| “ | As I watched this, my heart was racing. I could lie and say that what I saw made me afraid, but I think we both know the thrill of watching that murder inspired a very different feeling within me. A dark, vicious thing that to this day I can’t fully name. But it was beautiful, and strange. | „ |
| ~ Mary describing the first murder she witnessed. |
| “ | Destiny is for lords. | „ |
| ~ Mary's contemptuous motto. |
Mary Keay is a supporting antagonist of the Rusty Quill horror podcast The Magnus Archives.
She was a self-styled witch living in the late 1900s, drawing power from the godlike entities known as the Dread Powers, but not showing exclusive loyalty towards any. Hoping to ensure her legacy, she sought paranormal books once owned by Jurgen Leightner in order to obtain power and extend her life, particularly the Catalogue of Trapped Dead, which she eventually used to keep her soul in the living world post-mortem. She was the widow of Eric Delano and the mother Gerard Keay, who she hoped to use to create a dynasty.
She was voiced by Carrie Cohen.
Appearance[]
| “ | She was beautiful, like a – like a shark is beautiful. | „ |
| ~ Eric Delano describing Mary Keay. |
While she was alive, Mary was apparently a somewhat attractive normal looking woman, living to an old age, although apparently being somewhat off-putting, giving off a sort of predatory impression. When tying herself to the Catalogue of Trapped Dead, Mary shaved her head and covered her skin completely in closely written word in Sanskrit. These new features remained on her soul following her death.
Personality[]
| “ | Well, she was also, um, ‘goal-orientated’. Ruthless. But at least Gertrude tried to do something worthwhile with it. My mum only had her ambitions. She’d never have even admitted it, though. She was too proud for that. She saw herself as real working class, always said the occult was just a club for rich boys playing politics with things they didn’t understand. | „ |
| ~ Gerard on his mother. |
Mary was at her core a narcissist. She believed that due to being a descendant of the Van Closen line, she was naturally superior to those around her and that her life was meant to have more meaning, and her more power. Despite this, she thought herself above believing in destiny, looking down on family members despite them being part of the same line she saw as sacred, and seeing her accomplishments as earned. She was also extremely egotistical, seeing herself as a far larger player in the world of the paranormal than she was. Largely due to her self-centeredness, she felt no empathy for those around her, including her own son, who she only saw as her pawn. She seemed unaware that her psychotic tendencies were unusual.
Mary Keay gave out contempt with very little prompting, which led to her holding several obsessive grudges. She saw most of those who followed the Dread Powers as arrogant fools beneath her. Despite greatly valuing her supposedly noble heritage, she fancied herself a working-class witch, in contrast to what she saw as the elitist warlocks, who according to herself, held only basic knowledge of the paranormal compared to herself. She was somewhat petty, and thought of her slights towards her enemies are more significant than they were.
Mary had an obsession with knowledge, and obtaining it greatly increased her ego. It led to a sort of sadism, and she enjoyed causing and watching murder and torture far more than she enjoyed committing such actions herself. Because of this, she became fairly controlling and manipulative, albeit in a somewhat direct way, generally making others commit evil for her. Although she was not a particularly good liar, she had an odd sort of charisma that made people want to do things for her.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
| “ | I was nine years old at the time, so it would have been… 1955? It was shortly after my idiot father had gotten himself killed, and my mother was still working for your Institute. We were living in Whitechapel back then, just off Turner Street. It wasn’t much, just a couple of rooms and a stove, but it was enough for us. | „ |
| ~ Mary on her childhood. |
Mary was born in London in the late 1940s to Elsa von Closen and her husband Michael Keay. She was descended from Abrecht Von Closen, a wealthy German who lived in the 19th century, who once discovered a library of haunted knowledge, which was stolen from him. Because of this family history, Mary was introduced to the world of the paranormal at a young age.
When Mary was very young, her father slit his own throat with a razor and left the razor to Mary. Mary did not grieve her father, but the loss did throw the family into poverty. Elsa worked part time at the paranormal investigative agency known as the Magnus Institute, who did not pay her enough to live off of, forcing her to get a job at the factory on Globe Street. She would frequently tutor Mary on identifying and using paranormal artifacts, leading to her spending much of her childhood searching antiques stores for them.
When Mary was nine years old, a doctor named Margaret Tellison started a practice across the street. Mary sensed something different about her, and noticed when, after a stream of patients entered the old woman's house, ambulances would come later to take them away. Mary began sneaking into the practice to watch Tellison handle her patients whenever she could.
One day, while she hid under Doctor Tellison's stairs, Mary saw her murder one of her patients with a syringe of strange liquid. She then opened a safe with a combination Mary memorized and took out two books. Margaret than flayed her patient's back and bound it to the book. She then called the ambulance and had the body taken away.
Mary watched Tellison repeat this process every few days on seemingly random patients. One day, after binding the skin of one of her older victims to the book, she used it to summon the man's soul and asked him where he kept his savings. Mary was disgusted that Margaret would use the ability to bring people back from the dead temporarily simply to make money, and snuck up behind her, slitting her throat. Mary then bound her to the book and brought the book home with her. At this point, she began searching for paranormal books, called Leightners for the librarian who had once collected them.
Career[]
| “ | We travelled a lot. Between her day job as a rare bookseller and her… vocation, it wasn’t often we stayed in London for more than a month. We met with things that almost made me throw up, I was so afraid, and she’d talk to them like old friends. | „ |
| ~ Gerard on his mother's career. |
When she was a young woman, Mary opened Pinhole Books, a shop in Morden, specializing in rare and antique books. It was while running this shop that she once met Jurgen Leightner, who she found disappointing. She became increasingly involved with servants of the Dread powers, working and dealing with them, while never swearing allegiance to one power. She used the Catalogue of Trapped Souls on a consistent basis, binding dozens of people to it.
