Who is who

Characters of the Keeping

The keepers, the takers and the people caught between them, series by series. Each character's page opens with the release of their first book, and grows with every book they come back in.

The Borrowed Dead

Bram Twelve years of emptying dead strangers' flats in Antwerp. Then, one morning, the strangers are on his skin. Noor A palliative nurse. She can see through the glass, but only while she is near him. Idris The dying Keeper who laid the family on Bram in a bar, and gave him the key. Ezra The Vestibule elder who first calls Bram a soul-taker, then sees the whole of it. Vesna A Taker. To her a Keeping is a full larder, and Bram is the richest she has found. Margriet, Tanneke & Mayken Three generations of one drowned family. The dead he never met, and cannot bear to lose. Margriet The mother on his skin, the name he greyed with his own hand, eyes open. To bring her back he walks her valley in 1623, in the days the water came. The man at the top He keeps the dead in order, on shelves at the top of the road. He set a place at his table a long time ago, and he has heard the gate, and he is glad.

The Founding of the Aumbry

Opens with The Founding of the Aumbry, 9 November 2026: Gerlof, Tariq, the Inkmaster, Selin, the Finder, Amal, Mette, Bendt, Niko, Hadewijch, the Dead Master, Kasimir, the Provost

The Aumbry Years

Opens with The Night of Names, 9 December 2026: Senne, Cael, Ide, Tomas, Wend, Dunya, Veor

Opens with The Letting Go, 9 January 2027: Reyer, Oksana

Opens with The Kind Hand, 9 February 2027: Saskia, the Kind Hand, Nnenna, Idu & Idi

Opens with The Gathering of Schools, 9 March 2027: Mariken, Mira, Marisol, Eshe

Opens with The Dead Master, 9 April 2027: Fenna of the Weir, Warden Tomoko