Page 46 of If Looks Could Kill

Miss Stella pulls her silk turban from a pocket in her frock and settles it carefully over her head. She pinches the wick of Pearl’s candle between her thumb and forefinger.

The men have finished their noisy exploration of the ground floor and have reached the stairs.

A wide, arched doorway leads from the parlor to the foyer.

Stella calmly advances under it and into the tiled entry, still holding Pearl’s candlestick.

Pearl presses her back against the parlor wall.

The men’s footsteps draw closer, advancing up the stairs.

When they make short work of Miss Stella—the brutes won’t spare her for her age—they will come through that arch.

She feels utterly exposed, shining like a ghost in her nightgown. As protected as a naked baby.

She creeps farther along the wall until she reaches a corner and a dusty velvet drape.

She slips behind it and feels the chill of a drafty window.

Lead mullions and glass panes, cold and damp to the touch.

Many windows. One of them might be a door.

Beyond this window is a patio bordered by iron rails and the great marble columns she’d seen from the street.

The patio connects the other townhomes in this building. If she can get out, she can run to someone else’s door. Or take a one-story drop to the street. Better that than Mother Rosie’s men.

She hears them in the foyer, talking in voices that echo. They seem to think they’re alone.

For shame, Pearl Davenport, she scolds herself. You darted behind these curtains like a rabbit into a hole. You left Miss Stella alone, and Cora and Freyda, utterly defenseless.

Yes, well, these men have guns.

Now she hears Miss Stella’s voice, high and rasping, and the men, growling out threats.

Their shouts swell.

Pearl’s heart smites her, and she finds her courage.

No, her anger. Men. With their big throats and big bodies, their big muscles and big guns, their huge, arrogant, conceited pride. Their offended majesty at the thought that women want something from life too, even if only to be left alone.

Every man, a god. Every woman, a dog. She is done with such a world as this.

Come to me, my darlings.

Her serpent crown awakes. A surge of energy pulses through her. She is ready for battle.

She parts the curtains and strides across the Persian rug, burning with rage.

She hears the striking of a match. Through the archway, she sees Miss Stella, candlestick in hand, calmly lighting it, though confronted by three men with guns.

Pearl recognizes all three of the men from Mother Rosie’s crib. Murderous anger surges through her. They hurt Freyda and Cora. They sliced off her precious snake.

“There’s one of ’em.” One of the men has seen Pearl, though not well, in the darkness. “Just grab her and let’s get out of here, Joe.”

“We’re not going back without all dem girls,” insists the one they call Joe.

Miss Stella bows her head and closes her eyes. Pearl wonders if she is praying. She draws nearer to see. The men advance toward Pearl. They don’t see Miss Stella remove her turban.

The old woman’s head snaps upright. Her snakes erupt from her skull, hissing and showing their fangs. The men turn back to her. The cloudy film of age is gone from Miss Stella’s eyes. Black pupils yawn open, rimmed with red like fire.

Look away.

Pearl closes her eyes. A crunching sound fills the room, bouncing off the ceiling with the loud report of ice cracking on a frozen lake.

Pearl hears a crash. Another and another. Like boulders colliding. Like gravel pouring.

Miss Stella’s voice calls to her. “Pearl? Pearl?”

Pearl opens her eyes. All is dark. The candle has gone out.

“I’m here,” she tells the darkness.

A sigh of relief escapes Miss Stella.

But where are the men? The room wears the silence of a tomb.

The old woman strikes another match. Her arm shakes. It takes two fumbling attempts to get the candle lit. When they are, Pearl sees what she already knew she would find.

Three shattered statues, toppled onto the floor.

Legs and boots of jumbled stone. Hands broken off and spun far from wrist stumps. Three horrified heads snapped off at the neck and rolled away. One with a cauliflower ear.

Inert as German bowling balls. Cold as tombstones. The heads of her enemies.

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 if she doesn’t flee now, right now, she is sure that soon there will be nothing left of her human heart to find.

Slowly, she opens the front door. The street seems deserted. The cold night air jolts her.

Where to now? She can’t go home. She has no home.

She closes her eyes and breathes. Feels the pull.

All right, then. Not to do anything, not to do any harm, but all the same: uptown.