The Night Sister

“You okay?” Margot asked, eyes worried.

“Fine,” Piper said, using the bottom edge of her T-shirt to dab at the dark blood seeping out of her shin. “I’m totally fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “And you have to swear not to tell Mom about this. She’d kill us. We’d never be allowed over here again.”

Margot nodded. Her eye shadow sparkled in the light coming through the slatted window. “I know that. You think I’m stupid, but I’m not.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t go all the way through,” Amy said, stooping down to inspect the hole. “That would have been a nasty fall.”

All the way to hell, Piper thought, nodding in agreement.

“Come on, you guys,” Margot urged, in a voice as small and whiny as a mosquito. “You shouldn’t stay up here.”

For once, Piper agreed with her little sister, and stood up on shaky legs. Her right shin throbbed and was sticky with blood.

“Wait a sec,” Amy said. “There’s something in here.” She leaned down for a better look, then got on her belly and reached into the hole in the floor to shove her hand way back.

“Be careful,” Piper warned, worried that the floor wouldn’t hold her weight and she’d go tumbling in, headfirst, like Alice down the rabbit hole.

Amy pulled out a small olive-green hard-sided suitcase.

“What is that?” Margot asked, leaning in for a better look.

Amy said nothing. She turned the suitcase on its side and popped open the clasps by the handle with a loud click. Then she paused, held her breath, and gently swung the top up.

Inside was clothing, neatly folded. Amy pulled out a gingham dress, some stockings. Then a little coin purse stuffed with a thick roll of bills: tens, twenties, fives. Tucked into the bottom of the coin purse was a pair of old earrings with green stones, and a pearl necklace.

“Whoa,” Margot said. “I bet those are real emeralds and pearls!”

Amy studied them a minute, then placed them back in the purse and continued unpacking the suitcase.

Beneath the clothing was an old scrapbook, with the letters “SAS” in neat black calligraphy. Amy pulled it out carefully and began to thumb through it. The brittle pages were pasted with photos of old movie stars cut from newspapers and magazines. Piper thought she recognized a couple of them, but they weren’t anyone who was popular now. Some of them had names neatly printed underneath: Gary Cooper, Rock Hudson, Audrey Hepburn, Doris Day.

Amy dug around in the suitcase again, and pulled out a photograph in a frame this time: two girls. One was a stunningly beautiful older girl with a narrow face, straight blond hair, and haunting eyes; the second girl seemed a shadow of the first, with dark, unkempt curls, and circles under her heavy-lidded eyes. Both girls wore stiff dresses, smiling into the camera with faces that looked equally stiff, as if the photographer had grumbled a warning, “Smile now, damn it.” Each was holding a chicken cradled carefully in her arms, and they stood in front of a painted sign: World Famous London Chicken Circus.

“It’s my mom and Aunt Sylvie,” Amy said. She thought a minute. “This has to be Sylvie’s suitcase. The one she took with her when she left.”

“But why’s her suitcase still here, then?” Margot asked as they stared down at the now disheveled pile of clothing inside. It gave off a musty smell, the scent of things long forgotten.

Amy picked up a dress and held it so that it waved gently, like a flag, like a moth fluttering. If Piper squinted her eyes, she could almost see the blond-haired girl from the picture wearing it; she was smiling, but under the smile, her eyes flashed them a warning glance.

Put it back, she seemed to say. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll walk away and forget you ever found it.





Jason