Mary

Dead serial killer Damon is, in a way, Mary’s co-protagonist. It is implied that he has been reincarnated as Mary, but he still maintains much of his personality and original thoughts. This means that many of her thoughts actually reflect his ideas and beliefs.

In life, Damon came from a prominent family in Arroyo. His murderous father desperately wanted his son to be an actor, going to horrific lengths to traumatize his son in the hopes that this would fuel his art. After his father’s death, Damon could only find joy in torturing and killing women. He became the “Jane Doe Killer” (110), who removed all identifying characteristics from his victims before disposing of their bodies. He killed middle-aged women because they reminded him of his mother—his father had locked Damon in a bathroom with her rotting corpse for many days when he was a child.

While Damon’s brother, Victor, was very handsome, Mary is surprised at how nondescript Damon’s face is: “Damon has none of the whiz-bang handsomeness of the gardener—I suppose that would be a liability for someone who did what Damon did. Instead, he has a plain, almost featureless face. Instantly forgettable” (242). Damon relies on this invisibility to control Mary. However, when she returns to Arroyo, and Damon gets a taste of power again in his hometown, he is unable to stay invisible, forcing Mary to act out in violent ways. Mary only frees herself when the ghost of Jane Mayhew—one of Damon’s victims—stabs Damon to death by gouging out Mary’s eyes. Thus, Damon is destroyed by a woman who was given back her identity by Mary, Damon’s ostensible host body.

Arroyo invented a religion around Damon’s writings, in which he claimed to be a prophet seeing visions. However, Damon reveals to Mary that he made all his journal entries up to annoy his father. Damon gets satisfaction from the town performing his writings, watching other people act out his darkest thoughts.

Damon’s name carries significance. His first name is very similar to that of Damien, the protagonist of the 1976 movie The Omen and a name that has become synonymous with a murderous persona. Damon’s last name is a play on Christian iconography of crucifixion and on the fact that “cross” can mean “angry”: Damon casts himself as a furious prophet of a new religion.

Nadine, who raised Mary after her parents died, is Mary’s main maternal figure. At first, Nadine seems to be one of the novel’s antagonists. Her house is slovenly, she smokes constantly despite using an oxygen tank and being ill, she wears an odd plastic flower in her hair, and she is extremely crude and frequently uses swear words. Moreover, Mary has bad memories of her childhood with Nadine. Despite all this, Mary does feel empathy toward Nadine, who has had several difficult experiences:

Why Is Nadine the Way She Is? I give a brief recap of Nadine’s life. How she used to teach at a small college in Phoenix. How her husband had an affair with another teacher and the ensuing confrontation resulted in Nadine getting fired. How Nadine eventually moved herself and her young daughter, Brenda, to be by her only sister, just in time for that sister and her husband to die in a fire. How Nadine found herself raising her niece. How, over the years, Nadine got more and more paranoid, more obsessed with conspiracies, while her health deteriorated. As I talk, I start to feel some pity for Nadine. Guilt, even. So much happened to her. Not her fault at all (117).

However, as revelations about Mary’s true nature surface, a new perspective of Nadine arises. Nadine could not manage parenting Mary because Mary was actually inhabited by the malicious soul of Damon Cross. When Nadine sent Mary to the abusive Clearview institution, she didn’t know that Mary was being tormented there—Mary’s letters home were crafted by staff to sound happy. Finally, Nadine’s paranoia is well founded— the Cross House really is the site of a cult worshipping the work of a serial killer and perpetuating his legacy by killing more women. In fact, Nadine was going to be their next victim.

Despite her demeanor, Nadine continues seeing Mary as a daughter until death. When Mary—under Damon’s influence—murders Nadine, Nadine promises to haunt Mary forever. However, what Nadine means is that she will be there to support and save Mary, becoming the maternal force that Mary needed all her life. Nadine, who has always been extremely interested in the paranormal and has stacks of books about the subject, is excited to become a ghost, particularly a poltergeist.

Eleanor is Mary’s teenage coworker in the File Room at the Cross House. She is obsessed with true crime podcasts and is a very talented artist. She serves as Mary’s foil, as both women are angry at being invisible to those around them.

