Part 18: Sand in Your Shoes

Previously in the Vines Inquiry— Frank contended with his family’s unique security system.

Later, outside, Harlow stood on the circular gravel drive, bouncing one heel on the loose stones. She stared at the hungry manor’s front doors, cast haunted in the meager sun, giving herself the quietest pep talk she could manage. The braid being worked through both her hands found the speech wanting. 

“It is just a house. Just go in. Get your friend. And leave.” 

Harlow had never set foot in the Big House before that morning, and judging by Frank’s phone call, she’d made the right decision. The curiosity had clawed at her, though, like it would anyone.

From teenage Harlow’s perspective, that left two options: Disobey her mother’s sternest warnings, giving Lillian the opportunity to elucidate exactly how on punishment Harlow could be…or she could snoop in Stella’s diary. 

Very much the kind of teenage girl who recognized it was a ‘diary’ and not a ‘journal,’ Harlow’s older sister Stella Voorhees kept the hardcover spiral—complete with pink fur she’d glue gunned to the front and back covers—in her nightstand in the room they shared. Harlow couldn’t remember now, but if there had been a lock, it would have been heart-shaped.

Since then, Stella had moved on to decorating the houses of rich people’s misters and mistresses in D.C. Apparently there was a big, niche market she’d cornered thanks to her easy smile and sincere lack of interest in what she called “other people’s business.”

Harlow did not possess the same restraint, and on many nights, opted to read the ever-loving crap out of Stella’s diary. 

As she read, Harlow wondered if Stella would have forfeited the information had she just asked. They were close, after all. Close enough that Harlow knew Stella would edit for her. That the spoken tales would pale in comparison to those written in perfect, gel pen cursive. Instead, she’d scoured the entries, sipping tastes of the experiences she was too nervous to savor. 

Pragmatic and prone to a wandering mind, Stella had drawn herself a map to the underground grotto where she and Dick liked to spend their time after, according to an entry dated November 7^th , 2006, she “got so lost, I almost walked right off into the bay. I swear. I walked through a door without looking and like, had to hang on for dear life. I tried to find the door again, but it had moved. I get that doors can’t move, but also, maybe they can? Also, why was there even a door to a cliff? I asked Dick and he ate me out instead. *drawing of a cat*”

“It’s just a house,” Harlow said in the present. 

She repeated similar phrases, cementing the details of her story. No, not her story. The past. History. What had happened (was) but her feet wouldn’t move. She felt, not stuck, but slow. Like the insides of her shoes were full of wet sand; a condition that no matter how often she explained it, no matter how many times she left wet, gritty footprints behind her, no one seemed to believe.

And that left her here, now, a retired college cheerleader with no idea what she wanted to do except not what she was doing. 

She was often surprised at that even a small island like Carlisle could seem so cosmic and uncaring. Somewhere so unimportant, but still heavy and inescapable.

At Bramford College frat parties, she’d been held in place by the sticky floor—the carpet so stained and trod upon it barely existed at all. She’d feel her shoulders being pressed down and into the wall where she was leaning. Her arms, no longer muscles. Inefficient and unreliable. She wouldn’t be fast enough to get away from whatever conversation, whatever dictation was being pressed on her. And even if she could slide away; a smile and a laugh, or a shove if she prayed hard. She wasn’t fast enough to help the same thing happening to another person across the room.

Save them all, save anyone, save herself. 

To her left, in the woods, a branch cracked. Harlow yelped, and said a muttered thank you Frank wasn’t around to hear her. She glanced towards the pines, grinding her sneaker into the cold wet beneath the drive now. She waited for another twig. For confirmation. 

Another branch cracked and Harlow thought of the stories townie freshman tell new students from out-of-state. Carlisle made a killing on it each year with its Halloween carnival, but part of living here her whole life meant that Harlow saw how the sausage was made. Her mother’s bar relied on the boosted October revenue as much as any small business, but that didn’t mean she had to buy into all the nonsense. The only thing scary about the Vines house, “the Big House,” was that the people who owned it probably thought Dr. Phil’s opinion on actually anything mattered. 

“We overreacted.” 

With a final steaming breath, Harlow stuck her chin up into the chilly bay air. She strode, gliding purposefully smooth and unburdened over the gravel and up the flagstone stoop. She couldn’t help checking behind her. The columns blocked some of her view. 

The drive was completely empty, save a grey truck that had already been parked when she got there. Harlow could see dog cages through one of the back doors that hung open. The small-town Samaritan part of her thought she should close it, lest some critter surprise the owner later. The part of her that was Lillian and Thomas Voorhees’ daughter stayed put and wished the truck’s owner the best in all their future endeavors. 

Harlow knocked, felt a shiver run up her body—from the cold—and then noticed the doorbell, a glowing red button tucked within decorative garland. 

“Now take another right. Uh-huh,” said Frank, talking on his phone. “You should be at the office door. What? A lever!? Um…yes. The lever… The lever that’s always been there. It has too, Harlow! Well, it’d be weird if you were familiar with my father’s office.” 

A moment and the sound of gears grinding later, the wires fell like a sigh. He saw the square of light in front of him, clotted with lethal tinsel, open as each strand sank into the floor, silently. 

“I hate to be judgmental,” said Harlow from the doorway. “But your father lives like this?” She threw her arms, gesturing to the general calamity of the office. Frank peeked out from beneath his father’s hulking desk, clothes all torn asunder. The room was destroyed, but he couldn’t see where any of the wire had come from or gone. 

“You love to be judgmental.” 

Harlow’s face cracked, the new pieces loudly saying That so? “I’ll just be on my way then.” She turned to walk back through the office door. 

“No please!” screamed Frank. Then, whispering. “The wires.” 

“The what?”

“I don’t think we overreacted.”