We All Deserve to Die

I woke with a start. The room of the inn took a moment to land around my confusion, the blue gray color of early dawn reflecting the chill of the room. I only had my nightclothes on beneath a thin blanket, but somehow I felt as if I was on fire. Maybe it was the nightmare.
I've never had dreams. Only nightmares.
I looked around me. Anthony lay on the floor, sound asleep beneath a blanket. He and Toby had given me the bed, out of chivalry I suppose.
Where was Toby, anyways?
I scanned the room to spot his silhouette near the window opposite me, staring out. That poor boy... he'd seen some terrible sights. I can only imagine what I would have done if I were his age.

Last night my curiosity had won me over. I guess I was a bad listener, a foolish girl. But I had heard a second scream come from below after the barber had left. So I followed.
It took me ages to build the nerve to walk out. My hand kept rising and falling at my side as I tried to open the barbershop door.
Bloody hell, just do it, Johanna!
I took very slow, careful steps. Down to find a storm door, open, dark stairs leading down. I went. But before my hand could turn the knob, it opened.
A small boy with scruffy clothes and brown hair looked up at me. He looked tortured beyond his years, his eyes dark and filled with vengeance. I gasped, not only because of my fright.
"You're Johanna." It was a statement, not a question.
How could he see? I was dressed as a pageboy. I'd never seen this child before. How did he know who I was.
He must have read my thoughts. "A few locks of your 'air are stickin' out from your cap." I felt the back of my neck to see it was true.
"Who are you?" I asked him.
He looked over me skeptically. "Name's Toby. I'm the boy 'ere for Mr. Todd and Mrs. Lovett. Or I was until a moment ago."
Before I could ask I looked into the room behind him. Terror shot through me as I saw the barber who, only minutes ago, had held a knife to my throat. Now he had a slit in his. Blood trailed from it in a sheet to his clothes, dripping onto the face of a woman who's body lay in his lap. She wasn't the Mrs. Lovett the boy spoke of... wasn't she the one I had seen the barber kill?
I gasped again, holding a hand to my mouth. "What happened?"
"Nothin' that di'nt need to," Toby said. I saw him throw a piece of metal behind him into the room, which appeared to me now to be a bakehouse of some sort. I looked over his head to see that it was one of the barber's razors, covered in blood.
"Johanna?" came a call from above. The sound of steps leading to the top level sounded, a pounding on the wood. "Johanna!"
Anthony.
I looked at the boy, not sure what to do. He looked angry, but beneath that lost and afraid. He couldn't have been older than twelve. Yet he had already seen a man die.
"Where have you to go?" I asked him.
Toby looked at his feet. "Nowhere, miss."
I made a second's decision and grabbed his hand, running up the steps. As we reached the top, Anthony was coming down.
"There you are!" he said, coming over to take hold of my arm gently. He smiled at me, his warm eyes hugging me. It took him a moment to notice Toby.
"Who's this?" he questioned. Then he seemed to recognize him. "Aren't you Mrs. Lovett's boy?" Anthony asked, looking around. "Where is she?"
"...Dead." Toby answered in a quiet voice.
Anthony looked at him in shock, and so did I. No, I didn't know who Mrs. Lovett was, but it was still concerning.
"Oy!" came a voice. "I 'aven't got all evenin'!" I turned to see a cabbie looking irritated at the front.
I turned to Anthony. "He has nowhere to go," I said. "He may as well come with us."
Anthony paused. He and I had been planning to run off, just the two of us. But we couldn't just abandon the poor thing!
"Alright. Come on, then. Toby's coming with us."

