Sullivan Green was the son of Warner Green, and sole heir to Ackerly Green Publishing. He was the father of Deirdre Green, and also the creator of The Monarch Papers.
Personality
In the Book of Kings, Sullivan Green was a man with a fractured mind, one who was so haunted by his inner demons that he left his only child in Ireland, and spent his last remaining days homeless in Central Park, despite having a considerable fortune. Little is known about the life of Sullivan Green during the Book of the Wild.
Biography
Events Before The Monarch Papers
Sullivan Green was born in the spring of 1958. During this time, his father, Warner Green distanced himself more and more from his company, Ackerly Green Publishing, and his old friend, Meredith Grey Ackerly. He had to care for his wife, Sylvia Green, who was suffering episodes of deep depression by this time, and the baby Sullivan.
Sullivan grew up on the floor of the A&L Printing House, where Warner had slowly risen in the ranks, and by the 70s, Warner was in charge again. Warner was unsatisfied creatively, and wounded by his wife’s degrading health, but had managed to secure a future for his son in the company. Sylvia took her own life in 1977. Warner died a year later. Sullivan had just turned twenty. He ran the company for a year until a fire ravaged the old building, destroying it completely. But in the destruction, Sullivan learned that his father had amassed a small fortune for him to do with as he pleased. Sullivan’s lawyer, Orvin Wallace, helped manage Warner’s accounts, and helped Sullivan make decisions for the printing house, but, according to Orvin, Sullivan’s heart was never really in it. When the fire destroyed the printing house, Sullivan disappeared soon after.
Little is known of Sullivan’s life after the destruction of A&L Printing. According to Orvin, he traveled the world, living thriftily, except when purchasing rare books and pieces of art. When Deirdre met with Colby Fortin, he informed her that Sullivan was aware of magiq when the printing house burnt down, and that he had seen something in the fire. As he explored the world, he met a coven of six others who taught him everything he knew about magiq. However, he soon grew restless, wanting more from the world. He became fascinated by the lost history of the old houses of Wool and Silver, that had originated in Anne of Brittany’s court. He felt there was a hidden connection pulling him to that story. He spent years hunting down works of art, following the path of Wool, while learning more and more about magic and collecting magical artifacts. During his travels, he wrote The Monarch Papers, journals that spanned at least three volumes. He learned that he was sensitive to wells—places that contain hidden magiq. At some point during his journeys, Sullivan became deeply in debt, although he did have some investments.
In the crossroads of his journey, he met Aisling Green, who was also looking for the end of the roads and had followed the path of Silver around the world. They continued on the path together and fell deeply in love. In 1992, they had a daughter, Deirdre Green. Sullivan left Deirdre shortly after she was born to search for magiq, leaving Aisling virtually a single mother. Despite this, Deirdre retained some memories of Sullivan telling her a childhood story and of carrying her down a long hallway, suggesting that he may have had some sort of presence in her early life. Sometime later, Sullivan came back to New York, saying he had found the “little red house” from Aisling’s dreams, and that they would all be safe there. She said he would never be still, or content. He would always be searching for something. Sullivan tried to carry Deirdre out of their apartment, but Aisling used a magiqal artifact to inflict a dark magiqal wound on him. The spell led to Aisling’s death within a year, and successfully repelled Sullivan.
A year before Aisling’s death, Sullivan concocted a spell to “call the six corners,” and shield Deirdre from magical influence. To do this, he required the help of six friends: Ishi, Colby, Mendelssohn, and three others, all of whom he wrote about in The Monarch Papers, Volume Three. The details of Sullivan’s whereabouts were unclear, though he did search incessantly for a “little red house,” but was pursued by something that kept him from reaching his destination. Eventually, he realized the only place in the world he would be safe was at the center of “the eighteen gates”—Central Park. He seldom left, and quickly returned when he did.
Sullivan had some sort of interaction with the The '94 Mountaineers, during his journeys. According to the timeline on the Ackerly Green’s Guide to Magiq website, Mountaineers tracked down Sullivan on March 17, 1997, and he claimed to have no memory of The Lost Collection. Seemingly afraid for his life, he disappeared.
In the final days before his death, Sullivan arranged for Ishi and a few others to be prepared for Deirdre’s arrival, in case she did free herself from his spell. They waited, holding on to the specified art pieces, for the possibility of Deirdre turning up one day.
Phase One
When Sullivan died in July 2016, the police found a letter on him. It was addressed to Orvin, explaining all about his long lost daughter. This spurred Orvin to contact Deirdre, and it was also then that he found documents that led him to the brownstone. Sullivan owned it but hadn’t lived in it for years, if ever. After his death, Sullivan’s body was burned, and his ashes were spread across The Ramble. Deirdre inherited her father’s brownstone, as well as three gifts he had prepared for her: a copy of Through the Night, several pieces of paper that led to the discovery of Fragment One, and a pocket watch. Later, it was revealed that Sullivan owned a safety deposit box in Sweden, which was broken into during Phase Two.
