Where It All Goes Down
To Hell and Back
We have three stories on our hands in this book, and each has its own setting. So let's take a look at these places one at a time.
Goblin Fruit: Small Town America
Kizzy grows up on a small town that's almost painfully boring for a teenage girl with big dreams about her life:
"It's not like there are goblins here, Nana," Kizzy had replied one time, bored of the story, and bored of this town with its soulless mall and soccer fields, its houses all alike as cookies in a bakery box. (1.1.40)
It's not important where exactly Kizzy lives or what her town looks like—what's important is the sense of dissatisfaction that she derives from her small town life. Kizzy wants to travel all over the world, fall in love, and do great things, and it is this longing that makes her such a perfect target for goblins. The goblins come to her town because it's precisely the kind of place where teenage girls aren't content.
Spicy Little Curses Such As These: Traveling Between Jaipur and Hell
"Spicy Little Curses Such As These" takes place alternately in Jaipur and Hell, which are both rich landscapes. Jaipur is described as a beautiful Indian city where many British people live, like Estella and Anamique's family:
It begins underneath India, on the cusp of the last century when the British were still riding elephants with maharajas and skirmishing on the arid frontiers of the empire. (2.P.4)
The book describes the cultural richness of the area, and how Anamique grows up and learns as much from the setting as she does from any formal education.
As engrossing as Jaipur is, though, the story also takes regular detours to Hell, where Estella (and later Anamique) meets with the demon Vasudev in order to barter over souls. There is all of that hellfire and whatnot, but the room in which Estella (and later Anamique) meets with Vasudev is strangely proper:
During Anamique's tenure in Hell, he ground his teeth down to stubs in his frustration, but he still appeared each morning like clockwork at the little table, carrying a fresh pot of tea and a flask of tonic. (2.12.5)
There's even tea and polite conversation. No matter where you go in this tale, you cannot escape the influence of the British.
Hatchling: Tajbel, the Druj Queen's Kingdom
In "Hatchling," much of the story takes place in a strange, cold place called Tajbel. This is the Druj Queen's kingdom and the setting for all of Mab's nightmares:
The landscape looked as if it had been disgorged by the mountains themselves, as if it were the earth's own elemental imitation of the castles built by men. It was an otherworldly place and Esmé felt a tingle of recognition at odds with her awe for its alien strangeness. (3.9.3)
Although Tajbel is a majestic place, it holds a lot of bad memories and shed blood. The Druj are cruel and keep bloodthirsty beasts as pets, and even though Esmé is impressed by some parts of Tajbel, she's happy to leave at the end. In fact, it's a place that none of the characters particularly wish to return to.