- Ninth Key
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High Stakes Author(s) Meg Cabot Original title Ninth Key Country United States Language English Series The Mediator Genre(s) Young adult novel Publisher Macmillan Publication date 5 November 2004 Media type Print Pages 224 pp ISBN 0-330-43738-0 OCLC Number 56655291 Preceded by Shadowland Followed by Reunion Ninth Key is a novel written by Meg Cabot for teenagers and young adults. It is the second book of The Mediator series. Its alternative title is High Stakes.
Plot summary
Ninth Key begins with Suze contracting a poison oak rash on her hands after falling into a clump of it at a pool-party of one of her peers, Kelly Prescott. At the party, Suze meets and dances with 'Tad', a student at a local school, Robert Lewis Stevenson.
Later that night,when Suze is asleep, a ghost woman starts yelling, hysterically. The woman asks Suze to tell "Red" that he did not kill her. Suze does not know who this woman is, or who "Red" is, but the ghost disappears before she has the chance to ask. Suze asks around to see if anyone knows who Red might be and is informed by her friend, Cee Cee, that a local businessman called Thaddeus Beaumont goes by that name.
Suze tries and fails to get in contact with Mr Beaumont. While scheming over how she might get a conversation with him, she encounters the spirit of a young boy named Timothy, who tells her his parents abandoned his cat, Spike. Suze promises to find the animal and get him a good home.
With the pretense that she is there as a reporter for the school paper, Suze goes to Mr. Beaumont's mansion and meets him. In his office, she delivers the ghost's message, saying the woman appeared in a dream. Mr Beaumont doesn't have the reaction Suze expected, seeming only interested that he wasn't the cause of the woman's death, and that Suze was able to speak to her. Mr Beaumont is very eager to get Suze to summon the spirits of other people he says he has killed. Feeling disconcerted, Suze tries to leave, only to find that the elevator won't open and the windows are barred with heavy shutters.
Just as Suze is beginning to become nervous, Mr Beaumont's brother Marcus arrives and escorts her out, looking anxiously at her throat and asking if Mr Beaumont harmed her. On the way out of the mansion, they encounter Tad, Mr Beaumont's son. Recognizing her from the pool party, Tad offers to give Suze a ride home.
As Suze leaves the estate, Tad invites her to go have a coffee. Suze agrees and when he drops her off they start kissing in the car. Jesse purposefully shows up in the backseat to prevent Suze from going even more "forward" with Tad. Suze screams when she sees Jesse and tears into the house, leaving Tad alone in the car to drive away.
When Susannah explains what happened to Father Dominic, her principal and fellow mediator, he thinks that the strangeness of Mr Beaumont's behavior could be that he is a vampire. Suze disagrees with this at first, but Father Dominic says that they both know ghosts exist, so perhaps vampires do too.
Several days later, Suze retrieves Spike, Timothy's cat, from a field and will, for the time being keep him in her room. Cee Cee, who researched Mr. Beaumont after Suze asked her to, discovers disappearances linking to the production comanpies of Mr Beaumont. The disappearances are of people who opposed or tried to stop Beaumont Industries expanding their land and business. Cee Cee finds a picture of one of them, called Mrs Fiske, and Suze thinks it looks like the woman who appeared in her bedroom.
Adam, a mutual friend of CeeCee and Suze, takes them all to Cee Cee's aunt's house. Cee Cee dislikes "Aunt Pru" as she is a fortune-teller. Adam tells Aunt Pru of Suze's "dream" and so Aunt Pru tries to summon one of the victims of Mr Beaumont, Mrs Fiske, using Tarot Cards. Mrs Fiske does show up in spirit form and confirms to Suze that "Mr Beaumont" killed her. However, Suze realizes Mrs Fiske is not the woman who asked her to pass on the message.
Mr Beaumont and Tad invite Suze over for dinner at the house. Suze tries to avoid the invitation but can't, because her mother is so happy she has finally found a boyfriend. At the house, Mr Beaumont drugs Tad and tries to talk to her more about her alleged phsycic abilities. Suze, frightened because she believes Mr Beaumont is a vampire, stabs him in the chest with a pencil (similar to a stake in the heart), however fails to kill him. Marcus tells Suze to never return and not speak of Mr Beaumont's so-called vampirisim, that he says is an illness. Suze later receives a phone call at home from Tad and gets in a fight with him. She tells Tad about his dad's illness, but Tad denies this. Suze suggests he ask Marcus where all his money comes from, implying she knows something about the disappearances of the people who opposed Beaumont Industries.
