"There is no world beyond the city's walls; just Purgatory. Heaven is here; where Juliet lives; every unworthy thing may look on her but Romeo may not!" Molly Hooper sighed and clasped the book to her chest, smiling as the words washed over her and planted themselves in her memory. If only she could jump right into the book and join her stories, never to worry, and live in a world of fate and good versus evil, with sword fights and spells-

'MOLLY!'

She jumped and looked up as Mrs Hammond's voice screeched across the yard from the ramshackle house. She threw her book in her apron pocket and took off running through the woods. 'I'm coming, Mrs Hammond!' she called as soon as she was in hearing distance of the house, almost tripping over her laces and too long dress. Finally, the wooden house came into view, with her mistress, Mrs Hammond, standing on the front porch holding a screaming baby and with two young children flanking her.

'Where in the devil's name have you been, you louse?' she snapped as Molly made her way on the porch, shoving the baby into her arms. 'Mr Hammond is expecting his lunch and you're ten minutes late! You're lucky I don't give you a belting for this, child!' She marched inside the house, Molly following. 'Now you'll clean up the twins and be on your way, and no backtalk!'

'Yes, Mrs Hammond,' Molly sighed. She made her way over to the table where the other baby was lying wailing, and set the one in her arms down, beginning to change and clean them. Mrs Hammond tutted at her. 'Change them properly, girl! You'll never be a good nurse if you can't change them! What if you find yourself looking after three next time?'

Molly shuddered at the thought. Mrs Hammond was already a machine which threw babies out every nine months like clockwork and she had no intention of looking after them herself. Molly could barely manage two! 'With all due respect, Mrs Hammond, two babies is quite the challenge already.'

'Hmm. Course you won't look after more than two at a time, acting like a queen instead of the nameless nobody you are!'

'I have a name,' Molly muttered to herself, clenching her fists.

'What did you say?' Suddenly, Mrs Hammond snatched her book from her apron. Molly bit back her gasp as Mrs Hammond thumbed it and then sneered at her. 'Giving me cheek and wasting your time on fairy tales which don't come true and dreams that you will never see turn to reality. You're worth nothing, Molly Hooper, and you never will be. Just like this bloody waste of good paper.' She paused before throwing it on the fire. 'If I catch you with these stupid books again they'll all go on the fire! You hear?'

'Yes,' Molly stuttered, trying to blink back tears. How could she… she had no idea what the books meant to her, the old witch… She had no idea about anything except being cruel and herding little miniatures of herself which would grow up to be just as spiteful as her. She watched the pages burn and curl into ashes with sad eyes, then turned to the twins, hoisted them to the rickety crib and set them down. Mrs Hammond thrust a paper bag at her. 'Now move, you idle thing!'

'Yes, Mrs Hammond.'

Within seconds she was out of the house. She wanted to let the tears flow and throw rocks at the windows, screaming and shouting and wring Mrs Hammond's neck until she turned blue, but she didn't. She couldn't. She didn't have the courage, nor the conscience to do it. If there was one thing the old orphanage it had taught her, it was that getting back at the bad people in the world only made you just as bad as them. You could not right a wrong with bad actions and spite. And so she swallowed her anger and set off.

When she got to the track construction site Mr Hammond worked on, she knew immediately something was wrong. He was in one of his fits, shouting at his fellow workers and throwing tools. Molly feared it was because his lunch was late added on top of the anger he let fly at her when she was too slow and got in his way. She rubbed the scar on her neck, remembering the last time when he had caught her with the toasting fork. Shaking off her thoughts, she broke into a run and made her way to the site. By the time she got there, he was on the ground being restrained by the men, thrashing and struggling. Then suddenly, he stopped. The workers murmured between themselves. She tried to push past them, but one of them grabbed her shoulder. 'I wouldn't go near, girl. It's not pretty.'

'What do you mean?'

The worker looked at her with a pained expression. 'Mr Hammond is gone, love. That was his last fit. Temper and the drink, I suppose. Sorry.'

