Celeste Roget

Celeste Roget is a wealthy French heiress living in Paris and one of Mark Meltzer's primary contacts on Something in the Sea. She is the daughter of Jean Louis Roget, an engineer that disappeared during the Vanishing.

Background
Celeste Roget came to be one most vocal voices regarding the Vanishing. Despite being assured that the large amount of disappearances are normal post-war attrition or some kind of communist plot, she began to publically advance the theory that many of these people who have vanished were called to a utopian city in the Himalayas calleld Shambhala. During this time frame she came be in communication with Orrin Oscar Lutwidge. Lutwidge revealed in a correspondence to Andrew Ryan that he was nervous that she may be getting too close for comfort to discovering the truth about Rapture. He subsequently fed her intentional disinformation, but it is unknown to what extent he influenced her thinking, whether he invented Shambahla himself or simply supported her existing thinking.

In any event, she along with seven other people who lost friends or family members to the vanishing organized an expedition to the Himalayas. She received widespread criticism for organizing this expedition, including a US ambassador referring to her as a "mad woman who needed to be stopped." in a French newspaper. Unfortunately, her expedition was caught in an avalanche from which she was the sole survivor, later telling Mark that she crawled through snow for three days before narrowly escaping. After this ill-fated journey, she retired from the public eye and shunned questions about her expedition. Lutwidge sent her a cruel letter taunting her when he learned of her survival.

When Lutwidge disappeared, Roget used her wealth to hire a team of private-eyes to keep watch over Lutwidge's old properties and look out for his potential return. When Lutwidge finally returned from Rapture and was now calling himself Red Killian Quain, he started writing a record of Rapture's history in one of his laboratories. Celeste's private-eyes caught this and warned her. She immediately took a flight from Paris to New York and looked through Lutwidge's window at the stack of papers now building up. Lutwidge seemed to glance "an inhuman glare" at Celeste as she looked on. She ran off completely terrified and bribed the necessary authorities to have Lutwidge locked up in an asylum and never released.

Contact with Mark
Mark first learned about Celeste when inquiring about the vanishing. He received some articles referring to her expedition to Shambhala. She was initially hesitant to contact him butwhen she learned of his kidnapped daughter, she finally brought herself to do it. She warned Mark of the masters of lies". They had a brief falling out when Roscoe Inman planted a seed of doubt in Mark's head saying not to trust her and to keep in mind that we have no one's story of what happened on that expedition other than hers. They reconciled shortly afterword.

Celeste became increasingly nervous when Mark started inquiring about Lutwidge. She seems really uneasy about some bottles buried on the beach on August 8th the day Lutwidge specified years earlier. When Mark questioned her unease, she finally came clean about her history with Lutwidge and how she had him institutionalized at Tollevue Mental Hospital. Mark used this information to fake a mental illness and have himself committed to the same hospital that Quain was in to try to get information from him.

Selected Writings
Letter 1

'' Despite my better thinking, I am writing you a reply, if only to warn you.

There are those who do not want the truth of the Vanishing to be discovered, ever. And so they cloak the truth in shadows. They plant false truths while they follow your steps, to see what you have learned. There is no end to this but madness and death. And if these fates may be avoided then--fear. Fear, in the end, will find you.

Despit the deaths of many that I counted as my friends, I escaped the Himalayas. In this, at least, I defeated the masters of lies. Nothing would serve them better than for me to be silenced beneath a drift of snow. Nothing would please them more than for my expedition to become a sacrifice to the myth of Shamballa. For this place is thousands of miles from--and thousands of feet above--where the truth lies.

I have said too much already. I know, despite my silence, they listen to my telephone and read my mail. You have caught me in a moment of weakness. I, too, followed the tale of Camille Dumas, and of Ulrike Moeller, and of all the beautiful little children who were last year spirited away to a purpose unknown and dark.

I beg of you, Mr. Meltzer, do not become lost in the labyrinth of shadows--as I have been--and still am--lost.

Yours, in the spirit of Truth,

Celeste Roget ''

Letter 2

'' Dear Mark:

I can no longer lie to you. Please know that my untruths were intended for you own protection. Lutwidge is alive - or he was, at least, sometime in 1960. How do I know? I have seen him - with my own eyes.

After the games that Lutwidge played - I lived in fear. I squandered much of my father's wealth in a vain attempt to protect myself. I kept on retainer private investigators in New York City - to watch for Lutwidge or any of his schemes. One night - they telegraphed me. There was activity in one of Lutwidge's laboratories. The lights had gone on. And they believed it was him - but they could not be sure. He looked somehow - different.

