It wasn't particularly often that Drew's father came home with a woman. However, today was one of those rare exceptions as the two of them emerged from the car, the lady clinging onto her father's arm and smiling.
Drew watched from the window, her young, 5 year old face darkening into a pout as she saw her father with another woman. But they looked so happy together. She tilted her head and furrowed her brow, thinking, face lighting up. Maybe her mommy had finally come home!
Scampering out the door, she raced down the steps with open arms, black bob bouncing as she ran. "Daddy! Daddy!"
"Allllllright my sweetie pie?" Asked her dad lovingly as Drew giggled and was hoisted up by her father's strong hands.
"Yup!" Drew wriggled in her father's arms to turn and face the new lady, who, Drew noted strangely, was observing the father-daughter scene with a slight frown, lip curling up in disgust before the expression was wiped off her face and she smiled, grin wide as a Cheshire Cat's. "Is this my mommy?" She asked eagerly, ready to meet her mommy who had finally come home...
"Er..." Drew's father looked to the other lady for help, as if deferring to her, and his expression turned serious, a sadness behind his dark brown eyes. "Drew, your mommy is never coming home. This nice lady," He swung the crestfallen Drew around unexpectedly, and even though she was sad she couldn't help but emit a little squeal, "Is going to be your new mommy soon!" He exclaimed in a flourish, moving Drew closer to the lady so she could stare at those bright, green eyes that her father had foolishly fallen for. The lady smiled cruelly, raising her hand and wiggling her fingers slightly.
"Hello," she said coolly, mouth curved in a thin smirk.
Drew squealed, a sound of fear that her father misinterpreted as glee. "Put me down!" She shrieked, and even as a 5 year old a little bit of the compelling charmspeak in her voice was starting to show through. Her father obliged, setting her back down on the pavement with a tender smile.
Drew's innocent, 5 year old hopes of finding a new mommy had vanished in the blink of an eye. This lady would not be her mommy, she thought with a childish stubborness in the set of her jaw.
She would never be my mommy.
Drew was 7 now, quiet and mute as she sobbed over pictures of her dead father. It was a car crash, the police had said when they called late that night, and it was now past midnight, and yet the 7 year old refused to heed her strict bedtime of 8:00 and instead spent her time mourning her father.
Her stepmother had not allowed her to mourn; she never would. She had always been cruel, shown mostly through small actions that her father, so in love with those toxicating green eyes, had dismissed as teasing, such as when her stepmother would pinch her- hard!- in places where the bruises wouldn't show, or when her hair was tugged and yanked and pulled. But now that her father was gone, there were no qualms against abuse, and her stepmother, with the rather stuck up name of Eliora Fiona Annabelle Marie Johannsen, was perfectly fine with doing whatever she wanted.
Today, right after the police came, she sent Drew straight to bed, in that harsh, commanding tone she had developed over the years. Drew had lain awake in bed, listening to the cops talk, as silent tears rolled down her face. She muffled her sobs in the blanket so that after the cops had left and the ruckus had died, Eliora would not hear her cry.
After Eliora had entered the household, Drew had become watchful and careful, peeking around corners to check for her stepmother before going, hiding a secret stash of band-aids, so meticulously careful and afraid of punishment that she had a whole plethora of things stored in her room. Her father lavished her with presents; she took the most useful among them, storing them beneath the floorboards, and let her stepmother take the princess gowns and the makeup, and the dolls with their pretty little curls, everything enjoyable, and disfigure and mutate them. Eliora kept the makeup, of course, and Drew, fascinated, would watch her apply it; Drew was a fast learner and soon had memorized the exact procedures without having ever performed them herself. But the other things, the princess dresses were ripped into shreds of glittery, gauzy fabric; the dolls were colored over with Eliora's special set of permanent markers so that they bore scowls and their golden curls were ripped out, cut unevenly, and splayed across the floor; vampire fangs and moaning zombies soon grew out of these dolls, and Eliora treated them with a sick admiration of her own drawing skills before presenting them back to the 7 year old Drew, who would scream and demand that they be taken AWAY.
Now, her stack of supplies would come in handy, as she tentatively lit a match like she had seen her father do before and touched the flame to a bright red crayon, which sputtered and wavered but eventually stabilized and gave light. Not realizing the flame was still burning, she burnt her finger as the fire traveled to the end of the match and let out a yelp, which she quickly quieted, breath bated as she waited to be discovered. And when it became apparent that Eliora was asleep, at last Drew let herself cry, head bowed and hands clasped to her heart, eyes lingering longingly on the bright spark of flame that was slowly consuming the red crayon.
When the flame, at last, burnt out, leaving a pile of wax, Drew climbed back into bed, tears spent. Depression was ebbing towards anger, and Drew knew she needed to run away.
