Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(50)
TWO
Mary’s eyes locked with Jilo’s, and Jilo gave a nod at the door. After crossing the room as silently as a cat, Mary reached for the doorknob like she was afraid it might burn her. She opened the door a sliver, doing her best to block their landlady’s view of Jilo. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Jones, ma’am, but Jilo, she isn’t quite dressed yet. She’s not been feeling too well this morning.”
Mrs. Jones’s left hand clutched the edge of the door and forced it open, pushing Mary back into the room. The pastor’s wife was a plain woman. Although she was decade younger than the good reverend himself, she still looked plenty old enough to be her husband’s mother. Her face bore no wrinkles, but her hair was streaked with gray, and she had a weary look that never left her. It was this perpetual exhaustion that aged her more than the gray in her hair.
Jilo crossed her arms over her chest and planted her feet firm. The older woman’s puffy red eyes and small tight-lipped frown told her that she’d finally been caught doing something that might be bad enough for them to send her home. Had they noticed her sneaking in?
The reverend’s missus approached her, pressing her palms together as if she were about to break out into prayer, but instead she reached out and gently placed her hand over Jilo’s temple. Her skin felt rough, weathered by years of scrubbing floors and dishes and the mountains of laundry she did each day for her boarders.
“Jilo, my girl,” she said, “you know that the good Lord has never seen fit to bless me with a child. But He has given me you girls. You are my children. My beautiful daughters.” She swallowed back a tremolo that had come to her voice. “You girls who live here under our roof. You got that fine college of yours to take care of educating you in the things this world values. But the pastor and I, we gotta look out for your moral education. Your spiritual well-being. We take this charge seriously.”
Jilo forced her face to freeze so that it would betray nothing. Not the anger she felt that this uneducated woman, barely a decade her elder, was talking to her as if she were a child. Not the love, which in spite of Jilo’s best efforts, she had come to feel for this gentle lady. She bit her tongue.
“We know you are a strong-willed young lady, and we have allowed you far more liberties than any of the others. But this is a holy house,” Mrs. Jones said in the face of Jilo’s silence. “A righteous house.” She dropped back to stare at Jilo. “You go on and get dressed now. The pastor is waiting for you in his study.” She turned to Mary. “You come on downstairs with me.”
“But I . . .”
“I said come,” Mrs. Jones cut her off. Evidently she’d had enough of rebellious young women for one morning.
Mary followed Mrs. Jones out of the room, but not before casting one look back at Jilo, her raised eyebrows and rounded eyes begging her friend to kneel before the seat of mercy and plead for forgiveness. Jilo might be more inclined to do that if she were sure exactly which sin they’d discovered.
Jilo grabbed her pail of toiletries and headed to the bathroom she shared with Mary and three other girls. Most mornings it was nothing but elbows and pardons, but today she had the space all to herself. The other girls weren’t early risers like Mary, so either they had been told to stay out of Jilo’s way this morning, or they’d made that choice for themselves. She set the pail down on a stand next to the sink and took a good look at her own puffy-eyed reflection. “Hell, girl, this might be more serious than you thought,” she said out loud as she grabbed hold of her toothbrush and tin of tooth powder. Her eyes drifted down to the pail while she brushed her teeth. Had they found her makeup hidden in the hatbox? Unlikely. The pastor and his wife were straitlaced, but they respected a person’s privacy. She couldn’t imagine either of them digging through their boarders’ personal belongings. Of course, she wouldn’t put it past one of the other girls, especially Louise.
Maybe they had spotted her breaking the house’s curfew, or someone else—someone she hadn’t seen—had witnessed her good times at the Kingfisher Club. But, the more she thought of it, the less likely that seemed. Who in their right mind would implicate themselves by admitting to having seen her? No. It was without a doubt something to do with Louise. Little Miss Goodie Two Shoes was always looking to land one of her housemates in a pot of trouble.
After she finished cleaning her teeth, she washed her face with cold water, not wanting to wait for the hot to come clanking up through the pipes. The frigid touch of the water didn’t help the aching behind her eyes one bit, but it did clear a bit of last night’s fuzz from her brain.
She dabbed at her face with a hand towel, then attacked her hair with a brush, doing her best to smooth it. She was just about to dive back into her room to dress when she remembered the smoke that had filled the air at the club last night. Neither Mary nor Mrs. Jones had mentioned picking up the scent, but Mary wasn’t the most attentive of witnesses, and it wasn’t Mrs. Jones’s way to mention such things. Whenever she smelled smoke, she’d leave it to her husband to find the fire. It could be used as another strike against her.
“Damn.” Jilo dropped her pail back down on the table and dove into an icy shower, soaping herself as best she could with a pat of Camay so tiny one of the other girls had left it behind as having no value. Sopping wet and teeth chattering, but now fully awake, she dried herself and pulled on her robe. Back in her room, she dressed herself in a gray shirtwaist dress with sleeves that covered her arms past the elbow. Jilo hated the damn thing—Nana had made her buy it—but the pastor had complimented the style as being suitable for a young Christian woman. If it came down to playing the part of a repentant sinner, a good costume would help.