The Night Sister (30 page)

Piper sat in shock as the nurse came bustling into Rose's room, pushing the med cart. “Rose,” the nurse said, “time for your evening pills.”

Rose nodded, and dutifully took the tiny paper cup of pills and the cup of water with a flexible plastic straw from the nurse. She tipped the cup of pills into her mouth, took a sip of water, and swallowed.

“Good girl,” the nurse said. “You ring if you need anything.”

She nodded politely at Piper and said, “The pills can make our Rose a little groggy.”

“I understand,” Piper said.

And she did. They kept Rose medicated to keep her from disappearing. But what they didn't know was that it wasn't Rose in human form they were looking for when they found her bed empty at night—it was Rose in mare form, Rose as a black dog, or even an insect. She'd told Piper that it really wasn't that hard for her to change into whatever she wished. It was a skill, like any other, something a mare develops over time. She'd also learned to transform at will when wide awake, and was able to keep a good part of her human consciousness—and conscience—once she'd changed. Mostly, however, she'd learned, over the years, to control it—to take just the right amount of muscle relaxants every evening to keep her from changing in her sleep, unaware.

The nurse wheeled the cart out of the room and turned left, making her way down the hall.

Rose stared at the jar on the bedside table with the luna moth inside.

“Charlotte showed us that jar that summer,” Piper said. “She told us you always believed it was Sylvie.”

Rose shook her head. “For about twenty-four hours I did, yes. But then I learned the truth: my sister died in that fall, and my mother covered it up; she hid the body so there wouldn't be any investigation that might reveal our family secret.”

“So why did you keep the moth?”

Rose smiled bitterly. “I suppose as a reminder of how we all trick ourselves into believing what we need to believe.”

“Was it
you
Amy saw that summer? You who left those notes in the typewriter? Not Sylvie's ghost?”

“Yes,” Rose said. “My mother and I agreed that it wouldn't have been safe for me to live at home. What if I slipped up and Amy saw me transform? Or what if, God forbid, I hurt Amy by accident when I was a mare?”

“So you just left her?”

“I never went far. We allowed the story of my supposed drinking problem to flourish; my mother made references to me being far away, ‘getting help.' But I mostly stayed around Vermont; I rented squalid little rooms and apartments, and got by however I could, working at supermarkets and Laundromats. I even stole a bit here and there if I needed to—never enough to call attention to myself, of course. And at night sometimes I came back to the motel and checked up on things. Like I did today.” She smiled at Piper.

“It was you? You left me the note this morning?”

Rose nodded. “Wednesday mornings are busy here. We've got Bingo; then the children from the elementary school come to visit and sing songs with us. It's not so hard to slip away in the chaos. No one notices a little bird flying out through an open window; in no time, I can be across town at the motel.”

“And back then, you never let Amy see you. You let her believe it was Sylvie's ghost.”

“It was easier that way. I knew I should just stay away, but I couldn't. I'd come back and watch Amy while she slept, just to make sure I hadn't passed it on to her.”

“And was she?” Piper asked, hardly believing she was even asking the question. “Was Amy one, too?”

“No,” Rose said. “Like my mother told me—it usually skips a generation.”

Piper sprang forward in her chair. “Lou? She's a mare?”

Rose nodded, licked her lips. Her eyelids started to close. Fast-acting medication, whatever it was. Or maybe she'd just worn Rose out.

“Did Amy know?”

“Didn't want to believe it. That's why I came back, why I moved back into the house with them. I tried to help them, like Oma tried to help me. I sensed it right away with Lou, but of course I needed to be sure before I could warn Amy. Once the transformations began, I tried to tell Amy, but it was too late. She called me crazy, and her stupid husband backed her up.

“Then, last week, she came to me, hysterical. She'd seen Lou transform. She wanted to know what to do. I told her about the medicine. I told her to take Lou to the twenty-ninth room and try to keep her down there until she figured out how to get the medicine, what the right dosage would be. Lou was stronger than I ever was. She had quickly learned how to transform at will—to change in the daytime, even, and take whatever form she wanted. And, like any young mare, she was impulsive…dangerous. She wasn't always able to control her actions once she turned.”

“Wait a second—are you saying it was Lou? That she killed her family?”

The old woman's eyes were shut now, her voice trailing off into sleep. “A mare can't help what it is. Can't help the things it does.”

“Oh my God,” Piper said, grabbing her bag and running for the door. “Margot.”

Something was wrong and Margot knew it, had known it all day. She'd been uncomfortable since breakfast, but she had told herself that the cramping she felt was brought on by too many crêpes.

