he knew her . as her full name left his lips , she is bound in her place . he was going to kill her . pale fingers brush her neck and when she looks back , there is her blood melted into her fingerprints . in the asylum , johanna witnessed the mad . singing ballads of their former lives and shrieking themselves to sleep . most of the woman locked away there were sane and after an amount of time , they became one of the insane . like this man in front of her .
if he knows her , he knows the judge’s influence . the judge who would belittle her and punish her for escaping the madhouse . who would make her his wife the moment his hands were on her . the barber would give her back .
johanna leans against the wall , wobbly knees cannot support her . as much as she wants to shrivel up and sink into the floor , she fights the urge . it would give the barber the chance to drag her back or finish with her .
turpin took her in when her mother poisoned herself and her father committed some unknown crime and later asked her to marry him and threw her into an asylum for lunatics . this man spared her the cold streets and held a blade to her throat . why would she trust he would be different ? they are all cruel .
all breath has left her . johanna looks at the barber . shadowed by emotion , she can hardly feel the blood and pain on her neck . she wants to sob and scream about how confused she is but she can’t .
❛ There was a barber and his wife . . . ❜ he drifts off. The words seem so heavy now. ❛ And she was beautiful. ❜ Sweeney’s eyes go to the window caving over his head, a tsunami of what it is that he has become. In a moment, he can remember being in this very spot, Johanna gurgling, and Lucy reading. The shop is not damp, as cold and warped as himself. No. It is full of light, and life, and over there in the corner is a baby’s bed that one day he imagines his first born playing in, crawling out of, growing taller than, and in those golden yellow days he would teach her anything he knew. Anything she wanted to know. He’d show her how to play childhood games. Never would she go hungry, or be made to feel unsafe - not by him, not by them. The world is a strange place still in these golden yellow days, but it is not a bad place. It is full of laughter and wonder and inexplicable things, brilliant, new marvels. In the golden yellow days, he stands by her side at her wedding and cries silly, fat tears because he is proud. Lucy is as beautiful aged as she is young, and he tells her always. No matter the demands Johanna grows to have of the world or herself, he helps her. She has a mind as bright and naive as his, and as beautiful and clever as her mothers. The love he gives has been sown and he reaps it daily in the happiness of the women he adores. The family he keeps safe.
BUT THESE ARE NOT THE GOLDEN YELLOW DAYS.
Those days, full of joy and laughter and safety ------ they never came. Not for any of them. The only thing he reaps now is souls, in lieu of the one man responsible for this tragedy. Responsible for the coarse thread he feels binding his jaw and throat shut to the girl he fathered. There is one man responsible, and it is J U D G E T U R P I N .
He has been silent for a long stretch now. With new life and purpose, Sweeney Todd finds his legs, standing erect. Swift as a spider. He rounds on the girl - not just a girl, on Johanna - and with no trace of joy or hope he says: ❛ F’give me. I --- ❜ his voice catches, throat tightening. He mustn’t give away anything too revealing until he discusses this situation with Lovett. She has a head for this stuff - he knows he cannot believably tell her he is her father, and not have her suspect him of murder whenever it is that the judge finally submits to his blade. In a moment or less, he must think of something that explains his upset.
❛ I sailed with Anthony Hope. I know not of how to welcome people, because I’ve spent long years in Australia, head cracked against the splitting sun and rock. ❜ He kicks the razor on the floor away, a sign of peace, eyes steady and hand out before him for a shake.
❛ I knew your mother. ❜ He stops again, eyes threatening once more to overwhelm him. ❛ You are so very like her. ❜