Cast

General Information

Before we get into the role-call it should be greatly stressed that these characters are complete fiction! Even those characters whom you might equate with real-life folks are simply my bizarre reimagining of them in order to fit the story. I was going to create pictures of how I viewed the characters, but after some thinking decided not to do that so that you, dear readers, could provide your own internal visions. I tried to give only the vaguest descriptions and allow you to fill out the details in your mind's eye.

Cast: More-or-less in order of appearance

Matthew Sullivan Matt is an out-of-luck Millenial. He lives with his mother as his father abandoned the family some time ago to take up with a stripper. He's been out of high school for about 4 years (because he's old enough to drink) but hasn't been able to nail down a job. He was named after my own son, Mathew Girdley.

The two thugs They're no one in particular. Just run-on / run-offs necessary to kickstart the story.

Diogee If you haven't gotten the joke yet, his name is what you get if you spell the word "Dog" rather slowly. "Dee-Oh-Gee". He was created in response to the little dog on The Fool tarot card. He was named after a dear, departed friend's dog of the same name.

Bradford Taylor When I was doing magic shows for children, I sometimes performed as a clown under the name "Raymond the Great". In my mind's eye, I imagined him looking like one of my magic mentors, Barry Taylor of Barry's Magic Shop in Rockville, Maryland, and gave him the same last name. My father's name was Bradford, so I merged them all to be Bradford Taylor, aka Raymond the Great.

Birthday Parents These are more just background folks, although at one iteration of the story one was referred to as Mr. Sutcliffe, a nod to Russell Sutcliffe, one of the boys who make up The Three of We and (as of 2017) my partner of 24 years!

JR the Rat JR is a tricky beast to nail down. Typically, he's just the single rat, but in this story Vincent has found a way to bounce the "JR-ness" from one rat to another. I really couldn't think of a name for him, until the Empress said, "I've ony ever called him just rat." and Matt turned that into the name.

The Paramedics and Police These are more generic background folks.

Tim Tim has no last name that I know of. I modeled him after my friend Craig Stevenson, but took the name of a supervisor Tim Lash. Although it would have been fun to have Tim and Matt run around in the story, I wasn't sure I could pull it off. And I didn't want Vincent to do evil things, so I had Tim exit the story early to go to a midwest wedding.

Kate Sullivan Matt's mom is struggling to keep her two-person family afloat after her husband's departure. She's a paralegal in a Baltimore firm, but not making a lot of money. She really wants Matt to find a job but doesn't want to push him. But she's getting more and more desperate. It doesn't help that she sees (or thinks she sees) Matt making the same sorts of poor decisions that his father makes. I named her Kate after my college mentor Kate Harmeyer.

Cemetary Employee No one special. Mostly an excuse for me to work in the 10 of Wands.

Black Agnes I found the reference to the Black Aggie statue in the book Wierd Maryland. As far as I know the actual statue was never in the Druid Hill cemetary and--in fact--is not to be found in any Baltimore graveyards because, due to her legends, the statue was the victim of many stupid pranks and defacements over the years and has been removed from the public eye. This, of course, gave me the idea for her being able to vanish from her cemetary post (thus adding to her legend). I was going to rename her after another dear friend of mine named Alice...but Black Alice just didn't have the same ring, so I sort of mixed the two to come up with Agnes.

Marie (Waters) Is the defacto leader of the Arcana kids and has appointed herself as Brian's protector. Has numerous skills including "fast driving," and self-defense. She has a fondness for computers and history and is assisting the Hermit with his job as Historian. She will very likely take over this post at some point in the future. I named her Marie after an previous college girl-friend.

Nate (Waters) I wish I could have come up with more ways to make use of Nate. He grew up learning about the Charms and has always wanted to be an Ace. He becomes frustrated when Matt shows up with the Wand. His name doesn't come from anyone in particular. In my mind, however, he looks a lot like a former personal trainer (and yoga champ) Eddie Hall.

Brian (Waters) Because parents of twins tend to give the poor kids similar names, Brian's full name is Nicholas Brian. But while Nate got all interested in physical fitness, Brian turned more toward art and other passions. Seeking to distance himself from his brother and all "twin-ness" he adopted the emo look and insists on being called Brian. I named him Brian after one of my long-ago boyfriends. (Read more about Nate / Nick / Brian down in the "graveyard" section below.)

