Down, down, down they went, until they stepped off the final stair, into a small, round room with bones and roots embedded in the walls, with dim white lights on strings hanging around the edges of it, like Christmas had been declared early. Jacqueline looked at them and thought of mining lights, of dark places underground. Jillian looked at them and thought of haunted houses, of places that took more than they gave. Both girls shivered, stepping closer together.

There was a door. It was small, and plain, and made of rough, untreated pine. A sign hung at adult eye level. BE SURE, it said, in letters that looked like they had been branded into the wood.

“Be sure of what?” asked Jillian.

“Be sure that we want to see what’s on the other side, I guess,” said Jacqueline. “There isn’t any other way to go.”

“We could go back up.”

Jacqueline looked flatly at her sister. “My legs hurt,” she said. “Besides, I thought you wanted an adventure. ‘We found a door, but we didn’t like it, so we went back without seeing what was on the other side’ isn’t an adventure. It’s … it’s running away.”

“I don’t run away,” said Jillian.

“Good,” said Jacqueline, and reached for the doorknob.

It turned before she could grab it, and the door swung open, revealing the most impossible place either girl had ever seen in their life.

It was a field. A big field, so big that it seemed like it went on just shy of forever—and the only reason it didn’t go on farther was because it ran up against the edge of what looked like an ocean, slate-gray and dashing itself against a rocky, unforgiving shore. Neither girl knew the word for “moor,” but if they had, they would have both agreed in an instant that this was a moor. This was the moor, the single platonic ideal from which all other moors had been derived. The ground was rich with a mixture of low-growing shrubs and bright-petaled flowers, growing blue and orange and purple, a riot of impossible color. Jillian stepped forward with a small sound of amazement and delight. Jacqueline, not wanting to be left behind, followed her.

The door slammed shut behind them. Neither girl noticed, not yet. They were busy running through the flowers, laughing, under the eye of the vast and bloody moon.

Their story had finally begun.

Part II: Jill and Jack Into the Black

PART II

JILL AND JACK INTO THE BLACK

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

4

TO MARKET, TO MARKET, TO BUY A FAT HEN