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by Jade Locksly

 

December 5^th, 1904. I remember that day better than I remember most things. It was cold, snowing, if I recall correctly, and I couldn’t wait one damn minute longer to leave that hell hole in Queens.

"You ready?"

The soft-spoken girl at the bottom of the stairs had a sweetness in her voice that was nearly painful for me to listen to. There was no getting around it: Sunset was nice. I’ll admit, I’m not one to say that often, but there was no doubt about it. She, was nice.

"Hold your damn horses, I’m comin’..."

Despite her niceness, I still felt it necessary to grumble. I trudged down the stairs of the Ravenswood lodging house, balancing all my belongings between my arms. Something made me pause momentarily in the middle. "I’m leavin’, if anyone cares." I waited, half hoping someone would bother to say goodbye. All I heard was silence, and eventually my own footsteps reaching the landing.

Sunset took a step in my direction. "Would you like some help with those?" Her sunny blonde hair swished in front of her face when she reached out to take my bag. She was smiling.

My eyes met hers. "I got it."

 

And so it began. The long trek to my new home. Greenwich Village.

I had spent most of my childhood in a dirty old girls’ home in Lower Manhattan. It wasn’t bad, really, but it wasn’t incredibly glamorous, either. Most of the other girls were cruel, self centered and greedy. It was typical for their sob stories to go something like, ‘Oh poor me, my mother loved my brother best. I couldn’t stand it anymore, I had to run away. The authorities found me and they brought me here. How will I ever survive?’. At least you knew your mother, you hateful bitch.

It was here that I learned to push my weight around to get what I wanted. Lie, steal, and lie s’more. After I got out, the streets didn’t teach me any different. As far as I knew, there was no other way to survive.

It had been nearly two years since I’d been to this area of Manhattan, and coming back to this place felt cold. Strange. Yet on some level it was oddly comforting, like a bird landing in a nest which is not his own, but none the less a nest, after sleeping in a cage for so many years.

 

Every once in a while, my eyes would rise from my trudging boots, and land upon the girl to my left. She didn’t hold the typical air of a newsgirl, Sunset. The hard features and tired gaze you would find in many veterans of our kind were not to be found in her. For a fleeting moment I almost envied her. Just for a moment, though.

"Almost there!" she turned and smiled at me again. Her teeth were perfect.

"Good. I’m freezin’ my ass off out here." I was glaring at those teeth as if I hated them just for being there, and not in my own mouth.

Sunset though, Sunset remained as jolly as Ol’ Saint goddamned Nick.

"Just take a left up here..." she sidestepped to avoid a small puddle in the street. "Rent’s free for now. I’m going to have to start asking for money eventually, but for a few months at least, it will be one less thing for you to worry about."

Free roof over my head? Sure as hell beats the alley, that’s for sure.

I nodded. "That’s uh... nice of ya.." Socially, I don’t have much of a way with words.

"I do ask that you help around the house. Clean up after yourself, and such. I may be housing you, but I’m most definitely not your mother."

She sure sounded like it, with that tone.

"No kiddin’?" Sometimes I forget that people don’t respond well to sarcasm. Sunset... she didn’t care.

"As far as food goes, you can eat on your own, or can chip in for trips to the market. That’s up to you."

Her pace quickened a bit as we neared our destination, and with my arms aching the way the were, it was hard to catch up. It would have been easier if I would have watched where I was going, but I refused to look around me. Not now. Too many old faces. Too many memories. Getting a room was all I cared about at this point. So on we went. Me, clutching my two small bags with frozen white knuckles, and Sunset, walking a step ahead of me, with her sunny blonde hair swishing in rhythm with her advancing feet.

The building was larger than I expected. Taller. I paused before following sunset up the front steps, just to stare upward. Sunset smiled at me and motioned for me to come on in.

That damn smile.

"This is it!" she said. "It’s not much, but it’s home."

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