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 relived 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-eight…”
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 farther 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 head 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?”