The Night Sister

“There’s nothing you can do moping around at home,” Mama said; she packed a tuna sandwich for Rose in a paper sack, tucked it into her school bag, and sent her on her way to meet the bus. Mama, who never cried, had been crying all morning. She wouldn’t look Rose in the eye; she seemed eager to get rid of her.

Daddy called the police, Rose learned later. Sylvie was reported as a runaway. Daddy went down to the train and bus stations, flashing a picture of Sylvie, asking if they’d sold her a ticket or seen her. Nobody had.

“Probably headed for Hollywood,” Mama kept saying. “That girl has stars in her eyes. Has since the day she was born.”

Sylvie’s friends were all shocked to hear the news; they denied knowing anything about a plan to run away. They did say she’d been acting strange lately, and they’d guessed that she might have a secret boyfriend. When asked for any details about this boyfriend, none of them knew a thing—it was just a feeling they all had.

Her closest friend, Marnie, suggested that Sylvie would go straight to Universal Studios to look for Alfred Hitchcock. When the police followed up, Mr. Hitchcock’s assistant told them that he did not know anyone by the name of Sylvia Slater from Vermont, and Mr. Hitchcock had never received any letters from someone by that name. But, yes, the assistant would certainly contact the police if any girl fitting that description should show up at the studio.

Rose checked that all Sylvie’s letters, the ones she’d stolen from the mailbox and opened over the years, were carefully hidden. She didn’t want anyone to find them. For years, they’d been her secret view into Sylvie’s world. But there would be no more letters.

That night, after her parents were fast asleep, Rose sneaked out of her bedroom and went to the workshop, where she grabbed the flashlight she’d carefully unpacked from the bag last night. She went down to the tower. She thought of the night before, of Sylvie speaking to her from the shadows: “What is it you want from me?”

Rose’s head began to ache as she entered the tower, flicked on the light. She went all the way up to the top floor and shone her light around, half expecting Sylvie to be there, hiding in the shadows.

She remembered their fight, which had been so like a dance, and the expression on Sylvie’s face just before she fell backward off the tower: utter horror.

Rose turned off her flashlight and sat with her back against the cold stone wall. She looked up at the stars and wondered what the night sky looked like in faraway places, places like Hollywood, where Sylvie wanted to go.

There were footsteps below, on the ground floor of the tower.

“Sylvie?” Rose called, half hoping it really was her sister. Not the least bit frightened anymore by the idea of her being a monster; of what she was capable of. If only it was Sylvie; if only Rose was all mixed up about Sylvie and Fenton and mares and luna moths.

Someone was climbing the ladder.

Rose heard breathing. She froze. Listened to footsteps move across the second floor and then steadily up the final ladder. She stood, holding the metal flashlight over her head like a club.

Hands came into a view, gripping the rungs of the ladder, reaching out to the floor.

Familiar hands.

Not Sylvie’s.

Mama’s hands.

“What are you doing up here?” Mama asked, as she pulled herself off the ladder and stepped gracefully onto the floor.

It was odd, seeing Mama in the tower. Even though Daddy had built the tower for her, Rose couldn’t remember ever seeing Mama inside. She seemed, now that she thought about it, to avoid it.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Rose explained. “I thought maybe I’d come down here and find Sylvie. She used to come here sometimes. At night.”

Mama looked at Rose a minute, considering. It was the first time Mama had looked her in the eye all day. But her expression was strange, unfamiliar, apprehensive. It was as though Mama was meeting a person she didn’t know (and wasn’t sure she liked) for the first time.