Lundy has quietly accepted the future path of her life and is generally content until the moment she finds her door. In Lundy's case, that alienation is her sister. McGuire so perfectly captures the painful alienation of children. The genius of Seanan McGuire is how tightly she is able to wrap barbed spikes around the narrative so that as the reader is pulled in closer and closer that those barbs pierce our hearts and we don't mind one bit. Other worlds have had that opportunity to return, but that return has always been desperately hoped for and unexpectedly granted. The Goblin Market expects the children to go back to the 'real world' multiple times so that they continually choose the Goblin Market, so that they always have the opportunity to 'be sure'. The Wayward Children series has, thus far, been one where the children are looking for their doorway to open again so they can return to the world where they truly belong. As with any world, there are rules and those rules must be followed if one truly wants to stay (and stay human). It is an eminently fair world, though certainly not an easy one. Lundy's doorway takes her to the Goblin Market, a world where each and every transaction must offer 'fair value' else a debt is owed, and in that world a debt has a physical manifestation. World chose to shift in its foundations, widening itself, rebirthing Society, and would not be readmitted unless something fundamental in the Understood that she had, for whatever reason, been rejected from their 'She understood now, that the other children weren'tĬoming that they would always be shadowy voices on the other side of aįence, refusing to let her through, refusing to let her in. Astute readers may remember that we first met the grown up Lundy in Every Heart a Doorway as the therapist and second in command at Eleanor West's, except that 'grown up' means that Lundy was at least in her sixties but had the physical appearance of an eight year old girl. In an Absent Dream tells the story of Katherine Lundy.

Each novella has explored one of the perhaps uncountable number of possible portal worlds.

With Every Heart a Doorway ( my review), Seanan McGuire introduced readers to the idea of doorways and the portal worlds in which these children more truly belonged. At some point everybody at Eleanor West's went through a doorway, had an adventure, lived a life in a world that isn't our own but which is also so much better suited for who they truly were, and then come home and had to figure out how to cope with living a mundane life in a world they don't truly belong. Each novella of the Wayward Children series has told the story of one (or more) of the children at Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children, though perhaps 'children' is the wrong word to use here.

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire