Now and then she remembered being fed, or given a drink, or opening her eyes to darkness and seeing Toby curled up next to her.
But the rest was black, her dreams and nightmares.
"Is this it? What is this place?"
Nellie thought she heard Mara's voice (why was that girl still plaguing her mind?), but when she came out of her haze she was still in the wagon, so it couldn't be. She turned over and allowed herself to drift again.
"She's here." Toby's voice now. "But she's always asleep, I can't get her to do much else. Not since I brought her here."
"Hm. I'll see to that."
Nellie was suddenly slapped in the face.
"Wake up, mum! I see you stirring in here."
She tried to shoo the hands away, but Mara grabbed her and turned her onto her back. A few more slaps, leaving her cheeks with a stinging numbness. "Is this where you've been all this time? Do you know how long I've been trying to find you?"
Nellie didn't respond, staring at the blurry form above her.
"Mr. Todd made us leave the shop, and we couldn't find you…" said Mara. "And after I heard him yelling at you, I thought he might have…"
Hearing her speak of Sweeney made Nellie's eyes finally open entirely. It was real, wasn't it? Him and what they'd done, who'd they done it to, it wasn't just a horrid mashed-together premise spewn from her subconscious. Her senses finally came into being, like they'd been holding their breath.
"I had to leave," said Nellie, her voice so weak she barely heard it herself. "Mr. Todd and I, we're…" How could she explain what they were? It seemed foolish to try. "He has his Johanna now, he cares little for me."
"And so you're here, because Mr. Todd rejected you?" Mara had opened the coat fronts over Nellie's stomach to expose her dress. "I think you've grown."
Nellie lifted her head, unable to see over her girth, and sighed heavily.
"Whatever your problems with Mr. Todd you can't stay here and have the baby on the streets." Mara seemed to be speaking more to the womb as she ran her hand over it affectionately. "Wallowing in your despair won't do any good."
"I'm not wallowing!" Nellie said with a sudden harshness, like she was in pain, causing Mara to jerk away from her.
"Whatever you want to call it, then," the girl said in agitation. "I just came to help the baby, not you."
Clunks and shifts came in repetition from outside; Toby was digging a hole with one of the ragged beings, though for what purpose no one could say. Mara sat and rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. "Mum, the more set you become in your ways, the worse your ways get."
"Hm," Nellie grunted.
"You've been lying to me all along."
She thought Mara meant in general and didn't react, but the girl had specific grievances on her mind.
"Mrs. Smith told me you knew my mother, that you were with her when I was born. Why did you tell me you found me abandoned?"
"I told you you were abandoned, nothing more," said Nellie. "Your mother couldn't care for you, and Mrs. Smith practically threw you at me. What good was telling you?" Mara turned away from her, but Nellie couldn't tell if it was in anger or despair. "None of it matters, child, didn't I care for you when no one else would?"
The girl still didn't respond as she began crawling back out of the wagon.
"But why-" Mara stopped at the threshold a beat longer than she'd meant to. "Why did it happen above the shop?"
Nellie paused as she watched her girl in near disbelief. She hadn't figured it out? "Because, it's where… they lived."
Mara had an odd stiff manner about her, and Nellie wondered if she was trying to fool herself. The girl was calm as she turned, but hysteria was threatening her eyes.
"Why should I trust you now, mother? All I've ever known from you are lies."
"What are you going on about?"
"Mr. Todd…" Mara's throat hitched. "He wants a family for Johanna. He wants me as his wife, and I accepted-"
"You silly, stupid girl!" Nellie forced herself to sit up, ignoring the pain in her spine. "And you came looking for me, to disprove he's your father? Well, I can't do that, Mara, because it's true." Nellie now wished the girl had discovered the truth earlier, had hated her for it, and had never forgiven her, for this was worse.
"You're lying!" Mara shot back.
"You don't want this, I know you don't." Had Sweeney threatened the girl into this hysteria, or did she truly lust for him?
"You can't stop me," said Mara, maybe as a question.
"No, I can't, and I'm glad. You're a silly, stupid, wicked, vile girl." Nellie hissed out insulting adjectives as she tried to move forward, but her joints and muscles were too stiff from her time spent comatose, and the baby kept her nearly rooted to the spot. Mara watched her with a pained look on her face.
"I'm not going to tell Mr. Todd where you are."
"Good," said Nellie.
"I'll leave you now."
"Right."
"I won't look for you again."
"Fine, I won't wait."
Mara left the wagon and marched away from the ditch, skirts swinging purposely, down the alley and out of sight. Toby watched her with interest, meant to step back but fell into his half-foot hole, and then hurried up to Nellie's side. "You're not going to go with her, mum?"
