"First Witch: When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Second Witch: When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won."
-William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth
(1)
Nellie sat carefully on the bed she now considered her own, fearful that any wrong movement could induce the labor. She just now realized how much she was shaking and how panicked her breaths were. It'd hit home all at once that this was it, the uncontrollable inevitability. She'd always wondered what it'd be like to die in some freak accident, like when a building falls on you, and it's all a sudden awful intensity and noise and pure terror and pain, and then nothing. Now Nellie felt like she was stuck in the ground as the building loomed over her, knowing it would fall in a minute, or an hour, or days from now, and all everyone else around her could do was watch.
She suddenly felt very hot, her face burning, but when she tried to move away a blanket that was partly stuck under the mattress, something else shot out with it and clattered on the floorboards. When Nellie leaned over to see, she found a string of white pearls lying in a crooked oval, each shining in the flickering candlelight. It made her momentarily forget her panic, and she slowly reached down to pick it up, fingering around each smooth orb. Nellie remembered these pearls, the ones that had belonged to that Thornhill lad, which Mara had brought back with her after his 'accident.' But what were they doing under the mattress of all places?
Nellie suddenly gasped as her shoulders jerked. These could be traced to Thornhill, who had never been found after his disappearance. Sure, Sweeney himself hadn't done him in, but it was still evidence for the murder of someone with a name, someone reported missing around the time of Sweeney's arrival. Nellie quickly shoved the pearls back under the mattress, lying down over it for extra assurance. She was fearful all over again, but something else was telling her, No, no… What did it matter if she was caught? She shouldn't fear the necklace, it was power over Sweeney, it was his demise even after Nellie wasn't around to testify, her last laugh. If only she could give it to Lillian, or convince the girls to betray him…
Sweeney was suddenly over her, sitting on the bed by her knees, and Nellie startled, barely aware of having blacked-out.
"Oh, look, there she is." Louise came to her and knelt by the bed. "You holding on there, dearie?"
"Mmm…" Nellie moaned, and her eyes skipped over Louise's to meet Sweeney's. There was a slight wrinkle of worry on his forehead.
"Are you feeling any pain?" Louise asked, wiping the sweat off Nellie's face with a towel.
"No."
"Well, your water hasn't broken yet, but you should probably stay in bed until it's time. I can tell it's been hard for you; I just wish I knew a mid-wife near here."
"It's alright." Nellie cleared her throat and continued watching Sweeney.
"If you say so, dearie, but you sure gave us a fright when you wouldn't wake up."
Louise left the room when she decided she wasn't needed anymore, and Nellie turned her head to check the rest of the room, realizing how silent it was.
"The girls are downstairs," Sweeney supplied. "I didn't want them crowding you."
"In case I went into labor, right?" Nellie smirked at him. "Oh, I think about it every day Mr. Todd, how you're going to kill me soon. Are you still sure you can't love me just a bit, just on the side, a little something different when you get bored?"
"Are you really that desperate?"
"Doesn't matter now." Nellie sighed airily. "And just what are you going to do with these girls once they're yours alone?"
"Try to be a family, I suppose."
"How will you support them?"
"I'll find some sort of job, somewhere."
"Gravedigger, perhaps?" Nellie thought it was a clever idea, but Sweeney took no notice. He placed both hands around her stomach for a while, rubbing it gently in hopes of catching the child's movement, but there was none.
"Are you certain it's still alive in there?"
"Of course I'm certain!" Nellie snapped, her own defensiveness startling her. "Don't ask such stupid questions." Sweeney was still watching her as she turned her head away, and she hoped her face wasn't as white as it felt.
