"Wow, Quigley, this place…" Sunny murmured, staring at the crowded marketplace, her hand firmly clutching the older boy's. "… it's so busy…"
Quigley only smiled at the younger girl. A year ago, he found Sunny alone when he had come to visit the Baudelaires in their house. Unable to bear leaving her alone there, he brought her home, only to find that his own siblings had disappeared without a trace. No one around those parts had seen any of them, so basically, Quigley was all Sunny had left in this world, and he would protect her until the end.
"Hello!" Sunny gave a yelp as two clowns turned to face them. She held on to Quigley tight as she whimpered, scared.
Quigley patted Sunny's head. "They're just clowns, Sunny, don't be afraid!"
"Hello, little girl!" Apparently, the clowns – Quigley guessed they were about his age - were doing a Siamese twins act, wearing the same costume. Heh, Violet and Klaus did that when they had to spy on Olaf once… Quigley thought. "Want to come see the circus?"
Sunny blinked. "C-circus?"
"Yes!" The girl clown said, smiling sweetly at her. Suddenly, the smile made Quigley pine for Isadora, his triplet sister, and Duncan, his triplet brother. It was just so familiar, he couldn't help pining.
The boy clown added, "Come visit the Dark Forest Circus! Follow us!" They turned and skipped away, heading towards the Dark Forest. Quigley shivered.
They didn't make two sets of footprints; they made only one.
"Q-quigley…" Sunny whimpered. "T-the Dark Forest is s-scary at night…"
Quigley gently shushed the young Baudelaire. "It's going to be alright, Sunny. We're just going to check out the circus." As he said so, something white caught his eye, and he turned, only to stagger back as a tall man on stilts – if he was on stilts – wearing a dark blue fur jacket meant for snowy conditions came into their line of sight. His partner, an equally tall young woman – her face was so child-like that Quigley was about to say girl – with messy orange hair wearing a light green dress underneath a green fur jacket stood beside him.
"The circus is this way, mister." The man said, gesturing to a large tent a few feet away. The woman only stared forlornly at Quigley, her eyes begging to him, Don't go in there! Please!
Quigley didn't notice. "Er, thanks, mister." He held Sunny by the hand and walked towards the tent, swallowing all fear as he entered the tent.
It was smaller in the inside, if he could comment on it out loud, with a circular place that seemed to be where the performers would perform. Around it were elevated seats, with stairs for easy access to each row. There was also a closed off section near them; it appeared to be some sort of living quarters for the performers, if the noises were any indication of life.
There were two small holes in the cloth that separated the performers from the rest of the world, and Quigley dared himself to look at the top one, leaving Sunny to peek curiously as well. What they both saw made them silently gasp in horror.
Cages were scattered across the makeshift room, housing different beings. But that wasn't the worst part of it. The inhabitants were actually human, or at least, mostly human. Quigley held Sunny close as he observed the others with horror.
The one in the nearest cage was a girl, probably around the same age as Quigley, which, at the moment, was 17. She was blindfolded, and wearing a pink ballgown that was tattered and looked like a pair of scissors had run through it clumsily. Long brown hair pooled around her, and the only part of her that looked alright was the orange ribbon tying her hair, the edges frayed and burned. Quigley noted the girl's legs, which were more like a goat or a horse's than those that belonged to a girl like her.
Another cage held a boy at least two years younger than the girl – how cruel! He was so young! – with pale skin and messy brown hair. On his face was a pair of glasses, the lenses slightly cracked. He was wearing a straitjacket around his whole body, and, as his lips parted, Quigley saw sharp, animal-like teeth.
"Quigley…" Sunny whimpered. "I'm so scared…"
Someone emerged from the shadows, and Quigley and Sunny watched as the clowns that had urged them to come here come into view. The boy stifled a cry of anguish; they weren't two separate people playing as Siamese twins, they were Siamese twins! Joined at the shoulder, each having one arm and one leg. It made Quigley's heart wrench painfully. It didn't help that all of them were so achingly familiar. The clowns – clown? He didn't know what to call them anymore - knelt by the cage of the goat legged girl.
"Violet…" The boy head whispered softly. "It's us, Duncan and Isadora…"
Quigley and Sunny both froze.
The girl lifted her head sadly. A pale hand reached through the bars, reaching for the two. "Duncan… is it time for another show?"
"No…" The boy smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. He grasped Violet's hand weakly. "Me and Isadora just wanted to see you."
Quigley blinked fast. Was he hearing things?
The girl head – Isadora – looked sadly at Violet and Klaus before bursting into tears, unable to keep it all in any longer. Duncan looked at her, wiping away a tear from her eye, before gesturing to the blindfold on Violet's eyes. She nodded, and together, they removed the blindfold, revealing sorrowful brown eyes, whose gaze flickered between the two heads and the boy in the straitjacket.
"I want to get out of here…" Violet whispered. "I want… to be normal again…"
Duncan only sighed. "It… it was my fault… if I hadn't headed towards the Dark Woods… maybe Isadora wouldn't have followed, and maybe Klaus wouldn't have followed, and maybe you wouldn't have followed…"
"Do not blame yourself, brother." Isadora whispered, brushing away a lock of brown hair that blocked Violet's gaze. "You only have me to blame."
