While her sister is wild, charming and impatient, Green is timid and reserved, and has the infinite patience required to tend to the family garden.

There, her family perishes as a result of a conflagration in the city, believed to be done by a secretive, malevolent group of people (also widely assumed to be the events of 9/11).

Green, deeply sorrowed, changes her appearance and personality and renames herself Ash as she decides to destroy her past to cover the internal pain she is suffering.

She tattoos almost her entire body with black roses, vines and bats, continuing to suffer but growing indifferent toward her pain.

To mask her pain, she assumes a new identity as Ash, cutting off her hair, wearing a scarf of thorns, a heavy jacket, and her father's nail-studded boots.