All Hallows' Eve, Chapter IV
This chapter focuses on the previously peripheral character of Betty Wallingford. Like Lester and Evelyn, she's a young woman of an unclear age, definitely somewhere between twenty and twenty-five. Unlike them, she is still alive, and quite a miserable life it is. Her (adopted) mother, the wife of the Air Chief Marshal Sir Bartholomew Wallingford, treats her, very literally, like a servant, doing things like forcing her to only listen to vapid pop music because it's what girls 'of her station' are supposed to like. She constantly calls Betty stupid and explicitly sets out to cause her pain for her own amusement. One wonders why Lady Wallingford even adopted her, until one finds out that it's because the book's resident evil American cult/magic huckster is using Betty as a medium, sending her into Heaven to see the future for him and then forcibly dragging her back out against her will. Basically, Betty is a total 'OH POOR BABY' character and I want to hug her.
The last part of the chapter returns to our dead girls, and cements (as if this needed any more cementing) that Lester is the Mamiina and Evelyn is the Rodoreamon in this relationship. They see Betty but she's dragged back out to the waking world before they can come into proper contact, after which Lester gets pissed and goes to haunt Lady Wallingford or something.
I don't know why, but I'm finding this book much more compelling than Descent into Hell.
The last part of the chapter returns to our dead girls, and cements (as if this needed any more cementing) that Lester is the Mamiina and Evelyn is the Rodoreamon in this relationship. They see Betty but she's dragged back out to the waking world before they can come into proper contact, after which Lester gets pissed and goes to haunt Lady Wallingford or something.
I don't know why, but I'm finding this book much more compelling than Descent into Hell.