Growing Pains

London did not make itself an easy city to love; Christina knew that better than most. Keeping her eyes fixed to the cobbles underfoot she forced herself to ignore the flood of people crowding into the streets, focusing on her path instead. The in between ran across the bridges of London. It was the area where the nobility ventured out, wanting to gawk at the poor worthless people who fell into the wrong side of London.

Pulling the rim of her hat lower over her eyes she shrugged past the well dressed nobility, slipping into the maze of narrow alleyways and filthy terraces. Sidestepping the beggars who huddled in doorways with outstretched palms she gripped onto her collar, hiding behind the discoloured leather. Here was where the unsavoury were kept out of  sight, laws set out by men like Christina’s father forbidding those ‘of less than pleasing appearance’…