The Night Sister (20 page)

Rose avoided both Sylvie and Fenton when she got home from school that afternoon, sticking close to Mama, offering to do one chore after another: folding laundry, starching Daddy's shirts, dusting the living room.

During dinner, Daddy asked Fenton to fix the lights in the motel sign down by the road. “One whole side is burned out. Can't see the sign when you're heading into town.”

“Not that it matters,” Mama mumbled in a voice so low Rose wondered if her father even heard it.

“We've got lightbulbs in the garage,” Fenton said. “I'll fix it after dinner.”

After dinner, Daddy went into town and Mama headed up to her sewing room. Sylvie offered to help Fenton fix the lights on the sign. Rose slipped up to their room and tried to concentrate on the book she was reading for school:
Little Women.
She was so tired, though—her eyelids grew heavy, the words blurred on the page. She finally fell asleep, still dressed, the bedside lamp burning.

She was awakened when Sylvie came in. Rose glanced at the clock: it was nearly midnight. Sylvie's eyes were red, and her hair was a mess.

“Where've you been?” Rose whispered, squinting up at her sister.

“Out walking.”

“With Fenton?”

Sylvie didn't answer. She snapped off the light, changed into her nightgown in the dark, and crawled under her covers. Rose fell back asleep to the sound of her sister softly crying, face buried in her pillow.

“Y
ou haven't seen Fenton, have you, dear?” Mama asked when Rose got in after school the next day. Sylvie was at Woolworth's. Mama was in the kitchen, washing dishes.

Rose shook her head. “Not since dinner last night,” she said, helping herself to a shiny red apple from the bowl on the counter.

Mama turned off the water, went to the cabinets, and pulled out a glass casserole dish.

“It's the strangest thing,” she said. “He didn't show up for work at the garage today. His truck is there in front of the trailer. Your father had a list of things for him to do this afternoon, but it seems he's gone and vanished.”

“Vanished,” Rose repeated.

“I know he's been talking about leaving for ages. He even told your father he was saving for a bus ticket out west. But I can't believe he'd just leave all of us without even saying goodbye. The truth is, I'm worried. What do you think, Rose? Did he say anything to you? Or did Sylvie mention anything?”

Rose shook her head. “I don't think so. Maybe. Yesterday morning, when I had cocoa with him, he said he'd been thinking about leaving.”

Disappearing.

You've gotta wonder if we all wouldn't be better off someplace else.

And he'd also wanted to talk to her about what she'd seen. About Sylvie.

Rose thought about Sylvie coming into their room last night, how disheveled she'd been. As if she'd been in some sort of struggle.

A terrible thought began to rise.

“Tuna casserole for supper,” Mama announced. “Your favorite.”

But it wasn't her favorite at all. It was Sylvie's.

Rose got up and left the kitchen.

“Where are you off to?” Mama called.

“Chores,” she said.

“Good girl,” Mama called after her.

Rose hurried to Fenton's trailer, tossing her uneaten apple into the field. The door was unlocked. She held her breath and let herself in. It was exactly the way it had been yesterday, when they sat drinking cocoa. Their cups were still in the sink, unwashed, the dregs of her cocoa at the bottom of one. She went into his tiny bedroom. The single bed was neatly made. On the table beside it was a teetering pile of paperback books. She rifled hastily through his closet. It felt strange to be in here, snooping like this, but it was necessary. Surely, if he'd bought a bus ticket out west, he'd have packed a bag, but it didn't look like anything was missing. Shirts hung on wire hangers. His big black motorcycle boots were on the floor—there was no way he'd go anywhere without those. She found his keys on the hook next to the front door, the lucky rabbit's foot Sylvie had given him dangling from them.

This was all wrong.

Rose's stomach was clenched tight; her head began to ache. The skin on the back of her neck prickled.

Stay calm. Look for clues.

She left the trailer, walked through the field, by the pool, and down the driveway to the sign. Both sides were lit up. It had been fixed.

She went back up the hill and stopped in front of the tower, peering in through the open doorway.

