Lavinia is a female peculiar who is capable of manipulating nightmares.
Tales of the Peculiar[]
The Girl Who Could Tame Nightmares[]
| “ | Once there was a girl named Lavinia who wanted nothing more than to become a doctor like her father. | ” |
–Tales of the Peculiar | ||
When Lavinia was young she wanted to be a doctor. One night when she was examining her brother, she found some nightmare threads in his ears. She would pull them out of his ear, and that night he wouldn't have a nightmare. She helps many people until her father stops her, much to Lavinia's resentment. However, her father gets called on an urgent business trip, which gives Lavinia the chance to help people once more. One of her newly extracted threads becomes sentient, leads her to where her father has locked the other threads away, and then merges with them to become a ball. The nightmare ball becomes very attached and loyal to Lavinia, and despite her liking towards it, she did not think she could take it everywhere with her and tries to get it to leave, but it refuses. One day, after taking it to school, Lavinia learns that she can also get threads of the ball to go back into people's heads, giving or restoring their nightmares.
When her father returns, he tells her that she will never know when someone deserves nightmares or not, which is why she should not use her talent at least until she gets more responsible with age. Lavinia decides that she will give nightmares to those that deserve it, based off their past serious misdeeds, but it backfires. She then swears off using her talent, but is coerced into it by a young man who is secretly a murderer by getting her to sympathize with the death of his parents, but does not mention that he is the one who killed them.
Lavinia's nightmare ball made of the man's nightmares is far meaner than her old one due to it being from a "rotten-souled murderer" and not innocent children. Her attempt to get it back into the man's head fails, as it likes him and obeys him as he gets it to run into a fire he set on an orphanage, destroying the nightmare. Lavinia manages to get her own loyal nightmare ball to go into the man's head, and although the children's nightmares do not scare him, he is killed when Lavinia orders the nightmare to "heel." She saves the children of the orphanage and goes on to become one of the first female doctors of psychology. She gives up using her peculiarity, helping her patients through other, better ways.
Alternate Ending[]
In Millard Nullings's editor's note, he states that he found an older ending in which the nightmare extracted from the murderer consumes Lavinia like a second skin, which she cannot peel off. Having become a nightmare herself, she ends up fleeing from society.
Description[]
Personality[]
She is kind-hearted and would like to help people. She also has a sharp mind and is very stubborn and hardworking. Lavinia's dream is to become a doctor, but isn't taught the required subjects for becoming a doctor because she is a girl. However, she doesn't give up and steals science books, spies through keyholes, and disobeys her father. After growing up, she accepts that her peculiarity is more of a curse than a blessing, and learns to use other methods to help people, in the area of psychology.
Peculiarity[]
Lavinia possesses the ability to extract and manipulate nightmares, thus curing the one affected of them. Her tale states that she could extract a strange black thread from ears and mouth, which was the physical incarnation of nightmares. These threads could become sentient and merge into a ball. This ball, which she named Baxter, could move by itself, open locks, and constantly made a low steady hum. Lavinia could also give back nightmares using the threads, with the power to make them worm back into people's ears. However, this did not work with the nightmare threads of non-innocent people.
The official name for her peculiarity is a dreamworker.
Relationships[]
Old Baxter[]
The original Baxter, the ball made of the nightmares of innocent people, is very much like a dog towards its master, Lavinia. He is playful, follows her around excessively, displays guilt when scolded by her, and responds to her commands. Lavinia likes Baxter and thinks he is cute, but does find taking care of him a handful.
Trivia[]
- In A Map of Days, Millard mentions there being a girl in America who can remove nightmares, possibly like Lavinia.