The only child of a professional couple, Joy was adopted via an agency with black market
ties, so she has no idea who her birth parents are. But she does know that her adoptive
parents doted on her and would do anything for her, a fact that she exploited for years to
get whatever she wanted. A few false tears went a long way in her family, and to say she
was spoiled would be understating it.
What her adoptive parents didn't realize was that their darling daughter had a sociopathy
that included narcissism and a complete lack of empathy for everyone around her. She
only cared about people in terms of what they could do for her, and when she could no
longer get anything from them, she was done with them or worse.
When she was 16, she made friends with a fellow cheerleader named Kerry, who had the
same sort of mindset as Joy did. For a year, they did everything together, mainly because
they knew that together, they were viciously unstoppable. They would conspire to win
boyfriends and popularity competitions, one always backing the other up when excuses
or alibis were called for.
But then, the next year, their senior year, Kerry seemed to tire of the childish and
superficial games they played, and began to distance herself from Joy. She even went so
far as turning Joy into the principal for picking on less popular girls and drinking on
campus. The biggest offense came when Joy's boyfriend dumped her a week before
senior prom and started dating Kerry, a shoe-in for prom king and queen.
This incensed Joy, who invited Kerry out one night under the pretense of wanting to
make up and move on. What happened, however, was a long evening of prolonged
torture and Kerry's murder. Joy assumed that she'd get away with it because she'd
always gotten away with it before. But now? Now that she had no one to lie for her, she
quickly became the number one suspect when Kerry's body was eventually found.
When she realized she was caught, Joy took her own life very publicly, at school, by
jumping from the roof when the police arrived to take her away. She was pronounced
dead at the scene, but awoke in the morgue.
She had no idea why she was alive, but she felt oddly normal, in a way she'd never felt
before. She snuck out of the morgue, but knowing she'd been identified as a murderer,
she opted to go home rather than approach anyone at the coroner's office. Her parents
were shocked and thrilled to see her, despite all that their daughter had been accused of.
They believed there was no way that their daughter could have done anything so horrible
as what she'd been accused of. They agreed that Joy should leave the country, or at
least, the state, and supplied her with a new identity and plenty of money to make a new
start in Canada.
She moved up to British Columbia and lived largely off of her parents' continued supply
of money. The odd thing was, however, that she never aged. She wasn't about to
complain, and continued her life of ease with occasional visits from her parents over the
next five years, before meeting up with a young con man who seemed to pick her out of a
crowded nightclub. This was a turning point for Joy, now Melanie, or "Mellie", as the
mysterious man seemed to know exactly what and who she was.
He became her teacher, informing her what they really were, and instructing her in
swordplay and basic con games. Their games eventually grew in scope and risk, and she
hit the road with him and abandoned her parents completely. She had, after all, outgrown
them. They avoided interacting with other immortals for the most part, valuing material
goods over quickenings.
If Joy had been good at manipulating others before, her teacher made her into an expert
reader of people. He taught her how to understand what others wanted to see in her, and
how to deliver it in subtler ways than she'd used before. He warned her against relying on
winning men with her body and looks – though she was forever young, that didn't work
on all men and women. And often, it became a red flag warning her marks of her true
motivations.
Instead, he taught her to befriend the friendless or those who were in need of extra
understanding and then to take them for every penny they were worth. Little did he
know that she would eventually use what she'd learned to move against him, fleecing
him of everything he'd stolen in the process.
Then, Captain Tripps hit, just when she'd been on the verge of breaking through the
Hollywood scene and winning her way to stardom and boy, was she pissed. But just as
quickly, she'd been won over to Randall Flagg's side, becoming a citizen of the new Las
Vegas scene. She kept a low profile, remaining outside the inner circle, an agent of
Flagg's kept in reserve and in the shadows until now.
After Nadine's suicide, she was called into Flagg's office and given an assignment: go to
Boulder. Avoid meeting Mother Abigail. Befriend one girl in particular. And then, to
bring that girl to him. The object: a virgin who might bear his offspring. But not just
anyone. It had to be one who would cause Boulder, and Nick Andros, particular pain: the
young deaf woman, Faith. She would make a fine mortal host for his son, Flagg thought.
Flagg warned Mellie that it may take a while to win the young woman's trust, as well as
those who protected her. Flagg had admitted this and sent the young woman on her way
back on August 9th. By the 11th, she'd arrived in Boulder. And now she'd made enough
friends locally that she thought it was time to seek out her new bestie.
Things to know about Mellie: She has never taken a quickening, and determining her true
age is difficult for most immortals. She is pretending to be unaware of what she is.
