Spencer and the others followed Ali back into the house. "The hot tub is way too cold," Ali decided. "But there are lots of other things to do."
Spencer plopped her unused bath towel on the kitchen table, walked into the living room and sat down on the leather couch. Her skin felt numb, both from the cold and the scare that something might have happened to Ali. An uneasy feeling nagged at her, too, one she couldn't quite describe. How had Ali not heard them when they were calling for her? How had they not seen her go into the porch and test the water of the hot tub? What was that thump they'd heard inside the house? And where was Melissa, anyway?
The other girls gathered around the room. Ali sat in the wicker wing chair they used to call "The Duchess Chair": whichever girl they deemed the "Duchess" got to sit in the chair and make the others do whatever she wanted for the entire day. Hanna sat on the old yellow beanbag near the TV. Emily perched cross-legged on the leather ottoman by the couch, absently poking her finger into a tiny hole in the upholstery. Aria sat on the couch next to Spencer and pulled a cherry-blossom-printed satin pillow into her chest.
Ali curled her hands around the Duchess Chair's twisted twiggy arms and took a big breath. "So. Now that the hot tub idea is a bust, I have a proposition for you."
"What?" Spencer asked.
Ali shifted her weight, making the wicker creak. "Since our last sleepover went so badly, I think we should wipe it out of our minds for good. I'd like to re-create it. Minus a couple of details, of course."
"Like you disappearing?" Emily said.
"Naturally." Ali twirled a piece of hair around her finger. "And, well, for it to be accurate, I'll have to hypnotize you."
Spencer's skin went cold. Emily lowered her glass to the table. Hanna froze, a handful of Cheez-Its halfway to her mouth. "Uh…" Aria started.
Ali cocked an eyebrow. "When I was in the hospital, they made me go to all these therapists. One of them told me that the best way to get over a terrible memory is to reenact it. I really think it will help me…" She sighed. "Maybe it will help all of us."
Spencer rubbed her feet together, trying to warm them up. A sudden wind whistled outside. She stared again at the photo of them next to the canoe. Reenacting the hypnosis sounded awful, but maybe Ali was right. After everything they'd been through, maybe they needed to do something to get past it, once and for all. "I'm game," she decided.
"Yeah, I guess I'm in, too," Emily decided.
"Sure," Hanna said.
Ali looked hopefully at Aria, and Aria nodded reluctantly. "Thank you." Ali jumped to her feet. "Let's do it in the upstairs bedroom, though. It's more intimate. More like the barn was."
They followed her up the pink-carpeted stairs to the second level. A huge, pale moon shone through the circular window on the landing. The yard was empty, the pine trees forming a thick barrier between the house and the road. There was a man-made pond off to the left, though it had been drained for the winter. Now it was merely a dry, deep ditch.
Ali led them to the back bedroom. The door was already ajar, as if someone had been in there recently. Spencer remembered the cross-stitch sampler on the wall, the Queen Anne's lace curtains, and the twin brass beds. Her nose twitched. She'd expected the room to be redolent with lilac-scented air freshener and maybe mildew, but there was a rotting, curdling odor instead. "What's that smell?" she cried.
Ali wrinkled her nose, too. "Maybe there's something dead inside the walls. Remember when that happened the summer between sixth and seventh grades? I think it was a raccoon."
Spencer racked her brain, but she didn't remember smelling anything remotely like this before.
Then Aria froze. "Did you hear that?"
Everyone tensed, listening. "No…" Spencer whispered.
Aria's eyes were wide. "I think I heard someone cough. Is there someone outside?"
Ali peeled back a wooden slat in the blinds. The driveway was deserted. There were tracks in the gravel from where the BMW had pulled in. "Nothing," Ali whispered.
They all let out a long sigh. "We're psyching ourselves out," Spencer said. "We've got to calm down."
They plopped on the round rug on the floor. Ali pulled out six vanilla candles from a plastic bag and positioned them on the nightstands and the bureau. The match made a spitting sound as it ignited. The room was already dark, but Ali twisted the blinds closed and pulled the curtains tight. The candles cast eerie shadows on the wall.
"Okay," Ali said. "Um, everyone, just relax."
Emily giggled anxiously. Hanna let out a breath. Spencer tried to make her arms go limp, but her blood still zoomed in her ears. She'd relieved the moment Ali had hypnotized her so many times in her mind. Every time she thought about it, her body contorted with panic. You'll be fine, she told herself.
"Your heartbeat's slowing down," Ali chanted. "Think calm thoughts. I'm going to count down from one hundred, and as soon as I touch all of you, you'll be in my power."
No one spoke. The candles snapped and danced. Spencer shut her eyes as Ali began to count. "One hundred…ninety-nine…ninety-right…"
Spencer's left leg twitched, then her right. She tried to think calm thoughts, but it was impossible not to return to the night they'd done this last. She'd sat on the round rug in her family's barn, pissed off that Ali had yet again talked them into something they didn't want to do. What if Ali's hypnosis made her blurt out she'd kissed Ian…and Melissa heard? Melissa and Ian had just been in the barn—they still could be close by.
