Darkest Hour characters

Also known as Suze

Appears from the start

A sixteen-year-old mediator, now a year into her Californian life. She sees and speaks with the dead and helps them finish whatever holds them here, usually by fighting them, and her family still knows nothing about it. School is out for the summer, she needs a job, and the ghost who lives in her bedroom is the one part of Carmel she would not give up. She has never been told how he died, and has never quite dared to ask.

Appears from the start

The ghost of a young man who died in the nineteenth century in the room that is now Suze's bedroom, where he has remained ever since. Courteous, self-contained and reluctant to talk about his own death, he is Suze's confidant and the person whose opinion she pretends not to care about. Neither of them says out loud what has grown between them.

First appears in chapter 2

The principal of the Mission Academy and a mediator of long standing, who counsels the dead rather than fighting them and has never persuaded Suze to do the same. He is the only adult who knows what she is, and the limits of what he knows about their shared ability become an issue in this book.

First appears in chapter 2

A boy of about eight, staying with his family at a Pebble Beach resort for the summer, whom Suze is hired to look after. He is withdrawn, exhausted and frightened, and it takes Suze very little time to work out why: he sees the dead exactly as she does, has no idea what that makes him, and has been told by the adults around him that something is wrong with him.

First appears in chapter 3

Jack's older brother, a poised, wealthy teenager staying at the resort for the summer. He is charming, attentive and interested in Suze from the moment he meets her, and he behaves throughout as though he already knows more about her than he should.

First appears in chapter 9

The ghost of a young woman from a prominent nineteenth-century Californian family, still dressed for the century she died in, elegant and used to being obeyed. She was engaged to her own cousin, Hector de Silva, who disappeared in 1850 before the wedding. She appears to Suze with one demand: that the digging in the Ackermans' backyard stop.

First appears in chapter 15

The ghost of the man Maria married after her cousin vanished, physically imposing and with an ugly reputation in his own lifetime. He is dangerous in a way Maria is not: she gives the orders and he carries them out.

Appears from the start

Suze's stepfather, whose summer project is a hot tub in the backyard, which means excavating ground that has not been disturbed since the house was built.

Appears from the start

A television journalist, remarried and settled in Carmel, who is pleased her daughter has found summer work and has no idea what else her daughter does.

Also known as Sleepy

Appears from the start

The eldest stepbrother, working a summer job and otherwise asleep. Suze calls him Sleepy.

Also known as Dopey

Appears from the start

The stepbrother in Suze's own year, a wrestler and a reliable irritant. Suze calls him Dopey.

Also known as Doc

Appears from the start

The twelve-year-old youngest stepbrother, whose enthusiasm for research and local history makes him unexpectedly useful. Suze calls him Doc.

First appears in chapter 4

Suze's friend and classmate, a school-paper writer with albinism who can find anything in an archive and enjoys doing it. She helps trace the history of the family who once owned the land the Ackermans live on.

First appears in chapter 4

CeeCee's inseparable friend and Suze's, good-humored and usually driving.