Home Sweet Home [PLL]

To Kill A Mocking Girl

After Alison's funeral, Emily had decided they needed to say goodbye to Alison, yet again, in a more personal way. This was the first time they had all been together since the night Alison disappeared, and they deserved a chance to say goodbye privately, not with the whole town eyeing them as criminals just for knowing the 'dead girl'.

Emily suggested a small memorial for her at the old shed that in the woods behind Spencer's house that they used to hang out in all the time. Her friends had agreed, thinking it sounded like a nice idea to have a personal funeral for her.

After just ten minutes of walking through the hot, sticky, woods, they all regretted the decision massively.

"Whose idea was this, again?" Lily complained as the five girls trudged deeper into the woods, avoiding stray branches, roots and insects that seemed to appear constantly.

"Emily's mum" Spencer replied with a grumble.

"The shed was me. My mum just said we should do something for us." Emily explained

"Well, couldn't we do something without mosquitoes?" Hanna complained, waving her arms around as she tried to fight them off before she was eaten alive.

"They're not mosquitoes, they're gnats." Aria pointed out

"Whatever! They're small and annoying," Hanna replied, grimacing at the mud on her shoes.

"Well, they're attracted to perfume. And hair product. And lip gloss." Spencer quipped. 

"So, what are you saying, I attract flies?" Hanna asked sarcastically.

"Gnats." Aria corrected and Hanna and Lily rolled their eyes. There was no difference between insects that small when they all did the same thing and were equally irritating.

Emily looked around at their surroundings and sighed "Why do I feel like this is the wrong way?" 

Spencer shook her head "No, this is it. I remember that tree" she pointed to a huge tree in front of them with winding vines around the bark "It's the halfway point. There's 136 steps left to the shed"

Lily eyed her warily "Have you been out here since... Alison?"

"Me? No. No way." Spencer shook her head. Memories of Alison were painful for her as well, and even though she had thought about this more than once, she had never been brave enough to face the memories on her own.

"But you remember that tree" Lily said, confused.

"You guys, it's not that weird. I mean, we came out here in eighth grade like, every day... even after" Hanna said, creating an awkward silence.

The girls all looked at each other, each thinking of their own memories of this place and how many times they used to come out here as a group. They would sit around in the dark and tell ghost stories at Halloween, they would do homework on camping chairs and blankets, and they used to blast music as loud as possible and dance and sing.

Spencer took a deep breath and said "I think this is totally the wrong place to do this. Whatever you call it.. shrine"

Emily rolled her eyes "It's not a shrine. It's just a place to remember Alison. What's wrong with that?"

"Doing it way out here makes it look like we have something to hide." Spencer explained

She scoffed "You're worried what other people think?"

"Well, aren't you? Do you really want to give that creepy Detective more reasons to question us?" Spencer said.

Hanna suddenly pushed past them to keep marching ahead, and they chased after her. "Hanna, why are you so quiet?" Emily asked