Phase Two
During the beginning of Phase Two, Sullivan’s journal, The Monarch Papers Vol. 3, was obtained by the Cagliostro and sent to Lauren Ellsworth, to test her. A few weeks later, in “What to Do,” Deirdre obtained The Monarch Papers Vol. 1 from her Aunt Monica, who had kept the journal in her attic. Using hints from the two journals, recruits solved Fragment Six and Fragment Seven, ultimately leading them to the Morgan Library, where the book Seven Cradle Songs was held behind a desk in the library’s scarlet room. At the start of Fragment Eight, it was revealed that Sullivan had hidden a letter inside of Seven Cradle Songs, detailing the spell he had performed on her to keep her from finding the secret truth of magiq. In the letter, he provided the Calling the Corners spell, which could be performed a second time to undo the effects of the original spell. With the help of the Mountaineers, Deirdre performed the spell and was able to finally see the truth of the world.
Phase Three
In a blog post titled “The Monarch Papers,” Deirdre revealed that Sullivan had followed the paths of magiq, traveling the globe to discover a series of paintings, sculptures, tapestries, and books that would lead him to the truth. In the post “In Air,” Deirdre provided Sullivan’s description of the two paths as having “…at the end of both roads nothing but silence and ruin. Roads that, at one time in history, were walked by those who sought the truth. But when I walked them I found those who built them were no longer waiting at the end. And hadn’t been for quite some time. It wasn’t until years later that I found what I believe to be the truth and now I leave it safe at the end of this new road. For you.” From this new path created by Sullivan, Deirdre traveled the world using clues left by the journal, each time finding a piece of art and feeling an emotion. In the post “Knocking Back,” Deirdre noted the first entry in the journal that wasn’t a clue, but simply a note to his daughter: “Don’t give up.”
Phase Four
In the blog post “M. Grey Ackerly,” Deirdre described Meredith Grey Ackerly’s revelation that his death had been faked at the request of Sullivan. He had reached out to Ackerly, telling him that he believed forces were out to destroy the Greens and Ackerlys, due to their connection to the Lost Collection. Sullivan set Ackerly up in a magically shielded apartment, with special locks that could keep the outside world away, if the inhabitant wished. There, Ackerly waited, safe from the forces that wished to harm him, until Deirdre found him. He left Ackerly with a magically sealed box to give Deirdre, which contained a Chronocompass, a volume of The Monarch Papers titled “Neithernor,” and a note to his daughter. Parts of the letter were used by recruits to find the start of Fragment Thirteen, and utilize the Fletcher Dawson website to speak to Mountaineers in the past.
When Deirdre knocked into Neithernor in “My Mother’s Daughter,” she arrived in the warren, which Sullivan had previously used as a home base of sorts. The trip to the warren had unlocked a new journal entry, in which Sullivan described his pursuit of Neithernor, and his life fleeing the Storm. He eventually found his way to Central Park, where he found the Storm couldn’t follow him. A door to Neithernor existed there, as well as the dying Council of the 18 Gates. Together, the two grew stronger and devised a plan to open the Book of Briars and stop the Storm once and for all. Sullivan had placed his hopes in Deirdre, saying he knew that she would find her way to magiq because she was her mother’s daughter. He told her to explore Neithernor and to take his Walking Stick with her, which he had placed near the warren’s bed.
Deirdre’s exploration in Neithernor had attracted the Storm, nearly trapping her in Grey’s apartment in “The Storm - Part Three”. She was able to escape to the Ramble and wait out the Storm in the warren, and being in the Ramble unlocked a new journal entry. “Doors Unknocked” described Sullivan’s discovery of a door in Neithernor that led to the Palace of Doors and the risk he took rescuing the Guide to Magiq from within the building. On the way out, however, Sullivan was touched by the Storm, which took a part of him, while allowing him to read parts of the Storm’s thoughts.
In “The Vault,” Deirdre realized that she had already been to the vault as a child. She had been taken there by Sullivan through the years, where he had read books to her as a child. She further described some of her favorite childhood books in “The Six Books,” reminiscing on how she had bonded over the books with her father. The blog post served as her first major figuration magiq and allowed her to unlock The Little Red House. The Mountaineers and Deirdre soon realized that the Little Red House was the key to saving the Book— Sullivan had prepared it to be sacrificed to the Storm in exchange for the '98 Book.
After The Day of Change, Deirdre told the Mountaineers she had been to the former location of Ackerly Green Publishing, which unlocked a final journal entry and a message for the Mountaineers. Sullivan told the Mountaineers that the Book would be confused after traveling through time, and they needed to remind it who it was. He told Deirdre to remember that she was her soul’s providence and to forge her own path. Deirdre made the choice not to run Ackerly Green Publishing, believing she would be living in her father’s shadow if she did so, and instead turned her attention to the “next peak to summit.”