Disclaimer: Nope, still don't have anything to do with even the concept of Jekyll and Hyde, except my mad obsession with it. And no, Mary Reilly doesn't belong to me either, I borrowed her from Valerie Martin's novel and the movie. But Kieran is mine! So I don't want to see him popping up in any other o' them fanfics, savvy?

Chapter Three: Punishment



I stood there, staring up at the blackening sky for a while, generally puttin' every curse I knew upon Mr. Poole an' his kin, half expectin' to hear a bloodcurdling scream comin' from his general direction. After a while at this, I got some sense back into me head and went to the house to see what Mr. Poole had cooked up for me to do.

It wasn't so bad, I mean, it coulda been worse. I was to chop some wood for the fires, help Miss Mary Reilly with cleaning the grates an' startin' the fires, an' do whatever else Cook could find for me to do. An' of course, I was to have the enormous courtyard scrubbed spotless by mornin'. Aye. 'Twas gonna be a long night.

It was hard work, choppin' wood. I mostly just thought of what I could be doing at this moment--reading in the library. True, Dr Jekyll didn't have many books that I could truly understand, as he was a man of science, but he did have a few shelves of history books, and poetry.

Helpin' Mary wasn't bad at all. She was my closest friend in this place, and we talked as much as we could. What about didn't matter much, just so long as we got to talk. She was a fair bit older than me, bein' in her early twenties, but that didn't matter either. We got along well and were good friends. So right, helpin' her wasn't so much a punishment, an' it was nice to yap with her for the rest o' the afternoon n' evening. I even helped her polish some silver pieces, it wasn't too hard, and it was fun to see our reflections in the shiny metals. I hadn't seen me own reflection for quite a while, and gave meself a start. My dark, chestnut colored hair stuck out in all directions, I was whiter than a piece o' parchment from Dr. Jekyll's books, an' my dark blue eyes shone like crystal. Scariest thing I ever saw.

Cook didn't give me anythin' else to do, I reckon Mr. Poole had told her about my grand punishment, so she let me off easy. Still, it was already ten o' clock and pourin' rain by the time I got outside to the yard.

I dreaded this. The water I had to use was ice cold, and the water pourin' down on me was almost as bad as snow, what with the wind whippin' around as well. I didn't have a cloak or nothin' to protect me from the rain, although I doubt it would've been much help anyway. So basically I spent the night on me hands and knees, scrubbin' every flagstone of that courtyard til it fair sparkled, if such a thing is possible. An' after a while, I didn't even notice or care what I was doin' anymore. 'Twas too cold and wet and late for me to focus on every little stone. I guess I sorta fell asleep while scrubbin'. At least, I don't remember much of that night.

Now, granted, I may have been cleanin' in my sleep, an' I'm a careful worker, but I ain't a slow one. It took me all night to clean that courtyard--from ten p.m. to 5 a.m., when I was s'posed to get up and start on with my daily duties anyway.

Those two days passed in a blur--what with the extra work, little sleep, and no food. And it wasn't no surprise to me when I started coughin' an' feelin' cold all the time. I figured it'd pass, y'know? I'd had me fair share of sickness, and it more or less'd pass on when it was done with me. I reckoned this wouldn't be no different.

I was wrong.