Pretty Little Dead Girl — Dramatis Personae

I Am: Avin and Melanie

"I am the song of the rose owl flying; I am the forest of the night..."

Before she became the Summer Queen of the Babylon Wood, Melanie March lived a normal sort of life: a Snow White archetype for the modern era, she was the model of an all-American girl. She was on the cheerleading squad, she had a handsome boyfriend, she had skin as white as snow, hair as black as coal...and a broken heart that was all but guaranteed to kill her. Eventually, in point of fact, it did exactly that, and they buried her in the willows.

Stories are difficult things to kill, and Melanie rose again in the spring, when the roses began to bloom. She wasn't the only thing to come crawling out of her grave. To every summer there must be a winter, and Avin March rose with her, a reborn Lily Fair. Never heard that name before? You aren't alone. The tales only have room for so many princesses, after all, and in the first battle between Snow and Lily, Snow won.

Avin intends to see that this doesn't happen again. Melanie has what she wants; Melanie has a life.

Avin plans on making sure she doesn't get a happy ever after.

Cuckoo Girl: Sarah Tapper

"This is my town, where you get what you pay for; this is my town, where you own what you build..."

"And sometimes I believe them when they tell me hope was my only crime..."

"Sarah Tapper loves Harry Marshall. That's a lie, and that's a fact."

Someone once said to me, only half-joking, that Pretty Little Dead Girl was the all Martin's Passage, all the time album. That's true, but it's also a little bit false, because really, Pretty Little Dead Girl is the all Sarah Tapper album. Fully five of the eleven songs feature her directly, and a sixth song is about her darker sister, Victoria (about whom there will be more later).

Born the daughter of a human woman and her demon husband, Sarah never really knew exactly what she was supposed to be, how she fit into the world, or how she was going to deal with the sings that it demanded of her. Still, when all was said and done, she managed to find one thing she could be absolutely sure of: a boy named Harry Marshall, who she came to love with all her heart. She ended the world to save him, and lost him as a consequence. But that's all right; that was only fair. He survived, and that was what she wanted.

Sarah Tapper has had more than her fair share of troubles, but she brings them on herself, and in the end, she's an outsider in the one place she'll ever call home.

No matter how far she flies, she always comes back to Martin's Passage, Maine. On the song 'Pretty Little Dead Girl', the part of Sarah Tapper is sung by Meg Heydt. (Elsewhere on the album, she's sung by Seanan.)

River Lies: Ole and December

"I have no faith left in cold River lies..."

A very long time ago, before the Dance of Hours was a fairy tale, before the virtues of the world were lost to the passage of the years, before so very many things were lost, there was a man and there was a woman, and they loved each other enough that they should have had a happy ending. 'Should have' has never had much strength in fairy tales.

December O'Leary was the unwanted daughter of a noble house, called to the River that flowed between worlds and through time itself. She became a ferryman, following its tides through reality. Ole Ryan was sworn to the service of her sister...but they met, because that's how stories work, and they loved beneath the willows, in the violets, and it never had a single prayer of lasting.

When the River called December for the final time, she left Ole sleeping, and she locked the tower behind herself. She could never tell anyone why, and she never had the chance; she never came home.

Now, lifetimes and worlds later, she mourns for man she never meant to lose, while Ole, reborn and remade, cries in his sleep for a woman he can never quite remember.

There is very little mercy trapped in once upon a time. Ole Ryan was created and is owned by Martha Hage. On the song 'River Lies', the part of Ole Ryan is sung by Steve Macdonald.

Maybe It's Crazy: Sweethearts of Mad Science

"Maybe it's crazy, but baby, love usually is."

Unlike many of the songs on Pretty Little Dead Girl, 'Maybe It's Crazy' isn't about a single character so much as it is about an ideal. The idea of true love amongst the trenches that you've dug yourself in the local graveyard, the many uses of jumper cables, and the sweet taste of ozone and antifreeze. Mad science. There's nothing more romantic. Now pull the lever and get behind the lead shielding while you can still have children.

Lacking a specific character, but not wanting to leave an entire song off the dramatis personae -- because that sort of thing makes Seanan crazy -- we present you with an assortment of the forms that mad science sometimes takes. (If you click, you'll get a larger version, because there was just too much detail to crunch down completely.)

Starting on the left, you have January O'Leary and her AI/robot velociraptor/son, Geoff, representing mad computer science. Next to her is Anis Bihari, representing that most under-appreciated discipline, mad sociology. And then we have Professor Eustacia ni'Aiodhan, mad chemist and engineer, with a gadget of her own creation. Finally, the lovely Polymatheia St. John, a mad scientist's beautiful daughter and a mad biologist in her own right.

Mad science. It's not just for scary men in blood-stained labcoats anymore.

Vampire Slayer Blues: Some Random Girl

"You say that I'm morbid, that I'm becoming obsessed -- well, if you heard my Calling, you can bet you'd be depressed..."

