Johanna Barker's Journal

To the right honorable Judge Turpin, wherever he may be:
I should like to tell you that no longer do stone walls a prison make, nor locked doors a barricade. I have learned my wings, my wiles and my way, and should you return to find me, I shall not be held under your thrall again, for even an attempt at reclaiming me as your songbird will result in death and I daresay that this time it shan’t be my own.

I know you thought me willful then, and I’ve often stopped to think what would happen if you could see me now. I rather suspect that you’d lapse into a fit, shouting and turning purple, and I only hope that your heart wouldn’t give out, for as terrible as I know it will taste, and as small a tidbit as it must be, I'm going to eat it. I don’t think I’ll give you the false hope that most of my meals get, I won’t toy with you as I do them. No, judge, you are going to die quickly, though I shall enjoy it far more than I do my regular fare simply because while I may be free of you in body, until you are dead I shall never truly be free of you in mind.

Heed this warning, judge: whether it be by your arrival here, or by my return home, you will die, and I will dance in the ashes of your pyre, shedding the last vestiges of the girl in the tower, laying to rest the girl I was and rising from those ashes as the woman I am meant to be.

Sincerely, with absolutely no love and fewer regards,
Johanna Barker