𝒢𝑜𝒹 𝓂𝒶𝒹𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊. 𝒢𝑜𝒹 𝒹𝑜𝑒𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝒸𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝒾𝒻 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑒 “𝑔𝓊𝒾𝓁𝓉𝓎” 𝑜𝓇 𝓃𝑜𝓉.

Penny, born Allison Penelope Marks, was born in rural Louisiana. Her small town did not offer her much but she had her parents and as a toddler, what more could a girl ask for? She chased fireflies and frogs and before she was four she knew the way home from the creek. That summer, her brother, Tobias, was born and she was given the reason she would make it to adulthood. Being still small, she did all she could to take care of her baby brother alongside her mother and as the two grew up in their small town, her responsibilities regarding Tobias would grow.

While she would like to think of her life by the swamp to be a happy little dream, reality is never so kind. Not to Penny, not to Tobias. Their father became physically abusive towards their mother, or maybe he had been but as small children hadn’t really been aware, and towards Penny. She did what she could to shelter Tobias from abuse, taking blame for things her brother had done (“he’s only a child” she tells herself) or putting herself between her father and brother when she had to. When it came to her brother though, as her mother went back to work, he became fully her responsibility to make sure they made it back and forth from school; that they ate; that they were bathed and had clean laundry. She became a surrogate mother figure for her brother, caring for him like a son at only twelve years old.

Life carried on. It had to. And life put Brandon in her path. The two met at school, they were the same age and he had a way with words that wrapped Penny around his finger like none had ever done before. Who knew words could be so sweet? That a smile could grip her in the way it had? He was like a dream, a beacon in the dark world of her life. At fifteen, she was deeply in love with Brandon Webber. So much so that she began sneaking around behind her parents' backs to see him, meeting in the swamp where no one could find them to spend time together.

They continued like this for two years. It became easier to sneak around once Penny became employed, stocking shelves, she had a reason to be out of the house when she wasn’t on her way to or from school. Tobias knew about Brandon and seeing as he was getting older and was more independent, helped Penny keep her secret. Maybe one day Brandon would get her away from here, maybe they could move to a city where Penny can follow her dreams… Their lives were complicated by Penny becoming pregnant shortly before she turned eighteen. The couple panicked, but wanted a family, deciding the best course of action would be to elope in Texas and start new lives far from anything they had ever known.

They did it too. They made it to Texas, finding employment and getting married in the eyes of the Lord. Penny felt the judgment from those that saw her on her wedding day, heavily pregnant and young, but she was happy.

The lord decided she was not ready to be a mother. At least, that was what Penny had to tell herself each morning just to make it out of bed. In the autumn, Madeline Webber was a stillborn baby girl that would never know the depth of the love Penny held already for her. It was not just the depression following the stillbirth of her daughter that made it hard to see a reason to keep living, it was the change in her husband, and the isolation of the little house they lived in outside the city, far from any neighbors. Still, she was a good wife. She cooked, she cleaned, she did the laundry, she did everything her husband asked for. Still, she prayed to God for it to end.

No one could hear her scream when Brandon became violent. Not even when she stood out in the pasture, crying until the sun came up, only to know she would have to return back to that awful house. Life was cruel, each win in her life becoming a terrible loss. What had once been her Garden of Eden was now her personal hell, all she had ever wanted to do was escape the life she had just to find herself in a new version of the same terrible things.

As winter thawed into spring the year she turned twenty-one, something in Penny changed. The feeling she would be better off on her own. She was only really aware of the shotgun in her hands when she was pulling the trigger–

An ocean away from home and wanting to start over, Penny shed the name Allison and opted for a new name. One that hadn’t been tainted by her past lives, one that didn’t have blood on its hands. She landed in England a new woman, a freed one. While she had wanted to live in London, try to break into being a singer in a bustling city full of life and culture, jobs were hard to come by and bills piled up regardless, and no one feels bad for a young American girl with stars in her eyes.

Her fortune would change arriving in a small fishing village, finding a modest little flat to rent (just one room and a bathroom, all she really needs) and a job as a general shop assistant. While it was not as glamorous as singing in London, she was happy and it was hers.

𝓅𝑒𝓇𝓈𝑜𝓃𝒶𝓁𝒾𝓉𝓎

Kind Penny, soft-spoken, sweet girl. Crafty and smart. Penny is a lively young woman, the kind that seems to seek the sun, to hold it between their fingers and hold it close to their chest. One could describe her as beaming, bright and holy. While she is capable of enjoying the quiet moments, she yearns for the music and the joy, for the adventure. Despite the sun that radiates within her, there is something solemn behind her eyes once the fun has passed. She keeps her hands busy to distract herself, fidgeting, seeking out something other than her own thoughts. Penny has lived through so much while so young, she must keep moving forward.