The Night Sister Page 18

  Rose stood with her back against the tower, the backpack weighing achingly on her shoulders. She listened at the doorway.

  “Sylvie?” she called.

  “What is it you want from me?” her sister asked, a voice from the shadows.

  “Want from you?” Rose shrugged the backpack off as carefully and quietly as she could. Her head began to ache, a slow and steady throb like a pulse in her forehead, spreading to her left eye.

  “Why haven’t you told?” Sylvie asked.

  Rose squinted, trying to quiet the sudden, stabbing pain. She tried to concentrate on getting Sylvie to transform. What would it take? Perhaps if she felt threatened.

  “No one would believe me if I did,” Rose said. “You’re the good girl. You always have been. No one would believe me if I told them what you really were.”

  Rose could hear her sister begin to cry, softly at first, then louder.

  “What am I? What am I, Rose?”

  “A monster.” It felt so good to say it out loud. “And you’ve fooled everyone but me. I know what you did to Fenton.”

  “Fenton,” Sylvie said, sobbing now.

  Rose pulled the flashlight out of the bag but stayed where she was, just outside the tower door, waiting for her moment.

  “It was his doing as much as mine,” Sylvie said, sniffling. “It was wrong, I know, but he’s gone now, so it won’t happen again.”

  “No,” Rose said, stepping forward, swinging her body around so that she stood in the open doorway. “It won’t happen again. Because I’m going to stop you.”

  She flipped on the flashlight, steeling herself against what she might see: her sister in hideous insect form with six legs, wings, a shiny exoskeleton. But there was just a girl in a robe with pink slippers on her feet. Her face was red and splotchy, her hair sticking up everywhere in a very non-Sylvie way.

  Rose took a step into the tower, keeping the beam of her flashlight pointed at Sylvie’s face. The determination on Rose’s face must have scared Sylvie, because all of a sudden she grew wary.

  “Rose, you just stay away from me,” Sylvie warned, moving now, inching sideways toward the ladder. “If you don’t, I’ll tell Mama.”

  “I won’t let you do it again,” Rose said flatly. “I won’t let you hurt anyone else.”

  Rose’s head was throbbing now, the pain bright and blinding. The beam from the flashlight seemed to pulsate, making her sister’s face waver, almost as if she weren’t really there at all. Rose’s skin prickled, felt hot and itchy.

  Sylvie ran for the ladder and started to climb.

  Rose ducked back outside, grabbed the backpack, and followed her sister up the ladder, the flashlight tucked in the back waistband of her pants, her sweaty hands sticking to the wooden rungs. The ladder felt like it was moving. But it wasn’t just the ladder. It was the whole tower: each stone and board was pulsating, throbbing in time with the pain in her head.

  When she surfaced on the second floor, Rose ran the beam of light in a circle. No Sylvie. Only the round walls, and moonlight streaming in through the slit-shaped windows.

  She had to hurry now. She couldn’t let Sylvie get away.

  If Sylvie transformed, she might just fly away, wings beating, head with mandibles swiveling, free forever.

  Heart and brain pounding, Rose labored up the second ladder, leading to the roof. Her arms and legs were heavy and stiff, like they didn’t belong to her. The wind picked up, sending a chill through her. She reached the top and shone the flashlight around, the beam bouncing off the walls with their battlements.

  There was her sister, still in human form, standing close to the low wall. The moonlight had turned everything a bright, sparkling blue. The scene before her pulsated along with the throbbing in her head.

  “I’m going away,” Sylvie said. She was no longer crying. She spoke defiantly and dramatically. “I’m going far away, and I’m never going to come back. I’m leaving tonight. Just go back to the house, Rose. Pretend you never saw me and I’ll be gone by morning, and you’ll never see me again.”

  “No,” Rose said, stepping toward her sister. “I can’t let you do that. I know how dangerous you are.”

  “You don’t know anything! You’re crazy.” Sylvie laughed raggedly, though her eyes looked frightened. “Stay away,” she said again.

  She backed toward the wall. Rose ran for her, and was on her in an instant, seizing her arm.

