Mrs. DiLaurentis set a pan zucchini lasagna on the table. "Careful, it's hot," she warned, and then proceeded to pour lemonade into everyone's glasses. "It's fresh-squeezed," she crowed. "It tastes better that way, don't you think?"
It was a few later, and the family was sitting in the dining room, which was usually used only for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Each seat had a hold placemat, and they were drinking out of the good crystal goblets. Mrs. DiLaurentis had even lit candles, and the light made eerie shapes against their faces. And there they all sat: Mr. and Mrs. DiLaurentis at the heads of the table, then Jason, then Ali...and then the third daughter. The twin. "Courtney".
"So dig in," Mrs. DiLaurentis announced as she took the oven mitts off. "The lasagna's nothing fancy, but the ingredients are all fresh."
"It looks superb," Mr. DiLaurentis said, reaching for his fork.
"Absolutely," Jason agreed, taking a hearty sip of lemonade.
Ali shot him a look, but Jason didn't glance her way. Jason had actually set the table today. And offered to get the bread out of the oven. And volunteered to bring her sister's stuff upstairs, to which "Courtney" had smiled and said that would be great. All traces of Elliot Smith was gone.
Then Ali turned to Courtney. Her sister was politely waiting as their father spooned a rectangle of lasagna onto her plate. Her parents had picked her up while Ali and Jason were at school, saying today worked better for Mr. DiLaurentis's work schedule. She'd arrived home just before the buses pulled out of the Rosewood Day parking lot, which meant it was fairly unlikely that anyone Ali's age had seen her. Not that it made her feel much better.
Courtney's hair, which was just about the same length as Ali's, was swept back from her face with little bobby pins that had tiny stars on the ends. She wore a striped halter with a ruffled neck that Ali had never seen before, one neither from her closet now nor her packed things from a year ago, and black skinny jeans. Away from the harsh light of the hospital, her sister's skin had an extra healthy glow, as if she'd just gone on a hike. And she seemed to be smiling a lot, which set Ali on edge. She'd even smiled at Ali when she'd walked in the door, stepping forward and giving her a huge hug and saying how good it was to her. But when her lips were close to Ali's ear, she'd whispered it again: Say your good-byes.
"Thank you so much," Courtney said now, in a gracious tone. "This is all so nice of you." She raised a modern-day Polaroid camera to her eyes and took a picture of her mother. "Say cheese!"
"Cheese!" Mrs. DiLaurentis said, smiling. The camera made a whirr sound, and a photo spits out. At first, Ali had thought it was her Polaroid camera, but Mrs. DiLaurentis had noticed Ali's in the kitchen and had seemed interested in it, so they'd gotten one today, too.
Ali cleared her throat. "Funny you're interested in photography, Courtney. That's my favorite hobby, too."
Courtney blinked innocently. "Don't worry, sis. I'm not going to pretend I'm you."
She tilted her chin down and winked. Ali curled her toes inside her shoes. What if they were exactly what her sister had planned?
Mrs. DiLaurentis took a square of lasagna. "Lots of people can like photography, girls."
Courtney smiled bashfully, then reached for the Parmesan, which was in a little silver bowl Ali had never seen—usually, they just used the shaker.
"Oh, I'll do that for you," Mr. DiLaurentis said, spooning a bit of cheese onto Courtney's lasagna. As if she was as invalid and couldn't do it herself.
"So we had a very nice chat with the doctors today," Mrs. DiLaurentis said between bites, staring at Ali as she spoke. "Courtney was a model patient this past year at the Preserve. She made a lot of friends, really participated in the group programs, did great at her studies..." She clapped a hand on Courtney's shoulder.
"They even let you play on an intramural field hockey team that met close by, didn't they, honey?" Mr. DiLaurentis piped up, smiling at his daughter.
Ali sat up straighter. "You left the grounds for whole practices?"
Courtney offered her a grin that probably looked genuine to everyone else but to Ali looked absolutely sinister. "Yes. Isn't that great?"
"Did you go anywhere else?" Ali blurted.
Her sister lowered her chin. "Why did you think you saw me somewhere?"
Ali flinched. So her fears weren't unfounded. Her sister had been watching.
But then Courtney sniffed and gave her parents a reassuring head-shake. "Please. The supervisors were on my butt the whole time. I played intramurals, went to a local ice cream parlor a couple of times, and that's it."
"But you don't like ice cream," Ali pointed out, hoping to catch her sister in a lie.
Courtney spread a piece of zucchini with her fork. "You don't know everything about me."
