Chapter 801

Lily couldn’t help but let out a sharp hiss as she heard the details. Theresa nodded along, “Yes it wasn’t a good time. Her back has recovered remarkably well and the mental scars have... largely been moved past I think... but it took a long time for her to be able to move comfortably. I had to rub ointment on her back every night for... oh it might have been a year or more...”

Theresa let out a long sigh. “It was hard for her to connect with the other children when she came. Not being able to play really didn’t help and the fact she couldn’t really assist with the chores only made things worse. It did get better eventually but well... it was a rough start for Zuhra. Once she got better though...

“Instead of playing with the children she’d follow me around. It was adorable to see her following me around. She’d even try to help with whatever I was doing... usually to minimal success. Really it was only thanks to another girl, her name is Marem, that she started to hang out with the other children. Marem was... I think she was ten or eleven at the time? She also lost her family to fire, though with significantly less injury to herself. They bonded quite well. In fact I think Zuhra still visits her from time to time.

“Marem’s married now, to a lovely man who works as a calculator. Very smart and I’ve heard they are quite happy together. If there’s anything else you need to know about Zuhra you should probably ask Marem. Though... I can’t remember exactly where she’s moved to... I know I was told on one of her visits back here... but... for the life of me I can’t quite remember the address. Perhaps it will come to me.”

“Anyway. That was how Zuhra came to us and how she gained friends. I suppose... the next big moment is something you probably know about if you know anything about her... but... well... no I suppose I can put it off for a bit. Pick a topic that isn’t quite so depressing. Hmm... do you know about the other building? Where we house the older individuals?” Seeing a set of nods Theresa continued, “Right well... I lightly encourage the children to look into jobs at twelve, more heavily encourage it at thirteen and by fourteen I really push for them to find apprenticeships or odd jobs of their own.

“It... it’s not the best system I admit, but we’re running into budget cuts but I’m sure you don’t want to hear me rant about those-”

“Actually I DO in fact want to hear about those!” announced Lily.

.....

Theresa paused and turned her full attention towards Lily. “Well, they aren’t really relevant but... well with that sort of enthusiasm I can’t decline. The truth is, starting with my predecessors predecessor the orphanage has been hit with budget cuts somewhat regularly. Now a lot of them are somewhat disguised, but that’s simply what they are.

“The first was when the Lord of the 8th ‘reassigned’ one of the workers here to help elsewhere. That might have been fine but... when the person was reassigned, the pay for that position was dropped from the donations because ‘they aren’t working at the orphanage anymore’ which was a bit annoying but that’s fine. We could make do by having the older children step up a bit more.

“Then following on from that was another large cut. It was for that secondary house, the older kids. We used to have one full time worker for it and one part time worker, as well as money for some of the kids to do extra work around it like cooking and cleaning. That was all cut because ‘times were a bit tough this year’ and we had no choice but to go along with it.

“The next year though, the baron said ‘the children are doing such a wonderful job with it themselves I don’t really need to help anymore’ and that was another large cut. That was all and all...about a third of our funding. We had a big meeting with the older kids, the orphanage staff and the previous matron and discussed what to do going forward. The older kids volunteered to work for themselves to help with the younger kids and we agreed.

“Then in my tenure, once again, the Lord came, but this time he had ‘a deal’ and it was ‘well money is a bit of an issue but we can give you a field to do with as you wish in exchange’ and my oh my I was angry. Still, I grit my teeth and tried to sweet talk him into retracted the idea but we were pretty much pressured into it.

“So now I don’t really operate an orphanage. I run a small farm AND an orphanage where I pay my workers by selling the extra food we manage to grow. Sadly, we don’t actually pay them particularly good rates and I worry that it won’t be viable long term... but at least the children won’t starve.”

“That’s... not ideal...” said Kat slowly.

“Isn’t there anything you can do?” asked Lily.

Theresa shrugged, “Honestly the current hope is that whoever takes over the 8th next will offer us a better deal. The 8th of the 10th has always taken care of orphans and prided themselves on that care. The fact the current Lord doesn’t share that pride... well it’s an issue but things would have to get really quite bad for any of the other Numbers to step in. Frankly if it got to that point... I don’t know what would happen or if they’d be able to react fast enough.

“The Numbers won’t want to step on any toes until there are children starving to death and frankly I’d rather it be my own death that comes before I let it get that bad. I’m currently looking for options to alleviate the issue but frankly there’s not much time for me to be looking into it. The biggest asset we have is the farm land, which I managed to get signed over to my name and then my title, not the orphanage so the bastard can’t take it away, but frankly you can grow just about anything in this city. So we don’t really have much of a benefit there...”

*Wait... is that way Zuhra is working for Jara? To try and help the orphanage? Maybe come up with a good crop for them to sell? I feel like that’s something Jara would have mentioned if she knew...* Kat bit her lip and nodded. “Thank you for telling me. I can make sure that information gets back to the 3rd and the 6th if you want?” offered Kat.

Theresa took a large bite of her sandwich and chewed on both it and the question for a few moments. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt. I don’t expect much, or rather, I expect they already know in at least some capacity. Perhaps not the details... but enough to know the orphanage is struggling a bit. Perhaps the 8th is blaming it on me but I wouldn’t count on it...

“Anyway... how did we get here? Ah yes. Zuhra. See, Zuhra was always quite good at her chores. When it was time to move into the other building, Zuhra asked if she could work here for money. As you know from my rant, we did not, and still don’t have the money for extra staff. Still, even when I explained this to her, Zuhra insisted and I caved. She has the most expressive emerald eyes and I just couldn’t deny her request.

“So she started working here for the orphanage. She mostly filled in more background roles. She did interact with the kids sometimes but it wasn’t what she preferred. She’d go through and make the beds, wipe down the tables, things like that. I on the other hand would do what I can for her. I actually planned to skim a bit off my own pay for to give to her... when I remembered that I don’t get paid anymore.”

Kat and Lily’s eyes went wide, but Theresa waved them off, “Oh don’t look so shocked. I did say we weren’t having the best time of things. Technically speaking I do get paid, because if I wasn’t we’d be breaking a few laws even if I am the boss, but I then go on to donate all my money back into the orphanage. It’s been completely automatic for a long time so it sort of slipped my mind at the time.

“So instead I offered her lessons. I taught her how to sew, and how to cook more advanced things than the standard we try to make sure all the kids know. I taught her how to butcher a cow and tan leather. I asked Marem and her husband for a favour and Marem taught her to read and write while her husband taught her numbers. It was the best I could do for the work, but the others in the older kid’s building didn’t mind because she did all the cooking for dinner and breakfast.

“Which I guess leads us to the final thing. Her fiancé.”