In A Name

by Dystmyn

An orphan boy joins a family unit of liars and murderers. The film plot as told through the eyes of Toby.

** This follows the plot of the Tim Burton directed film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as it would be told through the eyes of Toby. I made this years ago and I'm finally posting it in honor of the play's return to the Broadway circuit.**

My name is an awful thing. When it's screamed at me followed by a blow to the head sending a ringing through my ears like church bells. When it's hissed in anger as fingers dig into the tender skin along my neck decorating it in deep hues of wine purple. When it's sighed along breath that smells of sweat and rum and a tongue runs along places most forget belong on a young boy's body. It didn't matter which name it was. A number, a foul word, a price; they all rotted in the back of my mind each time I had to learn to respond to them, the weight of the carcasses dragging my bones deeper into the earth.

I hate my name.

Hate how many knew it, knew me. Hate how it stuck to the sides of my throat when I was forced to proclaim it, hate how it dripped out of my eyes when I was forced to change it, hate how it sounded spat through a crooked yellow smile. And because my name could not feel any of my anger, I had only myself to unleash it on.

I would close my eyes and allow my shoulders to be weighed down by heavy hands, allow the leather to rake its teeth along my spine, allow the sharpened blades to lash against the open wounds of my hands. It didn't matter what happened to me; I hated my name and who it belonged to. Its body deserved this life. Unwanted by its own blood, detested by its own kind. What did it matter if its bones broke, if its skin tore, if its blood spilled? It was payment for its existence, and I was happy to pay the price.

Then her eyes met mine. Deep, sad, and kind but twisted, oh so twisted. And I couldn't find it in myself to care. Those windows led to a soul darker than mine I suspected, the kind that bent around blackness like a beckoning finger, but what did it matter, I could stand toe to toe to her if she'd let me. When her hand curled around my shoulder I flinched, when she sent me to sit I eyed her warily, when she set a chipped plate before me I greedily snatched the food from it not completely caring if it was poisoned. It was awful; surely it had to have been dipped in arsenic but alas, I continued to breathe even if every breath tasted of ash. I watched creatures on more legs than I could count leave trails in the thick dust along the floor as they scuttled their way into the smoking oven. I wished to follow. I watched her as she beat a lumpy gray pile of dough into submission using an old rolling pin without success, her wild curls bouncing around the frame of her pale face like a lively fire, the only thing alive about her. Fire seemed to suit her.

Thunder sounded on the floor above my head and we both looked to the ceiling. She began to bang bowls against the counter sending insects scurrying in an attempt to distract me saying something about how cleanliness was her preferred way of life. The old fool upstairs was probably throwing the barber that had challenged him earlier around like a used towel. He never did take losing well; I had a rib that still hurt when I breathed too deeply to remind me of that. It didn't matter to me, but the barely ticking grime covered clock above the clay oven did. If he was late to his appointment with the tailor he would break more than a rib. I hastily excused myself, ignoring her hissed pleas to wait. I pounded up the wooden stairs along the outside of the building surprised they held my weight. I expected the barber to be on the floor rolling in agony and for the old fool to be trotting around the room taking his pick of the lot. Instead, the barber stood with his back to me pouring tea from an iron kettle. It smelled like ichor and spilled ink. The old fool was nowhere to be seen.

I should have waited longer. Should have stayed until he returned. But when the barber pinned me with those inky black eyes that swam with demons I could never hope to understand and promised me liquid courage I eagerly returned to her in the shop below. I was almost grateful, there had been an odd stickiness along the edges of the trunk I had been seated on and I could only assume it had been as taken care of as the lady's countertops. She sat beside me when I returned, concerned at my reckless consumption of the contents of the deep green glass bottle. What did it matter? I had been raised on a tongue wet with gin and blood thick with ale. Had been blessed with the numbness that it secreted along my skin like poisonous armor, thankful for the lost memories under its spell. I told her I was used to it, a substitute for warm milk at bedtime so as not to hear the sounds that went bump in the night or feel the hands that came to wake you before the sun had dared show its face.

I expected her to place a hand to her heart and begin fanning herself, for her eyes to go wide in astonishment and for the white skin stretched across her cheekbones to fill with color. It was always amusing to watch what shock did to a woman's sensibilities when they weren't prepared. Instead, she simply acknowledged me as though I were a child describing a drawing and her attention moved on to the door. I could feel a cold wind whipping across my skin chasing away the heat that had been building in my stomach as clearly as if a window had opened.