And so he did.
I grew a maternal attachment to Toby quite quickly. The carriage had taken us to this small inn not too far from the docks. Since Anthony was a sailor, the three of us were to take one of his mate's ships to...somewhere. Anthony and I were more than ready to leave, but Toby had spoken only a small handful of words to us. He worried me, the poor love. He seemed all alone in this world except for Anthony and me. I suppose he was.
I rose from the bed, pulling a blanket around me for warmth and decency. I quietly walked across the cold wood floor to the window, so as not to wake Anthony.
"Toby?" I whispered. He made no move to look at me. Just stared out at the sea and ships.
I sat in the sill with him. "Did you get any rest?"
He shook his head. "I couldn't sleep." He looked at me. "I noticed you seemed to 'ave some trouble sleepin' peacefully. You've been tossin' and turnin' for hours."
"I'm prone to nightmares," I said meekly. "And what I saw last night, with the barber..." I trailed off.
Toby stared at me, sympathy breaking his hard shell. "His name was Mr. Todd. Mrs. Lovett made the pies."
I nodded. "You worked for her?"
He nodded. "She took me in after Mr. Parelli left me. Dunno were the chum went, any'ow. Didn't like 'im. Didn't like Mr. Todd neither. Only Mrs. Lovett was good to me."
"Why didn't you like Mr. Todd?"
His eyes went cold again. "He was a very...angry man. I'd been suspicious of 'im for a while, see. Thinkin' he'd been up to somthin' bad. I turned out to be right about 'im. Didn't know Mrs. Lovett was a part of it too."
"A part of what?"
He was quiet for a very long time. "Mr. Todd rarely shaved a face. Instead, he kept his customers around. In a way. As in, they never left."
"What do you mean?"
Toby creased his face. "I once heard 'im tell Mrs. Lovett that we all deserve to die. I guess he lived by that. He...he killed most of his customers."
My jaw dropped. He looked at me before he continued.
"He killed 'em, then sent 'em down to the bakehouse. He and Mrs. Lovett used the meat for 'er pies. Meat's on a 'igh price now. Dunno if you could tell the difference. Seems you grew up with class." He didn't say it in a mean way, but it still felt to me as if Toby had left an underlying stab. "Any'ow, business did good after they figured that out. I only found out about it yesterday. Put all the pieces together."
I shook my head. What kind of person could do something like that? They must have been mad! And what about everyone who had eaten the pies? They didn't know. The very thought made my stomach turn.
"But...why?" I asked Toby. "Why kill them all?"
He was quiet again before responding. "It wasn't just for the pies. That was a bonus, see. Mr. Todd wanted... practice. He meant all along to kill your guardian. As far as I know, anyway."
I was stunned. Yes, I had seen him kill the judge. They knew each other-- only the barber wasn't Mr. Todd. His name was Benjamin Barker. Still, "Why kill the judge?"
"...Revenge."
Toby spoke the last word with an indescribable emotion. A large mixture of fear and anger and betrayal.
"Why did Mr. Todd need revenge against the judge, Toby?" I asked.
"Because of you." He said, so easily, as if it was nothing shocking.
"Me?" I asked. "Toby, now you're going mad."
"Like 'ell I am!" he said. I shushed him, seeing Anthony turn in his sleep. Toby's voice quieted. "I heard 'im, the last words Mr. Todd spoke. The old woman in his lap, he called 'er Lucy. She was his wife. I 'eard 'im goin' on and on all the time 'bout 'is daughter." He stared at me, as if afraid to speak. "'Is daughter Johanna."

Now in the belly of a ship, the image of the dead barber and the woman haunted my mind. It played in my head again and again as a terror. I heard the barber's voice in my head.
"Forget my face."
That was all I had really ever heard him say. Had I listened?
But now he said something different.
Johanna....my little dove...my sweet Johanna...
Why? Why did he say it? Was he a ghost? A madman? Well, yes, he had been a madman. But how did he know me?
My little lamb... my pet.... Johanna...
I saw again in my dreaming mind the barber and the woman. This time, they were not dead. Covered in blood, they looked up...and smiled at me.
I jumped awake again, gasping.
"Johanna?" Anthony sat up beside me. "Johanna, what's wrong?" He put an arm around my shaking shoulders. I leaned into him.
"A nightmare?" he asked.
I shook until my voice came into my mouth. "I told you the ghosts would never go away."

