Page 40 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

Cecily started to respond and Joanna cut her off.

“I mean that, Mom.” She weighed her voice with conviction. “And if you decline, if you leave me trapped in here while the wards drop and you break into my house, it will be the same. You will lose me as completely as you lost Esther, and you will never get me back.”

The threat was sticky on her tongue, rotten. She said it knowing itwas her mother’s deepest and oldest fear. Cecily’s eyes went shiny with tears and Joanna knew her own face likely reflected some of the grief she’d wielded like a weapon at her mother’s underbelly. She’d never been able to hide her feelings, not like Esther could, but it didn’t matter. She let her mother see.

“Okay, my love,” Cecily said. “I will make that deal.”

She licked her thumb, bent down, and wiped away the barrier of blood.

12

Esther did not know how to confront Pearl about what she suspected, or whether she should even try, but as it turned out, the decision was made for her.

She hadn’t left her room after discovering the absence of her mother’s book, nor had she slept. She’d locked her door and shoved her dresser in front of it then sat on her bed, so alert it felt almost like hypnosis. She’d been stolen from twice before: once in Buenos Aires by a group of eleven-year-olds who’d menaced her with broken bottles, and once in Cleveland by a guy who was disgusted to find that the only thing in her pocket was a cheap pay-by-the-month flip phone. “Man,” he’d said, “you should be robbingme,” and they’d both surprised themselves by laughing. Both of those times she’d felt frightened and pissed off. She hadn’t felt violated.

She did now.

Whether Pearl had taken the book to re-sell online or because she was somehow connected to the people who’d been after Esther all these years hardly seemed to matter. Either way it was a betrayal. Maybe, Esther thought, dull and staring at four a.m., she could avoid Pearl completely for two days, get on that plane, and leave without ever having to confront her, without having to face the fact that one of the only true relationships she’d had in her life had been a lie.

At eight a.m. after a sleepless night, she was still wide-awake, and so on edge that when someone banged on her door it felt like a forty-volt blast to the chest. She stayed motionless, clutching her knees, praying that whoever it was would go away, but the banging started again and to her horror it was Pearl’s voice that spoke.

“Esther, I know you’re in there! Open the damn door!”

Esther stood and took a deep breath, allowed herself to close her eyes, to feel her breath coursing through her body, to feel her feet on the ground. Then she opened the door.

Instead of letting Pearl inside, she edged out into the hallway. She didn’t want to be close together in a small room with this person she thought she’d known. Pearl’s face was twisted in an unfamiliar expression that Esther belatedly identified as rage; she’d never seen good-natured Pearl truly angry before.

“Can we go in your room?” Pearl demanded.

“No,” said Esther.

Pearl’s nostrils flared and something moved in her chin. Esther, taken aback, realized she was about to cry.

“You weren’t at breakfast,” Pearl said.

“I’m not hungry.”

Pearl’s chin puckered again, and she said, “Were you ever planning on telling me?”

“Telling you—?”

“Don’t, Esther. Don’t. I saw Harry from the office today and he asked me how I felt about you leaving. I laughed and told him you weren’t leaving, I said we’d decided to stay on another season together, and he looked at me like I was a sad little idiot. Ifeellike a sad little idiot.”

This was not at all how Esther had pictured their confrontation going. “I—I’m not leaving, I—”

“No?” Pearl said. Her lashes were wet. “Why would Harry lie to me? I mean, either he’s lying or you are, which is it?”

Esther re-centered herself, tuning in to her breath, moving in and out. It wouldn’t help to get emotional. “Is this why you took my book?” she said. She wanted Pearl to know, unequivocally, thatsheknew.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.La Ruta,the novel I’m translating. The one whose price you were so interested in.”

Pearl’s face lost some of its anger and began to look frightened. Shedropped her eyes from Esther’s and then seemed to force them back up. “I didn’t take your book.”

“Did they tell you it would stop me from leaving?” Esther said, so calm, so quiet. “Is that why you took it, to stop me?”

“No, Esther, what?” Pearl’s voice was rising in pitch, and a couple curious people had paused at the end of the hall, drawn by the drama. “I’m not trying to stop you, but I don’t understand what’s happening. We agreed to stay here, we agreed to staytogether,and now you’re leaving? Without even talking to me about it? I don’t understand your reasoning or this... this reaction you’re having!”

---