Secrets

Chapter 16

The feeling of great relief can come many times in one's life. It could occur when you have spent countless hours on a very specific piece of work; for example a book report or perhaps the analysis of what it is like to fall in love, and to finally hand it in to your desired teacher or to stuff into a bottle and set adrift in a river, hoping that it will reach the correct person so they know you feel about them. It often feels as though the heaviest burden has been lifted from your shoulders as you no longer must think about this piece of work ever again or that perhaps you have finally been able to say what you were thinking to a person that you deeply care about. This feeling of liberation can also occur when you have found something that had thought to have been lost forever. Perhaps a book that you have read so many times that you could recite it easily without its words on the page, but still want to find it because it makes oneself look intellectual or cultured holding the favoured volume in your hands. Or maybe, the keys you need in order to escape from a perilous situation, which is found beneath a loose floorboard in a mansion that is about to be set on fire by your enemies. Another time that you may feel released from a terrible burden is when you discovered that the ring in which you were going to propose to a loving partner with is still present in your pocket, despite your fears that it had somehow ended up on a desert island somewhere. However, this reassurance is nothing compared to the great feeling of joy and relief when said partner agrees to spend the rest of their life you, no matter how short or long it may be. While many relish in this great feeling of respite and desire to feel it as often as you can, perhaps this sentiment can also come when you have discovered that someone you love has passed on, either from natural causes or in a suspicious fire and you cannot help but let the many emotions depart from your body and soul. The relief does not come by choice and while one may view this sorrowful release as healthy and positive, it often causes a person to feel much worse than they have before. It does not feel as though a burden has been released or that something lost has been found; it feels as if one has gained the heaviest weight that is almost too much for one person to bear and that you truly have lost something forever. I, myself, have felt this sorrowful sentiment many times in my life, over the loss of family, friends, and a woman I vowed to love forever. It does not make me feel any happier or reassured about my life and often makes me fear for the future of myself and the great burdens I must bear.

However, despite these feelings of relief which I experience in my life, Holly S's sentiments in her at this moment were perhaps a mixture of both because while she was free of the threatening and devious presence of Count Olaf thanks to a courageous librarian, there were still many burdens in which she carried that did not allow her to feel happy or reassured about anything. Her mind was likely filled with more questions than ever before as this terrible person not only seemed to know who the Baudelaires were but her and her family as well. She questioned what he could have possibly meant by a noble cause or the wanted posters for her uncle or how her aunt was. None of this made any sort of sense to her because as far as she knew, she had no aunt or uncle; her mother was an only child, she knew this for sure and her father never said that he had any brothers or sisters, at least in front of her. It was at this moment that she questioned every party, formal gatherings, or daytime teas, her parents ever had at their tiny seaside home, had she ever seen or met people related to her father? She had met her mother's parents until they both passed away from natural causes when she was approximately five years old, and a few of her mother's work friends, but her father was a greater mystery of where he came from and whenever she had asked him, he would not respond to her or change the subject immediately. Now, years later, Holly was becoming much more suspicious of what her father had to hide from her, what sort of secrets has he kept, and why would he know a terrible man like Count Olaf?

While these great loads of confusion and fear were still inside herself, Holly still felt relieved that she had managed to outsmart the villain, despite the fact that he seemed to know more about her family than she did and was now in the presence of a trusted adult. She managed to breathe a sigh of relief as the two of them walked down the hallway towards the school library. It is often common that one might repeat themselves when they are relieved to be out of the same room as a notoriously unpleasant villain, which is exactly what this young girl did.