by Sara Shepard
Abby got up from her bed and disappeared into the hall. Emily gazed desperately out the window. If a bird flies by in the next five seconds, I’ll be back to Rosewood by next week. Just as a delicate sparrow fluttered past, Emily remembered she wasn’t playing her little superstitious games anymore. The events of the last few months—the workers finding Ali’s body in the gazebo hole, Toby’s suicide, A’s…everything—had made her lose all faith in things happening for a reason.
Her cell phone chimed. Emily pulled it out and saw that Maya had sent her a text. R U really in Iowa? Pls call me when you can.
Help me, Emily began to type, when Helene snatched the phone from her hands.
“We don’t allow cell phones in this house.” Helene switched the phone off.
“But…” Emily protested. “What if I want to call my parents?”
“I can do that for you,” Helene sang. She came close to Emily’s face. “Your mother has told me a few things about you. I don’t know how they do things in Rosewood, but around here, we live by my rules. Is that clear?”
Emily flinched. Helene spat when she spoke, and Emily’s cheek felt moist. “It’s clear,” she said shakily.
“Good.” Helene walked out into the hallway and dropped the phone into a large, empty jar on a wooden end table. “We’ll just put this here for safekeeping.” Someone had printed the words SWEAR JAR on the lid, but the jar was completely empty except for Emily’s phone.
Emily’s phone looked lonely in the swear jar, but she didn’t dare unscrew the lid—Helene probably had it wired with an alarm. She walked back into the empty bedroom and threw herself onto the cot. There was a sharp bar in the middle of the mattress, and the pillow felt like a slab of cement. As the Iowa sky turned from russet to purple to midnight blue to black, Emily felt hot tears stream down her face. If this was the first day of the rest of her life, she’d much rather be dead.
The door opened a few hours later with a slow creeeeaaak. A shadow lengthened across the floor. Emily sat up on her cot, her heart pounding. She thought of A’s note. She knew too much. And of Hanna’s body, crashing down to the pavement.
But it was only Abby. She snapped on a small bedside table lamp and dropped down on her stomach next to her bed. Emily bit the inside of her cheek and pretended not to notice. Was this some freaky Iowan form of praying?
Abby sat up again, a jumble of fabric in her hands. She pulled her khaki jumper over her head, unhooked her beige bra, stepped into a denim miniskirt, and wriggled into a red tube top. Then she reached under her bed again, located a pink-and-white makeup bag, and brushed mascara over her lashes and red gloss on her lips. Finally, she pulled her hair out of its ponytail, turned her head upside down, and ran her hands through her scalp. When she flipped back up, her hair was wild and thick around her face.
Abby met Emily’s eyes. She grinned broadly, as if to say, Close your mouth. You’re letting flies in. “You’re coming with us, right?”
“W-where?” Emily sputtered, once she found her voice.
“You’ll see.” Abby walked over to Emily and took her hand. “Emily Fields, your first night in Iowa has just begun.”
4 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, THEN IT’S TRUE
When Hanna Marin opened her eyes, she was alone in a long, white tunnel. Behind her, there was only darkness, and ahead of her, only light. Physically, she felt fantastic—not bloated from eating too many white cheddar Cheez-Its, not dry-skinned and frizzy-haired, not groggy from lack of sleep or stressed from social maneuvering. In fact, she wasn’t sure when she’d last felt this…perfect.
This didn’t feel like an ordinary dream, but something way more important. Suddenly, a pixel of light flitted in front of her eyes. And then another, and another. Her surroundings eased into view like a photo slowly loading on a Web page.
She found herself sitting with her three best friends on Alison DiLaurentis’s back porch. Spencer’s dirty blond hair was in a high ponytail, and Aria wore her wavy, blue-black mane in braids. Emily wore an aqua-colored T-shirt and boxers with ROSEWOOD SWIMMING written across the butt. A feeling of dread swept over Hanna, and when she looked at her reflection in the window, her seventh-grade self stared back. Her braces had green and pink rubber bands. Her poop-brown hair was twisted into a bun. Her arms looked like ham hocks and her legs were pale, flabby loaves of bread. So much for feeling wonderful.
“Uh, guys?”
