Seawall Orphanage
Seawall Orphanage was built by the original founding families one generation after the town’s founding. Its history is long and twisted, and changes in American law shut down the institution for several years. Stray cats are seen hanging around outside the house, and sometimes find their way in. The previous owner of the home tripped over a stray cat at the top of the stairs, falling to a tangled heap and their death. By the time the locals found the man, the stray cats had eaten his face.
Recently, the last living Toothakers, Mr. Toothaker and his sister Ms. Toothaker bought and partially renovated the estate after leaving their previous positions of caring for the Historic Grosse Manor. They live off of their retirement and are foster parents to any children on the island without legal parents, whether by death or by court order. The old Toothakers are often mistaken as husband and wife by those who do not know them, and both of them are very proud to count themselves as being from the lineage of the town’s founding families.
Mr. Toothaker studied dentistry when he was a young fellow, but never followed through or worked professionally. He is obsessed with the foster childrens’ dental hygiene, and has a “dentist room” set up behind a plastic curtain in the basement. Every Christmas, he leads the foster children door to door in town, singing carols to raise money for the maintenance of the orphanage estate.
Ms. Toothaker always smells like mothballs. She demands the foster children call her Mother or Mum. She is frequently found in the sitting room, where she keeps all of the furniture covered in plastic; when she has to reprimand a child, she summons them to this room. On the childrens’ birthdays, she gives them handmade dolls made from a variety of materials that she finds. On Christmas, she crochets ugly Christmas sweaters for the childrens’ most recent dolls. When she notices that a doll has gone missing, she acts very passive-aggressively, almost cruelly, towards the child who lost it.
The Toothakers require the children to eat dinner together as a family every night, and to share something they learned that day. If a child misses family dinner, they have to do laundry for the whole house, a long task that takes up most of the next day.
The stairs that lead up to the second and third floor have had fire doors installed on either end; opening the doors between the hours of midnight and 7AM trigger a blaring alarm in the house. The walls surrounding the stairs are lined with old photographs from the house’s days as an orphanage and later as a foster home, showing children from each year. Oddly, there are no photos for the years 1978 through 1982, and there is a rumor that those children went missing. Some people who live there claim to have seen a young, dark-haired girl “running between the photos”.
A pulley laundry dumbwaiter goes from the third floor all the way down to the basement, just large enough for a teenager to fit in. The basement itself is a dark, cobwebbed laundry room barren of anything else other than Mr. Toothaker’s “dentist room”. The washing and drying machines in the basement are incredibly loud and unsettling.
The four-foot tall crawl space at the top of the house is filled with old toys and a rotten wooden crib. On one end of the attic is a circular window with an ashtray next to it. If you can squeeze through the window, you are able to crawl out to the roof of the home.
The Toothakers’ bedroom, which they share, is off-limits and kept shut by seven sturdy locks requiring different keys. Nobody currently living in the orphanage has ever been in. Sometimes, faint piano music can be heard, trickling out from within the room even when the Toothakers are not present.
Recently, the last living Toothakers, Mr. Toothaker and his sister Ms. Toothaker bought and partially renovated the estate after leaving their previous positions of caring for the Historic Grosse Manor. They live off of their retirement and are foster parents to any children on the island without legal parents, whether by death or by court order. The old Toothakers are often mistaken as husband and wife by those who do not know them, and both of them are very proud to count themselves as being from the lineage of the town’s founding families.
Mr. Toothaker studied dentistry when he was a young fellow, but never followed through or worked professionally. He is obsessed with the foster childrens’ dental hygiene, and has a “dentist room” set up behind a plastic curtain in the basement. Every Christmas, he leads the foster children door to door in town, singing carols to raise money for the maintenance of the orphanage estate.
Ms. Toothaker always smells like mothballs. She demands the foster children call her Mother or Mum. She is frequently found in the sitting room, where she keeps all of the furniture covered in plastic; when she has to reprimand a child, she summons them to this room. On the childrens’ birthdays, she gives them handmade dolls made from a variety of materials that she finds. On Christmas, she crochets ugly Christmas sweaters for the childrens’ most recent dolls. When she notices that a doll has gone missing, she acts very passive-aggressively, almost cruelly, towards the child who lost it.
The Toothakers require the children to eat dinner together as a family every night, and to share something they learned that day. If a child misses family dinner, they have to do laundry for the whole house, a long task that takes up most of the next day.
Locations Within the Orphanage
The interior of the orphanage is curious, and its halls almost seem to change, so easy is it to get lost in them. Children often find rooms that they have never been in before, or that were previously locked. The house has five claw-foot bathtubs, but only one shower on its third floor. Hot water only works reliably in the home between 3-5pm, and quickly runs out. The Toothakers’ running joke to the children is, “Well, you can always use the hose in the yard to clean up.”The stairs that lead up to the second and third floor have had fire doors installed on either end; opening the doors between the hours of midnight and 7AM trigger a blaring alarm in the house. The walls surrounding the stairs are lined with old photographs from the house’s days as an orphanage and later as a foster home, showing children from each year. Oddly, there are no photos for the years 1978 through 1982, and there is a rumor that those children went missing. Some people who live there claim to have seen a young, dark-haired girl “running between the photos”.
A pulley laundry dumbwaiter goes from the third floor all the way down to the basement, just large enough for a teenager to fit in. The basement itself is a dark, cobwebbed laundry room barren of anything else other than Mr. Toothaker’s “dentist room”. The washing and drying machines in the basement are incredibly loud and unsettling.
The four-foot tall crawl space at the top of the house is filled with old toys and a rotten wooden crib. On one end of the attic is a circular window with an ashtray next to it. If you can squeeze through the window, you are able to crawl out to the roof of the home.
The Toothakers’ bedroom, which they share, is off-limits and kept shut by seven sturdy locks requiring different keys. Nobody currently living in the orphanage has ever been in. Sometimes, faint piano music can be heard, trickling out from within the room even when the Toothakers are not present.
The Foster Childrens’ Rooms
Merrill Grosse and Jacob Prince have shared a room since Merrill’s arrival six months ago. Gigi Binks and Wren have shared a room for six years, since Wren's arrival. Jae Hopkins and Staley are each lucky enough to have individual rooms, a fact which causes some friction with the other children living at the orphanage.
Type
Orphanage
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