Divine As I explained in the Tarot page, Divine fills the role of The Empress. Due to some sort of not-really-explained curse in the distant past, Divine and John are the immortal guardians of the four Charms and their Aces. They have taken many identities throughout the ages. Although the Empress usually takes a female role, it is hinted that there have been male versions as well. We learn that Divine has been The Lady of the Lake, Mary Pikersgill, and a few other famous Baltimorean women. She is also the person whom the Baltimore "hon" character was crafted after. As the Empress she is in charge of keeping an eye on the health of her family-of-the-moment and outranks the Emporer in this regard. She's something of a Mother Nature-type, has an affinity for plants, and wields some control over the weather. In trying to stay "woke", I decided that this completely fictional version would be called a "Drag Performer" and would be referred to as "she."

John Waters Even though his card comes after the Empress, John is the nominal head of the Arcana. Like Divine, he is immortal and has been many important people throughtout history including Merlin, Lord Baltimore, Francis Scott Key, a college professor (during the great fire of 1912), Edgar Allen Poe, and currently John Waters. He wields a mix of supernatural and alchemical skills but his forte is in strategy and inspiring others to be the best they can be. He has a soft spot for troubled kids and has a history of adopting and raising those most in need...which is how he and Divine are currently in charge of their current four....or five if you count you-know-who.

Renae Morgan Renae also appears in the graveyard section as she was initially an actual character rather than just a disguise. Her name is a combination of my second-grade crush and my high-school drama teacher.

Elwood Douglas Sadly, neither poor Elwood's look nor his name come from any one in my past.

The Little People of Midget Town These are the supposed folks (and their decendents) who played the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz.

The Zombies Yep. Zombies. Nothing special here except I wanted them to be not-your-average zombies, but rather victims of Vincent's power.

The Chariot: Orc and Zam These guys are one of my favorite creations and, as it turns out, favorites of readers as well. They are fairly powerful beings from another plane of existence who--through reasons I'll let you discover--ended up on Earth and caused the Great Fire of 1912. The Magician of the time crafted an impromptu trap that (a) imprisoned the two in a nearby car and (b) created the Point of No Return. Now, from 6 am to 6pm, Zam is the car (currently a black Hummer SUV) and Orc lives in the radio (playing non-stop pop music from the 1980's). At 6pm they switch becoming a white Chevy Volt electric hybrid that plays Heavy Metal / Ska music.

Charles Calwell He's my Hermit. He's not named after anyone in particular but in my imagination he looks like Terry Pratchett (of Disc World fame!).

Vincent Hale (although we first see him in the Hermit's video) As the book points out, Vincent is one of John's adopted "troubled kids" from the 50's. He only ever wanted to be an Ace and have John's approval. But then Bradford showed up with the Wand and John turned his attention to Bradford which really hurt and upset Vincent. Then, when Bradford sent out all the Charms, Vincent managed to find and take control of the Pentacle allowing him to speak to the dead. That's where he learned of the prophecy regarding Eliot becoming a monster that would destroy the world. Vincent tried to get the rest of the Arcana to help kill Eliot, but they refused so he set about doing so himself. As a result, the Arcana had to capture him and put him in stasis so he wouldn't do any more harm. Once a month, during the full moon, Vincent awakes just long enough for them to give him a chance to relinquish the Pentacle, but he always refuses, claiming the need to kill the monster. Then, shortly before our story begins, something happens that lets Vincent wake up early and escape. Vincent's name was taken from a fellow who was a supervison in a cafeteria that I once worked at. His last name was taken from a set of twins that I grew up with: Sherry and Terri Hale. (See? Twins with similar names!)

Robert Mills (also seen only in the movie). Check out more about him in the graveyard below.

Helana Waters Helana went through several transformation before she became the one in the story. She was intially named Helen after my dear departed friend Helen Leslie. Then, once I changed her to an African-American girl, I cast about for a backstory. One of our friends (mentioned in the Afterword) is Veronica Robinson who is a member of the Henrietta Lacks HeLa Legacy Foundation, so I asked if I could make my Helen a long-lost (and completely fictional) decendent. Veronica said, "Sure, hon!" so I changed Helen to Helana to fit the HeLa designation into her name. In my head, she looks a lot like a dear friend and co-worker Nafrettifi Griffin!

