Hildegarde Sneal - My protagonist. A curious, reckless 13-year-old with a keen interest in birds, exploration, and getting into trouble. She has a habit of telling pointless lies, usually unconvincingly. When Paris asks her what type of ice cream is her favourite, she says pistachio, even though she's never eaten it before in her life.
Parismatreau - The degas to which Hildegarde is to become a posie. He has carefully cultivated himself a personality that is both unruffled and sharp-witted. His eye for detail makes him a clever conversationalist and an excellent Reader (the term given to those who can communicate fluently with magic).
Daisy Florence Greengrass - The sixteen-year-old girl who lives with the Matreaus yet has no degas among them. Blank, passive, and endlessly dismissive, she seems to enjoy nothing at all. Hildegarde often sees her cloud gazing on the grounds, or otherwise dangling her feet in the lake.
Spoiler! :
She is a posie, but to the comatose Kesecmatreau, whose sleeping body is housed in a tomb upon the lake. Before her entanglement, she was a stubborn, streetwise spitfire of a child who thought she understood the world a lot better than she did.
Plot-Pivotal Characters
(While these guys are crucial to the story, they won't really feature that much in the actual narrative for respective reasons).
Dante Sneal - Hildegarde's twin brother. Far more reserved and studious than she is, and a helpless pushover when it comes to her forcing him to do her maths homework. The psychic twin connection is decidedly not at work with these two - he never has a clue what she's thinking nor why she does what she does. If he did, he'd be able to stop her.
Near the beginning of the novel, Dante is sent down to Cornwall to become a posie to an upper-middle class degas. He and Hildegarde exchange letters for a month until he eventually stops responding.
Kesecmatreau - Another member of the Matreau family, though his whole existence is basically a spoiler.
Spoiler! :
He is half-dead and comatose, concealed in the tower upon the lake. He was taken there after Ghelrosen (another degas, Daisy's former owner) made an attempt on his life, and he hasn't stirred since. Parismatreau has been searching for a way to bring him back to wakefulness for the last two years, without success.
He is the degas with which Daisy is entangled. Before he fell comatose, he was a wild, unpredictable sort who spent every waking moment under the influence of stimulants. He adored Daisy as much as a degas can adore anything, and spiralled into a guilty depression after he entangled his soul with hers, keeping her in the lap of luxury to try and return her to her old, fiery self. The guy was a complete mess from start to finish, even though he always tried to do the right thing. The definite black sheep of the family, though none of them would ever give up on him.
Supporting Characters
Viematreau - The 'matriarch' of the England-based Matreaus. Her posie, Lila, is pushing ninety and sure to die soon. Vie worries for her - and for herself, because she isn't prepared to live without emotion after so long.
Gaivmatreau - The second eldest Matreau in England. A bit of a busybody, I think. Her posie is called Daneel.
Senmatreau - The middle eldest - older than Kesec, younger than Gaiv. Fe is the most reclusive of the three. Fes posie is called Michael, but fe didn't have a particularly close relationship with him at the time of the entanglement, which means fe doesn't experience emotions with the same intensity as other degas. Identifies as neither male nor female, and has never chosen to present either way.
Thelsadore - The degas associate through which Penbrook House finds buyers for their orphans. Her posie is called Velma.
Ghelrosen - Daisy's former owner, a member of the most affluent degas family in Britain. Due to the feud between Ghel and Kesec, relations between their families are tense.
Mrs Humphreys - The most senior matron at Penbrook House. She takes Dante and Hildegarde to meet Thelsadore.
Louise Deloch - One of the junior matrons, the warmest of a severe bunch. She has a soft spot for Hildegarde. When she finds out that Hildegarde is leaving to become a posie, she can't quite echo the girl's enthusiasm.
Last edited by Panikos on Tue Jul 24, 2018 10:30 am, edited 3 times in total.
The backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done.
Magic is not a power in this universe, but an unseen force that can be communicated with. Humans originally created degas so that they could untangle the meanings of magic more specifically. While humans are limited to cryptic means of communication - tarot cards, I-Ching, palm reading - degas have a much keener ear for its language, though it takes years of dedicated study to be able to listen, interpret and respond to what it says. It's particularly difficult to pick out the relevant answer from amongst its endless, streaming speech. Parismatreau might describe it as 'like doing a word search, except the letters keep changing and jiggling around'.
Once they can communicate with it, degas can also make requests of it. What the magic wants in return is typically random, seemingly senseless, sometimes incriminating - and occasionally impossible. It might ask you to push a coin into the heart of an apple and leave it out for the birds. Or kill a stranger before a particular time. Or plant an oak and nurture it for ten years. Or simply write a word on a person's door.
The process behind certain magical requests is consistent, at least to a degree. Entanglement always requires the posie to trust their degas, and it is universally understood that a closer bond creates a clearer connection. The final step of the process, however, is unique to each pairing. Degas who cannot commune with magic must find out what to do from degas who can.
I do quite like this magic system, because it suggests that there are unseen connections between seemingly random actions and the things that happen to us later in life. The process of magic is about seeing behind the curtain and understanding - or at least discovering - what causes what, however nonsensical it seems. It kind of reminds me of karma, but without the notion of good and bad.
(The discursive side of magic also reminds me of Dust in His Dark Materials, which can answer any question you can think of if you only know how to pose it correctly. I think it's a given at this point that every novel I ever write will draw some inspiration from Pullman).
Last edited by Panikos on Tue Jul 17, 2018 7:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done.
@BlueAfrica way to ruin the big twist. I was going to have her pull her mask off to reveal her blobby orange skin right at the end of the novel, but I guess I can't do that now.
The backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done.
Omg that would be amazing/horrifying. Pro tip: don't describe her outright as a liar who lies badly even when doesn't serve her, or else alllll the readers will guess.
It's not hugely important, but for posterity I thought I'd chime in to mention that the story has now reached 14,411 words and that I have completed the end of the beginning. Onwards and upwards!
The backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done.
(and reading obviously!)
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