In Chapter 7, Jack and Jill get their makeover scenes.
Last chapter the twins made their choices on who they wanted to be. This chapter, we get our first glimpse of what that looks like, both in how they are treated, how they behave, and how they are dressed.
In Chapter 6, Jack and Jill choose their roles, their guardians, and their destiny.
More choices are made here. Real choices, this time, not simply choices over what to have for dinner. Both sisters have clear ideas over what they want, and they prioritise that over everything else.
Cory and Clarissa turned. ‘Hey Rhys, hurry up!’
Rhys caught up. ‘Hurry up,’ he scoffed. ‘You were the ones who left me.’
‘Well, the fortune teller might have got us next,’ said Clarissa with a laugh, flicking back her long blonde hair. ‘I didn’t want her grabbing at my palms and warning me of danger.’
In Chapter 5, we are given a proper introduction to the Moors, and dine with the people in power.
Despite the chapter title, neither Jack nor Jill are given a real choice in this chapter, not yet. Their new nicknames were given to them. They get to choose their food, but don’t get to see what it is until after the choice is made. Instead, it is the Master and Dr. Bleak who talk about choosing.
No, really. I’m sure of it.
For some background: I grow mushrooms. Mushrooms are a lot more like people than they are like other plants, as they breathe oxygen and consume stuff like coffee (well, used coffee grounds) and oat bran. They are low-effort to raise, as you can keep them in a sealed bucket and they will eventually poke out mushrooms. However, you do need to top up the coffee, oats and water after every harvest.
We have been here a long time. We don’t remember the beginning, but we were there, in the mix of swirling gases and rock and light. That was us, the light. The energy. The creation.
That is how you should think of us. Think of us like the sun. That ball of heat and light and *power*. That power has to go somewhere, and we put it into shaping the world before us. It started as just another hunk of rock, but we moulded it and added our own touches. Water. Stone. Plants. Animals.
This chapter is the first of Part 2: Jill and Jack into the Black, and fittingly, it deals with the crossing of borders. This chapter marks the short space of time where the girls are free—free from their parents’ expectations, and free from the rules that govern the new world they are in.
They also make their first real choice. That’s not quite true, of course. They chose to go through the door. But that was framed as inevitable, the conclusion of the way they were brought up, with no other way out left to them. Here, they have a choice of where to go, and either by instinct or chance, they choose the Moors.
I dreamt a floating city froze in time,
I dreamt its brilliance, glory and its shine.
Its glowing stones, its flashing hues so fine,
Yet the city turned to ashes in the light
In Chapter 3, we begin the adventure and enter the Moors.
By the time the girls turned twelve, it was easy for the people met them to form swift, incorrect ideas of who they were as people.
We begin the chapter as we ended the last, by examining the various ways Jacqueline and Jillian are unhappy in the roles that were set for them. We see all over how they act as they ‘should’, not as they wish. Jacqueline reads books she doesn’t enjoy and wrinkles her nose at spiders, even though she actually quite likes them.
The thief entered the bookshop carefully. The place was supposed to be heavily defended, as it stored some of the treasures of the kingdom. But there were no guards. The books simply stood upon the shelves, some of them leaning against each other.
The most precious tomes, the ones of magic, stood on the back shelf. The thief sneered. They weren’t locked up. They weren’t even behind glass. What fools.
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