Marguerite “Rita” Griffin

Rita is a REVENANT SPIRIT.

Marguerite Griffin — Rita, to those who know her — is a woman who has always lived by quick wits and quicker lies. Once, long ago, she was a grifter’s daughter, raised in a painted wagon that rattled along the East Coast, peddling false cures and impossible promises. Born in 1772 to a family of travelers and tricksters, deception was her birthright. She wore it well until the night in 1800 when the con caught up with her: A knife in the dark. A pair of angry hands. A body sinking into the Ohio River.

But Rita never truly left.

Now, more than eighty years later, she lingers in Never, working at the Silk Rose as if she belongs there, wearing borrowed smiles and dresses that never seem to collect dust. No one questions where she came from. No one notices that she never eats, never tires, never leaves so much as a footprint in the dust outside her room. She keeps her secret well… until the rains come.

Rita cannot cross water. Even the thought of the creek to the east of town makes her breath hitch, though there is no breath left in her lungs. And sometimes, when the wind howls through Never’s streets, she swears she can still feel the weight of cold, dark water pulling her under.