chapter one :delilah
"In the land of gods andmonsters I was an angel."
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Birmingham
April 1908THE GIRL LOOKED LIKE AN ANGEL AS SHE WALKED through the smog laden streets of Birmingham donned in a fine white gown of satin and lace that fluttered about her lightly tanned legs in the spring breeze; the faint rays of golden sunlight that were able to break through the thick covering of heavy gray clouds seeming to shine on her and her alone, illuminating her strawberry colored locks and giving the faint glow of what almost seemed to be a halo around her head. Her sapphire colored eyes sparkled in excitement, and if you looked closely enough a slight bit of sadness, at the prospect of starting a new life, in a new city, with new people that were not her parents.
She smiled kindly at everyone she passed saying hello to a few people, not because she knew them; she didn't know anyone in Birmingham having just arrived on a train from Liverpool nearly an hour before, but just to acknowledge them as if seeing an acquaintance while out on a midday stroll.
The smile never left her lips as she waltzed through the city at an unhurried pace, taking in the sights and the people, seeming to completely be ignoring the fact that she was a beautiful young woman left unattended in a city not known for having the best of reputations that she had little to no knowledge of. Even now, a few lecherous men on a smoke break from their factory jobs watched her a bit too closely as she stopped to give a homeless woman with two scrawny children huddled into her side on a street corner a few spare coins she had fished out of her handbag.
Turning away from the little family, the girl continued on her path, looking for any indication that she was nearing her destination - 12 Watery Lane; she had taken the train into the borough of Small Heath and when her cousins, Liam and Declan on her fathers side, had failed to turn up after an hour of waiting she figured they had either gotten her arrival day wrong or something more important had come up.
As she continued down a street called Garrison Lane lost in her own thoughts about seeing her family that she hadn't had the pleasure of seeing since she was just a babe, she gave a startled cry as she collided with the slender body of a girl that had rounded a corner quicker than she was able to process through her scattered thoughts, sending them both to the ground.
"Watch where you're going, eh?" scowled the girl as she began gathering up the produce she had been carrying in a basket.
As she hurried to help right the girls basket of goods she looked the her over. She was young, a few years younger than her seventeen years, with long dark hair pulled away from her face revealing lovely blue eyes that held irritation at the unexpected collision and a light dusting of freckles along the bridge of her nose and cheeks that were slightly flushed from the fall.
"I'm sorry," she said with an embarrassed little smile, "I get lost in my head sometimes. My mother used to joke that it was my one flaw."
Once everything was returned to the basket she helped the girl up as she picked up the carpet bag she'd been carrying with her. She watched as the younger girl gave her a critical once over, the hard look on her face lessening.
"You ain't from around here, are you?" she asked in a lilting brummie accent.
"How did you guess," she asked as she looked down at herself, trying determine what it was the brunette saw that gave her away so easily.
"Well for starters you look too nice, too clean; and if you were from here you would be scared shitless," the word startled the girl, someone so young and pretty shouldn't be using such coarse language, "that I might tell my brothers you all but tackled me in the street." She laughed slightly, looking all the more lovely with the little smirk playing along her thin pink lips as if she'd just told a joke only she was privy to.
"Delilah Sainte," the red head introduced herself. "You're right, I've just arrived from Liverpool today. I'm on my way to my grandmothers house, but it seems I've gotten myself lost while exploring."
Recognition passed over the younger girls face as she gave Delilah another once over.
"Sainte? So you're who all the fuss has been about? Mrs. Lilly's been going on and on about you for days. You'd think the bloody king was coming to Small Heath with the way she's been talking my mum and aunt Polly's ears off." Her smile was more warm this time, reaching her cool blue eyes.
Delilah laughed at that; she remembered her fathers stories about his little sister and how easily excitable she had always been.
"Come on then, your aunt should still be at my house; they sent me to market for things to make a pie. You can explain why all the apples are bruised since it was your fault," the girl winked cheekily as she looped an arm through Delilah's.
"I'm Ada by the way. Ada Shelby."
And with that they set off in the direction of Watery Lane.
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This is terrible I'm so sorry.
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