March 20th, 1846. I had the nightmare again.

This is how it always goes: I'm in the ballroom-the ballroom that never gets used. Dim light blazes from the lamps that are never lit. And it's so full of people that I feel I catch their sweat; they're dancing to a loud, monstrous harpsichord reverberating from nowhere, dressed in grotesque oversized masks and horned regalia, red lion manes. I can barely sift through them all; I'm exhausted; my head is throbbing and I'm sweating through my clothes. Shameful!

I see the familiar couch in a gap between bodies. When I push, an opening in the mass of satin-clad dancers breaks, and I fall onto cushions. Some nights I have a glass of drink in my hand.

Then I see him.

His hair is a darker grey here. I try to call after him: "Help! Get me out of here!" He approaches me, smiling, and for a moment I feel relief. I believe that he'll take me from the madness; soothe me as he tends to do. Only his smile evolves. He's smirking now, like there's some private joke, piercing me with his eyes. As I freeze in dumbfounded confusion, he lunges forward, hair carried by the force of his stride, and falls atop me as unseen hands clamp my wrists down from behind. Delirious, I can't tell what's happening, but I cry out in agony. All around, screeching, animalistic laughter pounds in my skull. This is amusement, to them.

Now I lie saturated with sweat, very awake. Tears, it seems, have come. I hear my breaths heaving as if from someone else.

Footsteps in the hall. The door to my room creaks open, and a held-aloft candle reveals him. The same face.

"Puss? I heard you cry out. Is everything all right?"

Feebly, I raise my bloodless head, uncomfortable in my sweaty puddle. I squeak "I had a bad dream."

"Oh. . ." His baritone purr always gets me. Kneeling at the side of my bed, he sets the candle on my side table. "Poor child. Do you want to cuddle? Will that make it better?" The velvet on his dressing gown shimmers darkly.

"I'm getting old for that, sir."

"Are you sure, poppet? Shall I leave the candle here? Oh, my poor girl. . ."

His pleading eyes communicate need. A metaphysical rumble seems to warn me. "Leave the candle," I whisper. "Now please, I know that bad dreams aren't real. I'll be all right." He leans down to kiss my forehead, the smell of stale bay rum; his day-old stubble grazes my tender skin. It feels divine. "I love you. Jesus loves you. I'll see you in the morning."

Now there's only the burning candle and the blackened room around me.

It's a coal-black London night, 1831. Honeyed yellow throws ample light down the streets, some in lamps, some in windows. Fleet Street appears dead, no human figure stirring outside, but candles burn where work needs to be done. Glancing out now and then, Nellie scours her counter with water obtained from the river, trying not to doze off. She is thirty-five and absolutely vivacious, hair silky strawberry-blonde and eyes great big pools of playful, gooey blue. Her doll-like, rounded features might be called sweet, but something in her manners hints at a peculiar undercurrent fueling her being. It makes the neighbors talk.

Click. SLAM. Nellie jolts; the bell at her front door jingles. Lucy's back from God-knows-where. She expects Lucy to silently proceed up to bed-dialogue has always been rare between them-but she hears sobbing. Nellie looks up at Lucy Barker. Hair disheveled, dress filthy, face red, and soulful eyes burned with tears, she whimpers and falls to her knees.

"Nellie!" she wails. "Oh my God, Nellie-"

Nellie sets her rag on the counter and comes round to Lucy. She puts her hands on her hips. "What is it, Lucy? Where did you get off to?"

"Nellie-" Her head in her hands. "The judge-the judge-the judge-"

Lucy heaves like a dying animal. Nellie stares, skeptical and incredulous. She raises her brow. "Oh Lawks. Don't tell me. Did he-"

"He had nothing on under his cape." Fighting the blaring noise and images of the last hour, Lucy meets Nellie's eyes, hers reddened and gushing. She shakes violently, lips trembling. "Oh Nellie, Nellie, you have to help me. I might get with child! What shall I do? Think of what everyone will say-so many people laughing at me-" As she reaches her arms up to Nellie, she lets out a deep, strong sob, hardly able to breathe.

"So it's true what they say about Irish girls." Nellie's expression does not change. "Thank the good Lord Benjamin ain't around to see this." Her sarcasm remains secret.

"Nellie, what are you about? I DIDN'T WANT IT!" Lucy's head falls back into her hands.

"Well, how was Judge Turpin supposed to know that? I wager he couldn't very well help himself. Why did you go to his bloody house in the first place? And in such a dress as makes you look like a bloody Siren?"

"I didn't want to be there, either! Bamford knocked on my door while you were sleeping; he told me Turpin wanted to apologize. I tried to say I couldn't go to him, but he pulled me by the arm and wouldn't let go!"

"Christ," remarks Nellie. "Well, anyway, what are you so worked up about? It's not like you had ought to lose."

"Ought to lose. . .?"

"You married Ben. You had a child. The deed is already done. And, Christ, what did you expect would happen after being so soft on Turpin? Don't think I didn't hear you all meek and quiet-like these past weeks, just egging those two on! And they kept sending you presents! Couldn't you see it only encouraged them? I'm sorry, Lucy, but this is your own failure."

