I
"Four lead riders melt the vast gardens
Four lead ghosts dig the grave of love
One, two, three innumerable murders
Behead the angel of the joy.
A rider with red eyes bestride the
Fires
Something like a distant sadness happens there
In the country of the grassland."
―Efraín Huerta, this is called the burning flames.
Violet knew all the possible endings.
She had read a lot of stories like hers, and somehow it seemed that this was written before, long before all those unfortunate events will begin, and in the years coming she noticed that, even if she wanted, she couldn´t been pulled apart from the fate that had been imposed to them.
It was logic, she told herself, what other ending could we have had but this?
She removed disturbed in the bed, she had lost her sleep. Her eyes wandered for contemplate the ghostly, white curtains in the room, flying with the autumn breeze. This was the season when the memories seemed to rebuke her more.
She felt Klaus´s arm slide around her, his warm hand against her belly, and then he kissed her neck until the memories seemed to appease and the feeling of anguish had left.
Pain and lost had put their terrible claws against them since they were so young… and Violet found herself crying, as other nights, and she cried for Sunny, for Klaus and for herself, for their innocence lost.
While the early morning hanged though the window, she turned to Klaus, caressing with soft fingers his sleepy eyes, looking for his lips urgently.
What other ending could we have had, but this?
What else had they left, but the other, and their little Sunny?
They had wandered in the world, so afraid; so alone, alone, alone, walking, crying until the early morning. And she always felt that they were the only real thing in the world. She wasn´t surprised when she found herself in love with him. Him, with his calm force and his love so painful. He understand her, and she found a wonderful peace in his arms.
Her brother.
She allowed herself to lower the guard, only for him, only that moment.
Everything began, she remembered, approximately a year after they arrival to the city. Klaus and she had been forced to find jobs for survive, had rented a little apartment in the city center where there was a nursery school four blocks away, and they took Sunny and Beatrice there.
Everyday Klaus and Violet woke up at six o´clock, as if there was any alarm to remember them to run away. Later they would wake Sunny and she made the breakfast while one or another rocked Beatrice softly.
Then Klaus would left to the library and Violet took the girls to the nursery school, and then go on to the watchmaking where she worked.
The watchmaking was a local sited in one of the principal streets, with showcases and a little room behind the bar where Violet spent most of the day. She hadn´t had to attend the customers, which was a relief. Angelina, the young employed of the bar, took care of that, and also showed the merchandise.
There Violet had installed a system that helped her to polish, disarm and renew the broken watches quickly.
Even when she had talked many times with Klaus about their respective dreams of going to the university, Violet felt happy inside that room. She liked the small space, the old table with cuts everywhere and the smell of the oil she used to grease the gears.
A particularly cold morning Violet was late. She had to get back to the apartment because Sunny had forgotten her lunch. She opened the door of the watchmaking, took off her coat because the place was warm, and said hello to Angelina.
"I´m sorry I´m late" said, looking for the key of the room of repairs; "Sunny forgot her lunch".
Angelina, who were sit reading an old magazine, put on the bar the box of the broken watches.
"It doesn´t matter, you have a lot of job today, you know? It seems like there is having a very serious case of broken watches".
Violet frowned. She took the box, and there was at least fifteen watches, everyone with name, and she thought it was unusual.
"All of these had been bring today?" she asked, putting the lights on. She left the box in the table and began preparing her tools. She pulled out a very old ribbon from her pocket, and tied up her hair.
If you knew Violet you would know that every time she tied up her hair that way it meant that she was thinking and concentrating. Angelina had saw her do that since the first day she worked there, and she thought that it was something strange, but never said anything.
"Between yesterday and today" she answered, "better you work fast, if you don´t want Mr. Fouad putting a sanction to you again".
Mr. Fouad was the owner of the store, and he was very rich. He used to appear in the store at eleven o´clock, bad humoring. Once he discovered Violet sleeping at the table and as sanction he had discounted all the day from her salary.
That had happened in the last months when Beatrice used to cry at night, afraid of her new home. Violet remembered took her from her cradle and tried to sleep in the sofa, with her against her chest.
