Sleep, Pale Sister by Joanne Harris

from the scene and called urgently to the child.
    ‘Little girl!’
    The child did not react but moved warily towards the bed. I raised my voice.
    ‘Little girl! Come here!’ I heard my voice rise shrilly, but the child might as well have been clockwork. I tried to call again, but found myself moving instead right into the enclosure and into the scene. Suddenly I began to feel dizzy; half falling, I reached out towards the figure of the little girl as if to ask for help…
    And I was ten once more, ten and coming to see my mother, as I did every Sunday. I loved my mother and wished I could be with her every day, but I knew it wasn’t possible; Mother had work to do, and didn’t want me in the way. I wondered what her work was. I liked Mother’s house, so grand and full of pretty things—elephant statues from India and hangings from Egypt and carpets from Persia, like in the Thousand and One Nights . When I was grown up, maybe I could come and live with Mother all the time, instead of at Aunt Emma’s—except that Aunt Emma wasn’t my aunt at all but a schoolteacher, and she didn’t like Mother very much. Not that she said anything, but I could tell from the funny face she used to pull when she said ‘your poor mother’, as if she had just swallowed cod-liver oil. Mother would never give me cod-liver oil. Instead she always let me eat at the table with her, instead of in the nursery with the babies, and there would be cake and jam and sometimes red wine with water in it.
    Sometimes the pretty young ladies who lived in the house with Mother would come down and talk to me; I liked that because they were always so kind, giving me gingerbread and sweets, and they always wore the most lovely dresses and jewellery. Aunt Emma must never know about that ; years before, when I was still a baby, I had let something slip, and she had been terribly angry, saying, ‘Surely the woman has no shame, allowing a child into that place, and with those abandoned creatures!’ I tried to say that they weren’t abandoned, that they had plenty of company every day, but she was too angry to listen, so now I don’t say anything at all. It’s safer that way.
    But tonight Mother said that I would have to go to bed early, because she’s expecting company. I don’t mind; I sometimes pretend to go to sleep and then, when she thinks I’m in bed, I creep down and watch the pretty ladies and the guests through the gap in the banisters. I’m very quiet; no-one ever sees me. Well, hardly ever. Not till tonight.
    He was very kind, though, the gentleman; he said he’d not tell Mother. He didn’t even know Mother had a daughter at all and he seemed surprised, but he was very kind; he said how pretty I looked in my nightgown, and that, if I was a good girl, he’d come and put me to bed and tell me a story.
    But now I’m not so sure. He looks funny, staring at me like that, and I wish I’d never asked him here. He frightens me. I said, ‘What about my story?’ but he didn’t even seem to be listening. He just keeps looking at me in that funny way, and suddenly I wish Mother were here. But if I call her she’ll know I was out of my room…Now he’s coming forwards, with his arms held out; maybe he’ll just give me a goodnight kiss and leave me alone.
    ‘Like mother, like daughter,’ he whispers as he pulls me towards him, but I don’t understand what he means. He smells funny, salty, like the river after the rain, and his mouth is very cold. I try to push him away; I don’t understand why, but he frightens me—he’s kissing me the way grown-up men kiss ladies.
    I say ‘No’ but he just laughs and says ‘Come here’ and some other things I don’t understand. He’s so strong that I can’t move my arms to push him away; I’d like to bite him but I know he’s Mother’s guest, and I do so want Mother to love me and to want me to live with her for good. I don’t want to be a baby. But I can hardly breathe; I try to say,