Sometimes you must do anything to survive. Even move in with the devil. So that was what Rose did when it came to it. Miss Barebone was evil incarnate, it didn't take Rose longer than five minutes to come to that conclusion. But she offered a roof over the head and a hot meal for every urchin that handed out her damn flyers. Which was exactly what Rose needed, somewhere to lay low, and it didn't get much lower than a derelict old church on Pike street. Her last boss, if you could call him that, had started to take a particular interest in her so to speak, and Rose had learned this was the time to up sticks and move on
She was a rare beauty… Unnatural, some would say, and Rose would be the first to agree with them. Her hair was nearly white, and her eyes the lightest color blue imaginable, the grace and bearing of a nymph. She had been called a freak for most of her childhood, until she had started to fill out. Then, suddenly, boys started to get interested in her. Men too. Soon she started to prefer the times when they had called her a freak, at least then she had been safe from their leering eyes and grabby hands.
Miraculously, or maybe not quite, she had managed to avoid getting caught by , her rare beauty wasn't the only weird thing about Rose. When she looked at people, she didn't just see them as a person. Beside their normal appearance they would have an aura of colors around them, that would tell her how they were feeling. Sometimes she could even see direct thoughts, which came in handy.
In time she learned how to use this knowledge to manipulate people, using her charm to get what she wanted. In short she conned people for a living, with a sideline of blackmail. It wasn't the safest line of work, but then again, she wasn't safe to be with. If she got angry, people tended to get hurt. It was something she had learned to live with.
She had never conned anyone that didn't deserve it. These people, usually men, were greedy, spiteful and full of hatred. Most of them had committed any number of sins, cheated others, and had treated like garbage. They deserved a taste of their own medicine. Rose saw her work as doing the world a favor by dispensing some justice. Karma was her middle name.
Really, it was. Rose Karma Le Mage. That was the name on her birth certificate. She was an orphan… Or at least she probably was. Her mother had died soon after she was born. The nuns had told her that her mother had loved her very much, but Rose had no recollection of her. All she had was topaz pendant, held in place by two gold wands. It was Rose's most dear possession, one she never took off, even though it was hidden deep underneath her clothes.
As she got older she had tried to find her father, but she hadn't even been able to find someone with the same surname as her. Her mother... All the sisters seemed to know was that her name was Veela, but they didn't even know if that was her first or last name. It was like her mother had enchanted them, the otherwise precise sisters always became vague when she pressed them for information. Either way, Rose was alone in the world.
Which was fine by her. People were not that great on the whole. The nuns had been alright, mostly. They had given her a good education, and had been open minded than a lot of people she had met later in life. Or perhaps they just had had more patience.
The nuns had only cared for small children though. At the age of twelve she had been moved to a general orphanage. The matron had been Rose's first brush with evil. The woman had hated her from day one, and had done everything to make Rose's life miserable. After two years Matron had met with an unfortunate accident, just after she had locked Rose in the coal shed to "take off the sheen". Rose had later been told that there had been a loud shriek from her direction, a flash, and matron had never been the same after that. Rose herself hardly remembered having been shoved in the coal shed.
Things progressed, Rose got a reputation, and was handed from one home to the other because of it. At the age of 15 she finally ran away. She found service in a large house, but within two months the two sons of the owner had been so enamoured with her, that soon she had had to flee. From there on it had been the streets for her. Scraping by on small scams. It was amazing what you could get men to do on half a smile. The last guy she had smiled at had been a very shady character though, and it didn't help she had conned him out of $100. He could easily afford it, but he held grudges like no one she had ever met. She had barely gotten out in time.
New York was big though. It hadn't been long until Rose had run into Mary Lou Barebone. Now it was against Rose's nature to con women, they usually had it hard enough in life. But Mary Lou made her pause. Rose wasn't sure if it was the fact that this woman had a brown aura that reeked of self-involved greed and hatred, or because she was talking about witches, and Rose immediately recognised her own powers in the description. Either way, she had to know more. She stayed and listened, whilst the other people around her tried to get away from this mad woman as fast as they could. As the talk finished up, Rose had stayed behind, and Mary Lou immediately spotted her. Well, she was kinda hard to miss.
She asked if Rose was interested in their work, and Rose had eagerly agreed. Dimwitted as this woman might have been, she seemed to possess a knowledge about a world full of people like Rose, and Rose wanted to know more, even if they were just fairy tales.
MISS Barebone, for Mary Lou seemed very fond of her unmarried and independent status, as if it was some testament for her alleged virginal status, was very keen to introduce her ADOPTED children, something she also liked to stress.
Despite all her time in orphanages she had never seen human beings as miserable as these three Barebone children. The eldest two had been beaten into submission, whilst the youngest still had a quiet defiance that would soon break. Chastity's aura was a dull gray, a hollow vessel of worn out gloomy depression. Her life's light was already fading, even though she had to be Rose's age. Chastity had no will of her own. She did her mother's bidding without question.
Modesty… Well, that name didn't really fit her, she was a spiteful, angry, deceitful child. Then again, her real name was Anne Marie, and she hated her new mother for changing it. The child survived by telling herself that she was Cinderella in a fairy tale gone wrong, and she would soon get out of here. Rose felt for, her and hoped she was right and the child would be able to find her prince. Not that she believed in princes.
No hope surrounded Credence, and he was certainly no prince, the way he stood cringing, head bent down, staring at his shoes most of the time. He was the only man she had ever met who had not given her his full and immediate attention, which for Rose actually was somewhat of a relief. Looking at his aura was looking at a black hole of despair, with red lightning rods of pain flashing through them. Rose would soon understand why. Mary Lou beat him almost daily, finding fault with everything the boy did.
No, not a boy. A man, strangled by the apron strings of his mother. For Mary Lou was that woman. Rose knew it the moment they were introduced, the message was written all over miss Barebone's face. The more she stressed the word ADOPTIVE, the clearer it was that this was her own son, a youthful mistake that she was only too happy to deny, all the while punishing the lad for reminding her of her indiscretion. Rose filled the tidbit of information for possible later use. After all, this was how she made her money.
Because there was something even stranger about the Barebone household than their chosen profession as false clergymen and street prophets, and that was where the funding for this venture came from. They were obviously as poor as church mice when you looked at the way they were living in a draughty church, but still there seemed to be an endless stream of freshly printed pamphlets into the house, and food to feed her urchin foot soldiers. These things cost money, and Rose could not for the life of her understand where it came from.
That was the second reason Rose stayed, besides wanting to understand more about these witches, against whom Mary Lou spoke out so zealously. If Rose had known how misguided the woman was and by whom the church was funded, she would probably have run from the house as fast as she could. But then again, Rose needed a place to stay...