Aria had no idea what to think about the ordeal she’d just been through. One minute, she was sprinting through the forest to Spencer’s barn, the piece of Time Capsule flag she’d stolen from Ali in sixth grade tucked in her back pocket. She hadn’t looked at the shiny blue fabric in four long years, but Hanna was convinced the drawings on it contained a clue about Ali’s killer. And then, just as Aria had slipped on a patch of wet leaves, the acrid smell of gas had filled her nostrils and she’d heard the papery rasp of a match igniting. All around her, the woods exploded into flames, burning hot and bright and searing her skin. Moments later, she came upon someone in the woods screaming desperately for help. Someone whose body they’d all thought was in that half-dug hole in the DiLaurentises’ old backyard. Ali.
Or so Aria had thought at the time. But now . . . well, now she didn’t know. She looked at her reflection in the mirror hanging on the door. Her cheeks were gaunt, her eyes rimmed with red. The ER doctor who’d treated Aria explained that it was common to see crazy things after inhaling a bunch of noxious smoke—when deprived of oxygen, the brain went haywire. The forest had been really suffocating. And Ali had seemed so hazy and surreal, definitely like a dream. Aria hadn’t known that group hallucinations were possible, but they’d all had Ali on their minds last night. Maybe it was obvious why Ali was the first thing each of them thought of when their brains began to shut down.
After Aria finished changing into the jeans and sweater Byron had brought her from home, she made her way to Spencer’s room on the second floor. Mr. and Mrs. Hastings were slumped on chairs in the waiting area across the hall, checking their BlackBerrys. Hanna and Emily were already inside the room, dressed in jeans and sweaters, but Spencer was still in bed in her hospital gown. IV tubes fed into her arms, her skin was sallow, and there were dark purple circles under her blue eyes and a bruise on her square jaw.
“Are you all right?” Aria exclaimed. No one had told her Spencer was hurt.
Spencer nodded weakly, using the little remote on the side of the bed to sit up straighter. “I’m much better now. They say smoke inhalation can sometimes affect people really differently.”
Aria looked around. The room smelled of sickness and bleach. There was a monitor in the corner tracking Spencer’s vital signs, and a small chrome sink with stacks of boxes of surgical gloves in the corner. The walls were wasabi green, and next to the floral-curtained window was a big poster explaining how to self-administer the monthly breast exam. Predictably, some kid had drawn a penis next to the woman’s boob.
Emily was perched on a child-size chair near the window, her reddish-blond hair tangled, her thin lips cracked. She shifted uncomfortably, her broad swimmer’s body too big for the seat. Hanna was by the door, leaning against a sign proclaiming that all hospital employees must wear gloves. Her hazel eyes were glazed and vacant. She looked even frailer than usual, her skinny, dark-denim jeans hanging loosely on her hips.
Wordlessly, Aria pulled Ali’s flag from her yak-fur bag and spread it on Spencer’s bed. Everyone moved in and stared. Shiny silver doodles covered the fabric. There was a Chanel logo, a Louis Vuitton luggage pattern, and Ali’s name in big bubble letters. A stone wishing well, complete with an A-frame roof and crank, was in the corner. Aria traced the outline of the well with her finger. She didn’t see any glaring, vital clues here about what might have happened to Ali the night she was killed. This was the same kind of stuff everyone drew on their Time Capsule flags.
Spencer touched the edge of the fabric. “I forgot Ali made bubble letters like that.”
Hanna shivered. “Just seeing Ali’s writing makes me think she’s here with us.”
Everyone raised their heads, exchanging a spooked glance. It was obvious they were all thinking the same thing. Just like she was with us in the woods a few hours ago.
At that, they all spoke at once. “We’ve got to—” Aria blurted.
“What did we—” Hanna whispered.
“The doctor said—” Spencer hissed a half-second later. They all stopped and looked at one another, their cheeks as pale as the pillowcases behind Spencer’s head.
It was Emily who spoke next. “We’ve got to do something, guys. Ali is out there. We need to figure out where she went. Has anyone heard anything about people looking for her in the woods? I told the cops we saw her, but they just stood there!”
Aria’s heart flipped. Spencer looked incredulous. “You told the cops?” she repeated, pushing a strand of dirty blond hair out of her eyes.
“Of course I did!” Emily whispered.
“But . . . Emily . . .”
“What?” Emily snapped. She glared at Spencer crazily, as if there was a unicorn horn growing out of her forehead.
“Em, it was just a hallucination. The doctors said so. Ali’s dead.”
Emily’s eyes boggled. “But we all saw her, didn’t we? Are you saying we all had the exact same hallucination?”
Spencer stared unblinking at Emily. A few tense seconds passed. Outside the room, a beeper went off. A hospital bed with a squeaky wheel rolled down the hall.
Emily let out a whimper. Her cheeks had turned bright pink. She turned to Hanna and Aria. “You guys think Ali was real, right?”
“It could have been Ali, I guess,” Aria said, sinking into a spare wheelchair by the tiny bathroom. “But, Em, the doctor told me it was smoke inhalation. It makes sense. How else could she have just vanished after the fire?”