Poppy Flanagan

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• Vital Stats

  • Name: Poppy Flanagan
  • Gender: Female
  • Played by: CaptainSparrow
  • Nicknames: Poppy is her nickname. Her real name is Penelope
  • Age: 20
  • Body Type: Thin
  • Height: 5'4
  • Complexion: Pale, with a spray of freckles across her nose
  • Hair: Mouse-brown and short with naturally unruly curls
  • Eyes: Green
  • Personality: Shy, mild-mannered, quiet... a bit of a doormat, really...
  • Likes: Music, rainy days, being around friends
  • Dislikes: confrontation, failure

• Description

  Poppy is quiet and reserved, but opens up more around people she's known longer. She cares almost too much about what other people think, and prefers to stay silent than voice a new idea or opinion.
  
  Poppy works for the Raven Coalition in Chicago. She is naturally skilled at detecting otherworldly presences. Often, she is used as a medium through which the spirit in question can speak. During these possessions she has no control over herself, and remembers nothing afterwards. It drains her physically, but after a few square meals and a good night's rest, she's usually right as rain.

• Biography

  I was born the youngest of seven daughters to a family of God-fearing Southern Baptists in a small town in Texas you've probably never heard of. My father worked in the oil fields, and my mother was a schoolteacher. We weren't what you would call wealthy, but we got by. It was a lovely place to live, with big tall trees surrounding wide open fields and rolling hills. As a child, I remember sitting under the peach tree in front of our house and thinking 'if there was such a thing as Heaven on Earth, this would be it.'
  
  When I was thirteen, my oldest sister Harriet married her childhood sweetheart. In July of the following year, Evelyn had married the great-nephew of a former Confederate officer. A year after that, another sister, Nora, married the Mayor's son. And they moved into neat little houses with white picket fences, and had beautiful little children who would run and jump and play, and they were happy. And I was happy for them. But something inside me awoke and began whispering in my ear. There was more to life than living in this town, marrying the first local boy who asked and being a housewife for the rest of forever. So I hatched a grand scheme. I wanted to run away to Atlantic City and be a star. Sing with the big band, see the bright lights and glitz and glamour of the big city. My parents refused, of course. Atlantic City was a place of sin with temptations around every corner, and no place for someone like me. So I did the most logical thing I thought to do at the time: I ran away from home.
  
  I made it to the train station, not realizing that there was no train that went straight to Atlantic City. So I bought a ticket for the earliest train, deciding that I could make up a plan on the way to wherever it was that I was going. I must have been a sight once I ended up in St. Louis: a short sixteen-year-old in a hand-me-down dress with nothing more than a ukulele, a small satchel and a few dollars in her pocket.
  
  My first home of sorts was in a boarding house not too far from the Mississippi river. I paid my rent by doing odd jobs around the place. It wasn't the glamorous lifestyle I'd been looking for, but it's not like I had a choice. To fit in more, I got my hair chopped short (as was the fashion), and changed my name (Penelope was in no way suitable for a big star like I was going to be.) My 'break', as it were, came earlier than I thought, when my landlady pointed me out to her son one afternoon.
  "She plays the ukulele pretty well." She said. The young man walked over to me.
  "Can you sing?" he asked. I thought for a minute.
  "Well, I suppose I can..." I said, "But no one's ever bothered to tell me whether I'm good or not!"
  
  And that's how it began, really. The Lucky Five Band needed a songbird, and they found me. And while it wasn't Atlantic City... after the first show, I didn't care. There was a thrill that came with performing in front of the crowd, knowing that people were applauding for YOU. For two years we performed in St. Louis every Saturday night, a club here, a speakeasy there. Club owners would scramble to book out little group months in advance. My dream had come true. I was a big star, and I loved every second of it.
  
  And then came the night we were called to one of the older places in town. As soon as I set foot in that building, I knew something was off. The air was too cold, and I was never able to get rid of the goosebumps. I felt eyes on me, and not from the crowd we were playing for. I told the boys I didn’t want to go on. They told me I was being silly. So I had no choice.
  
  The show went off without a hitch, much to my surprise. It was only afterwards, on my way home, that I learned the history of that club. There'd been a rather grisly murder less than a year before, and there were rumors that a cult had been involved.
  
