by Sara Shepard
“Good!” But after a few seconds passed, Spencer followed her. The bluish evening air was still, and there weren’t any lights on in her family’s main house. It was quiet, too—even the crickets were quiet—and Spencer could hear herself breathing. “Wait a second!” she cried after a moment, slamming the door behind her. “Alison!”
But Alison was gone.
When she heard the door slam, Aria opened her eyes. “Ali?” she called. “Guys?” No answer.
She looked around. Hanna and Emily sat like lumps on the carpet, and the door was open. Aria moved out to the porch. No one was there. She tiptoed to the edge of Ali’s property. The woods spread out in front of her and everything was silent.
“Ali?” she whispered. Nothing. “Spencer?”
Inside, Hanna and Emily rubbed their eyes. “I just had the weirdest dream,” Emily said. “I mean, I guess it was a dream. It was really quick. Alison fell down this really deep well, and there were all these giant plants.”
“That was my dream too!” Hanna said.
“It was?” Emily asked.
Hanna nodded. “Well, kind of. There was a big plant in it. And I think I saw Alison too. It might’ve been her shadow—but it was definitely her.”
“Whoa,” Emily whispered. They stared at each other, their eyes wide.
“Guys?” Aria stepped back through the door. She looked very pale.
“Are you okay?” Emily asked.
“Where’s Alison?” Aria creased her forehead. “And Spencer?”
“We don’t know,” Hanna said.
Just then, Spencer burst back into the house. All the girls jumped. “What?” she asked.
“Where’s Ali?” Hanna asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” Spencer whispered. “I thought…I don’t know.”
The girls fell silent. All they could hear were the tree branches sliding across the windows. It sounded like someone scraping her long fingernails against a plate.
“I think I want to go home,” Emily said.
The next morning, they still hadn’t heard from Alison. The girls called one another to talk, a four-way call this time instead of five.
“Do you think she’s mad at us?” Hanna asked. “She seemed weird all night.”
“She’s probably at Katy’s,” Spencer said. Katy was one of Ali’s field hockey friends.
“Or maybe she’s with Tiffany—that girl from camp?” Aria offered.
“I’m sure she’s somewhere having fun,” Emily said quietly.
One by one, they got calls from Mrs. DiLaurentis, asking if they’d heard from Ali. At first, the girls all covered for her. It was the unwritten rule: They’d covered for Emily when she snuck in after her 11 P.M. weekend curfew; they’d fudged the truth for Spencer when she borrowed Melissa’s Ralph Lauren duffel coat and then accidentally left it on the seat of a SEPTA train; and so on. But as each one hung up with Mrs. DiLaurentis, a sour feeling swelled in her stomach. Something felt horribly wrong.
That afternoon, Mrs. DiLaurentis called again, this time in a panic. By that evening, the DiLaurentises had called the police, and the next morning there were cop cars and news vans camped out on the DiLaurentises’ normally pristine front lawn. It was a local news channel’s wet dream: a pretty rich girl, lost in one of the safest upper-class towns in the country.
Hanna called Emily after watching the first nightly Ali news report. “Did the police interview you today?”
“Yeah,” Emily whispered.
“Me too. You didn’t tell them about…” She paused. “About The Jenna Thing, did you?”
“No!” Emily gasped. “Why? Do you think they know something?”
“No…they couldn’t,” Hanna whispered after a second. “We’re the only ones who know. The four of us…and Alison.”
The police questioned the girls—along with practically everybody from Rosewood, from Ali’s second-grade gymnastics instructor to the guy who’d once sold her Marlboros at Wawa. It was the summer before eighth grade and the girls were supposed to be flirting with older boys at pool parties, eating corn on the cob in one another’s backyards, and shopping all day at the King James Mall. Instead they were crying alone in their canopied beds or staring blankly at their photo-covered walls. Spencer went on a room-cleaning binge, reviewing what her fight with Ali had really been about, and thinking of things she knew about Ali that none of the others did. Hanna spent hours on her bedroom floor, hiding emptied Cheetos bags under her mattress. Emily couldn’t stop obsessing over a letter she’d sent to Ali before she disappeared. Had Ali ever gotten it? Aria sat at her desk with Pigtunia. Slowly, the girls began calling one another less frequently. The same thoughts haunted all four of them, but there wasn’t anything left to say to one another.
