How does "The Children" by Melissa Albert end? Have you finished reading "The Children" and desperately need to discuss it? Or maybe you've read it, but can't remember how "The Children" ends, or do you want to skip ahead to discover all the spoilers? Need a refresher on "The Children" before heading off to book club tonight? Keep reading to discuss this fiction novel and all the twists and turns at the end!
Guinevere goes to a party to try to connect with an exgirfriend of her brother
While at the party Guinevere speaks with her brother's ex girlfriend, Arlene. While drunk, Arlene speaks openly about the last time that she saw Ennis. Arlene says that Ennis would talk secretly on the phone with someone, and that their voice sounded just like recordings that Arlene had heard of Guinevere and Ennis's mother, Edith Sharpe. Arlene had also heard the voice in one of his art show exhibits.Arlene asks Guinevere if any of "Ninth City" is real. Guinevere says no and Arlene follows up by saying that Ennis would often disappear when they were dating. That he would not just be avoiding Arlene, but evading her by "disappearing". Arlene also felt like Ennis would tell her he was going to his studio to work on art, but would come back smelling like he had been outside in the woods.
Arlene also mentions that Ennis has a necklace, which as readers we know resembles the one Ennis stole from his mother. Arlene states that she thinks that the Ninth City is real and that Ennis and perhaps Guin regularly go there. Arlene believes also that the voice she heard Ennis speaking to is the Architect character from the Ninth City. Guin responds that there is no Ninth City, but also tells Arlene that there really was an Architect.
It's hard for us as a reader to tell how much of this exchange is because Arlene is drunk/ high or if she believes these things sober and is only brave enough now to say them out loud because she is under the influence, and also how much of Guinevere's responses are actually truthful or toying with someone who she knows isn't fully there.
Guinevere recalls a Vogue photoshoot at the Farmhouse
Guinevere recalls her mother's panic about her missing necklace. Everyone at the Farmhouse is distracted by the scene caused by Edith over the last several days, and they forget that Vogue is coming for a photo shoot. When Jonathan remembers, a new panic ensues as they get the house ready for company. Also no one can find Ennis. Guinevere is woken up the night before the photo shoot by a loud sound. She goes to her brother's room to find Ennis disheveled/ apparently rained on even though it isn't raining. When Guinevere asks where he has been, Ennis responds that Guinevere wouldn't believe him. Guinevere recalls a night when she was much younger and her mother's feet were covered in grass even thought she had only been inside. Guinevere swears that she will believe Ennis and asks again for him to answer where he has been. Ennis begins crying. Ennis doesn't answer the question, but tells her to "be ready".
Guinevere wakes up the morning of the Mother show
Guinevere wakes up at Arlene's after party and heads back to her apartment. When she gets back to her apartment Guin sees Hank who has recently finished reading a short story that he took from Guinevere. Typically she had burned her work, refusing to show it to anyone. Hank expresses to Guinevere what a talented writer she is and how he doesn't understand why she used a ghostwriter for the memoir. Hank sees Guin hiding her talents as refusing to let herself be loved. Guin feels like hiding her writing is actually an expression of love. Their relationship is clearly ending, and Guinevere gives their engagement ring back to Hank. They tell each other goodbye.
Vogue photoshoot is printed posthumously
Guinevere returns to reflecting on the disastrous Vogue photoshoot with her family and recalls that the photos were printed after their death, signaling to the reader that her mother and father will pass soon in the story.
After the photoshoot is done there is a party. At the party, Edith begins to sob and shouts that there will be no next Ninth city book because she is "locked out", presumably because she does not have the necklace anymore. Jonathan attempts to smooth things over, but it doesn't work well. At the end of the night some people stay to sleep after drinking too much to drive. Guinevere goes to bed and Ennis tells her to stay close and sleep in his room.
After a tumultuous day Guin tells Ennis that she is scared to sleep because it feels like things are "going to change". Ennis tells her to sleep, and that he will stay awake to watch out.
Guinevere anticipates the opening of the "Mother" exhibit
Guinevere is nervously anticipating the opening of Ennis's "Mother" exhibit. She knows that she will likely see Ennis that night after having not seen or spoken to him in many years. When Guinevere arrives the street and venue are packed with people. Guin enters and we are flashed back to her childhood.
Ennis is waking Guinevere up in the middle of the night. Ennis sobs and is injured but insists Guinevere wake up and follow him outside. When they reach the hall, there is a "storm" of bees, thousands of them. Ennis is beating on all of the bedroom doors trying to wake everyone. Guinevere manages to get outside and then sees a fire begin inside the farmhouse. When Ennis joins her outside, neither of them have any bee stings.
Guinevere realizes that Ennis has been injured, and is missing a finger from his hand, just like their mother had lost hers. Ennis tells Guin that she needs to run to "their house" in the woods. Guinevere knows that Ennis set the fire. Guinevere wants Ennis to go back and help their family, and Ennis says that he will but then the home explodes likely from the gas line.
Guinevere and Ennis arrive at their play house
Guinevere expects to find nothing inside, but instead sees that Ennis has arranged sleeping bags - it seems he planned for all of this. Ennis does say that "he didn't mean to" and asks if Ennis believes him. Ennis is on shaky ground because he both wants Guinevere to believe that he didn't intentionally murder anyone, that the fire was an accident, or at least not being able to wake up the adults in time - but also that he planned for them to sleep and hide in the woods. Guin doesn't see remorse on his face but righteousness. When Ennis is upset when he can tell that Guin does not believe him,
" He said it as if that there the thing that broke his heart."
