Candy Quackenbush

Candy Francesca Quackenbush is the central character in the Abarat series by Clive Barker.

Appearance and Character
Candy is a 16 year old girl from Chickentown, Minnesota. She has two different colored eyes, the right eye blue and the left eye brown. Her face is comely, and has the same smile as her mother Melissa. Her hair is dark. She cuts it short to hide along some monks on Soma Plume. She does not like liars, presumably because of her father, or insects because of her hometown's large population of them.

Family
In the beginning of the story  Candy lives her with her mother and father, Melissa and Bill Quakenbush, and her two younger brothers Ricky and Don. Melissa is an understanding mother, but supressed by the abusive and alcoholic father Bill, who for months has not had a job.

In Abarat
Candy is drawn to the Abarat when one day in class she obsessively draws pictures of the sea in her workbook and her teacher sends her to the principal. Instead of going to the principal she runs out the door. Without knowing where she is going, she runs out of town into an empty field. There she meets John Mischief who is being chased by a monstrous being known as Mendelson Shape. Candy comes to the rescue by running up the steps of a rundown lighthouse and turning on the light with a game of ball and cup. This brings a great sea called the Sea of Izabella to the Hereafter (the Abaratian term for Earth), allowing Candy and John Mischief to escape. Mischief intrusts Candy with a mysterious, incorporeal Key and tells her to forget she ever had it, leaving her to fend for herself on the islands.

Candy is dropped off on the dock and makes her way inside the Yebba Dim Day. The whole structure seems to be made out of the old timber from broken ships and other types of driftwood. The walls that make up the many levels of the Great Head are lined with the shells of many animals and barnacles. Cables connected all throughout the structure keep the electricity on, but there are many outages and flickering lights. Candy sees many different types of species when walking through the levels. Many of them are humanoids, but with many other distinguishing features. Most have hats that have a fishtank on top.

A woman named Izarith approaches Candy and asks if she is cold. She has gills on her cheeks and necks like the Sea-Skippers that brought her to the island. Izarith offers her hospitality just as the dock that Candy entered through collapses and many people go into a frenzy. Candy takes Izarith's offer and goes into her house. She meets Izarith's children, Maiza and Nazre, who are a toddler and infant. Nazre has a sickness, which Izarith attributes to being away from the Sea. Izarith says that her great-grandfather was a pureblooded species of waterdwellers called Skizmut, but her blood was diluted to the point where she cannot breathe underwater or visit the great Skizmut cities like she wants. She and her husband Ruthus want to buy a boat to be closer to the sea. Candy offers some dollars and finds out the Abaratian currency is called Paterzem, which has a high exchange rate for dollars. Izarith looks at the dollars incredulously, but excitedly accepts Candy's offer. Izarith asks Candy is she will watch her children while she runs out for some food.

Candy awakes in Izarith's house after nodding off for a few minutes and hears a strange buzzing sound. When she turns she sees a large bug watching her. Slowly she starts to fight the bug, only to find that it is a mechanical device with camera eyes. It escapes just as Izarith comes back in. Izarith then tells Candy to leave, fearing the safety of her children. Candy understands her concern and leaves.

When Candy goes back onto the streets of the Yebba Dim Day, the crowds are still in a frenzy over the dock collapsing. During the distraction Candy steals a few pastries from a street vendor and runs. As she eats them in an alley she is approached by a man named Samuel Hastrim Klepp the Fifth who saw her steal the pastries and says he won't tell if she shares. He says that he is the editor of Klepp's Almenak, a magazine that his ancestor started generations ago. Klepp also reveals his distrust of a man named Rojo Pixler because of his propaganda figure, a joyous child called the Commexo Kid. Candy follows Klepp into his home where he prints the Almenak. On the balcony Candy uses a squid-like being to telescopically observe the archipelago as Klepp tells her about the Twenty-Five islands. The island that she tries to focus on is the Twenty-Fifth Hour, which Klepp says is called Odom's Spire. It is a tall island shrouded in glowing mist that no one has been to without disappearing or coming out insane. As they watch the islands, a giant moth flies down and kidnaps Candy from the balcony, and Mendelson Shape is commanding it. Shape tries to scare her with different stories about the horrors of Gorgossium. Nearby air ballons fire arrows at the moth and strike it between the eyes. It pluments down toward a forest on another island.

