That summer in Rosewood, Pennsylvania, a picturesque, wealthy suburb about twenty minutes from Philadelphia, had been one of the hottest ones on record. To escape the heat, people flocked to the country club pool, gathered around the local Rita’s for extra-large strawberry Water Ices, and skinny-dipped in the duck pond at Peck’s organic cheese farm, despite the decades-old rumor that a dead body had been found there. By the third week in August, though, the weather suddenly turned autumn-like. Boys broke out their hoodies, and girls donned their brand-new, back-to-school Joe’s jeans and puffer vests. A few leaves on the trees had changed to reds and golds overnight. The Great August Cold Snap, the local news called it. It was as though the Grim Reaper had come and ripped the season clean away.

On a chilly Thursday night, a beat-up Subaru cruised down a dark street in Wessex, a town not far from Rosewood. The glowing green clock on the dashboard might have said 1:26 AM, but the four girls inside the car were wide awake. Actually, make that five girls: best friends Emily Fields, Aria Montgomery, Spencer Hastings, Hanna Marin…and a tiny, nameless baby Emily had given birth to that morning, who was crying her head off.

They drove past house after house, peering at the numbers on the mailboxes. When they approached number 204, Emily sat up straighter. “Stop,” she said over the baby’s cries. “That’s it.”

Aria, who was wearing a Fair Isle pullover she’d bought while on vacation in Iceland last month—a vacation she dreaded to even think about now—steered the car toward the curb. “Are you sure?” She eyed the modest white house. It had a basketball hoop in the driveway, a big weeping willow in the side yard, and cheerful flower beds under the front windows.

“I’ve looked at this address on the adoption form a million times.” Emily touched the window. “204 Ship Lane. This is definitely where they live.”

The car grew quiet. Even the baby stopped crying. Hanna glanced at the infant next to her in the backseat. Her tiny, perfect pink lips were pursed. Spencer looked at the baby too, then shifted uncomfortably. It was obvious what everyone was thinking: how could this have happened to sweet, obedient little Emily Fields? They’d been Emily’s best friend since sixth grade, when Alison DiLaurentis, the most popular girl at Rosewood Day, the private school they all attended, recruited them all into her new clique. Emily had always been the girl who hated badmouthing people, who never instigated a quarrel, and who preferred baggy t-shirts and sedate sleepovers to tight-fitting skirts and naughty rounds of Truth or Dare. Girls like her didn’t get pregnant.

Source: Sara Shepard