The Night Sister

“Yes,” Rose said, so happy to be back, happy to be alive, she didn’t care if her mother caught her.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Mama had appeared at the top of the stairs, and was tying her robe.

Should she tell? How could she? There was no way Mama would believe what Rose had just seen; she scarcely believed it herself.

“Nothing,” Rose said, working hard to slow her ragged breath. “I couldn’t sleep. I came down for a drink.”

“Okay. Just get yourself back up to bed soon. It’s after midnight.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Rose went into the kitchen, flipped on the lights, opened a drawer, and pulled out the largest kitchen knife she could find. Knife in hand, she poured herself a glass of juice and sat at the table. Ten minutes later, she heard Sylvie rattle at the locked front door. Then she must have taken the key from under the mat, because the door opened. Rose steeled herself, knife clenched in her hand. She tried to prepare herself for the sight of the monster Sylvie entering the kitchen, winged and lashing out at Rose with her extra arms and snapping mandibles. Rose would aim her knife right at the creature’s chest—go for the heart. But what if the thing had no heart? Yellow blood, that’s what insects had.

Instead, she heard Sylvie’s footsteps padding softly up the stairs and going down the hall to their room.

Safe. She was safe. For now.

Rose sat at the kitchen table all night, thinking, planning. Her mind raced, but there were two facts she clung to: Her sister was a monster. And Sylvie now knew that Rose had seen her, which put her in more danger than ever before.





2013





Jason


Jason could smell trouble as soon as he walked into the bedroom. He was exhausted. All he wanted in the whole world was to peel off his uniform, hit the shower, then make his way down to the kitchen, open up a beer, and mindlessly devour whatever the spicy thing was that Piper had stewing on the back of the stove.

Piper was sitting in the rocking chair in the corner of the bedroom, flipping through a magazine. As soon as he walked in, she closed it and stood up.

“I’ll leave you two,” she said, and hurried out of the room without even meeting his eye.

Margot was propped up in bed, covers pulled tight to her neck. Her face was blotchy and puffy: she’d been crying.

He reached for her, his stomach twisting with worry. Had something happened with the baby? But why hadn’t they called him?

“Margot? You okay?”

She flinched slightly and he pulled back his hand.

“What was going on between you and Amy?” Margot asked.

Jason drew a sharp breath. “Me and Amy? Nothing. What are you talking about?”

“You were there, in her house, last week. You went to see her.”

Shit. She knew. How could she know?

“What were you doing there, Jason?”

“I…” He fumbled for something to say, some way out of this. “Where did you hear that?”

“Piper visited Lou today. She said she came home from school last week and you were there with Amy. And I want to know what you were doing there, Jason.”

The girl. Of course.

But what the hell was Piper doing, talking to her? He took a deep breath to calm himself. He looked at Margot and recalled the feeling of her flinching at his touch. He could still feel her recoiling from him, moving farther away as the seconds ticked by. She inched her way over in the bed, putting as much space as she possibly could between the two of them.

He had to find a way to make this right.

Tell the truth, his conscience told him. Tell her everything.

Well, maybe not everything.

“Margot, it’s not a big deal, really. Amy called me at the station. She was upset. She asked if I could stop by; she wanted to talk about something.”

“About what?” Margot asked.

“Her mom, mostly,” Jason said. “You know she put Rose in the nursing home? She was just really shaken up about some of the things Rose said when she started to get confused.”