The Night Sister

“Sylvie wasn’t the mare, Rose.” Mama looked into Rose’s eyes. “You are. It’s been you all along.”


“I don’t understand,” Rose said. She dropped to her knees now, head in her hands, the pain a great wave washing over her. She was sure she would be sick, her stomach was churning so.

Mama’s words hung in the air, bright sparkles that only intensified her pain. Her mother looked small and far away, like she was speaking to Rose from the end of a long tunnel, her words small and echoey.

“I ran down to the tower last night when I heard you girls fighting. But then I heard another sound, a snarl and a growl, and I got there just in time to see Sylvie fall. I believe she died instantly, thank God.”

“No!” Rose said. “She transformed! She fell, but she turned into a moth and fluttered back up!”

“As I told you, that moth you captured was not your sister. She broke her neck. I saw there was nothing I could do and knew I had to hide the body—what if your father woke up and found us? I quickly carried her into the woods.” Mama paused here, took a deep breath, rubbed at her eyes. “When I looked back through the trees, up at the tower, I saw a dog’s shiny black head peering down from the top.”

“No,” Rose breathed.

“I don’t believe you meant to hurt her. I believe it was an accident. You were fighting, you started to transform, your sister was frightened, and in her struggle to get away from you, she fell over the edge.”

“But Sylvie,” Rose croaked out, “she’s the one. She was the mare. I saw her….”

Rose thought of the nights she’d wandered off from her bed. The strange dreams she’d had, dreams of claws and fangs and blood. How she’d found fur on her pillow. She’d opened her eyes and felt like her body was not her own. She’d believed there was a mare sleeping beside her each night, but it was worse than that. The monster was inside her.

That’s what Oma had been trying to warn her about, to prepare her for. That was why she’d spent so much time with Rose, why Rose was clearly her favorite. They were two of a kind, she and Oma.

Rose had dropped the flashlight. It shone on the wall and dimly illuminated the space she and her mother sat in. Her mother continued to speak, even though Rose wanted to beg her to stop, not to say any more.

“My mother said it usually skipped a generation, that I shouldn’t have children of my own. But then I met your father, and he wanted children so badly.”

“Does Daddy know? About mares?”

Mama shook her head. “I never told him; I’ve never told anyone and prayed I would never have to. When he told me about the tower he intended to build, I asked that it have an oubliette, thinking that if either of you girls turned out to be a mare, I would have a place to keep you safe, to keep the world safe from you. I told your father a secret dungeon would give the tower an air of authenticity. I asked him to do it as a special, secret favor for me.

“I’d like to take you there now, to show you the room. You wouldn’t have to stay there all the time, only at night, only until we find some other way to help you…control this.”

“A hidden room?” Rose asked. She thought of the story of Rapunzel, locked away in a tower by an evil witch. But Mama was no witch. And this was no fairy tale.

“I showed it to Oma when she came to visit. She was horrified. Said it was no place for a child. I suppose it’s my fault she lied to protect you. I only wish…”

Mama was crying now: soft sobs that shook her whole body. “I blame myself for what happened to your sister. You can’t help what you are. I should have stopped you. There are two dead now, and I can promise there won’t be any more.”

Two dead.

Two.

“Fenton?” Rose whimpered.

Her mother nodded.

“No,” Rose said, inching away. “It can’t be me. It was Sylvie. I followed her to the tower. I saw her transform.”

Mama shook her head. “Don’t you know what Sylvie was doing in the tower? Don’t you? She was meeting Fenton.”