The Girl With No Name

The Beginning

Every day of the year, children are born, so it wasn’t unnatural that a baby girl was born a chilly winter night. But this child was different. Her mother was furious that she had given birth to a child, but she didn’t want to hurt her. So, secretly, one night she left the child on the steps of a nearby orphanage and moved from that town to go somewhere far, far away. The people of the orphanage found the baby on their doorsteps and took her in, without question, for they were kind-hearted people. There was no explanation card in the basket they found her in. There was much gossip in the town the following weeks, with the mysterious disappearance of Maria Fire Forment and the baby girl who mysteriously had appeared on the orphanage’s doorsteps. Some people thought these two things were connected; others thought someone had kidnapped Maria, but didn’t want her baby. But nobody ever knew what had really happened, and when the baby girl was old enough to understand the things the town people said, they stopped talking about it.
   The orphanage named her Catherine, and this was a quick decision, because they hadn’t yet decide what her name could be when she asked them what her name was, and she was only three when she did so. The people of the orphanage quickly learned that she was a very smart girl, so they had to be very careful of what they said and did around her. When she was only five she could recite the multiplication table all the way to twelve times twelve, and at nine years old she could read books made for university. She was also wonderful with riddles, which is what made the people of the orphanage extra careful around her, for one wrong word, one mistake, and she’d probably find out the mystery that was wound around her life. Then she would set out to find out the answer to her life, for she was seeking adventure, and there would be no stopping her.
   This is her story.