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And not to pull your halo down
Around your neck and tug you to the ground
But I'm more than just a little curious
How you're plannin' to go about makin' your amends
To the dead
To the dead
Around your neck and tug you to the ground
But I'm more than just a little curious
How you're plannin' to go about makin' your amends
To the dead
To the dead
Full name: Lusa Van Bern
Age/DOB: 19 / October 31st, 1992
Race: Human
Occupation: Tarot Reader, Medium, Sales Associate
Birthplace: Savannah, Georgia
Personality: Lusa is an introverted personality who is slowly starting to come out of her shell. Because of her grandparents' influence, she finally knows who and what she is, rather than having to deal with outside personalities attempting to use her for their own ends (and even that is something she's still dealing with). She has an immense patience, and while she doesn't require attention from outside sources, she will willingly help others at the drop of a hat because she knows exactly what it feels like to be helpless and have no one understand you. However, if this help comes at the price of her using her gift, she will think twice about offering that help. Lusa is slow to anger, and instead prefers diplomatic means to solve disputes; if the dispute cannot be resolved, she'll simply walk away. She has no desire to cause others pain in any way, shape or form. Most of her time is spent reading, studying, or working in her grandmother's shop. Lusa attempts to keep a lid on her emotions, especially that of anger or depression, because it makes her an easier target for spirits to manipulate and control her.
She is ever willing to believe the best of others, but can be hard on herself. This is mostly because she knows that she's a conduit for the actions of others - the death of her sister is a large example of this. To this day, Lusa is still unsure if she had any part in her sister's death, and since Luna's ghost has been exorcised from this plane of existance, she will never know the truth. Such a guilt weighs heavily on her, and Lusa goes to great lengths to never let such a thing happen again. Family is first and foremost for Lusa, and she will do anything for Amalia because she feels that she owes her grandmother everything. Lusa can be described as a stereotypical goth girl, though her black hair and pale skin is entirely natural because of her ancestry. She has large green eyes, which can seem piercing when she looks at you, and she favors black clothing at all times of the year. She is fluent in English and some French, and can speak a little Romani. Mostly though she just understands it, as Amalia will often sink into the language of her home country.
Biography: Lusa Emilie Van Bern was born three minutes after midnight on All Hallow's Eve, 1992, to Herbert and Seriah Van Bern in a small town just outside of Savannah, Georgia. She was five minutes later than her elder identical twin sister, Luna Annaliese Van Bern. Both girls were born healthy, weighing in at around six pounds each; the one thing that marked them as different was the fact that Lusa was born with a caul over her face. Thankfully there was no issue with her breathing, and a week or so after birth the girls went home with their parents. All in all, a perfectly normal birth and happy homecoming for the new family. Herbert was a pencil pusher, American stock and as average as they come; Seriah was a little more colorful, the daughter of Romani immigrants, who spent more time reading and creating than she did anything else. Seriah doted on her daughters, encouraging them to be themselves, and so they were. Both girls were named for their maternal grandfather, Lucian, though neither would meet their grandparents until much later in their lives.
From day one, Lusa was the quieter of the pair. Both girls clung to one another as though joined at the hip, going everywhere together; Luna would speak for the pair of them, though whether this was approved by Lusa or if she was being subjugated by her elder sister was unclear. Lusa certainly never raised a complaint, but then again, she rarely ever spoke to begin with. Rather than be concerned with the world around her, it seemed that she was content to create imaginary friends to play with, with whom she could be heard speaking with for hours on end if she was ever left alone for a period of time, which wasn't often. When asked about these friends, Lusa would simply describe ordinary looking people - what was more odd about it was the fact that sometimes voices could be heard speaking back to her. Luna claimed that she never saw nor heard anything, and for the majority of their childhood, Herbert and Seriah wrote it off as the over active imagination of a child.
When Lusa was ten, however, things took a turn for the bizarre. She suffered what looked like an epileptic shock while she and Luna were at a birthday party sleepover, occurring at a house just down the street, thankfully. Lusa's parents rushed her to the hospital where a myriad of tests were run, all coming back negative for this disorder or that disease. In the end, Lusa was diagnosed as a perfectly physically healthy girl, and so she was turned over to a psychiatrist who specialized in children. Doctor Peggy Kenworth was a nice woman, and Lusa spent the majority of her time in the doctor's office coloring and answering questions. Simple things - how are you feeling, what are you coloring. Your parents tell me you see people who aren't there. Do these people ever hurt or scare you? How often do you see them? Does your sister see them, too? And Lusa answered as truthfully as she could, wanting the visits to end and to be with her sister again. But the attacks (as the doctors named them) continued to occur, and became even more strange. Lusa would start speaking, talking in different voices, or just acting differently altogether. Luna found her sister's actions to be frightening, and the relationship between them became strained as they started finding themselves in the midst of their teenage years.
