The Night Sister

Rose squinted, trying to quiet the sudden, stabbing pain. She tried to concentrate on getting Sylvie to transform. What would it take? Perhaps if she felt threatened.

“No one would believe me if I did,” Rose said. “You’re the good girl. You always have been. No one would believe me if I told them what you really were.”

Rose could hear her sister begin to cry, softly at first, then louder.

“What am I? What am I, Rose?”

“A monster.” It felt so good to say it out loud. “And you’ve fooled everyone but me. I know what you did to Fenton.”

“Fenton,” Sylvie said, sobbing now.

Rose pulled the flashlight out of the bag but stayed where she was, just outside the tower door, waiting for her moment.

“It was his doing as much as mine,” Sylvie said, sniffling. “It was wrong, I know, but he’s gone now, so it won’t happen again.”

“No,” Rose said, stepping forward, swinging her body around so that she stood in the open doorway. “It won’t happen again. Because I’m going to stop you.”

She flipped on the flashlight, steeling herself against what she might see: her sister in hideous insect form with six legs, wings, a shiny exoskeleton. But there was just a girl in a robe with pink slippers on her feet. Her face was red and splotchy, her hair sticking up everywhere in a very non-Sylvie way.

Rose took a step into the tower, keeping the beam of her flashlight pointed at Sylvie’s face. The determination on Rose’s face must have scared Sylvie, because all of a sudden she grew wary.

“Rose, you just stay away from me,” Sylvie warned, moving now, inching sideways toward the ladder. “If you don’t, I’ll tell Mama.”

“I won’t let you do it again,” Rose said flatly. “I won’t let you hurt anyone else.”

Rose’s head was throbbing now, the pain bright and blinding. The beam from the flashlight seemed to pulsate, making her sister’s face waver, almost as if she weren’t really there at all. Rose’s skin prickled, felt hot and itchy.

Sylvie ran for the ladder and started to climb.

Rose ducked back outside, grabbed the backpack, and followed her sister up the ladder, the flashlight tucked in the back waistband of her pants, her sweaty hands sticking to the wooden rungs. The ladder felt like it was moving. But it wasn’t just the ladder. It was the whole tower: each stone and board was pulsating, throbbing in time with the pain in her head.

When she surfaced on the second floor, Rose ran the beam of light in a circle. No Sylvie. Only the round walls, and moonlight streaming in through the slit-shaped windows.

She had to hurry now. She couldn’t let Sylvie get away.

If Sylvie transformed, she might just fly away, wings beating, head with mandibles swiveling, free forever.

Heart and brain pounding, Rose labored up the second ladder, leading to the roof. Her arms and legs were heavy and stiff, like they didn’t belong to her. The wind picked up, sending a chill through her. She reached the top and shone the flashlight around, the beam bouncing off the walls with their battlements.

There was her sister, still in human form, standing close to the low wall. The moonlight had turned everything a bright, sparkling blue. The scene before her pulsated along with the throbbing in her head.

“I’m going away,” Sylvie said. She was no longer crying. She spoke defiantly and dramatically. “I’m going far away, and I’m never going to come back. I’m leaving tonight. Just go back to the house, Rose. Pretend you never saw me and I’ll be gone by morning, and you’ll never see me again.”

“No,” Rose said, stepping toward her sister. “I can’t let you do that. I know how dangerous you are.”

“You don’t know anything! You’re crazy.” Sylvie laughed raggedly, though her eyes looked frightened. “Stay away,” she said again.

She backed toward the wall. Rose ran for her, and was on her in an instant, seizing her arm.