Silence. Lucy keeps hiding her face, making no sound anymore. After Nellie goes back to polishing the counter, Lucy rises a little, her skin still burning. "My God, everyone on our street will know by tomorrow-" She begins pacing, lightheaded. Having been bred to defer, she easily falls into believing Nellie-I walked right into his trap, idiotically. I brought every bit of it on myself. Soon Nellie is concentrating on cleaning again, as if Lucy hadn't come in. In her peripheral vision, Nellie catches Lucy heading upstairs to where her baby girl is sleeping. Suddenly, at the first step, she turns back.

"Please take care of Johanna," Lucy stammers. And she is gone.

Nellie never believed Lucy deserved Benjamin.

Churning, dark, majestic Prussian blue carries the ship. Under a briny overcast, the piquant taste of the air, that air found only on the ocean and her shores, fills the heads of the crew of the H. M. S. Bountiful, bringing them to a clarity of sense and awareness that only the sea can bring. Every day, after sleep and work in the stifling cabins, it's still fresh.

Twenty-one-year-old Anthony, a midshipman, watches the movement of the water from the stern. Although the waves are peaking in sharp, rollicking foam, it's not dangerous; since they left the port it's been a slow day. They've left Australia for London. Anthony has found the landscape and climate of Australia decidedly frightening; being a bred Englishman, extreme heat tries even his faculties. Typically, in these southern-hemisphere waters, he doesn't wear a shirt. Sailors especially can get used to changing outward circumstances, and Anthony demonstrates this admirably, though he's still sweating to the point where his cheekbones and torso shimmer.

From afar, a piece of driftwood catches his eye. This is a common sight, especially off the coast of anywhere. When the waves subside, he sees more wood like it-and a raft. A sinking, broken mast. Anthony springs to his feet, alert. There's a man in rags clutching the raft as it tilts and rises with the waves.

"Oh God! He could die!" Clang! Clang! Clang! With the ringing of a bell, Anthony has his shipmates' attention. They steer towards the debris; Anthony gets a rope from a hook bolted to the deck. With some careful swelling and ebbing, the man in peril is in closer proximity; his facial features are beginning to emerge. Carefully watching, Anthony waits for the best moment, then throws an end of the rope out to the other man. "Take this!" he cries. Waters crash loudly all around the ship. Quickly, he ties the other end to the hook. "Thomas!" he calls. "Help me reel him in!" With prolonged exertion, panting and grunting, the stranger is saved, finally face-to-face before the sailors on the deck, soaking wet.

The stranger just breathes at first, detached, drinking in the fact of his salvation. He is much older than many of the crew of the Bountiful; heavy-set, brooding, with a menacing brow and eyes encircled in shadow. "God in Heaven," he sighs, "Thank you, boy." He looks up at Anthony, who seems to be the only one with interest in him. The sailor offers his hand, and the stranger takes it to hoist himself up. His is a great leathery hand; a fatherly hand peppered with coarse, blackish hairs. Anthony wonders how his skin could remain so pale after time in the south seas.

"May I ask the name of my preserver?"

"Anthony Hope, sir. And you are called-?"

He hesitates, trying to regain his bearings on reality. "Sweeney. Sweeney. . . Todd." His voice is a clear, ringing baritone. Anthony thinks he recognizes a hint of a London accent. Mr. Todd staggers to the steps leading up to the platform at the stern of the ship, exhausted, and throws a hand to his forehead. Anthony follows, fascinated. "May I sit by you?" he asks.

"By all means. Now. . . where is this ship headed?"

"To London, God willing, then after a week or so we leave again for the Mediterranean."

"London!" he exclaims. "Oh, Providence is kind!" Mr. Todd falls onto his back, looking at the clearing sky from the creaky wooden steps. He hasn't looked Anthony in the eye yet.

"You are from there, sir?"

"Yes. I've been-Wait. What year is it?"

"Eighteen forty-six. I reckon it'll be early spring when we return to England."

Mr. Todd groans. "Then-I've been from home fifteen years! My daughter-she must be a young lady now. I've missed her whole childhood!" He covers his face with his hands, cowering and trying not to weep. Anthony's heart is pierced-he feels like crying, too. "You have a family, Mr. Todd?"

"Yes. If you please, I don't want to talk about it."

"No problem, sir."

The captain calls Anthony away. Sweeney Todd remains drowned in the catharsis of his rescue, rejoicing to be going home, but mourning the lost years. Waste.

We lived peacefully enough together until I started bleeding. I was eleven at the time; the memory is branded like a scar. Cicatrized, that's the word. One morning I awoke to the unmistakable stench of blood underneath my coverlet. I threw it back to find my nightgown and bedclothes damp and saturated. Immediately, I screamed for him, convinced I was dying; falling apart from the inside. Why not the housekeeper or my governess, Carmilla? The housekeeper changes every few years, and I've never seen much of any of them. And my governess was a daily governess-she wouldn't come for some hours.

When he saw it, he calmly told me it was God punishing me for what Eve did in the Garden. "But," he added, "it also means you're becoming a woman." He gave a small smile after saying this, eyeing me in that same private-joke fashion from my nightmare.