She didn't care.

She did not care about what had happened to the body to whose name I detested belonged, like me. But she was honest, didn't attempt to ask about those nightmares I had, didn't try to persuade me to run, didn't wonder why I dared exist in her presence. Not like those who filled the pews in church on Sunday and prayed that someone besides them did something about the garbage in the street. Perhaps, she did not ask because she too already knew when not to pretend. She let me be; broken and damaged and hated and she let me stay long after the old fool disappeared into the night never to be heard from again.

I hated my name.

Hated it for so long I didn't think I would ever learn to love it again. Didn't think I could exist without this anger boiling deep in my subconscious bubbling to the surface whenever the syllables escaped without permission. But when she said it, I could feel an old ember being fanned back to life, a candle flicker of a childhood I had outgrown ahead of schedule. When she called for me I found myself running to her not out of fear of punishment but out of desire to please. When her voice sang my name through a crowd of diners I found myself straining to hear it again over the sound of obnoxious chewing and drunken laughter. I had never known there were so many ways to say a name. Light as air as she asked me to direct a couple to a prepared table. Sharp as she demanded me to swat away the beggar woman into the alley. Rushed as she filled my hands with pitchers and pies and sent me off to serve patrons stuffing themselves on her meaty baked goods, the pastries that had the city pressing greasy fingers to the windows longing to have a taste. I hated my name, but not as much when she said it in pleased thanks at the end of the day as she tucked me into my bed in the small empty room at the end of the hall.

The barber only had one way of saying my name; in annoyance, the letters falling from his lips in a perpetual downward slope. It was no secret he thought my presence was equal to something stuck to the bottom of his boot but like her, he did not pretend to think otherwise and I couldn't help but be fascinated by him. Silent as the grave, still as the moon and eyes that I felt could look directly through me. I didn't mind sweeping the newly polished wooden floors of the shop but I looked forward to the days she sent me up to his room to tidy things since she knew if it were up to him he'd never do it. He always seemed to know when I was coming, opening the creaky and splintering door before my knuckles touched it, as though alerted by every miniscule sound his staircase produced. He always stayed as I got to tidying, to be sure I didn't nick his precious silver razors no doubt. Sometimes he stared out the window overlooking the dreary rooftops of London for the entire hour I was there not paying me any mind even as I stepped in front of him to drag a moist rag across the glass. Other times he would pour a cup of his rancid smelling tea and watch me as I did my work, never saying a word, making me feel as though he were reading my every movement as simply as an article of the daily newspaper.

Today, was one of those days. The tea was already poured when I walked through the open door. He stood by the window holding his steaming teacup with what looked like bloody fingers; I could only hope it was his own and not a customers or else the story would spread quickly and much of his credibility would be lost. A good name could be all a man owned, not that I would know. I dropped my tin bucket to the floor splashing soapy water over the rim. I took the rag to the old trunk by the door as I had many times before. No matter how hard I scrubbed, the inside remained stained with a light brown shade, looking an awful lot like the bedsheets the other boys and I used to sleep on, and the metal edges never lost their sticky texture. Today was no different.

After several minutes of soaping what could be soaped no more I looked behind me meeting the eyes of the barber who stared at me with the unblinking stone gaze of a gargoyle. He was an intimidating man but I wasn't afraid of him surprisingly enough. Perhaps, it was knowing he would never lay a finger on me if the lady downstairs had anything to say about it or maybe it was my utter lack of concern for my well-being. I asked him what had happened to the trunk to make it so impossible to care for. He blinked slowly, his eyes searching me, dissecting the question that hung in the air.

After finding what he was looking for he blinked again and in a deep, gentle monotone said, "A fool's decision."

I turned away, unprepared for the tangible answer and looked back into the trunk. Blood had often looked like this when I had to scrub it away after a long night's affair back in the workhouse.

Most people have a voice in their head that warns them of danger but mine had been silent for years. It was most tiresome to have a voice always on when every step you took always led to evil no matter which path you chose. But after having been spared the rod for so long the voice saw the chance to draw its first breath in years and whisper.

