# Meg Winterly — Short Fiction character guide

> Meg Winterly in Short Fiction by Fritz Leiber.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Meg, Daisy, Greta

**First appearance:** 0012-v

## Snapshot

Gusterson's wife, who hugs the beauty mask to her bosom and refuses to move below, choosing an excited life among the bats over a safer one among the rats.

## Who they are

Daisy is Gusterson's wife in a half-empty apartment building, watching neighbors flee underneath like cockroaches and weighing his soft offer to move below for cleaner, safer living. She runs her fingertip across the murky glass and answers that she doesn't think she'd sleep happier — or one bit excited — then snakes her arm around his waist, choosing the glass death trap. When Fay delivers the beauty mask, she backs out of the room hugging it, a quiet refusal that keeps her household loyal to the surface.

## Relationships

### [Violet Gusterson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se/characters/violet_gusterson)

_rivalry_

Meg and Violet are bitter social rivals, constantly competing for status and attention.

### [Violet Gusterson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se/characters/violet_gusterson)

_rivalry_

Meg and Violet are bitter social rivals, constantly competing for status and attention.

### [Violet Gusterson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se/characters/violet_gusterson)

_rivalry_

Meg and Violet are bitter social rivals, constantly competing for status and attention.

## In the story

### [Bread Overhead](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se/chapters/bread-overhead)

A sharp businesswoman and Roger's colleague, who mocks his ambitions and later panics as the bread flight spirals out of control.

### [Chapter II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se/chapters/ii)

Daisy receives a beauty mask from Fay and playfully adopts the persona of Vina Vidarsson, refusing to let George see the mask.

### [Chapter VII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se/chapters/vii)

Present during the interrogation; held at gunpoint; later restrains Gusterson from attacking Pooh-Bah.

### [VIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se/chapters/viii)

Daisy, with red hair, suggests ticklers may be leaving the solar system.

### [IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se/chapters/iv)

The narrator (Greta); works backstage as a dresser, observes the performance with growing unease and paranoia about the audience.

### [V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se/chapters/v)

Greta, the narrator, lies on her cot experiencing paranoia and strange thoughts about the number eight and Miss Nefer.

### [VIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se/chapters/viii)

Greta (Meg) is the narrator, grieving for her lost innocence and questioning the morality of altering the past.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se/characters/meg_winterly
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_19_se/characters