Chapter 1: Stranger at the Window
Deep within the city of Cambridge, there laid an orphanage, and it is here that the story of Trinity Jones begins. The sun was just rising to greet what would be a warm July day. Some of the children were already stirring.
Trinity opened her eyes when the sun could no longer be ignored. She forced herself to roll out of bed. She was one of the few children to have her own room. After years of hearing complaints from the others of her odd behavior, she was granted the privacy of her own room. It was a tight fit, though, with only a bed.
The orphanage had been her home for the entirety of her life, and at the age of eleven, that did not seem likely to change until she was eighteen and kicked out.
She got on her knees to pull a tub out from under her bed, where she kept her clothes. She got dressed in her cleanest outfit, and still she looked ratty. When she was finished, she went downstairs for breakfast.
"Will, get down from the table this instant!" shrieked a middle-aged nun, Ms. Whitby.
A young boy, Willie as the other children called him, was imitating a tap number on the table from a musical they had all been taken to see last week. He smiled brightly as he danced away, ignoring Ms. Whitby's complaints.
Trinity could not help her own smile. She watched as Ms. Whitby dragged Willie down from the table, and ordered him to the "detention" room.
After the commotion had passed, she walked to the kitchen to grab a bowl of porridge and a slice of toast.
As she sat down with her food, she noticed a couple walk through the door. The man had curly dark hair and a short goatee. He was dressed in a nice suit. The woman standing next to him had short, bleach blonde hair and dressed in similarly nice clothes. Ms. Whitby greeted them.
"Hello," she said, a little too cheerfully. "Are you two looking to adopt one of our fine children?"
"Yes," answered the man in a gruff voice.
"I've always wanted a little girl," added the woman.
"Alright. Girls!" At once, every girl ran up to stand in a line, all except Trinity, who had at this point given up on adoption. "Jones, you too!" She dragged her feet to join the rest of the girls.
The couple walked by each of the children until the woman knelt next to a girl of nine. Trinity barely listened as the woman asked the girl some questions. She was relieved when Ms. Whitby released the other girls to continue what they were doing before.
Trinity continued eating her breakfast in silence. When she was finished, she brought her bowl to the kitchen for a young nun-in-training to wash. She walked back toward her room, the only place where she could escape the noise of the other children. Some of the younger children were in the middle of one of their screaming matches, and although she could not make out what was being said, not that she really wanted to know, it set her teeth on edge.
"Jones!" yelled Ms. Whitby when Trinity was just about to open her door.
She paused, and swallowed her retaliation. "Yes, Ms. Whitby?" she replied as politely as possible when she came back round the corner.
"It's your turn to clean the windows!"
"I thought it was Nigel's turn."
Nigel was more or less in the same boat she was. The fourteen-year-old boy had almost no chance of being adopted at his age, and the orphanage could only afford a school for poor families. When he heard his name called, he arched his ginger eyebrows. "Oi, what's going on?" He walked up behind Trinity, towering her in his shadow. His flaming red hair was wild, making him appear to be a young Albert Einstein.
"Isn't it your turn to wash the windows?" Trinity asked, turning to face him, and finding herself blushing. Over the years, she had grown quite close to Nigel, sometimes going so far as to call him her older brother.
"No, it's your turn." Nigel had crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm supposed to be helping in the kitchen today." He shot a glare back at the kitchen.
"Jones, get to work!" ordered Ms. Whitby harshly.
"Yes, ma'am," groaned Trinity in response.
"I'd help if I could, but the old hag would skin me alive if I abandoned my duties," Nigel whispered in Trinity's ear.
Trinity drug the bucket of water out of the kitchen fifteen minutes later, after getting yelled at for "back talking" Ms. Whitby. She set the bucket down next to the window and began washing, whistling to herself as she went to work. She ignored the group of younger children playing around her; some of them were taunting her for having to be the one to clean up the grimy windows. No, it was something else that stole her attention.
A young looking woman was standing across the street, staring. She wore an old, tattered cloak, probably once a soft blue. She never blinked or cast her eyes away from the orphanage. Trinity met her gaze once or twice, and the young orphan felt a chill up her spine.
"JONES!"
The entire orphanage shook under Ms. Whitby's scream. Trinity's ears rang from the high decibel rang that it would have taken Ms. Whitby to screech like that. She dropped the wet rag, and ran, knowing well the consequences of her actions.
A/N: This is shorter than most of my chapters. I had it all prewritten, but my computer deleted it all. I hope to have the next chapter up soon.