Fulton, Mary

Mary Amelia Fulton

PERSONALITY

Mary's personality has been mainly shaped by the experiences of her abusive childhood. As a result, she is incredibly self-effacing and eager to please all those around her. She is incapable of speaking up for herself, which leads to her being taken advantage of. For example, group assignments in school tend to fall squarely on Mary's shoulders because she is so nervous about causing a stir by demanding that other students pull their own weight.

Adding to this reticent nature is the fact that Mary's family is not at all wealthy. She does not have nice things of her own; she has to borrow books and materials from the school, working off the debt for consumables such as potions ingredients with her job in the library. She is accustomed to feeling that she is worth less than the other people around her, so she doesn't complain about performing unpaid labor. After all, she feels incredibly blessed to be able to come to the school in the first place. Though she is intelligent, not many people truly appreciate that fact.

HISTORY

Mary is the oldest of six children born to a family that is not even remotely wealthy. Mrs. Fulton works her fingers to the bone as a seamstress. Mr. Fulton was a foreman at an iron forge until he was fired due to his excessive drinking which led to poor work performance.

Due to her parents' inability to take care of their brood, Mary became the "little mother" at a very early age. She was never allowed to develop anything resembling her own life. On the contrary, she has always been stuck at home taking care of her younger siblings and attempting to dodge her father's drunken rages. Over the years, Mary has become completely accustomed to being used as an unpaid nanny whose minor mistakes lead to violent "correction."

When her letter from Cascade arrived, Mary was shocked to learn that her mother was a witch. Mrs. Fulton had always hidden these abilities from the people around her. She had burned her own Cascade letter when it arrived, preferring to live a "normal" life. She encouraged Mary to make the same choice, but Mary couldn't accept such a future for herself. In her first, stunning act of self-actualization, she told her mother that she would be attending Cascade, and she left in the night, hoping that her father would simply consider her a runaway.

In the summers, she still goes home to live the same "little mother" life with the same abuse hanging over her head, but she finally has some hope for the future. Her goal is to marry someone who is completely unlike her father. She hopes never to return to her family after graduating from Cascade.