29. Story Time

"Mum!"

The terrified cry rents the air in two and jolts Nellie from the sleep she had just slipped into not ten minutes prior. For a moment she is disorientated, rolling over and fumbling with layers of blankets until one flailing hand comes into contact with Mr. Todd's cold limbs. The barber himself is staring up at the ceiling as though he has not heard Toby's pitiful cry—and he probably hasn't, she reminds herself—his dark eyes unblinking and unfocused. He has slipped back under the veil of the past, and she internally curses herself for dozing when she could have been trying to keep the man in the present with her, not allowing him to chase the flashes of yellow in his mind.

"Mum!"

Toby's second, more urgent, high-pitched cry makes it apparent that now is not the time to think of herself, however, and she pushes back the covers and hastily begins searching for a gown to throw over her naked body. Mr. Todd does not even appear to perceive the missing weight from the mattress beside him. Leaving her barber to drown in a place where she cannot save him, Nellie exits the room and feels her way blindly to the parlour.

Toby is sitting bolt upright on the little loveseat. His blankets are strewn over the floor. His face shines with a thin layer of sweat, and his eyes are overly bright.

He looks haunted.

"Mum!" he whimpers again, and she hurries over to the poor lad, her heart swelling with an almost unbearable motherly love for him.

"'Ush, darlin'," she coos softly, sinking to her knees in front of him and reaching for his face with gentle hands. "I'm 'ere now."

Her words have the desired effect, and after a few more moments of his wide-eyed stare, she feels the boy beginning to relax. Inwardly, she heaves a sigh of relief.

Allowing the new silence to stretch onwards for a few more seconds, she finally prompts him to speak with a gentle, "What caused all this, eh?"

Toby pulls away from her hands, which had been stroking a soothing path through his hair, to regard her face. His own is still bloodless.

"Nightmare," he supplies reluctantly, looking a little ashamed of himself for calling her over something so trivial.

Sensing his distress, Nellie gets to her feet and nudges her boy so she can squeeze on the settee beside him. "Everyone has nightmares sometimes, son. They ain't nothin' to be ashamed of." She lowers her voice in a conspiratorial manner. "Even I sometimes wake up scared o' me own shadow."

"Really?" Toby's voice is small.

Nellie nods. "O' course."

"What nightmares do you 'ave?"

She looks at the boy who is almost a son, eyes drinking in his innocent little face. It shines up at her with adoration. She swallows the lump in her throat (and throats are what she dreams of, her own being slashed open until she bleeds no more while Mr. Todd watches her gasp bloodily for breath with no emotion on his face) and says, "Nothin' of importance, love. Not as important as yours. Wanna tell me what spooked you so, hmm?"

Toby nods slowly, inching himself closer to her. Getting the hint, she opens her arms to him and lets him burrow deep into her embrace.

"I dreamt of the workhouse," Toby says quietly. "There was…there was lots of us all sharin' the same room and then the fore master came in an' started to whip us…" His hand moves unconsciously over a thin white scar on his arm that Nellie had noticed a few weeks prior. "…But this time…this time 'e wouldn't stop. 'Is eyes were all I could see, an' then…an' then 'e turned into Mr. Todd." The lad stumbles over the last few words, and the rest is self-explanatory. She doesn't need the confirmation that Toby had dreamt of him beating him into oblivion—her own nightmares regarding the man she loves have been just as violent ever since he'd begun sharing her bed. She has no control over her mind in the grasp of darkness.

Not wishing to dwell on the diseased thoughts of him any longer than she has to, Nellie says abruptly with a strained exuberance, "'Ow about a story to cheer you up, eh? I can guarantee—" (the closest shave you will ever know) "—it'll send ya right off to sleep, love."

"All right," Toby says fervently, obviously just as eager to put his nightmare out of his mind.

Getting herself more comfortable, Nellie begins to spin her favourite tale of the future. "One day soon, we're all gonna move to the seaside."

"Mr. Todd as well?"

She does not miss the nervous dislike in his voice. "Mr. Todd as well. We'll 'ave a pretty little 'ouse on the edge o' the sand and we'll be able to take walks along the beach every day. I'll teach you 'ow to swim. We'll 'ave fish for supper whenever we fancy it. We could open a little pie shop in the town—might branch out a bit and try other things 'sides meat pies—an' Mr. T might like to 'ave another tonsorial parlour. We'll watch the seagulls swoopin' low over the waves. We'll taste the salt on the wind." Her eyes become more unfocused as she gazes at the dancing images of their glittering future; she is forgetting the boy's presence and musing more to herself. "Mr. T an' I will get married, o' course. A little seaside weddin'. I've always wanted one o' them. It'll be just a quiet one. Just me and 'im an' you. And afterwards…" Her eyes darken as flashes of the barber and herself entwined, panting and sweating in each other's arms springs to mind, but she gives herself a mental shake before she can lose herself completely in that thought.

Before she can begin speaking again, a soft whistling sound reaches her ears. Glancing down, perplexed, she realises that the boy has drifted back off to sleep slumped against her, encapsulated warmly within her protective bubble of dreams. Smiling tenderly down at him, Nellie prises his arms from around her and lays him gently back down on the sofa. He half-rouses at the movement, but she shushes him and sings the first few lines of a lullaby until his eyes close again. Satisfied that her work is done for a while she returns to her bedroom, her own limbs becoming heavy with the temptation of sleep.

Throwing the robe from her body and tossing it carelessly to the floor, she slides back into her deathly cold sheets. Mr. Todd is still staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes as she scoots closer to press her naked body against his, resting her cheek against one of his arms. He gives no indication of even noting her presence.

Her dreams will come true one day, she promises herself. They will. He cannot remain unresponsive forever. She will love the memory of Lucy out of him, until the only one he will ever want is her, until she owns him for more than a few snatched minutes' romping between her sheets whenever he wants it.

All the things she told Toby, they will come true. She'll make them.

Ignoring the whispered voice in the back of her head telling her that stories are all they'll ever be, she settles herself more securely against her sometimes-lover, boldly wrapping her arms around his distant body and pressing her lips against the unyielding flesh of his chest.

For now her imagination is all she's got, but one day her dreams will become her reality.