Don't go in,
a little voice told her. The hair on her arms stood up. But she took a deep breath and walked inside. It was just the tower, after all. And it was daylight. What could possibly be hiding in there now?

You know.

You know what could be there, hiding. Waiting.

But Sylvie was at work, counting out change from the cash register at Woolworth's, smiling at the customers, and telling them to have a nice day. Rose was safe.

Except she didn't feel safe.

It was freezing inside the tower; the stones trapped the cold, and the walls never let sunlight inside. The air smelled damp and rotten.

Get out,
the little voice told her.
Run while you still can.

Her feet crunched on something; she was stepping on glass, grinding it to powder beneath the heavy soles of her dull leather oxfords. She bent down to look more closely: a broken lightbulb. She saw the tube of threaded metal from the bottom, the string of filament, and a thousand tiny pieces of shattered glass. Amid the fragments of glass were a few dark splotches of something. She reached down and touched it. Blood. Dried, but still slightly sticky. Rose's stomach turned, and her whole body felt unsteady.

The drops moved in a rough line to the center of the room, where a dinner-plate-sized puddle of blood had formed. It was dark, thick, and congealed, and it seemed to Rose that there was an awful lot of it. She could smell the sharp, ironlike tang of it, feel it on the back of her throat. She swallowed hard, willing herself not to be sick.

This was not a simple cut from a broken lightbulb.

Something horrible had happened here.

You know what this is.

You know what did this.

Rose felt a sharp, jabbing pain in her left temple as she tried to think, to decide what to do next.

Run!
the voice in her head screamed. She should tell her mother. Tell her everything. That Sylvie was a mare, that she'd done something terrible, as Rose had always known she would. Together, they would have to find a way to stop Sylvie, to keep her from hurting anyone else. There was so much blood. Her mother would have to believe her.

Rose ran back to the house and burst into the kitchen, where her mother was chopping onions.

“Mama! You've got to come quick! The tower…”

Mama turned, impatient. “What are you on about, Rose?”

“Please, let's go—” Rose began, but Daddy walked into the kitchen, and the words died in her throat.

“Clarence,” Mama said with a sigh, setting down the chopping knife, “you're getting mud all over my clean floor.”

“I've got a job for Rose,” he said. He looked terribly old to Rose, his face thinner, his hair sprinkled with gray. When had this happened? How had she not noticed it before?

Rose's heart was beating so hard she was sure he could hear it. She was sure she could still smell the blood, taste it in the back of her throat, all mixed together with the scent of damp stone and mortar. She thought of telling them both everything, of taking Mama's and Daddy's hands and leading them to the tower, showing them the glass and blood, saying, “Our Sylvie is not who you think she is.”

But it had to be just Mama. Daddy would never believe her. Even now, he looked at her with annoyance, perhaps a strange apprehension. She was the daughter who told lies, who smashed birthday cakes. The girl who had told him yesterday morning she hated him.

Why, he might even think she was the one responsible for the blood in the tower.

Of course he would,
the voice confirmed.
Don't be an idiot.

“I have to talk to Mama,” Rose said, her voice the quiet trickle of a stream running dry. “There's something I need to show her.”

“It can wait,” Daddy said, voice firm.

She thought,
No, no, it can't.

“Go help your father now,” Mama said. “Whatever it is can wait.”

“But—”

“No arguments,” Daddy said. He looked so serious. She followed him quietly out of the house, across the driveway, and to the little workshop he and Fenton used.

Maybe Fenton was inside. Maybe her father had found him, hurt, stabbed, and he needed her help.

Then her father would have to believe about Sylvie! When Fenton told his story, they'd know what they were up against.

But when she stepped into the workshop, she saw only the workbench, rows of tools, the stack of tires, and chains for the tractor.

There, on the workbench, was a large wooden cross, nailed together and painted white.

“I want you to make a marker for Lucy's grave. Paint her name and something about her. Something nice. I dug a place for her out back. A nice spot in the meadow. I've been working all day.”