There was a long pause. It felt like the temperature in the room had dropped about twenty degrees. Jason reached for more bread, chewing obliviously. Mr. DiLaurentis sipped his wine.
"Ali?" Mrs. DiLaurentis's voice broke the silence. "Are you hungry?"
Ali stared down at the lasagna, then felt her sister's gaze on her, as sizzling as a heat lamp. The last thing she could think of was eating right now, but if she didn't, her sister might sense just how anxious she was feeling. She cut a tiny square, her fingers shaking, and pushed it into her mouth. It tasted like sawdust. Courtney held up the camera again, pointing it at Ali as she might a barrel of gun. Ali threw a hand of her face and turned away, but Courtney snapped a shot anyway.
Mrs. DiLaurentis wiped her mouth. "On the drive home, we all were talking. We were thinking that perhaps we would introduce Courtney to a few people around Rosewood, see how that goes."
The bite Ali had just swallowed rose back up her throat. "Like who?"
"Well, the neighbors, for starters." Mrs. DiLaurentis stabbed a tomato from the salad. "I mean, we can't keep her cooped up like we did before—Courtney said that might have been part of the problem."
"Definitely," Courtney said, nodding emphatically.
"Letting her out is part of the problem," Ali squeaked. She peeked at her sister. Courtney's head was lowered, but she was trying to hide a smile.
"We were just thinking people on the block," Mrs. DiLaurentis went on, ignoring her. "We think it would be a little much to bring Courtney to, say, graduation, but letting a few people know might not be a bad thing."
"So you're going to tell the Hastingses?" Ali practically shrieked. There was no way Spencer could know about this. Absolutely. No. Way.
"Well, naturally." Mrs. DiLaurentis dabbed at her mouth with her cloth napkin. "But we thought you might like to tell Spencer yourself, Ali. Maybe at your sleepover." She turned to Courtney. "Your sister is having an end-of-seventh-grade sleepover with her friends on Thursday night."
Ali gaped at her family. They were all smiling at her like they'd been brainwashed. "Telling Spencer at the sleepover means, basically, that I'm telling all my friends. And personally, I don't want to tell any of them. Courtney isn't really a family member I'm proud of having."
"Alison!" Mr. DiLaurentis lowered his fork. "Your sister is sitting right here."
All eyes darted to Courtney, who was hiding yet another smile. She straightened up and folded her hands in her lap. "It's okay, really. I was ready for some...animosity. Honest. I can't imagine what this is like for Ali to have me back." Her voice cracked, and she turned to Ali and gave her a big, doe-eyes, starving-puppy stare. "I know it's going to take some time to heal, but I really, really hope we can. You know, I used to be really angry, but now I understand that anger came from jealousy. You were totally right for wanting me in the hospital, Ali. You saved my life."
Ali's mouth fell open, but no words came out. There were actual tears in her sister's eyes. Yet again, to everyone else, she probably seemed dead sincere, but to Ali, her words were chilling. Threatening.
"Courtney!" Mrs. DiLaurentis blurted, clasping her hands at her breastbone. "That is so wonderful of you to say."
Mrs. DiLaurentis looked at Ali encouragingly, but Ali stared down at the ridges on her plate. She could feel her sister's laughing eyes upon her. All at once, she felt suffocated.
"I'm done," she blurted, catting her plate into the kitchen and nearly breaking it as she banged it against the garbage can to dispose of her uneaten piece of lasagna. And then she ran upstairs and slammed her bedroom door hard, taking heaving breaths.
This couldn't be happening. And yet, it was...and it was worse than she'd thought.
Silverware clinked downstairs. Voice murmured. That damn camera whirred again, regurgitating more pictures. Ali looked around her bedroom, feeling her heart thud in her chest. Her sister had a plan, pure and simple. Soon enough, her sister was going to find a way to expose exactly what she'd done. Maybe she had proof, somehow. Maybe she'd make up the proof. And maybe, just maybe, their parents would believe her. After all, it was the truth.
Ali shifted onto the bed, laying her head on the pillow. Something sharp poked into her skull, and she shot back up. There, on the pillowcase, lay a tiny silver bobby pin. Ali picked it up and held it in her palm. There was a sparkly star on the very tip. She knew just whose it was.
She stood up, glancing around the rest of the room for signs of drawers that had been rifled through, closet doors that had been open. Everything looked in its place. But still, a feeling of terror settled over her like a down-filled duvet. The dropped bobby pin felt like an omen. Her sister was going to take her life back—starting with her room—one dropped bobby pin at a time.