Hanna turned. Ali was here. Right in front of her, staring at them as if they’d sprouted out of the ground. As Ali came closer, Hanna could smell her minty gum and Ralph Lauren Blue perfume. There were Ali’s purple Puma flip-flops—Hanna had forgotten about them. And there were Ali’s feet—she could cross her crooked second toe over her big toe, and said it was good luck. Hanna wished Ali would cross her toes right now, and do all of the other uniquely Ali things Hanna wanted so desperately to remember.
Spencer stood up. “What did she bust you for?”
“Were you getting in trouble without us?” Aria cried. “And why’d you change? That halter you had on was so cute.”
“Do you want us to go?” Emily asked fearfully.
Hanna remembered this exact day. She still had some of the notes from her seventh-grade history final scribbled on the heel of her hand. She reached into her Manhattan Portage canvas messenger bag, feeling the edge of her white cotton Rosewood Day graduation beret. She had picked it up in the gym during lunch period, in preparation for tomorrow’s graduation ceremony.
Graduation wasn’t the only thing that would happen tomorrow, though.
“Ali,” Hanna said, standing up so abruptly that she knocked over one of the patio table’s citronella candles. “I need to talk to you.”
But Ali ignored her, almost as if Hanna hadn’t spoken at all. “I threw my hockey clothes in with my mom’s delicates again,” she said to the others.
“She got mad at you for that?” Emily looked incredulous.
“Ali.” Hanna waved her hands in front of Ali’s face. “You have to listen to me. Something awful is going to happen to you. And we have to stop it!”
Ali’s eyes flickered over to Hanna. She shrugged and shook her hair out of its polka-dot headband. She looked at Emily again. “You know my mom, Em. She’s more anal than Spencer!”
“Who cares about your mom?” Hanna shrieked. Her skin felt hot and tingly, like a zillion bees had stung her.
“Guess where we’re having our end-of-seventh-grade sleepover tomorrow night?” Spencer was saying.
“Where?” Ali leaned forward on her elbows.
“Melissa’s barn!” Spencer cried.
“Sweet!” Ali whooped.
“No!” Hanna cried. She climbed onto the middle of the table, to make them see her. How did they not see her? She was as fat as a manatee. “Guys, we can’t. We have to have our sleepover somewhere else. Somewhere where there are people. Where it’s safe.”
Her mind started churning. Perhaps the universe had a kink in it, and she was really, truly back in seventh grade, right before Ali died, with knowledge of the future. She had the chance to change things. She could call the Rosewood PD and tell them she had a horrible feeling that something was going to happen to her best friend tomorrow. She could build a barbed-wire fence around the hole in the DiLaurentises’ yard.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have a sleepover at all,” Hanna said frantically. “Maybe we should do it another night.”
Finally, Ali grabbed Hanna’s wrists and dragged her off the table. “Stop it,” she whispered. “You’re making a big deal over nothing.”
“A big deal over nothing?” Hanna protested. “Ali, you’re going to die tomorrow. You’re going to run out of the barn during our sleepover and just…disappear.”
“No, Hanna, listen. I’m not.”
A clammy feeling washed over Hanna. Ali was staring right into her eyes. “You’re…not?” she stammered.
Ali touched Hanna’s hand. It was a comforting caress, the kind of gesture Hanna’s father used
to make when she was sick. “Don’t worry,” Ali said softly in Hanna’s ear. “I’m okay.”
Her voice sounded so close. So real. Hanna blinked and opened her eyes, but she wasn’t in Ali’s yard anymore. She was in a white room, flat on her back. Harsh fluorescent lights hung over her. She heard beeping somewhere to her left, and the steady hiss of a machine, in and out, in and out.
A blurry figure swam over her. The girl had a heart-shaped face, bright blue eyes, and brilliant white teeth. She slowly caressed Hanna’s hand. Hanna struggled to focus. It looked like…
“I’m okay,” Ali’s voice said again, her breath hot against Hanna’s cheek. Hanna gasped. Her fists opened and closed. She struggled to hold on to this moment, to this realization, but then everything faded out—all sound, all smells, the feeling of Ali’s hand touching hers. Then there was only darkness.
