Chapter Text
From the beginning, it had always been her and Mama. Maria had asked, of course, when she learned about reproduction, but she was satisfied with the answer of “He left when you were born. He’s not here anymore. It’s better off that way.” Regardless of where it had come from, she liked having the surname Gorey. It was funny, and it suited her better than Stevens.
Her earliest memory was of her dolls. While Mama was busy at the laboratory, she sat at the kitchen table, meticulously cutting the threads, examining the shapes of the cloth, and then sewing it back together. Between that and reading medical books, Maria was perfectly content to stay at home by herself much of the time. When Mama finally came home, she asked enthusiastically what had happened at work that day and listened closely as her mother told her about her grisly observations over dinner.
When Maria was seven, Courtney tried to enroll her at an academy for young ladies in the city, but she did not even last a week. She already knew how to read and write and had figured out basic arithmetic on her own, so instead she read a medical textbook she had brought with her or fidgeted with her favorite pair of scissors. The teacher yelled at her and hit her with a ruler for being “disrespectful” and the other students either ran away from her or giggled when she walked by with her book. She told her mother that she hated it so much she was going to get herself expelled on purpose, and was pulled out of school without issue.
From then on, Maria studied by herself. She liked it that way. At home there was no one who would call her “strange” or “difficult” or find her interests disturbing. Mama loved her, and there was never any doubt in Maria’s mind that she would become a coroner, just like her.
At age 13, she took the medical school entrance exam and passed with flying colors. It took considerable effort to convince the director to allow a teenage girl to attend, but Mama was there with her, and used the precedent she had set and the respect she had earned to secure Maria’s well-earned spot at the institution.
As much as she loved learning, going to school with men ten years older than her could be scary and annoying. The perfect solution to this came to her during a lecture on the history of medicine: she would sew a bird mask, to protect herself while doing lab work and keep people from talking to her. The effect was instant. People gasped and stared, but that was because she wanted them to. Maria surprised even herself with how confident she felt wearing it.
By age 15, she was able to work alongside her mother as an assistant. By age 17, she was an official employee of Scotland Yard.
Less than two decades into her life, Maria’s dream had already come true. She and Mama worked in the same room, doing the same job. They spent more time at work than their apartment, often only returning to eat a late dinner and sleep, but they both seemed happier than they had ever been. Maria was glad to take some of the burden off of Mama’s shoulders - now she didn’t have to worry about leaving her daughter at home alone, and wasn’t the only one making money. It seemed as though things would only continue to get better for the two of them as they gained more and more recognition in their work.
And then, on October 24, 1900, the foundations of Maria’s life shattered.