The summer turned into the school year, which turned into the next summer. Still no Ali. The police continued to search—but quietly. The media lost interest, heading off to obsess over a Center City triple homicide. Even the DiLaurentises moved out of Rosewood almost two and a half years after Alison disappeared. As for Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna, something shifted in them, too. Now if they passed Ali’s old street and glanced at her house, they didn’t go into insta-cry mode. Instead, they started to feel something else.
Relief.
Sure, Alison was Alison. She was the shoulder to cry on, the only one you’d ever want calling up your crush to find out how he felt about you, and the final word on whether your new jeans made your butt look big. But the girls were also afraid of her. Ali knew more about them than anyone else did, including the bad stuff they wanted to bury—just like a body. It was horrible to think Ali might be dead, but…if she was, at least their secrets were safe.
And they were. For three years, anyway.
1
ORANGES, PEACHES, AND LIMES, OH MY!
“Someone finally bought the DiLaurentises’ old house,” Emily Fields’s mother said. It was Saturday afternoon, and Mrs. Fields sat at the kitchen table, bifocals perched on her nose, calmly doing her bills.
Emily felt the Vanilla Coke she was drinking fizz up her nose.
“I think another girl your age moved in,” Mrs. Fields continued. “I was going to drop off that basket today. Maybe you want to do it instead?” She pointed to the cellophaned monstrosity on the counter.
“God, Mom, no,” Emily replied. Since she’d retired from teaching elementary school last year, Emily’s mom had become the unofficial Rosewood, Pennsylvania, Welcome Wagon lady. She assembled a million random things—dried fruit, those flat rubber thingies you use to get jars open, ceramic chickens (Emily’s mom was chicken-obsessed), a guide to Rosewood inns, whatever—into a big wicker welcome basket. She was a prototypical suburban mom, minus the SUV. She thought they were ostentatious and gas-guzzling, so she drove an oh-so-practical Volvo wagon instead.
Mrs. Fields stood and ran her fingers through Emily’s chlorine-damaged hair. “Would it upset you too much to go there, sweetie? Maybe I should send Carolyn?”
Emily glanced at her sister Carolyn, who was a year older and lounging comfortably on the La-Z-Boy in the den watching Dr. Phil. Emily shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I’ll do it.”
Sure, Emily whined sometimes and occasionally rolled her eyes. But the truth was, if her mom asked, Emily would do whatever she was supposed to do. She was a nearly straight-A, four-time state champion butterflyer and hyper-obedient daughter. Following rules and requests came easily to her.
Plus, deep down she kind of wanted a reason to see Alison’s house again. While it seemed the rest of Rosewood had started to move on from Ali’s disappearance three years, two months, and twelve days ago, Emily hadn’t. Even now, she couldn’t glance at her seventh-grade yearbook without wanting to curl up in a ball. Sometimes on rainy days, Emily still reread Ali’s old notes, which she stored in a shell-top Adidas shoe box under her bed. She even kept a pair of Citizens corduroys Ali had let her borrow on a wooden hanger in her closet, even though they were now way too smal
l on her. She’d spent the last few lonely years in Rosewood longing for another friend like Ali, but that probably wasn’t going to happen. She hadn’t been a perfect friend, but for all her flaws, Ali was pretty tough to replace.
Emily straightened up and grabbed the Volvo’s keys from the hook next to the phone. “I’ll be back in a little while,” she called as she closed the front door behind her.
The first thing she saw when she pulled up to Alison’s old Victorian home at the top of the leafy street was a huge pile of trash on the curb and a big sign marked, FREE! Squinting, she realized that some of it was Alison’s stuff—she recognized Ali’s old, overstuffed white corduroy bedroom chair. The DiLaurentises had moved away almost nine months ago. Apparently they’d left some things behind.
