48 pages • 1 hour read
Charlie N. HolmbergKeeper of Enchanted Rooms
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Chapter 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary: “May 17, 1818, London, England”
Sixteen-year-old Silas Hogwood is in the stables brushing his horse when his father returns. Using magic, Silas’s father pushes him into a stall. He is angry because he’s been dismissed from the King’s League of Magicians. Silas’s father begins beating Silas, worse than he’s ever hurt him before.
Using a blast of kinetic energy, Silas pushes his father away. His father threatens to kill him, and Silas feels his magic, necromancy, gathering and growing. He suffocates his father and vows that no one will have power over him again.
Chapter 1 Summary: “September 4, 1846, Baltimore, Maryland”
Merritt Fernsby, 31, was disinherited by his father 13 years ago and has not spoken to his family since. He is therefore surprised when his maternal grandmother leaves him property in her will: Whimbrel House and Blaugdone Island in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. Merritt worked as a journalist but is now writing his second novel. The house has been uninhabited since 1737, so Merritt imagines that many repairs will be necessary.
The lawyer warns him that the previous tenant claimed that the house was haunted. Merritt needs a place to live, so he travels to the island. From the outside, the house appears to be in good condition, and inside, all appears to be in order until he notices that the furniture is melting. Merritt heads for the front door, and it swings shut on him.
Chapter 2 Summary: “September 6, 1846, Boston, Massachusetts”
In the offices of the Boston Institute for the Keeping of Enchanted Rooms (BIKER), Hulda Larkin has just returned from an assignment in Canada. She is called in to see Myra Haigh, her supervisor. Myra is assigning Hulda to inspect Whimbrel House, which used to be a safehouse for necromancers during the Salem Witch trials and once belonged to someone named Anita Nichols.
When she arrives, Hulda finds Whimbrel House “rather charming” (17), and she enjoys the natural setting. The door is locked, and Merritt calls frantically from inside. Hulda uses a crowbar to pry open the door, scolding the house as she does. She introduces herself and announces that she is there to conduct an assessment. She has worked in England, where knowledge about magic is more prevalent than in the United States, though Americans are familiar with inventions that rely on magic, like the kinetic tram.
Hulda asks Merritt for a tour and produces wards to protect them from the house. The house interferes with the tour, slamming doors, and Hulda scolds it for having a tantrum. In the bathroom, the walls close in on them, growing spikes. Hulda throws a bomb, a chaocracy mine, and the room expels them.
Hulda remains level-headed, while Merritt is nervous as they continue their tour and the house produces other challenges: a noose made of cobwebs, a locked door to the sunroom, and dead rats on the floor. Hulda, who has an augury talent, sees the shape of a wolf. As they proceed, Hulda speculates about the house’s magic and explains her magical tools to Merritt. Merritt is exasperated because the house keeps eating his belongings, but Hulda is not daunted by the house’s challenges, like the books thrown about in the library.
Chapter 3 Summary: “December 2, 1820, London, England”
Silas, who is now Lord Hogwood, receives a letter from the regent, who is also the leader of the King’s League of Magicians, inviting him to join the group. Silas burns the letter, recalling his vow that no one will have authority over him.
Chapter 4 Summary: “September 6, 1846, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island”
The house seems calm as Merritt sits down to discuss his house with Hulda. Hulda diagnoses the house’s spells. Merritt studied the history of magic in school, so he knows a bit about types of magic and that magical ability is diluted as it is passed through the bloodline unless both parents have ability. Hulda recommends that he hire staff who can manage the magic, as BIKER is invested in the house’s survival since enchanted houses are rare and becoming more so.
Hulda suggests that she move in while she makes the house habitable. Merritt is optimistic until Hulda informs him that she will depart for two days to make preparations. He writes a letter that he asks her to post. She is allowed to leave the house, but Merritt is not.
Chapter 5 Summary: “April 7, 1827, London, England”
Silas’s mother is dying. He has realized, after his father’s death, that his inherited talents give him the ability to take magic from others, people as well as houses. He believes that if he can absorb his mother’s magic and preserve her body, he will be able to use her spells. Locking the door against his brother, Silas works to transfer his mother’s magic to him and then shrinks her body to a small size and hides it in the wine cellar.
