Being close and being clever ain’t like being true / I don’t need to, I would never hide a thing from you / Like some…

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  Even much later, some moments of Toby's time with Mrs. Lovett and Mr. Todd stood out more than others. He settled quickly into the routine of the pie shop. After a few days of training, Mrs. Lovett put him to work as a waiter and cleanup boy. They didn't earn much for about a month; as the woman herself said with a strange pride, her pies were the worst in London. Only the truly desperate came into the shop to choke down the slop tucked into a crust, helped along by a great deal of alcohol.

  Toby spent most of his time caring for the shop. Sweeping up crumbs, wiping down the baking counter, washing the baker's tools and cleaning the windows. Nobody pointed out that there hadn't been a single roach since Toby took over cleaning. But Mrs. Lovett gave him a smile at the end of every day when he hung up his apron.

  He liked Mrs. Lovett. She smiled at him every morning over porridge or the odd egg. She asked him questions about his "book learning" from the workhouse, and made him responsible for the maths of running a business. And one day a couple of weeks after he arrived, she offered to show him how to make the pie dough.

  "Good drippings, that's the trick," Mrs. Lovett began. She patted the rim of a bowl, and Toby peeked in. There was a large white lump that smelled of bacon, starting to melt slightly. Mrs. Lovett stuck the bowl near the stove until it became a clear-ish liquid, and she brought it back.

  "Take it and your water, and put it all in a bit at a time." She added water to flour, stirring the whole time with a knife. Quick as winking, she rolled and folded the lump and added the drippings in, a bit at a time as she'd said. Soon enough, it was in its own bowl and ready. Toby had never seen anything like it. With just a few pence and her own two hands, she could turn unrelated things into food. Like some sort of good kitchen witch.

  "You try, love." She helped him measure out flour and some chicken drippings from last night's supper. They laughed when Toby dropped the knife into the bowl, flour flying everywhere like fluffy snow.

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  Mr. Todd had another friend besides Mrs. Lovett. Toby saw him pop by the barbershop sometimes, a lad not much older than himself with blond hair and a pleasant, open face. Anthony, he heard Mr. Todd call him.

  Once Anthony came down to the pie shop, and Toby slid him an ale and a free meat pie. "On the house, missus' orders," he said, and Anthony raised his ale glass. He took a bite of the pie and forced a smile before laying it on his plate again.

  "Well, if it isn't the young sailor boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lovett. She came out from behind the counter, wiping her hands on a rag and pushing her red hair-band back. She plopped down beside Anthony. "Toby, run and get us some gin and two cups," she said. "Then keep an eye on those coolin' pies for me."

  Toby did as she asked, and when he came back she was patting Anthony's hand. "I'm sure it'll work out, dear," she said to him. Toby poured each of them some gin, and she smiled. "Thanks, love." As he darted over to the latest batch of chicken pies, he heard her say, "You ran all over London lookin' for her, didn't you? And you haven't stopped since they took her?"

  "Yes, ma'am." Anthony looked as if someone had just told him Christmas had been canceled. He took a swig of gin and said, "But the judge hid her well. I can't find hide nor hair of her." He put his head in his hands just as Mr. Todd came into the pie shop, tossing his coat to Toby.

  "Pie and gin for me too, lad," he grunted, sitting on Anthony's other side. Toby filled his order just as Anthony spoke again.

  "Oh, Mr. Todd, I haven't found her. I fear I'll never see her again." He muttered into his hands, "Johanna, Johanna, whatever walls they have you in can't hide you forever."

  A girl, then. Toby didn't roll his eyes, but it was hard. Mr. Todd, on the other hand, looked almost sorry for Anthony. "You'll find her, I'm sure," he said flatly. "If you have to burn down all of London, you'll find her."

  Mrs. Lovett nodded. "Lovely thing, for a lad to be so devoted to his lady." She stared at Mr. Todd as she said it, and Toby felt his stomach clench. He knew she fancied Mr. Todd, probably everyone in the city did. But as usual, the barber stared into space, sipping his gin as if he couldn't hear her.

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  Mr. Todd often looked like he couldn't hear people who'd just spoken to him. Shopping at the market, talking to Mrs. Lovett, having Toby help out with odd jobs in the barbershop upstairs. It always seemed like he was off someplace else. Hearing and seeing something – or someone – else, not the thing right in front of him.

  Toby could only think of one time Mr. Todd seemed there, in the moment. One day, not long after Anthony's visit to the pie shop, Toby had a down moment between his cleaning tasks. Mrs. Lovett had gone out to track down some eggs and more flour, and Toby sat in the pie shop corner table like usual. Not having anything else to do, he breathed onto the chilly windows and traced patterns in the fog his breath left.

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  "You look like a lad with some time on his hands."

  Toby nearly jumped out of his skin and whirled around. Mr. Todd stood in the front door, filling the frame with his tall, broad form. He beckoned to Toby with a shake of his head. "Come upstairs," he said. "I have a job for you and a shilling if you agree."

  Mrs. Lovett hadn't been able to afford wages yet, so Toby hopped off the bench and followed the barber upstairs. There was a man in Mr. Todd's chair, his face already lathered up, and curls of hair decorated the wooden floor. Toby stared at the locks, amazed by all the colors: corn yellow, raven black, blazing red, and every shade of brown you could ask for.