It began to whisper every night as slow heavy footsteps sounded above me pacing back and forth for hours. It whispered when I never heard the stairs outside creak as customers came back down. It whispered when I was rushed out of the shop on errands whenever she was about to begin work in the bake house. But I refused to listen.

I chose to hear other things and preferred the days when the boy with the hair that swung at the edges of his chin and a mouth that spilled words faster than he could say them would stop by to see the barber. He always made time to step into the shop to exchange pleasantries with the lady and tell me a tale about his adventures across the sea. I rather liked the way he said my name, stuttering and tripping over it as it meshed with the rest of his sentences because he simply couldn't get the words out quickly enough. He was a young sailor that had boarded a ship to see the world and find his fortune in lands much more promising than England. On his way to one of those lands he had met the barber floating in a small wooden rowboat on the ocean. When I asked him why the barber had been on the other side of the world he simply sighed and looked into his gloved hands. "He was exiled from London many years ago. Lost his entire family in those years, he did."

A family? Of course the barber had to have some relatives to his name but it was something I had never considered. Exiled? For what crime? My mind raced with what could have been done by this man who seemed to walk with darkness and preferred the company of shadows. Did he lay his hands on a woman, a child? Could he have snuck into a lord's home and made off with treasures? Was he a member of a guild of evil that sacrificed goats? The longer I went without an answer the more fantastical my theories became. With a large portion of my day on the streets I had asked around but no one possessed any more clues than I as to the past of the barber. Knew of no exile, knew of no kin. It seemed he had just blown into town with the salty air of the sea and as battered by the waves as its shore, his history truly being known only by her and she'd never dare spill his secrets to a child.

I searched through old records in the library for his story, the librarian peering over his glasses condescendingly, not trusting me alone with such documents and my eyes going blind from skimming over thousands of names. Children born, couples married and separated, families moving away and passing through, the dead. His name never appeared.

I was struck with a thought, one I was surprised I had not had before. Perhaps he, like me, carried too much in his name. Would the town so willingly embrace a returned convict or not remember an entire family unit torn apart by extradition? I stepped out into the dull sunlight, my shoes slipping on the always wet marble steps of the library. The barber must hate his name too.

I thought on this as I scrubbed at a coffee ring on a table outside of the shop later that day; the clouds above threatening rain. I heard her coming down the old steps recognizing the pattern without turning around. She called my name, tired. He wanted to see me upstairs. I obeyed. The whisper begged me to reconsider.

At the top of the stairs the door was closed. I pushed on the handle and stuck my head inside. The barber was at his work table penning something hastily. The door creaked in my hand and he looked up at me through the mirror. He scanned me and I felt uncomfortably known as though he could see all the activities I had been up to that afternoon listed on my skin in red ink. He motioned me over, gave me a letter with the strict instructions to hand it off to the judge and no one else and to do nothing else even after it was accomplished. I had been going to run to the grocer's for some much needed ingredients that I had forgotten to purchase earlier but he seemed adamant that I not get sidetracked. I would probably do it anyway if there was enough light left I decided as I rushed out of his room, down the stairs, and along the slick cobblestones of the street.

I had never had a reason to go to a courthouse, the old fool had wanted to avoid them as much as possible. Too many men poking their noses in everybody's business he would say, and then lying to give themselves legitimacy. It was one of the few things we agreed on. The building must have been beautiful once. Large and demanding with a deep russet color in the bricks. But the bricks were chipping and the overcast evening was setting the facade in a shadow that made it look more like a mad house than a place of justice; the curling stairs that led to the door cracking around dark green weeds bursting through the stone. Inside, the ceiling reached high topping the lifeless gray walls and the room seemed much too big for what was in it; a sole old woman with an obnoxiously large blue quill sitting at a low mahogany desk in the center. I approached her, my wet shoes squeaking against the marble and echoing around me.

She didn't acknowledge me until I coughed, her quill pausing mid-stroke. She took one look at me and scowled. I was used to it. I told her I was looking for the judge, needed to hand him a letter of utmost importance; I had always wanted to use that phrase. "The judge is busy for the rest of the night," she claimed reaching for the sheet in my hand. I pulled it away and knew I would have to wait for him. I would have much rather spent the night carrying trays of savory smelling pies between cramped aisles of dinner guests but I knew the barber would have my head if I didn't follow his directions whether I hid behind the lady's skirts or not. I leaned against a wall and slid down to the cold floor. The walls were barren except for a large portrait behind the old woman, above a pair of heavy oak doors, of the judge himself. It was a long and rather dull few hours.

