Lizzie's Song

Chapter 2- A Little Hell

Lizzie rides beside her father, her ear pressed to the wagon wall. There is a knot in the wood they cannot see from the inside, a knot that allows her to listen. She has used this to her advantage many times with prisoners, but these ones in particular pique her curiosity. Everyone in the village has wondered about the Sharpe children at one time or another. Their secluded childhood led them to become the subject of stories, especially among the younger people, those who would have been their classmates in the tiny village school.

Inside the jailer's wagon, Thomas can no longer stand the silence, every bump jostling his shoulder, sending a new wave of sharp, hot pain through his arm, the blood seeping down his sleeve, "Lucille...it's over."

"Don't tell them anything."

"And what good will that do? They know. The doctor, he has proof-"

"He has proof of nothing so long as you don't say anything. If you speak, you will hang. They will tear us apart and execute you."

"And what of you? What do you think they will do to you?"

"They will not execute poor, crazy Lucille."

Thomas' jaw drops, "You think they will grant you respite from the noose?"

"I will play the part. They will not hang me- they may send me back to hell, but I will live." She brushes his cheek, "Oh, Thomas, my love...I cannot protect you from yourself if you say anything. Let me take care of this."

"No. I can no longer endure this silence. And you stabbed me."

"You would condemn me?"

"I will take the blame. Say I lured them to the house. I told you to poison them. I sent their bodies to the clay."

"You would lie? No. After all I have done to protect you...Thomas, do you know what it will do to you to hang? How you will struggle?"

"I deserve it."

"No. You do not. You cannot. Even with four dead, you are blameless."

He catches her hand, "Four?"

"The baby."

"He died from his maladies. Neither of us can be blamed for that."

Her face turns from tender to cold and she looks towards the wagon door, "He was a twisted creature, too imperfect to have come from our love."

"Lucille...what did you do?"

"Nothing that would not have happened anyway."

"No...no...you did not..."

"Yes. I did. I put the poison on my teat and let him suckle or trickled it in the corner of his lips as he slept. He did not notice the bitters."

"That cough..."

"I was surprised you did not recognise it."

Thomas drops her hand and pushes himself as far away from her as he can, "You killed him."

"He would have died anyway. You saw his shape, his odd little suckle. The way he moved his limbs. He was born wrong."

"But he was my son! I thought you wanted him..."

"I wanted him born. I wanted him when he was an idea. But to see him... I could not think that we could have created such a monster."

"He was no monster; he was a child! My child!"

"A product of what we are." Lucille's voice is still distant, dispassionate.

"How could you?"

She reaches for him and he slaps her hand away, "Oh, Thomas...I did it for you. For us. I saw what he was doing, drawing you away, bringing you closer to Enola. Had he lived longer, it would have been even harder for you to let her go."

Hot tears sting his eyes and his voice shakes with quiet rage, "No. No more."

"You would reject me for this?"

"You murdered my son! Don't speak to me." He turns away and stares at the wall.

"Thomas, stop this. Killing has never bothered you before."

But he says nothing, hugging himself with the arm that does not hurt, his head resting against the wood fighting the urge to reach out and strangle his sister while in his head he repeats "Yes it has" over and over again. But he knows that would not be something he could do, even while enraged, no matter how deserved or justified he would be in doing it.