Rory

Rory is Julia's husband and Frank Cotton's younger brother, whose hopes for domestic life at 55 Lodovico Street are undermined by Julia's detachment and Frank's return. An accidental injury brings Frank back into contact with the household, and Rory's eventual death allows Frank to assume his identity, turning a family resemblance into a means of concealment.

Identity and Family

Rory and Frank Cotton were only eighteen months apart in age and had been inseparable as children. Their paths diverged after adolescence: Rory regretted their estrangement and the distress Frank's conduct caused their parents. Frank appeared only rarely, bringing stories of criminal exploits and a life governed by an appetite for experience without regard for moral limits. During the years of his marriage, Rory seldom spoke about his brother, though he had once talked at length about him while reminiscing before the wedding.

The brothers jointly inherited the house at 55 Lodovico Street from their grandmother. When Rory and Julia returned to live there, neighbors welcomed the house's renewed occupation. One recalled that an unusual tenant had stayed there for several weeks the previous summer; Rory disclosed that the tenant had been Frank, a revelation Julia smoothly diverted from further attention.

Marriage and the House

Rory had long idealized Julia. He had dreamed about her and written her love poems before they married, and he approached their vows with confidence that their life together would endure. By the time he watched her in the hallway, however, suspicion had worn down his happiness. He hoped her troubled appearance meant she was about to confess an indiscretion, and imagined that he might forgive her. His expectation of reconciliation stands against the distance already present in their marriage.

Julia's view of the relationship is markedly different. She regards Rory as infatuated with her appearance rather than truly in love, and experiences herself as isolated from him even while he works downstairs. The renovated house becomes a setting for this mismatch: to neighbors, the couple appear happy to have it occupied again, while within the marriage Rory's attachment and Julia's contempt coexist.

The Blood in the Damp Room

While working with a chisel in the house, Rory is distracted when the back door slams in a gust of wind and accidentally injures his thumb. He calls out and goes upstairs for help, but Julia, absorbed in her own melancholy, initially does nothing. Blood falls onto the boards of the Damp room. Later, when she enters the room, the marks have disappeared.

Julia eventually sees Frank in a ruined, barely recognizable state, trapped within the wall. His brief communication identifies him and points to blood as what he needs. She connects this request with Rory's vanished blood: it has nourished Frank enough for him to reach beyond his confinement. Rory's injury is accidental and he does not know its consequence, but it gives Frank a first means of making contact and leads Julia toward supplying him with more blood.

Death and Assumed Identity

Rory is eventually killed by Frank, who takes his skin and uses it to pass as his brother. The substitution exploits the intimacy of family identity: the figure Kirsty sees looks like Rory, but Frank is speaking through that familiar face. Kirsty recognizes the deception, knowing that Rory's corpse is upstairs and that the appearance before her is Frank's borrowed one.

Rory's death therefore has consequences beyond his removal from the household. Frank's disguise makes the marriage and kinship that once defined Rory into instruments of deception, while Kirsty's recognition exposes the imposture. In the final confrontation, Frank tells Kirsty that she caused what is happening, and she acknowledges her part in bringing the Cenobites back to him; Rory himself remains dead, his appearance no longer his own.