#razorgleam

"What do I want?" Everything, she wanted to shout. Everything she could never have. She wanted to scream and cry until her throat bled and gnaw and gnash at any living thing until her bloodlust was satiated. She was a wild dog locked in a kennel, desperate to claw her way out of this life she was trapped in.

And all the while, Lucy sat perched on the window sill like a silky kitten ready to be pampered.

She wanted to shake some sense into Lucy. Couldn't she see? Why couldn't she understand that all Nell had ever wanted was to be just like her? To be pretty and eloquent, delicate as a flower and as alluring as one, too. But Lucy was a rose, aromatic and beautiful, and Nell was deadly nightshade. She wanted Lucy's face, her husband, her life.

And all she got was pity from her friend. Or at least that's what it felt like from Nellie's perspective.

She tried to copy Lucy. Tried to mimic her mannerisms, echo her melodic laugh, and mirror her delicate smile. But no matter how hard she tried, Nell always came up short. She would perpetually live in Lucy's shadow unless she did something about it.

“Not exactly, but I have mended a wound or two in my time.” Nell had known how to wield a carving knife by the time she could walk, and by the time she was married, the young lady knew far more about butchering than any normal girl ought to.

She knew a bit of medicine from her marriage to Elias, and from her time under the employ of Dr. Cornell. He had showed her many things, many techniques and methods that only the most skilled of physicians would know, but it was hard to discern in retrospect how much of those wearily days were real and how much was a concocted fiction crafted to lure her into a false sense of security.

Whatever the reason, though, Nell found pride in knowing she was the only one of them still living. And with the buzzing excitement of having Mr. Todd in her orbit, Nellie felt unstoppable.

"You're the master with the blade, Mr. Todd. The best barber in London, I'd say. Maybe even in the world."