Guin gets a good look at the necklace that Ennis wearing and sees that it is
"A curled up finger. Like a flower caught in frost, it was cast thinly perfectly, in gold"
Ennis is concerned that he and Guin will be split up. Ennis also tells Guin how he feels about their mom and her writing. Ennis asks Guin to stop writing stories herself. As a reader this circles us back to adult Guin, her failed relationships, and refusal to write the memoir.
"Everything she ever wrote is evil. Edith is evil."
Ennis explain to Guinevere that he wishes that they had just run and he had never "tried to convince Edith". Convince her of what? Hard to discern exactly.
Guin and Ennis are found in the woods by hikers. When they first hear the hikers, Ennis leaves with a shotgun and fires at them. Thankfully, no one is hurt, and Ennis and Guinevere are given aid. "Help my sister" are the last words that Guinevere hears from her brother.
Guinevere enters the "Mother" exhibit
As Guin enters, there are countless homages to her family and the Farmhouse. Guin thinks she sees her father, Llewellyn. Guin realizes that it is not her father, but that Ennis chose people who looked like Llewellyn to serve alcohol and food. The numerous servers' faces are half covered, but their hair and the exposed parts of their face resemble Llewelyn. All of the servers are also wearing painter's uniforms as Llewellyn would. It strikes Guin that the other attendees do not realize that they are being served by a "ghost".
The tag to enter the exhibit has a hand on it, the hand is missing the ring finger, just like Ennis and Edith. Inside the exhibit is a soundtrack of constant humming, like bees. This circles back for the reader to the bees Ennis and Guin saw leaving the farmhouse on the night of the fire. Ennis continues through the exhibit, noticing allusions to their life at the Farmhouse that only she would understand.
Guinevere recalls a memory from her childhood when she took drugs given to her by friends of her parents at a farmhouse party. The vibe at the exhibit begins to take on a similar energy. Guinevere exits the main exhibit through a stairway, a Llewellyn-eqsue server allows her through saying, "Alright fair one. Go find your brother." Once through the door she is locked out of the main hallway.
Guinevere continues exploring the exhibit
Guin is in a pitch-black room, and as lights come on, she realizes she is in a creation of the "Dreamers' Graveyard," a setting from the Ninth City. She then sees another building, a recreation of "Art Church", the shed where her father worked. Inside of the remade art church are TV screens playing footage of their father. She sees also a remade version of a theatre they all went to together, Anne's studio, and then finally, Edith's writing room. In the recreated writing room, there are windows looking out over a "Ninth City" model.
Guin opens the drawers of her mom's writing desk. In one drawer she finds Ennis's necklace - which becomes an unfurled boy's ring finger in a gold casing. This acts as a key to open a door on a blank wall.
Guinevere and Ennis meet again
Guin recalls traveling back to the location of their farmhouse as a young adult, and the shock of seeing their home completely gone. In its place is a garden of flowers that have grown out of the ashes.
Through the blank door in the art exhibit unlocked by her brother's finger key ( honestly, they're really starting to lose me here) she enters a room that feels like the woods near the farmhouse that she and Ennis played in together growing up.
She sees a tree and from each branch are countless rolled up maps. She realizes it is an illusion to a short story she wrote as a child and had read to her brother. She then sees the tiny house she made with her brother, and when she knocks, Ennis opens the door.
Ennis begins to explain all of the clues that he left around the exhibit and how they point back to their childhood. Ennis begins to tell her a story about a young girl and mother, who died. They lived at the farmhouse 100 years before Ennis and Guin did. The young girl became a woman and made a wish for a deep, true love. She cast the wish onto a fishing line and caught her Mother who had passed, now alive. The story meanders but comes to that the Mother continues to live on in the house, haunting it when Guin and her family lived there. This is the mother Ennis is referring to for the exhibit, not their biological mother Edith.
Guinevere learns more about "the Mother"
Ennis explains to Guin how the Mother who haunted their home was the actual author of Edith's books. When Ennis found out that Edith was planning to send Guin to boarding school Ennis wanted to punish Edith, and decided to take her necklace. When he took her necklace that night, it also acted like a key and inside the room it unlocked was a woman who convinced Ennis that he too needed to lose a finger in order to make his own key. He agreed to do it, if the women would destroy Edith's key. The woman then also became the bees? ( I am not a magical realism fan, so this is truly when the book lost me. This whole chunk of the plot is hard to follow or tie back to events in the book).
Ennis setting the fire that burned down the house also "freed" the Mother spirit stuck inside the farmhouse. The spirit of Mother came to be in Ennis, which led him to making the art that he has over the years. Ennis asks Guin to stay with him inside the art. Guin refuses. The Mother is a metaphor for how we take parts of people when we use them.
Ennis addresses the memoir that Guin wrote calling it a fairy tale that she told herself. Reading the memoir unlocked the trauma of their childhood for Ennis and revealed just how much Guin went through, as well. Ennis tells Guin that she can be a writer again.
Guinevere meets "Mother"
Ennis tells Guinevere that he wants her to meet Mother. Together they go to the Farmhouse and hear Edith's voice calling for them. She is both Edith and not Edith?
"Mother wore Edith's face lightly"
Guin holds out her left hand and her finger is severed, however it doesn't hurt. Then the three of them walk together into the kitchen, together as a "happy" family.
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