The Night Sister

At last, Mama stuffed her hands into the pockets of her wool coat and said quietly, “I heard you and your sister fighting up here last night.”


There was a bright flash of pain in Rose’s left eye. She pushed her thumb into the socket, trying to massage it away. She desperately wanted to climb back down the ladder, go up the driveway and into the warm safety of the house, crawl into her bed, and sleep. Maybe, if she went back to sleep, this whole day would disappear.

“You did?” Rose asked.

Mama nodded in the darkness. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Rose closed both her eyes. “I followed Sylvie to the tower.”

“With a backpack full of traps and chains?”

Rose swallowed hard, wondering how Mama knew about the backpack.

“I wanted to catch her. I knew you would never believe me—you’d never see her for what she really was unless I showed you.”

“What was she, Rose?”

“A mare—at least, I think so. I’m almost sure. ’Cause they do exist, Mama, just like in the stories Oma told me when I was little. And I know the reason she told me so much about them. She knew that Sylvie was one. She was trying to prepare me. To teach me all about them so that I would know what to do, how to stop her if I had to.”

And she had stopped her, hadn’t she? Rose’s head was pounding ferociously now, the pain shooting through her left eye like an icicle.

She clearly recalled the walk back to the house last night, the heavy knapsack thumping and clanging on her back; in her hands, she’d carried the luna moth in the net. It had struggled at first, then held still, resigned to having been captured.

Mama stepped closer to Rose. She settled on the floor beside her, leaned against the cool stone wall, and sighed deeply.

“Oh, Rose,” she said sadly, softly. “You’ve got part of it right: Mares do exist. Your grandmother was one herself.”

“No,” Rose said, “she couldn’t be!” It didn’t make sense. Oma had told her such horrible stories about these creatures and the things they were capable of.

Mama continued. “My mother never used to remember what happened once she’d transformed.” Mama’s expression was one of pity now. And remorse. “She’d come home, clothing torn, blood under her fingernails—she would never have any idea what she’d done.”

Rose’s head swam. “But…wasn’t she dangerous? Weren’t you afraid she might hurt us when she came to visit?”

She remembered the safe feeling of being in Oma’s arms, the smell of horehound candy, the lulling sound of her voice.

Mama shook her head. “I wasn’t too worried, no. My mother had learned to control it quite well—apparently, better control comes with age. As an extra precaution, there were pills she took at night, sleeping pills that kept her from transforming when her guard was down.”

“But, still…to invite a”—Rose thought the word “monster,” but could not say it aloud—“someone who could do those things, here, to stay with us…”

“Mares have a way of recognizing one another, of sniffing each other out, you could say. That is why I invited her, to spend time with you girls, so that we would know if either of you was a mare. She told me she was sure neither of you were, that we were safe.”

“But that wasn’t true,” Rose said.

“No, it wasn’t true. I believe my mother knew it, even then, and lied to me.”

“When did you figure it out?” Rose asked.

“I started to worry when you told me Sylvie had been sneaking out of bed at night. I watched her carefully, looking for signs. When I discovered Fenton’s body in the tower, I blamed myself; I knew that I could have stopped it. But even then, I had it all wrong. I hid the body, cleaned everything up, and started to watch Sylvie. Finally, yesterday, I confronted her.”

“Did she know? Did she know what she was?”

Mama was silent a moment, studying Rose in the moonlight.