Imagine, if you will, a universe with a sick sense of humor, where the final defense against the forces of darkness isn't an army, isn't a man with a machine gun, isn't even sheer dumb luck, but is, instead, a single girl. A chosen one, if you want to go that far, who gets to give up her normal existence and all those teenage kicks in order to beat up evil dudes until the day she slips up, dies, and gets replaced by the next girl. Pretty lousy gig. That's the rotten thing about callings.

Actually, they're all rotten things.

Because we're really not in the mood to get sued today, this song gets described in only the most general of senses. But look at that girl. That strong, stalwart, insanely annoyed girl. How she'd like to punch the people who decided this was a good idea in the nose! How very unlikely it is that she'll ever get the opportunity! Ah, well. A girl can dream, when she's not hacking horrible monsters apart with a really big axe.

When not slaying vampires, our lovely model enjoys trips to the mall, reading comic books, and not getting herself killed.

Modern Mystic: Eithne Wright-Jones

"And I guess it's true; I sometimes go too far..."

Once upon a time -- Chicago, in the 1930s -- there was a young Scottish woman who worked with the unions during the day and called down lightning from the sky at night. She was bold and she was brave and she was mad as a hatter, and when she died, people mourned for her, but they weren't particularly surprised. The surprise came about seventy years later, when she came back from the dead...and no one was more surprised than she was.

Eithne Judith Wright-Jones was born and raised on the docks of Glasgow, and when she discovered that she was, in fact, a wizard, and that her destiny was very far from the place she'd been born, she left with a great many tears, but not a single backwards glance. There was much to do, and the Phoenix was in her; she had no real choice in her leaving. Or, it turned out, in her coming back.

Eithne eventually found her place in the modern world, found the man she was meant to be with, and found herself with several children, each of whom was just as mad and moonstruck as their mother. The Phoenix still calls her; she still listens. She just tries to do it with a bit less in the way of literal death and rebirth.

All that aside, there's something about a woman who thinks the sweater made famous by Where's Waldo? is flattering that simply must be admired. Or possibly feared. The jury's still out on that one.

Fly Little Bird: Victoria Tapper

"I'm the voice in your head, I'm the cuckoo beside you..."

Remember Sarah Tapper? Well, there was a time when Sarah was actually five individual people, none of them terribly well-developed, who had come together as a single girl. Heloise, Beverly, Sylvia, Sarah, and Victoria. Sarah was the dominant personality, and was, although she didn't know it or mean to do it, gradually erasing the others as she came into her powers. That's what it means to be a cuckoo, after all.

It wasn't until necessity demanded that Sarah break off a part of herself that Victoria Tapper gained her independence. It was intended to be a short-term separation, but once she was free, Vicky quickly found that she had other plans. Dying by inches so that someone else could have their happy ending simply didn't appeal. Funny thing, that.

While Vicky's motives were understandable, her means were a little less than noble, as she turned the powers she shared with her 'big sister' towards domination and active maliciousness. Sarah was a cuckoo by nature, but Vicky was a cuckoo by design, and her goal was simple: to be the only bird left in the nest.

Vicky failed, but her legacy lives on...in nightmares.

Resident Artist: Harry Marshall

"You slid yourself into a dream, you said it fit you like a glove..."

"Harry...was an idiot."

Harry Marshall wasn't really an idiot, for all that Sarah's opinion of him has been, on occasion, not terribly high; Harry was just a teenage boy trying to deal with the normal things that teenage boys have to deal with, like school, bullies, discovering that you're an incubus but that's okay because it was this or grow up to be a fish demon...okay, so maybe Harry's problems weren't all that normal. Welcome to growing up in Martin's Passage.

Sarah Tapper was Harry's first serious girlfriend, and things were going pretty well, right up until the point where a spell cast to keep the world from ending caused him to forget that they'd ever really known each other. Sarah couldn't forget all the way, and proceeded to drive Harry faintly crazy with her admittedly stalker-esque behavior. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't his, either.

An artist, avid comic-book fan, and generally good guy, Harry Marshall always did his best to treat people fairly, not hurt anyone's feelings, and avoid getting the crap kicked out of him in study hall. It should also be noted, for the record, that he and Rose share a last name for one very simple reason: she's his aunt. It's a fun family.

In Harry's defense, it should be noted that even non-idiotic teenage boys are occasionally dumb. Just not, well, that dumb. Harry Marshall was created and is owned by Phil Ames.

Pretty Little Dead Girl: Rose Marshall

"Let me tell you about Rose Marshall..."

The story of Rose Marshall is a tale of contradictions, but that's all right; Rose doesn't mind, because those same contradictions are what prove that she's truly become an urban legend in her own right -- something capable of enduring longer than the events that spawned it. You take what you can get, when you're a hitchhiking ghost bound to play banshee for the people in your family who outlived you, spiraling out and back again around a town that's changing, while you're staying the same.

