Chapter 1: the Escape
The man, who I figured to be Mr. Todd, held on to my collar. His knife was high in the air, and soon it would be in my throat. And it almost had looked like I was free. I breathed hard, thinking each one was going to be my last.
Then a shriek came. His grip loosened on me, and I ran from the shop.
I didn't move for a bit, i just stared at the dark sky, amazed that I was still alive. I tried to get my thoughts in order. Anthony took me here in sailors clothing, promised that we would be free, and he left. Then that woman came, and I hid in the trunk that was there. Then a man came in, and the woman was talking nonsense to him, then I heard Judge Turpin's voice. The woman seemed to cease to exist, and now I figured that Mr. Todd had killed her. Then he told the Judge that I was at his neighbor's house, and had him sit down for a shave. Then he started speaking to the Judge in a strange tone of voice, talking about a prisoner, and then the Judge had said something I hadn't heard, and then Mr. Todd had yelled "Benjamin Barker!" and i heard choking noises, and a knife hitting something hard. Then I heard the door slam, and thinking he was gone, I came out. But he came back, and thought me a man, and almost killed me.
Benjamin Barker. That was my father. The Judge had told me that he was a vile man that he had shipped away for doing an awful deed, and my mother had refused to allow help from him and had poisoned herself. Did that mean...? I looked at the portrait that was sitting near the mirror. It was a blonde woman, holding a plump baby and a tall handsome man with his hand on her shoulder. The baby looked a lot like the portraits that were of me in my infant days at the Judge's. Was Mr. Todd my father? I wasn't able to think about this thought for long though.
You could hear noises from down below. I could hear a woman and a man arguing about something, the man's voice getting louder and angrier, and then there was a howl, and the man started yelling.
"Lucy! Oh my God!" was about all I could catch, then deciding that I needed to get out of here and find Anthony. I ran down the street, right into someone's arms. I looked up to find Anthony staring down at me with a puzzled expression that turned to horror.
"Johanna, what happened?" he asked.
"N-n-n-noth-th-thing," I squeaked. I knew he wouldn't be fooled, but I had to try.
"Johanna, you're shaking like a leaf. What happened? Did someone try to call the Beadle?"
"N-n-n-no." Was all I could muster. "Mis-s-st-tt-ter To-od," Get a hold of yourself, stop stuttering! You've lived with madmen for the past two months! You can pull through this! I took a deep breath. "Mister Todd killed the Judge and a woman, and he almost killed me." Anthony's brow furrowed.
"Mister Todd? Are you sure he wasn't someone else?"
"Anthony! Does it even matter if it was Todd? Someone just killed two people! And I don't care if the Beadle's at Old Bailey, we have to tell someone!" I shrieked, dragging him to the carriage. Anthony just stared ahead, opening and closing his mouth, and his eyes looked like they were going to bug out of his head.
"Mister Todd?" he squeaked. Obviously I was going to be the one talking when we got to old Bailey.
When we got there, I jumped out of the carriage, before Anthony could stop me. I knew that Mr. Todd was a good friend of his, but, if it had turned out that Anthony was a mass murderer I would have turned him in. It wasn't that I was grieving the Judge, it was just that if Mr. Todd had killed him there was a good chance he killed other people.
"I need to speak to Beadle Bamford. Now!" I yelled. The two policemen looked at me.
"I'm sorry sir. The Beadle's been called away at business over some chimney in Fleet Street that smelled like rotting corpses. Probably stopped by the brothel on his way out." They both looked at each other and laughed."Oh! Sorry sir! I forgot you was here, and that you didn't know about the Beadle's likeness for women. But is it that surprising?" They took my face paling for me being surprised at their talk of the Beadle.
Rotting corpses. He was burning his victims! I remembered that awful smell too. Well, I could guess why the Beadle wasn't back, and it wasn't the brothels.
"Then can you go with me and my mate? There's urgent business at the same place. I believe Mr. Sweeney Todd is responsible for murder!" I cried! Men! Why wouldn't they just listen to me?
"All right sir. I'm trusting you have a carriage? That you didn't run here from Fleet Street?" I nodded and they followed me.
Then my hat fell off.
I froze, feeling my hair fall from the top of my head down my shoulders. I could hear the thoughts going in the policemens heads. I reached down and picked it up, smiling apologetically at them, hoping that they wouldn't recognize me. No such luck.
"Johanna Barker!" They gasped. "What are you doing? Dressed in sailors clothes? Oh, we've got to get you back to the Judge, we-"
"SHUT UP!" I screamed. "NO, we are NOT going back to the Judge, because first off, he's DEAD! Second off, the whole reason why I dressed in these clothes is to get away from him! Let's just GO already!" I ran into the carriage, with the men nervously following.
Anthony still hadn't recovered, his face was pale, and his mouth kept moving and stumbling over words. The policemen recognized him too. Damn. Why can't they have the dolts during the night shift?
"Wait, aren't you the one who tried to-" the man looked at both of us, and then got the picture, that we were eloping, and that they might as well be quiet.
"We should check the bakehouse, because I think that he's burning the bodies there." Everyone nodded, and we all ran down the little shaft that went down.
Well, I rather expected to see rotting bodies, blood, perhaps rats and bones, and Sweeney would be there, and would be hauling the Judge into the fire.
Instead, I saw an oven door tightly shut with a ghostly hand print on it, the Judge's body reaching for something, two bodies hugging each other, and a boy standing there with a bloody razor in his hand. I screamed and grabbed on to Anthony.
"Oh! Sirs, your not allowed down here! Me mistress don't like no one down here," he started bumbling nonsense. I looked closer at the bodies, and I realized they were the woman and Mr. Todd. Cold filled me. I wanted this night to be over.
"She looks kind of like you," Anthony whispered. Well, that proved it. I remembered his cry that I heard. "Lucy!" he had said.
"I was the daughter of a murderer. Like that says anything I thought. You killed that Fogg man. Well, he was a bad man. He said to the Judge that if we were good we would get a sweety, but good in his book was if we let him touch us and take off our clothes and- no, I wasn't going to think about that. Not that he had ever done it to me.
"You can go, sir and miss." One of the policemen said. we gladly took off. Now was the night I had been waiting for. Our wedding night.
Whew! Thank God thats finished!