Now walking the streets in a foreign country with Anthony and Toby at my sides, I smiled as we walked. This was a new life outside of the cage I had known for so many years. I could now sing the song of the green finch and the linnet bird.
I felt free of the life of London.
But as I turned down a street, I saw a man and his wife at the end. I saw them turn to me, smiling. Covered in blood.
I screamed.

"Just breathe, Johanna. Even breaths. Don't push yet!" the doctor ordered me. The pain just below my stomach was splitting me in half. My hair was drenched in sweat as I tried to breathe evenly, clutching Anthony's hand until it was nearly blue. I could hear Toby outside the door-- too young to be inside-- pacing nervously back and forth across the wooden floor of our home.
"Okay, push, Johanna, PUSH!"
I did. I pushed and screamed and perspired for what felt like an eternity. Anthony wiped my brow with a cold, damp cloth.
After a lifetime, I was handed a beautiful baby boy. All the pain I had been put through was more than worth it. Toby came in, and our little family adored our newest member.
"Toby," I said. "It seems you have a new little brother."
I turned to smile at him, and when I did, I saw a man and a woman standing behind him. Smiling at me. And of course, covered in blood.
"Name him after Daddy?" the barber smiled.
I fainted.

It was raining. I sat in the window and looked out. The thought that I was going mad tortured me. I had Anthony, And Toby, and baby Benjamin-- I should be the happiest woman in the world now. And yet, I was afraid of myself.
"Darling! We're back!" The front door closed below me. I made no move to greet them. I just stared.
"Johanna?" Anthony opened the door behind me, and I saw him in the mirror next to me, that look crossing his face. "How was your day, love?"
I didn't answer. My day? Oh, nothing unusual. I left the cleaning to the maid, pricked my fingers willingly as I sewed Toby's trousers. Thought about actually needing to be locked up in that asylum where I had once been.
Anthony put a hand on my shoulder. "Johanna... what is it you keep seeing?" he asked, worried. "These hallucinations. You've been seeing them ever since we left London however many years ago." He waited for my response. I stared at the rain.
"Is it the judge?" he asked quietly.
"...I wish it was," I finally whispered. "But no."
"Then who or what is it?"
For a moment I didn't answer. Then I turned to look at my husband. Anthony's face was so concerned, so loving.
"Do you think we all... we all deserve to die?" I asked him.
He looked taken aback. "Where on Earth did you get that idea?"
Two sets of footsteps-- one small and one adolescent-- padded into the room before I could respond.
"Hello, mummy!" Benjamin beamed at me, coming over and hugging me. I smiled and hugged him back.
Toby leaned in the door frame, grinning. In the last five years he had grown to be a handsome young man, and was better than any nanny we could have ever found.
"And how's my little young man today?" I said to Benjamin. He pulled away from clutching my legs and smiled. "Mummy, I'm only four," he giggled.
"You're still a young man," I said. I kissed his nose and looked to the door. "Did you have a nice outing?" I asked Toby.
He nodded. "Ben was very well behaved." He ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. "But 'e seemed a bit rowdy to see you. Didn't want to make 'im sit through a shave, so I'll be at the barber for a while."
As he smiled at all of us and stood up straight, I saw Mr. Todd walk up behind him, wrapping an arm around Toby's shoulders, putting a razor to his throat.
"TOBY!" I cried.