“I think I need to take a little bathroom break,” Margot told Lou. The girl looked disappointed. She'd won four hands of Crazy Eights and was well on her way to another victory. They'd already taken one long break when Lou had gone into the kitchen to bring back a snack—saltine crackers with globs of jelly, something that had somehow taken her nearly twenty minutes to prepare.

The cordless phone on the nightstand rang, and Margot picked up.

“Hello?”

“Margot? It's me,” Piper said, sounding out of breath. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, we're fine,” Margot said.

“And Lou, she's still there? And she's…she's okay?”

“Yes, Lou is right here and she's fine. We're both fine.” Margot smiled at Lou, who was watching her intently with a small frown. “She's killing me at Crazy Eights! Why all the concern?”

“Is that Piper?” Lou asked. Margot nodded and held up a finger—one minute. Lou stood suddenly, knocking the cards off the bed, and left the room.

“It's something Rose told me,” Piper went on. “Margot, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think Lou might be—” The connection went dead.

“Piper? Hello?”

Lou returned and plopped herself down beside Margot on the bed, another jelly-smeared saltine in her hand.

“Is everything okay?” Lou asked.

“Yes, fine. Piper just wanted to check in. We had a bad connection. Now, I'm going to run to the bathroom, and then you and I can get back to cards. Why don't you go ahead and pick them up, then deal us a new hand?”

Margot began the slow process of dragging her huge body out of bed. She did what the doctor told her: sat for a minute with her feet on the floor before standing. Still, when she did rise to her feet, she felt dizzy.

“Are you okay?” Lou asked.

“I think so,” Margot said, black spots swimming in front of her eyes. She sat back down on the bed, hard.

When she hit the mattress, she realized her pajama pants were soaking wet.

It took a few seconds for her to realize what had happened: her water had broken. This was normal. Everything was fine.

She picked up the cordless phone and dialed Jason's number. Nothing happened. The line was dead. Maybe the battery was drained?

“Lou?” Margot said with all the calm and clarity she could muster. “Could you hand me my cell phone, sweetie? It's over on the other nightstand.”

Lou crawled off the bed and dug around on the nightstand on Jason's side of the bed. “I don't see a phone,” she said.

“It was right there,” Margot said, panting a little as a huge cramp came on.

Not a cramp. A contraction.

The baby was coming.

“Well, it's not here now,” Lou said cheerfully.

Odd. She could have sworn she'd just seen it. But she must be mistaken. Maybe Piper had picked it up and put it somewhere else? Or maybe she'd even mistakenly thought it was hers and taken it with her? No problem. There was another cordless phone in the kitchen, plugged into the base. She'd call Jason, then Piper, and tell them the baby was coming. She wouldn't tell them how dizzy she was, how the black spots were swimming in front of her eyes. No need to worry them. She just needed to get the wheels in motion. Get to the hospital. The doctors and nurses would know what to do. They'd take care of her and the baby.

“Okay,” she said, voice calm and assured. It was her mother voice. Her woman-with-a-plan voice. “There's another cordless phone in the kitchen. Could you bring that to me, please?”

“Sure,” Lou said, skipping out of the room.

From here, her footsteps in the hallway sounded almost like—like scrabbling, like a dog's nails running on wood. What kind of shoes was the kid wearing?

In a minute, Lou was back, phone in hand, her feet bare. But there was something funny about her feet: they were terribly long, the toenails pointed. Margot blinked. Her blood pressure was affecting her vision.

“Thanks,” she said, taking the phone from Lou. She pressed the keys to speed-dial Jason's cell. Nothing happened. She hung up, pushed another button. There was nothing. No dial tone.

“It's dead,” she said lamely. They kept it plugged into the base to charge. How could the battery be dead?

Lou had picked up the framed wedding photo of Margot and Jason that they kept on their dresser. “Jay Jay,” Lou said, smiling at the picture.

“That's my husband,” Margot said, flinching at Amy's old nickname for Jason.

Lou smiled placidly. “It's Mommy's friend Jay Jay.”

The spots in front of Margot's eyes grew larger, wavier. Another contraction rolled over her. She tried to breathe through it.

“What else did Piper say when she called?” Lou asked. “Did they find Aunt Crystal?”

“No, sweetie. Not yet. I'm sorry.”

“Good,” Lou said. “She was mean. I don't like it when people are mean to me.”

“There's another cordless phone in the office,” Margot said, panic starting to creep over her. “Could you go get that one for me?”

