Page 145 of If Looks Could Kill
The house above him is still quiet. It must not be morning yet.
And he understands. It’s so simple. How has no one yet figured it out?
That last girl in London. The girl on the ship. Now this girl.
It’s not a fluke. It’s not him.
Every womanis a she-devil.Every femalea fiend.
They’re all made of snakes. The legacy of their Mother Eve. Plotting man’s destruction.
They will claw at you for vengeance for your murders and your sins.
Too dangerous to touch. Too treacherous to allow near him. Too toxic, even, to kill, to harvest, to mine for the materials of endless life. Even their generative bodies that hold the secrets of creating life are accursed objects, poison vessels.
Hasn’t he always known it? His body always rejected them immediately.
We are anathema to you.
It was never they who could save him. They couldn’t save themselves from age and decay and devastation.
For now, he will flee to the safety of his sister’s home in Waterloo. No more officious landladies. His sister will hide him. She will protect his secrets. She’s not awoman; she’s a relative. They don’t count. Now, while the hour is dark, he might yet be able to slip away unseen, after a bit of hasty cleanup. It’s time for Jack to go.
His experiments are over. Only God can heal him now. And if God won’t, if his sojourn here must soon close, the life to come will reveal him in the eyes of all as the deathless spirit, the messenger of immortality, the prophet of resurrection he has always been, but which the world, in its stubborn ignorance, was too narrow-minded to see.
Greenwich Village, ManhattanPearl—St. Vincent’s(Tuesday, December 4, 1888)
Pearl wakes in a bed, a clean hospital bed. Outside the room are nurses talking over the sounds and smells of breakfast being served on metal trays.
Fierce pain throbs in her belly, both an ache and a burn.
Thin morning light paints everything gray. She can’t see much. There isn’t much to see.
A shadow stirs near the foot of her bed. Pearl’s body clenches itself in fear, and it sends a stitch of pain rattling up and down the left side of her abdomen.
In a chair at the foot of her bed sits a woman. A girl. She leans into the window’s light.
“Tabitha?”
Tabitha rises and sits on the bed right next to Pearl. She looks battered about the face and like she’s been crying.
“Where am I?” Pearl asks her. “What happened to you?”
“Here.” Tabitha holds a cup to her lips. “Drink this.”
Pearl resists, but the drink, brown and salty, tastes good.
“You’re at St. Vincent’s Hospital,” Tabitha says. “That’s bone broth. Drink it up.”
Pearl swallows a few sips and pauses to rest. She closes her eyes against the weak light.
She doesn’t remember falling back asleep, but when she wakes, it’s still only Tabitha with her in the room. The light feels different; the sinking, setting light of late afternoon. Doctors’ voices echo in the corridor outside. A plate of food sits on her bedside table.
Tabitha comes to Pearl’s side. “How about a nice bite of potato?”
“Tabitha,” Pearl says, “I’m not an infant.”
Tabitha looks down, crestfallen. “I know.”
