~Swamped~
When a person learns by feeling, you cannot reason your way out from the swamp.
Sweeney knew this better than anyone. So did the baker.
Both were governed by their own chain of reasoning. Reasoning that was feeling. It was their own strange reasoning, all the same.
"It's another day," Nellie said, sitting by the window sill with her nightgown wrapped around her. "But it's different…somethin's gone."
There were blood spots on the bed.
She felt her neck, where he'd marked her with the blade.
Sweeney kept a pace away from her, his bare form revealed under the moon.
She didn't dare look at him, now that the deed was done.
"It's been a long time… for us both. There is no shame, my pet."
At last, his words dragged her out of the swamp.
She looked at him sharply, unravelling her arms from her body. The moon cast a carousel of dust mites around them both. "What about Lucy?"
"The memories are drowning... let me forget, Eleanor," he began, reaching once more for the barber and her wax-like skin.
* * *