♟Pieces of Darkness♟

♟Introduction♟

                                                                                                                                                               ♞♘♞♘

I'd been involved in relations with the Phantomhive family all my life. After all, I am Lord Ciel Phanomhive's distant cousin and despite our 4 year age gap, we used to be fond playmates when he was a child. But that was long before the mansion was set ablaze, before his parents were murdered....before life was hell on earth for my cousin.

I haven't seen Ciel in years...not since the fire anyway. My father took us to the America's where I helped my family with our printing press, a weekly journal. I became quickly fond of writing and loved every second of my life there in Bosten. I even had a small section of the paper that I could put my poetry and short stories in. Mother disapproved of my book learning, I used to write or read at all times. I am sure she wished I was more like my younger sister Marta, who was prim, proper, and otherwise (in my eyes) a prude little housekeeper.

But my father was a kind man. He let me work along side him deep into the night hours. Sometimes chores would get in the way and we wouldn't have enough issues printed for the next morning, so father and I would stay up till almost 4 in the morning, printing, fingers black with ink from the press. I'd help him find the mispelled type and rearrange them in the correct order. Was quite a job and I usually fell asleep on the floor beside it, come time to close shop, whatever time that was.

My life felt perfect, I corresponded with Ciel often and he spoke of "Lizzie", our cousin to whom he'd been betrothed to since birth, explaining to me that she was "entergetic yet annoying to the extent of utter attraction". I missed Lizzie, she often played with us as children and was the same age as Ciel.

But despite my life feeling quite put together, the summer of my 16th birthday, our shop and unpstairs appartment, burnt to the ground, with my family inside....father, mother, and Marta all perishing in the flames. I mourned thier loss, being the only one that was able to escape. I felt guilty, and in some ways, still do, for being the one that survived. I had book knowledge....alot of it, but as far as that went, it isn't exactly a practise that a woman was expected to have. I had no chance of a young marraige, perhaps it was because I had no knowledge of housekeeping or child care. I never gave thought to having mother teach me....and if I did, it was always to have her not teach me. Of course I was stubborn at a young age, but the only job I could find was being a maid or prostituting myself in the taverns, but I more dignity and pride than to do that to myself or to my family's memory. I spent alot of my time with a neighbor as I mourned, but after several long months, I was left to no choice but to send Ciel a letter. That letter ruined my chances of being an American, it went againt my own father's wishes of our family being independant workers in the United States. But Ciel was my only hope....

And so, my story begins.