"From too much love of living,

From hope and fear set free,

We thank with brief thanksgiving

Whatever gods may be

That no life lives for ever;

That dead men rise up never;

That even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea."

-AC Swinburne, The Garden of Proserpine

ONE

Six months after Violet Baudelaire dies, she shows up in his apartment.

It's a normal night. Fuzzy around the edges from far too much wine, the whole apartment grungy and catastrophic looking. The yellowed bulb illuminating his living room flickers like an old reel of film, a crazed spasm of light. It reminds Olaf of the pain in his temples, a constant high jab of headache that throbs behind his eyes, makes even his teeth ache.

Between the headache, the light, and the setting sun, the shadows keep changing.

He's plenty disoriented, stumbling, dropping records to the floor when he means to flip them, forgetting to guide the needle to its groove and only remembering once the silence feels too heavy.

There's a sour smell to the air.

Not one that comes from the carpet or the dishes or the alley out his open window. A rot, like mold. A fungal bloom. Some black disaster, growing in the walls.

Olaf pushes the realization away, uncaring. He has not noticed the smell in the handful of months that he has inhabited this grungy apartment, yet he's hardly been reliably aware. It was enough to get inside, get hidden, get himself used to his refined, bitter victory. He'll adapt to the smell, to the heavy drag of it in his lungs.

Easier than doing the dishes, he thinks. Or shutting the window.

He picks a record from the stack without looking at it, drops the needle more flippantly than he intends. It jerks, a fine-tipped scratch of noise, and then the music begins. It's swoopy, whining, dramatic, and not at all what he wants. Olaf makes a disgusted, annoyed grunt in the flickering light and lurches away, yanking the closest open wine bottle off the coffee table and chugging it. Only after the first few swigs does he realize its gone bad - too bitter, and rotten like the scent in the walls. Drunk as he is, though, his lips have gone numb, his tongue dull. He drains the whole bottle, watches the wine fade until he can see the deep green of the bottle bottom.

Behind him, the beat picks up. He drops the bottle to the floor, not hard enough to break. The song, not being his usual bop of bright noise - he prefers it jazzy and obnoxious - annoys him more than it should. He spins on his heel too quickly, (a dizzying jerk of color and noise, his whole body numb and vague as vapor at the edges - ) so he has to catch himself against the little metal cabinet his record player rests atop. The needle skips again. The song changes and it's not any better.

Out of the corner of his eye, the single bulb flickers out, blinks back too bright. He yanks the record from its track, fumbles for the sleeve. The silence is stark, immediate, as expansive as snowfall. Even the wind seems softer, lesser, though he hardly notices.

Later, he will think it is only due to this silence that he first notices her.

There's a choking noise, feminine, high, a brittle squeak of terror.

Olaf whirls in an instant, scrabbling for the pocket of his trousers. His switchblade is in his hand before his vision adjusts.

Outside, bleeding in, the light is so blue (the color, he thinks, of a cartoonish corpse - ) she almost looks alive. The fizzing light passes through her, out of her. Doesn't catch in the shine of her hair or the dip of her collarbones. She stands behind his couch, grabbing at her clothes - pajamas, white with red pinstripes, an embroidered heart at the breast pocket - as if she had never seen them. Her small hands fist at her stomach, catching in the buttons. Another choking noise from her, head tucked down as she examines her body. Frantic little hands. Whining like an animal.

"How'd you get in here?" Olaf demands, slurring.

Now that he can see her alone, he's hardly startled, only wondering if he can charm her into staying. She's slight beneath those pajamas, small enough to throw around. He has an immediate intrusive thought - swinging her over his shoulder, a giggle he has never heard, dumping her onto his mattress. Though his switchblade is still ready and willing in his hand. It catches the flickering bulb, gleams, another restless tic of light to warp his vision.

At his voice, her head snaps up.

There's a raw horror to her eyes that makes him uneasy.

She's far too pale. Even stuck staring at him, her mouth hanging open, her eyes desperate, denying, he recognizes her instantly.

Olaf's gut heaves, a sick lurch that has nothing to do with alcohol.

Last time he'd seen her, he had been hurrying through the Baudelaire mansion, the smell of smoke at his back, spotting her in a disgustingly cheerful family portrait, stunned into suspension despite his pursuit, saying to himself as if addressing a friend, "She's a pretty one."

And she was. With her two young siblings before her, her father at her back steady as a shadow, her mother leaning to bump their foreheads affectionately together (unified and sickening and, he thinks, a lie - ) Violet looked exactly like her mother as a young adult only softer, more feminine, a kinder ease to her eyes. Though, for all their similarities, he had never been struck by Beatrice in this exact way. All her talent and ruthlessness (and blatant, merciless independence - ) had made her an opponent more than a conquest worth attempting. The contrast between Beatrice and her daughter, even in that one picture, had been enough to make him grin, thinking - does all that purity feel like an insult?

And still. Even in death, even pale as the rising moon, Violet Baudelaire was unfathomable and lovely.

Disgusted, flat, he says like an accusation, "Baudelaire."

That sparks some awareness in Violet. She turns, glancing around his dirty apartment. There's no sound to it. No subtle press of her feet to the floor, no breath, no rustle of clothes. Her voice is shrill, sounds shattered and gravelly, as if shot through with static.

"Father?" She warbles. Those little hands still tugging at her clothes. "Father?"

"He's not here." Olaf spits. "You're dead."

He only truly realizes it once he's said it, each small observation falling into place and presenting an impossible conclusion. Olaf is sure that somewhere in his piles of mess he still has that edition of the Punctilio - BAUDELAIRE MANSION BURNT TO THE GROUND, FAMILY LOSES ELDEST DAUGHTER TO THE FLAMES. He had stared at the monochrome pictures enough to see them perfectly when his eyes closed. The skeletal, charred remains of the home and Violet printed next to them, a headshot, a candid caught mid-laugh, charming and innocent and utterly worth missing.

"You're dead," he repeats. "So what are you doing here?"

Violet's eyes find his. The utmost revulsion and horror (and something jagged with cruelty, a decimating spark of recognition - ) in them makes him grin.

"You're - " She says with a repressed, furious bite. "You. Did this to me."

She cannot even say it.

You hurt me, Violet doesn't say, though he can hear it clear and true as if she had. You killed me dead.

His grin grows wider. "Hi, Violet. Nice to see you again."

The look on her face is stunned, still, feral. She starts blinking like she's going to cry, or would, if she was able. Olaf leans back against the wall and watches her suffer, delighted with himself, entertained beyond words.

Violet shakes her head, glaring at him beneath the stark cut of her bangs, a snarl to her pretty little mouth. She closes her eyes on a wince, as if cut up by the rage in her, takes a breath, starts to speak. "You left me there - "

Olaf blinks and she's gone.

The swamping silence returns.

The light bulb flickers.

His switchblade is folded like a closed book, like a shutting door, like the lid to a casket stuffed tight with flowers.

He returns to his music triumphant and smiling.