Millie Harrington

Quick Facts

• Role: The emotional heart of the novel and catalyst for Grace’s resistance
• First major appearance: Dancing in Regent’s Park, where Jack first approaches Grace
• Age/Context: Seventeen; has Down syndrome; lives at a special boarding school
• Key relationships: Grace Angel (sister and protector), Jack Angel (predator and ultimate target), Janice (supportive carer)
• Signature devices: Coded speech (“George Clooney”), Agatha Christie audiobooks, an insistence on private moments with Grace

Who They Are

Millie Harrington is the character the story keeps returning to whenever it needs a pulse of genuine feeling. While she’s introduced as a vulnerable teenager with Down syndrome, her defining qualities are not fragility but clarity and courage. Her dark hair and brown eyes, which “light up with pleasure,” are less important than the way her face tells truths—bright tears of relief when she sees Grace, a glum scowl when she senses danger, unguarded joy when she dances in the park. To Grace, she’s the person worth enduring anything for; to Jack, she’s the “ultimate prize,” a supposed helpless victim he intends for his red room—an assumption Millie quietly but resolutely overturns.

Personality & Traits

Millie’s personality blends openhearted joy with a shrewd, protective intelligence. The novel repeatedly contrasts how others underestimate her with how accurately she reads them, and how decisively she acts once she understands the stakes.

• Spontaneous and joyful: Her uninhibited dancing in Regent’s Park embodies her love of simple pleasures—music, movement, Agatha Christie audiobooks—which Jack cynically calls “wonderfully spontaneous” to ingratiate himself.
• Perceptive and intuitive: She recognizes Jack’s violence immediately after the wedding steps incident, telling Grace, “Jack bad man, very bad man,” and quietly adjusts her behavior to navigate his presence.
• Resourceful and determined: Millie engineers time alone with Grace by nudging Janice toward lunch at the hotel, and later feigns insomnia to secure sleeping pills—planning, saving, and deploying them at real personal risk.
• Loving and loyal: Her devotion to Grace is absolute; their bond is the novel’s moral center and a living example of Love and Sacrifice.
• Brave under threat: Even as Jack marks her as his “reward,” she refuses passivity, using codes and covert action to protect herself and Grace.

Character Journey

Millie’s “arc” is less change than revelation. First presented as someone Grace must protect, she gradually emerges as Grace’s most effective ally. The shove on the wedding day exposes Jack’s cruelty to her long before others see it. From there, Millie becomes strategic: she invents the “George Clooney” code to speak safely within earshot of Jack, secures sleeping pills through a plausible ruse, and offers them to Grace with a stark plan. Her progression—from perceived pawn to covert strategist—embodies the novel’s insistence that insight and courage can reside where society least expects them, deepening the theme of Resilience and the Will to Survive.

Key Relationships

Grace Angel: Millie and Grace’s relationship predates the plot’s dangers; Grace has been Millie’s advocate since their parents’ rejection, and Millie, in turn, becomes Grace’s fiercest protector. Millie’s coded messages and sleeping-pill plan invert the protector/protected dynamic, showing how their love flows both ways and gives Grace a concrete path to act.

Jack Angel: With Jack, Millie’s arc is about perception. She initially responds to his performance of charm, but the fall at the registry office tears the mask away and she never forgets it. Thereafter, her “George Clooney” code becomes a private signal to Grace and a public performance for Jack—a chilling lesson in Appearance vs. Reality.

Janice: As Millie’s carer, Janice represents stability and normalcy outside the Angels’ home. Millie leverages that safety thoughtfully—steering outings and conversations—to create spaces where she and Grace can plan, underscoring how care and autonomy can coexist.

Defining Moments

Millie’s pivotal scenes chart her shift from underestimated sister to decisive agent.

• Dancing in Regent’s Park: Jack uses Millie’s joyful spontaneity to approach Grace. Why it matters: The scene frames Millie’s joy as both genuine and exploitable—setting up Jack’s predation and Millie’s later refusal to be reduced to bait.
• The fall at the wedding: Jack deliberately pushes Millie down the registry office steps, breaking her leg. Why it matters: It’s the first time his mask slips for her, catalyzing her secret alliance with Grace against him.
• The “George Clooney” mantra: “I like you, Jack, but I don’t like Jorj Koony.” Why it matters: Millie invents a code that lets her speak truth in plain sight—simultaneously reassuring Grace and needling Jack under a veil of playful banter.
• The sleeping-pill plot: Millie feigns insomnia, hoards the pills, and presses them into Grace’s hand—“We kill Jorj Koony.” Why it matters: She becomes an active architect of resistance, transforming from the person to be saved into the person who makes saving possible.

Essential Quotes

“Millie has Down’s syndrome.” Jack’s voice breaks the awkward silence that has descended on the table. “It means she’s often wonderfully spontaneous.”

Jack tries to define Millie for everyone present—labeling her and then casting her spontaneity as charming. The soft compliment masks a predatory gaze: he is already converting her visible joy into a tool for manipulation.

“Grace, Grace,” Millie cried, as soon as we were on our own, “Jack bad man, very bad man. He push me, he push me down stairs!”

The directness of Millie’s speech cuts through adult rationalizations and euphemisms. She identifies the abuse, names the abuser, and refuses to doubt her own perception—an ethical clarity the novel treats as wisdom.

“I like you, Jack,” she says. “But I don’t like Jorj Koony.”
“I know.” Jack nods. “I don’t like him either.”
“He ugly,” says Millie.
“Yes, he’s very ugly,” agrees Jack.
And Millie bursts into fits of laughter.

This exchange performs two scripts at once: a harmless joke for onlookers and a covert warning to Grace. Millie’s laughter is tactical; it keeps Jack complacent while broadcasting her true judgment through code.

“Yes, you understand.” Millie is adamant. “It simple, Grace. We kill Jorj Koony.”

The bluntness shocks because it reveals Millie’s resolve and strategic mind. She reframes the power dynamic—no longer the endangered sister awaiting rescue, she proposes decisive action, crystallizing the story’s turn toward survival.