Down Among the Sticks and Bones Read online

  There was a light in the dining room. They followed it and found their parents sitting at the table, along with a small, impeccably groomed boy. They stopped in the doorway, both of them looking in bemusement at this small closed circle of a family.

  Serena noticed them first. She shrieked, jumping from her chair. “Chester!”

  Chester turned, opening his mouth to yell at the intruders. But one of the girls was covered in blood, and they both looked as if they had been crying, and something about them …

  “Jacqueline?” he whispered. “Jillian?”

  And the two girls clung to each other and wept, as outside the rain came down like a punishment, and nothing would ever be the same.

  ALSO BY SEANAN McGUIRE

  THE OCTOBER DAYE SERIES

  Rosemary and Rue

  A Local Habitation

  An Artificial Night

  Late Eclipses

  One Salt Sea

  Ashes of Honor

  Chimes at Midnight

  The Winter Long

  A Red-Rose Chain

  Once Broken Faith

  THE INCRYPTID SERIES

  Discount Armageddon

  Midnight Blue-Light Special

  Half-Off Ragnarok

  Pocket Apocalypse

  Chaos Choreography

  Magic for Nothing

  Sparrow Hill Road

  Every Heart a Doorway

  Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day

  AS MIRA GRANT

  THE NEWSFLESH SERIES

  Feed

  Deadline

  Blackout

  RISE: A Newsflesh Collection

  Feedback

  THE PARASITOLOGY SERIES

  Parasite

  Symbiont

  Chimera

  Rolling in the Deep

  Final Girls

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Seanan lives in the Pacific Northwest with her cats, a vast collection of creepy dolls and horror movies, and sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard.

  She was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and in 2013 she became the first person ever to appear five times on the same Hugo ballot. She doesn’t sleep much, but she spends a lot of time in the corn.

  O, the corn. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part I: Jack and Jill Live UP the Hill

  1. The Dangerous Allure of Other People’s Children

  2. Practically Perfect in Virtually No Ways

  3. They Grow UP SO Fast

  Part II: Jill and Jack Into the Black

  4. To Market, To Market, To Buy a Fat Hen

  5. The Roles We Choose Ourselves

  6. The First Night of Safety

  7. To Fetch a Pail of Water

  Part III: Jack and Jill with Time to Kill

  8. The Skies to Shake, the Stones to Bleed

  9. Someone’s Coming to Dinner

  Part IV: Jill and Jack Will Not Come Back

  10. And From Her Grave, a Red, Red Rose …

  11. … and From His Grave, A Briar

  12. Everything You Never Wanted

  13. A Thousand Miles of Hardship Between Here and Home

  Also by Seanan McGuire

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  DOWN AMONG THE STICKS AND BONES

  Copyright © 2017 by Seanan McGuire

  All rights reserved.

  Interior illustrations by Rovina Cai

  Cover photographs © Getty Images

  Cover design by FORT

  Edited by Lee Harris

  A Tor.com Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.

  ISBN 978-0-7653-9203-9 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-7653-9610-5 (signed edition)

  ISBN 978-0-7653-9204-6 (e-book)

  e-ISBN 9780765392046

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].

  First Edition: June 2017