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At last I can continue...
Lady Luck showed no wish to leave her cozy nest on the shelf, so we left her in the car. I knew Cindy wanted to talk more, and it would be easier for her out here. We walked toward the lighthouse in silence, and were leaning against the wall when Cindy spoke again.
"I guess I should be thankfull that it didn't take very long for Mother to die," she said in a voice that was barely above a wisper. "I don't know if it was her illness, or the cold, or not eating...she wouldn't go to the soup kitchen, she was too proud...but she let me go. She said I had to live, to beat the world at it's own game... Less then a week after we lost everythng, I came back from the soup kitchen, and when I got to the ally we were sleeping in, she was dead." She faltered, sounding as if she were about to cry. "I'll never forget seeing her then... Her hair was spread over the cobblestones, and it looked so wrong, I knew she was gone..." Now she was crying. "Her hair was jet black, like mine, but so long..." She stopped and stared out over the lake. I wished I had a handkerchief to give her.
When she finally spoke again, it was in a voice that was as cold and hard as ice. "The Durem city government provided cremation for dead paupers, and threw in a plastic bag for the ashes. What trouble I had to get them... But I did. I buried her ashes myself, on Father's grave, in the middle of the night. I dug with my bare hands untill I hit the coffin, and then I knew it was deep enough... The next morning I set off to what I'd heard of as the city of hope and furfilled dreams...Barton Town." She laughed humorlessly. "I'd have been better off going to the orphanage in Durem, but I had a bit too much of Mother's pride. Going to the soup kitchen when I was hungry was one thing, but going to the orphanage was quite another. And did I pay for my pride... I was able to ride in a farmer's cart to Barton. He felt sorry for me, and he knew a rich woman who bought his fruit, and she needed a maid. I thought what I'd heard was true, and that I had it made... I soon learned better. Madam Izan, as she insisted on being called, was one of the nastiest people I've ever met. She had me doing work that would have worn out an adult, and when I sprained my ankle on my third day with her, she fired me and refused to pay." She swallowed. "It was only then that I discovered that there was no soup kitchen in Barton, and no orphanage either. I came pretty close to freezing that first winter, but I made it. I had to do some really awful stuff, but I survived...but when spring came, I found myself in the same place as before. I stayed in that place for seven years, living on the streets, doing...horrid things...just because I couldn't give up. But it all paid off that day when I was fifteen." She wasn't looking at me any more. Instead she was staring out over the lake. "Winter was coming, and I didn't know how I was going to get through it again. I just counted myself lucky that I'd found an old newspaper to sleep on. I was luckier then I thought. When I unfolded it, I just happened to see an ad... GAIA 9 needed a janitor. It was crazy, but I wanted a real job. So the next morning I washed myself as best I could in the canal, and went to try to get it. I was even more lucky that they needed a janitor right then, and I was the first there, so I got the job." She looked at me again. "I know it dosn't sound like much, but..."
"But when you need a job, any will do," I finished for her. "I know. It's just...it's so hard to think of you as a street kid, and a janitor, and now you're..."
"I know. I'll get to that. But why don't we get on the road again first?"
We set off back to the car.