Waiting For Sunrise - The Books Of Beginning AU

1. Eviction

It was over.

For over ten years, Kate had been fighting to keep a roof over her younger siblings' heads. She had begged for second chances, argued to keep them from being split up, and even lied to keep Michael and Emma out of trouble. She took care of them herself, so that the greedy adults they so often found themselves in the care of didn't see them as a burden. They had been in a dozen orphanages, all across the East Coast, and every time they displeased one, Kate made sure there was another they were being sent to. It had been an exhausting and thankless job, but it had to be done for their survival. Carrying that burden was far better than the alternative, and she had always feared the day when they could fight no longer.

That day was today.

It had all happened so fast, Kate still wasn't sure of all the details. Truth be told, there were a million little indiscretions that Mrs. Crumley, the cruel, magic-hating, orphanage matron, would be delighted to use as an excuse to throw them out for. Kate and her siblings had loathed Mrs. Crumley, and vice versa, ever since they met her a year and a half ago. She hadn't wanted them there, but her husband, Mr. Crumley, had accepted them to the orphanage so they were forced to coexist. Until last December, that was, when Mr. Crumley died from illness, and his bitter widow made it her mission to turn the children's existence into a living hell.

Mrs. Crumley was strict, cruel, greedy, and out of all the children, it was Kate, Michael, and Emma she hated the most. Nothing filled Kate with anger as much as the gleeful look on that horrid woman's face when she threw the three children out with only a single worn suitcase of meager possessions, as well as a small satchel that Michael always kept with him, as resources.

How could someone send three children with nowhere to go out onto the streets? How could someone be so awful? Kate was absolutely disgusted, though she hid her repulsion. There were more important things to deal with then her anger, she kept reminding herself.

"Are you going to ask what happened?" Michael, the middle of the three siblings, just two weeks away from turning thirteen, questioned tentatively. He and his sisters were sitting on the step of a grocer's, a block away from their former orphanage. They had yet to discuss all that had occurred.

"No," Kate replied, with patience well beyond her fifteen years, "I know that whatever happened is not your fault. Mrs. Crumley has always despised us, she would have found a reason to throw us out no matter how well behaved we acted."

And wasn't that the truth. It really didn't matter if the last straw had been Emma's crude jokes, or propensity for pranks, arguing, and starting fist-fights, or if it was Michael slacking on his chores because he was engrossed in a book, or even one of them being caught using magic. Though the last option was far more concerning, simply because of the anti-magic sentiment that had been sweeping through the city the last few years. There were many in Baltimore who had made that clear, and Mrs. Crumley was one of the loudest, hating the magical with every fiber of her being, and refusing to co-exist in peace. That was one of the reason she despised Kate, Michael, and Emma, because she suspected they had magic running through their veins.

They did, of course. But that was no reason to hate someone, and anyone who thought of someone as inhuman just because they were born a certain way, was, as Emma often said, 'a prejudiced asshole'.

Of course, no matter how wrong Mrs. Crumley and her opinions were, however, they held power over the three children's situation. That was a horrible thing, but it was also just one of many harsh facts in life. 

"Do you think she would take us back if we apologized?" Michael asked wearily. All the years of moving around, being lonely and bullied, only being able to rely on his sisters, were evident in his voice.