5 THIS MEANS WAR
Late Sunday afternoon, after Aria left the hospital—Hanna’s condition hadn’t changed—she walked up the uneven porch steps of the Old Hollis house where Ezra lived. Ezra’s bottom-floor apartment was just two blocks away from the house Byron now shared with Meredith, and Aria wasn’t quite ready to go there yet. She didn’t expect Ezra to be home, but she’d written him a letter, telling him where she’d be living, and that she hoped they could talk. As she struggled to fit the note through Ezra’s mailbox slot, she heard a creak behind her.
“Aria.” Ezra emerged in the foyer, wearing faded jeans and a tomato-colored Gap T-shirt. “What are you doing?”
“I was…” Aria’s voice was taut with emotion. She held up the note, which had crumpled a little during her attempt to shove it in the mailbox. “I was going to give this to you. It just said to call me.” She took a tentative step toward Ezra, afraid to touch him. He smelled exactly as he had last night, when Aria was last here—a little like Scotch, a little like moisturizer. “I didn’t think you’d be here,” Aria sputtered. “Are you okay?”
“Well, I didn’t have to spend the night in jail, which was good.” Ezra laughed, then frowned. “But…I’m fired. Your boyfriend told the school staff everything—he had pictures of us to prove it. Everyone would rather keep it quiet, so unless you press charges, it’s not going to go on my record.” He hooked his thumb around one of his belt loops. “I’m supposed to go there tomorrow and clean out my office. I guess you guys are going to have a new teacher for the rest of the year.”
Aria pressed her hands to her face. “I am so, so sorry.” She grabbed Ezra’s hand. At first, Ezra resisted her touch, but he slowly sighed and gave in. He brought her close to him and kissed her hard, and Aria kissed back like she’d never kissed before. Ezra slid his arms under the clasp of her bra. Aria grabbed at his shirt, tearing it off. It didn’t matter that they were outside or that a group of bong-smoking college kids were staring at them from the porch next door. Aria kissed Ezra’s bare neck, and Ezra circled his arms around her waist.
But when they heard a police car siren whoop, they shot apart, startled.
Aria ducked behind the basket-weave porch wall. Ezra crouched beside her, his face flushed. Slowly, a police car rolled past Ezra’s house. The cop was on his cell phone, not paying any attention to them.
When Aria turned back to Ezra, the sexy mood had fizzled. “Come on in,” Ezra said, pulling his shirt back on and walking into his apartment. Aria followed him, stepping around his front door, which still hung off its hinges from when the cops had knocked it down yesterday. The apartment smelled as it usually did, like dust and Kraft macaroni and cheese.
“I could try and find you another job,” Aria suggested. “Maybe my father needs an assistant. Or he could pull some strings at Hollis.”
“Aria…” There was a surrendering look on Ezra’s face. And then, Aria noticed the U-Haul boxes behind him. The bathtub that sat in the middle of the living room had been emptied of all its books. The blobby blue candles on the mantel were gone. And Bertha, the French maid blow-up doll some friends had bought for Ezra as a joke back in college, was no longer perched on one of the kitchen chairs. In fact, most of Ezra’s personal artifacts were missing. Only a few lonely, junky pieces of furniture remained.
A cold, clammy feeling washed over her. “You’re leaving.”
“I have a cousin who lives in Providence,” Ezra mumbled into his chest. “I’m going to go up there for a while. Clear my head. Take some pottery classes at Rhode Island School of Design. I don’t know.”
“Take me with you,” Aria blurted out. She walked up to Ezra and pulled on the hem of his shirt. “I’ve always wanted to go to RISD. It’s my first-choice school. Maybe I could apply early.” She raised her eyes to Ezra again. “I’m moving in with my father and Meredith—which is pretty much a fate worse than death. And…and I’ve never felt like I do when I’m around you. I’m not sure I ever will again.”
Ezra squeezed his eyes shut, swinging Aria’s hands back and forth. “I think you should look me up in a couple years. Because, I mean, I feel that way about you, too. But I have to get out of here. You know it, and I know it.”
Aria dropped his hands. She felt like someone had opened up her chest and removed her heart. Just last night, for a few hours, everything had been perfect. And then Sean—and A—had ripped it all apart again.
“Hey,” Ezra said, noting the tears spilling down Aria’s cheeks. He pulled her into him and held her tight. “It’s okay.” He peered into one of his boxes, then handed her his William Shakespeare bobblehead. “I want you to have this.”