Chapter 6 Summary: “September 7, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island”
Merritt considers the advantages of staying in the house, which is still shifting about. In his bedroom, he cuts up the carpet to retrieve the notebooks that the house swallowed. In response, a chest of drawers steals his scarf, and a drawer flees downstairs with it. Merritt chases, panicking, as the scarf was knitted for him by his sister Scarlet. A windowsill in the kitchen swallows his scarf. Merritt attacks with a meat mallet and then lights matches. The house makes a chasm in the kitchen floor that swallows him. Shaken, Merritt tries to climb out and finds that he’s trapped. He wonders where Scarlet is now and if Beatrice hates him, too.
Hulda returns and tries to help Merritt by lowering a rope of knotted sheets. When Merritt asks why she is so concerned about not harming the house, Hulda tells him that magicked homes are rare and preserve valuable spells. She adds, “This is my life, Mr. Fernsby […] I do not have and will never have anything else” (60). Hulda sees a vision of a man coming to visit.
Prologue-Chapter 6 Analysis
These chapters set up the premise of the novel and put the major conflicts into motion, introducing the main characters and establishing the rules of this magical world. The floorplan of Whimbrel House given in the front matter, along with the list of the 11 schools of magic, help to further outline the setting. Holmberg introduces the magical elements naturally, through a discussion of abilities that certain main characters have and through the action of the first scene.
The Prologue’s opening violent scene serves as a hook meant to capture the reader’s attention, while also providing a backstory on the figure who will be the villain of the tale, Silas. The confrontation between Silas and his father introduces the theme of The Complexities of Family. Silas, who was abused by his father as a young man, is motivated by self-preservation and kills his father in an act of self-defense. Although he becomes Lord Hogwood upon his father’s death, he retains an acute fear of anyone having authority over him, especially the power to hurt him. Silas’s desire to be untouchable and powerful leads him, in turn, to start exploiting others. His experiment on his mother shows how his urgency to build his own power is increasing at the same time as his regard for the well-being of others is decreasing. Silas’s shrinking of his mother into a doll-sized figure also introduces a key symbol in the text, reflecting how he can only feel powerful by dominating others. Silas’s growing callousness marks him as the antagonist of the tale since the protagonists, Hulda and Merritt, are defined by their care for others.
This section also introduces the setting of Whimbrel House, which becomes a central symbol in the text. The house initially behaves as an antagonistic force, and its motivations are not revealed right away. It is described as a charming New England Colonial type of house, its age and architecture giving it historical value as well as making it the characteristic setting of a ghost story. The house’s antagonism, and the tricks that range from mischievous to harmful, add an initial element of horror to the novel, showing the dark side of magic in this world. While this element of the animated house expresses the human tendency to ascribe personalities, and sometimes sentience, to familiar objects, the behavior of the house also helps establish the rules of how magic operates in this world. Having rules or logic for the supernatural elements is one way that the author attempts to make the novel’s world feel believable.
The haunted house has a long history in English literature as well as other literary traditions, and in these early chapters, Holmberg plays with the suspense and fear of harm that are typical conventions of that genre. These conventions allow for a humorous contrast in Hulda’s response, particularly in her determination not to be defeated by the house’s rambunctious behavior. Her lighter and more ironic tone, captured when she describes the house as having a “tantrum,” foreshadows the discovery later about the identify and motives of the spirit inhabiting the house.
Hulda and Merritt are alike in that they are independent characters; both are adults in their thirties pursuing careers and are, by nature, practical people. Both have only a few close connections, and both have a disturbing or hurtful event in their past—circumstances that are alluded to in these early chapters to establish suspense. Their relative social isolation at the novel’s opening introduces the theme of The Importance of Interpersonal Connections. The remote situation and wild, natural state of the island, with the inhabitants only being able to leave by boat, add to the sense of isolation and tension, a common feature of horror and Gothic literature. At this point, the reader doesn’t yet know how the storyline with Silas impacts Hulda and Merritt, which creates further suspense.