Violet only sighed and reached out to touch the cheeks of both heads. "No, stop blaming yourselves, both of you. None of you – none of us – wanted for this to happen. It was not our faults. Perhaps time had already caught up with all of us."
"But what about Quigley?" Duncan's voice rose an octave. "Why didn't they get him too?"
Quigley's blood ran cold. Now he knew why he pined for his siblings when he saw the clowns. They were his siblings, only mutilated and fused together!
A tear escaped Violet's eye. "He didn't come with us. He said he was busy with cartography. And we couldn't bring Sunny along, she's too young."
Sunny's grip on Quigley tightened, her tiny knuckles turning white.
The boy in the straitjacket whimpered slightly, making everyone turn their gazes to him. Quigley noted the tearful gaze that Isadora gave him, and suddenly, it all fell into place. Violet… and Klaus! He wanted to break them all free, but he couldn't, so he just stayed and watched the scene.
"What's wrong, Klaus?" Violet asked, her gaze softening.
Klaus turned his gaze to the group. "I hate this!" He growled uncharacteristically, writhing in place. "I hate being a monster!" As he continued to wail, Quigley and Sunny saw his teeth, sharpened like a carnivore's, making them both shudder in both fear and horror.
"We'll get you real food, Klaus." Isadora reassured the former bookworm, who was starting to cry. "I'm sorry you have to go through this."
Klaus choked out, "Thanks, Issy… I really appreciate it…"
Suddenly, Quigley couldn't take it anymore. He wanted to call out for them, but he took a wrong misstep, sending him sprawling onto the cloth, which fell down and revealed the people inside, who froze upon realizing that the curtain had fallen. Sometime during that, Sunny had gotten tangled in the cloth, and was now tearing her way out, only to see four pairs of eyes staring at them.
"… Quigley?" Violet's voice was ominously quiet.
Quigley was silent as Violet inched closer to the edge of the cage, reaching out a pale hand to touch his face. He took the hand – he was surprised at the lightness of it – and kissed it before grasping it tight. "Oh… Violet…"
"Klaus?" Sunny crawled up to her brother, tears starting to run down her face.
The glass-eyed boy cried harder. He didn't want his youngest sister to see him like this, to see him tied up like the monster he was. "Sunny, oh Sunny, I'm sorry we left you at home alone…"
"Klaus, it's OK… Quigley found me…" Sunny started to whimper, her tiny hands reaching out for her brother, who couldn't reach back because of his straitjacket. "We'll get you out of here…"
Isadora's head whipped around before she said urgently, "Quigley, Sunny, you've got to run!"
"Wha?" Quigley found himself staggering to his feet, with Duncan and Isadora holding him up.
Duncan stared at his triplet brother straight in the eye. "Quigley, you and Sunny have to get out of here! He might come and get you!"
"Who?" Quigley and Sunny looked baffled.
Violet clasped her hands over her chest. "He got us, and he got Carmelita and one of the Snow Scouts as well…"
"Carmelita… Snow Scouts…" The tall people who led them to the tent were Carmelita and one of the Snow Scouts!
Klaus pleaded, "You two have to go! Now!"
"Hurry, while there's still time before the show!" Duncan and Isadora shoved them out of a flap near the back of the tent. "Hurry!"
Out of nowhere, Carmelita appeared, kneeling down. "Follow me," She said quietly, standing up again. "You don't have much time left."
"But Duncan, Isadora, what about you?" Quigley asked as he chanced one last look at his siblings.
Duncan smiled feebly. "We'll be fine."
"Come visit again." Isadora waved her arm before they seemingly disappeared into the shadows.
Silent tears kept streaming down Sunny's cheeks as they followed Carmelita, who took care not to reveal herself to anybody except the two. She stopped beside a tree, making Quigley and Sunny bump into her.
"This is as far as I go." Carmelita stated quietly. "Follow the path and don't look back. He will come and get you if you look back. Farewell." And with that, Carmelita hurried back. Sunny was just about to look back when Quigley aptly turned her head back to the front.
"Don't look back, Sunny." Quigley muttered. "Don't look back." And with that, he grasped Sunny's hand, and burst out of the bushes, back into civilization.
After that, they never saw the Dark Forest Circus again.
Quigley never married. He spent the rest of his days trying to create a way to free Violet, Klaus, Duncan, Isadora, Carmelita, and the Snow Scout, from their prison, even if he couldn't see the Circus anymore.
Sunny stayed by Quigley's side. She became a famous cook, but she always hesitated when it came to meat dishes. Some say she is vegetarian, but only Quigley knows that the meat reminds her of Klaus's sharp teeth, and Violet's legs.
Twins always unnerved them both. They were scared to death of them, most of them reminding them both of Duncan and Isadora, the two triplets who had become permanently stuck together, unable to move without leaving the other.
There came a time when both of them disappeared from existence. No one knows where they went, but they all assumed it was correlated with the reason why Quigley never married, and the way Sunny avoided meat like the plague. However, one young girl testified to their reappearance.
She had simply wandered in the middle of the market, looking for her mother, when she had encountered a young man and a little girl, handing out flyers in the market. The man was dressed like the Mad Hatter – but with bunny ears that looked oddly like real ears – and the little girl was dressed like Alice, but all off her body was covered with stitches.
"Come to the Dark Circus!" The man had greeted her, tipping his hat.
The little girl grinned creepily. "It will be fun!"