I took the next flight from Paris to New York and made my investigators show me the spot. I peered through the grimy window to see Lutwidge - hunched over a typewriter - naked - hammering the keys with inhuman focus - pages churning out in a growing stack. And I glimpsed his face - distorted - uneven - sleepless -- as if the seed of madness in his mind had taken root within the flesh.

Outside the window, we were silent; this I know. But for one brief moment, he turned from his work - his eyes piercing in my direction -- as if he sensed me. I reeled back. I have never run so fast since I was a girl. I ran all the way to Paris - terrified even to read the reports from my investigators... They told me that Lutwidge, or whatever he called himself, had been committed to an asylum. I begged my men to pay the necessary bribes - so Lutwidge would never get out.

Do not ask me the particulars. I burned the papers - and wiped it all from my memory. All except that inhuman glare.

Do not look for him, Mark. Whatever he found - you do not wish to follow.

Yours, in the spirit of Truth,

Celeste Roget''

Letter 3

Dear Mark:

Your apology is accepted; I was angry, but I should not have reacted as I did. I know how it is, to be cast in a sea of confusion — chasing the hope that your missing loved one still survives.

You asked exactly how Lutwidge set me astray. At first, he cast out hints — of the lost city Shamballah, tucked among the icebound peaks; tales of the Nine Unknown, the immortal masters who plot the fate of all mankind. Yes, it sounds absurd now. But all paths connected to these strands; I was caught in his web.

Later, I would suspect he had gone to great effort to plant clues in remote places: in Bombay, the Gobi desert. I would become paranoid regarding all I read - I would discover that newspapers that crossed my path contained articles printed in no other edition. When I began to suspect him, Lutwidge clouded my mind with fear. He advised me to watch for shadowy "Interfer-ers" who wished to obscure all investigation of the Vanishing. He speculated fabulously as to their origins - CIA or KGB one day; occult assassins the next. I would see their shadows everywhere. But his most unforgivable deceit was to send me a false message written in my father's hand - an elaborate forgery. With such "evidence," I would journey to Hell itself.

Very little of this can I prove now. A convenient fire raged in Paris, destroying all my papers while I lay in the crude hospital in Nepal. As I hovered near death, haunted by nightmares of slow starvation - of the icy avalanche that buried me alive — in this dark hour he sent me a final childish taunt confirming that he had duped me. I enclose it so you may take the measure of his madness for yourself.

Yours, in the spirit of Truth, Celeste Roget

Selected Answering Machine Messages
Message 1

"Mark? This is Celeste Roget.After our last conversation... I cannot sleep. I'm trying to save you from what happened to me ten years ago. Please... listen to me.This Lutwidge... If this was even his name. He was like... a demented child. Playing games with other people's lives. Three days I spent digging out of an avalanche with my bare hands. Because of him! My friends died because of him, because of his lies.Mark, do not go down this road. Do not trust Lutwidge or any of the foolish games he left behind.

Call me back.

Au revoir"

Message 2

"Mark? Mark? I know you are there! Pick up the phone! I should have known you for a coward! How dare you make such accusations and then hang up on me? You demand me for proof when you have come to me first? You suggest I am the liar when I have done nothing but try to help you from the start?  Go ahead! Go play in the little maze that Lutwidge built. Go see what little trap he lays for you. If you are lucky it will kill you quickly. It is all that you deserve! Casse-toi, connard!"

Message 3

Mark, uh, this is Celeste. Yes, obviously I too have seen the bottles and papers that washed up on the beach. Or did they? Are you so sure? Might they not have been buried there, planted for us to find, by Lutwidge or his hired help? Do not be so certain that this so-called evidence means anything at all, Mark. It could just be another ruse, luring you into some kind of trap. They could be watching us even now. Oh...we will speak..uh..later, I..I must go.

Message 4

Mark... Mark, *hurried breathing* I received your letter and I don't quite... what do you mean Lutwidge... alive? Of course he's dead! At the very least he's long gone! I merely meant, perhaps these bottles and papers from the beach, perhaps he buried them long ago only to be discovered now. Perhaps there is no Rapture and never was, except in the twisted mind of Orrin Lutwidge. Be well Mark, uh, I will be thinking of you tomorrow, and of Cindy, also.