"No, I'm not wanted."
Toby frowned as he hooked Nellie's coats back up. "Why don't you come out for a bit?"
"I don't think I can." Nellie tried to lie back down but Toby caught her.
"No no, mum, come on." He sat her up, straighter than she'd managed before, and her back muscles pulled with a shock of pain.
"Good God, Toby!" But she couldn't free herself from him, so she grabbed him back to keep either of them from moving.
"Mum, let off!"
Nellie ignored him and looked out, where the feature-less form of the beggar continued to dig. She still wasn't sure that it had arms or eyes with which to work with. "What's that for, Toby?"
"What?" He checked her gaze and tried to mimic its direction.
"Is that for me?" said Nellie through her exhale.
"What? No, what're you talking about?"
"Then
who is it for? Why are you digging it?"
"I don't know, I
was only helping, stop being foolish."
But Nellie was transfixed by the indentation of earth, and Toby let her lie back down when he'd pulled her to the wagon's edge. He moved the planks away from the opening and let her watch the progress, mostly so he could keep an eye on her as he cooked their bits of supper, in case she put herself in one of her states again. The beggars didn't seem to mind as Toby made a small fire and took out the bits of cheese and bread; they didn't even glance at him, let alone try to rob their share.
Every time Nellie sighed she saw the movement of Toby turning his head, to her and back, in the corner of her sight.
"Mum," he finally spoke, poking the meal with a stick. "I wish I knew why you were like this. If you're upset, why don't you complain or do something about it?"
Nellie sighed and shifted, folding her arms under her head.
"It's just unnatural, is all," said Toby. "Are you ill, or is it some sickness of the head? Maybe we can find a doctor to help you."
Nellie wanted to deny his accusations, but she needed to give him some sort of answer, or else he'd never let her be. She searched her mind a long moment for a truth she could manipulate.
"Toby…" she said, and the boy turned to her. "Toby, I've had many babes in my time, six or seven… but none ever survived."
"What about Mara?"
"She's not from my womb, Toby." She didn't look up at his expression to see if he was surprised. "I'm sure this one won't survive, either."
"Mum, don't say that." He took the cooking tin away from the fire as quick as he could, mostly because it burned his fingers, and knelt by Nellie. "Isn't there anyway to save it?"
"No." She put on her most melancholy airs. "I don't know how I can stand to lose one more, Toby, how am I supposed to live?" Her expressions of grief caused true sadness on the boy's face, and for a brief moment Nellie thought she might have over done it.
"Then I'll let you sleep, mum," he told her as he rubbed her shoulder. "If that's what you want to do. If that's what you need to."
She did, but not for long this time.
For a day or more after, she kept her watch on the hole; the dirt piling up while it was being dug, and waiting for someone to continue when it wasn't. She was convinced it was her grave now, out of practicality, she assured herself, because it might as well be hers. Nellie wasn't sure how long it had been since she left her shop, but the time for the child to come was near, she could feel it with a mother's knowing. When Toby left for the market she would lie by the hole, where the dirt would kick up in her face, and pretend she was already in it. And since the beggars never acknowledged her existence, she could more completely convince herself she was a corpse waiting for burial. But Nellie didn't play her games because she wanted to be dead; she was enticed by the idea because she feared it. No doubt the beggars would let her die if her fears became reality.
And she still wondered if the Bow street Runners had traced the Judge's disappearance to Sweeney's shop, if the truth had been discovered, if her customers knew what she'd served them, if they'd burned her shop in retribution, if she was being searched for, Sweeney captured and speaking against her at this moment, the gallows being strung, and the noose wrapped for a woman's neck.
"A more disturbed, ridiculous woman I've never seen, Mrs. Lovett. You actually make it look like you want to be sprawled out here in the filth, to make civilized people jealous."
Nellie wiped dirt off of her face and eyelashes and looked up at the woman standing over her. Her dress was old and tattered, and Nellie thought she knew the pinched, deep-lined face under the shawl. The woman knelt by Lovett and uncovered her head to reveal a knot of pale hair, strands flowing over her face like tendrils searching for support to climb.
"Is it true, then? The Judge, is he dead?"
Nellie could only nod, watching the woman carefully, and her slightly twisted grin. She knew that genteel voice, that touch of dementia, that hair. Was this Lucy come to her senses, or perhaps she had only feigned madness all these years? And there Nellie was, filled with a child by Lucy's husband and no way to hide it, as though the deed were written out all over her body, in the very corneas of her eyes.
"And you know for sure," said the woman. "Don't you? You and that Mr. Todd; I thought so. But it'll never make up for what you did to us."
