Under the Whispering Door

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-9

Chapters 10-13

Chapters 14-17

Chapter 18-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Book Club Questions

Chapters 10-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 10 Summary

A few nights later, Nelson starts teaching Wallace how to properly be a ghost. Wallace tries desperately to move a chair, but his hands keep passing through it. Nelson tells him to focus, and when Wallace closes his eyes, he has a detailed memory of one of his and Naomi’s first dates. This invokes a feeling of deep loss. When he opens his eyes, he is holding the chair, but the next time he tries to do it the chair flies across the room. Hugo and Mei come down at the sound and are surprised at his strength so early into his time as a ghost. When Hugo asks how he did it, Wallace said he was thinking of a happy memory. He realizes that, despite his and Naomi’s differences, they were once happy together.

Wallace begins to settle into the working rhythm of the tea shop. He had been hiding in the kitchen even though none of the customers can see him, but he starts to venture out more. Nancy returns to the tea shop most days and Hugo sits with her patiently as she remains silent. One day, Nancy storms out and, to Wallace’s surprise, Hugo leaves to take a ride on his scooter to clear his head. Wallace is nervous when Hugo returns and does not know what to say to him, but Hugo thanks him for his company.

Chapter 11 Summary

Nelson continues to try to teach Wallace how to change his appearance, but Wallace has little control over it. Hugo mentions him leaving in passing for the first time since one of his first days at the tea shop, and Wallace’s hook feels heavier than ever in his chest. Later that day, a small woman named Desdemona Tripplethorne comes into the shop with two men, and while Hugo is polite to her, Mei comes out of the kitchen threatening her if she does not leave. Wallace learns that Desdemona pretends to be a medium online to scam people out of their money and that she has a crush on Hugo, a fact that especially bothers Wallace. Mei mentions that she tricked Nancy and gave her false hope, but Hugo stops her from speaking on it further.

Desdemona sets up a camera and Ouija board to try and communicate with the spirits in the tea shop. Wallace and Nelson take the opportunity to mess with her. Wallace, now getting better at handling physical objects, writes threatening messages on the Ouija board, and Desdemona and her associates run out of the door screaming. When the tea shop quiets down again, everyone is surprised to hear Wallace laughing. When Mei goes to give him a hug, he feels much lighter.

Chapter 12 Summary

That night, Wallace goes to apologize to Hugo for what happened with Desdemona, but Hugo tells him not to. Hugo asks why he did it, and Wallace refuses to admit that he was jealous of the way Desdemona flirted with Hugo. Instead, Wallace says he did it for Mei. He realizes as he is saying it that he was genuinely trying to protect her, too.

Hugo finally begins to open up about what happened with his previous Reaper. He tells Wallace that he was the one who let Cameron go; Cameron refused to accept his fate and ran away, much like Wallace did. The Reaper convinced Hugo to let him go, insisting that Cameron was not worth trying to reason with. Hugo had only felt the cable that tied them together snap when it was already too late. He says Cameron is what they call a Husk, as he has lost all of his humanity. Wallace feels guilty, reflecting on his own behavior shortly after his death, but Hugo assures him that Wallace was not like Cameron.

Later, the Reaper brought in a little girl named Lea, whom Hugo adored. Lea seemed almost ready to cross but was waiting for her mother, Nancy. Somehow, Nancy felt that Lea was there in the tea shop. She came from hundreds of miles away to find Lea, who screamed for her but could not be heard. The Reaper took Lea and forced her through the door despite Hugo’s protests. After that incident, the Manager arrived; he made the Reaper disappear instantly. Hugo blames himself for the Reaper’s death as well as Lea’s forced transition and Nancy’s desolate existence. Wallace assures Hugo that he did everything he could and that he is not to blame. Hugo admits that he will be sad to see Wallace go because they have become friends and fit into one another’s lives.

Wallace talks to Nelson about his regrets and how he wished he could grow old and live a different life. Wallace becomes convinced he must see the door at the top of the stairs, which scares Nelson. He begins to hear whispers as they get closer to the door and asks Nelson if he does too. Wallace thinks Nelson is lying when he says he doesn’t. Nelson insists that Hugo should be there when Wallace sees the door, but Wallace persists, seeing old memories of his life behind the windows in the walls as he climbs the stairs. When they reach the top, Wallace sees that the door is on the ceiling; it will let the dead float through it once they remove their hooks. For a moment, Wallace feels the urge to put his hand on the handle and wonders if he could open the door himself. However, he quickly becomes terrified and tells Nelson he wants to go back downstairs. He does not see his own memories through the windows as he descends the staircase, but at one point he feels someone else’s memory of being warmed by the sun. When the memory fades, he sees Cameron standing in the road outside of the tea shop, staring right at him.

Chapter 13 Summary

One morning before the shop opens, Wallace notices the clock on the wall stutter, and a file suddenly appears on the counter. The file contains details about the tea shop’s next guest. Wallace is surprised at how bad he feels about having to share the shop and the people in it. Wallace is also incensed when he learns that people’s lives are broken down into a bulleted list by the Manager once they die; he demands that Hugo tell him what his file said. Hugo does not say much about the file other than it said Wallace was a hard worker and did not take no for an answer, which Wallace does not know how to feel about.