Outwardly, Eleanor appears to be an innocent, beautiful young woman. When Mary first meets her, she is delighted: “It’s as if one of my Loved Ones has come to life. […] She has the smirk of adolescence but also a little of that round, soft flush of childhood left in her face. […] Shrink her down and cast her in porcelain and she’d be right at home on my shelf” (97-98). While Mary is often ignored because she is middle-aged, Eleanor’s youth also makes those around her dismiss her. However, Eleanor’s indignation has a dark motivation: She is eager to get involved in the town’s murder cult and is annoyed that she isn’t yet old enough to do so. To prove her maturity, Eleanor uses her childlike appearance to get away with literal murder; after she kills Carole, everyone blames the crime on Mary.

Eleanor tries to kill Mary at the end of the novel, angry that an outsider has been accepted by the community and chosen by Damon Cross. However, with the help of Nadine, Mary kills Eleanor. Her ability to do so shows that Mary has finally come to terms with herself and her age—she is no longer blind to Eleanor’s true nature because of her beautiful exterior. Mary transformation into a murderer—she kills Eleanor after Damon is dead—gives the novel an ambiguous ending; even though Mary is free from possession, she remains dangerous and violent.

Jane is one of Damon Cross’s victims who now exists as a rageful and vicious ghost in Nadine’s bathroom—one of the Furies from Greek mythology. Jane’s appearance is one of the novel’s horror elements: She is naked,

except for the white, blood-soaked cloth covering her head. From underneath the hood, thick drips of dark, clotted blood ooze down the woman’s sagging skin. Just-developed age spots freckle her flesh, rough scrub flanking the rampant rivers of her dark, purple veins. She’s sallow, livid, bruised. Her breasts hang like old meat cutlets (78-79).

This imagery of bodily decomposition dehumanizes Jane, turning her into a fleshly nightmare without a personality or inner life. This is the opposite of who Jane was when she was alive: a well-regarded poet who published several collections of her work. While Mary at first finds Jane terrifying—and rightly so since Jane shreds Nadine’s dog, Chipotle, with her razor-like claws—eventually, Mary realizes that Jane exists in the hospital’s medical files. Mary eventually identifies Jane by her birthmark and gives her back her name.

After Mary reads and compliments Jane’s poetry, Jane becomes an incredibly powerful ally. She helps Mary dig Nadine’s grave and helps Mary escape the desert. When Mary needs to kill Damon, she turns to Jane, who assists by stabbing him with her talons. At the end of the novel, Jane emerges as the leader of the Furies, a role she steps into when Mary encourages her to remove her pillowcase to show the world what Damon did to her.

Dr. Burton is one of the novel’s antagonists. He is Arroyo’s doctor and the leader of the cult that worships the desert and Damon Cross. He is extremely dismissive of women; Mary immediately dislikes him and feels uneasy around him when she meets him: “[H]is eyes are shining with either charm or malevolence—funny how similar they can look” (68). Power-hungry and desperate to preserve his authority, Burton is upset and skeptical when it is revealed that Mary is the reincarnated Damon. He spends hours examining her journal, trying to find discrepancies between it and Damon’s writings. However, he decides to allow her to join their community because he believes that he will be able to control her in ways that will cement his power over the flock.

Dr. Burton does not believe in the religion the community worships and understands that the religious writings are false—he realizes this because it was his father who turned them into the cult’s beliefs in the first place. Burton often talks about how his father, not Damon, was a powerful leader. Burton lives in the Cross House with his family, indicating that he believes he is as important to Arroyo as the Cross family was.

At the end of the novel, Mary breaks free of Dr. Burton’s control and refuses to participate in the ritual sexual assault. Instead, she attacks him violently with the cactus wand, slashing his hand to ruining his ability to operate—an ability that is moot since Burton is soon killed by one of the Furies, who destroy his body so completely that he is fully erased existence. Unlike the women he tried to make disappear and who turned into vengeful spirits, Burton becomes truly invisible, with no one left to remember him.