Prologue
Blackstone city, the poorest part of town, a cold winter evening 30 years ago:
Mae Tempest is a woman used to the sound of crying babies. After all, she has had nine so far in her tiny home. At the moment she has four, but all are currently sleeping and the haunting cries she now hears come from beyond her thin wooden door.
She sits there, waiting for the knock meant to alert her, and she looks at her darling boys, lined up in their tiny beds, sleeping soundly. She can’t help but wonder how she will manage if she is to take in another one. The small amount of money these people pay isn’t even enough to feed and clothe the baby for long.
“No more”. She whispers, as she shakes her head. She needs to do right by the ones she already has. “No more … I can’t do it”.
She knows has to be strong and turn this one away, no matter that it will break her heart doing so, no matter that she is possibly condemning the child to a far worse fate.
But the knock never sounds, however the soft crying continues and she is sure she isn’t imagining it. Slowly, ever so slowly, she gets up and walks to the door … the icy wind is slipping past its edges, trying to claim her small home. She releases the latch, opening the door, and gazing out.
Big fat snowflakes floats down from the heavens, coating everything in chaste white that will soon enough turn black, including the bassinet on her doorstep and the red-faced child within it, whose bare arms flails ineffectually at the cold, the unfairness and the bitterness of life.
Stepping out, Mae glances up and down the narrow little street, not even a streetlamp there to help her see, only faint light sneaking out from a window here and there. Not a soul to be seen, no one hurrying away. Whoever had left this babe on her front steps has made a very hasty retreat, but then this lowly act seldom has anyone staying in her company for long.
“Not even decent enough to leave any money”. She grumbles as she squats down, lifting the bassinet into her arms, and carries it, along with its precious cargo, into the protective shelter that waits inside. She sets it on the table and studies the little one, who continues to bellow indignantly.
The little blanket is too thin to provide any sort of actual warmth. Moving it aside, she sees that she has been brought a girl. The child is wearing no clothing, not even a diaper. By the looks of her, she is only a few hours old.
Life around here is neither kind nor safe for a girl. It would be kinder to leave her to perish.
Cradling the poor thing as though she is the most delicate porcelain, Mae Tempest eases into the rocking chair before the fireplace where a few lumps of coal releases heat insufficient to warm most of the room. But right here, close to it, there is a cosy warmth.
When she became a widow a little over three years ago, she needed a way to survive. A woman she knew had been telling everyone about how he way to make easy money was to take in the illegitimate offspring from the mistresses of the Alpha’s and Beta’s of the packs. Orphanages won’t take those conceived in sin, born of shame, the hybrids and the bastards. Neither will the workhouses. What is to be done with them when their very presence is a mark of disgrace ?
But she can no longer bring herself to cast aside the innocents after receiving the pay as many do, she has felt the karma hit and she has to make up for her mistakes … which is the reason she has four boys dependent on her. And now this little one.
She might not have much money, or many material things to offer the child, but she does have love and she prays it will be enough.