Mei goes out to get the next guest and the clock on the wall continues to tick normally again. Nelson reassures Wallace that Hugo won’t forget about him just because someone else is here. He tells Wallace about his wife and says that he knows she will be waiting for him when he is ready to open the door, but that he can’t go until he knows Hugo is in good hands. The clock begins to stall again, and Hugo shows Wallace how he picks his teas for his new guests. Hugo seems worried to meet the new visitor but asks Wallace to trust him and come with him.

Chapters 10-13 Analysis

The motif of memory becomes especially prominent in this section of the novel. Within the tea shop, memories become tangible things or relived experiences, such as when Wallace is transported back to his childhood home when the peppermint tea Hugo gives him brings back his memories of Christmas. In the afterlife, memories show someone a different world than the one in which they are currently residing, and that gives people power. When Wallace has a memory of pulling out Naomi’s chair on one of their first dates, he is finally able to move a chair for the first time as a ghost, indicating that the strength he drew from that memory gave him tangible power. Wallace also tangles with someone else’s memories for the first time: when he experiences the memory “of being outside, face turned toward the warm, warm sun” (321). Even more than his previous memories, this memory Wallace experiences is physical and seems to transport him to some place outside of the tea shop. This, paired with the way Wallace glimpses Cameron outside shortly after, foreshadows Wallace’s impending encounter with Cameron, and how their interactions are grounded in the power of memory and the self.

However, memories are not purely positive things. Klune shows how bad memories can cause fresh pain, no matter how long ago they may have happened. When Hugo opens up about his experiences with his past Reaper, he openly blames himself for everything that happened to his Reaper, Cameron, Lea, and Nancy. The downsides of Hugo’s empathy become clear in the way he is haunted by the people he couldn’t save. This exchange illustrates Found Family and the Importance of Connection; Wallace assures Hugo that he did nothing wrong and that he is not at fault, which strengthens their bond and sets up the story for Wallace to help Hugo tie up these loose ends later on.

The idea of free will is repeatedly addressed throughout the novel, particularly in conjunction with The Transitory Nature of Life and The Influence of Faith. This concept is especially prominent with Lea, who was forced to go through the door against her will. Hugo and the others understand that Lea’s early death was a tragedy, but an undeniable fact of life. However, they find her forced departure from the tea shop horrific, as, against Hugo’s wishes, she was forced out by someone that was supposed to listen to her and wait for her to be ready. While Lea was never meant to stay in the tea shop permanently—nor is Hugo, at this point—Hugo emphasizes that even the godlike Manager understands that the transition from one stage of existence to another is a malleable process that takes different amounts of time for different people. Hugo’s former Reaper’s arrogance superseded his faith in the process and in Hugo’s authority, leading to Lea’s panicked departure and the unhappy circumstances that Nancy and Cameron find themselves trapped in.

Unlike the former Reaper, Nancy is trapped by her faith. Nancy, too, feels as though she has no choice—she is compelled to return to the tea shop, desperate for any sign of her beloved daughter and unable to move on without one. Desdemona, one of the novel’s antagonists, preys on that desperation, stoking Nancy’s hopes with lies and illusions. Hugo’s relationship with Desdemona is another example of how his kindness can be a negative trait; in an effort to please (or at least tolerate) everyone, Hugo ends up hurting Mei. Wallace establishes his position as a member of the tea shop’s found family when he stands up for Mei, listening to her when Hugo won’t. Mei hugs Wallace in delight when he successfully drives Desdemona from the shop, which shows the growth in their relationship: When they first met, Mei offered to hug Wallace to comfort him over the reality of his death, and he immediately rejected the offer.

These chapters reveal more of the Manager’s personality, foreshadowing his upcoming appearance. Even through Hugo’s brief description, the Manager’s contradictory nature becomes apparent. The Manager dismisses Cameron because he chose to flee the tea shop and did not return even as he began to transform into a Husk, despite having no way of knowing what was happening to him. He punishes the Reaper for forcing Lea to transition, but he does so by effectively killing the Reaper, robbing him of choice in the same way. This implies that the Manager makes decisions based less off of his respect for life, death, and free will than off of a desire to illustrate his power and control. The novel’s climax is centered around this conflict.

Wallace also shows progress in his journey toward accepting his death. In the early chapters, Wallace has feared the door and even the idea of coming near it. However, Wallace suddenly finds himself determined to see it with his own eyes—to know what fate awaits him when he finally chooses to transition. The fact that the door is on the ceiling highlights how effort is needed to go through it: The dead must choose to untether themselves from their hooks, proving their acceptance and their faith that whatever comes next is better than what they have. The placement of the door also necessitates someone else opening it for another person to go through, suggesting the importance of a guide like Hugo to help the dead cross over. The walk up to the door is as symbolic as the door itself: The memories that play in the windows show flashes of the person’s previous life, letting them consider both what is ahead and what is behind them. The fact that the door whispers, as referenced in the novel’s title, suggests there are specific people or forces behind the door that draw people to it when they are ready. The way Nelson claims not to hear the whispers hints at the sacrifices he’s making for Hugo’s sake; his rejection of the transition is a sign of his devotion to his grandson’s well-being.

The door’s whispers are kept vague even through the end of the novel, and they are portrayed as both positive and unsettling. In this way, Klune highlights the unknown yet alluring aspects of the afterlife, suggesting that although the transition beyond death is unknowable, it is not something to be feared.