Eventually, those doors opened and a short, round, hoggish looking man stepped out, his walking stick clicking along beside him out of sync with his steps. He stopped short when he saw me on the floor and I quickly scrambled to stand, clutching the paper in my hands. "You boy! What are you doing there?!" he called out. I explained that I had a letter from the barber that needed to be delivered to the judge and he, like the old woman, tried to take it. Luckily, before he could argue, a tall man with a cold stare matching the painting above him came through the doors. I ran up to him, and just as he was about to scold me, pushed the sheet into his hands. He glanced at it, and then began reading it more intently and I'm fairly sure a second time. "You've proven useful after all," he mumbled to himself, a slow grin splitting his face in half and without much fanfare they both hurried out into the night. The old lady rose to follow them and threatened to lock me in if I didn't see myself out immediately.

The streets were mostly empty which was understandable at this late hour. The moon rose high over the roofs of the buildings casting sharp shadows along the road. There was definitely no time to stop at the grocer's now I thought as I jumped in a puddle on the sidewalk. I followed familiar broken cobblestones down winding alleys, avoiding drunk bodies slumped against rotting doorways. I reached the edge of the city that overlooked a large hill. At the bottom of that hill, engulfed in a valley of shadows trying to hide away from the moon's piercing gaze, was a black square building that sat crumbling into dust. The lights were all off but I knew work was still being performed behind those destitute walls. The work never stopped in a work house, after all. I hugged my arms to my chest as a slow wind began winding its fingers through my clothes. I could have been there now. If it weren't for her I would have been tossed back to the scrapheap the moment people learned the old fool had deserted me. I took a deep breath of chilly late night air and slowly let it escape in a sigh. I wonder who was still there, who had been taken away, who had died without a soul ever saying his name in wonder or affection. I turned away and hurried back the way I had come. What should it matter to me who was left? I had escaped and it was enough.

I reached the main road just as a black cat slinked across the opening of the alley. I carefully avoided it as it watched me with green eyes that seemed to glow in the semi-darkness. I wondered what life it led, and was it merrier than my own? I briefly considered taking it back to the shop with me but was denied as its tail vanished into an open building and I was left to walk along unaccompanied. All that time in the court house with only thumb twiddling to do had done nothing for the curiosity that had been building ever since the barber had called me up to his room. After all, he hadn't even sealed the letter.

I read it.

Over and over because I couldn't believe what was written there. The sailor had come by seeking help from the barber a few days ago, his lady love had been locked away in an asylum and he had planned to break her out and run away with her; the only reason she was there being she was the judge's daughter and he was an awfully jealous man. It had said in the letter that the sailor was going to bring the judge's daughter to the shop, but wouldn't be allowed to leave until the judge came to fetch her come nightfall. Would the barber really betray the sailor this way? I buried my hands in my pockets against the night chill. What did it matter? These were the affairs of adults of with which I had nothing to do. For some reason, that didn't sit as well with me as it used to, the whisper brushing urgently against my ears. I hurried the rest of the way home, running from my own shadow as it chased me along the pavement.

I came into the living room to see her dozing in an armchair by the fire, an unfinished book in her lap. Did she know what the barber was planning tonight? Had she ever looked into the barber's eyes and been afraid of what she saw there? Or had she known it was always there and embraced it the way she had me? She seemed to desire the darkest of souls but had hers always been so opaque?

Did she ever hear the whispers?

She seemed to sense my presence and woke, starting slightly in her chair and asked where I had been all night instead of helping during the dinner rush. I explained the errand I had been told to run. I stood beside her noticing how at peace she seemed to be. Did I dare ruin that for her? My hands turned into fists at my sides. If it meant keeping her safe, I had to.

It mattered.

I asked her if she was worried about the ghosts haunting the ceiling, if she thought there could be wolves lurking beneath the very floorboards. If she ever wondered about whose nails scraped against locked doors or whose breath rubbed against the back of her neck when she was alone. She asked what I meant but I could tell she knew to whom I was referring. She got up from the chair and went to fix her hair in the mirror above the crackling fireplace ignoring me. I promised her my protection and she slowed, moving to the dying plant on the side table, it seemed, to ignore me more easily. I spoke his name and I watched her stiffen at the sound. She brushed past me to the piano that I wish I knew how to play if only for it not to be covered in dust. I promised eternal honesty as I glanced at the ceiling sure that he could hear me, one traitor to another.