She dreamed… She knew she was dreaming, and it all seemed so silly to be a prisoner in her own mind but still so close to consciousness. She was at the sea on a gray day, but with pleasant bursts of wind that startled her hair. She waded into the tide, the water soaking into her skirts and weighing her down, and she stumbled over them, falling to her knees, the bits of sand scraping her bare legs as they streamed under her. The ocean water rushed at her with a shock of cold and came up to chest level, splashing against her and spraying up in her face. She made her dream-self laugh at the distorted irony, that her mind was attempting to give her one last gift after all the wrongs it'd caused her, as though this made up for its lack of conscience and humanity, civility, which deep down she longed for but couldn't bring to the light. She cursed at the vision, words incoherent but reprimanding in tone, and the very ocean and still grayness seemed to quiver with guilt. Another wave came and broke over her head – she could smell the salt burning her nose as vividly as she had smelled the rot of corpses in so many nightmares – and the wave quickly rushed back from behind her. She sunk her hands into the sand and pushed back to keep the suction from over-taking her, engulfing her into the mouth of the sea that loomed before her, swallowing her up for eternity…
Nellie's transition form sleep to waking was as smooth as the switch of a light, and she remembered her dreams as clearly as though she had never left them. When she realized her consciousness she gasped and sat up, but luckily her sea-filled vision hadn't been a symbolic message of her water having broken. Still, she knew that if not now it would happen by the end of the day. The last grain of the hourglass had finally fallen.
It took her a moment to realize that it was mid-morning and that she was alone in the room, save for the pushed back blankets on the floor and bed – ghostly remains that made Nellie think of all the empty beds she had helped create, all of the widows and fatherless children. Her own father had fallen out of her life just as suddenly and mysteriously, so maybe it was justified vengeance after all.
If it worked for Sweeney…
Lest she become sentimental, if that was possible at all, Nellie meant to leave the room, she wanted to be anywhere but here, but she had a sudden surge of – justice? Conscience? Vengeance? She wasn't sure. Nellie just knew she was reaching under the mattress for the pearls, sneaking out of the room and down the hall, her mind searching frantically for the directions to Lillian's room. At the end on the left, did she say? Not that knocking on every random door would matter, considering there were no other occupants, and if Sweeney found her engaging in such behavior she could just pretend she'd lost her wits and was inviting her neighbors to tea. He was probably expecting her to cross over into complete insanity since the beginning.
As it was she only had to knock on one door and announce herself, and Lillian let her in. When first given the instructions, Nellie thought the 'broom closet' description was a jab at the quaintness of the room, but she now discovered that that's what it actually was. She was pulled inside, somehow fitting into a small corner opposite the woman, and then was in darkness.
"What's the news?" asked Lillian. "Have you persuaded them?"
"This is an actual broom closet," said Nellie.
Silence.
"Well, yes," said Lillian, "but I only stay here so the keepers don't make me pay. See, I found the key in here, so I just lock the door from the inside, and that silly woman thinks she lost the key and can't get in until she calls on a locksmith, which she can't afford anyway-"
Nellie had been groping for Lillian's hand, accidentally finding her breasts first, of course, and she let the woman feel the pearls she was holding.
"I found evidence," said Nellie. Lillian took a moment to blindly comprehend the item and its implication.
"I don't quite understand."
"But I do," said Nellie. "I'm not sure how to persuade them yet, but if you can take the girls-" Nellie paused, realizing the bump she just felt hit her stomach was coming from inside of her. She'd felt very little movement up until now, and this sent ice through her chest and veins.
"You want me to take them?" asked Lillian. "Are you coming, too?"
"No, if I'm going to incriminate Mr. Todd completely I have to turn myself in, too."
"They'll hang you once the baby comes!"
"I know, but-" Nellie startled from a harder kick inside of her, and she hit her head against something metal hung on the wall. "I won't be around by then, at any rate, so I might as well take Mr. Todd with me."
But it wasn't fair that she couldn't have atleast one successful birth in her lifetime, to see her own flesh and blood come out of her and then devote herself to it entirely. If only the child would live… Wasn't that still possible? Maybe her body was more suited for birth in its maturity, rather than less as she was only suspecting. Maybe it was Albert's bad blood that created children who couldn't survive; hadn't Sweeney achieved two healthy girls already, including one who had escaped a poisoned mother? And maybe, just maybe, she had completely lost her mind to maternal instincts. But feeling the child already energetic inside of her made Nellie realize that she wanted the babe more than she wanted blood-vengeance, the safety of humanity, or martyrdom.
And she wanted to be alive to see it.
Lillian was still in a muddled silence, perhaps stunned that Nellie was capable of such self-sacrifice. This gave Nellie the opportunity to reach up and grab the metal –a key after all- and search for the doorknob. She found it on her first try and shot out, slamming in behind her.
"Mrs. Lovett! What're you -?" Lillian heard the key being shoved into the lock, but she couldn't grab the knob fast enough and the bolt shut with a dull thunk. "Mrs. Lovett, please, I only want to help! I only want Johanna back! Mrs. Lovett!"
