Force of Nature ▸ House of Anubis [3]

chapter forty-five. house of possession

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            Harriet Denby.

            I can't believe I almost forgot about her. She's crossed my mind a few times since we discovered that she was missing from her room at Lakehouse Clinic, but with Frobisher and the eclipse and our recent expulsion/overturned expulsion, I haven't given much thought as to where she went. I guess we found her.

            "Harriet?" Eddie asks, just as shocked as the rest of us. "What are you doing here?"

            "This is the real Miss Denby," Patricia states. This is her first time meeting our evil Denby's sister. Neither she nor Alfie were with us the times we went to the clinic.

            KT steps forward slightly, telling her, "Harriet, it's me, KT. We met at the hospital."

            "Hey, it's okay," Eddie assures Harriet, who's still shaking. She's afraid. I don't blame her. Denby's had her locked up in this room for a while and apparently hadn't been feeding her much. "It's us. Do you remember us?" As he kneels in front of her, Harriet shrieks. I grab Eddie's shoulders and start to pull him back, but she screams again, and this one's loud enough to make me briefly cover my ears. Eddie shushes her and whispers, "We don't want to wake your evil sister."

            Harriet gasps sharply, and she looks at both me and Eddie. She leans forward, remembering, "You're the boy and the girl from the hospital."

            "Yeah," I confirm, glancing back at the others. Well, she remembers us. That's a good thing, isn't it? "That's us. Ashley and Eddie, do you remember?"

            Harriet nods. "That's right. I'm Harriet."

            Eddie's voice takes on a slight confused tone as my eyebrows furrow. If she remembers us, why is she introducing herself? "Yeah, we know. Uh, we've—we've met before. Remember?"

            There's a nostalgic smile on Harriet's face. "We had such fun."

            "Eddie, Ashley," KT says quickly, whispering now. She throws her arm toward the hallway. A light's come on. Patricia adds for us to come on and Fabian says we need to go.

            "Look, we have to go," Eddie tells Harriet as we stand. "We'll be back for you, okay? I promise we will." He closes the door back once we're all out and locks it, tossing the keys back into the bowl as we get out of dodge, leaving Harriet behind to get her another time. We're getting her out this time. We have to.

—

            Having Patricia as a roommate again is pretty much exactly as I remember. It's only been a few nights but at least I'm not really on the outside looking in anymore, like when I had both Patricia and Joy as roommates. And I missed having a roomie who knows about Sibuna and our mystery. I haven't had that since Amber left. I should text Amber and tell her about some of the craziness going on here—she and I have a group chat with Nina in it, who's finally decided to communicate, with us at least. She wasn't crazy about talking about Sibuna stuff without being there, but Amber talked her into it and Neens agreed on one condition: no wild recaps, but she'd give advice if I needed it, being a former Sibuna leader and all. Besides, having their expertise has come in handy sometimes. For example, Nina was the first one to suggest that maybe 'dark son' actually meant 'dark sun,' but I dismissed that because Fabian and I thought we had translated it correctly and that it referred to a male child, not a burning star.