Her father left her, and Rose dipped the brush into the can of red paint.

Red paint like red blood.

She had to hurry. Hurry and tell Mama what had happened to Fenton. Do it before Sylvie got home.

She looked down at the cross. Lucy deserved more than a rushed job, though. She thought of her father digging a deep hole, working all day, even skipping lunch, probably.

She considered for a few minutes, then carefully painted the words:

Here Lies Lucy, Beloved State Cow

You will live on forever in our hearts

You were the cow that changed everything

Then, as a finishing touch, she got out the black paint and put splotches on the white cross, making it Holstein-colored. One of the spots, right near the top, was in the careful shape of the state of Vermont. Daddy would be pleased.

When she finished at last, she quickly washed out the brushes with paint thinner and raced back to the house to find her mother.

Sylvie was already home, setting the table for dinner. She wore a blue dress with matching hair ribbons that made her eyes look like a summer sky.

Only a monster could be so beautiful,
Rose thought.
Only something trying to camouflage itself, to lull everyone into a sense of ease.

“There's something I need to show you,” Rose almost whispered the words to Mama. Sylvie looked up, glared at Rose. Was she worried? Did she know what Rose had found?

“Not now, dear. I've got to get this casserole in the oven.” Rose looked at the counter. A glass dish was half full of noodles, tuna fish, and canned cream-of-mushroom soup. Mama was chopping celery and mushrooms.

“Please,” Rose whimpered. “It can't wait.”

“I'll be through in ten minutes,” Mama promised. “Go up to your room. I'll call you when I'm finished.”

As Rose climbed the stairs, she heard Sylvie say, “What do you think is the matter with Rose now?”

Mama mumbled something Rose couldn't make out.
Chop, chop,
went the knife on the wooden cutting board.

Half an hour ticked by. Rose tried to focus on her own homework. But the math problems on the paper just turned into blood splatters and broken glass against a wooden floor.

“Rose?” Mama called, coming up the stairs. “What is it you wanted to show me?”

“Outside,” Rose said, jumping to her feet. “In the tower.”

Mama's face got tight, with the corners of her mouth pulled down. She wiped her hands on her apron and nodded.

“All right,” she said. “If you insist.”

Rose practically ran to the tower, but Mama followed slowly. Mama never hurried for anything.

It was dusk now, the September sky a murky gray.

“Do you remember when Oma told me about mares?” Rose said, as she approached the doorway. “Well, I've found one.”

Rose looked back at her mother, waiting for a response, but Mama said nothing. Her face twitched slightly.

“We have a mare here, at the motel. And it's done something terrible.”

Rose felt almost giddy as she said the words. At last, her mother would have to believe her. She'd show her the blood, then tell her the truth about Sylvie. Mama would take Rose in her arms and whisper, “Oh, you poor dear, it's terrible, the things you've been through. Terrible that I've never believed you. I'm so sorry.”

But when Rose reached the spot, she stared at the floor in dismay. There was nothing. The floor was clean and bare—no trace of blood or glass. Rose blinked down, her eyes filling with furious tears of disbelief. She half-wondered if she could have imagined it. She bent down and touched the floor; it was slightly damp, and she was sure she detected the faintest hint of lemon cleanser.

No! No, no, no!

“There was blood,” Rose said breathlessly. “And broken glass! From a lightbulb.”

Fenton must have been carrying the lightbulb—holding it in his hand when Sylvie attacked him. Sylvie in
mare
form, a terrible creature with wings, extra arms with hideously sharp claws, mandibles for a mouth.

“Rose, please. No more of your stories.”

“It's not a story, Mama! It's Sylvie! She's not who you think she is. She goes out each night and she—”

“That is
enough.
” Mama's eyes had lost any trace of patience. “There are no such thing as
mares
! Not another word about any of this—not to me, not to your father or anyone else. If you know what's good for you, you'll put it all out of your mind. You'll go inside, finish your homework, do your chores, and get yourself to bed early. Do you understand?”