robbers / larry au

chapter 1

Now

Harry was used to the strange feeling that hung over him whenever he stepped through the school doors. He had graduated the year before, but now was making extra money working as a history tutor for the sophomores. So, instead of his days filled with completing his own homework, they were now filled by doing other people's.The boy had expected to be in college by now with new friends since he stopped talking to all of his old ones. Those plans never seemed to blossom into reality, though. He was positive he was the last in his class to remain.

He was used to the odd glances that he received ever since Louis disappeared. Ever since that day in January, it was as if Louis had never existed in the town. The teachers hadn't mentioned him once after he was taken away, and Harry had never said anything about what he witnessed either. For two years, the memory continued to play in his head as he tried to piece together what happened. But he could never quite figure it out. He'd visited the police station, a tiny, apartment sized building, but nobody there had ever given him any answers. It had seemed that none of the officers knew anything about what had happened. And despite Harry having seen all their faces, none of them resembled the man who hauled Louis away.

Then there was Louis' old truck. Green and still smelling of mint, despite the absence of its real owner. For the first few months Harry left it in his driveway, but once it became clear nobody was coming for it, he started to use it. Nobody took notice of him driving it around, and if they did, they didn't care.

"Harry? Are you tutoring today?" His father entered the study to find him on a couch reading one of his grandfather's leather bound notebooks. The boy looked up.

"No, I wasn't up to driving in this weather. It's nasty outside." He looked towards the window with rain sliding down the glass. The storm had began around morning and it was just starting to hail. The winter months were terrible, but January was the peak of when the weather was at its worst. Harry was used to New England winters, but had never experienced anything like this before. It was during these cold months that he spent the most time in the study digging through papers and notebooks- anything that had his grandfather's handwriting in it. Sometimes he would take a pencil, trace over the letters, and try to feel what the old man was feeling when he'd written the words. Still, he remained a mystery to Harry.

"Good." His father said. "I don't want you to drive in this either, it's too risky." The room was silent for a few moments as his father took notice of the book in his son's hands. Once he recognized it as one of his father's personal journals, he spoke again. "Reading anything good?"

The boy looked up again and shrugged. "He writes about the same things. I keep trying to find a meaning for it all, but it's like everything is written in a different language. I don't understand any of it." He ran his hand through his hair, looking down at the page like it were in hieroglyphs.

His father chuckled. "He was like that. When I was younger, he always spoke to me using huge words. Everything he said would go through one ear and out the other. The man was crazy to everyone except for the people who knew what the hell he was talking about."

Harry shook his head. "No, I understand the words. But there's something about all of this that makes me not get the big picture. He keeps drawing the same topics into each other. All of these connections are driving me insane. Comparing horoscopes to drugs? What does that even mean?" He looked up at his father, desperate for some kind of answer. "People don't just write things for the hell of it, they write things for reasons. What was his reason?"

"He had his obsessions. He even had this old map of the solar system he drew up. Had connections to everything, lines leading all around the planets and symbols all over the place. maybe he was some kind of conspiracy theorist, if you can even call him that." Harry noticed his father shift his weight to the other leg.