  “For God’s sake, Rose! Let go!” Sylvie cried, frantically trying to snatch her arm away. But Rose held firm.

  They spun, stumbling, scratching each other. Rose grabbed Sylvie’s hair and jerked her head forward, half expecting to see a terrible mouth hidden on the back of her sister’s head. Sylvie shrieked, dug her nails into Rose’s arm, and raked them down, leaving trails of blood. They twirled together, stumbling like drunk dancers doing their own version of the twist. The stars above them blurred. Everything took on a sickening yellowish tinge. Rose staggered, her legs suddenly not working right. Sylvie’s nails felt as if they were clawing their way down to the bone. Rose dipped forward and sank her teeth into her sister’s forearm until she tasted blood. Sylvie cried out and released her grip. The terrible dance slowed. Sylvie looked, unbelieving, from the wound on her arm to Rose’s face.

  “My God,” Sylvie breathed. Her face was white; her lips were colorless; her eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets. “What’s happening to you?” She pulled back from Rose with all her strength.

  Sylvie slipped from Rose’s grasp. Rose fell to the floor. Sylvie, suddenly free, stumbled back two steps and hit the wall hard. It caught her at the waist, and she was gone, over the edge, flipping over backward in a clumsy dive.

  “Sylvie!” Rose screamed, only it came out as a strangled-sounding growl. She tried to get up, but found her body was frozen, her muscles unable to respond to her mind’s command to move, her head swimming, the pain in her head pulsing. She lay there for what felt like ages, while strength returned to her limbs and her vision cleared a little.

  At last, in slow motion, she was able to stagger over to the edge. She willed herself to look down, to search the pool of darkness at the bottom for her sister’s crumpled body. But there was nothing—only the cold shadow of the tower.

  “Sylvie!” Rose called, her voice hoarse and strained, searching the darkness. Surely her sister couldn’t have walked away from the fall—it was a good thirty feet down.

  But where was she?

  Gone. Sylvie was gone.

  “No,” Rose moaned. She sank down to her knees, head hurting so bad she was sure that something inside was going to explode.

  Then, at the edge of her vision, she caught movement: a quick fluttering, the slight glow of nearly iridescent wings.

  And there she was: Sylvie, in luna-moth form, rising from the darkness below, coming to rest on top of the stone wall. With her pale-green wings spread wide, she was beautiful, luminous, glittering, as though made of stardust.

  Slowly, Rose felt for the pack, which had fallen off during their struggle, reached inside, and pulled out the butterfly net. She stood up and crept forward slowly, net behind her back.

  “Got you!” she cried, slamming the net down on top of her sister.

  She held the butterfly net closed carefully as she climbed back down to the base of the tower. In the kitchen, she used her flashlight to find the large glass jar that her mother sometimes made sauerkraut in. She put the moth inside and screwed the lid on tight. Then she took the jar out to the shed, found a roll of baling wire, and wrapped it over and over around the jar, making a metal cage, so that it would be impossible for her to transform back into a human.

  Once she was back in her bedroom, Rose placed the wire-wrapped jar on the floor beside her bed.

  “I’ve got you,” she said again to the moth in the jar. It was clinging to the inside of the glass and seemed to make no move to find a means of escape. The moth was perfectly still, as if she knew she’d been caught at last. Maybe she
even wanted to be. Maybe it was time to surrender.

  Rose

  Rose woke up in the morning with a tinny taste in her mouth, her body spent and exhausted. She’d dreamed of knives and claws, and razor teeth. She lay there for a minute, breathing a little too hard, eyes closed, listening for her sister.

  Then she remembered.

  Rose turned and reached for the jar beside her bed.

  The luna moth was not moving. It lay on its side, lifeless.

  Rose began to scream.

  “What is it?” her mother asked, hurrying into the room, still in her nightgown.

  “Sylvie!” Rose said, holding up the jar wrapped in wire. “It’s Sylvie! I’ve killed her.”

  “Rose,” Mama said, voice shaky as she took a step back, looking stunned.

  “This is Sylvie! Here in the jar! Look!”

  Mama’s confused eyes locked on the jar in Rose’s hand. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said at last.

