Hanna looked surprised. “Really?”
“No,” Ali blurted. The laugh that came out of her mouth was subconscious, but when she noticed the hurt look on Hanna’s face, she clamped her mouth shut. She felt crackly tonight, unbridled, totally out of control. She felt like she needed to be the most extreme Alison she could be, not only to show her sister, but to show her friends, too. No one can replace me. No one is better than I am. Don’t you dare suspect a thing.
Suddenly, she had an idea. Maybe there was a way to get her friends in her ultimate power for real. Even if they did see her sister again, they’d always side with Ali, doing whatever she wanted, which meant the two of them could never switch back. It might also be a way to erase what they’d seen for good.
“I know the perfect thing we can do,” she suggested. “I learned how to hypnotize people.”
Spencer looked worried. “Hypnotize?”
“Matt’s sister taught me,” Ali said, her excitement growing. This was perfect. She could hypnotize them and demand that they bow down to her and only her. She could also extract the memory of her sister in her bedroom from their minds. “Want to see if it works?” she asked, trying not to beg.
Everyone shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know,” Aria murmured. “Doesn’t hypnosis make you say things you don’t want to say?”
Ali gritted her teeth. “Why?” she teased. “Is there something you don’t want to tell us?” She pointed at Pigtunia. “And why are you still carrying that everywhere? Didn’t your dad give it to you?”
Aria paled, and again, Ali felt a remorseful twinge. Perhaps it had been too mean. Hanna looked sharply at her, her brow furrowed, and Spencer paused, a bite of popcorn halfway to her mouth. Ali could tell they were all working through what Ali had said in their minds. Why was Aria upset? What had Ali said? What didn’t they know?
“Being hypnotized, um, does sound sort of sketch,” Spencer blurted.
“You don’t know anything about it,” Ali insisted urgently. “C’mon. I can do all of you at once.”
She watched as they shifted their weight. A long silence prevailed. Please, she repeated silently. Please, please, please.
“I’ll do it,” Hanna piped up.
“Me, too,” Emily said.
Spencer and Aria begrudgingly shrugged, too. Ali let out a huge mental sigh.
“Okay,” she said excitedly. “Everyone sit in a circle.” She rushed around the room, shut off the lights, and lit a few votive candles sitting on the coffee table. Then she took her place at the head of the room, shut her eyes, and let out an om-like hum that sounded vaguely spiritual.
Her friends closed their eyes, too, and Ali felt even better. Maybe hypnosis really was going to work. Maybe she would be able to say some words and they’d forget. “Okay, just relax,” she said. “I’m going to count backward from one hundred. As soon as I touch all of you, you’ll be in my power.”
Emily laughed shakily. “Spooky.”
Ali began to count, padding around the room and looking at the crowns of her friends’ heads. Her voice filled the space, the numbers dropping from ninety to sixty to forty-five. At thirty, she saw a flash at the window and turned. Something black disappeared from view. Her heart skipped a beat.
“Twenty-nine . . . ,” she said, moving toward the window. Then there was another flash. She shielded her face, spots forming in front of her eyes. When her vision cleared, a figure stood on the other side of the glass, a modern-day Polaroid camera at her side. Ali almost screamed.
It was her sister.
“Twenty-eight . . . ,” Ali said with only a slight hiccup, her mind scattering in a million directions. No. She would never, ever forgive her mother for letting her sister out. What should she do now? Run out of the barn, tell her parents Courtney was loose? But then her friends would open their eyes and see the two identical twins, one on the outside, one on the inside. They’d exchange knowing glances. See? Everything we suspected was right. And what if they liked her twin more?
Should she pretend nothing was wrong, then? That didn’t seem right, either. Her sister might barge inside the barn. She might tell the truth. And then what?
Ali glanced at her friends, but they were still sitting with their eyes closed. She twisted the window blinds shut, then pulled the curtains tight, then counted through the twenties, then through the teens. She pictured her sister crouched at the window, not seeing inside anymore, but still listening. She checked the door to make sure it was bolted tight. It was. But what if Courtney got in some other way?
“Ten, nine . . .” Swallowing a lump in her throat, Ali touched her friends’ foreheads. First Aria, then Hanna, then Emily. “Three . . . two . . . ,” she incanted.