48 pages • 1 hour read
Keeper of Enchanted Rooms
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Chapters 27-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 27 Summary: “October 6, 1846, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island”
Merritt visits Hulda, who is recovering in her room. Hulda reveals that Silas abducted her and was trying to steal her magic. She is tired and sore, and Merritt reads to her.
A week later, Hulda dresses and prepares to go about her day. She watches Merritt outside, chopping wood, and realizes that she has fallen in love with him. Owein uses the portrait in the reception hall to greet Hulda as she steps outside. She asks Merritt how he knew where she was taken, and he says that Owein guided him, but Hulda doesn’t think that would be possible. Merritt suggests that he finds Hulda beautiful, and she is filled with hope. Merritt takes her on the boat to the mainland, watching for danger. He asks to meet with her after their errands to talk. He plans to ask if he can court her.
At BIKER, Myra tries to convince Hulda to leave Whimbrel House. The secretary, Miss Steverus, announces that Maurice Watson wants an appointment.
Merritt has a good meeting with his editor and meets Hulda at the Quincy Marker, where he sees a poster announcing a concert with Ebba C. Mullan playing the flute. At the sight of her name, Merritt flashes back to being 18 and disowned, realizing that Ebba had disappeared and abandoned him and his offer of marriage. He wants closure and decides to go to Manchester to see Ebba. Hulda tells him that she is meeting Myra for dinner at the Oyster House and leaves. Merritt asks her to call him on the communion stone.
Chapter 28 Summary: “October 13, 1846, Boston, Massachusetts and Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island”
Hulda manages to keep her composure until she reaches the boat, when she weeps. She feels stupid for believing that Merritt cared for her when he is taking off in pursuit of another woman. She berates herself for falling for him and determines that “her heart w[ill] stay in the cold, steel cage where it belong[s]” (267). Beth comes to offer her support, and Hulda decides that she will pack and leave.
Merritt arrives in Manchester and buys a ticket for the concert, but instead of going inside, he walks around the concert hall. Seeing the carriages waiting for the musicians, he decides to confront Ebba after the concert is done. She is horrified to see him. She tries to leave, but Merritt begs for an explanation. She reveals that Merritt’s father always hated him because of his mother’s infidelity. Merritt’s father offered to pay Ebba’s way to Oberlin College if she pretended that Merritt had gotten her pregnant. She says that she is sorry for hurting him, and Merritt replies that he lost everything because of her.
Chapter 29 Summary: “October 15, 1846, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island”
Merritt returns to Whimbrel House feeling exhausted, defeated, and bewildered to learn that he is an “illegitimate” child. He wants to talk to Hulda and is shocked to encounter her in the entrance hall, packing to leave. Merritt shouts at her that she is abandoning him, like everyone else does, because he is an “unemployed […] unmagical bastard” (279).
Hulda returns to BIKER, where Myra is delighted to see her. Miss Steverus informs Hulda that tourmaline can’t hold a magical charge for long, so that can’t be the second source of magic. Recalling how protective Merritt is, Hulda grows curious and visits the Genealogical Society to conduct research. She finds the Fernsby family tree and then learns that Nelson Sutcliffe lost Whimbrel House to Merritt’s grandmother while gambling. She examines Owein’s family tree and realizes that Nelson was his descendant. There are magical markers in this line, and Hulda guesses that Nelson is Merritt’s biological father.
Merritt is having dinner with Beth and Baptiste when Silas Hogwood appears in his dining room. He has a dog, a terrier, with him. Silas attacks Beth and Baptiste. Merritt struggles with him, but Silas knocks him unconscious.
Chapter 30 Summary: “October 15, 1846, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island”
Hulda returns to Blaugdone Island to find Beth and Baptiste recovering from the attack. They report that Silas abducted Merritt. Hulda calls on Owein for help, but the house doesn’t respond.
Hulda hurries back to BIKER to ask Myra for help and learns that Myra has been working with Silas under the name Maurice Watson. Myra arranged to break Silas out of prison in return for a cure for her illness. She continued to work with him to help others in her family and sustain BIKER, and in return, Myra promised Silas that he could have Whimbrel House. Hulda demands to know where Silas is, and Myra gives her a mental image.
Chapter 31 Summary: “October 15, 1846, Marshfield, Massachusetts”
Hulda travels outside the city to the house that Myra showed her. She enters the house through a canal of water, taking off her heavy dress to do so. All she has in her bag is a letter opener and her crowbar. She reaches the cellar and tries to guess where Silas might be. She hears a dog barking. She explores the cellar and finds Merritt tied up with rope. As she unties him, Merritt tries to apologize for what he said at the house. Hulda tells Merritt that he is the second source of magic. Merritt says that they have to rescue Owein; Silas took him out of the house and put him in the body of a dog.
