BASIC INFO

Name
India McCray

Canon
The Elementals
by Michael McDowell

Age & DOB
14 years old
October 1st, 1962
Libra

Pronouns
She/Her

Height & Build
5'4", 110lbs

Features
She is very fair and considered very beautiful. Like her mother. (Don't say that to her.)

STATS

HISTORY

India McCray was conceived on the grounds of the possessed family summer homes of Beldame. The three Victorian houses were built looking out over the Gulf of Mexico, owned by the Savage and McCray families.

After her birth, her father, Luker McCray, took her to New York City where he worked as a photographer. India grew up mostly without her mother, who ran off to her affair with a psychiatrist. They all lived within the same neighborhood in New York, often encountering each other in the wild, but the acrimony between Luker and That Woman would never see the family actually reunite.

Raised by Luker, who never wanted a child, India is a New York City It Girl. She hangs out with the artist crowd and is treated very much like an adult. She swears, she drinks, she has hung around and sketched while the adults did drugs and had sex.

She is 13 years old when Marian Savage dies. Marian and her grandmother, Big Barbara, were best friends. Marian's son, Dauphin, is also married to the McCray daughter, Leigh. So, Luker and his daughter are invited to the funeral in Mobile to support their family. While at the funeral, they witness a strange ritual unique to the Savage family... one of the first odd and ominous unknowns about the Savage clan.

Savage mothers eat their children up...
After the funeral, the group decides to visit the family summer homes of Beldame to relax and recover from their grief. It is a very remote location on the Gulf, often cut off from the rest of the world by the tide. As soon as India arrives, she is drawn to and fascinated by what is known as The Third House. One of the three summer homes is uninhabited, owner unknown, and slowly being taken over by the sands of the dunes.

Throughout her time at Beldame... she learns a great deal about what inhabits it. And really wishes she hadn't.

India’s own black shadow of curiosity stretched across the floor, like a startled residue of the room’s last inhabitant...

PERSONALITY

India is a deeply parentified child. She is expected to act like an adult, and very specifically expected not to act like her mother. She is not to be frivolous, emotional, unoriginal, or illogical. Thus, she acts quite composed for her age. Too cool for school and a little bit rebellious. Her father rarely tells her what to do. She often cares for him like a wife would: making coffee in the morning, putting out his clothes, etc.

Her 'adult' confidence comes with a shred of recklessness from being forced to handle many situations above her understanding. She doesn't know where the line is, she doesn't know where to stop.

She copes with this, in a way, by always identifying someone who is much worse than herself. She needs a measuring stick to assure herself that she's at least doing something right; as long as someone is doing wrong in her mind.

She has a clear artistic style and uses it to express herself. Her photographer father approves of and cultivates these skills. His approval, ambivalent as it sometimes is, is often how she determines what to keep and what to lose about herself.

Her psychic abilities, however, put her in an entirely different world from her father. She learns a little from Odessa Red, but ultimately, what India has to quickly learn is how to defend herself and her family.

ABILITIES

Psychic
India's conception on the grounds of Beldame is implied to have had an effect on her, and she shows some psychic abilities that culminate during the book. She is shown to be susceptible to psychic visions, which she can sketch. She is shown to be able to see and feel supernatural things with much more clarity than the average person. This leads her to be much more drawn to look.

Her sight becomes much clearer by the end of the book. No, you don't want to know why.

It is relevant to note that the supernatural entity encountered in the book is deeply personal to the Savages and McCrays. She might not know as much about other spirits, despite being able to see and feel them.

Minor folk magic
She is shown some minor folk magic by Odessa Red. What she is shown is a mix of basic sympathetic magic and Christianity. It is unclear if this even works but it can be comforting.

Artist
India is a skilled young artist and photographer.

FAMILY

That Woman	Mother
Luker McCray	Father
Leigh McCray-Savage	Aunt
Dauphin Savage	Uncle ✖
Mary-Scot Savage	Aunt
Darnley Savage	Uncle ✖
Barbara McCray	Grandmother
Lawton McCray	Grandfather ✖
Marian Savage	Grandmother ✖
Odessa Red	Savage family maid ✖
Martha-Ann	Odessa's daughter ✖

OOC

Bee . EST . gothbarbies