What is the importance of the empty room in the novel, Eight Keys?

The empty room is one of the first rooms that Elise opens, and it poses the greatest mystery. While every other room contains something, the empty room contains nothing. Uncle Hugh explains to Elise that if the room was empty, Elise’s father had an important reason for doing so. As Elise later comes to learn, the empty room is symbolic of human life. Like an empty room, the human life is meant to be filled up with important things. Elise takes this to heart, filling her empty room – and thereby her life – with important things about her family and friends, as well as herself. And she makes sure that her family and friends know about this, so that they can understand just how much she truly does appreciate them, and so they can understand just how much they mean to her.