Here's what's known about Rose, and known to be the truth: that she was a good girl, sweet, a little naive, innocent of the dangers of the world, and very much in love with her car. Rose liked to drive, to slam down the gas and just let the road unspool in front of her. That's what killed her, too. Somehow, Rose Marshall -- the best driver in Martin's Passage -- went off the road at Sidewinder Ravine on the night of her senior prom, and was never seen again. Not alive, anyway.

Some people say that she's just a legend. That there's no ghost on Sidewinder, that it's just crazy-talk and boys trying to scare their girls. Other people say she's condemned to walk the night until she finally makes it home, or to the prom, or...somewhere. No one's really sure.

What they are sure of is that you shouldn't race her. Not when the moon is full, not when the road is dark.

You might never make it home.

Pretty Little Dead Girl: Sam Harris

"Sam Harris was a good man..."

Captain of the football team, big man on campus, upstanding young citizen, Sam Harris had it all...at least until the night he decided to take that shortcut along Sidewinder Ravine, even though his girlfriend swore that she didn't mind a little wait. Sam wasn't the kind of guy to take Rose Marshall up on her offer of a race to remember, but something happened up there all the same, and he never actually made it to Bronson's Diner. If anybody ever wants the real story, well, they'll just have to ask Rose -- and hope that they survive the attempt.

Sam Harris was created and is owned by Chris Mangum.

Pretty Little Dead Girl: Emmaline Brown

"That's why he was picking me up from the diner that night..."

Sweet, smart, and reasonably stubborn, a lot of the students at Martin Lewiston High School thought that Emmaline Brown had hit the jackpot when she landed the captain of the football team, Sam Harris, as her beau. Jealousy turned to sympathy, however, when a late-night pick-up turned into tragedy, leaving the young Miss Brown with no boyfriend, no prom date, and worst of all, no answers to what really happened out there on the road that runs along Sidewinder Ravine. It's not hard to feel bad for her, given the circumstances.

Emmaline Brown was created and is owned by Martha Hage. The part of Emmaline is performed on the song 'Pretty Little Dead Girl' by Michelle Dockrey.

Pretty Little Dead Girl: James Smith

"When you got right down to it, Jimmy was always, without a doubt...Jimmy."

James Smith was never fond of being called 'Jimmy', which probably explains why it happened so very often. A scholar by nature and a suspicious student of humanity by nurture, Jimmy never found a mystery he didn't want to take apart, piece by piece, until he understood what was really going on. Maybe that's what took him to Sidewinder Ravine: the need to understand what was really going on. Maybe it was pure stubbornness, leading him to look for the things he'd been told he shouldn't find. Whatever his reasons, he went up the hill, and like so many before him, he didn't come back down. Brains aren't everything; in the end, gravity generally wins.

James Smith was created and is owned by Chris Mangum.

Pretty Little Dead Girl: Donna Norton

"Don't mess with the crazy ghost girl up on Dead Man's Hill, I said, and sure enough..."

Donna Norton was the sort of girl who always seemed to have it all: looks, brains, and a mean right hook that meant her looks and brains didn't get her into nearly as much trouble as they otherwise might have managed. Thanks to her nose for a mystery, she collided with James Smith a little more often than otherwise might have happened, and eventually, collision became collaboration...a collaboration that ended with something that was, in Martin's Passage, all too expected. Maybe they don't know what happened out on Sidewinder, but do the details really matter, when everything else has happened so many times before?

Donna Norton was created and is owned by Martha Hage. The part of Donna is performed on the song 'Pretty Little Dead Girl' by Amy McNally.

Pretty Little Dead Girl: Thomas Pryce

"He went up that hill looking for answers..."

A seeker of arcane knowledge and things that it's probably not a good idea for men to know since his youth, Thomas Pryce was quite possibly the single man in Martin's Passage best equipped to both deal with, and survive, Rose Marshall's nightly drag races up along Sidewinder Ravine. What happened there that night is as much a mystery as any of the other sights that dark road has seen, but we know this much: Thomas is the only man ever to race with Rose and get away with his life...such as it is, anymore.

Thomas Pryce was created and is owned by Phil Ames.

Pretty Little Dead Girl: Alice Healy

"If that ghost talked to women, I'd tell her a thing or two...with a shotgun."

One part Donna Reed to two parts Marilyn Munster, Alice Healy was always the sort of girl who'd shoot first and bake a bundt cake after, possibly as an apology to the survivors. It always seemed likely that she'd never find a man willing to overlook her...little hobbies...and if it hadn't been for Thomas Pryce, well, that just might have been the case. Of course, Rose Marshall put a crimp in her dreams of a shotgun wedding, and if there's anything our little phantom racer might want to be wary of, it's an angry Healy girl with a lot of time and ammo on her hands.

The part of Alice Healy is performed on the song 'Pretty Little Dead Girl' by Erica Neely.