by Sara Shepard
“Your stepmom got all anal on me this morning, though,” Aria said, skirting around a Japanese cherry blossom tree. “I forgot to make my bed. She made me go back upstairs and do it.” She snorted. “My mom hasn’t done that in about a billion years.”
When she looked over, Sean wasn’t laughing along. “My stepmom works hard to keep the house clean. Rosewood Historic House tours come through it almost every day.”
Aria bristled. She wanted to tell him that the Rosewood Historic Society had considered her house for the tour, too—some Frank Lloyd Wright protégé had designed it. Instead, she sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just…my mom hasn’t even called me since I left a message telling her I was staying with you. I feel so…abandoned.”
Sean stroked her arm. “I know, I know.”
Aria poked her tongue into the spot at the back of her mouth where her lone wisdom tooth had been. “That’s the thing,” she said softly. “You don’t know.” Sean’s family was perfect. Mr. Ackard had made them Belgian waffles this morning, and Mrs. Ackard had packed everyone’s lunches—including Aria’s. Even their dog, an Airedale, was well mannered.
“So explain it to me,” Sean said.
Aria sighed. “It’s not as easy as that.”
They passed a gnarled, knotty tree. Suddenly, Aria looked down…and stopped short. Right in front of her was a new gravesite. The groundskeeper hadn’t dug the hole for the coffin yet, but there was a taped-off, coffin-size space. The marble headstone was up, though. It read, plainly, ALISON LAUREN DILAURENTIS.
A small, gurgling noise escaped from the back of Aria’s throat. The authorities were still examining Ali’s remains for signs of poison and trauma, so her parents hadn’t buried her yet. Aria hadn’t known they were planning to bury her here.
She looked helplessly at Sean. He went pale. “I thought you knew.”
“I had no idea,” she whispered back.
The headstone said nothing but Ali’s name. No devoted daughter, or wonderful field hockey player, or most beautiful girl in Rosewood. There wasn’t even the day, month, or year she’d died. That was probably because no one knew the exact date.
She shivered. “Do you think I should say something?”
Sean pursed his pink lips. “When I visit my mom’s grave, sometimes I do.”
“Like what?”
“I fill her in on what’s going on.” He looked at her sideways and blushed. “I went after Foxy. I told her about you.”
Aria blushed too. She stared at the headstone but felt self-conscious. Talking to dead people wasn’t her thing. I can’t believe you’re dead, Aria thought, not able to say the words out loud. I’m standing here, looking at your grave, and it still isn’t real. I hate that we don’t know what happened. Is the killer still here? Is A telling the truth?
Yesssss, Aria swore she heard a far-off voice call. It sounded like Ali’s voice.
She thought about A’s note. Someone had wanted something of Ali’s—and had killed her for it. What? Everyone had wanted something of Ali’s—even her best friends. Hanna had wanted Ali’s personality, and seemed to have appropriated it after Ali vanished. Emily had loved Ali more than anyone—they used to call Emily “Killer,” as in Ali’s personal pit bull. Aria had wanted Ali’s ability to flirt, her beauty, her charisma. And Spencer had always been so jealous of her.
Aria stared into the taped-off area that would be Ali’s grave and asked the question that had been slowly forming in her mind: What were you guys really fighting about?
“This isn’t working for me,” Aria whispered after a moment. “Let’s go.”
She gave Ali’s future grave a parting glance. As she turned away, Sean’s fingers entwined with hers. They walked quietly for a while, but halfway to the gate, Sean stopped. “Bunny rabbit,” he said, pointing at a rabbit across the clearing. He kissed Aria’s lips.
Aria’s mouth curled up into a smile. “I get a kiss just because you saw a rabbit?”
“Yep.” Sean nudged her playfully. “It’s like the game where you punch someone when you see a VW Bug. With us, it can be kisses—and rabbits. It’s our couple game.”
“Couple game?” Aria snickered, thinking he was joking.
But Sean’s face was serious. “You know, a game that’s only for us. And it’s a good thing it’s rabbits, because there are tons of rabbits in Rosewood.”