And at that moment, Molly Hooper's world collapsed. The next few days were filled with crying, shouting, then silence and funeral arrangements. The house was cold and grim the morning of the funeral as Molly dressed the children and climbed onto the buggy beside the family, hugging herself against the biting wind. The funeral was in the church nearby, Mr Hammond in a cheap pine box, and laid in a grave with a cracking headstone with letters that they couldn't make out. Molly was only allowed to come to look after the children, and Mrs Hammond would sneer at her if she dared look her way or if the children made noise. But for once, Molly did not feel spite. No matter how bad the person, to lose one's husband was devastating. She had lost parents and she knew the grief – though she did not know much about them spare their names, she still knew them in the bond of family. When she felt lonely or sad, or a lot of the time both, she imagined them wrapping their arms around her and comforting her, calling her theirs and saying they loved her. No one else had ever loved her. Mrs Hammond certainly did not, but she was all she had now.

The next few days, Molly was immediately given a load of work and kept busy. She ironed, darned, cooked, cleaned, looked after the children, ran errands, lit and tended the fire, groomed the horse, fed the chickens, looked after the flowers, sold the eggs on market day, on and on and on until her back was close to breaking and her feet could not take her weight. And the tea. Oh Lord, the tea! If she ever had to boil another pot of the bloody stuff she would throw the kettle out the window! Mrs Hammond spent each and every day sat at the table with her friend drinking the wretched concoction and remaining quiet and with a permanent grimace, occasionally snapping at Molly to hurry with her work. But Molly stoically continued. She knew this was her only chance to stay, and she wasn't going to be moved from home to home again, from once hole to another until she was sixteen and then she had to find herself a job where she would work and eventually wither away and die by age thirty. No. She would persevere. Someday, she would be a famous writer or actress, and travel the world going by the name Diana Alcott, elegant and rhythmic, instead of plain, unromantic Molly Hooper. She would have adventures and be known everywhere and never would she have to scrub a floor again. She would prove the world wrong about little orphans with no past and no future – she would make something of herself. She just had to hope.

One night, she could not sleep. She lay in bed – well, a patch of straw with a thin blanket - trying to ease the aches and pains in her body, but to no use. That morning Mrs Hammond had snapped and caught her on the shoulder with the fire poker, and the scar was too far for her to reach. She couldn't even see it, and feared infection if it didn't get bandaged and cleaned. She listened for movement in the house. Maybe she could get up and sneak to the medicine cabinet while Mrs Hammond slept. The only problem was the dog, which hated her with a passion and would bark the roof off if she dared wake him. He would be quiet if he had food, but she had none spare a crust of bread she couldn't keep down. But she would have to try. She eased herself off the floor, stifling a groan as her legs creaked beneath her and her knees wobbled. She made her way to the door. To her amazement, the dog was nowhere to be seen. Thanking every deity she could think of, she hobbled out of the doorway and made her way to the kitchen.

'What are you doing?'

Molly almost jumped out of her skin as a hand landed on her shoulder. The lights flickered on and she was spun around to reveal Mrs Hammond and her friend standing in front of her with faces like thunder.

She immediately felt fear. 'I'm sorry,' she stuttered, 'but I need bandages, the cut on my shoulder, it's-'

'Ha! Bandages, my good bandages, is that what you want?' Mrs Hammond sneered. 'The good clean ones I pay for, along with every scrap of food you're given for your three meals a day? Isn't enough for you, is it? You deserve that scar, missy, along with every other one I've given you. You think you're unlucky? Well, there are children in the streets dying of cholera and rickets and you are much luckier than them! I put a roof over your head and feed and clothe you and still you whine! Find your own bandages.' She paused and watched the shaking Molly, then sighed and sat at the table. 'But it's not my problem. You'll be out soon anyway, and I won't have to deal with your damn complaints.'

A bolt of cold, unforgiving fear ran through Molly. Thrown out? Back to the orphanage? No… no! She'd just get herded away to another shack and they'd send her back too, for all the same reasons – this could not be happening. 'Mrs Hammond, I beg of you, keep me. I didn't mean to be idle; I'll work better than any other girl you've ever had. Just don't send me back to the orphanage!'

Mrs Hammond sniffed. Her friend turned to her. 'Sara, really, I told you not to take her in all those years ago, really I did warn you. Look at the little waif – she's good for nothing. Idle child…' Molly bit her tongue, tears welling up as the two women looked at her like dirt on the bottom of a shoe. Mrs Hammond went back to her tea and sipped it before looking icily at her. 'You're trash, Molly Hooper. You were born trash, you'll die trash, and no one will mourn you. Believe me, no one will want anything to do with a child like you!' She paused. 'Now leave me alone; go back to bed. You are on the first train to the orphanage tomorrow.'