Page 58 of Razors & Ruin

Just like Mrs. L herself.

Today, I’m opening late. My love has imposed upon me a trip to the hardware store for new tools; the ones Harry left behind are broken or too blunt.

She’s going through the bodies of the ill-groomed middle classes at a rate of knots, breaking saws and blunting blades, and it’s high time she upgraded.

“Do you have the list?” she calls through the bakehouse trapdoor. “I wrote it all down. You might want to take the cart—if you get everything, they’ll make a heavy parcel.”

The horse and cart are a recent addition, bought for cash and kept for us by the inn at the end of the street, for a modest livery fee.

“I have it here,” I reply. “You sure that’s the lot?”

“Yes, love. Don’t skimp on it now. We can afford to get the good stuff.”

Indeed we can. Business is damn good, more on her side than mine, but that’s because I tend to reduce my capacity for repeat custom in favor of filling her crusts.

I pick up the list and peruse the items.

Good hacksaw

Cleavers (all sizes)

Tenderizing mallets X 2 — biggest one you can find, plus another

New blades for mincing machine — IMPORTANT. Maybe order a new mechanical one?

I read it again, then a third time, unsure why I keep going over it. All the things she wants are right here; I don’t have to remember them. It’s not like there will be a test.

But there’s something about her jagged handwriting that puts me in mind of the note that told me of Johanna’s death.

Or, at least, therecouldbe. I can’t recall exactly, and I stupidly reduced the damn thing to ashes.

Nellie has been anxious of late, all darting glances and sharp tongue. She tells me it’s because she fears we will be discovered, I am dragging my heels with the wedding planning, she’s working too hard.

It’s never anything I can truly address, and as much I try to placate her, she’s febrile, stuttering through her days like a candle in the rain.

The past, the future—her yesterdays and tomorrows are perilous places. I only know Nellietoday, and as the astronomers say, the rest is in the stars.

She could have written the note. It’s not hard to picture her bent over the paper, procured from some posh stationers for the single-sheet price, cussing as she tries not to blot the ink.

Today is All Hallow’s Eve, and the superstitious part of me feels like the membrane between alive and dead, truth and lies, is as thin as rice paper on this of all days.

Even in our cynical metropolis, the pagan rites persist, and down below, Nellie burns sage in an effort to neutralize the piquant stench that emanates from the ever-burning chimney.

She has the brains to trick me, and it’s just possible she didn’t wait for this day of mischief to do it.

Could my treacle, the woman for whom I hung up my pathetic hopes of salvation and agreed to build us a house in Hell, have deceived me so unspeakably?

I step out of the shop, my feet crunching through the crispy russet leaves that litter Fleet Street. It’s a bright day, cold but clear, and the cobbles glisten beneath my boots. Passersby murmur their good mornings, and I touch the brim of my hat in acknowledgement.

If Nellie wrote the note, she has some fucking gall, but then again, I can’t prove it. She’s not stupid enough to confess—I love her, and I tell her every day, but she knows from what shoddy, unholy stuff my adoration is made.

I love her. That’s not to say I won’t carve her heart from her chest and feed it to the fucking crows.

My soul is an endless void where there’s more than enough space for both of these things to be true, and my woman expects no less, but this isn’t what makes me doubt myself.

She talks to me of fate, of destiny. I come to her table, bloodied and fired, only for her to soothe me in ways that reach some deep, starving seam in my psyche.

We fuck like animals, and at times, like lovers—human beings. All over God’s rich tapestry of possibilities, Nellie moves her needle, stitching us together by inches.

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