Chapter One: The Curse
"Now sweetie," it was her mother's.
"Wait here darling, we'll be right back." Her American accent laced her cherry red voice.
Then her father's Scottish brogue bruised her ear, "Don't move from here, love, or ye mum will kill me."
Then they were gone. Sitting on the bench in the London Zoo's Bird Exhibit, four year old, blue eyed, Newcastle golden haired, Persephone Dawson surveyed her surroundings. But before she could be like any normal four year old and wander off on her parents, someone or something grabbed her arm and dragged her towards the back of one of the cages. She was too stunned to scream. When her captor had finally gotten her behind one of the cages, out, away from view, she finally got a look at him. He was tall, about the same size as her father. He wore long robes, with the hood up, his face obstructed by the black fabric. He pushed her to the ground, and with a flick of his wrist pulled out a wand from his robes. Pointing the wand directly at her, the man seemed to murmur, something under his breath. A goblet rose out of his hand, a bubbled and misted a strange orange color. Bending down to her, he offered the cup, as if a peace offering, as if he was somehow sorry to snagging her from her wanderings. She shook her head and clamped her jaw shut. Her mother had always said, "Don't talk or take anything from strangers." So she tried to look as fearsome as an angelic looking four year old could. But the face under the hood just laughed. Gesturing to his wand and then t the cup, that still bubbled, he smirked. Inching it to her face, two beady eyes materialized from within the obsidian depths of the hood, willing her into submission. Slowly she was loosing the battle, her hold of the situation was thinning. And like she hadn't had anything to drink in months, she ripped the cup from his grayish hands, and gulped and lapped at the orange solution. The man leaned towards her, his dark eyes pinning her.
Then in an abnormally high pitched voice he finally spoke almost hissing, "Corpus Avatarum. You're mine now. You're all mine."
Persephone blacked out and found herself clutching to the bench, she had previously left, the memory of the man and his goblet fading fast.
Her mother shook her arm, "We found your aunt and uncle, come on dearie."
She nodded and fell instep with her family, scratching her arm all the way, looking to the discomfort, and imprint on her arm melded into her skin as if part of a nightmare, in the shape of a skull with a snake for a tongue.