InsaneJournal

To the world at large, Penny is sunny, flirty, and outgoing. To her family, she's an energetic and caring, if slightly dreamy, girl. Overall, Penny is a sweetheart. Gretel is cunning, proud, willful, and possessive. Be that as it may, she's also poised, solicitous, forthright, and creative. Living through a couple centuries of human history does not build a simple personality, and Gretel makes no apologies for her contradictory character. If anything, she celebrates her incongruities--privately. (Gretel has a vested interest in keeping her real self well-camouflaged.)

A critic to the core of her being, Gretel firmly believes in maintaining high standards and a low tolerance for error. She cannot stand people who answer mistakes with excuses. Gretel herself rarely second guesses herself or admits regrets. To make a choice, in her opinion, is to dispense with the other option. Similarly, she's extremely dismissive of notions like luck or coincidence.

Ironically, she greatly dislikes perfectionists; perfection, after all, is stale.

The woman who would ultimately call herself Gretel came into being through a fairy tale life--just not the Disney version. Born into a comfortable artisan family in Germany, she was the third child and only daughter. Her parents untimely death put the girl in the care of her uncle and his third wife. Daughter and "step-aunt" enjoyed an unconventional relationship. On the one hand, the former became the latter's first teacher; without her it was possible that the girl would never have realized she was a born witch.

On the other hand, the relationship ended when the student surpassed the master—by locking her in the furnace.

(In all fairness, one could call label the incident self-defense. The stepmother planned to eliminate her husband, absorb his wealth and business, and live happily ever after independently. However, there was no sign of her planning to abandon her talented apprentice. It's hard to say whether the older woman overestimated her protege's sense of ambition or underestimated her care for blood relations. But since the results would be same in either case—who cares?)

After his wife's mysterious accident, the uncle chose to remain single and depend on his precocious niece in maintaining his household which she did scrupulously and adroitly. The harmony remained steady until the man's peaceful death a handful of years later; at which point his dutiful child wrapped up the sale of the business--began and neatly negotiated weeks before--and looted her would-be fiancé. By morning, she was gone.

In the years that followed "Gretel" skated from town to town in pursuit of bettering her craft. The money she started with grew thanks to a good business mind and profitable black magic. Her powers thrived for much the same reasons. But what Gretel wanted was power of the most intimate and effective kind, and eventually she found it...in blood. Gretel's interest in the field quickly evolved from nicks and drops to red, red sacrifice. She was not cruel in her studies but neither was she careless or squeamish, and the witch's schedule became steadily darker as a result. Simply put, there was very, very little Gretel could not bring herself to do.

In London, Gretel met the man who would become her partner in marriage, in work, and all else. Hans Marlow was a follower of Newton and an ambitious alchemist--as well as a dedicated blood witch. The two struck up an odd, unconventional friendship, straddling the line between colleagues and paramours. It was Marlow who steered Gretel's attention towards the notion of immortality. After all, he pointed out, what was the point of spending one's life gaining power if death remained inescapable? Intrigued, Gretel agreed to team up in order to find the aforementioned "escape".

The hardest element of their venture was not the transfer of the mind, but of the memory. In Gretel's opinion, to preserve one's memory would be to immortalize it. Gretel herself was already a great devotee to the ars memorativa, the art of memory, relying on mnemonic techniques to safeguard her carefully acquired knowledge. She was particularly fond of method of loci, an imaginal technique in which one constructed "memory palaces" to organize and preserve one's memories. With Marlow's help, blood magic and black magic combined to give the memory palaces a physical embodiment: talismans which safely encapsulated lifetimes worth of memories for transplantation into fresh minds. In December of 1705 they succeeded. In April of 1706, Gretel, occupying a body barely into its teens with her memories--and powers--intact, married an equally rejuvenated Marlow in Spain. They traveled, they learned, they took occasional decade long separate vacations, they built the occasional house or started, and starred in, the occasional ghost story. Marlow took up a string of artistic ventures, while Gretel preferred to patronize emerging sciences. It was a partnership that would continue for nearly three hundred years.

It took less than an hour to end.

By the 1990's the couple was successfully installed in America, preparing for their next rejuvenation. However, when the time came Marlow turned on his wife and tried to sabotage the transfer. Realizing it was too late to stop the procedure, or salvage her "old" body, Gretel summoned a curse meant to kill them both. The magics warred, tearing apart room and flesh and then--

Halfway across the country, a baby girl took her first breath...

Penelope Josephine Chess was born lucky.

...or just lucky to be born if you listened to her mother's doctors. Arriving despite severe complications during her mother's carrying term, Penny emerged healthy and loud. A pretty impressive trick for someone the doctor's were ready to declare dead on delivery. Through childhood Penny continued her winning streak of luck; she fell out of trees without breaking more than a nail, never lost a sock, and was always the Kid Not Allowed to Be It due a spectacular track record at hide-and-seek. She did ballet (badly) and played baseball (excellently), made scrapbooks at camp and snowmen at her grandfather's cabin, and fought with her older brother at every ridiculous opportunity and teased the younger just as often.

