~A SHORT WHILE LATER~

Lottie stood on the corner of Fleet Street, sweeping the cobblestone entrance to Mrs. Lovett's shop. Mr. Todd and Mrs. Lovett were inside, talking quietly. As she swept, Lottie watched people as they passed from across the street. She stopped sweeping when she saw a man and his daughter walking hand in hand, happily. She sighed and wondered what her father was like. Did she really resemble him as much as her mother always said? Who was he? What was he like? Would he have gone for walks with her each morning and smile and laugh with her? And a bigger, burning question that in her 21 years had never been answered to her: Why did he leave? Where did he go? Lottie continued sweeping.

LOTTIE: "In my life there are so many questions and answers that somehow seem wrong. In my life, there are times when I catch in the silence of a faraway song, and it sings of a world that I long to see, out of reach, just a whisper away, waiting for me. Does he know I'm alive? Do I know if he's real? Does he see what I saw, does he feel what I feel? In my life, I'm so very alone, now the love in my life disappears, find me now, find me here."

She stopped sweeping and rested her head on her hands against the broom stick, watching the man jump puddles with his daughter, her mother watching gleefully a couple of feet away. Inside, Mr. Todd sits alone, Mrs. Lovett had gone to find a chair for his shop. He looks out the window, contemplating what Lottie was doing, until he saw that she was watching a happy family. For a moment, he felt a twinge of sorrow and regret; Even though he had lost it all, he still had a wonderful, beautiful, loving family. Lottie had no such thing, save for the few months she lived with him and his wife fifteen years ago. He remembered the adorable seven year old French girl who, although she had a sadness about her, was so strong. And now what was she?

TODD: "Oh Lottie. You're such a lonely child, how pensive and sad you seem to be. Believe me, if it were in my power I'd fill each passing hour. How quiet is must be, I can see, with nobody for company." He got up from his seat and opened the door, calling her inside just because it bothered him to see her with nothing better to do than stand alone and watch the happiness of others.

"Lottie. Inside." he mumbled. She put her broom away and trotted up to the door.

"Sir?" she asked sheepishly.

"Hm?"

"Could I ask you something?"

"What?" he grunted, almost getting annoyed and impatient.

"Do you know what happened to my father?" there was a pause as he stopped to think. He did know, but he didn't know if she should know. "Who was he?"

"Not now." he simply muttered. But she persisted.

LOTTIE: "There's so little I know, that I'm longing to know of the child I was in a long time ago. There's so little you say, of the lives you have known, why you keep to yourself, why you're always alone. So dark, so dark and deep the secrets that you keep."

He couldn't lie to her and say he didn't know. She clearly knew he did.

LOTTIE: "In my life I had all that I wanted, you were loving and gentle and good." he figured she was talking about Lucy and himself when they took her in. "But sir, dear sir, in your eyes I am still like a child who was lost in a wood."

TODD: "No more words. No more words, it's a time that is dead. There are words that are better unheard, better unsaid."

LOTTIE: "In my life I'm no longer a child and I yearn for the truth that you know, of the years. Years ago."

TODD: "You will learn, truth is given by God to us all in our time, in our turn."

Suddenly, Mrs. Lovett walked in and Lottie sighed in disappointment, then Lottie grabbed her violin off the table and walked out the door.

"Alright then." Mrs. Lovett said, not bothering to want or care to know what had just happened.

Lottie walked briskly down the street, then around a corner onto another. She sat on a bench outside of a park and began to play. She played aimlessly and endlessly, and didn't stop until she heard someone calling her name.

"Lottie!" she stopped and turned in the direction of the voice. A boy just a year or two younger than her was walking towards her on the bench. She had no clue who he was and was about to ignore him until he stepped a little closer.

"Anthony!" she said, jumping up and flinging her arms around him. The boy returned the embrace. "You came back alright!"

"I did, and it was wonderful! You wouldn't believe what the rest of the world looks like. But how have you been? I haven't seen you for so long!"

"I've been good. I'm alright. Where are you heading to, anyway? You look lost." she said with a giggle, changing the conversation.

"Hyde Park. Would you mind helping me?"

"Not at all. May I walk with you?"

"Of course." the boy said. They walked towards the end of the street, talking about things they remembered from when they were younger, and how they used to be friends as children. They turned the corner and passed a large, mansion like house.

"Who's house is that?" Anthony stopped to ask Lottie. She was a little unprepared for the question, even though she knew who lived there.

"That's Judge Turpin's house, that is." she said with a choke. She didn't want to be here. "Would should keep going then, it looks like it's going to rain - "

"And who's that?" he asked, pointing up to the second story window, where a girl was crocheting miserably.

"That's Johanna. His ward."

"She's beautiful."

"That she is."

"How did you know? Do you know her?"

"She was practically my sister. A very long time ago though, she wouldn't remember me." Anthony was barely listening, he was too occupied with watching Johanna.

ANTHONY: "In my life she has burst like the music of angels, the light of the sun, and my life seems to stop as if something is over and something has scarcely begun." He turned to Lottie, who was very, very happy for her friend, but still sad. He had just gotten everything he wanted, and she had spent almost twenty two years waiting for what she wanted, and it still hadn't come. "Dear Lottie, you're the friend who has brought me here, thanks to you I am one with the gods and heaven is near!" Somehow, these words pierced through Lottie; she wished she could find happiness just like that. "And I soar through a world that is new that is free."

LOTTIE: "Every word that is said is a dagger in me. In my life, there's been no one like her anywhere, anywhere, where she is. If God asked, I'd be his." she said to herself, dreaming of her mother.

ANTHONY: "In my life there is someone who touches my life, waiting near."

LOTTIE: "Waiting here."