Tag Archives: character sketch

Martha Goode – The Old Mill

Martha Goode, and that is the First Martha, was the very first resident of the brand new, ultra-modern Goode Mansion. Her mother, Abigail, was rushed out of the heavily damaged farm house while in labor (“no child of mien will be born in this house of fire and death”) and gave birth to Martha less than an hour after being moved.

Martha grew up to be a very intelligent woman. At 18 she gained control of the Goode Mill, the old mill, and took the burnt-out hulk and created the most efficient, most profitable mill in the region, all the while paying the workers at her mill a third more than anyone else paid their labor.

She later lost the mill, a victim of a highly patriarchal society, but kept the mansion, the mansion defined by her; the mansion that defined her.

As she aged, she grew stranger and stranger. Who could blame her after all she had seen, experienced and dealt with, from an extremely violent and abusive “father” to the death threats as her legal battles got stretched across many years. Towards the end, few remembered the remarkable woman who had saved the town, only the eccentric who lived up the hill in the ancient house. Legends grew around her, even while she was still alive.

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Galvin – The Old Mill

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Galvin is… Well, Galvin is Galvin. There is no better way to describe him than that. Some would say he is “a character” or “a bit of local color”. Others might shake their head and mumble “eccentric” or “oddball” while still others would say “every town has their Galvin.” Gill isn’t so sure – he has never met anybody quite like the strange, little old man.

Strange, of course, is a matter of opinion, but “little” fits to some extent. Galvin is small and wiry, perhaps 5 foot 6 and 115 pounds, maybe less, but surprisingly strong. In ways, “old” is more attitude than age. Galvin is in his mid-60s, but has always tried to put himself up as older and more experienced. And there is something about him that if you didn’t know, you might place him closer to 80 than 60. Yet he is active and agile, spry as a 22-year-old.

Galvin loves to tell tall tales and can spin quite a yarn. On the other hand, doing a little research you might find that some of his most outrageous claims about the town’s history are true.

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Jessica Franks – The Old Mill

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Jessica Franks is, as the saying goes, 35 going on 16. Or do they say it the other way around? It doesn’t matter, since for Jessica, the first statement is completely true.

Back when she really was 16, Jessica Wallace (her family name) was an intelligent, vivacious young lady with a bright future. A romantic at heart, she found dark corners of the library to read love poems. That romantic side also showed itself with her fantasies about that cute 22-year-old programmer that lived next door to Amy, Gill Baxter. Gill, for his part, attempted to ignore Jess and her group of friends, The Inseparables, so Jess flirted with him to get his attention. All of the time. And in not-so-subtle ways.

But then things changed. Or perhaps, they didn’t. The world moved on, and the pages of the calendar flipped, but Jess seemed to be frozen in time.

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