The Night Sister

When she got to the kitchen, there was still no sign of Sylvie.

Rose stood on the cold tile; moonlight streamed through the curtained windows, making the white squares on the linoleum floor glow. Her cold bare feet looked like dark paws against the white floor. The dinner dishes were neatly stacked in the wire drainer, and Mama’s rubber gloves hung limply over the faucet. Behind the lemony scent of Mama’s cleaning products, she caught the spicy, tangy scent of the chili they’d had for supper. “Chili con carne,” Mama called it, which made it sound fancy, like something you’d order in a French restaurant, but really it was just ground chuck with canned tomatoes and beans.

Rose went to peer out the window that looked out on the driveway and the glowing Tower Motel sign. Vacancy, it promised. And there, down near the tower, a figure moved in the shadows, its blond hair gleaming in the moonlight as a white nightgown fluttered around its feet.

Sylvie.

And she was heading into the tower.

Rose hurried outside and carefully made her way across the driveway. The cold, damp gravel stabbed her bare feet, and the night air chilled her skin, giving her goose bumps beneath her flannel nightgown. She looked back at the house, checking the windows to see if a light had appeared in her parents’ bedroom. But no one stirred. She could smell wood smoke, apples, rotting leaves—all the wonderful fall smells that she found so comforting during the day. At night, they smelled like something spoiled.

Rose reached the tower, which loomed like a giant in the moonlight. She was shivering now, her teeth chattering, and she could see her breath. She knew she should run back up to the house, crawl under her warm blankets, and forget the whole thing. But first she needed to see what on earth her sister was up to.

Maybe Sylvie was sleepwalking. She’d seen that in a movie once. You weren’t supposed to wake up someone who was sleepwalking. Rose remembered hearing that somewhere. But how were you supposed to get them back to bed?

“Sylvie?” she called out as quietly as she could, peering through the doorway of the tower. It reminded her of a gaping mouth.

She listened. Silence.

“Sylvie?” she tried again. “What are you doing?” The inside of the tower was blacker than black. Anything could be inside. Anything at all. Teeth. A tongue. Ready to swallow her up. Crunch her bones. Turn her to vapor.

She stepped through the doorway, heart pounding. It was foolish to be afraid. She’d been in the tower hundreds, maybe thousands of times. She knew the shape of each stone, the grain of the boards on the floor. But she’d never been there alone late at night, in the dark. The walls felt closer. She could smell the damp stone. She felt completely engulfed by the darkness, as if she really had been taken into the mouth of a giant.

But she wasn’t alone, was she? Sylvie was inside somewhere.

“I know you’re in here!” she called out, a little louder now. “I saw you!”

Footsteps creaked above her.

“Sylvie? Come down!” she called. “It’s freezing out here.”

And I’m scared. Scared of being eaten up.

She shuffled in the darkness, hands groping blindly before her, and found the ladder, which she began to climb, hands damp with sweat, mouth dry.

“Sylvie!” she hissed.

A soft rustle sounded from somewhere up above, but when she poked her head up and got a good look at the second floor, she found it empty. Moonlight streamed through the two windows, illuminating the rough-hewn floorboards.

This was silly. It was after midnight. What was she doing in here, playing hide-and-seek with her big sister? If Mama or Daddy caught them, they’d be grounded for a month, maybe worse.

Reluctantly, she began to ascend the second ladder, up to the top floor. When she emerged onto the roof, her nightgown glowed and drifted in the wind. Around her, the walls of the tower were a perfect circle of stone and mortar.

But, impossibly, she found herself alone.