Hidden Depths

This is it, don't get scared now

Today's the day. The day I get my answers, the day I find out the truth, and more than that, the day I get to find out what went so wrong with Sloane. I finally buckled down last night and forced myself to get some sleep. I took three tablets of melatonin and ate so much food I was put into a sleep coma. 

I woke up this morning with enough energy and drive to do 3 heists. I was in my element. Going over my checklist once more that day, making the count over 15, I finally felt confident enough to go forward with it. The next obstacle though, was waiting until it was dark enough to execute it. 

Sloane's been in the hospital now for a little over a week, and still we have heard nothing of commotion coming from the house, no reports of anything being said, and therefore, I was going to go through with the plan as scheduled. Sloane may not be very happy with me when she gets out, but I have no time to worry about that right now. I'm doing this for me and Sloane. I'm asking Sloane to keep it together and stay with me so she can get her answers too, and she doesn't even know that's what I'm asking. Oh how I wish telepathy was real. 

Going over my outfit again, the escape route, the entrance route, the backup entrance route, and the backup to the backup route, I was all set. 

At about 8:00 that night, that's when I made my move. "This is it, don't get scared now." I whispered to myself, before hauling myself over the railing of the pier and into the little speed boat me and Sloane took last time. Taking the same route as last time, I made sure I stayed down really low and made as little sound as I could muster. 

Finally, the house in all of it's glory came into view. Except something was horribly, horrifically, tragically wrong with this. Because as soon as the house came into view, so did Harriet. Every light was off in the house, and the most horrendous part of it all was that Harriet was staring right at the boat, standing next to a bonfire in her back yard big enough to hit the branches on the trees. It looked as though she was burning a ton of things. 

Upon further examination, being as quiet as I could and ducking as low as I could as to not draw attention to myself, it looked as if she was burning a large chest. It looked at old as my great grandmother did before she passed, and it looked like it held some importance. I wasn't sure if she saw me or not, but by the way she was turned around, it's almost as if she was waiting. 

She looked scary anyway, as she wasnt the meatiest person I'd ever met. Her face wasn't necessarily skeletal- like, but it definitely wasn't the fullest face either, and her eyes kind of sunk in further than eyes usually do. Standing in front of that fire, she looked almost scary. She looked like Anakin Skywalker in front of the lava pit, except his silhouette was a bit taller than hers, and less frail. 

At this point I had no idea what to do, and even in my head it sounded absolutely crazy, but the only option that I had was to continue as planned. I'd just have to navigate my way through this. The thing was, I knew that this was a very risky thing to do.  but on the other hand, if I never did it, I would never have the answers I so desperately craved. I would never know how far I could have gotten because I would have never tried. I wasn't going to let this stop me from learning the truth. The actual truth was this: Harriet was sat out there, presumably waiting for something to happen, maybe she saw me, or maybe she didn't. At this point, that no longer mattered. Because the thing is, I don't think this was her first time sitting out there, watching the waters. And I also don't think this was the first time something like this had happened, either. 

See, the truth was, I believed that this had happened several times before, but nobody was successful in finding out the truth. Perhaps the other's attempts hadn't been logged at all, because maybe Harriet covered those up, too. But there was one thing I was damn certain of. I refused to be another statistic. I refused to be that one more failed attempt. I refused to back down and cower to Harriet. No. I was going to do this, not just for me, but for Sloane too. We had too much invested in this. I wasn't the only person who deserved to know. Sloane did too. And these shenanigans may or may not have been the reason she's in the hospital right now. For those reasons, and many more, I had to do this.