Ninth House

Darlington is a senior at Yale who comes from a now impoverished family of former New Haven industrialists who used to own a successful rubber boot factory. Darlington was brought up in a big, old mansion by his strict paternal grandfather and a housekeeper; his parents are too busy traveling and enjoying their glamorous life in the city. After his grandfather’s death, Darlington refuses to give up the mansion, spending the last two years of high school living completely alone on his own and struggling to sustain himself.

His upbringing and teenage experiences have shaped Darlington into a self-sufficient, studious, and courteous young man, earning him the moniker the “Gentleman of Lethe” (172). He has always been fascinated with the supernatural and almost dies in his first attempt to brew an elixir that would allow him to see ghosts, desperate to reach into the world beyond. As the narrator puts it, “he’d run out of things to believe in. Magic was all he had left” (231). Darlington romanticizes the supernatural and is at first jealous of Alex’s innate ability. Her lack of reverence for both Lethe and the supernatural—things he considers to be special—appalls him.

Initially, Darlington serves as a guide and mentor—the Virgil—to Alex’s novice Dante. However, when he is trapped in Hell, their roles are reversed, and Alex intends to become his savior. 

Pamela holds the title of Oculus for the Lethe society. She is a graduate student working on her dissertation on the connections between Mayan mythology and Tarot cards. Pamela likes her life to be quiet and orderly. Like Darlington, she feels reverence for Lethe and the supernatural.  

At the beginning of the novel, Pamela and Alex do not get along. However, after an unapologetic rapist attacks Alex using illegal mind control magic, Pamela reveals her inner strength when she kills the attacker and then stands up to a disbelieving Dean Sandow. Like Alex, Pamela has a strong sense of right and wrong; she is ready to go to great lengths to achieve justice. 

The true antagonist of the novel, Professor Marguerite Belbalm, turns out to be the ghost of 19th century young woman who has taken over the souls and bodies of other young women in order to extend her life and gain magical power. In her first life as Daisy Fanning Whitlock, she had the same supernatural power as Alex—the ability to interact with ghosts. Daisy escaped an unwanted marriage by pushing a ghost into her fiancé, the man who became the ghostly Bridegroom. When her identity and murderous nature is revealed, Belbalm explains that people with the ability to see and influence ghosts are Wheelwalkers; they can create portals into other realms without extensive rituals.

Belbalm would have been the perfect mentor for Alex—an idea Belbalm dangles in front of Alex to gain her trust. Alex looks up to Professor Belbalm as the epitome of a successful and independent woman who does not rely on any man. However, as it turns out, the professor is a serial killer who has been grooming Alex as her next victim.