Page 68 of If Looks Could Kill
Boo?
Some terrifying monster she is. She laughs softly to herself.Boo.
Outside, alley cats yowl. They bring her back to this place, this night, and what happened earlier today. Is it only today? She reaches a hand up and pats her head. Hair. Just hair.
If it weren’t for this musty bed in this haunted mansion, she’d say it had all been a dream.
Perhaps the part with him was. She’s unsure. But she feels the sense of a man nearby. Not, perplexingly, the one from her past. Another man. Nearer. The one who did this to her.
The one who turned her into this. A Medusa.
Amandid this?
She can feel it. Sense him like the wind rattling a house one hides in.
Broad shoulders. Thick whiskers. A nauseating arrogance. A slouch hat. He could be any man in this city, yet he is one particular man. She turns instinctively. Uptown. North of here.
The undertow grabs Pearl once more. It yanks her navel downward, and she sinks back into the bed. The thrill submerges her. Sweet relief from her chattering brain; only body, body, body. She is back in the barn. Back in the presence of her former tormentor. The lust to make the disgusting man pay is overwhelming. He could never pay enough; he has already taken what was beyond price. Any amount of suffering she can inflict will be too good for him. She isn’t done.
She can kill him where he cowers. Like the snake women of legend. She can petrify him.
And the vision closes once more. She’s back in the bedroom. Back in New York City.
She will find him. Not in night visions, but in actual fact. She will find him and finish it. Before Tabitha wakes, she will commence her hunt. She will leave this city and go.
Her past life rears its serpent-free head. Until now, her prayer had been to never lay eyes upon him again. Now shewantsto find him? Now she willingly seeks him?
Her head swims. Who is she? What has she become?
A monster in far more than outward appearance.
Alone in the dark, Pearl Davenport begins to tremble.
Once, sweet salvation had been the gift she prized above all else. God had regarded her there, that day, helpless and bruised, and had poured affection over her. He had raised her up and made her new. Able to stand. For her, salvation was no abstract notion for some sweet by-and-by. Salvation was in each breath she took, in the support she felt from the earth beneath her feet. Her soul had been pulled safe from the rubble of what he had done to her. Her life had been suffused with light. In her amazed gratitude,she vowed she would never take that grace for granted. She would follow God’s word to the letter. Though all other hearts might fail, hers would stay true.
And now, by some perversion of fate, she’s been turned into one of Satan’s demons, and what’s worse, if anything could be worse, is learning how much she prefers the darkness.
What caused her body to betray her and to mutate itself in this repulsive fashion? How has she gone from a girl to a grotesque? She doesn’t dare ask. Whom could she ask anyhow? God? God, I thought you loved me, but if you loved me, how could you abandon me to this godless form? How could you allow my body to betray me so?
No. No. It can’t be that. It can’t be God.
Nature makes its aberrations, she reasons. See the Bowery’s dime museums with their bizarre and macabre proof. But the monsterinside? This is the true terror. The one ready to maim and slay her enemies. To hunt them instead of forgiving them or leading them to Christ.
What was that story? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? She didn’t read such vulgar things. There was a play, but she did not attend the theater. But she knew some potion, or spell, or something transformed a man into a monster. When its effects faded, back he went to his human self. When he drank the draft once more, he became the beast. Maybe—who knows?—maybe she has consumed something that did this to her. When its potency fades, maybe she will return to the form she’s always known. Please, God, let it be so.
In her own soul, the hooks and tendrils of the monster brain begin to loosen. She is Pearl again. Pearl Davenport. A soldier for Christ. A warrior in his cause. One who feasts daily upon the living Word.
She parts the curtains of her bed and fumbles at the bedside table until she finds a candle and matches. From the pocket of her coat, draped over a chair, she pulls out the little red New Testament that her mother gaveher when she left home. This will offer the comfort nothing else can.
She opens to the first few chapters. Matthew’s gospel. The Beatitudes.
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Immediately, a familiar warmth unravels her pain.Sheis poor in spirit.Sheis gripped by mourning. And see? Blessings are promised, even to her.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
The volume falls into her lap.Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you.