In middle school, Luna found friends easily and started to rebuff her sister altogether. Lusa took this rejection hard, turning ever more inward for comfort. When they were at home, Luna made the attempt to be kind to her twin, but it was clear that the two girls were beginning to grow apart. When they were thirteen, the family moved to a new home in Savannah itself, Herbert having gained a promotion. The new house was much larger than the old one, and the girls would soon begin attending a new school because of the change in location. Lusa was having difficulty adjusting to all of these changes, and Luna was finding it in herself to reach out to her sister once again - Seriah and Herbert hoped that a fresh start would help the girls repair their relationship and all would be well again, as well as it could be. The new house included a swimming pool in the backyard, and Luna looked forward to making friends in order to invite them over for parties.
While playing in the pool unsupervised one afternoon in the summer before school started, Seriah was brought running outside when she heard a shriek from one of her daughters. She was horrified to find Luna floating face down in the pool, a thin line of blood trailing from her head. It seemed that she had slipped, hit her head on the side of the pool, and subsequently drowned in the water. Lusa was of no use, unable to recall the events of the previous five minutes - no one blamed her for what happened, but she couldn't help but feel somehow responsible for her sister's death. Lusa was removed from school altogether and Seriah began to home-school her remaining daughter, suddenly becoming very protective of her only child. Lusa was smothered under the attention, but things only got worse. Her attacks became stronger and more frequent, and what was even more odd was that she was acting more and more like Luna. Herbert and Seriah were at a loss of what to do, and finally Seriah contacted her mother in New Orleans, something she hoped to never do because of strained relations between mother and daughter.
Amalia flew out to see her daughter and granddaughter within the week. Against both Seriah's and the doctor's prescriptions, she had Lusa taken off of all of her medications, staying with the girl nearly every hour of every day. She required complete solitude with her granddaughter, which Seriah gave into after several arguments. Sometimes one could hear the tune of a whistle being played from whatever room Amalia and Lusa were in, and a month after Amalia's arrival, Lusa was in a much happier state than she had been in since she was five years old. Her attacks were still present, but they were fewer and farther in between. Seriah asked for an explanation from her mother, and Amalia's explanation seemed incredulous. She explained to her daughter that Lusa was a conduit for the dead, that she had one foot in the living realm while the other lingered beyond the veil. Her epileptic attacks were not attacks at all, but instead were spirits attempting to control Lusa in order to speak to the living. Her current attacks were the result of her dead twin, believed to be enacting revenge for her untimely death.
Needless to say, Seriah believed her mother was insane. She threw her out of the house, thinking that her mother was buying in wholesale to old wives-tales and "stories from the old country" bullshit that were going to get her daughter killed because her serious medical condition was not being attended to properly. Amalia, prideful and understanding when she wasn't wanted, packed up her things and left that day; however, she left the whistle with Lusa, and began to pray each day that she wasn't about to lose her last grandbaby. The remaining twin began a steady decline in health, bruises and scars appearing on her skin although Lusa claimed to never have harmed herself. She was unable to sleep, and despite more medication and sleep studies, nothing seemed to be helping. All of this occurred within a year, and finally Lusa took matters into her own hands. Using a bible and exorcism spells she pulled out of her grandmother over the phone, Lusa exorcised Luna's ghost for good at the age of fourteen.
Lusa's health began to dramatically shift for the better, and at age fifteen, she went to live with her grandparents in New Orleans; her grandparents were willing to take her in, even though they were still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. She demanded it of her parents, who were unable to dissuade the girl from her desires. Lusa was welcomed with open arms by her grandmother and grandfather, and aside from continuing her home-schooled education under her grandfather's tutelage, she helped out in the store they lived above. Her grandmother would give tarot card readings to tourists - usually faked in order to make the customers as happy as possible, because no one really wants to know their future - while her grandfather would sell trinkets and pendants designed to give protection and good luck to the wearers. Lusa relished the attention and freedom she received from her grandparents, and slowly over the next two years became an entirely different person. Though still introverted and given to a quiet demeanor, she was able to control her gift (as her grandmother named it) and found herself interacting with people. For the first time in several years, Lusa was happy and actually enjoying life.