During all morning, Violet was absorbed in the small machines, disarming, tightening screws, finding failures and fixing them. The safest of finding solutions always made her feel fine. While she looked one of the watches a sudden thought came to her mind.
She thought that the watch she was holding was known, but she couldn´t remember from where. It had a strange relieve on a side next to the bottom. A shiver run through her spine and her heart skipped a beat for an instant when she read it.
"Violet?" Angelina´s voice scared her.
"What´s happening?" she smiled at her forcibly.
She gave her two more packets.
"Thank you" said Violet.
When the door of the rom closed, the eldest of the Baudelaire allowed herself to lose the composure for a second.
She put her fingers inside the inscription of the watch, afraid, and looked at it once more time. It was so small… while she hold it she was sure that they´ll never forgot. She was sure that all that series of unfortunate events haven´t finished. Because even when she wanted deny it more than anything in the world, hey eyes were not fooling her.
She read again:
The world is quiet here.
Violet felt anxious all day. All she wanted was to get out of the watchmaking and run to the library to show that to her brother. For the first time in all the months she had been working in that place she felt that the repair room was too small, suffocating. It reminded her more of the old room which Count Olaf had assigned to them to live than something else.
She could barely concentrate after that. It was so much her distraction that she forgot to buy bread on her way to home and when Klaus had returned with the girls, her restlessness was only accentuated.
To see that inscription was to return to dark days, even though the nightmares never went away, nor the marks, even though every day there were incessant reminders. Only a volunteer (or someone who once was) could have taken that watch.
Violet wondered who it would have been, if they had done it on purpose, knowing that she would see it. She wondered which side of the schism they belonged to and what they wanted from her.
She was unusually quiet during dinner and Klaus noticed. In fact, he had realized from the moment he had come home, because generally Violet would receive Sunny with a long hug and a kiss on the forehead (as if somehow she had feared not to see her again) and charged Beatrice in her arms to sing to her.
Beatrice loved the sounds. She had become accustomed to the lullaby of the water on the island, and to the soothing sound of Sunny cooking or Klaus's voice reading something aloud. But mostly she liked the voice of Violet when she hummed ditties, something her mother used to do with them.
When Violet gave a quick hug to Sunny and a kiss on Beatrice's forehead, Klaus knew something was going on. He watched her walk back and forth from the apartment without an apparent purpose and then decided that he would ask her after dinner.
As they picked up the dishes from the table, once Sunny and Beatrice had gone to play, Klaus saw the timing.
"Violet, what's going on?" he enquired.
His sister gave him a long look and finally made a sign to follow her to the kitchen.
"Today I fixed a watch belonging to someone from V.F.D. It had an inscription, it said: the world is quiet here".
Klaus shook his head.
"It can be a coincidence, Violet. They can't have found us yet, we've gone unnoticed".
But they both knew that that was such a loose guess as to assume that all people are honest or that all vaccines are good.
Violet felt tired, and it was not for having been opening and repairing watches all morning. She looked into the room, worried, and the vision of Sunny accommodating blankets so that Beatrice could sit down without feeling the cold of the floor reassured her.
"I don't think it's a coincidence, Klaus, and you know it as well as I do. Maybe it's time for us to start cleaning up our names, maybe it's time to go to court. We can't keep hiding, we can't keep letting them think we're criminals or we´ll never run away from V.F.D."
He had come to her side. He pulled her in a hug and she buried her face in her brother's chest. During their life they had shared many hugs. They had always felt safe, loved and happy as long as they had each other, and Sunny; but a sudden spark of electricity hit them and for a second an unknown emotion ran them from head to toe. Violet felt warm fill her, installing on her cheeks and in her belly and Klaus believed that his heart would come out of her throat.
She walked away from him, muttering something about dirty dishes, while Klaus announced that it was time for Sunny to do his homework.
It wasn't the first time that happened. It had happened other times on the island, while Sun was setting and they watched Sunny splash in the water, or when the night fell on them and the dim lights were lit, and the soft music to lull Beatrice was sounding.
A spark that had never been there before flooded their skin and they were very aware of the closeness of the other. However, it never seemed close enough...
Violet tried to push those ideas out of her mind, frightened.
Klaus, however, let them flood his thoughts.