Celia Myrilla Fincastle

### Relatives

Jacob Fincastle (father), Adelle Fincastle (mother), Neeghan Fincastle (sister), Aunt Agatha (distant aunt) Higby/Sebastian Hilleman (grandfather)

## Physical description

### Eye color

Brown

Celia Fincastle is the protaganist of Celia's Journey, and an important secondary character in the sequel series Neeghan's Journey.

## Appearance

"*Although the light brown hair and dark brown eyes looked familiar to her, she hardly recognized anything else about her image. A purple chicken sat on her head, or at least it looked that way to her. Aunt Agatha called it a hat, but Celia called it atrocious.*"

Celia is described as having long light brown hair, although she receives a haircut during her school career to divert attention from the press, as wall as dark brown eyes. She experiences a growth spurt sometime during *Key to the Past* and the ensuing summer.

## Gifts

Celia has skill-level (S level) abilities in all five gifts. In the fall of *Book in the Attic*, she scored perfect on all exams excepting Speech, of which she got one point off. This could suggest her speech gifts are less powerful, or it may have been a product of her ability to perform on the day the test was scheduled. Anne Legaspi notes that she's "never seen a student score so high" on the ALPHA tests. Neeghan comments that her mind scores were "as high as Celia's," and hers were 350. During the coterie sorting, the Overseer could distinguish no 'most-powerful' gift. Knowing that all her gifts are equivalently powerful, 350 is a good estimate for her other ALPHA scores.

## History

### Pre-books

Until the age of two, Celia lived in Villiandre with her parents and grandfather. She was chosen to be princep very young, and in order to protect her, Celia's parents and Aunt Emily transferred their gifts to her in order to offer protection against potential threats. One of these threats was Casimir Coridan, who kidnapped her family, and tried to do the same thing with Celia, but failed. Afterwards, Celia was sent to live with her Aunt Agatha. She was raised by a series of nannies, but eventually went to school.

### Book in the Attic

When Celia was eleven, Aunt Agatha instructed her to clean the attic. While doing so, she found an old, intricate book. A man spoke to from within the book, introducing her to the world of the Demesne, specifically Renasci Academy for Gifted Students. Celia attends this school, making friends, such as Maddie and Josh, and enemies, such as Doxa Geleafa. As much as Celia is enchanted by the school, it poses many difficulties, as someone is trying very hard to get her expelled.

## Relationships

### **Agatha Trowbridge**

Aunt Agatha has a tense relationship with Celia. She is overbearing and picky about both fashion and food. Celia mostly cut her out of her life, but Aunt Agatha began the process by refusing to receive letters from her niece when she was at school

### **Maddie Hannagan**

Maddie is Celia's best friend. They first meet in book one, where they immediately bonded. Maddie stays friends with Celia throughout all of the Celia's Journey series, and the two of them become very close.

### **Doxa Geleafa**

Doxa starts off her relationship with Celia by being a major negative force in her life. She is petty and vindictive throughout *Book in the Attic*, and helps Neel in a plot to get Celia expelled. This dissonance is perhaps best demonstrated by the decorating contest, where the inhabitants split the room in two to avoid working together. At the very end of the year, she experiences a change of heart, and their relationship begins to look up when Doxa is one of Celia's counselors at Camp Althodos. Doxa goes on to be a close friend of Celia's, as well as one of her employees in the Guild.

### **Josh Rumbles**

Josh is one of Celia's closest friends. He has a longstanding crush on her which is deep enough that he waits until she is ready to enter a relationship - a wait that lasts over a year. They get together at the end of *Final Word*.

## Trivia

* The bottom's of Celia's feet are very ticklish
* Celia loves pralines
* Her birthday is the first of June, the day school lets out

## References

1. ↑ Melissa Gunther, *The Book in the Attic* (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Hayes Allan, 2009), [1].
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Melissa Gunther, *Flash of Red* (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Hayes Allan, 2012), [3].
3. ↑ Gunther, *The Book*, [128].
4. ↑ Melissa Gunther, *Key to the past* (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Hayes Allan, 2011), [90].
5. ↑ Melissa Gunther, *Secrets Hidden*, Neeghan's Journey 3 (n.p.: Hayes-Allan, 2022), [395].
6. ↑ Melissa Gunther, *The Book in the Basement*, Neeghan's Journey 2 (Colorado Springs, CO: Hayes-Allan, 2019), [317].
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Gunther, *Flash of Red*, [2].
8. ↑ Melissa Gunther, *The Final Word* (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Hayes Allan, 2015), [782].
9. ↑ Gunther, *The Book*, [235].
10. ↑ Gunther, *The Book*, [7].
11. ↑ Gunther, *The Book*, [167].