The Night Sister

Dear Mr. Hitchcock, My name is Sylvia Slater, and I am eleven years old. I live in London, Vermont, where my family runs the Tower Motel on Route 6. I get top marks in my class and my teacher, Mrs. Olson, says I am already reading and writing at a high school level. Daddy is teaching me to help with the bookkeeping, and sometimes he even lets me write the daily tallies in our big ledger.

I want to be an actress when I grow up. Or maybe even a movie director, like you. Are there any girl directors? My sister Rose, she says she doesn’t think there are, but she’s only eight.

I don’t mind telling you, Rose is a little odd. She watches me all the time and it’s starting to bother me. Mama says Rose is just jealous. My father says Rose has an overactive imagination. I honestly can’t imagine what goes on in her head. She runs around the motel in torn dresses, tangles in her hair, and her best friend on earth is a sad old cow we have named Lucy. And yet she has the nerve to tell me I’m silly for wanting to be an actress one day.

I’ve started keeping a movie scrapbook filled with pictures I’ve cut out of famous actors and actresses. Sometimes I show my uncle Fenton what I’ve pasted in my book. You’re his favorite director. He’s seen every single one of your pictures. It was his idea that I write to you, because I have an idea for a movie. But I have to warn you, it’s really scary.

My Oma, she’s my mama’s mother, came to visit last year all the way from England. Oma told me and Rose terrible, frightening stories. Rose loved the stories, but I hated them. They gave me nightmares.

She told one story that I’ll never forget, because she swore it was true. It’s the scariest thing I ever heard.

Mr. Hitchcock, before I tell you any more, there is something I need to know: Do you believe in monsters?

Sincerely yours,

Miss Sylvia A. Slater The Tower Motel





328 Route 6


London, Vermont





Rose


Rose watched her sister, Sylvie, pull back the curtain that they’d strung up along the clothesline at the side of the house before stepping out onto the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Sylvie announced in a booming voice. “Welcome to the one and only World Famous London Chicken Circus!”

She dropped the needle onto the phonograph, and “Sh-Boom, Sh-Boom” by the Crew Cuts began to play. As Sylvie began to sway back and forth, with each graceful step her blond curls bounced. They were pulled back from her face with simple white barrettes. She’d put her hair in curlers before the circus, because she thought it made her look like Doris Day.

Rose wiped the sweat from her forehead and hauled back the curtain to reveal their audience: Mama and Daddy, Uncle Fenton, Bill Novak the fish man, a shy young couple driving up to Nova Scotia for their honeymoon, and a New Jersey family of four—two parents, one boy, and one girl—who were all on their way to a week of camping in Maine. It wasn’t the largest crowd they’d performed for, but not the smallest, either. It certainly wasn’t bad for a Thursday—tomorrow and Saturday, when the motel was full, they’d have their biggest crowds. The size of the crowd didn’t matter, though: she and Sylvie would do the circus for even a single guest. Daddy said to make every performance count, even if there was just one man watching.

“You never know who that one man might be,” he told them. “Maybe he’s a talent scout. Or a reporter. Maybe he has a hundred friends back home who he’ll tell all about the show and motel.”

Daddy was sitting in the very front row, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, watching intently through his one good eye, the other squinting at them, able to discern only their shadows. He wore his buttoned white shirt rolled up at the sleeves, and kept a pack of Lucky Strikes in his pocket, along with a pen and pencil and little notepad. His hair was cut short and slicked back with Brylcreem.