Anthony and I strolled down the street toward home. We were both very tired, and I was very weepy. I had just seen my baby boy grow up and be married. It was only yesterday that I was holding him for the first time.
"Can you believe it?" I awed.
Anthony smiled and nodded. "He's grown now. And I like her, she's a real lady."
I leaned a head on his shoulder, making a grumble in agreement.
He lifted a nose in the air, sniffing. "Mmm... smell that? Smells like meat pies to me."
I looked up to see a small pie shop just ahead. I saw the old woman smiling in one of the windows, bloodstained and all. She held a pie in her hand, beckoning me to come with one finger.
"ANOTHONY! THERE SHE IS!" I yelled. "DO YOU SEE HER?" I pointed to the shop window.
He clutched me protectively and looked.
"Johanna... there's no one in that window."
"Yes there is!" I insisted. Then I stopped and sniffed the air, looking up at the chimney of the pie emporium. "ANTHONY!" I cried. "They're doing what that woman in London did with that barber! They're killing too!"
Anthony stared at me. "What in the bloody HELL are you talking about?!"
"Smoke... the sign of the devil!" I pointed to the chimney. "Smell it? An evil smell..."
I looked at him as if he should know exactly what I meant. He just looked at me with a certain brand of fear.
"Love, maybe it's time to see a doctor."
I burst into tears, and Anthony carried me the rest of the way home.

I lay in bed, and old woman, my chest feeling tight. Toby, and Benjamin and his wife were at my bedside. My last breaths were sneaking in and out of my lungs.
"I'm going to go see your father, Benjamin," I said soothingly. He began to cry. I reached out and held the hands of he and his wife.
I reached to hold Toby's hand on the other side of me. "Toby?"
He looked up from staring at his feet, red eyed. He was growing old now, but in my eyes he now flashed back to the small boy I saw in the door of the London bake house.
"Do you remember," I gasped, "When you told me what Mr. Todd said to Mrs. Lovett?"
He creased his face, following. "Yes, I remember."
I looked away from his face, turning my eyes instead to see the barber and the old woman at the end of my bed.
Mr. Todd and his wife.
Benjamin and Lucy Barker.
Dad and Mum.
They smiled at me, their bloody faces staring kindly at my dying face. This time I did not scream. In fact I felt welcomed by them. And with that realization, they changed, no longer covered in blood. Just a beautiful woman and her handsome husband.
"It's true," I said to no one in particular. Maybe Toby. Maybe the barber and his wife. I still don't know. I felt myself sit up, but my body didn't move. I could turn my head to see my wrinkled face lying back on a pillow. The mouth moved to speak in unison with me.
"We all deserve to die."
I turned to my mother and father. They smiled, and my mum held out her hand. I took it, standing, leaving all my nightmares behind me in the world of the living, and walking a ghostly Fleet Street.
Among ghosts with slit throats.

Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.
His skin was pale and his eye was odd.
He shaved the faces of gentlemen
who never thereafter were heard of again.
He trod a path that few have trod
did Sweeney Todd
the demon barber of fleet street.
He kept a shop in London town.
Of fancy clients and good renown
and what if none of their souls were saved
they went to their maker impeccably shaved.
By Sweeney,
by Sweeney Todd
the demon barber of fleet street.

Swing your razor wide!
Sweeney, hold it to the skies.
Freely flows the blood of those who moralize.
His needs were few, his room was bare.
A lavabo and a fancy chair.
A mug of suds, and a leather strop,
an apron, a towel, a pail, and a mop.
For neatness he deserves a nod,
does Sweeney Todd,
the demon barber of Fleet Street.
Inconspicuous Sweeney was,
quick, and quiet and clean he was.
Back of his smile, under his word,
Sweeney heard music that nobody heard.
Sweeney pondered and Sweeney planned,
like a perfect machine he planned,
Sweeney was smooth, Sweeney was subtle,
Sweeney would blink, and rats would scuttle
Sweeney was smooth, Sweeney was subtle
Sweeney would blink, and rats would scuttle
Sweeney was smooth, Sweeney was subtle,
Sweeney would blink, and rats would scuttle
Sweeney was smooth, Sweeney was subtle,
Sweeney would blink, and rats would scuttle
Sweeney! Sweeney! Sweeney! Sweeney!
Sweeney!

Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd!
Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd!
He served a dark and avengeful God!
He served a dark and avengeful God!
What happened then, well that's the play,
and he wouldn't want us to give it away...
Not Sweeney
Not Sweeney Todd
The demon barber of Fleet...
Street.