All about Maddie

What is Maddie's secret? How is The Voice able to control her? I'm struggling to find her in all of this. Some of the ideas that I'm testing include

• The Voice is her father.


• The Voice is holding her son/daughter hostage.


• She is complicit with The Board (and The Voice) and is a willing participant hoping to get the secret for herself.


• She followed the teachings of grandpa but fell in with the wrong group.


• She was raised to be a foil to Peter and then unleashed.

I desperately want her to be innocent, but I know that Peter at one point will believe she is the enemy. I think Maddie was raised by a booklover, whether The Voice or not. She was a subscriber to Grandpa's magazine, which means she's about the same age as Peter. (He could be younger than I thought since I don't think DTP will enter into the story after all.)

She definitely learned her love of ancient manuscripts and desire to study printing from the magazine. She was pretty punk as a teen and into college. The rituals of the guild appealed to her on a goth or punk level.

Does she have a fairly normal family life? Is one parent a kind of stepchild to the guild who fills her head with stories that she later uses to gain admittance? There are really only a few things I can think of that would motivate her.

• she has family, maybe child,, that is at risk if she doesn't obey


• She cheated on her dissertation and would be ruined if she were found out


• She committed some crime and will be sent to prison if it is discovered


• An abusive former boyfriend or husband is somehow manipulating her


• She is part of a truly insane religious cult


• She fled an Islamic country and will be returned to a man she was married to at age 10