But as Olivia discovers more about her past and a connection to the darker side of Gallant, she must decide how far she’s willing to go to hold onto her newfound family. When Olivia, who cannot speak and uses sign language, meets someone at Gallant who also signs, or finds traces of her mother’s life through objects in her bedroom, or shares a moment at the piano with her cousin Matthew, these moments carry real emotional weight. Such fragile familial bonds stand in stark contrast to the macabre imagery of the world beyond the garden gate. They juxtapose the pain of losing family with the pain of never knowing one, as characters struggle to preserve whatever scraps of love and comfort they manage to find. Schwab explores what it means to have a home and how a house can be a haven for one person and a prison for another. Yet no amount of secrets or nightmares can dissuade Olivia from claiming her place in the Prior family. A gate in the garden leads to a twisted world of dust and death, family portraits are missing from the halls, and one of Olivia’s cousins insists that she should leave Gallant while she still can. But Gallant has ghosts of its own, and within the sprawling house Olivia finds more questions than answers.
It reveals that Olivia has living family members after all and summons her home to Gallant, her family’s estate.
Filled with entries punctuated by ominous drawings in dark ink that suggest her mother descended into madness, the journal tells a strange story Olivia can’t untangle. Although the ghosts are unsettling, it’s actually the mysterious journal her mother left behind that keeps Olivia up at night. Olivia Prior has spent her entire life at the Merilance School for Independent Girls, a gray and loveless institution haunted by half-formed ghouls only she can see.
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