Off in one of the five boroughs of New York lived a girl with blue eyes and a freckled face by the name of "Brooklyn" after the city she lived in. A bit odd, but her mother saw it fit with her being first generation American and all. Currently she was sitting by the windowsill looking up at the night sky. She swore she could see a few stars up there, but it was hard to say for sure. However, she could hear voices coming from the streets below, and the clattering of crates that Twilight must've knocked over. That was the alley cat that lived by the tenement building. Sometimes she'd give her little scraps of food if she could. Occasionally Twilight would sneak through her bedroom window and spend the night indoors. She never minded this of course, she loved their company. She'd often spend the night talking to the cat as if she were human. It was a rather lonely life for her….Her father was practically a stranger nowadays, and her mother was always busy with making ends meet and keeping her father from having an outburst. She wasn't the friend making type, and a good majority of her school mates never really approached her unless it was necessary. Brooklyn spent most of her days either in school, going to work, running errands, or cooped up in her room.
Taking one last look at the night sky, Brooklyn returned to her bed and looked over to the empty one that was beside her own. With a heavy sigh she pulled out a jar that had beads of all kinds of colors. All broken in some way, and deemed unworthy to be sewed onto clothing. She had collected each and every one of them from her job as a seamstress at the dress shop she worked at with her mother. Although, she didn't do much sewing, and instead was given cleaning tasks or running errands. Anyways, she picked up a single bead that was slightly chipped where the hole was from the nightstand and placed it into the jar. She didn't dare count how many there were inside...in fact, she had quite a few jars filled with broken beads hidden under her bed. It would hurt too much knowing the exact amount of days since he left home. Her twin...the one person that actually understood her was gone. She held onto the fact that she would see him again, even if it was just a quick glimpse, at least she'd know he was alright. Though it's been years since he left, she still had a bit of hope inside. Taking one last look at the jars of beads she put them back where they belonged and blew out the candle before climbing under the covers. She wondered if this was all a dream and she was going to wake up at any given second. She'd wake up and her family would be a family again….but, deep down she knew that wasn't true. There was no chance of going back now. There's nothing she can do about it. The damage has been done. Point, blank, period.
Brooklyn closed her eyes and drifted off into a deep sleep, hoping that tomorrow would be a better day. It seemed like she only got two minutes of sleep when she heard the morning bell ringing in the distance. Without any grumbling or groaning she pulled herself out of bed once more and changed out of her nightgown and into some clothes. Brooklyn then grabbed the hairbrush and ran it through her sandy brown locks while trying to decide what she was going to do with it today. She could never get her hair to look the way she actually wanted. Eventually she decided on a braid since it was the easiest style there was. Once that was all set and done she gathered her school items and headed into the kitchen where her mother was busy scraping eggs onto the two plates that were on the table. Which only meant her father had already left for work early that day….though, that was the case for every other day of the week. With a little sigh Brooklyn walked to the table and quietly greeted her mother good morning.
"Morning to you too Brooklyn. Now eat up before it gets cold and hurry on over to school. You just might meet Jenny and Hailey on the way. That would be nice, right?" Mrs. Meyers replied with a quick, but warm smile before placing the iron pan back onto the cook stove.
"Yes Ma'am," was Brooklyn's reply. She took her place at the table and began eating the eggs and toast with a bit of jam spread on top. She didn't want to burden her mother by saying how dreadfully awful Jenny and Hailey were. She only knew the two girls because their mothers often have afternoon tea, forcing the three of them to spend time together. But, just like how Brooklyn held hope that her brother would return one day, she hoped that maybe Jenny and Hailey would have a change of heart….more or less.
"And don't forget to-"
"Pick up a newspaper on the way home," Brooklyn finished. Her life was like clockwork. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. Maybe a trip to the market if need be, but most of the grocery shopping happened on Saturdays. She finished off her breakfast and helped clean up before she headed to school. With books in one hand and the lunch pail in the other, Brooklyn made her usual morning walk to the school house.
It wasn't long before she approached the large brick building. She could already hear the sounds of some of her fellow classmates playing about. Some girls were rolling hoops or playing a game of hopscotch while the older boys appeared to be in the middle of their daily game of baseball. Brooklyn was never fond of the sport, mostly because she, and her items were often the victim of a wild ball. It was never on purpose of course, but she had her theories. And today happened to be one of those days. The ball came flying towards her, and naturally she ran off to the side, but tripped over a hoop that had been left on the ground and landed with a thud. Her books flew to the side and the lunch pail toppled over.