The next morning, Suze is sent home from school to change her outfit, a miniskirt, boots, and leather jacket, and is captured by Marcus and two thugs on the way. She fights hard to escape but Marcus forces her into Mr Beaumont's office, telling her to change into a swimsuit and leaves; him planning to kill her by sending her and Tad into the ocean on a boat during a storm and make it appear as though they drowned. Suze smashes the glass wall of the aquarium in the office when Marcus returns to check on her. Suze pulls the bulb out of one of the aquarium lights, and throws the cord with frayed wires into the water Marcus is walking through, electrocuting him. As the building catches fire, because of Suze overloading the circuit panel, Jesse, the ghost who often inhabits Suze's bedroom, appears, claiming Susannah "called" him, and breaks the window shutters to allow Tad and Suze escape the burning building.
Suze returns home safely, but is grounded by her parents as she is unable to tell them the full story, and just says that Marcus offered her a lift, and that the house caught fire. The story ends as Brad walks into his step-sister's bedroom discovering Spike, the cat, and tells her she is "busted" because Suze is not allowed to have a cat.
External links
Works by Meg Cabot (publication order) The Princess Diaries novel series The Princess Diaries (2000) • Princess in the Spotlight (2001) • Princess in Love (2002) • Princess Lessons (2003) • Princess in Waiting (2003) • Project Princess (2003) • Princess in Pink (2004) • Perfect Princess (2004) • The Princess Present (2004) • Princess in Training (2005) • Holiday Princess (2006) • Party Princess (2006) • Sweet Sixteen Princess (2006) • Valentine Princess (2006) Princess on the Brink (2007) • Princess Mia (2008) • Forever Princess (2009)
The Mediator novel series Shadowland (2000) • Ninth Key (2001) • Reunion (2001) • Darkest Hour (2001) • Haunted (2003) • Twilight (2004)
1-800-WHERE-R-YOU novel series When Lightning Strikes (2001) • Code Name Cassandra (2001) • Safe House (2002) • Sanctuary (2002) • Missing You (2006)
All-American Girl novel series All American Girl (2002) • Ready or Not: An All-American Girl Novel (2005)
Avalon High novel series Avalon High (2005) • The Merlin Prophecy (2007 manga) • Homecoming (2008 manga) • Hunter's Moon (2009 manga)
Airhead novel series Abandon novel series Abandon (2011) • The Underworld
Allie Finkle novel series Moving Day (2008) • The New Girl (2008) • Best Friends and Drama Queens (2009) • Stage Fright (2009) • Glitter Girls and the Great Fake Out (2010) • Blast From the Past (2010)
Boy novel series The Boy Next Door (2002) • Boy Meets Girl (2004) • Every Boy's Got One (2005)
Heather Wells novel series Size 12 is Not Fat (2006) • Size 14 is Not Fat Either (2006) • Big Boned (2007)
Queen of Babble novel series Queen of Babble (2006) • Queen of Babble in the Big City (2007) • Queen of Babble Gets Hitched (2008)
Insatiable novel series Insatiable (2010) • Overbite (2011)
Other teen novels Nicola and the Viscount (2002) • Victoria and the Rogue (2003) • Teen Idol (2004) • How to Be Popular (2006) • Pants On Fire (2007) • Jinx (2007)
Other adult novels Where Roses Grow Wild (1998) • Portrait of My Heart (1999) • An Improper Proposal (1999) • A Little Scandal (2000) • Lady of Skye (2000) • Educating Caroline (2001) • Kiss the Bride (2002) • She Went All the Way (2002)
Short stories: "The Christmas Captive" (2000) • "Every Girl's Dream" (?) • "Girl’s Guide to New York through the Movies" (2003) • "Kate the Great" (2003) • "Party Planner" (2004) • "Connie "Hunter" Williams, Psychic Teacher" (2005) • "Allie Finklestine's Rules for Boys" (2006) • "Reunion" (2006) • "Cry, Linda, Cry: Judy Blume’s Blubber and The Cruelest Thing in the World" (Spring 2007) • "Ask Annie" (2007) • "The Exterminator's Daughter" (2007) • "Princess Prettypants" (2010) • "The Night Hunter" (2010) • "The Protectionist" (2011)
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