  "You're a bright lad," Mr. Todd said, pointing to the chest near the door. Toby sat on the lid, his legs dangling from it. "Always showing an interest in what me and Mrs. Lovett are doing. Watch long enough, and we might yet make a good barber out of you."

  "Doubt that, sir," Toby muttered. He scratched at a funny rust-colored stain on the lid. "Signior Pirelli said I'd never amount to much. I wasn't good at barbering."

  "Hmph," Mr. Todd grunted. Toby stole a glance, and the barber was bent over his customer. The sun glinted off the silver razor and Toby could hear the gentle scrape of blade against skin. "Was it you who was bad at it, or your master?"

  Toby didn't reply, but he kept watching Todd. The man's dark eyes were fixed on the customer's face, the lathered whiskers. He ran the razor across skin with so much grace, it was like watching dancing. He toweled the man's face gently, and let the delighted customer exclaim over himself in the mirror. The man pressed some money into Mr. Todd's hand, thanking him. Mr. Todd actually smiled at the man, a grin that did reach all the way to the eyes for once. He seemed...happy to have done such a good job.

  The customer departed, the shop bell tinkling merrily behind him. Mr. Todd looked after him for a moment, still grinning a little, but then he looked down at the coins in his hand. He plucked one out, set it on the washstand behind the chair, and handed Toby a broom. "Sweep up the hair for me, lad, and you'll get your shilling," he said quietly.

  Toby nodded, taking the broom and getting to work. But he glanced out the corner of his eye at the barber. Mr. Todd stood near the basin, looking at a small photograph. It looked like a pretty lady with light hair, holding a baby. Mr. Todd's face had the faraway look again, as if he was hearing laughter and cooing no longer there.

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  He wasn’t in the habit of asking questions. Anyway, the thought of asking Mr. Todd questions gave him the shivers. But the wonder, of what was wrong with Mr. Todd or what happened to him, ate at Toby like fleas. He had to work it out, and Mrs. Lovett didn’t mind most of his questions. The only one she wouldn't answer was how to make the meat pies. "Family secret," she said.

  He got up the courage one evening, after another unsuccessful pie-selling day. Mrs. Lovett sat by the fire, stitching a rip in one of Mr. Todd’s sleeves, and Toby sat on the floor counting up the day’s sorry sums. When she leaned back, sighing and rubbing her eyes, he brought it up. “Ma’am, I have a question.”

  She smiled. “What is it, Toby? Can’t tell you the secrets of me meat pies, but…”

  He laughed. “No, no, it’s…it’s about Mr. Todd,” he said. Mrs. Lovett blinked once, but her face did not change, and he went on. “He never says much. But he’s sad, always sad, ma’am. Always looks like he's lookin' at something not there. Has he ever told you why?”

  She got up with a creaking of her corset and stoked the fire once, twice, three times. Toby waited. Finally she said, “A man’s past is his business, y’know, love. It ain’t for me to share.”

  But when Mrs. Lovett tucked him in later that night, she pulled up a chair. “I’ll tell you a story, dear,” she said, staring at the wallpaper patterns above the bed, not at him. Toby clutched the blanket, hoping to stay awake the whole time as Mrs. Lovett spoke.

  “There once was a barber and his wife, and they were beautiful,” she said. “Everything you could want, a solid business, good looks and a happy marriage, and a child to boot. But someone else wanted the wife, wanted her like mad. An evil judge, and a beadle who was his friend, and the judge had a plan. The judge transported the barber for life, for a crime he didn’t commit, got him out of the way.

  “The wife could’ve kept what was left of her life,” she continued, bitterness in her voice. “The daughter, her dignity. All she had to do was leave London, get far away from the judge. Carry on without her man. Lots of us girls have done it after losing our husbands one way or another: death, prison, drink. Ain't no shame in it. Her neighbor told her as much.

  “But the barber's wife was a silly little nit, foolish enough to believe a powerful man’s lies. One day the judge told her he blamed himself for her plight, told her to come to his house that night. The beadle escorted her there, only to find them having a ball all in masks. No one would tell her where the judge was, but they made sure she drank as she wandered about trying to find him.

  “He was there all right, only not so contrite as he’d said,” Mrs. Lovett said, and Toby shivered at the low, angry tone in her voice. “The wife wasn’t no match for his craft, and all of them stood there and laughed as…as he took her and made her his own.”

  She paused, looking out into the darkened street. “When the barber came back, the wife had poisoned herself. Arsenic from the apothecary nearby, they said. Poor soul. As stupid as she might've been, no one deserves to be treated like she was that night.

  "And the judge had the barber's daughter. Everyone in town said it was a noble act, adopting her like his own, a year-old kid with no one. Said the judge was a hero for it. Only the poor barber knew the truth. But who would listen to him, a nobody of a runaway convict and a low-class hair cutter to boot, over an upstanding judge?”

  Mrs. Lovett sighed. “I’m telling you this not to scare you, but to make sure you understand the wickedness in this world.”

  Toby stared at her, horrified. He wasn’t stupid. Even though she’d told it as a story, he remembered the pretty, light-haired lady and the baby in the picture upstairs. And there was no pretty blonde lady, nor a child, in Mr. Todd’s life. Just him, Mrs. Lovett, and the sailor boy Anthony sometimes.

  Mrs. Lovett ruffled Toby’s hair and muttered, “The world can be cruel, love. Though between the workhouse and that awful Italian, I’m not sure you need me to tell you that.” Toby thought her eyes looked shiny as she stood, bidding him good night, and closed the door quietly behind her.