She turned around then holding out a penny. Told me not to worry about such things and to go grab a toffee from the apothecary down the corner that was most definitely closed at this hour. She didn't seem to see the things I saw or hear the things I heard or think the things I thought. I supposed that was her prerogative and sometimes ignorance was bliss, a luxury I could never afford. Maybe just this once I would let her appease me. I grinned at the thought of using the penny for something else, how much did gin cost these days anyway, until I saw the red pouch she clutched to her chest. It had belonged to the old fool. He had never let me near it lest my fingers somehow made their way inside. I had assumed the old fool had run away because he was tired of me, gone off to find some other lad to make miserable, but he definitely wouldn't have left that behind willingly. The barber had been the last one to see him and now here she was telling me it wasn't what I thought and that he had given it to her as a birthday gift.

The voice in my head had begun to do more than whisper, it was chattering, incessant in nature. Round and round it spun demanding attention. It had been ignored for far too long. My first thought was to run to the law but she shut that down rather quickly and guided me back towards the sofa. She held me close and ran her hands through my hair. I had never had much motherly affection and this was the closest it had ever been to the true thing. That combined with the warmth from the fire was almost enough to make me forget every worry I had ever had. She whispered in my ear asking how I could think such things of the barber now that we were a family and after he had been so good to us.

I wanted to shout that he had done nothing for us. She was running a proper business and home effectively and would probably continue to do so without him. It was no secret she fancied him but I had no notion as to why when most times he wouldn't treat her with an ounce of respect; screaming at her to get out of his room, ignoring her when she spoke and otherwise being dreadful. But she had made a point. We were undoubtedly a family. As misshapen and haphazard as it was, it was a family. My very first. It would be foolish of me to tear it all to the ground on a paranoid whim wouldn't it? After all the barber, I learned, had lost a family already so it made sense that some nights were spent pacing to outrun the nightmares. Customers probably came down from the barber's all the time and I had just been too distracted with work to notice. Sending me on errands during the baking hours was probably just according to schedule. As if reading my mind, she brushed the hair out of my eyes one last time and offered me the opportunity to go down into the bake house below the shop with her. It was odd that she thought now was a wonderful teaching opportunity but when we stood together I caught her rapidly blinking away the tears that had begun to pool in her dark eyes.

The stairs going down into the underground bake house were steep and I wondered why she hadn't asked for help in this area earlier seeing as she complained often about her knees. She pushed open the door with a big heave. The oven, a large foreboding thing that looked as though it could fit an entire person was the glowing centerpiece of an otherwise dark, damp and rancid smelling room. The smell she said, came from the sewer rats. She showed me how to crank the grinder churning the animal parts above into moldable meat. I gave it a turn, the gear resisting with a rusty creak. She put her hand on my shoulder, proud. As she turned to leave me to it I stopped her to ask if I was allowed to taste my wares. She smiled then and her eyes were a sudden shock of familiar sadness as she said, "As many as you like, son." She closed the door behind her as I turned away grabbing a pie off a tray and munching on it happily. To be a son meant to belong to someone who wanted you and it had been years since I had been wanted. Owned many times, but wanted, dare I think loved, now that was another matter.

I wandered around the bake house examining the oven with its large door and the roaring fire inside it and the stacks of trays with rows upon rows of different kinds of pies. I wish I knew what the recipes were so I could make them myself but she had been very tight lipped about the process. As I tried to sniff out the ingredients something rubbery caught between my teeth. Must be a sliver of fat that must not have been removed fully at the butchers. Good thing I caught it, some customers could be extremely picky about their consumables. I pulled it out, a sizeable chunk that hadn't wanted to grind in the machine. I could feel my heart drop down into my shoes. It was no ordinary chunk of fat, it was an entire knuckle of a human finger!

