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Mortal sin.

That's the one thought that crossed her mind as she tilted the bottle upward, cold glass stinging her lips as it pressed against them. A mortal sin, that's what this was, and she'd had enough hell for one night. Images fluttered beneath her eyelids like moths in one fleeting moment; I suppose you could say her life flashed before her eyes. She saw little Johanna, still upstairs, cradled in her arms when she was first born- she still needed a mother. She couldn't leave her, not with Ben gone, not with that harpy Lovett the only one left now that Albert had passed on, not without protection if that monster Turpin would be the one deciding her affairs if she died.

Oh God, Turpin. She wouldn't let him win, she couldn't. He'd taken Ben, he'd taken her body, but no bloody way would she give him her life or her child- both were far too precious for the likes of him.

She realized all this in an instant- the vial was already tipped, the liquid a millisecond from her lips. It crashed on to her tongue, sizzling as it flamed the inside of her mouth. She gagged, stomach clenching, pushing with everything she had to get the foul concoction out of her system. Like a rain of death, the droplets fell to the floor, but it wasn't enough; she'd still swallowed a good portion of it.

She fell to the floor, writhing as the elixir took its hold of her throat, coiling itself into a noose for her inner neck, flames etching their mark into it deeper and deeper…

The noise of her fall must have stirred Nellie, for her features appeared in the hazy lines of her vision. The old crow's-feet on her shocked face swirled into a kind of morbid, colorless rainbow as Lucy Barker's world went black.

---

I am no longer her.

I don't know when I awoke, exactly- there was no fight with my eyelids, no semi-conscious war to persuade myself to wake. I was just suddenly there, staring at the ceiling. I tried to turn on the cot- or whatever soft surface I had been placed on- but the pain of my ordeal had taken all the strength out of me, and my muscles were too slack to move. A groan of breath escaped me torturously.

That was the first time I realized something was truly wrong. I had never been a particularly contrite person, but I knew my own groan when I heard it. My voice was too constricted; it came out more as an involuntary gag than a feeble expression of aching. The noise was guttural, inhuman, and it frightened me more than anything I had ever known.

In turn, the wrenching noise attracted the attention of someone else; a dark-haired man, a stranger, but I glimpsed a medical bag in his hands and tried to ask him what had happened to me, but again: only the hoarse, retching, noise of an animal out of a supposed woman's throat.

"I told ya," a thick Cockney accent said vehemently from behind the doctor. Lovett. "Been raspin' like the devil ever since it 'appened, I tell ya she's lost 'er marbles, ya ought to send her up to Fogg's-"

I tried to scoff at her, but it hurt even to curl my lip and I only managed to let out a growling whimper. I sounded to myself like an injured wolf- I certainly howled when the doctor bent over me and started running his fingers up my aching chest.

"She seems coherent enough," he murmured, while I all but writhed beneath his hand. Nellie stared at him incredulously, for I was shuddering with pain, having to make an effort to stay aware of my surroundings at all. "She made eye contact earlier," he explained. "Generally if they've gone mad, they're in a daze when they first wake up."

Mercifully, he removed his touch. "No, I think she's still here. She will, however, require extensive medical care, and may never be the same again. I can recommend several facilities that specialize in toxic consumption, who over an extensive period of time could coach her back into somewhat understandable speech-"

"Extensive medical care my foot!" shrieked Nellie, waving her arms as though she were the mad woman. "She's an invalid, that's what she is, plain and simple! Too proud to day's work before this 'appened- you know she's been upstairs, night 'n day, doin' nothing but crying for the last month? 'Least till she decided to flounce her raunchy ways up the judiciary system-" she cut herself off, noting the doctor's taken aback expression. "I 'avent the money to care for her nor have anyone else do it, she and that baby 'ave been nothin' but a burden to me, I only kept them 'round as a favor to a- a dear friend."

Oh, how I longed to jeer at her after that remark- I'd long knew she'd fancied my Ben as more than just a "friend", but he was too noble (and devoted to me) to even note her affections.

"The baby in question," the doctor said slowly, clearly fearing another outburst from Lovett, "will be left in the custody of whoever the mother designated before the time of the poisoning."

All smugness left my breast, replaced with a stab of horror. I knew who that would be.

"And the wench herself?" my landlady demanded.

He gave me a half-glance, and then shrugged noncommittally. "She is, after all, your charge," he muttered, trying to gloss over the implications in his voice.

I tried my best to glower at him. As long as he had his money for the house call, she could throw me to the rats for all he cared.

Nellie quickly gave the doctor payment for his trouble and politely escorted him to the door. When she returned, there was nothing short of wicked glee in her eye.

"Well, not so 'igh and mighty now, are we Miss Lucille?" she asked, smiling crookedly.

Glaring daggers, I tried to imprint the message into her mind: Given that I know how to pronounce the letter 'H', unlike some, I'd say that gives me a tough of mightiness, yes.

It did no good. She was already striding towards me, looking nothing short of murderous. For all I knew, she would murder me. I'd been down in the shop the night Albert died, unsure of what I'd seen or at least convinced myself that I was until the old witch showed me her true colors once Ben was gone. She stood hunched over me ominously for what seemed years, then spat in my face.

"Ye've one week, Princess," she hissed. "Rest up all you can, and then you're out."

She made good on her word. She'd handed me a shawl and a collection bowl seven days later, holding the door open. Had I the energy to overpower her if she was provoked, I would have crushed her foot as I left.

I'd no idea how long I'd been on the street, wordlessly gesturing for alms to keep myself alive on. My fine, golden spun hair grew rank, unrecognizably filthy. I tried not to acknowledge my transformation, but one does not abstain from bathing for over a decade without some notice.

Then, yesterday, I saw what I believed to be a dream, but then twisted into a nightmare more savage than my imagination could hope to inspire. I hurried across the crowd, running despite the burning in my ruined chest, and all but crashed into him.

"What's this?!" he'd roared. "Away, beast!"

I'd flinched, more so than if he'd outright struck me. Could prison have hardened him this much. "Ben!" I tried to scream, "Ben!"

Never had my destroyed vocal cords concocted such a foul sound, wretching and aching with longing. It breathed like fire against my neck, but I did not care, I was too lost in what I was sure was a hallucination.

Benjamin- or what I'd taken for Benjamin- clamped his hands over his ears at the foul sound, he who used to coax me to sing for him every night, who'd written Johanna a lullaby. "Off with you, I say!" he shouted. "To the devil with you!"

His words were meaningless; I was caught in a desperate revere. He must know me, he must. "BEN!" I'd screamed, begging, pleading, for him to hear me somehow through the evil in my throat.

He'd tried to shove me off, but I'd frozen- I'd caught sight of his eyes. They were odd; cold, hateful. The Benjamin I had known could never feel such things with such horrid might.

This was not him.

I let go without further prompting, stumbling away into the streets. I can vaguely recall a young sailor throwing money at my feet, but it was worthless to me. I sat and still sit at the harbor, waiting for my Ben to come home. That man was not him.

I hope I have gone mad.