Nellie looked down at the key, trying to decide what to do with it, but footsteps at the base of the stairs startled her and the key clattered to the floor. "Shit," she muttered, caught frantically between getting the key and intercepting the intruder. But trying to bend over would take time she didn't have, so she left it and fled to the stairs.
"Mara!" she cried, trying to cloak the sounds of Lillian's cries and door rattling, as she took careful steps to meet the girl. "Mara, Mara, how are you this morning!"
"Mum?" Mara asked, clearly stunned. "What's going on up there?"
"Nothing, nothing, dear!" Nellie took Mara's arm and led her back downstairs.
"Mum, you're supposed to be in bed…"
"Of course dear! But where's Mr. Todd?"
Mara's face was deadset and suspicious, having heard the question too many times for too many unsavory reasons.
"He's out for the morning," she answered, but she clearly wasn't expecting the answer to delight Nellie.
"Good, alright, go get Johanna, we have to leave this instant." She was already heading for the front door, but Mara hadn't moved.
"What? Why, what have you done now?"
"Everything, and I've done it all wrong, but I have one last chance to save us, to escape for good. And we have to go before this baby comes!"
Nellie's last statement was so frantic it convinced Mara immediately, and she shot off to pull Johanna away from her breakfast.
"But only for the baby, you hear me?" Mara admonished as she met Nellie at the door, taking her arm on one side, Johanna's on the other, to keep a steady pace.
Their escape plan was as sporadic as a disaster victim's would be –trying to flee as quickly as possible- but it wasn't enough. They had no money and nowhere to go, so they could neither get very far very fast nor could they hide. The dangerous inevitability was that they would have to obtain some funds if they were going to have any chance to escape at all, which meant returning to the pie shop to find the rest of Nellie's hidden finances.
Nellie was wheezing terribly by the time they made it to Fleet Street, and feeling pains she didn't dare complain about. And the last thing she wanted to do was return to her shop; she could hardly bring herself to look when they finally reached it. Atleast it wasn't burned down, and still stood, but it clearly had taken a beating, and where her door and windows used to be were poorly boarded up.
"Oh," Nellie whined," I bet they've looted the place and torn it apart…"
"Johanna, why don't you stay with her in the alley?" Mara suggested, trying to kick one of the boards ajar. "Mum, where was the money?"
"Under some loose floorboards," said Nellie, in a high, frantic voice. "In our bedchamber, under my bed." Mara gave the board another kick and it cracked halfway off.
"Alright, don't worry, mum. I'll get it and we'll be on a carriage out of London in no time."
By the time Nellie got herself seated in the alley her pains had increased, not just her sore sides, but her stomach and hips, in the steady here-and-gone that could only be contractions.
"Oh Jesus mercy!" she couldn't help herself from crying out, and Johanna nearly screamed.
"Mrs. Lovett!" The girl was twice as pale as usual, her hands shaking visibly. "Are you alright?"
"Good God, no!" Nellie grabbed Johanna's arm. "The baby's coming! It's coming right now!"
Johanna looked ready to scream again, either from panic or Nellie's grip on her arm.
"Right now? It can't come right now!"
"It can and it will!"
"I don't know what to do!" Johanna grabbed Nellie in a hug around the neck, too frightened to let go. Obviously what Nellie needed right now was not a loving embrace, but as she lapsed between contractions, she calmed enough to give Johanna a pat on the head.
"Panicking won't do any good, dear," Nellie sighed, continuing to take slow, deep breaths.
They didn't have to wait long for Mara to return, as the screaming drew her out. She ran around the corner and grabbed Johanna to pull her off of Nellie.
"Mum, mum, is the baby coming!"
"Yes, yes, don't scream at me!" Nellie cried through the pain of another contraction.
"How soon, mum?" Mara took Nellie's arm. "Can you stand? I need to find somewhere to put you."
"It's not soon, it just started…"
Mara tried to pull Nellie to her feet, but her legs wouldn't hold her even enough to stand. "I can't, dear, it's too much…"
Mara seemed to crumple up in despair as she helped Nellie back down. "You can't just give birth here, mum."
"I'll have to, dear, I don't have the strength to go any farther."
