Trinity Prologue

"Utterly distasteful," Kris muttered looking over the front page article in The Clarion as she drank her morning coffee. Resentfully she pushed the newspaper away, Mallory put down her cup of green tea picking up the paper and looking over the article her spouse had been reading.

        It was a picture of two girls in the uniforms of St.Mary's of the Hidden Cloth both looking victorious and holding what appeared to be a nuns habit. Mallory wondered what Kris was upset about then she read the headline "Outed at St.Mary's."

        Mallory's heart sank as she read through the body of the piece. "Oh those poor girls, such a thing to be forced into the world like this, do you think they'll be alright?" Kris shrugged as she looked out the window. "I really don't know Lory, Lilith's parents already withdrew her and sent her to some finishing school in Europe." Kris sighed and reflexively reached for a cigarette that wasn't there, filthy habit even though it had worked to settle her nerves, but she'd quit for Mallory, it had been one of her sticking points before she's said yes.

        Kris took another drink of coffee, "Now its just Trinity, alone."

Mallory fussed with her tea cup shaking the leaves around in the bottom. "She doesn't have have anyone?" Mallory asked, her heart really went out to the poor girl "No family?". Kris shook her head, "She was a foundling, so no she has nobody."

Mallory continued to swirl the remians in her cup, Kris knew well she couldn't read anything from the leaves, but it made her happy to watch Mallory attempt to devine something from the scraps.

Mallory sat the cup down, "I think we need to be there for her Kris." Kris smiled "The leaves tell you that Lory?" Mallory blushed a little "Kinda," she muttered as she reached across the table and gripped Kris's free hand, "She's hurting Kristina, the leaves aren't saying it but I feel that girl is hurting and she needs, something." Kris entwined her fimgers with Mallory's "You believe that we can offer that something, Mallory?" Mallory nodded, "Yes Kristina, I do." Kris smiled she never grew tired of hearing those words from her, delivered with such assurance.

Kris released Mallory's hand and reached into her school blazer and pulled out an envelope. "Then I'll need your signature on these papers, Mrs.Mason."

        Trinity stood outside the gates of Saint Mary's of The Hidden Cloth, her mimd still a turbulent storm of emotions some familiar mixing with new and frightening omes. She was gone now she's left the week before so she heard as they had been forbidden from seeing each other after their tryst. She smiled a little at the thought, that had been Lilith's word for their late night excursions, what had been for years late night studies in the school library over a case had recently turned into something more. Rembering those nights caused emotions to clash like the hammer in the chapel bell. Such deep love now paired with such loss at Lilith's absence now in her life. And cresting above it all a great man-of-war in that sea of emotion was confusion. For the great Trinity Peregrino the child sleuth, the schoolgirl investigator, was without a single clue as to why she'd been forced away from Lilith and forced out of the only home she'd ever known.

        Not since the day she'd first spied that mislaid volume of the Accords of St.Paula in Brother Sebastian's quarters and had inquired to the Mother Superior why he had them when she knew that was not part of his field of study.

        Mother Superior had asked her how she knew this and Trinity had remarked how it was quite obvious due his rosary indicated him to be a member of the Blue Rose and their chapter rejected the use of the Accords in their studies and sermons. Mother Superior had ask Trinity,"how a little girl like her knew all this?" and she replied "Why I read it in the library of course.", and the Mother Superior just smiled at her and led the little snoop back to her dormitory and made her promise not to go off alone. Little Trinity had promised, which was when young Lilith had entered the picture becoming the childs eager companion to sneaking about in those early years often corralled by the Mother Superior when they were caught looking into things Trinity thought was "funny". Trinity always told Mother Superior what she was looking into and she'd always listened to Little Trinity and Lilith the two "nosey children that should mind their own business." Trinity felt another pang of loss remembering those early years her, Lil and Mother Superior, she'd never knew why Mother Superior had left later.

        She and Lilith had been nine when Mother Superior left and Abbess Crowley took her place. Crowley respected the efforts that Trinity and Lilith had undertaken these past few years but demanded more order to the girls actions "and no more of this skulking about." She had told the girls, "you are going to carry out your work in the light of day or not do it at all." Where Mother Superior had been about the information Abbess Crowley was about the procedure, keeping the girls from getting too reckless. Trinity scoffed at the notion that Mother Superior would ever have put them in harms way or allowed any harm to befall them, especially after these latest evemts under Abbess Crowley, yet where was she when her girls needed her the most, gone. Leaving thirteen year old Trinity alone and afriad. So Trinity stood there awaiting her fate and holding back tears as she accepted her fate and her new family, the Masons.

        Kris chewed furiously on the wad of gum in her cheek begrudging the promise to quit smoking, slightly. She cursed herself at allowing these events to have escalated to this point and hurt her girls. She thought of the habit In her closet and mentally glared at it. As much as she loved Mallory these events that had transpired over these last few weeks had left her feeling ashamed at leaving Trinity and Lilith alone and not watching after them more than she had. She thought that maybe she could have done something to prevent all this, but she knew better. There were shadowy forces at work Kris could feel it, but dealing with that would have to wait, Trinity came first.

        As Kris approached the drive to St.Mary's her heart was racing and her mind tinged with worry, would she accept her, would she hold a grudge. She froze just in sight of the gate, and Trinity. She'd aged so much these last few years, the pictures she had kept from The Clarion had done little to prepare Kris for this moment. Trinity stood there clutching a bulging suitcase in her hands. Kris had already set a place on their mantle for a few of the trophies she knew Trinity had in that bag. Trinity should and would be proud of those accomplishments, they would make sure of it. Kris took a slow breath and slowly crept the sedan up the rest of the long drive she'd not taken in five years.