Spencer stared at the screen for a long time. Dear Jessica. Much Love. Xx. All that money. The Alison DiLaurentis Recovery Fund. She cycled back to the first letter again. I’m sorry things got cut short tonight. I can’t wait to be alone with you again. She right-clicked on the document to check when it was last modified. The date read: June 20, three and a half years ago.
“What the hell?” she whispered.
There was a lot about that sticky, awful summer that Spencer had tried her hardest to forget, but she would always, always remember June 20 for as long as she lived. It was the day seventh grade ended. The night of their seventh-grade sleepover.
The night Ali died.
Chapter 19
Secrets don’t Stay Buried for Long
Lucy tucked the final corner of the top sheet under the bed mattress and stood up straight. “Ready to go?” she asked.
“Yep,” Emily said sadly. It was Friday morning, and she was about to leave to catch her bus back to Rosewood. Lucy was walking Emily only to the highway, not the bus station. Though it was acceptable for Amish people to ride buses, Emily didn’t want Lucy to know she was going to Philadelphia and not Ohio, where she said she was from. After everything Lucy had entrusted her with, Emily didn’t want to admit that she wasn’t really Amish. Then again, part of her wondered if Lucy had already guessed and just wasn’t asking. Maybe it was better just not to broach the subject at all.
Emily took a final look around the house. She’d already said good-bye to Lucy’s parents, who asked her countless times if she couldn’t stay one more day for the wedding. She’d petted the cows and horses one last time, realizing she’d miss them. She’d miss other things about here, too—the quiet nights, the smell of freshly made cheese, the random moos from the cows. And everyone in this community smiled and said hello to her, even though she was a stranger. That didn’t happen in Rosewood.
Emily and Lucy pushed out the door, shivering in the sudden, bracing cold. The smell of freshly baked loaves of bread was in the air, all for the wedding celebration that would take place tomorrow. It seemed like every Amish family in the community was preparing for the wedding. Men were brushing the horses for the procession. Women were hanging flowers on Mary’s family’s door, and obedient Amish children were clearing litter from the surrounding farmyard.
Lucy whistled under her breath, her arms swinging loosely at her sides. Since their conversation about Leah, Lucy had seemed much lighter, like a huge camping backpack had been lifted off her shoulders. Emily, on the other hand, felt leaden and weak, as if the hope that Ali was alive had kept her energetic all this time.
They passed the church, a squat, nondescript building without any religious symbols on it whatsoever. A few horses were tied to posts, their snorting breath visible in the frosty air. The graveyard was in the back of the church, cordoned off by a wrought-iron gate. Then Lucy stopped, considering. “Do you mind if we stop in there for a sec?” She fiddled nervously with her wool gloves. “I want to see Leah, I think.”
Emily checked her watch. Her bus wasn’t for another hour. “Sure.”
The gate squeaked as Lucy pushed it open. Their shoes swished against the dead, dry grass. Lined up were gray, simple graves for babies, old men, and an entire family named Stevenson. Emily squeezed her eyes shut, trying to let reality sink in. All of these people were dead . . . and so was Ali.
Ali is dead. Emily tried to let it fill her body. She thought not about the horrible parts of Ali’s death, like her heart beating for the last time, her lungs filling with their very last breath, her bones turning to dust. Instead, she thought about Ali’s thrilling, decadent afterlife. It was probably filled with beautiful beaches, perfect, cloudless days, and shrimp cocktail and red velvet cake—Ali’s favorite foods. Every guy there had a crush on her and every girl wanted to be her, even Princess Diana and Audrey Hepburn. She was still fabulous Alison DiLaurentis, ruling heaven just as she ruled earth.
“I’ll miss you so much, Ali,” Emily mouthed quietly, the wind carrying the words away. She took a few deep breaths, waiting to see if she felt any different, any cleaner. But her heart still thrummed and her head continued to ache. It felt like a vital, special part of her had been ripped clean out.
She opened her eyes and saw Lucy staring at her from a few rows over. “Everything okay?”
Emily struggled to nod, stepping around a few crooked headstones. Dry weeds jutted haphazardly around many of them. “Is that Leah’s grave?”
“Yes,” Lucy said, running her fingers along the top of the stone.
Emily walked over, and looked down. Leah’s gravestone was gray marble, the inscription plain. Leah Zook. Emily blinked at the dates on the stone. Leah had died June 19, almost four years ago. Whoa. Ali had gone missing the very next day, on June 20.
Then, Emily noticed an eight-pointed star above Leah’s name. A spark ignited in her brain; she’d seen that pattern recently. “What’s that for?” She pointed at it.
Lucy’s face clouded. “My parents really wanted it on the headstone. It’s the symbol of our community. But I didn’t want it there. It reminds me of him.”
A crow landed on one of the headstones, flapping its inky wings. The wind gusted, making the cemetery gate hinges creak. “Who’s ‘him’?” Emily asked.
Lucy looked off in the distance at a lone, spindly tree in the middle of the field. “Leah’s boyfriend.”
“Th-the one she used to fight with?” Emily stammered. The crow lifted from the tree and flapped away. “The one you didn’t like?”