Of course, in all lives some rain must fall, and nothing good lasts forever. Lucian Ovidiu passed away at the fairly young age of sixty seven, leaving his wife and granddaughter the store and a modest retirement savings. Lusa was seventeen at the time. Both Amalia and Lusa were heartbroken, but thankful for one another in the time of the loss. They threw a wake for Lucian, seeing him off as best they could - but Lucian wasn't ready to leave just yet. Lusa began to see his ghost six months after his death, and it's been a lingering presence in both her and her grandmother's life for the past year and a half; neither begrudge his lingering spirit, instead taking deep comfort in it since he did little more than protect them. The shop was broken into one night, but the thief took nothing as he saw the shape of a man coming at him, then disappearing, and reappearing - Lusa isn't sure to what extent her grandfather would take such protection, but even outside of the shop she feels him following her from time to time, telling her that he's connected to the people he's left behind and not necessarily the shop.
Lusa still remains with her grandmother two years after her grandfather's death, helping out with the shop and learning evermore about her gift and it's varied abilities. Most recently she's begun to give seances here and there, testing the waters of what she can do and how far she's willing to go. They both still reside in apartments above their shop, though the whole building it owned by Mr. de Romanus. However, the vampire does not bother them in the slightest, something for which they are grateful. Amalia and Lucian have always been suspect of the dead, and they have passed on this caution to their granddaughter.
Abilities/Powers: Lusa is a medium. Born with a Venetian Veil, she can see and communicate with the dead - her abilities include summoning spirits, speaking with them, dispelling them, and even allowing them to possess her in order to allow the spirit to speak with the living. She is able to "tune into" spirits using a whistle given to her by her grandmother. To her, spirits look just like everyday people, with few exceptions (sometimes cause of death is apparent). She does not enjoy her gift, and will go to great lengths to avoid it as much as possible.
EXAMPLES
First person: I think my favorite time of year has to be summer. Not just because there's no school, or anything like that (I mean, I've been home-schooled most of my life, so it's not like I've had a regular schedule like other people), but because of the nights.
Just sit at your window. The smells that come in from the wind - wet dirt, maybe someone cooking gumbo a few houses over, perfumes - swirling in and coloring the darkness dotted with stars. It's so beautiful. The sounds, everything, just, everything seems so much more alive during the nighttime. Which maybe makes sense just because you have to strain so much more against the darkness. It's like when they say you cut off one sense, the others become sharper?
But one thing I hate about the night is, and this is a really stupid way to put it, is that they come more often. Or maybe it's not that they come more often necessarily, but that they're easier to spot. During the day, they look like other people, and it's easy to miss them until they're putting a hand on the back of your neck (and I can't tell you how many times that's happened to me). At night? Not so much. Glance out the front window of the shop and suddenly there's someone standing there, staring at you, and I just...can tell it's one of them. It's creepy.
Does one out weigh the other? I haven't decided yet. Maybe it's because I haven't met anything scarier than the monsters I already have to deal with.
Third person: The cafe was not atypical in any way - it borrowed heavily from french conventions, which one could expect when visiting New Orleans. Wrought iron chairs, frilly red umbrellas over the tables outdoors, bagettes and cups of coffee with roasted Parisian beans. The only reason that one could surmise as explanation for Lusa's patronage was the fact that it was close to the Emporium, and all she wanted was a few moment's respite to read her book, drink a cup of brew, and then head back to help her grandmother close down the shop for the night.
She had never found her schedule too terribly irregular - it was already nine o'clock at night - and not needing to sleep until one or two in the morning was simply the way she had been existing since arriving at her grandparents' shop four years ago. Scraping the chair back and setting the warm, off-white cup on the wiry table top, Lusa took a seat, a gentle sigh flowing out of her mouth. It felt good to just sit, and not just sit, but sit without expectation from anyone around her. Sit and crack open her book (just a simple fairytale) and read without being concerned about anyone around her.
Deep in the pages of some girl wandering through some forest, in search of a treasure or a prince (she remembered which, but for the moment she could not bring herself to care), Lusa felt eyes weighing on her from a distance. Green flicked up to survey the empty road next to the cafe, the lights from within the shop going no further than two or three feet away from her table, if even that, so whoever was watching her was lost to shadow. It wasn't a new or even necessarily unsettling feeling - Lusa had long grown used to such events, and settled back into her book, intent on finishing at least one chapter before heading back home for the night.
MISC
General plan: Lusa can act as a conduit for those who wish to use the knife in order to bring back dead vampires; a dial-a-spirit phone book, if you will (although by no means will she do this easily, nor necessarily willingly). I mean, obviously you want to be sure that the right ghost is hanging around when you murder someone, right? Otherwise, she can be used to contact dead loved ones, or is just a great listener for those who need to get something off of their chest.