At some point, she became involved once more with the Magnus Institute, particularly developing a tense but not antagonistic relationship with the Institute's archivist, Gertrude Robinson. Sometime in the 1960s or 70s, she met Eric Delano, an archival assistant to the Gertrude, who she in a strange way seduced and manipulated him into killing for her. It was during this time that she murdered a man who was apparently her uncle and use Eric's acceptance of her actions to prove he was under her thumb. Eventually, Eric quit the Institute and impregnated her. After she gave birth, she killed him with a pair of garden shears.
Mary named her new son Gerard and set about fully incorporating him into the world of the paranormal. From a young age, she had him introduced to various monsters she was associated and trained him on how to use the various Leightners she had collected. By the time he was a teenager, Gerard was a useful tool for Mary, collecting supernatural books and artifacts for her. However, as he became a young man, it became clear he did not intend to follow in his mother's footsteps and would not give her the legacy she wanted.
When she was an older woman, Mary went to the Magnus Institute to make a statement with Gertrude, hoping to leave something for posterity. She also gave her Eric's page in the Catalogue of Trapped Dead, having grown tired of him.
Undeath[]
| “ | She also knew that I wouldn’t continue her work, that whatever destiny she had tried to write for the Von Closen line, died with her. I think that might have been what finally pushed her to do it. To try and take full control of the book. | „ |
| ~ Gerard on Mary. |
Having decided to take her legacy into her own hands and attempted to fully take control over the book. Hoping to attach herself to it, she covered herself from head to toe in Sanskrit tattoos and then began to flay herself, binding large amounts of her skin to the book while taking copious amounts of drugs. The process thoroughly killed her body, but did allow her soul to still exist in the world, attached to the book. Gerard was arrested for her murder, but she destroyed any evidence against him, allowing him to walk free. From then on, Mary projected herself into the world and manipulated her son into continuing her work.
At some point, Pinhole Books was entered by Dominic Swaine, a man who had obtained a Leightner called Ex Altiora. Mary tried to take it from him, but he fled the building. Later that day, Gerard disobeyed Mary by destroying Ex Altiora.
Shortly thereafter, the Catalogue of Trapped Dead given to Gertrude Robinson by Gerard. Gertrude forced Mary to show her how to use the book, and then burned her page, permanently killing her.
Powers and Abilities[]
| “ | Still, there was some satisfaction in the end. I did try to bind her, but it didn’t go quite right, and her page was a dreadful mess. I can’t imagine she enjoys it there at all. It took a lot more practice to get it right – not to mention learning Sanskrit – but I got there, in the end. After a lifetime, I know all its secrets, save one. And I have a pretty good idea about how to find that. | „ |
| ~ Mary Keay on binding Margaret Tellison to the Catalogue of Trapped Dead. |
Over the course of her life, Mary grew incredibly knowledgeable about the paranormal. She was skilled at finding and identifying Leightners, and once she got ahold of them, she could generally decipher and use them. In the process, she dealt with some very dangerous people and creatures but was somehow able to stay alive during each of these encounters and use them for her own end. However, she was not a skilled teacher and struggled to pass her abilities on.
Mary kept the Catalogue of Trapped Souls with her for most of her life, and by the end, no human had ever understood it as well as she. By murdering a person, flaying large pieces of flesh off of them, covering the flesh in Sanskrit, and binding the flesh to pages of the book, she would be able to trap the person's soul in the book. At any point she wanted, she could summon a soul from the book and ask them questions. She was eventually able to bind herself to the book in such a way that she could still interact with the world and essentially do whatever she wanted, despite being dead.
Mary was described as having an extremely strong spirit, which gave her an odd sense of charisma helped her convince others to do what she wanted. Despite rarely lying or covering up who she truly was, she could be very manipulative, and controlled people psychologically even when they knew she was a monster.
Quotes[]
| “ | I met him a few times, you know. Must have been about fifteen years ago. Not long before his library burned down. He wasn’t all that impressive, to be honest. Shorter than I expected, and slower, somehow. I expected a whirlwind of intense energy, but he was gentle, methodical, perfectly pleasant to talk to. Jurgen Leitner bored me. Whenever he came to look through my stuff, he’d spend almost a full minute on each book, just staring at it, examining the pages, and half the time leave without buying anything. Good riddance, if you ask me! | „ |
| ~ Mary Keay on her encounter with Jurgen Leightner. |
| “ | I couldn’t believe it – a power like this, and she was using it to try and make money. It sickened me. It still does. I knew then that she didn’t deserve the book. | „ |
| ~ Mary showing disgust at Margaret's actions. |
| “ | I took my father’s straight razor from my pocket. It was my most prized possession, and all I had left of him after he used it to cut his own throat. The only sensible decision he ever made. I crawled from my hiding place so slowly, so quietly, she barely even stirred as the blade glided through her windpipe. I’d never killed anyone before. I didn’t particularly enjoy it. My inclinations, predictably, were more toward watching than doing the deed myself. | „ |
| ~ Mary Keay on her murder of Margaret Tellison. |
Trivia[]
- In Mag 23: Schwartzwald, Mary Keay is said to have been born in in 1924. However, Mag 62: First Edition, Mary says that she was 9 years old in 1955. This is most likely a plot hole, although it is possible that the Keay family had multiple children named Mary.
External Links[]
- Mary Keay on the Magnus Archives Wiki