“Yup,” Lou said; she put the photo back down and bounded out of the room. For a second, Margot thought she saw feathers woven into the back of Lou's braid. But then Lou was back in a flash, holding the second phone in her hand. Or was it a claw? No, she didn't have four reptilian digits where her fingers should be. She couldn't.

“Your hand,” Margot said. There were definitely sharp talons at the ends of Lou's fingers.

“What?” Lou asked, smiling, holding up her other hand, which was normal.

Margot knew, even before she took it, that this phone was dead, too. She knew it from the way the girl smiled at her, her teeth strangely pointed, her eyes distinctly
wrong
now—the blue irises huge, covering any trace of white, the pupils vertical slits.

It was as if a curtain had been dropped: everything got dark and quiet except for a strange buzzing sound in Margot's ears. And Lou's voice.

“You and Piper, you've been so nice. You wouldn't do anything mean, would you?”

“Of course not,” Margot said. “I promise.”

The girl's face was dark now, more animal than human. Margot shook her head, sure she was seeing things.

“Mama promised, too,” Lou said quietly, regretfully.

“I need…” Margot said, trying to stand, but too dizzy to manage. “Help,” she mumbled, sitting back down. “I need you to go get help.”

“But I'm here,” Lou said, sitting beside Margot on the bed, putting her hand on Margot's thigh. The claws poked through Margot's cotton pajama bottoms, drew blood that came in little pinpricks, blossoming once they hit the fabric. “I'll help you.”

Neither Margot nor Jason was answering their cell phones. The house number rang and rang, too, after her conversation with Margot had been cut off.

Piper thought of calling 911 and saying there was an emergency. But they would ask what emergency, and what would she tell them? That she had left a ten-year-old child who was actually a monster playing cards with her sister? Then she'd be the one the cops would come after, ready to lock her up and give her a heavy dose of antipsychotic medication.

Was she crazy for being frightened, she asked herself as she rolled through a stop sign, for actually believing the possibility that Rose's stories were real?

A mare can't help what it is. Can't help the things it does.

“Damn it,” she said, hitting the speed-dial number for Margot's cell phone. “Pick up the damn phone!”

Voice mail again.

She threw her phone down on the passenger seat in frustration. The rain had picked up. It drummed heavily on the roof, blurring the windshield even with the wipers at full speed and the defrost fan blowing. She was on Main Street now, heading away from downtown. Up ahead, she saw the wrecked Tower Motel sign, faded and leaning. And beyond it, looming like a monster of stone and cement, the tower.

And at the bottom, Clarence's oubliette.

The twenty-ninth room.

Built to keep Charlotte's children safe.

But it hadn't, had it?

She continued on, speeding in spite of the weather, hydroplaning a little when she turned corners. At last, her sister's house came into view. It wasn't in smoldering ruins, nor was it surrounded by police and the SWAT team.

But it should be.

Piper shook the thought off. Nonsense. She's just a girl. They're probably still playing Crazy Eights. Margot's laughing at all the rules Lou keeps making up as she goes along.

The kings mean you have to take a card from another player. And the aces turn you into a monster.

Piper put the car in park, cut the ignition, and ran toward the house.

“Margot? Lou?” she called before the front door was even halfway open. She was pumped up on adrenaline, hand trembling as it gripped the knob. “I'm back. I was running late, so I didn't stop for pizza. I can go pick one up, though. Or we can get it delivered.” She kept talking, waiting for a response as she moved down the hallway, into the kitchen. “Hello?”

A box of crackers and jar of grape jelly had been left on the table. Smears of purple covered its surface, like dark, coagulated blood.

She headed for Margot's room. “You guys still playing cards?” she asked, straining to keep her voice light and chipper.

Please. Please let them be.

But no.

The room was empty. The covers were on the floor. The fitted sheet covering the bed had a large wet spot, like someone had spilled something. The cards were all over the floor, along with a cracked plate still sticky with jelly.

She heard Jason's stern warnings: “She's not to leave the bed. We've got to keep her calm. If her blood pressure shoots up again, it would put both her and the baby in danger.”

“Margot!” Piper shouted, voice shrill with panic.

She tore out of the room and down the hall, throwing open the doors to the bathroom, guest room, and laundry room—all empty. She flipped the basement lights on and trotted down the stairs, to find only the furnace, water heater, chest freezer, and an old Ping-Pong table.

Where the hell were they?

Then she heard it: a piercing cry from outdoors, somewhere in the backyard.

Margot, screaming.