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.
*
“THE MASTER WANTS YOU cleaned and smartened up,” said Mary, dragging a brush through the tangled strands of Jill’s hair. Jill ground her teeth, trying not to flinch away from the bristles. She was used to brushing her own hair, and sometimes she allowed knots to form for weeks, until they had to be cut out with scissors.
The room she’d been removed to was small and smelled of talcum powder and sharp copper. The walls were papered in the palest pink, and a vanity much like her mother’s took up one entire wall. There was no mirror. That was the only truly odd thing about the room, which was otherwise queasily familiar to Jill, the sort of feminine stronghold that she had always been denied admission to. Her sister was the one who should have been sitting on this stool, having her hair brushed, ready to be “smartened up.”
“It’s a shame it’s so short,” said Mary, seemingly unaware of Jill’s discomfort. “Ah, well. Hair will grow, and at least this way, he’ll be able to decide what length he likes best without cutting off something that’s already there.”
“I get to grow my hair out?” asked Jill, suddenly hopeful.
“Long enough to cover your throat,” said Mary, and her tone was dire, and Jill missed it entirely. She was too busy thinking of what she’d look like with long hair, how it would feel against the back of her neck; wondering whether adults on the street would smile at her the way they smiled at Jack, like she was something special, something beautiful, and not just another tomboy.
The trouble with denying children the freedom to be themselves—with forcing them into an idea of what they should be, not allowing them to choose their own paths—is that all too often, the one drawing the design knows nothing of the desires of their model. Children are not formless clay, to be shaped according to the sculptor’s whim, nor are they blank but identical dolls, waiting to be slipped into the mode that suits them best. Give ten children a toy box, and watch them select ten different toys, regardless of gender or religion or parental expectations. Children have preferences. The danger comes when they, as with any human, are denied those preferences for too long.
Jill had always wanted to know what it was like to be allowed to wear her hair long, to put on a pretty skirt, to sit next to her sister and hear people cooing over what a lovely matched pair they were. She liked sports, yes, and she liked reading her books; she liked knowing things. She would probably have been a soccer player even if her father hadn’t insisted, would definitely have watched spaceships on TV and superheroes in the movies, because the core of who Jill was had nothing to do with the desires of her parents and everything to do with the desires of her heart. But she would have done some of those things in a dress. Having half of everything she wanted denied to her for so long had left her vulnerable to them: they were the forbidden fruit, and like all forbidden things, even the promise of them was delicious.
“Your hair will take time,” said Mary, seeing that her warnings had gone unheard. “Your clothing, we can fix right away—in time for your lunch. A bath has been drawn for you.” She set the brush aside, motioning for Jill to get off the chair. “I’ll have your new attire ready when you get out.”
Jill stood, all eyes and anticipation. “Where do I go?”
“There,” said Mary, and indicated a door that hadn’t been there a moment before.
Jill hesitated. Doors were dangerous things. The Master (and that dreadful Dr. Bleak) had talked about doors that would take her home again, and she wasn’t ready to go home. She wanted to stay here, to enjoy her adventure in a world where she was allowed to have long hair and wear skirts and be whoever she wanted to be.
Mary saw the hesitation and sighed, shaking her head. “This is not your doorway home,” she said. “The Master’s castle is malleable, and matches to our needs. Go. Clean yourself up. It doesn’t do to keep him waiting.”
Mary’s warnings might have gone unnoticed, but Jill had grown up surrounded by adults who said one thing and did another, adults who were so consumed with wanting that it never occurred to them to wonder whether children might not know about wanting too. She knew better than to disappoint if she could help it.
“All right,” she said, and opened the door, and stepped into a mermaid’s grotto, into a drowned girl’s sanctuary. The walls were tiled in glittering blue and silver, like scales, arching together to form the high, pointed dome of the roof. It was a flower frozen in the moment before it could open; it was a teardrop turned to crystal before it could fall. Little nooks were set into the walls, filled with candles, which cast a dancing light over everything they touched.
The floor was a narrow lip, no more than two feet at its widest point, circling the outside of the room. The rest was given over to a basin filled with sweetly scented water, dotted with frothing mounds of bubbles. Everything smelled of roses and vanilla. Jill stopped and stared. This was … this was amazing, this was incredible, and it was all for her.
A small dart of smug delight wedged itself in her heart. Jack wasn’t here. Jack wasn’t standing in this room, looking at a bath fit for a fairy tale princess. This was hers, and hers alone. She was the princess in this story.
(Would she have felt bad about her smugness if she had known that, at that very moment, Jack was puzzling her way through the process of getting water from well to kettle to tin tub without scalding or freezing herself? Or would it have delighted her to think of her poised and pampered sister sitting in lukewarm water to her hips, marinating in her own dirt, scrubbing the worst of it away with brittle yellow sponges that had once been living things, and were now remembered only by their bones? How quickly they grow apart, when there is something to be superior about.)
Jill removed her stained and filthy clothing and stepped into the bath. The temperature was perfect, and the water was silky-smooth with perfumes and oils. She sank down to her chin and closed her eyes, enjoying the heat, enjoying the feeling that soon, she would be clean.
Some untold time later, there was a knock at the door, and Mary’s voice said, briskly, “Time to come out, miss. Your clothes are ready, and it’s nearly time for lunch.”