Unbelievable (5 page)

Helene looked at her sternly as the goat waddled away. “Don’t scream like that. The chickens don’t like it.”

Perfect
. The chickens’ needs took precedence to Emily’s. She pointed to the goat. “Why is he chained like that?”

“She,”
Helene corrected her. “She’s been a bad girl, that’s why.”

Emily bit her lip nervously as Helene led her into a tiny kitchen that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the fifties. Emily immediately missed her mom’s cheery kitchen, with its chicken collectibles, year-round Christmas towels, and refrigerator magnets shaped like Philadelphia monuments. Helene’s fridge was bare and magnet-free and smelled like rotting vegetables. When they walked into a small living room, Helene pointed to a girl about Emily’s age sitting on a vomit-colored chair and reading
Jane Eyre
. “You remember Abby?”

Emily’s cousin Abby wore a pale khaki jumper that came to her knees and a demure eyelet blouse. She’d pulled her hair back at the nape of her neck, and she wore no makeup. In her tight
LOVE AN ANIMAL, HUG A SWIMMER
tee, ripped Abercrombie jeans, tinted moisturizer, and cherry-flavored lip gloss, Emily felt like a whore.

“Hello, Emily,” Abby said primly.

“Abby was nice enough to offer to share her room with you,” Helene said. “It’s just up the stairs. We’ll show you.”

There were four bedrooms upstairs. The first was Helene and Allen’s, and the second was for John and Matt, the seventeen-year-old twins. “And that one’s for Sarah, Elizabeth, and baby Karen,” Helene said, gesturing to a room that Emily had mistaken for a broom closet.

Emily gaped. She hadn’t heard of any of those cousins. “How old are they?”

“Well, Karen’s six months, Sarah is two, and Elizabeth is four. They’re at their grandmother’s right now.”

Emily tried to hide a smile. For people who shunned sex, they certainly had a lot of offspring.

Helene led Emily into an almost-empty room and pointed to a twin cot in the corner. Abby settled down on her own bed, folding her hands in her lap. Emily couldn’t believe the room had been lived in—the only furniture was the two beds, a plain dresser, a small round rug, and a bookshelf with hardly any books on it. At home, her room was plastered with posters and pictures; her desk was strewn with perfume bottles, cutouts from magazines, CDs, and books. Then again, the last time Emily was here, Abby had told her she was planning to become a nun, so perhaps no-frills living was part of her nunnish training. Emily glanced out the big picture window at the end of the room and saw the Weavers’ enormous field, which included a large stable and a silo. Her two older boy cousins, John and Matt, were lugging bales of hay out of the stable and onto the bed of a pickup truck. There was nothing on the horizon. At all.

“So, how far away is your school?” Emily asked Abby.

Abby’s face lit up. “My mom didn’t tell you? We’re homeschooled.”

“Ohh…” Emily’s will to live slowly seeped out the sweat glands in her feet.

“I’ll give you the class schedule tomorrow.” Helene plunked a few grayish towels onto Emily’s bed. “You’ll have to take some exams to see where I place you.”

“I’m a junior in high school,” Emily offered. “I’m in some AP classes.”

“We’ll see where I place you.” Helene gave her a hard look.

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.