The Owl Bar Waiter As a walk-on, he was never fully developed, but I always imagined him as a former co-worker (and Kickstarter supporter) Ken Harmon!

Garry the Bartender This Garry is visualized and named after my very own Garry Arbogast, the third man in my Three of We triad. As of 2017, we've been together for...8 years! He is multiply pierced and tattooed! He does not work at Mount Royal Tavern.

Georgie the Chameleon Once I decided that each Charm needed an attendant Animal, I had to think them up. When I decided that the Cup would do disguises I cast about for a suitable animal and settled on a chameleon due to it's ability to disquise itelf. From there it was easy to name him George because of the song Karma Chameleon. I kept calling him simply "George" but my test-readers loved thinking of him as "Georgie" so I edited all references to make it so.

The Female Bartender at Mount Royal Tavern She's never named, but with that tie-dyed hair, it could only be Brit Steiner!

The Goatman Almost every area has some form of Goatman. This goatman can somehow throw powerful electrical "ghostlights".

Firefighters and Police at the Enchanted Forest Nothing to see here. Move along.

Mysterious Being in the Cave This strange person / creature is the one that stepped through some wierd portal and initially gave the Charms (and the curse) to young John and Divine. Who or what is he? I know the answer--and if I ever get around to Book Number Three, you could find out too!

George Washington In Matt's dream during The Star chapter.

Susie Rundle When I was doing magic shows, I had a sweet young lady who was my "box-jumper"--the girl who got in the boxes to be cut in half, levitated, vanished, etc. One day she came to a rehearsal and announced that she'd met a guy and was going to marry him and move to Kansas. "Tomorrow." And just like that, she was gone. I actually worked that into subsequent magic shows in which I would introduce her, she'd not show, then Russell (my stagehand) would bring out a note saying she'd met a guy and moved to Kansas! It only seemed fitting to work her into the story as well. Her first name was Susie, but the last name is that of the lady who ran sound effects for the show: Deb Rundle.

Lenore the Raven I knew that the Sword would be hidden at the top of the Washington Monument, so I had to figure out what Animal would be nearby. A bird of some sort seemed perfect and since Baltimore is all about ravens (due to Edgar Allen Poe) that seemed to be the perfect animal. Having settled on that, the name Lenore was a gimme.

The Staff of the Paper Moon More extras. I don't know any of them. They're quickly "persuaded" by John Waters to help clean up the mess after a zombie attack.

The Police Sargeant A walk-on. Not inspired by anyone.

Judge Samuel Chase (the voice) Judge Chase (ala Old Bacon Face) was a real person. Can he speak from beyond the grave...?

Tourists Random tourists at the World Trade Center.

Eliot Brannon We finally meet him atop the World Trade Center. My description is essentially that of my departed son Mathew Girdley. His name is from the name of an ex-co-worker's son also named Eliot.

The Alien Just a random slimy glob from some distant alternate reality. The same as Orc and Zam? Who knows.....?

The Graveyard

Here is a brief list of characters that were in early drafts, but subsequently removed....

Nick (Waters) Because of the "duplicates" twist at the end of the book, I needed a set of twins. So I created Nate and Nick. Brian was a completely separate character. Then my neighbor--and amazing author--Greg Koren (Gorg Krayon in the credits) said, "Nick isn't pulling his weight, he needs to go." I was distraught. I was grousing to Russell that "there's no way I can make the story work, unless......" and then I had the idea of making Brian be Nate's emo-twin! It turned out to be a great change!

Renae Morgan Initially, Renae was hiding in the Enchanted forest while Helana took her place. Later, I had her take a more active role and she even went to the Mount Royal Tavern with Brian, Helana, and Matt. But it still felt contrived. (Contrived? In my story? Can you imagine?) So I ultimately removed her entirely and just referred to her. Nonetheless, her first name is from the first girl I fell in love with in 2nd grade: Renae Cunningham and my high school drama teacher, Carol Morgan. Visuallly, she's my dear, dear friend Felicia Bender!

Robert Mills He was a real person who really did do all that architecture stuff in the book. Was he an immortal Magician? Who can say?!