Aria was afraid to make fun of him, but really—a couple game? It reminded her of something Jennifer Thatcher and Jennings Silver might do. Jennifer and Jennings were a couple in her grade who had been going out since before Aria had left for Iceland at the end of seventh grade. They were known only as Double-J, or Dub-J, and were called that even individually. Aria could not be a Dub-J.
As she watched Sean walk in front of her, heading toward their bikes, the delicate hairs on the back of her neck stood up. It felt like someone was looking at her. But when she turned around, all she saw was a giant black crow standing on top of Ali’s headstone.
The crow glared at her, unblinking, and then spread its massive wings and took off toward the trees.
18 A GOOD SMACK UPSIDE THE HEAD NEVER HURT ANYONE
On Thursday morning, Dr. Evans shut her office door, settled into her leather chair, folded her hands placidly, and smiled at Spencer, who was sitting opposite her. “So. I hear you had a photo shoot and interview yesterday with the Sentinel.”
“That’s right,” Spencer answered.
“And how did that go?”
“Fine.” Spencer took a sip of her extra-large Starbucks vanilla latte. The interview actually had gone fine, even after all of Spencer’s worrying—and A’s threats. Jordana had barely asked her about the essay, and Matthew had told her the pictures looked exquisite.
“And how did your sister deal with you being in the spotlight?” Dr. Evans asked. When Spencer raised an eyebrow, Dr. Evans shrugged and leaned forward. “Have you ever thought she might be jealous of you?”
Spencer glanced anxiously at Dr. Evans’s closed door. Melissa was sitting outside on the waiting room couch, reading Travel + Leisure. Yet again, she’d scheduled her session for right after Spencer’s.
“Don’t worry, she can’t hear you,” Dr. Evans assured her.
Spencer sighed. “She seemed sort of…pissed,” she said in a low voice. “Usually, it’s all about Melissa. Even when my parents just ask me a question, Melissa immediately tries to steer the conversation back to her.” She stared at the undulating silver Tiffany ring on her pointer finger. “I think she hates me.”
Dr. Evans tapped her notebook. “You’ve felt like she hates you for a long time, right? How does that make you feel?”
Spencer shrugged, hugging one of Dr. Evans’s forest green chenille pillows to her chest. “Angry, I guess. Sometimes I get so frustrated about the way things are, I just want to…hit her. I don’t, obviously, but—”
“But it would feel good though, wouldn’t it?”
Spencer nodded, staring at Dr. Evans’s chrome gooseneck lamp. Once, after Melissa told Spencer she wasn’t a very good actress, Spencer had come really close to punching Melissa in the face. Instead, she’d flung one of her mother’s Spode Christmas plates across the dining room. It had shattered, leaving a butterfly-shaped crack in the wall.
Dr. Evans flipped a page in her notebook. “How do your parents deal with your and your sister’s…animosity?”
Spencer raised one shoulder. “Mostly, they don’t. If you asked my mom, she’d probably say that we get along perfectly.”
Dr. Evans sat back and thought for a long time. She tapped the drinking-bird toy on her desk, and the plastic bird started taking measured sips of water out of an I HEART ROSEWOOD, PA, coffee mug. “This is just an early theory, but perhaps Melissa is afraid that if your parents recognize something you’ve done well, they’ll love you instead of her.”
Spencer cocked her head. “Really?”
“Maybe. You, on the other hand, think your parents don’t love you at all. It’s all
about Melissa. You don’t know how to compete with her, so that’s where her boyfriends come in. But maybe it’s not that you want Melissa’s boyfriends exactly, but more that you want to hurt Melissa herself. Sound right?”
Spencer nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe…”
“You girls are both in a lot of pain,” Dr. Evans said quietly, her face softening. “I don’t know what started this behavior—it could have been something long ago, something you might not even remember—but you’ve fallen into a pattern of dealing with each other this way, and you’ll continue the pattern unless you recognize what it’s based on and learn how to respect each other’s feelings and change. The pattern might be repeating in your other relationships, too—you might choose friends and boyfriends who treat you like Melissa does, because you’re comfortable with the dynamic, and you know your role.”
