The Night Sister

Chubby Checker was on the stereo, and Sylvie begged her guests to do the twist. Daddy and Fenton stood together, smoking, and talking quietly. Mama hovered over the food, flitting back and forth with fresh plates from the kitchen.

Things between her and Daddy had been funny lately. Funny in a bad way that made Rose’s stomach hurt when she thought too much about it. Rose could hear them fighting sometimes. About money, about the motel, about lots of things. Sometimes Daddy would stomp off and be gone all night. He’d show up the next morning in his rumpled clothes, and Mama would serve him breakfast, pour coffee into his cup, as if everything were perfectly normal.

Rose stood up and went to stand against the wall, a bottle of Coca-Cola growing warm in her hands. She’d turned fourteen back in May, and though she was younger, she was taller than her sister and outweighed her by a good thirty pounds. She’d chosen an old dress for the party, not one of her best, but one she liked well enough, because the red plaid made her think of Daddy’s hunting jacket. And she felt like a hunter. Watching and waiting. Rose had been doing this for years now, desperate to catch her sister in the act. In the act of what—of transforming into some sort of beast or insect, as mares will do? Did Rose really believe that? Even now, at fourteen?

Yes.

She would never admit it to a living soul, because surely they would think she was mad. No one would believe that beautiful, perfect Sylvie, with her glowing smile and movie-star looks, the girl who had graduated at the top of her class, could be a monster. And, of course, monsters weren’t real, were they? Only in the movies, and then they were blobs or giant insects or werewolves or aliens from outer space. Fenton took Rose and Sylvie to the movies every Saturday, and she’d seen them all. And yet she’d seen nothing that explained what her sister might be.

All she had to rely on was her memories of the stories Oma had told.

“A mare, once transformed, will still have some of its human traits and memories,” Oma explained. “They can recognize people they know, places they’ve been. But even if they wouldn’t hurt a fly in human form, once they’ve changed, they become very dangerous indeed.”

Rose imagined her sister, waking up in the night in some other form—not a beautiful luna moth, but something far more dangerous, something that showed her true nature—a monstrous moth creature with compound orbs that sparkled with hints of Sylvie’s own bright-blue eyes, great leathery wings, and a sharp proboscis meant for tearing into flesh and sipping blood.

Sylvie still disappeared from their room at least once a week—lately, more. But Rose was never able to catch her in the act. Rose was the only one who got caught, time after time, while Sylvie always managed to find her way back to bed. Rose knew that if she wanted to expose Sylvie she’d have to be trickier. She’d have to think like a hunter.

“Come on, Rose, dance with us,” Sylvie called out. She and her friends were still doing the twist to that Chubby Checker song, and even Mama and Daddy and Fenton had joined in. Mama danced stiffly, but Daddy smiled at her the whole time as they twisted, arms swinging, hips gyrating, feet pivoting on the hardwood floor.