The Children

The narrative alternates between the adult life of Guinevere "Guin" Sharpe and her childhood at a remote Vermont house called the Farmhouse. Guin is the daughter of Edith Sharpe, author of the popular Ninth City children's fantasy series, and Llewellyn Sharpe, a deceased stage actor. The series follows two child protagonists, named after Edith's real children, who travel to the Ninth City, a magical realm overseen by the Architect, an elusive figure who steals visitors' dreams and memories. Edith died in a house fire when Guin was eleven, leaving the planned six-book series incomplete. In the present, Guin promotes a ghostwritten memoir, Ninth City Dreamer, while her brother, Ennis, a celebrated installation artist, has not spoken to her in over twenty years.

During a live TV appearance, the host reveals that Ennis has announced a new art show titled Mother. Guin nearly walks off set in shock. She calls her fiancé, Hank, a public school teacher, and deflects his concern, though she is already unsure whether their engagement is "a commitment or an experiment" (33).

The past timeline opens in 1997. After a failed year in Venice marked by Llewellyn's stalled career and an affair with the children's nanny, the family accepts a house from Edith's estranged father. The property was built generations ago for a patriarch's mistress, a woman described as "cunning." The three-story Farmhouse is filled with carved animals and hidden compartments. The children love it, but Llewellyn never feels at ease. In the attic, Guinevere discovers a carved wooden hand, pale and translucent, broken from a larger figure.

Guinevere overhears her parents arguing: Llewellyn wants to leave, but Edith demands her promised year. One evening, Edith walks calmly into the great room bleeding, announcing she has "lost" her ring finger. It is never found. Llewellyn falls into a mysterious decline, his memory and vitality draining. In 1999, Edith sells her first Ninth City book for six figures.

In 2000, a local painter named Anne Read befriends the family and mentors young Guinevere. When Edith returns from New York as a bestselling author, Anne vanishes; Guin later learns Anne died that year by suicide. When Edith reveals the books to her children, Ennis is furious she used their names and likenesses. Guinevere is torn but secretly reads the first book. The siblings consecrate a small house they built in the woods with a blood oath: "By blood and bond this house will keep us safe" (157).

By 2003, the Farmhouse hosts a stream of artistic visitors who seem diminished by their stays. Arthur Borelli, a young novelist, befriends eleven-year-old Guinevere and becomes her first literary mentor, but he too reports a recurring dream every night. Before she can warn him, Guinevere finds Arthur kissing Edith; two days later, he is gone. Guinevere's own dreams intensify. When Edith reads her secret notebook and announces she will send the girl to boarding school, Guinevere erupts, threatening to expose their neglectful, chaotic life.

In the present, Ennis's longtime assistant, Candy Street, warns Guin that Ennis has set up the show without telling anyone and has disappeared. Guin investigates Ennis's previous installation, The Door Museum, a disorienting labyrinth where a college student named Marla Kaufman died from a fall. Marla's friend Nisha Dey reveals that after her first visit, Marla reported feeling she had "lost something" inside. When Guin warns Nisha not to attend Mother, Nisha secretly records Guin's panicked words and posts an edited version online, reigniting conspiracy theories about the fire. Hart & Crane, the publisher of Edith's books, benches Guin from all promotion.

Guin discovers Ennis has been entering her apartment, leaving behind the carved wooden hand and defacing her memoir's cover. Her relationship with Hank collapses when he discovers she compulsively writes stories on a hidden typewriter, then burns the pages. He reads them, tells her the writing is brilliant, and asks why she hides her talent. Their engagement ends. Guin visits Ennis's ex-girlfriend, Arlene Fitzpatrick, who recounts hearing a voice identical to Edith's speaking to Ennis while he constructed an installation. When Arlene asks whether the Ninth City is real, Guin whispers, "There was an Architect" (309).

The 2004 past timeline reaches its climax. At a party, Edith screams that there will be no sixth book. Guinevere tells Ennis that Edith is sending her away. He returns with wet hair on a cloudless night and his left hand wrapped in a bloody towel. Hours later, he wakes her. As they flee, thousands of bees fill the hallway, falling dead the instant they cross the threshold. Fire erupts, turns unearthly blue, and engulfs the house. In their playhouse, Ennis reveals a golden charm containing his own severed ring finger, tells Guinevere she must stop writing, and says he tried to convince someone he calls "Mother." Everyone at the party dies. The children, found two miles away, are the sole survivors; Guin is raised by her maternal grandmother, Bitsy, while Ennis is sent to a Connecticut boarding school and refuses to see her.

On opening night, Guin enters the Mother factory. Masked attendants dressed in Llewellyn's painter's clothes confiscate phones and direct Guin to find her brother. The ground floor displays fairy-tale paintings of the Sharpe children's woodland life beneath a subliminal buzz of bees. Upstairs, ghost lights illuminate reconstructions of the family's past. Guin reaches a reproduction of Edith's writing room, where the desk's drawers contain artifacts from the books. In the final drawer lies Ennis's golden charm, which she uses as a key on the blank wall, opening a door onto the Vermont woods.

She steps through into a forest woven from her own childhood stories and finds Ennis. He explains that the cunning woman who once lived on this site caught an ancient entity she called Mother, a being who could create worlds and bestow brilliance but required "bright" people, those with a particular creative light, as fuel. She bound Mother to the house by hiding pieces of a carved effigy within its structure. When the Sharpes arrived, Edith became Mother's child, trading her ring finger for a key. On the night of the fire, Ennis stole Edith's necklace, found Mother behind a hidden door, and offered himself as replacement. Mother agreed but refused to release Guinevere: "As long as my house is standing, I will find her" (378). Ennis set the fire, but Mother ensured no one woke. Freed from the house, Mother is now bound to Ennis, who hides doors in every installation. Bright visitors enter communion with Mother, who takes small tithes of their creative hunger, explaining the creative blocks, depression, and losses reported by attendees.

Ennis offers Guin a life in Mother's land, telling her she is the bright kind, a genuine writer whose talent Edith stole. Guin resists, then yields. She has always been performing, always suppressing the artist inside her. Mother waits in a reconstructed Farmhouse wearing Edith's face, whispers "Bright girl," and bites off Guin's ring finger, painlessly creating the third key.

In the epilogue, Guin and Ennis, both missing ring fingers, arrive at Hart & Crane to announce the sixth and final book. Guin will write The Architect's Key and Ennis will illustrate it. They address the room: "With the release of The Architect's Key, we hope to pay back all you have done for us" (394). An excerpt closes the novel: Book Ennis rescues Book Guinevere from the Architect's tower, declaring, "The Ninth City will be ours" (398).