The Lost Girls of Willowbrook

Eddie King, who at first seems to be a caring janitor at Willowbrook, is actually a patient and the serial killer who murders Rosemary and attempts to murder Sage. He is the novel’s primary antagonist.

Eddie is initially characterized as a kind and thoughtful young man, Sage’s only support at Willowbrook: “more like a college kid than a janitor […] with his broad shoulders, thick brown hair, and strong jaw” (89-90). Eddie is handsome, young, and capable, which helps Sage trust him and believe that he has her best interests at heart.

Although this version of Eddie turns out to be a carefully constructed persona, he does justify his murders as vengeance for injustice. He considers himself an angel of mercy to the residents of Willowbrook, killing them when they beg to be released from the torture of their lives there and ostensibly attempting to get Willowbrook shut down through bad publicity. Eddie clings to this story for most of his life: Years after his arrest and conviction, he claims that “[he] was the only one brave enough to set those tortured souls free” (353), portraying himself as a hero who rescued people, not as yet another tormentor of Willowbrook’s vulnerable population, like Dr. Baldwin or Wayne Myers. However, his flat affect in his interview with Nolan and Baldwin indicates that such explanations are only excuses for Eddie’s desire to kill. Eddie manipulates the horrors of Willowbrook to enable harming others, a willing participant in the institution’s abusive system.

Although Sage’s twin sister Rosemary never appears in the novel—her disappearance and death are the inciting action—her presence hangs over its major plot points. Sage, who only knew Rosemary until age 10, characterizes her sister as “different, but mostly in the best ways. The world had come alive in her eyes, and she’d shared it with everyone” (16). While Sage is a fighter, her version of Rosemary is a perpetual child enchanted by the beauty of life. Memories of Rosemary keep Sage from giving in to the pain and trauma from Willowbrook

Rosemary and Sage are often figured as alternate versions of each other. At Willowbrook, where Rosemary is a patient for six years before she is murdered, she experiences delusions that entwine her identity with Sage’s; at times, Rosemary claims to be Sage. When Sage discovers Rosemary’s body, Sage feels as though she is seeing herself dead, echoing Rosemary’s more literal turning into Sage at various moments of her life.

Rosemary dies twice in the novel—once when her mother lies about her death when she’s been sent to Willowbrook, and then in reality when Eddie kills her. She is thus both alive and dead to Sage; this ambiguity is used to mislead readers about Sage’s mental health, and later fuels Sage’s drive to pursue justice for the surviving Willowbrook residents.

Alan Tern is Sage and Rosemary’s stepfather, “a normal-looking man with perfectly ordinary features […] but his eyes were cold and calm. Secret-hiding eyes” (11). Alan works at the dump, drinks to excess regularly, lies about many important things, and verbally and physically abuses Sage.

Alan is one of the novel’s several antagonists, all of whom are men in positions of power or authority over Sage. After Sage’s mother’s death, Alan hides the truth about Rosemary’s institutionalization from Sage for six years. When Sage finally learns that Rosemary did not die at age 10, but has been confined at Willowbrook, she confronts Alan. His derogatory language about Rosemary’s disability and violent response to be questioned prompt Sage to investigate where Rosemary is on her own. Eventually, Eddie murders Alan; Sage’s proximity to this crime results in her re-admittance to Willowbrook.

Wayne Myers, “a bald attendant with muscular tattooed arms” (62), who “looked like he could rip someone’s head off” (67), works at Willowbrook, primarily overseeing the dayroom. Like Alan, Wayne has a disturbing and threatening expression in his eyes, which identifies him as another male antagonist in a position of authority over Sage: To Sage, Wayne’s eyes are “calm and cold, like Alan’s, but murkier. Predator eyes” (102). Wayne is physically and sexually abusive to the women and girls under his care; he is revealed to have repeatedly raped Rosemary and Norma, relying on their mental illness to avoid repercussions for his actions. Sage at first believes that Wayne murdered Rosemary, making this character a red herring to deflect the reader’s attention from the real killer. Toward the end of the novel, Eddie kills Wayne, ostensibly because of Wayne’s cruelty to Willowbrook patients.

The novel’s most powerful male antagonist in a position of authority over Sage is Dr. Baldwin, a Willowbrook psychiatrist who refuses to believe that Sage isn’t Rosemary and who confines her to Willowbrook in Rosemary’s place. Baldwin has “thick glasses and a gray sports coat […] his skin looked colorless; his fleshy face as white as the belly of a dead fish” (47).

Baldwin doesn’t use his medical training to help patients; instead, he condescends to and manipulates the girls and women he is meant to treat. Even when Sage’s identity is revealed through the discovery of Rosemary’s body, Baldwin is frightened for himself, rather than apologetic for his mistreatment of Sage. At his first opportunity, he attempts to have Sage committed again.

Baldwin is a static character who never alters his attitude about those under his supervision and care. Although he never physically abuses patients, he ignores Willowbrook’s systemic abuses and is thus a willing participant, unlike, for example, whistleblower Dr. Wilkins.