Marissa Fittes

This page contains details from The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co., #5).

## Biographical information

### Family member(s)

* Margaret (daughter) †
* Penelope Fittes (granddaughter) †

## Personal information

### Affiliation

* Fittes Agency
* Orpheus Society

### Portrayer

Amanda Abbington

**Marissa Fittes** was the founder of Fittes Agency, the first and biggest psychical investigation agency in the country.

On the Netflix *Lockwood & Co.* TV series, Marissa is portrayed by Amanda Abbington.

## Recorded Biography

In her youth, she, alongside her partner Tom Rotwell, were the first people in Britain to discover the Problem which started in Kent.

Marissa was considered a hero against the epidemic of ghosts plaguing the country. She wrote *Fittes Manual for Ghost-hunters* which all agents use and carry around. She was a skilled Listener and had been the only known person, to talk to a Type Three ghost, until Lucy Carlyle.

### Legacy

When she died the agency passed over to her daughter Margret, who was a quiet reserved person. Margret died three years after inheriting the Fittes Agency. It was passed onto Marissa's granddaughter Penelope Fittes.

## Biography

### Early life and onset of the Problem

Marissa Fittes was a child when she found Ezekiel, a Type Three spirit, buried near an ancient grave. That was in the middle of the 20th century when ghost outbreaks, weak ones, soon occurred at Kent and Sussex. She, with or without Tom Rotwell yet, presumably caused that first outbreak. Marissa was still below ten years old; because she was still a teen during her exploits with Tom during the Mud Lane Phantom.

Marissa and now teamed with Tom, in their teens, became paranormal researchers but were not yet taken seriously. Marissa had written her Occult Theories by this time. The pair began making experiments with sources and travels to the Other Side aided by Ezekiel yet again.

### Recognition and partnership

More than ten years after the Kent outbreak, Marissa and Tom were in their teens when the Mud Lane Phantom and the Highway Terror caught the attention of the public. Marissa and Tom investigated the phantoms and succeeded in stopping the ghosts. The Problem and the pair was then recognized by the public. Unbeknownst to everyone, the two themselves were the ones causing the Problem and spreading it.

From then on, the pair had been investigating more cases and developing methods to deal with the cases. In fact, they developed most methods of dealing with ghosts still in use today. But after four to five years of being a team, Marissa and Tom sudden split. Marissa discarded Tom Rotwell since he did not have the Talent to hear the "whole truth" from Ezekiel.

### The two agencies and other establishments

After separating, Marissa soon established the first agency - Fittes Agency - and Tom followed with his Rotwell Agency. She continued her travels to the Other Side: she used a gate, below Fittes House in the Strand, which maintained the Problem in London: and, she traveled around England, opening gates, and spreading the Problem. She may have even caused the outbreak at Cheviot Hills, when Lucy Carlyle had been five years old.

Other smaller agencies came about, DEPRAC was established by the government, and the secretive Orpheus Society was formed. The Orpheus Society had been the one directly assisting Marissa in whatever she was experimenting on. Dealing with the problem demanded a great deal of supply, hence businesses came about to aid such as: the Sunrise Corporation (creates various equipment), Brompton Lavender, Fairfax Iron, and the furnaces for incinerating Sources. Marissa eventually gained control of the businesses involved in the problem, and her involvement was observed by Montagu Barnes.

After some time, Marissa had a daughter, Margaret, and then a granddaughter, Penelope. She headed her agency till her death. The middle-aged doctor Niel Clarke tended to a dying Marissa. He determined her death to be a result of her premature old age. Her hastened aging was in fact a result of her travels to the Other Side. Nonetheless, she and Tom were considered heroes and deeply grieved over when they both passed away.

### Penelope the vessel

Marissa managed to have arranged her dead body to be kept safe from having proper burials since her spirit's Source was her body. She had her doctor Niel Clarke, who wanted proper burials for Marissa, killed and be placed as the "dead Marissa" in her coffin. The dead doctor was covered in wax that was formed to imitate a dead Marissa's appearance, and was placed in Marissa's tomb.

Margaret took over the company after her mother's supposed death. Meanwhile, Marissa's spirit saw young Penelope and decided to take over the child's body. Marissa wanted to take over the company but painstakingly waited for Penelope's body to reach a proper age. After three years of Marissa's "death," Penelope became the company head by having Margaret killed.

When Lucy Carlyle joined Lockwood & Co., her Talent of hearing was noticed by Marissa, who had been posing as Penelope for decades. "Penelope" tried repeatedly asking Lucy to join Fittes but Lucy declined every time. Lockwood & Co. was asked for the last time by "Penelope" after the incident at the Rotwell Facility in Aldbury Castle. There the youths rejected the request to which Penelope, accompanied by Sir Rupert Gale, left after leaving threats and warning that the small agency should stop seeking the Other Side's secret.

The Fittes Agency continued absorbing or destroying small agencies, some through grim methods. After the death of Steve Rotwell, the Fittes Agency was able to absorb the large agency of Rotwell. Fittes now had control of about 3/4 of London's agencies.

### Defeat and aftermath

When Lucy took to herself to face Marissa alone, Marissa tried again to convince Lucy to join her. She reasoned that at least she now had someone else who could Listen to Ezekiel. Lucy rejected again and fights ensued. Marissa and Ezekiel were defeated by the trio of Lucy Carlyle, Anthony Lockwood, and the Skull. Her schemes of control on London by absorbing agencies and controlling businesses and DEPRAC, were spoiled by Lockwood & Co.'s efforts.