I stood paralyzed for a moment. Surely there had been a terrible accident at the butchers and not everything had been taken care of properly. I looked around the room in a panic. How many other pies had accidentally had pieces of human baked into them? My eyes paused on a pile of bones in a shadow against the wall. Why did she keep bones here? I thought the butchers took care of all that? I stepped closer. Rib cages caked in dried blood, caved in skulls, what looked like a human spine. I felt bile rising in my throat burning my esophagus. This had to be some awful hideous mistake. I turned back to the trays of pies and noticed in between them were scraps of meat and bone. I reached into one of them and pulled out what I had hoped was a pig's hoof. Instead, it was a human hand missing a singular finger.

I had pieces of a puzzle but did I dare put them together? Could such sins really be committed? A loud metal clang came from above. I turned around just in time to see a body fly down from an open hatch in the ceiling and collapse in a bloody heap, the head smacking sickeningly against the stones, gore splattering across the floor.

The whisper screamed.

I ran madly towards the door and pulled on the lever but it didn't move an inch. She had locked me in. I slammed my fists desperately against the metal hoping against hope that someone, anyone would hear my cries for help. The only one who might hear me would be…I paused. I had said too much upstairs. I had been right to distrust the barber but I had stupidly shown my cards to the wrong person; the one who would tell him everything. It would only have been a matter of time before I had unraveled all their secrets and she had wanted me out of the way before I could have the chance. Sons were nothing compared to lovers.

I looked at the body and tried not to retch as its blood flowed like the river Styx between the stones towards the sewer grate. It was the hoggish man from the courthouse. The old fool would have laughed and told him it served him right for being in another man's affairs. I swallowed back more bile. Of course, in this instance, there was most definitely reason. She had to know there was no way I hadn't seen the body by now which means she would most definitely be back and who knows what would be done to me then. Would she bake me into a pie like the witches from children's stories? Even the most ridiculous theories seemed plausible. Nothing mattered anymore except to hide or escape. There was nowhere to tuck myself away in the main part of the bake house, it was all open floor with only the blazing oven breaking the clear surface. I could try my luck in the sewer tunnel entrance at the back of the room but I wouldn't know my way around and getting away from her and the barber seemed pointless if I got swept up in the sewage and drowned. I glanced around once more, but the roaring oven remained unwelcoming. It seemed running alongside the rats beneath the city was my only option.

I made to run to the tunnels but only made it a few steps before I tripped and slapped my palms into the wet stonework. I looked back and found my foot stuck between the bars of the draining slot. I had been blessed with another option. I crawled to it and lifted the cover, sending up a quick prayer to any god that would listen as I made my way down. It was not very deep but it was enough for me to crawl in and should things go awry it provided another entrance into the tunnels. I slid the bars back into place.

My breath was stuttering out between my lips and I had to clasp a hand over my mouth when I heard the door to the bake house unlock and screech open. She was back. I could only see the ceiling directly above me lit orange and yellow from the light of the oven but I could hear the soft squelching of her shoes with each step she took in the puddles of blood. I shut my eyes reverting to the childhood rule of something unable to exist without it being looked upon. Then a second pair of footsteps echoed off the walls; slow, purposeful. I heard her voice as soft as a dying breath call my name. I dared a peek above me just as I heard my name again, this time a sharp stab into the darkness accompanied by a tall black figure slowly stepping over the grate that hid me away. The barber was here as well. I crouched as low as the space would allow me, closing my eyes and trying to shut my ears to the sound of my name echoing off the walls sounding like a ghost who had never truly died as the two walked down into the paths of the sewers. I could hear her voice promise safety, love, honesty as she faded away; my own words mocking me where I lay.

The footsteps were suddenly coming back, quickly. I held my breath certain an exhale would reveal me. The barber ran past my hiding place without so much as slowing down and slammed the bake house door shut behind him. A few moments later she came back as well at a leisurely pace. She began to rummage around mumbling aloud to herself something about valuables. Was she searching the body? She did not scream or cry. She hadn't demanded answers when she had returned with the barber and he had offered no explanation. She didn't pretend to care.

The voice had been right.

Both she and the barber had held their secret close but not close enough. Why would they when they could end the life of anyone who asked the wrong question; playing the part of judge, jury and executioner in turn. I didn't care enough to wonder how or why. Every instinct said to run as soon as she left. The door was now unlocked and the further I got from the building the safer I would be. I would go straight to the judge or to the sailor or to anyone who would listen to the demented ramblings of an orphan child. Drums began to sound from up above and the crunch of bones onto stone conjured up images that would never be able to be scrubbed from my dreams, just like the trunk.