Slow hours went by as Nellie lay writhing on the ground, screaming when the pain came and then heaving in fear as she waited for the next. But after the first hour her pains became subdued and infrequent, and Nellie knew she was in for a long labor. Hers had always been long in the past, often for several days. Mara (whose own birth had been quick and simple, nearly moving Nellie to envious tears) sat vigil by her mother, terrified by her ignorance of the birthing process and for Nellie's well being, but she put on a calm face, even managing to keep her hands from shaking. She'd sent Johanna to find a mid-wife, but the girl returned alone, and though she was sure Johanna could have found one if she wasn't so timid, Mara couldn't bring herself to leave Nellie to search.
"Are you doing okay, mum?" Mara asked, worried by her mother's long bout of silence. "You still holding on?" She was sitting with Nellie head resting in her lap, and she watched until her mother's eyes finally opened again, irises fading to deep green in the evening light.
"I am," Nellie sighed, shifting her legs and bending them, knees up and feet on the ground, to relieve her back. "I'm just so tired, I don't think I can take any more pain…"
"You're strong, mum, I know you are. You can get through this." Mara ran her fingers through Nellie's tangled hair, then rubbed her neck, her shoulders, her stomach, trying desperately to sooth her, fearful that Nellie's subdued delirium was caused by a lack of will, that she was giving up. As false as her mother was, as much as she hated her, Mara could still feel that little girl's affection she once had for her mum not so long ago.
In her exhausted haze Nellie thought the sudden scream she heard was her own, but she realized it was Johanna's high-pitched squeal just as Mara's legs were pulled away. The world tilted and her head hit the ground.
Above Nellie he stood, tall, with features blanked by shadow, like a vision of God or Satan, meant to shrivel her soul but leave no impression on her memory once it had vanished.
Benjamin, she thought, first you plagued by dreams, and then you overflowed into my nightmares. Were you born to torture me, or did I make you that way?
Mara came running in front of Sweeney, but he grabbed her and threw her back, out of sight. Nellie heard her thud against a wall, and then there was no other movement or footsteps.
As Sweeney made to crouch, Nellie had a sudden attack of pain, screaming and clawing at the ground. Sweeney jerked and fell to his knees next to her, hissing in a sharp breath. Nellie squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away from him, quickening her breath as the pain increased again. But even through her wracked body and ringing ears she still felt Sweeney's coarse hand cup her cheek, clear as a heated iron on her skin. He pushed her face towards him and she opened her eyes, watching his hand as it hovered in front of her and slowly opened. A key fell out, bouncing off her chest, and she saw the red indentation it left in his palm.
"She told me," he said, "she told me everything. You and the Judge-"
"Mr. Todd-!" Nellie tried to gasp, but screamed through another shock of pain.
"You lied to me! My Lucy, shipped off to Bedlam!" Sweeney grabbed her shoulders until his knuckles whitened, but Nellie couldn't discern the new pain from the old. "You handed over my daughter to the Judge yourself!" He shook her and slammed her into the ground until she grew quiet. Then he let her go, and she lay gasping and red-faced before him. It took all of Nellie's strength to control her shuttering breath long enough to speak.
"You don't understand…"
"You deceived me completely," said he.
"But…" Nellie took in a deep breath, "I had to do as the Judge said or he would've hanged me…"
"I'm sure you deserved it."
Nellie tried to keep her voice steady as the next pains came. "Yes, I poisoned my husband, but what else could I do? He was violent, threatened to kill me everyday, and I just wanted to be saved, Mr. Todd. You knew, I know you did; why didn't you save me?"
She'd dreamed of this man saving her, being the first to show some compassion. Unlike the women who saw her bruises and called her lucky to have a husband who paid her so much attention. She was in constant fear, ready to panic at any moment, jumping at every noise. She finally had a chance to reach out to Benjamin – she'd cried out to him as Albert dragged her back inside, threatening to give her a beating like she'd never known. Benjamin had to have heard her –the dead heard her- but he kept climbing the stairs, without even a twitch of acknowledgement. Her mind shattered right then and there. She didn't even remember the beating, just the back of Benjamin's head, those last steps through the door.
Sweeney's eyes looked unfocused, like he was remembering, too. Or watching his world crumble by his own hand.
"No," he said.
"The Judge said he wouldn't hang me if I helped him; what else could I do?"
"No!"
