Morning. A peaceful time of day, one would usually think. There's no kids here, it's just me. Just me, the sun, a cup of tea, and a book. Monday or Tuesday, by Virginia Woolf. An excellent novel, one that I stole. It was just from the library, relax. They wouldn't even notice it was gone. They have so many books there, they won't notice if just one Virginia Woolf novel goes missing. It's my favourite one by her. It makes me happy, almost serene, in a way. It's always been one of my favourites.
No one should be stopping by today, so I have time. All the time in the world, actually. I'll be alone, it's quiet here, this is practically the perfect day!
Then I hear a knock on the door. You have got to be joking.
I get up and answer it. It's just a boy, a newsboy. He's a young one. Too skinny, too short. He gives me the paper, I pay, the usual routine. He isn't the usual one, so I'll have to ask Irene what happened to the other one. There's only one newsie that knows our neck of the city, and that's Oliver Morris. He's an older kid, yeah, but he's become one of Lizzie's..well, kids, basically. She takes him in whenever he gets sick, so I must assume that he's over at Elizabeth's house, until he gets better. However, the new kid, he seemed odd. He was quiet, a blondie. He looked like Irene's kid, strangely enough. Or not strangely, lord knows how many children she has. I had only ever met the one, the blonde boy, Thomas. He was a kind kid, he seemed quieter than his mother was, and that says something. Irene had always been quiet, and then that trait got passed on to Thomas. Plus her blonde hair. That was glaringly obvious.
The paper has nothing interesting in it today. The mobster and killer named Widow struck again last night, another murder, robbery. The usual night with Irene, as we would all say. She was rich, though you never could've guessed. She took leads from Al Capone. Her victims always had mysteriously signed flowers at their funerals, and if she ever hurt a child she'd pay for the hospitals, then send the kid to me. Almost always, the kid was an orphan. So I'd take over, take care of the child until they were old enough to work with Irene's gang. She was rich, she was kind, she was a bootlegger, mobster, and murderer. Men wanted her, and women feared her. Besides the Pinkerton men. They had always feared her. With good reason. She was deadly, if she didn't like you. She used poison, any means necessary to get rid of who she didn't like. The Pinkertons hated that, of course. A woman, who used everything and anything she had to create a hit list? She was practically their number one enemy. Well, she was their number one enemy. Not practically, she just..was. She was pure evil, frankly.
I respected that. A woman, just as me, in that position of power. She was power, she was beauty, she was the epitome of grace, for people that only saw her as that. The men, they loved her. Everyone else respected her, loved her, cherished her. The people in her gang-and Lizzie's-thought she was the most amazing thing that could have ever happened. For some, she was. She helped people, she would give some of them jobs. Hell, if she wasn't in, y'know, a gang, she would be an excellent candidate for any office. And if she had ever actually had any interest whatsoever about being in charge. The only reason she ran the gang was that she had inherited it, and she couldn't back down from it.
She fills my thoughts, sometimes. When I'm lonely in bed, at the wee hours of the morning. When I'm praying. She is not the god I pray to; no, rather, she is the devil. She is the temptress. The woman everyone sees is not the one I see. I almost see a reflection. Though she should be so lucky, to even look like me. She is the devil, the one where people worship the ground she walks upon. It is obvious, from the way that everyone looks at her. Besides that, she's a reclusive type, it is rare that anyone outside of *her* circle sees her anywhere. One could call it anxiety, or being shy. I call it fear and unwillingness to talk to people. She's a coward, just like her parents. Her husband isn't a coward, no, but we've had our fair share of affairs. He's not a good man. He's like my first fiance. He was a bad man. Jonathan is also a bad man, but in a different sense. He was as unclean in money as he was in blood. He was a trickster, a rightful bastard. He hurt Irene, he hurt *my* Irene. That was excuse enough for him and I to never speak again. Irene was a bitch in her own right, yes. But she had never hurt him. He didn't need to hurt her if she had never even laid a hand on him in the first place, no. He had simply wanted to hurt her. He is what scares me about the world, I believe. He is dangerous.
This day will continue rather mundanely, I suppose. Days like today always seem to. Nothing interesting ever goes on here. Nothing interesting happens, unless there's been some police hanging around. Usually undercover. Irene would take them in, flirt with them, play all her usual charms. They'd be found dead the next day. She had a way about her, I believe, that made these men wanting to do anything for her.
Of course, the world works differently for all of us.
ns 15.158.61.6da2
