As the youngest Shelby child and twin to Finn Shelby, Kezia has spent the last 4 of her 10 years locked away for her mental defectiveness.
She returns to Small Heath under the legal guardianship of her brother, Thomas Shelby. Despite knowing she's s...
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Sorry for the short chapter. We're setting up the main coarse here, so things take time in the oven.
CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND FIVE
Despite not remembering her childhood, Angela was confident she had never been on a ship before.
But she had been on water. In something smaller and louder than the cargo ship she ended up on. On narrow waters and smog-heavy winds.
This trip would take about seven days. Madame said so. Angela and the girls were confined to the lowest passenger level on the ship. She shared a compartment with Alice and two others. Angela took the bottom bunk, closest to the door. She didn't like thinking that their compartment was technically under the ocean. Some of the girls were nervous to board, because of horror stories of ships sinking. There was a famous one, years ago, but Angela forgot the name of the ship.
"Can you put my luggage under your bed too?" Alice asked, taking off her coat. Her long brown skirt and deep red hair reminded Angela of Autumn. The season was beautiful in New York. She loved picking up fallen leaves to marvel at their subtle color shifts and dark veins. She even kept a few of her favorites in a blank journal she found one night in the club's lost-and-found.
Angela crouched down and lifted the white sheets of her bunkbed. And behind dust and clumps of fabric, there was a man's face.
Eyes blue like hers. But sadder somehow. Then, when those eyes foundAngela, his very soul lit up. Like she was the missing piece of him. He finally found her.
"Angela?"
Alice's sudden voice made Angela hit her head against the bedframe. The crown of her scalp scraped against the metal. The man was gone, and so was Angela's first real sense of belonging.
"You okay?" her friend asked, once Angela stood up.
"Fine."
But if Alice didn't believe her, she didn't show it. "Want to go get some food before they close up for the night?"
She should--she hadn't eaten since this morning, and it was already six o'clock. But the opium still swam in her system. When high, Angele could go a whole day without eating. Those were the best days. When she felt nothing but the feeling of floating.
"No," she finally decided, "I'm tired. Just going to go to sleep."
Alice smiled. "Sure. I'll bring you back something just in case you wake up hungry."
Angela watched her friend and the other girls leave. The creaking of the ship was more noticeable without them here.
She closed her eyes and was met with the man again. Sharp cheekbones and cropped black hair. In a gray suit and black wool jacket. He didn't look like any of the men Angela had ever seen before. He was too distinguished to be in a gentleman's club. Women likely threw themselves at their feet to just have themselves seen by them... But Angela didn't want him in that way. Just the inclination made her stomach tighten with nausea.
Strange.
Did she know him? From before?
Like trying to remember a dream, Angela's thoughts ran quicker than she could catch them. If the man was important, surely she'd see him again.
She looked down at her hands. Her palms were cracked and dry. No amount of lotion could help her. Madame said it was because of the water. That Angela's skin was used to different water--but Angela had no clue what that meant. But she did know that she was not from New York. Despite being familiar with crowds and cramped streets and heavy smog from industry. New York was not where she was from. And Angele learned there were many cites in the world. Hundreds just in America... But her accent told a different story, she always forgot she spoke differently than the other girls; they had a bite to their speech--confident and strong and unbothered. Angela's was delicate, but also slightly illiterate, if she believed Madame.
Maybe she belonged to London.
Angela laid her throbbing head against the cheap pillow. She had seven days on this ship. The longest amount of time she'd not be with a customer. There would be time to think. To even remember, if that was something she wanted to do.
But if the man with blue eyes showed her anything, it was that her memories would come whether she wanted them to or not. She just hoped her memories were good... But even that was a hollow wish. No one ended up working as a whore because of good memories.
Angela sighed and rolled over to face the wall. The sooner she could turn her brain off for the night, the more time she would have tomorrow to do all this thinking. And her biggest saving grace was that she never, ever remembered dreaming.
No memories or ghosts would come knocking tonight.
Author's Note:
Anyone catch that little nod/flashback to Kizzie and Tommy's reunion in the mental hospital?
Who remembers what used to happen to Kizzie when she dreamed? 👀 Hint, hint, wink, wink.
