Much like the Doors themselves, Eleanor’s rules were simple and absolute: No solicitation. No visitors. No quests.
Nancy was one of the first Wayward Children we were introduced to in Book One of Seanan McGuire’s series, and also one of the first to find her way back to the world that Eleanor West’s school was trying to teach her to live without. Nancy has spent years in the Halls of the Dead now, and she’s happier than she ever thought she could be.
We learned in previous books about Nancy’s life as a living statue, living off of sweetened pomegranate juice, honing her talent for graceful stillness to the point that her heart only beats once an hour. What we see in this book is how much she and the other living statues love the life they’ve made for themselves, what it feels like to be surrounded by motionless friends, contemplating different poses and dreaming long dreams and basically being alive in a way she’d never been in the frantic, fast world where she was born.
But this isn’t the world of living statues, it’s the world of the dead, and for some reason the dead have started murdering her friends. Her Lord and Lady can’t even figure out why this is happening, much less stop it, so Nancy does the only thing she can, she opens a Door to a place filled with other people who’ve traveled through Doors and have made a habit of rescuing their friends.
He had a feeling the rule against quests was about to be broken again…
The Wayward Children series has at least a little bit of heartbreak baked into each story. The standalone books in the series that go into a character’s origin can be especially tough, because everyone who winds up at Eleanor’s school is someone who stepped through a Door and had an adventure, and then lost their perfect world, possibly forever. The stories set in the present day are generally more hopeful, and there’s an added wrinkle in this book. Students have started to realize that sometimes a Wayward Child can find their world beyond the Door again, and those lucky ones all have one thing in common.
“I want to go home,” she said flatly. “Everyone knows the people who go on quests with you are the ones who get to go home.”
We learn a little more about the Doors with every new book. These aren’t tools, in a way they’re sentient. Driven. Predatory. I loved the opening of this book, where McGuire goes into their history, how they had to change their tactics as the world (or worlds) changed. The sign “Be Sure” that appears over a Door is an invitation, but it’s also a threat. Children can know that they need something more than they’ve needed anything in their short life; it’s when you get older that the things you want become a little more…complicated. It doesn’t take much wavering for the Door to kick you out, and it takes a lot of will to open it back up again.
“The wanting isn’t the point. It’s the certainty. The absolute conviction that you’re willing to give up everything you know, everything you have, if you can just go somewhere that you’ll be understood.”
In addition to Nancy, we get to see most of our old favorites here. Good-natured Kade, the heir-apparent to Eleanor’s school. Christopher, with his bone flute and his dreams of shucking all his skin and organs and rejoining his Skeleton Girl in Mariposa. Perfectly delightful Sumi who still says whatever comes into her head without caring if it makes sense. They’re joined by Talia, who’s, well, a bit of a bitch to start out with. She’s impatient, and unhappy, and misses her world of moths and poems, and she really doesn’t like the Halls of the Dead when Nancy takes them there. None of them do. But it’s Talia who actually puts into words why something doesn’t feel right about Nancy’s personal paradise.
“Who looks at a problem like ‘The dead are killing our guests’ and decides that the answer is a worldwide game of freeze tag with fatal consequences for the losers?”
I do so enjoy a story where there’s beautiful, mysterious magical setup, and then you get to see the fascinating reasons why that setup exists. And then gradually find out why that system failed. And how the worlds behind the Doors are really only as perfect as the people in charge. McGuire sets up several harrowing scenes, with a horrifying force that only some of the adventurers can see chasing them. And there was at least one “Oh no, OH NO” surprise. But also there are beautiful moments in a pomegranate forest, and an after-death reunion, and a dancing cloud of moths. This book also features a slightly different take on the happily-ever-after, which could be bittersweet or just sweet, depending on whether you consider someone stepping through one more door as leaving, or arriving.