The Night Sister

Lou smiled placidly. “It’s Mommy’s friend Jay Jay.”


The spots in front of Margot’s eyes grew larger, wavier. Another contraction rolled over her. She tried to breathe through it.

“What else did Piper say when she called?” Lou asked. “Did they find Aunt Crystal?”

“No, sweetie. Not yet. I’m sorry.”

“Good,” Lou said. “She was mean. I don’t like it when people are mean to me.”

“There’s another cordless phone in the office,” Margot said, panic starting to creep over her. “Could you go get that one for me?”

“Yup,” Lou said; she put the photo back down and bounded out of the room. For a second, Margot thought she saw feathers woven into the back of Lou’s braid. But then Lou was back in a flash, holding the second phone in her hand. Or was it a claw? No, she didn’t have four reptilian digits where her fingers should be. She couldn’t.

“Your hand,” Margot said. There were definitely sharp talons at the ends of Lou’s fingers.

“What?” Lou asked, smiling, holding up her other hand, which was normal.

Margot knew, even before she took it, that this phone was dead, too. She knew it from the way the girl smiled at her, her teeth strangely pointed, her eyes distinctly wrong now—the blue irises huge, covering any trace of white, the pupils vertical slits.

It was as if a curtain had been dropped: everything got dark and quiet except for a strange buzzing sound in Margot’s ears. And Lou’s voice.

“You and Piper, you’ve been so nice. You wouldn’t do anything mean, would you?”

“Of course not,” Margot said. “I promise.”

The girl’s face was dark now, more animal than human. Margot shook her head, sure she was seeing things.

“Mama promised, too,” Lou said quietly, regretfully.

“I need…” Margot said, trying to stand, but too dizzy to manage. “Help,” she mumbled, sitting back down. “I need you to go get help.”

“But I’m here,” Lou said, sitting beside Margot on the bed, putting her hand on Margot’s thigh. The claws poked through Margot’s cotton pajama bottoms, drew blood that came in little pinpricks, blossoming once they hit the fabric. “I’ll help you.”





Piper


Neither Margot nor Jason was answering their cell phones. The house number rang and rang, too, after her conversation with Margot had been cut off.

Piper thought of calling 911 and saying there was an emergency. But they would ask what emergency, and what would she tell them? That she had left a ten-year-old child who was actually a monster playing cards with her sister? Then she’d be the one the cops would come after, ready to lock her up and give her a heavy dose of antipsychotic medication.

Was she crazy for being frightened, she asked herself as she rolled through a stop sign, for actually believing the possibility that Rose’s stories were real?

A mare can’t help what it is. Can’t help the things it does.

“Damn it,” she said, hitting the speed-dial number for Margot’s cell phone. “Pick up the damn phone!”

Voice mail again.

She threw her phone down on the passenger seat in frustration. The rain had picked up. It drummed heavily on the roof, blurring the windshield even with the wipers at full speed and the defrost fan blowing. She was on Main Street now, heading away from downtown. Up ahead, she saw the wrecked Tower Motel sign, faded and leaning. And beyond it, looming like a monster of stone and cement, the tower.

And at the bottom, Clarence’s oubliette.

The twenty-ninth room.

Built to keep Charlotte’s children safe.

But it hadn’t, had it?

She continued on, speeding in spite of the weather, hydroplaning a little when she turned corners. At last, her sister’s house came into view. It wasn’t in smoldering ruins, nor was it surrounded by police and the SWAT team.

But it should be.