, like he was looking at a very interesting bug, and asked, “Does your house normally include an entire world? It must be quite large. You must spend a great deal of time dusting.”

“There was a door,” said Jacqueline, coming to her sister’s defense.

“Was there? And was there, by any chance, a sign on the door? An instruction, perhaps?”

“It said … it said ‘be sure,’” said Jacqueline.

“Mmm.” The man inclined his head. It wasn’t a nod; more a form of acknowledgment that someone else had spoken. “And were you?”

“Were we what?” asked Jillian.

“Sure,” he said.

The girls stepped a little closer together, suddenly cold. They were tired and they were hungry and their feet hurt, and nothing this man said was making any sense.

“No,” they said, in unison.

The man actually smiled. “Thank you,” he said, and his voice was not unkind.

Maybe that was what gave Jillian the courage to ask, “For what?”

“For not lying to me,” he said. “What are your names?”

“Jacqueline,” said Jacqueline, and “Jillian,” said Jillian, and the man, who had seen his share of children come walking through those hills, come knocking at those gates, smiled.

“Jack and Jill came down the hill,” he said. “You must be hungry. Come with me.”

The girls exchanged a look, uneasy, although they could not have said why. But they were only twelve, and the habits of obedience were strong in them.

“All right,” they said, and when he walked through the gates into the empty square, they followed him, and the gates swung shut behind them, shutting out the scrubland. They could not shut out the disapproving red eye of the moon, which watched, and judged, and said nothing.





5

THE ROLES WE CHOOSE OURSELVES

THE MAN LED THEM through the silent town beyond the wall. Jill kept her eyes on him as she walked, trusting that if anything were to happen, it would begin with the only person they had seen since climbing into the bottom of their grandmother’s trunk. Jack, who was more used to silence, and stillness, and found it less distracting, watched the windows. She saw the flicker of candles as they were moved hastily out of view; she saw the curtains sway, as if they had just been released by an unseen hand.

They were not alone there, and the people they shared the evening with were all in hiding. But why? Surely two little girls and a man who wore a cape couldn’t be that frightening. And she was hungry, and cold, and tired, and so she kept her mouth closed and followed along until they came to a barred iron door in a gray stone wall. The man turned to look at them, his expression grave.

“This is your first night in the Moors, and the law says I must extend to you the hospitality of my home for the duration of three moonrises,” he said solemnly. “During that time, you will be as safe under my roof as I am. No one will harm you. No one will hex you. No one will draw upon your blood. When that time is done, you will be subject to the laws of this land, and will pay for what you take as would anyone. Do you understand?”

“What?” said Jill.

“No,” said Jack. “That doesn’t … What do you mean, ‘draw upon our blood’? Why would you be doing anything with our blood?”

“What?” said Jill.

“We’re not even going to be here in three days. We just need to find a door, and then we’re going to go home. Our parents are worried about us.” It was the first lie Jack had told since coming to the Moors, and it stuck in her throat like a stone.

“What?” said Jill, for the third time.

The man smiled. His teeth were as white as his lips were red, and for the first time, the contrast seemed to put some color into his skin. “Oh, this will be fun,” he said, and opened the iron door.

On the other side was a hall. It was a perfectly normal hall, as subterranean castle halls went: the walls were stone, the floor was carpeted in faded red and black filigree, and the chandeliers that hung from the ceiling were rich with spider webs, tangled perilously close to the burning candles. The man stepped through. Jack and Jill, lacking any better options, followed him.

See them now as they were then, two golden-haired little girls in torn and muddy clothes, following a spotless stranger through the castle. See how he moves, as fluid as a hunting cat, his feet barely seeming to brush the ground, and how the children hurry to keep up with him, almost tripping over themselves in their eagerness to not be left behind! They are still holding each other’s hands, our lost little girls, but already Jack is beginning to lag a little, suspicious of their host, wary of what happens when the three days are done.

They are not twins who have been taught the importance of cleaving to each other, and the cracks between them are already beginning to show. It will not be long before they are separated.