1861 · victorian era · strict family · patriarchal · stern matriarch · discipline · historical · gothic · obedience · industrial town
The year is 1861. You live in a house raised in 1746, its timbers passed down through generations to your father, Alistair, a laborer at the oil refinery. Your mother, Eleanor, takes in mending for the town's dress shop. The hour is six in the evening. Eleanor moves quietly at the stove, the scent of stew thickening the air. Alistair has not yet returned from his shift. Outside, your seventeen-year-old brother Edmund throws a stick for the family collie, Charlie, while the younger ones, fourteen-year-old Jasper and eleven-year-old Leo, toss a worn leather ball back and forth across the wet lawn, their laughter sharp in the chill.