“Mom, stop,” Emma said, writhing again. “Please tell me you didn’t do this.”
Becky’s face suddenly appeared in front of her, more skeletal than ever. Her eyes were sunken and hollow, her lips thin and bloodless. She smiled down at her daughter sadly. A gnarled hand reached down to stroke Emma’s hair off her forehead, a gesture Emma remembered from when she was a little girl.
Then Becky picked up a pillow from the bed next to Emma and cradled it almost like a baby.
“Honey, you don’t always get what you wish for,” she said. Then, still smiling, she pushed the pillow down onto Emma’s face.
Emma screamed into the pillow. She tried to shake off Becky’s weight, but the cuffs on her wrists and ankles cut into her skin. Multicolored spots danced against the backs of her eyelids. Her lungs burned, and her mind went fuzzy, until the world around her became shiny and transparent. And there, in that surreal space somewhere beyond vision, she saw a girl around her own age. The girl was shouting something. She was pretty, with long brunette hair and blue eyes. Was she seeing … herself?
No. She was seeing me. “Emma,” I yelled.
Emma saw the girl’s lips move, but she couldn’t distinguish the words. Somehow, though, she knew that this was Sutton. Emma gazed at her sister’s face, so like her own. Then she felt a peaceful sense of detachment, as if she was deep underwater. Wait for me, Sutton, she thought. I’m coming. At least she would be with her sister now. Becky had seen to that.
Her lungs gave a final, desperate heave. Then she sat, bolt upright, in Sutton’s bed. In Sutton’s pajamas, in Sutton’s house. It was Saturday morning. The sheets had wound around her arms and legs so tight she could barely move. Daylight streamed in through the window.
Still breathing heavily, she grabbed Sutton’s robe and stepped into the bathroom connecting her room to Laurel’s. Locking the door, she turned on the water as hot as it would go. Steam filled the little pink-and-white room. She pulled the shower curtain aside and stepped in.
It was just a dream, she kept repeating to herself. But didn’t scientists always say that dreams revealed the truths that the waking self couldn’t face? Had her dream shown her the real truth about Becky? She wished she could talk to Sutton, just for a minute, so that her twin could tell her the name of her killer.
But I don’t know either, I thought sadly.
Emma scrubbed angrily at her skin with a pink loofah, trying to wash away the memory of the nightmare. By the time she’d dried her hair and decided on fire-engine red skinny jeans and a white T-shirt, she was feeling a little better, though the dream still clung to the back of her mind like a piece of cellophane. She trotted downstairs to the kitchen, hoping that a glass of orange juice and some breakfast might help clear her head.
Mrs. Mercer sat at the table, sipping a cup of tea and reading the wedding section like she did every lazy Saturday morning. Mr. Mercer was finishing the dishes while Laurel dried them and put them away.
“There you are,” Mrs. Mercer said, glancing up over her reading glasses. “I was just about to knock and see if you were moving.”
“We saved you a waffle,” Laurel added, sliding a plate toward Emma.
Laurel and I had always had a tacit agreement not to talk about carbs or calories on Saturday mornings, when our parents would make pancakes or French toast or my mom’s special cream cheese blintzes. Emma smiled and reached for the syrup.
“We thought we’d go to the farmers’ market after breakfast,” Mr. Mercer said. “I’ll throw together a ratatouille tonight if I can find some decent vegetables.”
Emma took a bite of her waffle, considering. She had wanted to go straight to the hospital today to find Becky’s records. But after the nightmare she’d just had, she didn’t think she could face it quite yet. The sun shone in through the window, and a crisp fall breeze ruffled the curtains. It was a beautiful day for a family excursion. “Sure,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
Half an hour later, the family piled into the SUV. Mr. Mercer turned the radio to a fifties station as he drove along the back roads toward the market. The weekly Tucson farmers’ market was in a stone plaza adjacent to an old, mission-style church. Eucalyptus trees perfumed the air, and a fountain splashed musically at the center. Booths covered in checkered picnic cloths were overflowing with fresh produce—zucchini and summer squash, apples and oranges and pears, a rainbow of bell peppers. A young couple with a double stroller stood outside a carpenter’s booth, examining the hand-painted wooden toys on display. The line for the organic coffee shop across the courtyard snaked almost to the church steps.
Mr. Mercer immediately approached a man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt selling tomatoes on the vine and began haggling over prices. Mrs. Mercer sampled various eco-friendly cosmetics, chatting happily with the saleswoman, who reminded Emma a bit of an older, friendlier version of Celeste with her all-linen outfit and her stacks of rings.
“We shouldn’t have had breakfast,” Laurel said, eyeing a booth of mini crackers and cheeses. Emma examined a jar of fresh olive tapenade, thinking back to her picnic with Ethan. The memory made her smile. “Um, hello? Earth to Sutton?” Laurel said, waving her hand in front of Emma’s face. “What planet are you on?”
“Just thinking about Ethan,” Emma confessed.
“Cute.” Laurel nudged her playfully. “So I was wondering, can I borrow your liquid eyeliner for the party tonight? I want to do a retro cat-eye thing.”