Wanted. (Book Eight)

Twenty-Eight: What Dreams May Come.

Spencer and the others followed Ali back into the house. "The hot tub is way too cold," Ali decided. "But there are lots of other things to do."

Spencer plopped her unused bath towel on the kitchen table, walked into the living room and sat down on the leather couch. Her skin felt numb, both from the cold and the scare that something might have happened to Ali. An uneasy feeling nagged at her, too, one she couldn't quite describe. How had Ali not heard them when they were calling for her? How had they not seen her go into the porch and test the water of the hot tub? What was that thump they'd heard inside the house? And where was Melissa, anyway?

The other girls gathered around the room. Ali sat in the wicker wing chair they used to call "The Duchess Chair": whichever girl they deemed the "Duchess" got to sit in the chair and make the others do whatever she wanted for the entire day. Hanna sat on the old yellow beanbag near the TV. Emily perched cross-legged on the leather ottoman by the couch, absently poking her finger into a tiny hole in the upholstery. Aria sat on the couch next to Spencer and pulled a cherry-blossom-printed satin pillow into her chest.

Ali curled her hands around the Duchess Chair's twisted twiggy arms and took a big breath. "So. Now that the hot tub idea is a bust, I have a proposition for you."

"What?" Spencer asked.

Ali shifted her weight, making the wicker creak. "Since our last sleepover went so badly, I think we should wipe it out of our minds for good. I'd like to re-create it. Minus a couple of details, of course."

"Like you disappearing?" Emily said.

"Naturally." Ali twirled a piece of hair around her finger. "And, well, for it to be accurate, I'll have to hypnotize you."

Spencer's skin went cold. Emily lowered her glass to the table. Hanna froze, a handful of Cheez-Its halfway to her mouth. "Uh..." Aria started.

Ali cocked an eyebrow. "When I was in the hospital, they made me go to all these therapists. One of them told me that the best way to get over a terrible memory is to reenact it. I really think it will help me..." She sighed. "Maybe it will help all of us."

Spencer rubbed her feet together, trying to warm them up. A sudden wind whistled outside. She stared again at the photo of them next to the canoe. Reenacting the hypnosis sounded awful, but maybe Ali was right. After everything they'd been through, maybe they needed to do something to get past it, once and for all. "I'm game," she decided.

"Yeah, I guess I'm in, too," Emily decided.

"Sure," Hanna said.

Ali looked hopefully at Aria, and Aria nodded reluctantly. "Thank you." Ali jumped to her feet. "Let's do it in the upstairs bedroom, though. It's more intimate. More like the barn was."

They followed her up the pink-carpeted stairs to the second level. A huge, pale moon shone through the circular window on the landing. The yard was empty, the pine trees forming a thick barrier between the house and the road. There was a man-made pond off to the left, though it had been drained for the winter. Now it was merely a dry, deep ditch.

Ali led them to the back bedroom. The door was already ajar, as if someone had been in there recently. Spencer remembered the cross-stitch sampler on the wall, the Queen Anne's lace curtains, and the twin brass beds. Her nose twitched. She'd expected the room to be redolent with lilac-scented air freshener and maybe mildew, but there was a rotting, curdling odor instead. "What's that smell?" she cried.

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."