The Magic Well

Crooked Spine Alley was not listed on any of Bree-town's maps, and for good reason. It was an interstitial space, a geographical wound where the wealthier merchant quarter ended and the neglected, sprawling tenements began. It ran parallel to the main thoroughfare, but its reality was a universe apart: perpetually choked with grey dust or slick with black runoff, depending on the weather. The atmosphere was a heavy blend of damp, cold stone and the smell of human desperation—unwashed clothes, week-old refuse, and the faint, bitter scent of cheap pipe-weed.

Emma Barnweed waited in the kitchen of the orphanage. She expected Iris to arrive soon. Her colleague was still upstairs putting the last of the children in bed. In the meantime, Emma prepared a potato dish with the little time that was left. Iris worked only in the orphanage for about two years. Far less than Emma, that’s for sure. Nonetheless, Iris and Emma didn’t get to know each other well in that time. Was it really because they didn’t get the chance?