AE has made Ella feel like she alone is totally responsible for her mum's well being every second of the day and she's obviously terrified of what AE will do to herself when she's not there to watch over her. You can bet all the money in the world that AE has threatened suicide to those kids to keep them in line and that's a horrendous amount of pressure to put on an adult, let alone a 13 year old girl. Both girls, but Ella in particular, are the victims of almost unimaginable daily mental and emotional abuse from the most important person in their life, and for me, blasting her comes uncomfortably close to victim blaming. She's 13, her brain isn't anywhere near close to being fully developed yet. How long did it take the many victims of narc abuse on this thread (including myself) to be able to see, understand and accept the manipulations and abuse we were put through?
ETA: AE is an abuser. She was an abuser long before IG left her. She will have been manipulating and emotionally abusing those girls before he left over things that had nothing to do with him, and will be continuing that pattern of behaviour now. She will try and wreck their relationship with each other, with friends, with Emma, their self-confidence, their successes, every aspect of their lives is fair game to her cruelty and gameplay. And this will continue for as long as she has access to them. Right now Ella and Elsie are doing the best they can just to survive.