  Rose sobbed. “She was a mare. I wanted to show you. To prove it. I didn’t mean to kill her.”

  Mama shook her head. “You listen to me, Rose. That moth is not your sister.”

  Mama’s eyes moved from the jar to Sylvie’s empty bed and the open closet door, where many of the hangers hung empty.

  Rose blinked, trying to understand what she was seeing, where Sylvie’s things could have gone. She remembered last night, how Sylvie said she was going away. Had she packed everything up to leave before she headed out to the tower? Was she really planning to run away, worried she’d be caught for killing Fenton?

  Mama then moved to the desk, where a piece of paper was loaded into the Royal typewriter.

  Mama pulled the paper out, read it out loud:

  I can’t stay here any longer.

  I’m sorry. I love you all and know you’ll understand.

  I’ll write once I’ve settled.

  All my love,

  Sylvie

  “What’s all the commotion?” Daddy called from the doorway, where he stood, shoulders slumped, wearing his old rumpled pajamas.

  “It’s Sylvie,” Mama said, voice shaking, as she stepped forward to hand him the typed note. “She’s run away.”

  A door closed in Rose’s chest. She knew Mama was wrong.

  She’d killed Sylvie.

  Yes, Sylvie may have been a monster, but Rose hadn’t meant to hurt her. She just wanted to catch her. To prove to the world what Sylvie really was. Now no one would ever believe. They’d all think that Sylvie had run away, gone off to some bright new future. And Rose alone would bear the burden of the truth.

  She clung desperately to the glass jar, looked at the beautiful broken creature inside, and began to sob.

  2013

  Piper

  “It’s for you,” Margot said, holding the phone out to Piper. They were sitting together, having a luxurious breakfast in bed. Piper had made crêpes with apple butter, turkey bacon, sliced melon, and fresh-squeezed orange juice.

  Jason had gone to work early without so much as a glance at Piper. Piper had heard him and Margot talking late into the night, Jason’s voice desperate and at times angry. At one point, she heard him snarl, “You and Piper and Amy.” Apparently, they hadn’t resolved things: when Piper got up to use the bathroom in the night, she saw Jason snoring on the couch, four empty beer cans on the coffee table, and the sports channel playing on the muted TV.

  Margot hadn’t said a word about Jason so far this morning, choosing instead to talk about everything Piper should accomplish today. Not only was there a crib that needed to be assembled, there were curtains with little elephants to hang, and bags of tiny onesies and footie pajamas to put in drawers. Up until this point, Margot and Jason had left everything unpacked or stored away. If the worst happened (It couldn’t possibly, could it? Life couldn’t be that unfair…), the last thing they wanted was an adorable elephant mobile hanging over an empty crib, or drawers full of tiny clothes that would never be worn. But now the baby’s arrival seemed imminent, and Margot was feeling completely unprepared. She also seemed to desperately need something to keep her busy, something to focus on that wasn’t Jason or Amy. She showed Piper checklists from books and Web sites, and made frantic lists of things they didn’t have and would need to get: diaper-rash cream, a rectal thermometer, tiny nail clippers.

  Piper was loving it.

  “For me?” Piper said, reaching to take the phone from Margot. Margot shrugged, looking equally puzzled. Who on earth would be calling Margot’s home phone looking for Piper at 10:00 a.m. on a Monday?

  “Hello?” Piper said.

  “Piper? Hey, this is Crystal. Lou’s aunt?”

  “Oh, sure, hi.” Piper’s pulse quickened a bit. Had something happened to the little girl?

  “So…Lou hasn’t stopped talking about you since yesterday. Guess you made quite an impression. She keeps asking when she can see you again.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. I could come by and visit again sometime.”

  “Yeah, well, here’s the thing. I’ve gotta work this afternoon, and I don’t have anyone to watch her. Would you mind?”

  “This afternoon?”

  “Just for a couple hours. Until Ray gets home at three. Lou’s really not all that comfortable with most adults, especially now. It would be a real favor.”

  “Uh, sure. I guess I can do that.”