She parked behind a giant Bekins moving van and got out of the Volvo. “Whoa,” she whispered, trying to keep her bottom lip from trembling. Under the chair, there were several piles of grimy books. Emily reached down and looked at the spines. The Red Badge of Courage. The Prince and the Pauper. She remembered reading them in Mr. Pierce’s seventh-grade English class, talking about symbolism, metaphors, and denouement. There were more books underneath, including some that just looked like old notebooks. Boxes sat next to the books; they were marked ALISON’S CLOTHES and ALISON’S OLD PAPERS. Peeking out of a crate was a blue and red ribbon. Emily pulled at it a little. It was a sixth-grade swimming medal she’d left at Alison’s house one day when they’d made up a game called Olympian Sex Goddesses.
“You want that?”
Emily shot up. She faced a tall, skinny girl with tawny-colored skin and wild, black-brown curly hair. The girl wore a yellow tank top whose strap had slid off her shoulder to reveal an orange and green bra strap. Emily wasn’t certain, but she thought she had the same bra at home. It was from Victoria’s Secret and had little oranges, peaches, and limes all over the, er, boob parts.
The swimming medal slid out of her hands and clattered to the ground. “Um, no,” she said, scrambling to pick it up.
“You can take any of it. See the sign?”
“No, really, it’s okay.”
The girl stuck out her hand. “Maya St. Germain. Just moved here.”
“I…” Emily’s words clogged up in her throat. “I’m Emily,” she finally managed, taking Maya’s hand and shaking it. It felt really formal to shake a girl’s hand—Emily wasn’t sure she’d ever done that before. She felt a little fuzzy. Maybe she hadn’t eaten enough Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast?
Maya gestured to the stuff on the ground. “Can you believe all this crap was in my new room? I had to move it all out myself. It sucked.”
“Yeah, this all belonged to Alison,” Emily practically whispered.
Maya stooped down to inspect some of the paperbacks. She shoved her tank top strap back onto her shoulder. “Is she a friend of yours?”
Emily paused. Is? Maybe Maya hadn’t heard about Ali’s disappearance? “Um, she was. A long time ago. Along with a bunch of other girls who live around here,” Emily explained, leaving out the part about the kidnapping or murder or whatever might have happened that she couldn’t bear to imagine. “In seventh grade. I’m going into eleventh now at Rosewood Day.” School started after this weekend. So did fall swim practice, which meant three hours of lap swimming daily. Emily didn’t even want to think about it.
“I’m going to Rosewood too!” Maya grinned. She sank down on Alison’s old corduroy chair, and the springs squeaked. “All my parents talked about on the flight here was how lucky I am to have gotten into Rosewood and how different it will be from my school in California. Like, I bet you guys don’t have Mexican food, right? Or, like, really good Mexican food, like Cali-Mexican food. We used to have it in our cafeteria and mmm, it was so good. I’m going to have to get used to Taco Bell. Their gorditas make me want to vomit.”
“Oh.” Emily smiled. This girl sure talked a lot. “Yeah, the food kind of sucks.”
Maya sprang up from the chair. “This might be a weird question since I just met you, but would you mind helping me carry the rest of these boxes up to my room?” She motioned to a few Crate & Barrel boxes sitting at the base of the truck.
Emily’s eyes widened. Go into Alison’s old room? But it would be totally rude if she refused, wouldn’t it? “Um, sure,” she said shakily.
The foyer still smelled like Dove soap and potpourri—just as it had when the DiLaurentises lived here. Emily paused at the door and waited for Maya to give her instructions, even though she knew she could find Ali’s old room at the end of the upstairs hall blindfolded. Moving boxes were everywhere, and two spindly Italian greyhounds yapped from behind a gate in the kitchen.
“Ignore them,” Maya said, climbing the stairs to her room and shoving the door open with her terry-covered hip.
Wow, it looks the same, Emily thought as she entered the bedroom. But the thing was, it didn’t: Maya had put her queen-size bed in a different corner, she had a huge, flat-screen computer monitor on her desk, and she’d put up posters everywhere, covering Alison’s old flowered wallpaper. But something felt the same, as if Alison’s presence was still floating here. Emily felt woozy and leaned against the wall for support.
“Put it anywhere,” Maya said. Emily rallied herself to stand, set her box down at the foot of the bed, and looked around.
“I like your posters,” she said. They were mostly of bands: M.I.A., Black Eyed Peas, Gwen Stefani in a cheerleading uniform. “I love Gwen,” she added.