“What do you mean?” Spencer asked, hugging her knees. This sounded awfully psychobabblish to her.
“Are your friends sort of…the center of everything? They have everything you want, they push you around, you never feel good enough?”
Spencer’s mouth went dry. She certainly used to have a friend like that: Ali.
She closed her eyes and saw the strange Ali memory that had been plaguing her all week. The memory was of a fight, Spencer was sure of it. Only, Spencer usually remembered all of her fights with Ali, better than she remembered the good moments of their friendship. Was it a dream?
“What are you thinking?” Dr. Evans asked.
Spencer took a breath. “About Alison.”
“Ah.” Dr. Evans nodded. “Do you think Alison was like Melissa?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Dr. Evans plucked a Kleenex out of the box on her desk and blew her nose. “I saw that video of you girls on TV. You and Alison seemed angry at each other. Were you?”
Spencer took a deep breath. “Sort of.”
“Can you remember why?”
She thought for a moment and gazed around the room. There was a plaque on Dr. Evans’s desk that she hadn’t noticed the last time she’d been here. It said THE ONLY TRUE KNOWLEDGE IN LIFE IS KNOWING YOU KNOW NOTHING.—SOCRATES. “Those weeks before Alison went missing, she started acting…different. Like she hated us. None of us wanted to admit it, but I think she was planning on dropping us that summer.”
“How did that make you feel? Angry?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Spencer paused. “Being Ali’s friend was great, but we had to make a lot of sacrifices. We went through a lot together, and some of it wasn’t good. It was like, ‘We go through all this for you, and you repay us by ditching us?’”
“So you felt owed something.”
“Maybe,” Spencer answered.
“But you feel guilty too, right?” Dr. Evans suggested.
Spencer lowered her shoulders. “Guilty? Why?”
“Because Alison’s dead. Because, in some ways, you resented her. Maybe you wanted something bad to happen to her because she was hurting you.”
“I don’t know,” Spencer whispered.
“And then your wish came true. Now you feel like Alison’s disappearance is your fault—that if you hadn’t felt this way about her, she wouldn’t have been murdered.”
Spencer’s eyes clouded with tears. She couldn’t respond.
“It’s not your fault,” Dr. Evans said forcefully, leaning forward in the chair. “We don’t always love our friends every minute. Alison hurt you. Just because you had a mean thought about her doesn’t mean you caused her death.”
Spencer sniffed. She stared at the Socrates quote again. The only true knowledge in life is knowing you know nothing. “There’s a memory that keeps popping into my head,” she blurted out. “About Ali. We’re fighting. She talks about something I read in her diary—she always thought I was reading her diary, but I never did. But I’m…I’m not even sure the memory is real.”
Dr. Evans put her pen to her mouth. “People cope with things in different ways. For some people, if they witness or do something disturbing, their brain somehow…edits it out. But often the memory starts pushing its way back in.”
Spencer’s mouth felt scratchy, like steel wool. “Nothing disturbing happened.”
“I could try to hypnotize you to draw out the memory.”
Spencer’s mouth went dry. “Hypnotize?”
Dr. Evans was staring at her. “It might help.”
Spencer chewed on a piece of hair. She pointed at the Socrates quote. “What does that mean?”
“That?” Dr. Evans’s shrugged. “Think about it yourself. Draw your own conclusion.” She smiled. “Now, are you ready? Lie down and get comfy.”
Spencer slumped on the couch. As Dr. Evans pulled down the bamboo blinds, Spencer cringed. This was just like what Ali did that night in the barn before she died.
“Just relax.” Dr. Evans turned off her desk lamp. “Feel yourself calming down. Try to let go of everything we talked about today. Okay?”
Spencer wasn’t relaxed at all. Her knees locked and her muscles shook. Even her teeth ground together. Now she’s going to walk around and count down from one hundred. She’ll touch my forehead, and I’ll be in her power.
When Spencer opened her eyes, she wasn’t in Dr. Evans’s office anymore. She was outside her barn. It was night. Alison was staring at her, shaking her head just like she had in the other flashes of memory Spencer had recalled during the week. Spencer suddenly knew it was the night Ali went missing. She tried to claw her way out of the memory, but her limbs felt heavy and useless.
