“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.
But ah, that is the future, and this is the present. The man walked and Jack and Jill followed, already wearing their shortened names like the armor that they would eventually become. Jack had always been “Jacqueline,” avoiding the short, sharp, masculine sound of “Jack” (and her mother had asked, more than once, whether there was a way to trade the names between the girls, to make Jacqueline Jillian, to let Jillian be Jack). Jill had always been “Jillian,” clinging to the narrow blade of femininity that she had been allowed, refusing to be truncated (and her father had looked into the question of name changes, only to dismiss it as overly complicated, for insufficient gain). Jill dogged their guide’s heels and Jack hung back as much as their joined hands allowed, and when they reached a flight of stairs, narrower than the one that had brought them there, made of stone instead of dusty wood, they both stopped for a moment, looking at the steps in silence.
The man paused to look at them, a smile toying with the corner of his mouth. “This is not the way home for you, little foundlings,” he said. “I’m afraid that will be more difficult to find than the stairs that connect my village to my dining room.”
“Your village?” asked Jack, forgetting to be afraid in her awe. “The whole thing? You own the whole thing?”
“Every stick and every bone,” said the man. “Why? Does that impress you?”
“A bit,” she admitted.
The man’s smile grew. She was very lovely, after all, with hair like sunlight and the sort of smooth skin that spoke of days spent mostly indoors, away from the weather. She would be tractable; she would be sweet. She might do.
“I have many impressive things,” he said, and started up the stairs, leaving the girls with little choice but to follow him unless they wanted to be left behind.
Up they went, up and up and up until it felt like they must have climbed all the way back to the bottom of Gemma Lou’s trunk, back into the familiar confines of their own house. Instead, they emerged from the stairwell and into a beautiful dining room. The long mahogany table was set for one. The maid standing near the far wall looked alarmed when the man stepped into the room, trailed by two little girls. She started to step forward, only to stop herself and stand there, wringing her hands.