<hr/><br/><div class="floatleft">(http://24.media.tumblr.com/a16483c2858f862945634d46b9ad41b9/tumblr_mh480oybdg1r64urio1_500.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Jaelyn Scot-Jones<br/><br/><strong>Faction:</strong>()<br/><br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 9th, 1876 (the day after Thommy Jones' funeral)<br/><br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>early morning<br/><br/><strong>Location:</strong>in her home (w/in the Mercantile & Trade)<br/><br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>open for observation only, NPC's - Whippersnappers / Albert<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Jaelyn lay in a bed, more soft and  billowy than any she’d ever known - her dead father’s bed  - and stared blindly up toward the ceiling.  There were no more tears in her.  At least not for the moment.   All there was was the weight of the past days, pressing in and pushing down.  And for one so thin limbed she felt heavy, heavy enough to sink into cotton and feathers deep enough to disappear.  It just refused to happen for her.<br/><br/>A heavy sigh would have to suffice for the time being, as she moved to sit up on the edge of the bed.  She felt cold, though it wasn’t so chilly as all that on this particular mesa morning.  Still, the heart of her was cold and lonely.  Lonely for the father she knew many years before.  Why?  It was all she wondered over the past three days, why had God brought her to this place.  Not just the physical place of Gomorra, but the metaphorical place of a heartache more bitter than sweet, a whole new hell.<br/><br/>John Malta, the Maze preacher, had somehow convinced her that coming to Gomorra was the right thing to do.  Not in so many words exactly, but he’d made her see it for herself until she believed it in her belly, just as she’d begun believing in his merciful God once again.<br/><br/>“Why?”  Eyes closed, fingers gripping the bedclothes, she implored the emptiness with a whisper.  It was the shortest prayer, a single word full of a multitude of questions.  Moments later, Jae found herself feeding life to the cook stove in the kitchen below.  She’d padded down in barefeet and a thin night dress, her state of undress nearly the farthest thing from her mind, a loose, thick braid down her back, hair still tousled from sleep.  Water for strong, hot tea was her goal, craving something to chase away the frost on her tender soul.<br/><br/>On the evening of her arrival at St Martin’s, she’d been given the nightdress along with drawers and stockings.  She was used to charity and accepted the used pieces gracefully.  Borrowing was a different matter, and though the good Mrs Smith put no timestamp on the mourning dress and slippers, Jaelyn had wondered off and on how to deal with the issue of clothing.  There were a few premade things in the store, basic and of coarse material but serviceable.  The problem was, she had no money to reimburse the register for them.  The fact that the store’s contents belonged entirely to her upon her father’s death somehow escaped the stunned orphan, so the dilemma would continue for a bit of time yet.<br/><br/>At the small dining table she settled with her cup, grateful for the bit of warmth it offered the icy fingers wrapped around it.  There was a vague notion of life outside the windows, namely the chatter and ruckus of children, their youthful tinny voices carrying lightly on the desert air.  They tended to congregate in a bunch on the raised porch at the front of the store, she noticed in her recent coming and goings, their short legs dangling when they took a break from running the streets or roughhousing and mostly keeping clear of the men who gathered on the longer side of the building.<br/><br/>Of a sudden, she smacked her chest as if to catch a breath there, or restart her heart.  A face pressed close to the window was shrouded in shadow, but the height of its startled wide eyes quickly told half its tale.  “You there!”  Residual fright made her voice crack like a thin whip.  She moved in a rush to catch the mini-interloper who was spurred on by his own fright.  Throwing open the door, she called after what was clearly a mop headed boy still young enough for short pants skedaddling down the street.  “You, boy!  Come back here.”<br/><br/><br/>Several small faces leaned to peer at her from their front porch perches.  “He’ll be back, Missus.”  One of them chimed.  Then another voice added, “Yeah, that just Albert.  We tol’ im curiosity kills the cats.  And kitties, too.”  The head nodded sagely.  Then another piped in, decidedly female, though there was no telling by her clothes, and gently defensive on behalf of the recent escapee.  “He’s been missin’ Mr Thommy - yer daddy - sumthin fierce.  So i guess the curious got the better of ‘im.  Din’t mean no harm, Miss Jones.”<br/><br/>