Poddington-on-Slossip: Characters

Jory Moon

Description

In every school there's a boy who doesn't quite fit. He's the one who can't
play sports because of his asthma. He's the one who was always sickly and
missed weeks of school. He was the one the other boys tormented mercilessly
because he was smaller and weaker than they. In Poddington, this was Jory.
Even though he's grown up a bit, the spectre of those years clings to him
into manhood. He's around 18 or 20, and still possesess a gangly, pale,
boyishness that's almost painful to look at. Very thin, and of average
height, Jory moves with a kind of uneasiness that reminds one of a bird,
like he's not comfortable with his body. He has a long mop of thick, black
hair which has a tendency to spill into his face and over his brown eyes.
Those eyes seem intelligent and perceptive, though are partially screened by
a pair of spectacles. Dark circles permanently underscore them, marking a
tiredness which echoes faintly in his body. The most active part of him is
his hands, which have long slender fingers, usually stained with charcoal
dust, and move about restlessly of their own accord. While no one would call
this youth handsome, in the right light, and when he smiles, he might be
called pleasant. He's wearing a fine outfit of wool and silks which consists
of neatly tailored and pleated charcoal-black pants and a crisp white shirt
with the sleeves caught at his wrists by glimmering gold cufflinks. Over
this is a silk vest of black which has a pattern of thin gold pinstripes on
it, and a scarf of cream colored silk is tossed casually around his neck. On
his feet are highly polished black wingtips.

Background

Well, of course, you remember the Moon family. Sad story, that. Tragic. The
boy, Jory, he was their only child. Father was killed in the war, God rest
him; mother was struck by lightning last fall. As if it wasn't bad enough
loosing the father but for that poor boy to loose his mother that way... he
must be, what, 18 or 19 now? Not that he hasn't had a life full of
hardships, though, oh, no. Sickly, all the time. If it wasn't the asthma it
was the allergies. Well, he's still pale as a ghost and thin. And he still
has that unfortunate stutter. He must weight 90 pounds soaking wet! His
parents did try though. Father was in the military- I told you he was lost
in the war, didn't I? - well, he wasn't only in the military. He was some
sort of inventor. Gadgets, mechanical widgets, odds and ends. Well, I hear
the Father invented some sort of special spring or sprocket or some such
that they use in printing presses. Supposed to make them work faster or
better or... well, I don't know for certain. Awfully technical. But the
Moon's were made quite well off by that. And of course, the military made
their contribution when the father died, didn't they? And I'm sure the
mother was well-insured. I'd imagine young Jory Moon is worth quite a large
sum! Well, with money like that, it's no wonder he's left school and come
home, now that his parents have died. I can't help but think he's throwing
away an awful lot- Eaton and then to Cambridge for a year, don't you know.
Oh, yes, he's an odd duck. He's a loner, always carrying about a sketchpad
and charcoals. Hardly ever see him in the company of ladies, if you take my
meaning. Oh, no, I'm not saying he is or he isn't. He just strikes me as the
type to spend his time alone with his own thoughts rather than with others.
Still... get him to put on a few pounds, he'd make a fine catch for anyone!

Born on August 1, 19 years from present day, Jory Moon was saddled with his
unfortunate middle name due to his birthdate. His mother wanted something
hearty and robust sounding, and August seemed to fit the bill. Despite this
fortitudinous-sounding name, Jory turned out to be anything but hearty and
robust. It was noted that he was born with a black caul, and everyone
thought he had been stillborn because of it. Perhaps that ill omen marked
the trouble he had as a youth. Even today he is thin, some might say frail,
and suffers from mild asthsma. He had an awful stutter as a child, and
through the years has managed to get his voice under control in all but the
plosives: "b," "p," "t," and "d." Occasionally a few nasal sounds will give
him problems, but he manages to get his message across tolerably to those
patient enough to listen to him. He prefers instead to express himself
through charcoal sketches, for which he has an great aptitude. He's also
quite bright, not so much in maths, but in history and especially in
languages he showed promise. He has a reasonable facility with Greek and
Latin, and speaks French, German, Italian and Spanish fluetly, though he'll
never sound like a native speaker. Thanks to his classical education, he
has a good grasp of art history, appreciation of the theatre, philosopy, and
religion. It's a good thing that he's also fabulously rich- more so than
most people might even guess- because he doesn't have the skills to hold a
'real' job, especially now that he's dropped out of Cambridge. His father's
invention was only the start- shrewd investment in the wartime economy left
the Moon's rich, not poor, like most. Jory still has his family house- not a
very fancy place from the outside, but nice, including his father's basement
workshop and a garage where Jory's one luxury, a 1922 Bentley. Jory has
recently invested a great deal of his fortune into an oddity for Poddington:
an observatory, built out on Wildcome Moor in the ruins of an abandoned
silo. To say Jory is antisocial would be wrong, but he does seem content to
simply "lurk". Perhaps he's feeling alone and adrift- indeed, who wouldn't
after loosing his parents in those circumstances. Perhaps his childhood,
which was filled with teasing, illness, and low self-esteem, has deprived
him of the social skills necessary to "come out of his shell." With his
money, he could go anywhere in the world, but instead, he left Cambridge to
come back here. Perhaps the reason this is so is because of two things that
no one outside of Jory's family knows. Firstly, while it is true that his
mother was killed by a lightning strike, it is also true that seventeen of
Jory's relatives on his mother's side, distant and near, were similarly
killed. There is no explanation that Jory knows of why death by lightning
runs in his family, but he feels in his heart that he, too, will perish this
way, one day. The other secret is that ever since puberty, Jory suffers
night terrors and intense dreams, some recurring, some terrifying, some
which haunt his memory for weeks. He keeps a dream diary of them and
sometimes will sketch them out in charcoal, but he does not understand what
they are and what they mean, nor how to stop them. He gets very little rest
because of them.

Other information

Jory very often dreams of Poddington itself, the buildings the countryside,
the people. Sometimes he sees Poddington at different times, such as in the
past. He doesn't know why this is so, but it's one of the reasons he
returned.

Jory is clumsy and accident-prone. He has allergies to summertime grasses,
and occasionally to cats. He wears glasses for nearsightedness, and without
them can't make out details more than a few feet from him.

Romantically, Jory is a lost cause. Jory discovered his sexuality his year
at Cambridge when he fell in love with a slightly older boy named Robert,
who left for India halfway through the year. Of course, he could never tell
anyone about his feelings and leanings in this day and age. Even if an
opportunity presented itself, Jory has a total lack of confidence in his
social capacity that he'd probably drive the person off rather than risk
heartbreak.