𝑩𝒖𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒖𝒑 | ᴊᴀᴍᴇs ᴘᴏᴛᴛᴇʀ

1 | 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 - 𝐈𝐈

"𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑖𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑜 𝑠𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑒
𝑊ℎ𝑦 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑜 𝑎𝑓𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑑?"

𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐚 , 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐣𝐨𝐞𝐥

It was a quiet morning, the sound of the morning birds filling the air as badgers and other wildlife returned to their homes to rest until nightfall. St Agnus orphanage was stationed in the middle of a rather forgotten part of town, despite the school being in relatively good condition, the houses and businesses which surrounded it, tended to be rather run down and poorly kept. Nature had begun to take hold of many buildings with uncontrolled vines climbing steadily along the outdoor walls, wildflowers and weeds spread across the rows of front gardens lining the street and cracks in the poorly tarred roads were home to nests of ants and termites.

From the outside, St Agnus did not appear to be anything less than a home for children who had been handed an unfortunate start to life. On the inside, it was anything but.

The house was silent, not a creak could be heard from anywhere in the building with every head filled with dreams and every body wrapped warmly in blankets.

All except one.

With the smell of cheap bacon and slightly burned bread filling the orphanage, a small cry of pain could be heard coming from the kitchen. The oil sizzling in the small black frying pan had spat out at a small girl attempting to cook breakfast for the children of St Agnus' and had slightly burned the hand holding the pan. Though burning herself was nothing new, it had happened so many times Aria was unsure if the nerves in her hands were still intact, it still hurt the young girl.

Sighing and lightly rubbing the newly burned wrist, Aria opened the refrigerator, took out the carton of eggs, and began cracking all twelve dozen into the small measuring jugs she had laid out. The eleven-year-old turned and grabbed a small fork from a kitchen cabinet and began to whisk many eggs into the right consistency to make scrambled eggs.

Breakfast was her favourite thing to cook when the house was quiet enough so that Aria was left alone with only the thoughts and ideas racing through her mind to keep her company. She preferred it that way.

The kitchen was the one area of the orphanage where Aria spent most of her time, preparing meals for the 30 children and matron. The room itself was very run-down. Holes of all shapes and sizes littered the roof and walls, causing many leeks over the years which Aria would be forced to fix as best as she could. The once pristine, white marble flooring was now covered in moss and mold, infecting and spreading until the tiles had turned a light grey.

Being very early in the morning, the mid-summer sun had only just begun to peek through the cracked glass panes of the kitchen window, sunbeams visibly laying on the overgrown grass of the back garden which the kitchen window overlooked. The remains of outdoor play from the night previous still lingered, the discarded toys left lying on the grass and one lone baby sock lay forgotten just outside the back door.

A gentle thud sounded from behind the girl who had been so lost in her head that she hadn't noticed the tiny hand reaching up to grab the fork teetering over the edge of the kitchen cabinet. Aria jumped and twirled around, spotting the fork thief instantly.

There, sitting on the slightly chipped island counter, was a small brunette girl dressed in lightly ragged sleepwear. Her blue eyes held remnants of sleep and a tiny tattered brown teddy bear, one of which Aria had seen the young girl carry around with her in the past.

The child's name was Evelyn.

Aria had known her since the day she had been left at the front door of the orphanage by the girls' mother four years prior. The, then seven-year-old Aria, had been the person to discover the newborn baby when she had been taking out the leftovers of dinner for the stray animals of the street to take. It had been a bitterly cold winter night and a thin layer of snow had been covering the ground.