“She can’t hurt me,” I told him, staring into his eyes. “But she can hurt you, your family. Which is why I need to be very careful in how I handle her.”
He shook his head, despair creeping into his eyes. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand that she has connections, that she frightens you, but—”
“No!” He gasped, wrenching his hand away. “She’ll make me betray you—and Jean. I won’t have any choice.”
I stood, looming over him. “If she threatens your family—”
He shook his head so violently that spittle flew from his mouth, and a low strained sound tore from his throat, guttural and hard. It was not the kind of sound any child should make—too desperate, too old, too wild. He began clawing at the tattoo on his wrist, nails raking so deeply he drew blood.
I grabbed his arms, holding him still. He would not look at me. I waited for him to say something. Anything.
“She asked me once about Jean,” he finally mumbled. “She asked all of us about her. Before she marked us. She asked if we knew a woman covered in tattoos. Tattoos that disappear at night. The others had no idea. But I…I’ve seen Jean when she didn’t know it.”
His voice was thick with shame. I wondered exactly what he had seen when spying on Jean, and quite honestly did not want to know. He was a twelve-year-old boy, though. I could take a wild guess.
“So you saw…her tattoos,” I said carefully. “Anything else?”
Ernie’s cheeks flushed bright red. “No. And I didn’t say anything, not even when she asked.” He rubbed his wrist. “If she asks again, I don’t think I’ll be able to hold back.”
“You act like that mark gives her power over you.”
“It does,” he said simply.
I released him. He rubbed his arms, and pushed past me into the building. Head down, shoulders hunched. He never saw Jean standing in the shadows, watching him.
She waited until the floorboards creaked on the second-story landing, and then stepped outside to join me. Her hair was a mess, and there were circles under her eyes.
“How much did you hear?” I asked.
“Enough to know that I need to push some cotton into the keyhole of my door.”
“Forget that. The Black Cat knows about our bloodline. She knows you’re close. Which means she’s not human…or very well informed.”
Jean stared thoughtfully at her feet. Two tiny heads poked free of her hair, blinking lazily at me. Dek and Mal, who had been utterly still until that moment, returned the favor.
I said, “Were you already aware of this?”
“No,” said Jean, but slowly, as if she was not entirely certain of her answer. “I had been feeling something, though. At the back of my head. Just…instinct.”
“The boys never mentioned anything?”
“I never asked.” She finally met my gaze. “My hands were full. I didn’t want to know.”
I stared, waiting to feel appalled, angry—but all that hit me was a sense of deep, abiding sorrow. My grandmother was being truthful when she said that her hands were full. Overwhelmed, not sure what to do, whom to help, how far to extend herself. Fighting to survive—mentally, emotionally—in the same way that people here were trying to keep their bodies alive.
“How long has it been since your mother died?” I asked abruptly.
Jean stiffened. “What—”
“It’s been five years for me,” I interrupted. “Close to six. She was murdered on my birthday, shot to death in front of me. Right here.” I touched my head. “Worst day of my life.”
Jean backed away, and then stopped. “It’s been seven years for me.”
I don’t know what I had been expecting to hear, but seven years was not it. Seemed like a lifetime. “You must have been a baby.”
“Eleven.” Jean’s voice was strained, her eyes dark and empty in the shadows. “We were in the countryside, helping refugees. My mother had traded one war zone for another. I guess it was the times. But Zee…the boys…they didn’t want us there. They thought it was too dangerous for me, with only my mother for protection during the day. I think…I think that’s why they left her when they did. She wouldn’t listen. She didn’t…give them a choice. It was me or her.”
They made the right choice, I almost said, thinking about my mother—who had done everything in her power to keep me out of harm’s way. Taking me into a war zone would have been unthinkable to her.
I found Jean giving me a sharp look—as though she had read my mind and wanted to defend her mother—but the moment passed, and all the fight inside her seemed to shrivel up into a cold small shell. Jean rubbed her arms. “It was difficult. I was completely alone. No other foreigners for a thousand miles, and my Chinese wasn’t good. There were so many times when I got into trouble.” She stopped for a moment, her gaze turning inward, and then, very quietly said, “Men would try to hurt me, but the boys…The boys would make my skin burn, like fire.”
Red eyes glinted from the shadows. Jean hugged herself—and then laughed quietly, bitterly. “For a long time, all I worried about was me. Some things don’t change.”
“You did fine,” I said quietly.
Jean gave me an unpleasant smile. “Maybe. But I think it’s time to do better.”
We changed clothes. Zee and the boys delivered the wardrobe. Jean was elegant in loose slacks, with a long-sleeved silk blouse tucked in and buttoned to the neck. A touch of red lipstick and several dabs of eye shadow made her look like a movie star. I, on the other hand, wore workman trousers, patched and stained with paint; and a loose white men’s cotton shirt. No makeup. Just some dirt smeared lightly against my jaw. The boys also brought me horn-rimmed eyeglasses, the lenses nonprescriptive, but so thick the world was little more than a blur in front of me. I plaited my hair into two braids and tugged a canvas houndstooth billy cap over my head.
Jean frowned. “Someone should lock you up in the library you escaped from.”
“I was going for hot and sexy,” I replied dryly, “but I guess that’ll do.”
She grunted, and passed me a blue card, a folded sheaf of papers, and a round tin pin. “Put that on and never take it off. It identifies you as a Jew. The papers are from a woman who died here a month ago, but they’ll do in case you’re stopped. The blue card is the most important, though. It’s a monthlong work pass. You’ll need it to cross the bridge into the city.”
“And our similarities?” I pointed at my face, and then hers.
Jean hesitated. “People see what they want. I doubt anyone will look too closely, but once we get close to the bridge, we’ll split up and enter the checkpoint separately.”
“How will your neighbors react to my presence?”
“Most people here are more concerned with how bad their diarrhea is going to get, or with finding food, work. Are you fluent in any languages but English?”
“Just Spanish. I doubt that’s going to be helpful here.”
“So don’t talk. And if the Japs ask you anything, pretend to have a German or Polish accent. Any accent. Act like you have trouble speaking English. Whatever happens, you’re no longer American, or British, or any citizen of an Allied country. You’re a stateless refugee like everyone else in this ghetto.”
“I see some flaws in this plan.”
“There is no plan. Just you, appearing in my life, when you shouldn’t be here at all.” Jean smoothed down her blouse, and I reached up to my shoulders where Dek and Mal were coiled, humming a Bryan Adams tune. I thought it might be “The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You,” and scratched under their chins.
Jean’s frown deepened. “They sing for you?”
“Yours don’t?”