<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/5/5a/Agatha-avi.jpg) </div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Agatha Dunwich<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Unknown<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 1st, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Morning<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Gomorra Orphanage<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Delores Mayberry, Matty, Closed<br/><hr/><br/>“Why do you torture yourself dear?  My decision is final.”  Delores Mayberry stared down her pointed nose at the woman standing before her while the woman’s Indian servant brought in a load of books for the children.  The woman insisted that the man was her employee, but really he was a redskin, nobody paid them and if they did it was in food or alcohol.  It wasn’t proper when there were other good folk around that could use the money.  It only reinforced the decision in her mind.  Agatha was a nice girl.  Smart as a whip and maybe to smart.  Her parents should have dumbed her down some, maybe she would have been married like a proper woman and this wouldn’t be so hard on her.  No matter how much she liked the girl for the time she spends reading and teaching the children, she was a spinster and was known for keeping strange company and having ties to those crazy Collegium folk.  No, as nice as she was, it was up to Delores to find good homes for these young’ins and Agatha Dunwich was not mother material of that she was sure<br/><br/>“Yes, I am quite aware that you consider me ill fit to raise a child,” Agatha replied stiffly.  “That does not change the fact that Matty and the other children shouldn’t know their letter and numbers and I have the time, so...” She left the rest hanging with a shrug.<br/><br/>Delores Mayberry wouldn’t be able to argue that fact, being an old schoolmarm herself.  Delores was prim and proper and everything a young boy or girl hated in a teacher.  It wasn’t that she didn’t care, Agatha knew that wasn’t true, but she was a stern and disciplined woman and she ran a stern and disciplined orphanage.  Delores looked at Agatha over her owl-eyed spectacles, her pinched features pinchy-er with dubiety.   Behind the two women and completely engrossed in a strange puzzle filled with whirling and twirling thing-a-magigers and whats-a-mahoosits was a girl of around eight years old.  She had ragged and wild brown hair that she blew out of her face every minute or so when he interrupted her concentration.  She twisted a dial here to match a shape there.  She had already solved the first two puzzles and when she did the box would whirl and click and change into a new puzzle for her and she would give a little whoop of success.   The little joy in her voice made Agatha smile and Delores frown.<br/><br/>“You shouldn’t fill her mind with wild notions Miss. Dunwich,” Agatha could swear the woman stressed the Miss a bit more than necessary.  “She knows her letters and her numbers, what she needs now is to know how to cook and mend and take care of a home.”  It was Agatha’s turn to frown.   Matilda was different.  She reminded Agatha of herself at that age.  She had a brilliant and inquisitive little mind.  She asked thoughtful questions and listened to the answers.  She had a head for puzzles and mathematics and gobbled up the lessons Agatha had presented her.  Agatha had come to look forward to her visits to the orphanage as she knew Matty would be waiting for her with completed lessons in hand and a million questions on her lips.  It was months before Agatha had approached Delores with the idea of adopting Matty and she had been crushed when the old schoolmarm had turned her down.  It hadn’t stopped Agatha from visiting and bringing lessons, but each time it brought a deep ache and she left with an urge to drink herself to sleep that night to make the hurt go away.<br/><br/>Agatha ignored Delores’s concern and instead made her an offer.  “I want Matty to come work for me.  Two day a week to start.” She said and held up a hand to stall Delores before she could speak. “I will pay her a good wage for her time and an equal wage will go to the orphanage.”   Agatha knew that it would be an offer that Delores could not refuse.  The orphanage may have been paid for by the Whateley’s but it was by no means rich and there was no shortage of new orphans in Gomorra.  “If she works out I will make it four days a week and she will be required to learn all of the rules of etiquette that you deem necessary for a proper young woman.  Is this acceptable?”<br/><br/>Agatha didn’t have to wait for the answer she already knew was coming, but she did.  Agatha had been raised as a proper young woman too, even if she wasn’t.  Delores acquiesced to the offer, though she did not like it one bit.<br/><br/>“I will go tell her.” Agatha was certain she was going to try to talk Matty out of it, but the cry of delight and look of abject happiness and disbelief on her face gave Agatha all of the answer she needed.<br/><br/>“Is it true?  I can come work with you?”  Matty asked wrapping little arms around Agatha’s hips and hugging tightly looking up water-filled emerald eyes that smiled down on her.<br/><br/>“Yes.” Agatha nodded fighting back tears that she felt needed to be hid from the pinchy faced schoolmarm.  “I will pick you up tomorrow, but you have to listen to everything Delores tells you to do and be a good girl.  Do you understand me?” She asked.<br/>Matty’s shaggy head bounced up and down grinning ear to ear.  They were a lot alike.<br/>