Character Sheet: Lyra Vance

Identity

Stress expression scale: "It’s fine." = minor | "We need a plan, now." = upset | [Dead silence and white knuckles] = furious
Verbal tic: Uses technical or architectural metaphors to describe people (e.g., "he has no load-bearing integrity").
Sentence length pattern: Short, clipped declaratives when stressed; dense, descriptive observations when she feels safe or solitary.
What they REACH FOR: Tactile. She feels the texture of wood, the weight of a crowbar, or the temperature of the air to ground herself.
What they NEVER say: "I'm scared" or "I need help."
Imperfection signature: When she is truly overwhelmed, she stops finishing sentences entirely, leaving the logic hanging in the air for someone else to bridge.
One example line of their dialogue that could not belong to any other character: "The foundation of this entire town is rotting from the water table up, and you’re asking me if I like the new paint job on the gazebo?"

School/Discipline: Psychometric Intuition (Structural focus)
Core principle: Everything built by human hands retains the kinetic energy and intent of its creator.
Signature move or approach: Touching a doorframe or transition point to "see" who passed through it and what their emotional state was.
Limitation: It causes severe physical migraines and sensory "echoes" where she can't distinguish her own memories from the building's.
Shared uncertainty: Does the house hate the inhabitants, or did the inhabitants teach the house how to hate?

Want: To flip the Blackwood Manor and leave Cypress Bend forever with enough money to never look back.
Need: To acknowledge that she is part of the town’s history and stop running from the "rot" inside herself.
Fatal flaw: Hyper-independence. She views any form of reliance on others as a structural weakness.
Wound: The mysterious disappearance of her father during the 1998 flood, which the town blamed on his "unstable" nature.
Transformation: From a cynical outsider trying to dismantle the past to the guardian who must reinforce the town’s spiritual foundations to save it.

Elias Thorne: Love Interest — A wary, intellectual tension defined by Elias's desire to document the supernatural and Lyra's desire to physically gut it.
Mayor Miller: Antagonist — A paternalistic but suffocating dynamic where Miller tries to "manage" Lyra while she actively tries to expose his family's role in the town's decay.
Sarah Vance: Mother — A strained, distant relationship where both women use household chores and small talk to avoid discussing the "gift" they both share.

Lyra’s tell: She constantly adjusts her sleeves or checks her watch when she’s lying; she hates having her wrists exposed when she feels vulnerable.
Speech quirk: She refers to buildings as "he" or "she" rather than "it," treating architecture as a living, breathing antagonist.
Readers must NEVER see Lyra cry in front of another person; if she breaks, she ensures she is behind a locked door or deep in the woods.
She carries a heavy brass key on a leather cord that doesn't fit any lock she’s found yet—she threads it through her fingers like a worry stone.
She has a "contractor’s eye"—she will notice a hairline crack in a ceiling or a damp patch on a rug before she notices the person standing in the room.