The Night Sister

Oma sent Rose a few cheerful letters from England, letters Mama always opened and read before giving them to Rose. Oma told Rose she was knitting her a sweater for Christmas and asked what color she would like. Rose wrote back, “Red, please,” and told her how much she missed her.

But Rose never got the sweater. Just before Christmas, Mama got a call from a cousin in England. Oma had been killed in an accident.

Rose was devastated. Oma was the only adult who had ever seemed to prefer her to Sylvie, who had ever thought she was the special one. It just wasn’t fair.

She thought of Oma often—of the stories she told when they were alone together, the walks they had taken through the woods behind the motel. “Everything out here is alive, Rose,” she had said, her hand wrapped around Rose’s. “Can’t you feel it?”

Rose thought about that still: how everything seemed to have a life of its own, not just the trees and mushrooms in the forest, but things like highways and buildings and cars. A car was coming up the driveway now, its headlights winking in the dark. At first, Rose thought it was Daddy in their Chevy Bel Air. But the shape of the car and the sound of the engine were all wrong.

“Looks like we might have a full house after all,” Mama said as the car pulled up and parked outside the office. A man got out and stood up, stretching. (They almost always stretched.) A woman with a pale kerchief over her hair waited in the car.

The car was a Nash Rambler. Rose could tell, even from in here. Rambler. Rambling. Rambling Rose, like in the song Perry Como sang: “She’s a beauty growing wild.” Mama and Daddy had the record. Sometimes Daddy sang it to her, his own little Rambling Rose.

The man came into the office, shuffling a little, blinking at the shock of bright lights. His white shirt was wrinkled; his eyes were bloodshot from driving too long.

“Good evening. My wife and I need a room for the night,” he said.

“You’re in luck,” Mama said. “We have one room left. Four dollars a night.”

“Perfect,” the man said. Rose slid him the registration card, then slipped out from behind the desk.

“I’ll go flip the sign, Mama,” she said.

“Good girl,” Mama said. “Then head on up to bed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, giving Mama and the man a little curtsy as she left, because she knew she had to be especially good, especially polite, in front of guests. No matter what was happening, they had to play the perfect family, Rose had to be a perfect child.

“Turn on the charm, girls,” Daddy always said. “Make them want to come back and see us again.”

“Cute kid,” the man said, as he leaned against the desk to fill out the form.

“Yes,” Mama said. “She’s a good girl.”

Good girl. Good girl. Good girl.

Rose skipped down the driveway (she was right—the man did drive a Rambler) and to the sign, where she stepped forward, into the light, and flipped it so that the No showed. She stood for a minute, bathed in light, as if onstage with the Tower Motel backdrop behind her. She did a little dance, a few ballet moves Oma had taught her—slide, step, slide, pirouette, curtsy. She thought of Sylvie saying that she was going to leave one day and run off to Hollywood to be a star. Not me, Rose thought as she danced. I’m going to stay right here forever.





Mr. Alfred Hitchcock Paramount Pictures

Hollywood, California August 11, 1955

Dear Mr. Hitchcock,

Sometimes a butterfly is not just a butterfly.

This is what Oma taught me.

You know the worst thing I learned from her?

You can be a monster and not even know you are one.

They look like us.

They think they are us.

But really, they’ve got a monster hiding inside.

If that’s not a good idea for a movie, I don’t know what is.

Sincerely Yours,

Miss Sylvia A. Slater The Tower Motel





328 Route 6


London, Vermont





Rose


Rose was having the dream again. A dark, formless beast had overtaken her, pinned her, crushed her from all sides until she got smaller and smaller—the size of a doll, then as tiny as a teardrop. She did her best to fight it, but in the end she was powerless.