Loved and indulged by highly academic parents, Penny expressed an early passion for science despite being diagnosed with dyslexia at ten. Her mother, a retired physicist, was particularly impressed by Penny's memory; for a child, her recall was startling. Overall, however, Penny expressed no ambition in proving extraordinary--and no sadness at the lacking. Penny Chess was, in a word, happy.

Then came that very, very special month of May.

When Penny Chess came home from school on that first day of May, the only thing she had on her mind was algebra homework and American Idol. Then she turned on the news.

An hour later, Diane Chess came home to find her teenage daughter unconscious on the floor, bleeding from the nose and ears. Penny was rushed to the ER where the baffled doctors deemed her the victim of an unexpected seizure. She remained unconscious for three days. It would be fair to say the medical staff was shocked when she woke up.

It would also be fair to say that Penny never did.

To imply that Gretel was disoriented to wake up amidst the ordinary life of an American teenager, would be a misconception. To say she was righteously, devoutly, and utterly enraged would be slightly more accurate. With over three centuries of memories suddenly fresh in her mind, little Miss Chess had a lot to adjust to. Nonetheless, the family was relieved to bring "Penny" home a week after her miraculous recovery.

Much to her disgust, Gretel quickly discovered that knowledge did not automatically equal power; though the majority of her memories were restored, she had very little of her previous abilities. The only place where her past maintained a spark was--surprisingly--the kitchen. Not one to be overwhelmed by her circumstances, no matter how limited or bloody damn awkward, Gretel settled down to develop a strategy.

Two family dinners and a company picnic later, Gretel's father was transfered...to Scarlet Oak, Michigan.

-Amnesia (a.k.a. It's Not What You Know, It's What You Remember): Gretel's greatest weakness is her abridged memory. Her husband's betrayal stole that which linked her power to her person: her memory palace, specifically the talisman containing Gretel's exact memories. Furthermore, in addition to not knowing whether Marlow is even still alive, much less where he is, Gretel can't remember what the bloody heck talisman actually looks like.

-Lack of Power (a.k.a. Batteries Not Included): For a sixteen-year old, Gretel has incredible potential. For a 200-something witch? She's soft-serve yogurt. Without her complete memories Gretel has no access to her acquired power. In fact, seeing as the total damage from her accidental reincarnation is yet to be established, it's possible that even restoring her memories completely won't reinstate her abilities.

-Secrecy (a.k.a. Play Dead If You Want To Keep Playing): Over time Gretel and her husband made nearly as many enemies as they did conquests. She does not relish the thought of those old acquaintances discovering her current state. Gretel can't contact any of her safer resources or acquaintances for risk of alerting the more hostile element. Which is a pity, because she seriously misses her bank account(s).

-Pseudo-Dyslexia (a.k.a. I Before E, Unless It's Greek To Me): Penny was a diagnosed dyslexic. In actuality, the condition was a spillover of the linguistic arsenal Gretel acquired over the years. Unfortunately, her memory has yet to reinstate her grammar skills. When trying a foreign tongue she's liable to forget the proper syntax halfway through the sentence. She also has little control over her foreign accents (i.e. she speaks French like a German and German like Beijing street peddler.)

-Temperamental (a.k.a. Hey, Look, I Can Punch Your Spleen From Here): A sixteen-year old psyche cannot suddenly house centuries of experience without some fallout. Gretel sometimes has highly disruptive mood swings and bursts of temper, particularly when her new life clashes with old habits.

-Gourmand (a.k.a. It's Not Easy Eating Great): Since “awakening” Gretel reclaimed her superior sense of taste and smell. Unfortunately, this makes her highly, and hilariously, sensitive to “inferior” foodstuffs. She particularly offended by artificial flavorings and chemical preservatives. Gretel's newfound “allergy” is so extreme that she can't stand eating junk food. (Similarly, she really, really missed being able to drink three shots without falling over.)

-Possessive (a.k.a. What's Mine Is Mine Is Mine): Gretel isn't big on the idea of Letting Things Go. Which is to say: she doesn't. Ever. Aside from the obvious vengeance issues, this weakness ironically translates into protective urges. A major factor in Gretel's need for secrecy is her desire to protect her family; along with her ensuring her father's transfer, she manipulated her elder brother into switching schools so as to keep him close.

Polyglot (but has trouble controlling it); fencer (but her stamina doesn't match her skill); accomplished equestrienne (but doesn't have the muscle conditioning); violinist and pianist (but hasn't yet regained the technical skill)--and an assorted goody of other more minor skills and hobbies suffering the same "insufficient memory" handicap.

Alan Chess: [father, 52] Oncologist.
Diane Chess: [mother, 48] Gardener and caterer. Ex-physicist.
Colin Chess: [brother, 21] Student.
Bradley Chess: [brother, 10] Brat.
Rook: [cat, 6]
Bishop: [dog, 8]
Hans Marlow: [husband, 348] Dead man walking.