"Well, I hadn't meant for it to," said Nellie. "If you've come to take your revenge, don't bother. This child is going to do me in painfully as it tears its way out; you couldn't do much worse." She sat herself up so she wouldn't feel so prone with the woman looking down at her. They were awfully close, she realized, nearly brushing shoulders.
"And that'll be soon, won't it? But, no, I don't want to do you any harm. It does seem insane, doesn't it, that I've come to talk to you civilly, with no ill will, you understand."
"No?" said Nellie, giving the woman a sideways glance as she tried to avoid actually looking at her features. But then, with a sudden flash of thought, she realized what should have been obvious: that this was Lillian. Yes, that look-alike cousin, it had to be, of course, that was sensible.
"I've never been married, Mrs. Lovett," said the woman who was certainly Lillian. "And in my youth I thought I was a terrible failure as a woman, as everyone told me. But when I lived with the Judge I found out about the desperation of being trapped by a man, that I would have done anything to escape, if I only had the nerve. I'm even willing to believe you were victimized by the Judge."
Nellie watched her a moment, surprised by such an idea.
"You're taking pity on me?" Lovett asked, her voice choking on her disgust. She looked up and around the sky, wide-eyed, searching for some sort of sense.
"Maybe not sincerely, but in some odd way I can." Lillian leaned forward, hugging the shawl tighter around her, and looked up at Nellie over her shoulder. "The investigators know about Mr. Todd murdering his customers, about the chair, and the remains in your cellar. But they could only convict him for the murders of specific people, and there was no evidence of who the remains belonged to."
"So they let him go," Nellie whispered, but that she knew already. She then said aloud, "But do you know about the girls? What he's done with them?"
"Well, he's…" Lillian sat back up, looked behind and before them, and then took a gentle hold of Nellie's arm. "Why don't you speak against him, Mrs. Lovett? The girls wouldn't, they stayed on his side, somehow manipulated by him, I'm sure. You're the only evidence left. You're not in his grasp anymore, and I know you want to fight against him, why don't you?"
"You think you know so much?" Nellie snapped. "I'm not afraid of Mr. Todd."
"Oh? Then why haven't you spoken against him?"
"I haven't been well enough," said Nellie, matter-of-factly. "I couldn't take the pressure or the excitement. As I told you, this child is ready to kill me at any moment, and you still haven't told me what you know about the girls."
"He's living with them both, in an Inn outside of the city," Lillian said. "Mrs. Lovett, I'm desperate to get my Johanna back, before he takes her away for good and I never find them again. Don't you want your girl back, too?"
Nellie looked away, down the alley before them, not really seeing what her gaze fell on. Did she want Mara back? She was so strewn in her own wrongs and sorrows that she hadn't considered that the girl might need saving. That she would want to save her.
"Perhaps I do…"
"What kind of answer is that exactly?" Lillian gasped. "Are you her mother or not? Shall I have to stay and bother you until you help me, or will I really have to turn you in?"
Nellie turned back to her with a half-grin. "Oh, you won't do that. Mr. Todd will flee as soon as he hears I've been caught."
"Jesus," Lillian huffed and covered her head with the shawl once more, as though in shame. "You have more wits about you then I first thought."
"Well, I haven't been living a soft, pampered life in the mansion of a high-ranking official, Miss Oakley."
"I was his servant, confined against my will!" Lillian gasped, but Nellie only scoffed at her.
"And I had to provide for myself and keep from starving while so many on my street did. We all knew desperation, and I learned to do what I had to to survive- as all of us common folk did." Nellie grabbed hold of Lillian's shawl, pulling her closer so they bumped foreheads. "I even helped a murderer willingly! The courts may find me vile, but anyone else would have done the same given the chance."
Lillian hissed, and a whimper escaped her throat as she pulled away. "At this point I don't care if what you did was right or wrong, I just want my Johanna back! I've been keeping close watch on them, and Mr. Todd's only staying around to find you, to make sure you don't turn him in. Why don't we go save our girls? Mr. Todd won't suspect if you came back to him, will he? Then you can get the girls to escape with us."
"Just that simple?" said Nellie, looking down at her dress as she wiped the dirt off.
"Isn't it all we can do? Please, Mrs. Lovett, I'm begging you, if you have any decency left in you at all."
Lillian took in a deep breath and then resigned to silence, looking tired and truly drained of the last of her hope. But Nellie smiled a wicked smile that went up through her eyes, and she caressed Lillian's chin, bringing their faces dangerously close.
"I
might," said Nellie, her lips brushing skin.
"Is that a yes,
then?" Lillian closed her eyes, as though blocking out the moment,
but didn't pull away. Lovett laughed at her and flicked the woman's
nose, amused by how far she was willing to go to convince her.
"If you can get me up and going, then I might as well."