“You try to steal everything away from me,” Ali was saying with a tone and inflection that were now eerily familiar. “But you can’t have this.”
“Can’t have what?” The wind was cold. Spencer shivered.
“Come on,” Ali taunted, putting her hands on her hips. “You read about it in my diary, didn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t read your diary,” Spencer spat. “I don’t care.”
“You care way too much,” Ali said. She leaned forward. Her breath was minty.
“You’re delusional,” Spencer sputtered.
“No, I’m not,” Ali snarled. “You are.”
Rage suddenly filled Spencer. She leaned forward and shoved Ali’s shoulder.
Ali looked surprised. “Friends don’t shove friends.”
“Well, maybe we’re not friends,” Spencer answered.
“Guess not,” Ali said. She took a few steps away but turned back. Then she said something else. Spencer saw Ali’s mouth move, then felt her own mouth move, but she couldn’t hear their words. All she knew was that whatever Ali said made her angry. From somewhere far away was a sharp, splintering crack. Spencer’s eyes snapped open.
“Spencer,” Dr. Evans’s voice called. “Hey. Spencer.”
The first thing she saw was Dr. Evans’s plaque across the room. The only true knowledge is knowing you know nothing. Then, Dr. Evans’s face swam into view. She had an uncertain, worried look on her face. “Are you okay?” Dr. Evans asked.
Spencer blinked a few times. “I don’t know.” She sat up and ran the palm of her hand over her sweaty forehead. This felt like waking up from the anesthesia the time she’d had her appendix out. Everything seemed blurry and edgeless.
“Tell me what you see in the room,” Dr. Evans said.
“Describe everything.”
Spencer looked around. “The brown leather couch, the white fluffy rug, the…”
What had Ali said? Why couldn’t Spencer hear her? Had that really happened?
“A wire mesh trash can,” she stammered. “An Anjou pear candle…”
“Okay.” Dr. Evans put her hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “Sit here. Breathe.”
Dr. Evans’s window was now open, and Spencer could smell the freshly tarred asphalt on the parking lot. Two morning doves cooed to each other. When she finally got up and told Dr. Evans she’d see her next week, she was feeling clearer. She skidded across the waiting room without acknowledgin
g Melissa. She wanted out of here.
In the parking lot, Spencer slid into her car and sat in silence. She listed all the things she saw here, too. Her tweed bag. The farmer’s market placard across the street that read, FRESH OMATOES. The T had fallen to the ground. The blue Chevy truck parked crookedly in the farmer’s market lot. The cheerful red birdhouse hanging from a nearby oak. The sign on the office building door that said only service animals were permitted inside. Melissa’s profile in Dr. Evans’s office window.
The corners of her sister’s mouth were spread into a jagged smile, and she was talking animatedly with her hands. When Spencer looked back at the farmer’s market, she noticed the Chevy’s front tire was flat. There was something slinking behind the truck. A cat, maybe.
Spencer sat up straighter. It wasn’t a cat—it was a person. Staring at her.
The person’s eyes didn’t blink. And then, suddenly, whoever it was turned his or her head, crouched into the shadows, and disappeared.
19 IT’S BETTER THAN A SIGN SAYING, “KICK ME”
Thursday afternoon, Hanna followed her chemistry class across the commons to the flagpole. There had been a fire drill, and now her chem teacher, Mr. Percival, was counting to make sure none of the students had run off. It was another freakishly hot October day, and as the sun beat down on the top of Hanna’s head, she heard two sophomore girls whispering.
“Did you hear that she’s a klepto?” hissed Noelle Frazier, a tall girl with cascading blond ringlets.
“I know,” replied Anna Walton, a tiny brunette with enormous boobs. “She, like, organized this huge Tiffany heist. And then she went and wrecked Mr. Ackard’s car.”
Hanna stiffened. Normally, she wouldn’t have been bothered by a couple of lame sophomore girls, but she was feeling sort of vulnerable. She pretended to be really interested in a bunch of tiny pine trees the gardeners had just planted.