Hell was a place on earth, it lived here in the underbelly of London and it took up residence in the hearts of her people. Evil slunk through the shadows of abandoned churches and hid in the midnight skin beneath the eyes of murderers. Satan traced his claws along the bones of orphans and cruelly mocked their desire for life. Here in my cement tomb, in my cylindrical coffin I decided, as I heard a third body slide down from on high and collapse into a heap on the forsaken stone floor, God was a dream for fools in denial.

How could there be so many? How could it have gone on this long? Who were the unfortunate souls doomed to haunt the sewers with the ghosts of rats for eternity? The only question that truly warranted an answer was, why? It was also the answer I knew would escape me for the rest of my days.

Suddenly, she screamed above me as though she herself had been the one sent down the chute. Was the sick realization coming to her incredibly late? Had there been some terrible misunderstanding? I was instantly alleviated of the notion when she howled into the dark room, demanding he die. No, there was no room for error. The devil himself had a bride and it would be foolish to hope she could be saved, no matter what I wished. And then a whisper, so faint I almost mistook it for my own thoughts. It sounded like she had said, 'you'. Me?

The familiar heavy creaking of the bake house door and then the barber's voice asking why she had screamed so. She claimed one of the bodies had clung to life but she had finished him off. Some poor soul had tried to fight back, but what was one mere man against a demon? They speak with him insisting she get the door. I wait for the sound of the bake house entrance to squeal again but instead I'm met with the unmistakable groan of the oven I had heard for the first time mere minutes ago. Had it been minutes? Hours? Days? How long has death cloaked the air above me like smoke, choking me here in my solitude? What could they be going into the oven for? Was now truly an appropriate time for a meal? Would they be so crass as to break bread over broken skulls?

The barber whispered to himself with the reverence of a blind man seeing the sun for the first time. I could barely make out a name. Lucy. Had they killed a woman as well? What was next, a child? A priest? Was no one sacred? I almost laughed aloud. I, of all people, should know that to be true. What was within one's grasp was surely to be snatched up. It was in human nature to take and in turn, destroy.

And then they are speaking. Accusations of falsehoods and pitiful attempts at deceptions are thrown across the room like arrows and ricocheting off the echoing stones. She had lied. He claimed to want to move forward past it. He extended a peace offering. I was nearly mad with the desperation of wanting to throw myself out of the sewer and onto their platter if it meant warning her that a creature like him wasn't capable of forgiveness. Not without first taking your soul.

Her unholy scream masked mine, a mother's final act of protection.

The oven door is slammed with the finality of Revelation.

There is a few moments of still silence. I hear his footsteps walk slowly past where I hide. He begins to moan to himself. I reach for the grate and return from the dead, the metal scraping the stone in a way I know he must hear but he is otherwise occupied. I see properly for the first time the Barber who is on his knees curled around the body of one of his victims as though confessing his sins to her. A glint of light on the floor reveals a blood stained razor blade dropped carelessly among the stones. I crawl out of the hole and curl my fingers around the handle. I had always been curious about these blades. How they, in his skilled hands, had been what drove the old fool to the brink of madness so long ago. How she had always told me they were made of the purest silver. How strange it had felt to watch him caress their handles as though I were witnessing two lovers in the heat of passion. And in that moment I felt what he must have felt. That rush of power knowing what it was you could do with such an instrument. What you must do.

He has curled around her like the smoke of a blown out candle, words of regret and shame dripping from his lips like blood, as though he were praying to a god that he forgot he believed in. I walked up behind him, the soft underside of my shoes splashing in the puddles of red and brown caking the ground. God had abandoned his post long ago and I have willingly taken on the mantle to deliver his diving justice. He lifts his head and I instantly know that he knows I am here. He can sense my presence looming over him like the moon over the horizon. He is as unafraid as I. He offers up his neck like a prisoner to the gallows, begging to die. I do not hesitate.

I watch as he crumples spilling onto the woman's body, breath sliding away like a dream when the sun rises. I spare only a moment to look to the oven, her final resting place, buried with the ghosts of her own making. I turn to the door and leave the bake house and my home, cutting a lone shadow, in the empty night streets. I take his legacy with me, silver and ruby in my grasp and my name disappearing to history.