A course of "You ok Meyers?" rang through the air as Brooklyn slowly sat up. Instead of responding she gathered her books back into a neat pile, after making sure nothing had ripped of course, and then picked up the lunch pail. Luckily nothing had spilled out besides the apple, but even with a few bruises it would still taste just the same. She got up and dusted off her skirt, checking to see if there were any rips or tears just as the bell began to ring. Brooklyn made her way into the brick building and headed straight to her class room for another day of learning.
Brooklyn sat quietly at her desk and listened closely as the lessons went by. Every now and again she was called upon to answer a question. She did so, but her voice was barely audible and she was told to speak up. Brooklyn would answer just a little louder before plopping herself back into her seat with her head down. She absolutely hated answering questions. She'd much rather sit in her seat and do the work unnoticed. It was better that way….she couldn't get in any kind of trouble if that was the case. Unfortunately for her, that's not how it worked. That's not how anything in her life worked. The first half of the day seemed to go on forever.
When lunchtime finally came around all her classmates took their items in a hurry and ran outside. However, Brooklyn put her books inside the desk and picked up her lunch pail. She opened the cloth covering the top to see a sandwich cut into two slices, a red apple, and some gingerbread morsels her mother had baked the previous night. With a little smile after seeing what was in the pail, Brooklyn took one half of the sandwich and began nibbling on it, savoring the salty taste of the ham and the smoothness of the swiss cheese. The only sound was the shuffling of paper from the teacher and a boy cleaning the blackboard. But when he was done he took his things and ran out of the room without another word.
"Miss Meyers," the teacher spoke up. "Are you sure you don't want to go outside? It's a beautiful day you know."
"I'm sure Miss Noel," Brooklyn replied before taking another bite out of her sandwich while idly swinging her feet back and forth. "I like it better here. It's quiet." and she couldn't get hit with a wild baseball. But Miss Noel didn't need to know that part. She was used to getting minor injuries every now and again. Yet, she still went about life with the smallest bit of happiness in her step.
When the school day finally ended, Brooklyn walked her usual route to work, with her school books tucked under her arm, and newspaper in the lunch pail. She went about her walk, minding her own business when suddenly a boy burst out from the alleyway and onto the ground, he scrambled up onto his feet, and looked like he was about to yell something when he noticed her presence.
"A-are you alright?" Brooklyn asked quietly as she took in his features to determine if he was a threat or not.
"Oh, yeah, I's fine," he replied to her as he dusted off his clothes. "Perfectly fine! Not out in the street where I's coulda got trampled on!" he added while glaring into the alleyway. He then turned back to her and smiled...while also examining her closely.
She could easily tell he wasn't from well...Brooklyn from just the sound of his accent. Though the awkwardness between them was what really gave her a funny feeling. "Well….I'll just be goin' then…." and with that Brooklyn scurried past the strange boy without another word. As she ran away she could barely make out two new voices yelling at the strange boy who probably didn't know which way was which. How Brooklyn figured this was because his cap sat backwards on his head.
Author's note
Welcome to the start of Brooklyn's Bridges. A spin-off from my Feister series. Usually I'm not the kind to write prologues, but in this case it works. As this story goes along you'll see why Brooklyn is stand offish, and why she acted the way she did in past stories...more or less. Not to worry because later on there will be some (pre) Alblyn content. I say pre because some detours had to be taken since the ship sailed in morden AU time. No I didn't think anything through at the time because all I wanted was for the ship to be completely different from Meister, but did not expect the turns it took. The one condition was that it wasn't another slow burn. Plus I had a few small explanations to myself why it happened so quickly, which isn't important because if we go down the rabbit hole of "Crystal's random headcanons for her ships" then we'd be here forever. So getting back on track, all that's coming in later chapters, right now it's just Brooklyn. Updates are actually every Friday since everything is in fact prewritten. I don't own anything newsies, except for OCs. Hope you enjoyed and I'll see you next week!
P.S. if you want, feel free to guess who the "strange boy" and the "two other voices" are. (hint, Mush ain't any of the answers).