And maybe, just maybe, Melissa had been close by. Like at the window…with a camera.
"Eighty-five, eighty-four…" Ali lilted.
Her voice faded feather and farther away until it sounded like she was whispering from the end of a very long tunnel. Then smudged light appeared before Spencer's eyes. Sound warped and twisted. The smell of sanded floorboards and microwave popcorn tickled her nose. She took a few long, deep breaths, trying to imagine air flowing in and out of her lungs.
When Spencer's vision came into focus, she realized she was in her family's old barn. She was sitting on the old, soft rug her parents had bought in New York. The scent of pine and early summer flowers wafted in from outside. She looked at her friends. Hanna's stomach bulged. Emily was bone thin and freckly. Aria had streaks of pink in her hair. Ali tiptoed among them, touching their foreheads with the fleshy part of her thumb. When she got to Spencer, Spencer jumped up.
It's too dark in here, she heard herself saying. The words spilled out of her mouth, beyond her control.
No, Ali insisted. It's got to be dark. That's how it works.
It doesn't always have to be the way you want it, you know, Ali? Spencer told her.
Close them, Ali answered, baring her teeth.
Spencer struggled to let light into the room. Ali let out a frustrated groan. But when Spencer glanced back at Ali, she realized that Ali wasn't just angry. She'd frozen in place, her face drawn and ghost-pale, her eyes round. It was like she'd seen something awful.
Spencer turned back to the window, a shadow catching her eye. It was a tiny shard of a memory, barely anything. Spencer clung to the image now, desperate to remember whether it had really happened. And then…she saw. It was Ali's reflection…except she wore a hood and carried a bulky camera. Her eyes were demonic and unblinking, out for murder. It was someone Spencer knew very well. She tried to say her name, but her lips wouldn't work. She felt like she was choking.
The memory was rolling forward without her. Leave, she heard herself demand to Ali.
Fine, Ali answered.
"No!" Spencer told her old self. "Call Ali back! Keep her in the room! It's…it's her sister out there! And she wants to hurt Ali!"
But the memory careened on, out of Spencer's grasp. Ali was at the door now. She turned around, giving Spencer a long look. Spencer let out a hoarse gasp. Suddenly, Ali didn't quite look like the girl who was with them today.
Then Spencer's gaze fell to the silver ring on the girl's finger. Ali had said she hadn't been wearing a ring that night, but there it was. Only, except instead of an A in the center, there was a C.
Why did Ali have on the wrong ring?
There was a tap on the window, and Spencer turned. The girl outside smiled sinisterly, running a hand along her eerily identical heart-shaped face. She held up the fourth finger on her right hand. She was wearing a ring, too—hers with the initial A. Spencer's heart felt like it was going to explode. Was Ali out there…and Courtney in here? How had that happened?
My memory's playing tricks on me, she told herself. This didn't happen. It's just a dream.
The Ali at the door turned, her hand on the knob. Suddenly, her skin began to fade from pink to pale to white to ashen. "Ali?" Spencer called out cautiously. "Are you okay?"
Ali's skin had begun to flake off in thick curls. "Does it look like I'm okay?" she snapped. She shook her head at Spencer. "I've been trying to tell you…"
"Trying to tell me?" Spencer echoed. "What do you mean?"
"All those dreams you've had about me? Don't you remember?"
Spencer blinked. "I…"
Ali rolled her eyes. Her skin was peeling off faster now, revealing ropy muscles and bleached bones. Her teeth plunked to the floor like acorns. Her hair turned from golden blond to pale gray. Then it started to fall out in chunks. "You really are stupider than i thought, Spence," she hissed. "You deserve this."
"Deserve what?" Spencer screamed.
Ali didn't answer. When she turned the knob, her hand flaked off at the elbow, as brittle as a dried flower. It landed on the wood floor and promptly dissolved into dust. Then the door slammed hard, the force resonating through Spencer's body. It sounded close. Real. Memory and reality collided.
Spencer's eyes sprang open. The bedroom was oppressively hot; sweat poured down her face. Her old friends sat cross-legged on the carpet, their faces docile and relaxed, their eyes sealed shut. They looked…dead.
"Guys?" Spencer called. No answer. She wanted to reach out and touch Hanna, but she was afraid.
The dream crackled in her brain. I've been trying to tell you, the girl in the vision said. The one who looked like the Ali she remembered…but the one who was wearing Courtney's ring. All those dreams you had about me. Don't you remember?
Spencer did remember plenty of dreams about Ali. Sometimes, she even dreamed about two different Alis.
"No," Spencer whispered perilously. She didn't understand this. She blinked in the darkness, looking for her fourth friend.
"Ali?" she squeaked.
But Ali didn't answer. Because Ali was gone.