“Yeah,” Maya said. “My boyfriend’s totally obsessed with her. His name’s Justin. He’s from San Fran, where I’m from.”
“Oh. I’ve got a boyfriend too,” Emily said. “His name’s Ben.”
“Yeah?” Maya sat down on her bed. “What’s he like?”
Emily tried to conjure up Ben, her boyfriend of four months. She’d seen him two days ago—they’d watched the Doom DVD at her house. Emily’s mom was in the other room, of course, randomly popping in, asking if they needed anything. They’d been good friends for a while, on the same year-round swim teams. All their teammates told them they should go out, so they did. “He’s cool.”
“So why aren’t you friends with the girl who lived here anymore?” Maya asked.
Emily pushed her reddish-blond hair behind her ears. Wow. So Maya really didn’t know about Alison. If Emily started talking about Ali, though, she might start crying—which would be weird. She hardly knew this Maya girl. “I grew apart from all my old seventh-grade friends. Everyone changed a lot, I guess.”
That was an understatement. Of Emily’s other best friends, Spencer had become a more exaggerated version of her already hyper-perfect self; Aria’s family had suddenly moved to Iceland the fall after Ali went missing; and dorky-but-lovable Hanna had become totally undorky and unlovable and was now a total bitch. Hanna and her now best friend, Mona Vanderwaal, had completely transformed themselves the summer between eighth and ninth grade. Emily’s mom had recently seen Hanna going into Wawa, the local convenience store, and told Emily that Hanna looked “sluttier than that Paris Hilton girl.” Emily had never heard her mom use the word slutty.
“I know how growing apart is,” Maya said, bouncing up and down on her bed as she sat. “Like my boyfriend? He’s so scared I’m going to ditch him now that we’re on different coasts. He’s such a big baby.”
“My boyfriend and I are on the swim team, so we see each other all the time,” Emily replied, looking for a place to sit down too. Maybe too much of the time, she thought.
“You swim?” Maya asked. She looked Emily up and down, which made Emily feel a little weird. “I bet you’re really good. You totally have the shoulders.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Emily blushed and leaned against Maya’s white wooden desk.
“You do!” Maya smiled. “But…if you’re a big jock, does that mean you’d kill me if I smoked a little weed?”
“What, right now?” Emily’s eyes widened. “What about your parents?”
“They’re at the grocery store. And my brother—he’s here somewhere, but he won’t care.” Maya reached under her mattress for an Altoids tin. She hefted up the window, which was right next to her bed, pulled out a joint, and lit it. The smoke curled into the yard and made a hazy cloud around a large oak tree.
Maya brought the joint back inside. “Want a hit?”
Emily had never tried pot in her entire life—she always thought her parents would somehow know, like by smelling her hair or forcing her to pee in a cup or something. But as Maya pulled the joint gracefully from her cherry-frosted lips, it looked sexy. Emily wanted to look sexy like that too.
“Um, okay.” Emily slid closer to Maya and took the joint from her. Their hands brushed and their eyes met. Maya’s were green and a little yellow, like a cat’s. Emily’s hand trembled. She felt nervous, but she put the joint to her mouth and took a tiny drag, like she was sipping Vanilla Coke through a straw.
But it didn’t taste like Vanilla Coke. It felt like she’d just inhaled a whole jar of rotten spices. She hacked an old man–ish cough.
“Whoa,” Maya said, taking back the joint. “First time?”
Emily couldn’t breathe and just shook her head, gasping. She wheezed some more, trying to get air into her chest. Finally she could feel air hitting her lungs again. As Maya turned her arm, Emily saw a long, white scar running lengthwise down her wrist. Whoa. It looked a little like an albino snake on her tan skin. God, she was probably high already.
Suddenly there was a loud clank. Emily jumped. Then she heard the clank again. “What is that?” she wheezed.
Maya took another drag and shook her head. “The workers. We’re here for one day and my parents have already started on the renovations.” She grinned. “You just totally freaked, like you thought the cops were coming. You been busted before?”
“No!” Emily burst out laughing; it was such a ridiculous thought.
Maya smiled and exhaled.
“I should go,” Emily rasped.
Maya’s face fell. “Why?”