Carmilla had something different to say. She begged me not to think of my bleeding as frightening or dirty. "Think of it as cleansing you. Think of it as dripping rubies. Everything in nature is beautiful, and this is no exception. It happens to all young ladies."

"Is that true?"

"Yes. And what's important is that it shows that you could have a child one day."

"What?" I gasped. "There might be a baby in me right now?!" I flushed, mortified.

"No, no, no," laughed Carmilla. She then clarified what would give me a child, making me swear to never tell anyone we'd had this conversation.

It's only recently that it's begun to hurt. At least I know when it's coming now. I haven't seen Carmilla since she left the household; I've thanked her mentally for showing me how to keep the blood from ruining my clothes.

I kept my word about the baby discussion, but Carmilla was sacked within the next month. I figure my guardian knew what sorts of things she was telling me, somehow. I've heard him nights outside my door, panting. Oftentimes he makes other sounds. Frustratingly, I can never show horror because I know he's watching me. And I can't refrain from self-exposure because he'd realize that I hear him. Sometimes, when this happens, I kneel at the foot of my bed and pray. Our Father which art in Heaven, etc, etc. Dear Lord, make him go away. Bring my mother to me.

Ah, yes. That reminds me. He isn't my father, obviously, or else he'd have to have himself arrested. My father, he says, was called Benjamin Barker, a felon transported to Australia for life. He fostered me because there was no one else to look after me. When I ask who my mother was, he invariably says "Some things are better left unsaid." He evades, which leaves me in unsettled pondering late at night sometimes. She must have died in gruesome circumstances; there's no other possibility (I tend to assume the worst so I'll never be disappointed.) I actually have something I know belonged to her, though: A pink and white satin reticule. On the outside, there is an embroidered name: L. McSweeney. If my mother's maiden name, it means I'm half-Irish, which I have no issues with, although my guardian dislikes the Irish. When Beadle Bamford or some other legal colleague of his is over, he tends to complain about the Irish "stealing our labor." I wonder if he even saw the embroidered name.

He's reading aloud to me:

"I will that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection."

It's from the Bible. When I was little he read fairy tales instead.

"But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved by childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."

Why does he say "sobriety" when he offered me whiskey just hours earlier at supper? Oh dear, I can't laugh. I can't smile. My façade will degenerate.

He closes his Bible (there's one kept in his room but not mine,) then looks at me, bedclothes over my small body, clothed in a muslin nightgown that I'm not sure is especially modest. You can see my stays through it.

"Will you read me the story of Rapunzel?" I plead. "Like you used to?"

"Rapunzel? Oh, of course. Anything for Puss." That's what he likes to call me instead of my name. He gets up from the chair he set next to my bed, much too small for him, and goes to my bookcase for the worn volume of children's stories. Then he begins reading the words I've practically memorized and always read in his voice. Because of the nightmare, I fear him-thanks to Carmilla, I have ideas about what he wants from me-but when he spoils me like this, voice low and tender, I feel like I'm in a heavenly chrysalis of protection. Maybe I do love him as a foster daughter should.

He's already finishing the story. It's easy to just think when he reads to me; to pretend I'm listening. Somehow my train of thought rarely stays with whatever he reads. He closes the book, puts it on my nightstand, and leans over me as he does every night he's home. "I love you," he whispers. "Jesus loves you. Beadle Bamford loves you."

"Beadle Bamford?" I don't speak to Beadle Bamford. Him I definitely dislike. When my guardian asks me to perform on the piano for him, he smiles at me with a rancid candor that rivals that of my guardian's smirk, and I feel penetrated. "What about my mamma and papa?" I add. "They love me too, right? Even if they're in heaven?"

"I'm your papa." Now, the scruffy kiss. This time he lingers a bit-his hand is on my shoulder-oh God, oh God, it's like the nightmare. He just heard me gasp. I'm trying to maintain a neutral expression. Oh Lord, he hasn't risen yet. I'm warm again, and he'll interpret it the wrong way. Is this it?

Apparently not. He says good night my dear, snuffs out my candle, and disappears.

I'm too horrified to sleep. Thank God Carmilla and I crossed paths-thanks to her, I can tell that there's something wrong behind my guardian's tenderness. When I started bleeding, he began to kiss me more than he did before. But I like it. But I hate him! It's so easy for him to keep me from remembering how bad he gets. The other day, I walked to church with him, arm-in-arm as he always bids me do. I put on my favorite gown, a light white lace with long sleeves puffed at the shoulders and a pink ribbon round the waist. It recalls the fashions of twenty years ago somewhat, but it looks far from stupid. My bonnet's ribbon is also pink. White netted gloves complete the look. When he saw that I was wearing this to church, he chided me because he thought I looked like "a woman of ill repute." This despite the unalterable fact that every piece of clothing I own came from him!

Bright moonbeams fall over me from the window. Looking at the moon at night makes me feel safe, even when my guardian doesn't. I like to think that the moon is my true guardian-that when I see her light, it means my mother is watching over me from beyond the grave. L. McSweeney. Johanna McSweeney Barker. I can't help softly crying at the thought. When he makes me feel threatened, only this belief can bring me a peaceful sleep.