Page 81 of If Looks Could Kill
Miss Stella closes her eyes and drinks in a deep draft of satisfied breath.
“What is happening?” Pearl whispers.
Miss Stella breathes her reply. “You’ll taste it soon. The euphoria of the kill.”
And still, the stone heads scream up at Pearl from the floor.
Pity and relief whirl around in her head, a tarantella of shame and exultation. They were living souls. And they murdered her snake in the process of trying to murder her.
They deserve this.
Miss Stella glows with a mother’s pride.
And a voice from some forgotten dream of Pearl’s former faith: What hope would there be for any of us if we all got what we deserved?
Pearl is pierced with cold dread. She feels her snakes recede into her scalp.
She has witnessed murder. She stood by in the midst of murder committed for her sake.
But how could this gritty, gray debris on the floor ever have been living flesh?
“You came for me,” Miss Stella says softly. “You put yourself in harm’s way for me.”
Pearl takes a step back. “I—I just…”
“I promised I’d protect you.” A note of triumph rings in Miss Stella’s crackling voice. “I will teach you all you need to know.” She laughs. “I should have saved one for you, darling girl. But more will come, and I will help you. Like a lioness teaches her girl cub.”
Pearl speaks through a daze. “Yes. I see that.”
“Do you mind, dear, helping with a broom? Down in the kitchen you’ll find one, and a dustpan.” She coughs slightly. “I wonder, have they damaged the floor tiles?”
Pearl realizes after a moment that she still has not answered.
“All right,” she says. “I… I’m cold. I’ll just go upstairs first and get my coat.”
“Of course,” Miss Stella replies. “Are the heads recognizable? You’ll find an old milk crate in the kitchen too. Let’s send the heads in the morning to this Bowery madam you met, shall we?” Her laugh feels like old leather, rubbing together. “It will give her something to remember them by. And that will make her think twice about coming after you, won’t it?”
Pearl mounts the stairs. She can’t think. She feels nothing but the blood pounding through her veins. In the hall, she pauses outside the door to the room where Cora and Freyda sleep. Surely the noise will have woken them. But no sound emerges from their room. Not a whisper.
She finds her room and feels her way through the dark for her clothes. Her fingers fumble as she hooks her corset, buttons her blouse, and fastens her skirt. She pulls on her stockings and buckles her garters, then laces her boots. The poke bonnet is gone. She dons her jacket and coat, then creeps down the sweeping staircase, past cobweb-shrouded chandeliers.
All this could be yours.
You would become her.
The shattered remains of three criminals-for-hire still surround Stella. “Good,” she tells Pearl. “You’ve put on shoes. Very sensible, with all this rubble underfoot.”
“Mm,” is all Pearl can manage. She threads through the mess and heads for the stairs leading down to the street level.
“The broom closet is to the left, as you enter the kitchen,” Stella calls after her. “I believe there’s a crate atop a higher shelf.”
You’ve joined a chosen sisterhood. I can teach you. I can help you.
Thou shalt not kill.
Go, then. Go. She must flee because she wants to stay.
Pearl is sorry about Freyda and Cora. Truly sorry. Perhaps Tabitha will return for them, if she can ever stop thinking about her precious bartender. Pearl doesn’t mean to abandon them. She doesn’t think Stella will harm them. It breaks her heart, what little of her heart is left, to run away. But ifshe doesn’t flee now, right now, she is sure that soon there will be nothing left of her human heart to find.
