Arabella
By Airafleeza


“Mr. Todd?” Arabella knocked on his door that rattled when hit upon and frightened her. “M-Mr. Todd?”

“The door is open.”

Arabella opened the door, staring in awe of the empty room she had just entered.

The wallpaper appeared to be running away from the wall itself and singed at the curled ends where it had managed to make some progress towards its’ escape. The room lacked pictures; no pictures on the wall of anyone, not even a painting of flowers or anything. There was indeed a mirror, broken though, a dusty chest, a stand that held his barbering supplies and his red chair for customers.

This room had no life. No character. It was an exact reflection of the man before her.

This Sweeney Todd person looked as though he had just come out from a black and white picture. His skin, his clothes… even his hair… they were all composed of black or white.

“Uh… sir, I was hoping to receive help from you for two things…” she shivered. This room made her anxious. There was a weird, cold feeling in the air of this room.

“The only thing I can help you out with is if you need a shave.” He looked up at her briefly from his razor. Arabella normally would care if someone spoke to her without eye contact, but with Mister Sweeney Todd, she didn’t. She didn’t like his stare.

“N-no. No, of course not.” She tried her best not to get humiliated by such a comment and scramble her words. “I was looking for my father- ”

“’ave you checked with the police yet?” the barber questioned as he cleaned his razor.

“No… he was here just awhile ago to git a shave from you, sir. My mum told meh to come and git the bugger.”

“I don’t recall ‘aving any customers for at least an hour. They’re all busy stuffin’ their faces with Mrs. Lovett’s pies,” Sweeney continued to wipe his razor of invisible dirt. The corners of his mouth were slightly curved upward as he attempted to conceal a smile, which made Arabella sure he knew something of what was going on. “Why don’t you go on downstairs and wait for ‘im?”

Arabella was frozen. Her fear told her to listen to the man and just do what he suggested. But her curiosity told her otherwise.

“We don’t ‘ave anything more to talk about, so why don’t you just go?”

“No, Mr. Sweeney Todd sir, there’s something else I need to speak to you about,” she spoke firmly. She pulled out the hankie and walked over slowly to Mr. Todd, pulling the thin fabric away to reveal the finger.

For just a moment, she swore she saw him sweat. He stared at the toe for a brief moment, his mouth slightly open. He pressed his gray lips back together and put back on his calm façade, staring at his silver razor, which gleamed when the moonlight from the window behind him hit it.

“Do you know something… do you have some ‘and in this…?” Arabella raised her voice slightly. “I don’t want to think you do because making such assumptions of a person I don’t know isn’t right… but do you Mr. Todd…?"

“What makes yeh think this involves me? Maybe, Mrs. Lovett messed up when cuttin’ the meat for the pies and chopped off a finger?” he answered rather smugly.

“I saw ‘er hands! She was completely well enough to carry all those trays ‘bout!” she glared, now angry he was playing this game with her. Her eyes caught sight of something she had earlier missed, a small gold frame. In it was a picture of a pretty woman. “What would you say if that woman there asked you? Would yeh lie to ‘er?!”

He gave no response. His eyes became fixated on nothing, looking off into space.

“Look,” Arabella’s voice became soft again, perhaps something even softer than before. With no traces of fear. “If Mrs. Lovett is making you keep this horrible secret of ‘ers and you can’t tell me because she’d kick yeh out of this upstairs room. I can help you.” She shoved the shoe back into her pocket and turned around.

“I’ll go git the law,” she rambled on. “They’ll lock Mrs. Lovett up for yeh and then you can stay ‘ere in your home- ”

Arabella reached for the door’s knob, but strangely couldn’t reach it. Her arm was out stretched as far as possible, or so it felt that way, but it was still so far away. She tried to take a small step, just a small step to get slightly closer, but couldn’t move her feet anymore. It was still out of her grasp.

She tried to breath, but the more breath she gave to take some air in, the more she lost and couldn’t get back.

Acting like a puppet after it’s strings were cut, her legs crumpled beneath her.

I’m dreaming… she closed her eyes, but opened them not to find herself in her cozy small room back in her house with her mother and father’s loud snores from the room next door, but still in this horrible, horrible barber shop. Everything around her seemed to be a haze… a red haze. She could feel the sickly warm and sticky haze on her fingers and she couldn’t understand why. Where was it coming from? She wanted to know, she wanted to see. However, her arms felt like dead weights and wouldn’t move to wipe this haze from her eyes.

Then everything got darker. And noises silenced down.

White fingers that could’ve been made from ice touched her darkened eyelids over her once bright golden eyes as they started to dim and become like his, eyes of the dead. Arabella was grateful for this. She did not want to have his eyes that were so unnerving. She didn’t want to look like a living dead. She wanted to keep her soul.

Arabella heard a faint echo of someone’s knee encountering the wooden floor, and those icy hands sitting her up. His razor was pressed up against her throat.

Sweeney Todd’s silver friend sliced through her soft vulnerable neck a second time, this time going deeper into her throat so easily with just one quick, swift movement it was like a hot knife through slicing butter.

He stood up slowly, walking curtly to his stand that held all his supplies so he could get a rag to clean his razor once more.

--

“Mr. T!” Mrs. Lovett called, the familiar scuffling noise of her worn out feet trying to climb up the wood floor as fast as possible. She opened the door quickly and shut it behind her just as fast, standing by the door for a moment to catch her lost breath, and then looked up to see the barber sitting in his chair, toying with his razor.

“Mr. T…?” she spoke, approaching Sweeney. “What… why was there a girl down there… with the bodies…?”

Sweeney Todd continued to stare at the ground, glaring at it from his deadly revolving chair, giving Mrs. Lovett no response of any kind. As usual.

“Why’d you kill ‘er…? I mean, she was such a lil thing… and I know ‘er mum. I saw ‘er dad down in the bake house early… and she just came flyin’ down… Mrs. James may getta little suspicious, deary…”

“She found a finger in ‘er pie, Mrs. Lovett.” His voice was accusing, as if this was all her fault the girl died in the first place because the baker didn’t grind her pies completely. “She was going to get you in trouble with the law.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Lovett answered, still ill at ease. She was so troubled by this she didn’t even take to heart that he did this so she would not be taken away. He did not carry a conscious and she just so happened to have enough sympathy for the both of them.

“Oh, love…” she sighed, pulling back loose strands of frizzy red hair. She sneakily put a hand on his shoulder, but he still stiffened at her soft touch.

“She should’ve learned to mind ‘er own business, my pet,” he responded indifferently. “Look at what being a busybody got ‘er.”