  That was the night the nightmares began. They started off as just bad dreams, dreams of falling, dreams of monsters, dreams of being trapped. But I started waking up to find that things were... different. Some of my belongings would have been moved. Not enough to cause alarm, but just enough to make me worry. And then they got worse. The dreams turned to ones of being chased by monsters with no eyes, of many-legged things with voices like grating metal. I'd wake up with the door unlocked and my shoes caked in mud, with no memory of where I had been and what I had done. Sometimes I woke up outdoors, sitting under a tree in the park or curled up on a bench like a vagrant. I’d take cautionary measures; putting furniture in front of my door to keep me from going out, but nothing worked. After a while, I dreaded the night, and would force myself to stay awake for days on end. My health suffered for it. I couldn't do as many shows, and the band was losing money. They hired a new songbird to fill in on the nights when I couldn't sing. The boys in the band started to worry, but I didn't want to tell them about the dreams. They were the only friends I had in the entire city; I didn't want to lose them because they thought I was crazy.
  
  And then after about two months of the dreams, it happened. I had gone three days without sleep, and I knew I had to close my eyes sooner or later. It was pouring rain outside, and the sound of it against my window was like a drug. I didn't stand a chance.
  
  That dream in particular was not out of the ordinary, but I remember it being... too vivid. I was walking through a darkened maze, my shoes echoing on the cold stone floor. In the distance, I could hear screams, then chanting, and they seemed to be getting closer. So I started running. As I did, I began to hear a tiny voice in my head. I couldn’t make out what it said, though, so I paid it no mind. I began panicking as I would hit one dead end, then another. And still, the crowd was getting closer, and the voice was getting louder. I saw light ahead, and ran toward it. Suddenly, the corridor ended. There was a low wrought-iron railing in between me and the open air. I could hear water somewhere far off. The noise got closer, and I knew jumping was my only option. I put my hands on the railing and climbed over, standing on the narrow ledge on the other side. Before I could let go, however, the voice began screaming at me.
  
  WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP.
  
  I opened my eyes. The scenery had changed. But I was still standing on a ledge, looking out into the night sky. I didn’t know what I was seeing at first. Then I looked down…
  
  …and saw the swirling Mississippi below me.
  
  I don’t think I’ve ever been that terrified before or since. I don’t know how long I clung to the railing before I had the courage to try to climb back over.
  
  It was in the odd hours between late night and early morning. No one had been out to see my near-suicide. If I hadn’t woken up, no one would have ever known I had jumped. The thought still scares me.
  
  I quit the band the next day. I didn’t tell them why. Finally, as I was walking back to catch a cab, I was stopped. It was Billy, the drummer. He took a scrap of paper out of his pocket.
  “Listen, Poppy.” He said. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I think I might have an idea…”
  “No, you don’t.” I said. “You don’t know anything about what I’m dealing with.”
  “It’s dreams, innit?” He asked. I stopped. How did he know?
  “Ever since the old Eleventh Street Club, right?” He said. I nodded, dumbstruck.
  “But… But how did you…?”
  “I had ‘em, too.” He nodded. “I just know how to deal with them. You on the other hand…” He shook his head. “You don’t get help soon, somethin’ bad’s gonna happen.” He shoved the paper into my hand. I looked at the address written on it. It was for a Mr. Grey, who lived in Chicago.
  “Who is this?” I asked. “And why Chicago?”
  “He can help. He helped me.” He said. I watched as he turned and walked away. It was the last time I’d ever see any of them.
  
  
  “That was yesterday.” Poppy said, staring at the table. “I arrived in Chicago early this morning.” She looked up at the elderly man seated across from her. She was pale, with dark circles under her eyes.
  “Please tell me you can help, Mr. Grey.” She said. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
  The man sat quietly for a while. He smiled kindly at her, though there was a strange sadness in his eyes.
  “I remember Billy. Such a nice young man. A powerful medium, to boot. He was wise in sending you to me, Miss Flanagan. Without learning how to control your powers, those dreams will be the death of you.” Poppy flinched.
  “Do not worry, though.” Grey added quickly. “We here at the Coalition would be more than happy to help. Talent such as yours would be a crime to waste.”