Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children #2)(22)

The room on the other side was vast, large enough to seem cavernous, bounded on all sides by the curving windmill walls, and yet no less intimidating for its limitations. The ceiling was more than twenty feet overhead, covered with dangling things the likes of which Jack had never seen before: stuffed reptiles and birds and something that looked like a pterodactyl, leathery wings spread wide and frozen for eternity. Racks of tools and shelves laden with strange bottles and stranger implements lined the walls.

There was a large oaken table near the smallest of the room’s three fireplaces, and what looked like a surgical table at the very center of the room, well away from any source of heat. There were unknowable machines, and jars filled with terrible biological specimens that seemed to track her with their lifeless eyes. Jack walked slowly into the very center of the room, where she could turn, taking everything in.




A spiral stairway occupied the center of the room, winding down into the basement and up into the heights of the structure, where there must be other rooms, other horrifying wonders. It seemed strange, that a windmill should have a basement. It was something she had never considered before.

Dr. Bleak watched her, the door still open behind him. If the girl was going to flee screaming into the night, it was going to happen now. He had been expecting the other one to come with him, the one with the short hair and the fingernails that had been worn down and dirtied by playing in the yard. He knew more than most that appearances could be deceiving, but he had found that certain markers were often true. This girl looked cosseted, sheltered; girls like her did not often thrive in places like this.

She stopped looking. She turned back to him. She plucked at the stained and increasingly stiff skirt of her dress.

“I think this will get caught on things,” she said. “Is there something else that I could wear?”

Dr. Bleak lifted his eyebrows. “That’s your only question?”

“I don’t know what most of these things are, but you said you were going to teach me,” said Jack. “I don’t know what questions I’m supposed to ask, so I guess I’m going to let you give me the answers, and then I can match them up with the questions. I can’t do that if I’m getting snagged on everything all the time.”

Dr. Bleak gave her an assessing look, closing the door. Somehow, he no longer worried that she was going to run. “I warned you that you’d work if you came with me. I’ll put calluses on your hands and bruises on your knees.”

“I don’t mind working,” said Jack. “I haven’t done it much, but I’m tired of sitting still.”

“Very well.” Dr. Bleak walked across the room to one of the high shelves. He reached up and lifted down a trunk, as lightly as if it were made of cobwebs and air. Setting it down on the floor, he said, “Take what you like. Everything is clean; nothing is ever put away here without being cleaned first.”

Jack heard that for the instruction that it was, and nodded before walking carefully over to the trunk and kneeling to open it. It was full of clothing—children’s clothing, some of it in styles she had never seen before. Much of it seemed old-fashioned, like something out of an old black-and-white movie. Some was made of shimmering, almost futuristic fabric, or cut to fit bodies she couldn’t quite envision, torsos as long as legs, or with three arms, or with no hole for the head.

In the end, she selected a white cotton shirt with starched cuffs and collar, and a knee-length black skirt made of what felt like canvas. It would be sturdy enough to stand up to learning how to work, unlikely to snag or stop her in her tracks. The thought of wearing someone else’s underthings was unsettling, no matter how many times they’d been bleached, but in the end, she also selected a pair of white shorts, her cheeks burning with the indignity of it all.

Dr. Bleak, who had watched her make her selections (all save for the shorts; when he’d realized what she was looking for, he had turned politely aside), did not smile; smiling was not his way. But he nodded approvingly, and said, “Up the stairs, you will find several empty rooms. One of them will be yours, to keep your things in, to use when you need to be alone. You will not have many opportunities for idleness. I suggest you enjoy them when you can.”

Jack hesitated.

“Yes?” asked Dr. Bleak.

“I’m … it’s not just my dress that’s filthy,” said Jack, grimacing a little, like she had never admitted to dirtiness in her life. Which perhaps she hadn’t: perhaps she had never been given the opportunity. “Is there any chance I could have a bath?”

“You will have to haul the water yourself, and heat it, but if that is all you desire, yes.” Dr. Bleak closed the trunk, lifting it back onto the shelf where it belonged. Then he took down a vast tin bucket from a hook that dangled from the ceiling. It was shallow enough that Jack thought she could crawl into it if she needed to, almost as large as the bathtub at home.

Her eyes widened. The bathtub at home. This and that were the same, separated by centuries of technological advancement, but serving an identical purpose.

Dr. Bleak set the bucket down in front of the largest of the three fires before lifting a kettle down from the shelf and handing it to Jack. “The well is outside,” he said. “I will be back in two hours. Figure out how to clean yourself.” Then he was gone, striding back to the door and stepping out onto the Moors, leaving Jack to gape after him, the kettle in her hands, utterly bemused.