When the moth falls, it lands in a small copse of trees. Candy lands in the canopy, but Mendelson had been thrown off onto some rocks farther away. Candy climbs down easily from the trees and hides as she sees the hunters from the balloons land nearby. She overhears that one of the men is Rojo Pixler, the man Klepp had told her about. His assitant sees her in the trees and captures her. The man lets her go when she realizes the squid on her face died. She buries it on the island as Pixler tries to convince her to join him. When she tells him she is from the Hereafter, he asks if she will take him there, presumably to conquer. Candy is able to escape when she tells them that the moth was made with the Lord of Midnight's magic, and heads off further into the island.

Candy makes her way across the island, which she identifies as Ninnyhammer at 10 o'clock. She spots a domed house at the top of a hill and makes her way toward it. A group of wide-eyed cats reveal themselves to her and appear to swarm her. After they become very numerous, Candy runs from them towards the house. She pounds on the front door and a short man steps out. He is short but looks taller because of the many hats he wears. He lets her inside the house, cursing what he calls the Tarrie-Cats. He introduces himself as Kaspar Wolfswinkel. His house is covered in books and pamphlets. Kaspar begins to tell her about the devil cats, but she thinks the words cruel. When she hears crying from the other room he tells her there is a wake going on. She doesn't believe him, as he is wearing a bright yellow suit. When she accuses him of lying his attitude changes and he refuses to let her leave. Too late does Candy realize the cats were trying to warn her. Kaspar has his slave Malingo, a orange-skinned creature, put her in a blue cage. Malingo's eyes are kind, Candy notes. Kaspar then uses some sort of magic to go through Candy's mind and pulls out the Key that the John brothers had put there. The pain of his invasion knocks her unconcious.

When Candy awakes, she hears Kaspar in the other room telling someone about finding her and the Pyramid Key hidden in her mind. Malingo is nearby and tells her she needs to escape. Kaspar hears them talking and demands they go to him. He puts Candy on the telephone to a man named Otto Houlihan, an assassin and torturer for Christopher Carrion. He interrogates her about the Key, but she feigns innocence. The last thing Houlihan says is that he is coming for her. Kaspar dismisses her and Malingo. In the other room, Malingo tells her she needs to escape but it's nearly impossible. Before they can discuss it further Kaspar comes in and begins to mentally torture Malingo. Candy defends him, and Kaspar tells her it is useless to defend a geshrat, the species that Malingo is. While fetching Kaspar's rum, Candy sees the portraits of five people who are wearing the hats that Kaspar currently has on. When she brings him his rum, she pushes him and takes his staff, attempting to escape. Kaspar calls Malingo, who then takes the staff from Candy. Malingo hesitates when given an order, a sign that his master's influence is waning. When Candy and him try to run away, Kaspar takes ahold of her wrist. Candy starts to hit him and knocks of all of his hats. His reaction to losing them makes Candy realize that his magic comes from the hats. Her and Malingo escape from the house after Malingo strikes Kaspar on the knee.

