Famous Friday is all about one of the characters in the Fangs & Halos series. Each week I’ll highlight a different character right here. Please note, I write with a character “look” in mind and for that I use famous actors/models. My use here does not claim any sort of connection to the person. It’s only for reference and inspiration.
Lilly Lenore Marchantel
Lilly Lenora Marchantel
Born: 10 March 1880 at Des Allemands, Louisiana
Died: 23 August, 1900, New Orleans Louisiana
Age at death: 20
Buried: McCall tomb, St. Louis 1 Cemetery, New Orleans
Raised as vampire August 26, 1900 in the crypt in St. Louis 1 Cemetery
Meets Sullivan the angel and leaves the crypt 30 Aug, 2005
Lilly was born the youngest of 7 children of Jasper Marchantel and Beatrix Jackson on a sharecropping farm at Des Allemands, Louisiana on 10 March, 1880. Her mother died from Yellow Fever, along with 4 of her siblings.
Her father tried to keep her but was totally unprepared to raise a daughter. He knew New Orleans was a good place for girls who had no family so, when she was 8, he took her to the city. He shopped her to several businesses but no one was interested in taking in a young girl. So, he went to the area near the Old City (French Quarter). He found a woman, Lulu White, who was willing to pay him for the child and raise her to adulthood. He knew the business that Lulu was in (prostitution) but it was money and at least the girl would have a roof and food.
Lulu White was the madam who owned the most famous brothel in the Storyville section of New Orleans, Mahogany Hall. Lulu did not put Lilly to work as a prostitute until she turned 16.
Lilly was given a Catholic education, taken to church, and learned to run the business. Lulu often looked on Lilly as the daughter she never had. Lilly also becomes a favorite with many of Lulu’s girls, at least two of them tried to talk Lulu into giving her to an orphanage, giving her a chance to grow into a woman without the specter of being a prostitute looming over her. Lulu didn’t want to let Lilly go because the madam knew that a virgin would fetch a high price once she did allow Lilly to become a prostitute.
For three years before her 20th birthday, Lilly entertained a man named Marcus who would come and just sit with her and talk. He never wanted to have sex and he paid a hefty sum to just talk. He didn’t live in New Orleans at the time, she would find out later that he had lived there in the early 1800s to 1870. Every time he needed to come for business, he would visit Lilly.
On Thursday, August 23, 1900, he was finally comfortable that she was old enough and he paid for sex. Sometime after they went to her room, he emerged and left in a hurry. One of the other girls found Lilly dead on her bed.
Never one to let an opportunity for potential positive publicity pass, Lulu held a very large, elaborate funeral on August 25th after a wake at the brothel the day before. Lilly was buried in the McComb crypt in St. Louis 1 cemetery. She woke up three days later and never left the crypt, except to bathe in the rain, until 2005 when the angel, Sullivan, found her. When asked about why she didn’t come out to people who thought her dead, she remarked that they knew she was dead and she didn’t want to scare them.
Characteristics
Lilly is light skinned with full lips and brown eyes. Her dark brown hair is wavy. She’s thin but shapely and is 5’5 inches tall.
Special Abilities
Lilly’s able to enter some places that other Vampires cannot because she is devout Christian and innocent. The energy grid that the angels see is “vampire” but it feels “wrong” compared to other vampires.
Other interesting things
Since Lilly “died” in 1900 and didn’t come out into society, preferring to live in her “little house” in St. Louis 1 cemetery with Baron Bast von Samedi, her vampire cat, she had no experience with anything that was built after August 1900. That means bras, plastic, wheels on suitcases, zippers, television, radio, cars, any fashion changes, movies, cartoons, aircraft, electronics, and many other modern things we take for granted.
Lilly’s time was only 30 years after the end of the Civil War. Afro-Americans still had segregation and there were many things they couldn’t do. For Lilly, the one she wanted that she never could do was go to the public library, which was for whites only. Sullivan had to explain that the times had changed to the point that she was able to go anywhere and do anything. This is very strange to her.
I love writing Lilly’s story, she’s been a very fascinating character and I’m looking forward to some of the fun things I have outlined for future books.