"Mr. Todd, I'm-"
But pain caused Nellie's vision to blind from white. She thought it was the baby trying to tear itself out of her, but she finally comprehended the source: Sweeney's razor hacking into her side. Nellie was too terrified to scream, and her vision became a sickly blue. If her body was thrashing or reacting at all she couldn't tell, but the next thing she knew her head was lolling to one side, and she saw her own dark blood pooling and spreading across the ground, like it had spilled from an over turned bucket.
Sweeney's shirt and trousers were streaked with blood, and he was cutting his razor through something – an umbilical cord, as he was holding her infant! From her angle Nellie could tell that it was a girl after all, squalling and bloody, with a full head of dark hair, just as Mara's had been right from the womb. Nellie knew her own body was a gruesome mess, and that she should have been in unbearable pain, but shock kept her from reality as she watched Sweeney holding her daughter – her perfect, living, breathing daughter.
Sweeney didn't move or react, he just stood on his knees holding the infant. Whether his thoughts were loving or hostile, whether he was ready to kill or kiss the child, who would know? For, in the next moment, Mara attacked from behind and knocked Sweeney out with a large board of wood. He collapsed in the blood, the infant shrieking louder as she tumbled onto Sweeney's chest. Mara grabbed the child with one hand, the razor with the other, and jerked the blade into her father's throat. Nellie couldn't see the final slice from where she lay, but Sweeney's jerked convulsion and followed stillness told her enough.
Mara turned, cradling the infant carefully now that the razor was flung down the alley. Her dark auburn hair hung in disarray over her eyes as she wrapped her new half-sister in her coat. She crawled closer to Nellie, her hair hiding the tears until they began streaming down her neck and dripping off her chin.
"Mum…" Mara sobbed.
"Dear." Nellie tried to put all her strength into speaking, but she still managed no more than a whisper. "Let me see her, please…"
Mara crouched very low and let the infant's forehead rest on Nellie's cheek. Somewhere Johanna was wailing softly, almost musically.
"What are you going to name your baby, mum?" Mara asked.
"I-I…" Nellie gasped frantically. Did she have a name? She had to name her child right now, now or not at all, and she couldn't think of anything. She was shaking all over, and her hearing was fading fast, drowned out by a numb ringing. "She's -she…"
"It's alright, mum."
"No, no… name her…"
But her throat was closing up, barely able to let any air through at all. She could no longer speak or hear, and she watched Mara's mouth in an effort to understand what she was saying. She would come back? To bring help or for my body? Nellie wondered. Mara leaned forward to kiss her mother, and then with the child in her arms and urging Johanna to follow her, the girls, all three of them, fled.
It was better that they did, Nellie knew, but she was terribly frightened and alone as she lay paralyzed on the ground. Her head was aligned so that Sweeney's pale face was nearly in the center of her vision, his dead eyes staring at her – had they been open before? Nellie stared back, too terrified to look away, and saw him blink.
Oh, please, God, thought Nellie, don't let him live.
But he made no other movement, just the blood-shot eyes watching her. They really were beautiful eyes, when you could see the gray.
I'm… Nellie tried to say, but no words came, and she hoped mouthing it would be enough. I'm so sorry…
Sweeney didn't acknowledge that he'd understood her, though he probably wasn't able to if he had, and a moment later his eyes shut for good. Nellie decided to follow suit, letting the light overwhelm her vision and finally take her completely.
It was so much better to be nothing at all, she realized, than to be Mrs. Lovett.
(2)
Lucy had witnessed the whole ordeal from behind the ashcans, trying to wait out the screaming and hysterics, but compellingly curious at the same time. She didn't understand the insanities of the sane, and she knew she wasn't like them, no matter how hard she tried to fit in. But she knew some things, and she knew that Mr. Todd struck some thing within her.
Their bodies were still warm when Lucy carefully approached them – him and that horrid Devil woman, their blood flowing out in slow rivers and pooling together as one. She hunched over Mr. Todd, caressing his face, and the shocking familiarity came back to her. Strange memories in disturbing clarity flashed before her- dancing with her husband in the tavern, fixing him supper after a long day, mending his barber's coat, making love as they ignored the screaming of the horrid couple in the shop below.
She stared at her husband's face, her whole mind straining desperately for a bit of precious coherence, until her mouth finally whispered:
"Benjamin…"