Candy and Malingo flee from the house into the darkness, with Malingo celebrating his freedom. Soon after, they hear the voice of Kaspar nearby them, taunting. Candy cannot see him, which Malingo attributes to his magic has. He begins to beat Malingo and tries to drag Candy back to the house. A group of the tarrie cats swarm around them, causing the invisible Kaspar to back away in fear. Candy realizes that the cats can see him. Malingo wrestles the hats off of Kaspar, and the short man becomes visible. A man walks into view who has a very feline face. He introduces himself as Jimothi Tarrie, the leader of the tarrie cats and as the warden of Kaspar who is a prisoner on the island for murdering his friends for their magic hats. Jimothi advises her to get away from the island before Otto Houlihan arrives. Malingo suggests they conjure a glyph through magic, revealing that he learned how to wield magic when Kaspar would pass out from rum. He begins to recite an incantation, but the glyph doesn't appear quickly enough. Houlihan's glyphs are seen in the distance, so Candy decides to help him with his conjuration. They quickly summon the glyph out the air just as Houlihan's glyphs and army land far away from them. His army is a brutal breed of stichlings, beings made of mud and sewn-together rags that Christopher Carrion's grandmother makes. The stitchlings get to the glyph just as her and Malingo are lifting away.

Candy and Malingo celebrate their escape, but it is short-lived as they feel the glyph being pulled toward the Twenty-Fifth Hour. When the glyph reaches the colorful clouds, it gets tipped upside down and Candy feels herself thrown out. She falls into an strange darkness of blank space, holding very still. After a few moments, she hear the sound of rain. Voices of her mother and father sound out, and she realizes it was a conversation that happened before she was born. Three voices of woman come into the darkness. A light reveals the woman. One is very old with long white braids. One is dark-skinned and has the night sky in her eyes. The other has a feral beauty in her face. They introduce themselves as the Sisters of the Fantomaya. They tell her they should not have brought her to the Twenty-Fifth, but they needed to prepare her for work she has to do there later. They show her a phantasmagoric series of images, presumably from the island. The Fantomaya say everything, past, present, and future, happens at the Twenty-Fifth Island, and it is their job to study them. They also tell Candy she is very important. Diamanda also reveals herself as the wife of Henry Murkitt, and learns of his fate from Candy. One of the things they allude to is Candy having an interest in a man named Finnegan Hobb, and the danger of creatures called the Requiax who live in the very depths of the Sea of Izabella. They leave quickly so they don't get caught, and tell her not to be scared of the long journey ahead of her.

A man named Abraham Hollow, who the Fantomaya said is the Keeper of the Twenty-Fifth, appears far away in the unending darkness. A giant rat tells him of an "interloper" in the islands and he summons of the Fugit Brothers. Candy runs away, and the Fugit Brothers chase her. She looks back at them once and sees their terrifying appearance. They have pale white skin akin to clowns. Each of their facial features, eyes, mouth, ears, nose, and hair, are seperate from their heads. They have small spidery legs and crawl all around their heads. The brothers chase after her through a strange darkness and decide whether or not to tear out her heart or make her crazy, and then do it. They chatter darkly with each other as Candy runs into the darkness. Candy figures out how to escape by diving into the air and ends up on the shore of the isle. She reunites with Malingo, but her triumph is short-lived. One of the Fugit Brothers' eyes burrows out of the rocks with its spidery legs. Candy and Malingo desperately try to escape as the form of Julius Fugit burrows out of the ground, and Tempus a few minutes after him. Julius manages to grab ahold of Candy's leg while their glyph is lifting away. She kicks him in the face, but the glyphy crashes and breaks. Candy and Malingo are seemingly trapped on the shore, but just then a red boat floats out of nowhere. They get in the boat and Candy sees the form of Diamanda in the air, though she is not visible to Malingo. Diamanda uses her magic to summon a fast wind to carry the boat away, leaving the Fugit Brothers wading in the water, frustrated by their escape.

The book ends with Candy and Malingo sailing away in the boat, letting the Sea of Izabella take them where it may.

In Abarat: Days of Magic: Nights of War
In the end of the book it is revealed by Kaspar Wolfswinkel that Candy has two souls inside of her. When she was born Princess Boa's soul was brought to the Hereafter by the Fantomaya in hopes that if her soul lived on the Age of Light and Love may still come to be.

Relationships
Relationship With Malingo

Relation-ship With Christopher Carrion

Relationship With Gazza