Ezekiel's source was broken. The Penelope the public knew was deemed a traitor but her body was given a proper burial. The body of Marissa was taken to her should-have-been grave. Her spirit would remain there with the doctor's spirit.

Marissa's full deeds were known only to Lockwood & Co. and probably Montagu Barnes. Barnes suggested that Lockwood & Co. should conceal the truth from the public for now to keep the stability of the country. The public had become distrustful of how the government handled the Problem that does not go away and only gotten worse. The Chelsea outbreak caused by Steve Rotwell amplified the public's concerns. Revealing the truth right then about the public's old "heroes" would definitely cause unrest.

Fittes scientists and Orpheus Society members would be arrested and questioned. The gate below Fittes House would be dealt with by DEPRAC, now fully under Barnes again. And also the silvery fences within the Dark London that blocked the passage of spirits would be removed.

## Behind the scenes

* Marissa and Tom were below 25 when they parted ways. (teen years + 5 years)

## References

1. ↑ *The Empty Grave*, **V: Fittes House**, Ch. 25: *"The woman raised her arm, tapped the jade bracelet on her wrist. “I found him, buried in the earth near an ancient grave....""*
2. ↑ *The Empty Grave*, **IV: The Siege of Portland Row**, Ch. 18: *""Thanks.” George took the crumpled piece of paper. “Remember how we were guessing that Marissa had a pet Type Three of her own to help her? Well, she does. Listen to this quote. It’s a beauty: ‘Such matters are beyond the wit of man or woman, and we must turn to the spirits themselves to help us. One such, fair of form and wise of countenance, comes regularly to me. I have spoken with him since I was a child. Dear Ezekiel is learned in matters of life and death, he understands buried secrets and the minds of mortals."*
3. ↑ *The Screaming Staircase*, **II: Before**, Ch. 5: *"If you look in old newspapers, like George does all the time, you can find mention of scattered ghostly sightings cropping up in Kent and Sussex around the middle of the last century...."*
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 *The Empty Grave*, **III: A Body in the Street**, Ch. 12
5. ↑ *The Screaming Staircase*, **II: Before**, Ch. 5: *"...But it was a decade or so later that a bloody series of cases, such as the Highgate Terror and the Mud Lane Phantom, attracted serious attention...."*
6. ↑ *The Empty Grave*, **III: A Body in the Street**, Ch. 12: *""Here’s my analysis: I think Marissa Fittes and Tom Rotwell are to blame for the Problem. There. That’s it. The end.”"*
7. ↑ *The Empty Grave*, **III: A Body in the Street**, Ch. 12: *"George nodded. “Yep, and here’s the critical detail. The way you read it in Marissa’s Memoirs, the Problem was suddenly on the march, and Marissa and Tom were the only ones fighting it. Gradually their methods became accepted. Salt, iron, rapiers…the whole range of agency techniques started with them.”"*
8. ↑ *The Empty Grave*, **I: The Tomb**, Ch. 1: *"...How, together with her partner, Tom Rotwell, she had devised most of the ghost-hunting techniques that operatives like us still used...."*
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 *The Empty Grave*, **V: Fittes House**, Ch. 24
10. ↑ *The Screaming Staircase*, **II: Before**, Ch. 6: *"‘I see from your letter,’ the boy said, ‘that you’re from the north of England. From the Cheviot Hills. Wasn’t there a famous outbreak in that district a few years back?’ ‘The Murton Colliery Horror,’ I said. ‘Yes. I was five then.’ ‘Fittes agents had to come from London to deal with the Visitors, didn’t they?’*
Lockwood said. ‘It was in my Gazetteer of British Hauntings.’"
11. ↑ *The Empty Grave*, **III: A Body in the Street**, Ch. 11
12. ↑ *The Empty Grave*, **III: A Body in the Street**, Ch. 12: *"George tried not to look too pleased with himself. “This,” he said, “is a certain Dr. Neil Clarke. Not much is known about him, but he was personal physician to Marissa Fittes, and he tended to her in her last illness. It’s he who signed her death certificate, and he who confirmed her cause of death in a report to the media.” He picked up the documents Flo had found for him and squinted at them through his glasses. “According to Dr. Clarke, Marissa died from ‘a wasting disease that affected all the organs of her body, and which had all the aspects of premature old age.’ Sounds nasty, but Marissa was cared for up at Fittes House. She didn’t go to the hospital, and only Dr. Clarke had access to her.” George put down the papers. “I’ve been hunting around, but after her death he fades from the records and isn’t heard of again.”"*
13. ↑ *The Empty Grave*, **V: Fittes House**, Ch. 24: *"“Not quite,” the skull said. “There’s just one point, Lucy. If Marissa doesn’t need her horrid old body anymore, why does she keep it in here?”"*
14. ↑ *The Empty Grave*, **V: Fittes House**, Ch. 25: *"...The doctor who tended to me was a fool. He would have had me coffined up and buried!..."*
15. ↑ *The Empty Grave*, **I: The Tomb**, Ch. 2
16. ↑ *The Empty Grave*, **V: Fittes House**, Ch. 25
17. ↑ *The Empty Grave*, **II: La Belle Dame Sans Merci**, Ch. 4