Aria gave him a tiny smile. “Seriously?” The first time she’d come here, after Noel Kahn’s party back in the beginning of September, Ezra had told her the bobblehead was one of his favorite possessions.
Ezra traced the line of Aria’s jaw with the tip of his pointer finger, starting at her chin and ending at her earlobe. Shivers went up her spine. “Really,” he whispered.
She could feel his eyes on her as she turned for the door. “Aria,” he called, just as she was stepping over a big pile of old phone books to get out into the hall.
She stopped, her heart lifting. There was a wise, calm look on Ezra’s face. “You’re the strongest girl I’ve ever met,” he said. “So just…screw ’em, you know? You’ll be fine.”
Ezra leaned down, sealing up boxes with clear packing tape. Aria backed out of the apartment in a daze, wondering why he’d suddenly turned all guidance counselor on her. It was like he was saying that he was the adult, with responsibilities and consequences, and she was just a kid, her whole life in front of her.
Which was exactly what she didn’t want to hear right then.
“Aria! Welcome!” Meredith cried. She stood at the edge of the kitchen, wearing a black-and-white striped apron—which Aria was trying to imagine as a prison uniform—and a cow-shaped oven mitt covered her right hand. She was grinning like a shark about to swallow a minnow.
Aria dragged in the last of the bags Sean had dumped at her feet last night and looked around. She knew Meredith had quirky taste—she was an artist, and taught classes at Hollis College, the same place where Byron was tenured—but Meredith’s living room looked like a psychopath had decorated it. There was a dentist’s chair in the corner, complete with a tray for all the instruments of torture. Meredith had covered a whole wall with pictures of eyeballs. She branded messages into wood as a form of artistic expression, and there was a big wood chunk across the mantel that said, BEAUTY IS ONLY SKIN DEEP, BUT UGLY GOES CLEAN TO THE BONE. There was a large cutout of the Wicked Witch of the West pasted over the kitchen table. Aria was half tempted to point to it and say she hadn’t known Meredith’s mother was from Oz. Then she saw a raccoon in the corner and screamed.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Meredith said quickly. “He’s stuffed. I bought him at a taxidermy store in Philly.”
Aria wrinkled her nose. This place rivaled the Mütter Museum of medical oddities in Philadelphia, which Aria’s brother loved almost as much as the sex museums he’d visited in E
urope.
“Aria!” Byron appeared from behind a corner, wiping his hands on his jeans. Aria noted that he was wearing dark denim jeans with a belt and a soft gray sweater—maybe his usual uniform of a sweat-stained Sixers T-shirt and frayed plaid boxers wasn’t good enough for Meredith. “Welcome!”
Aria grunted, hefting up her duffel again. When she sniffed the air, it smelled like a combination of burnt wood and Cream of Wheat. She eyed the pot on the stove suspiciously. Perhaps Meredith was cooking gruel, like an evil headmistress in a Dickens novel.
“So let me show you your room.” Byron grabbed Aria’s hand. He led her down the hall to a large, square room that contained a few big chunks of wood, some branding irons, an enormous band saw, and welding tools. Aria assumed this was Meredith’s studio—or the room where she finished off her victims.
“This way,” Byron said. He led her to a space in the corner of the studio that was separated from the rest of the room by a floral curtain. When he pushed the curtain back, he crowed, “Taa-daaa!”
A twin bed and a dresser missing three of its drawers occupied a space only slightly larger than a shower stall. Byron had carried in her other suitcases earlier, but because there was no room on the floor, he’d piled them on the bed. There was one flat, yellowed pillow propped up against the headboard, and someone had balanced a tiny portable TV in the windowsill. There was a sticker on the top of it that said in old, faded, seventies lettering, SAVE A HORSE, RIDE A WELDER.
Aria turned to Byron, feeling nauseated. “I have to sleep in Meredith’s studio?”
“She doesn’t work at night,” Byron said quickly. “And look! You have your own TV and your own fireplace!” He pointed to a huge brick monstrosity that took up most of the far wall. Most Old Hollis houses had fireplaces in every room because their central heating systems sucked. “You can make it cozy in here at night!”
“Dad, I have no idea how to light a fireplace.” Then Aria noticed a trail of cockroaches going from one corner of the ceiling to another. “Jesus!” she screamed, pointing at them and cowering behind Byron.
