“Yeah, she is,” said a voice behind them. A second, older Ali stood on the sidewalk. She was a little taller and her face was a little thinner. A blue string bracelet was tied around her wrist—the very bracelet Ali had made for them after The Jenna Thing—and she wore a pale blue American Apparel T-shirt and a rolled-up-at-the-waist hockey kilt. It was the same outfit Ali had worn to the end-of-seventh-grade sleepover in Spencer’s barn.
“She’s totally going to try and steal it from you,” the second Ali confirmed, giving Younger Ali a sidelong glance. “But she doesn’t. Someone else does.”
Younger Ali narrowed her eyes. “Right. Someone’s going to have to kill me to get my flag.”
The crowd of Rosewood Day students parted, and Ian slipped through. He opened his mouth, an evil look on his face. If that’s what it takes, he was about to tell Ali. But when he breathed in to speak, he made a fire engine sound instead, shrill and piercingly loud.
Both Alis covered their ears. Younger Ali took a step back.
Older Ali put her hands on her hips, kicking Younger Ali with the side of her foot. “What’s wrong with you? Go flirt with him. He’s gorgeous.”
“No,” Younger Ali said.
“Yes,” Older Ali insisted. They were fighting as bitterly as Spencer and Melissa did.
Older Ali rolled her eyes and faced Spencer. “You shouldn’t have thrown it away, Spencer. Everything you needed was there. All the answers.”
“Thrown…what away?” Spencer asked, confused.
Younger Ali and Older Ali exchanged a glance. A frightened look washed over Younger Ali’s face, like she suddenly understood what Older Ali was talking about. “It,” Younger Ali said. “That was a huge mistake, Spencer. And it’s almost too late.”
“What do you mean?” Spencer cried. “What is it? And why am I almost too late?”
“You’re going to have to fix this,” Younger Ali and Older Ali said in unison, their voices identical now. They joined hands and fused back into one Ali. “It’s up to you, Spencer. You shouldn’t have thrown it away.”
Ian’s siren grew louder and louder. A gust of wind kicked up, blowing the Time Capsule flyer right out of Ali’s hands. It hung in the air for a moment, then blew straight for Spencer, smacking her square in the face hard, feeling more like a rock than a piece of paper. Get ready! it said, right in front of Spencer’s eyes.
Spencer shot up in bed, sweat drenching her neck. Ali’s vanilla body cream tickled her nose, but she wasn’t in the Rosewood Day commons anymore—she was in her spotless, silent bedroom. The sun streamed through the window. Her dogs were racing around the front yard, filthy from the dirty slush. It was Friday, the first day of Ian’s trial.
“Spencer?” Melissa’s face swam into view. She hovered over Spencer’s bed, her blunt-cut blond hair hanging down over her face, the strings of her blue-and-white striped hoodie almost grazing Spencer’s nose. “Are you okay?”
Spencer shut her eyes and remembered last night. How Ian had materialized on the porch, smoking that cigarette, saying all of those crazy, terrifying things. And then that note: If Poor Little Miss Perfect were to suddenly vanish, would anyone even care? As much as she wanted to, Spencer had been too afraid to tell anyone about it. Calling Wilden and telling him that Ian had broken his house arrest would probably have gotten him thrown back in jail, but Spencer was afraid that as soon as she told Wilden, something awful would happen to her—or to someone else. After what had happened to Mona, she couldn’t bear to have any more blood on her hands.
Spencer swallowed hard, facing her sister. “I’m going to testify against Ian. I know you don’t want him to go to prison, but I’m going to have to tell the truth on the witness stand about what I saw.”
Melissa’s face remained placid. Light bounced off her Asscher-cut diamond earrings. “I know,” she said vaguely, like her mind was elsewhere. “I’m not asking you to lie.”
With that, Melissa patted Spencer’s shoulder and walked out of the room. Spencer stood up slowly, taking deep yoga fire breaths. Both Ali voices still bonged in her ears. She took one more careful look around her bedroom, half expecting one of them to be standing over her. But of course no one was there.
An hour later, Spencer pulled her Mercedes into a parking space at Rosewood Day and hurried to the elementary school. Most of the snow had melted, but there were still a couple of die-hard little kids outside, making pathetic little snow angels and playing Find the Yellow Snow. Her friends were waiting by the elementary school swings, their old secret meeting spot. Ian’s trial was starting at 1 P.M., and they wanted to talk before it began.
Aria waved as Spencer jogged toward her friends, visibly shivering in her fur-lined hooded jacket. Hanna had purple circles under her eyes and was nervously tapping the pointy toe of her Jimmy Choo boot. Emily looked as if she was about to cry. Seeing them together in their old spot made something inside Spencer break. You should tell them what happened, she thought. It didn’t feel right keeping Ian’s visit a secret. But Ian’s message was ever-present in her mind: If you tell anyone about me…
“So, are we ready?” Hanna asked, chewing nervously on her lips.
“I guess,” Emily answered. “It’s going to be weird to…you know. See Ian.”
“Seriously,” Aria whispered.
“Uh-huh,” Spencer stammered nervously, keeping her eyes glued on a zigzagging crack in the pavement.