Page 126 of If Looks Could Kill
Or is her new power turning her into someone else?
And so you stand in the cold and pray, pray she’ll open the curtain, feeling like the traitorous friend you are for not praying instead that she’s simply somewhere else, safely living a life that excludes you, leaving you in the grips of a worry you’ll never resolve, and a wounded rejection, of which time will not easily let go.
Pearl—Sweet Dreams(Early Morning, Tuesday, December 4, 1888)
When the house is dark and the McNamaras are safely snoring, Pearl slips out the back door and goes for a walk.
After tonight, nothing will be the same.
Possibly, after tonight, nothing at all willbe. For her.
She takes a last stroll through the city to bid the world goodbye. To remember her life. To cradle in her hands the memories that aren’t polluted by tragedy.
There’s more there than she would have expected. Childhood, and running through the meadows with her brother, Lars, and searching for toads and turtles. Her family, at the supper table, when it was four of them and food less scarce. Her mother, smiling. Her father, laughing.
It hurts less to remember them now. Is that because her own death draws near?
Little things. Little moments. Little gifts. Little sparks of spontaneous laughter.
No one’s innocence is allowed to remain. The conduit from childhood to adulthood is fraught with wounding and disillusionment for everyone. Butit ought not to have gone as hers did. Too much was taken, and far too soon.
She knows she’s not unique. She knows the world is full of pain like hers.
Someone should still have to pay for that.
Whether she wakes up tomorrow morning or not, the Pearl she was will die tonight.
Is she ready? Has she practiced enough? Was it enough to stun the men on the train, and the brothel client in the alley, and Johnny Leone at his saloon? Do they add up to proof that she’s ready for this fight?
They will have to.
She can’t kill the Ripper. Not with her gaze. But if she can stun him, it will give her time to find another means of finishing the job.
A Salvation Army girl she may have been, but she grew up on a farm. She knows well how to cut a life short. He is not the only butcher here, and she will not lose her nerve.
Her footsteps bring her back to Tenth Street, and her feet grow heavy. Maybe just one more loop. She hates for this walk to end. But why prolong it? Her hands and face are bitter cold.
She pauses at the corner to take in the size of the crowd of Ripper watchers clustered before the building. It’s dwindled. The cold must be sending people home to their beds.
Is that… Tabitha’s bartender?
And just beyond him,Tabitha herself?
She takes a step closer to make sure.
It’s her. Her Salvation Army roommate, staring up at the windows of the house where even now the Ripper sleeps.
Pearl is astonished. She can’t believe it.
They can’t be here just for a chance to gawk at the Whitechapel killer. It can’t be that.
She backs away to hide herself behind the building on the corner.
Tabitha is here, Pearl knows, hoping to find her. How she knew to comeis a mystery. A perplexing and troubling one. But there’s nothing Pearl can do to solve it.
Thank you, Tabitha, for trying to help. Go home now.
Nothing changes.