  “Cool. Oh, and maybe you could go by her house first? She needs some things. Clothes and toys and stuff? When they brought her over, all she had was the stuff she was wearing. She doesn’t want to go back there—can’t say I blame her.”

  “But isn’t it all sealed off? Will the police let me in?”

  Margot’s eyes got huge as she watched Piper. “The motel?” she mouthed. Piper nodded.

  “It’s all clear. I talked to the cops this morning. They’re done up there and said we could come anytime. Ray won’t go, and, me, I can’t stand the thought of going anywhere near the place. I mean, Mark is”—her voice faltered—“was my brother.”

  Piper didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

  “So would you mind?” Crystal went on. “Picking up a bag of stuff for Lou and bringing it by later? I can’t tell you what a help it would be. I leave for work at one.”

  Piper didn’t want to go to the motel, no way, no how. Didn’t want to see where Amy and her family had died so horribly. But then she thought of Lou—her pale face, her smile that reminded Piper so much of a young Amy. The poor kid had been through so much; didn’t she deserve the slim comfort of her own clothes, a few favorite stuffed animals to provide some sense of normality, to remind her of the time before this nightmare? It seemed like the least Piper could do.

  “Sure,” Piper said at last. “No problem. I’ll see you at one.”

  She hung up and told Margot what was going on.

  “Holy crap! You’ve gotta go check out the motel! Take a good look around.”

  Piper groaned. “You’re kidding, right? The thought of even setting foot near that place makes me sick, and you want me to play Nancy Drew? What am I even looking for?”

  “Evidence that we’re right. That Amy didn’t kill her family.”

  “Don’t you think the police would have found that if it existed?”

  Margot shook her head fiercely. “It’s a cut-and-dried case to them. Besides, no one knows that motel like we do, right?”

  “Jason will kill me if he finds out I went anywhere near the motel.”

  “Please. You’ll be back in no time. He’ll never know! You can stop at Rite Aid on your way back and get the stuff on our list. If he calls or stops by, I’ll tell him you’re out shopping. Then you come back here for lunch—and to tell me everything—and head over to Crystal’s to babysit Lou. No problem.”

  “I don’t know….”

  “For Christ’s sake, Piper. You already told Crystal you’d pick up clothes for Lou, right? I mean, you don’t expect Crystal to go out there, where her brother was killed? And so, w
hile you’re there, just…look around. See what you can figure out.”

  Piper was silent, trying to come up with a way to make Margot understand that it was impossible, that she couldn’t bear it. Then Margot said, quietly:

  “You know Amy would do it for you.”

  So that was that.

  —

  Piper gripped the steering wheel of her sister’s Subaru tightly as she came up to the Tower Motel sign.

  28 Rooms, Pool, No Vacancy.

  Piper flipped down her turn signal, her eyes on the tower. She recalled Lou’s description of the sound of the gun, the footsteps.

  Could Amy possibly have shot her husband and son?

  Or had there been someone else there?

  Something else?

  She remembered the notes left for Amy in the typewriter all those years ago, and Amy’s insistence that Sylvie’s ghost had come back and was visiting her in her bedroom at night. The fuzzy Polaroid photo she waved around as proof.

  The old gravel driveway was nearly washed out. Piper moved slowly; the car bumped as she passed the leaning stone tower and the long shadow it cast. She shivered.

  Just a building, she told herself.

  But it wasn’t just a building, was it?

  She knew the truth.

  There was no way she was going in the tower, not today, not ever, in spite of her sister’s guilt trip. She’d just tell Margot the tower was too dangerous, the wood floors rotted through. I was thinking about my own safety, she’d say, about how I didn’t want your baby to grow up without her kooky aunt Piper.

  Kooky. That was something Amy might have called her. Back then.

  Suddenly she was twelve again. Gangly and awkward, all legs, feathered hair.

  Naïve. Just so young.

  There was so much we didn’t know.

  But there were also the things she had known. She’d known that she loved Amy; known it, but never admitted it to anyone, even herself. And somehow or other, in spite all the affairs that came after, both men and women, nothing compared to that wild adolescent longing she felt for Amy. It was Amy she went back to in her mind.