They approach the room where Silas is working and see the small, “shriveled monsters” that are Silas’s dolls (307). Merritt can hear their screams and moans. Silas spots the two of them and attacks with spells. Owein tries to help Hulda and Merritt.
As Merritt and Silas struggle, Hulda destroys Silas’s dolls, breaking his ability to use their spells. Silas attacks Hulda, and Merritt strikes him with the crowbar, killing him. Merritt gives Owein, as a dog, to Hulda to hold to preserve her modesty since she is in her underthings.
Chapter 32 Summary: “October 16, 1846, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island”
Myra and the watchmen take over Silas’s house. Merritt and Owein wait outside BIKER’s offices for Hulda. She gives Merritt the papers describing his ancestry. He wonders if he should feel guilty for killing a man. Hulda says that she will stay with her sister until things are sorted out. Merritt realizes that Owein can communicate with him telepathically.
Back at his house, Merritt looks at the papers that Hulda gave him and then decides to finish his novel. At her sister Danielle’s, Hulda receives a package from Merritt. It contains the ending of his novel, along with a short story about Competence and the rogue, in which Merritt tells Hulda that he cares for her. Hulda returns to Whimbrel House, which now feels like home. Beth and Baptiste welcome her. She goes outside to find Merritt. They confess their feelings for one another and kiss.
Chapters 27-32 Analysis
These chapters, the fifth act of the dramatic arc, supply the climax and resolution for both of the book’s plots: Silas’s vengeance and the romance plot developing between Merritt and Hulda. The first aids the second, as Merritt’s tenderness toward Hulda after Silas’s attack on her deepens her feelings for him and the two work together to defeat the wizard in the end.
Merritt’s confrontation with Ebba brings resolution to his internal struggle and helps round out his character arc. Ebba’s confession, while it brings up Merritt’s wounds over his abandonment by both her and his family, explains the source of his father’s hatred toward him. She also explains why she disappeared; while this knowledge is painful, it allows Merritt to come to terms with this event in his life and realize that his biological father was not, in fact, who he thought he was.
The surprise about Merritt’s parentage also answers the question about the second source of magic, particularly the wardship spells, adding a new dimension to the theme of The Complexities of Family. Perhaps aided by the tourmaline deposits, Merritt’s natural abilities have been emerging during his time at Whimbrel House. His magic explains both the sudden warding spells and the reason he was able to locate the Mansel family graves as well as Hulda when she was abducted. These abilities further develop Merritt’s character, especially as a match for Hulda since she has magic of her own. Moreover, it is Hulda’s research that locates the information on Merritt, making her a sort of magical mentor for him.
Myra’s relationship with Silas under the assumed name of Maurice Watson provides another plot twist regarding The Responsibilities of Power and solves the mystery of how Silas escaped from prison. Myra benefiting from Silas’s power puts a more complicated face on his use of magic, which is not entirely evil, but it does reflect how Myra herself has jeopardized the safety of others in her determination to keep BIKER viable as an organization. While Myra is not quite as selfish or power hungry as Silas, she nevertheless misuses her power as head of BIKER to assist a known criminal, which contrasts with how Merritt and Hulda always remain committed to doing the right thing. Meanwhile, the horror of Silas’s greed and misuse of power reaches a climax when Merritt and Hulda encounter the shrunken bodies, Silas’s dolls, through which he binds his stolen magic to himself. The animation of these less-than-human shapes provides a gruesome image that has haunted the book, a symbol of Silas’s harmful influence.
The novel also reinforces The Importance of Interpersonal Connections through the resolution of its romance plot. Merritt and Hulda’s usefulness as a team is illustrated when Merritt uses Hulda’s crowbar to strike down Silas, thus ending the terror. In Merritt’s short allegory about Hulda, he refers to her as Competence (one of Hulda’s defining qualities) and to himself as an idle rogue—a bit of self-deprecation. The conceit adds humor and charm while serving as the device that leads Hulda to resolve her internal obstacle of resisting love, deciding instead to trust that Merritt cares for her. Hulda’s concluding moment of coming to terms with Merritt’s feelings for her, and hers for him, brings her internal struggle to a close and allows her character arc to end in a happy union with Merritt. Her sense that Whimbrel House feels like home adds to this sense of belonging.
The more dramatic moments aside, the tone of the novel remains warm and occasionally whimsical, as in Owein’s transformation into a dog. Holmberg brings the events, and character arcs, to a conclusion but has also established a cast of characters and a setting that will continue into the next books in the Whimbrel House series.
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