The next night, she gathered all the supplies she had. The third night, she ran.
Her feet stole across the creaky floorboards, and every time a creak resounded, she held her breath, waiting, heart thundering in her chest. It was dark. She hated the dark.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to continue by the light of another crayon, going downstairs and reaching the door.
She tried the knob. It was open! Drew pulled desperately, anxious to get out before Eliora woke up.
The door didn't budge.
Her eyes traveled upwards to where a bolt was fastened in place, too high for Drew to reach. She looked around; there had to be another way, a way out, there had to-
The lights flickered on and she gave a yelp. Eliora was illuminated in the stairwell, green eyes shining hungrily.
"You thought you could escape, didn't you?" She cooed. Her voice was mesmerizing.
Drew didn't respond.
"7 year olds are so stupid." Eliora scoffed. "Scared of the dark, are you?"
Drew was more petrified by Eliora, and how she knew this.
"I know you're scared, darling." She said crudely. "But what if the world didn't have to be so scary, eh? What if you could be the one to scare the world?"
Eliora moved forward with hunger, predatory longing, and Drew felt herself drawn towards her.
"In order to do that, dear, you need power."
"And right now, you're powerless."
At 10 years old, Drew awoke to find herself blindfolded, and tied up. She struggled, but it was no use. She found that no one had put a gag in her. She screamed.
Footsteps resounded through the area. Was it a cave?
"I see you're awake." A deep, gravelly voice came.
Drew stayed silent.
Her blindfold was ripped off.
She was, indeed, in a cave, and a masked man stood in front of her, grinning maniacally at her scared figure.
Immediately, she thought that this guy was an asshole. She didn't even know where the abrupt, angry thought came front. She just knew she wanted to kill this guy.
"Eliora so graciously brought you here for training after she realized you had better charmspeaking powers than most."
And Eliora too. She'd kill them together.
She cleared her throat to speak. Her mouth was dry as parchment.
"What's charmspeaking?" A factual, monotonous voice sounded from above, probably out of a speaker. "Charmspeak is a type of hypnotism or persuasion in which it allows the speaker to convince someone else to do or get whatever they want. The strength of the command depends on the tone and the emotion of the charmspeaker's voice, as well as their skill with it."
"There ya go." The man snapped his fingers, then leaned forward persuasively. "See, Drew, you have shown above average powers with charmspeaking. Lots of times, you can get what you want. We're going to train you to use it, so you can utilize it to your benefit and ours."
So that's why the kids at school would give her cookies if she asked. That's why she sometimes was able to convince a teacher to give her an extra day to study.
Suddenly, her anger ebbed at this man. That didn't sound so bad.
But Drew was still intent on murdering Eliora Fiona Annabelle Marie Johannsen.
As the years flashed by, Drew found it easier to control her charmspeak. It didn't always work, of course, nobody was that powerful, but she was good at something for once. And here, she always got her way.
They took unsuspected mortals and placed them in front of her, tasking her to make them do things for them. Drew pretended that the mortals were Eliora, and unleashed the full force of her tongue on them. A few of them were stubborn. Most caved easily to her will.
This training regimen was nice, she reflected. No sweatiness. She still got to look good, and was given her own makeup vanity. Just talking. And talking. And talking.
And then one day, she was given a mission that, if completed, would give her the reward she had always wanted- freedom.
Eliora had been assigned to watch Drew, to ensure that the mission was completed. Drew still hated Eliora with all her heart, a deep hatred unmatched except for Eliora's disdain.
With a strange satisfaction, Drew found this mission perfect.
Once they were out of sight of the network of caves, Drew charmspoke Eliora, convinced her to take a picture at the side of a bridge.
When no one was looking, Drew shoved her off, a phone dropping to the pavement and cracking the only sign left of her.
She sauntered off.
Soon, a satyr found her, bringing her to Camp. Years of training her charmspeak came through, as well as her disdain for people learned from Eliora, and the sharp, bitter, commanding tones that Eliora had used so many times on the young, impressionable child.
You're powerless.
Drew tried so hard to make those words untrue. She would get power. She needed to get power. Become cabin counselor, she felt, was all she needed to do to prove her worth, to prove Eliora wrong.
When Jason came, she saw him with a bit of predatory longing, an exotic golden boy from far away. He, she felt, would right all her sins with that simple perfectness about him. He was the power equal of Drew.
That dumpster girl Piper didn't stand a chance.
Or so she thought.
When Piper returned from the quest, Jason in tow, to overthrow her position as cabin counselor, Drew heard those words again, echoing, verberating in her head.
You're powerless.
You're powerless.
You're powerless.
That was all it took for Drew Tanaka to spiral down the long, winding fall into insanity.