CHAPTER ONE
Dreams have, for many years, served as a source of both great inspiration and great anguish for writers. The duplicity of dreams is a peculiar phenomenon, largely because a normal person may have nightmares so garish that they dare not sleep another wink for at least a week, then later experience dreams so euphoric that they feel they would much rather sleep their whole life through. An acquaintance of mine has written an opus on the topic, and in one notable volume stated quite plainly that dreams are a reflection of one's life. I myself find dreams of little pleasure, and thus thoroughly prove this assertion, as my life could be simply described as a nightmare.
However, there are some people in our duplicitous world of ecstasy and agony who receive dreams entirely unrelated to their own lives- so queer that one may feel they are observing a movie of the life of someone entirely unfamiliar. Someone once entirely unfamiliar to me experienced this very type of dream, witnessing an event she could not possibly have faced herself. This dream I was very familiar with, it being a reality for me and the people I care most dearly about in the world. You yourself may be familiar with this dream if you unfortunately happened upon a sinister opus in your local library or bookstore known as A Series of Unfortunate Events. You may have hoped that the terrible lives of the Baudelaire orphans were just a dream, a dream you hopefully have tried to forget. Alas, it was not so. Now, after a good many years of nightmares and solitude, I must open once again the morose tale of orphaned children to you. Dearest reader, I sincerely hope you go on pretending this tale is a dream and promptly close this book, and wake up.
Beatrice Baudelaire stood in the high tiers of what had to be a circus tent. Far below her was scene of savage mob brutality; men and women of all ages were pushing and shoving one another, occasionally falling into a vast abyss in the distance. Beatrice could not be sure what this abyss contained, but she could distinctly hear the roars of some menacing beast that must be within. Extending into the abyss was a single wooden plank, where a lone cowering woman, dressed in an entirely ridiculous array of shawls and jewelry, was crying out.
"Baudelaires! I'm sorry! Please!"
Her words gave Beatrice cause to scan the surroundings for a glimpse of her lost siblings, but to no avail. The gypsy-like woman continued to plead desperately for help from the absent orphans until from the mob's violence, a tall woman emerged with a very pronounced smirk. Turning towards the quivering other, she walked in sharp stilettos towards her, leading to even more frantic screams and pleas. The taller female leaned her poised figure down and placed a perfectly manicured finger to the gypsy's lips.
"Say hello to Beatrice for me." she whispered.
Then with almost giant like force, the woman shoved the gypsy in the stomach, knocking her into the abyss, where her screams could be heard no more. Turning back towards the stunned ten year old, the remaining occupant of the plank stared directly at Beatrice and smiled wider, placing a finger to her own lips.
Beatrice screamed and desperately attempted to wake herself up.
She succeeded, only to be affronted by the very real face of the murderess: her own guardian, R.
"Hello Beatrice." she whispered with a smile.
***
Beatrice's bedroom was a film store enthusiast's version of heaven. She plastered every wall with some sort of photograph, leaving gaps only for posters from her favorite films. Ever since she was a young baby, she struggled with remembering the look of events. The faces of her older siblings, the Baudelaires, never could solidify in her mind. She once begged Phil to take her to the City Archives to see the old the Daily Punctillios in which her siblings once featured, but her guardian told her that the archives were kept in a small town in the suburbs, and was likely the victim of one of the many fires that plagued the region.
Thus, once moved in to her new home, Beatrice saved enough pocket change from odd jobs with the kitchen staff (she was quite the skilled carrot chopper) to purchase a small camera. This was a wish she only shared with her driver, Mr. Romero, who would take her into the city whenever R. was indisposed. She asked him his advice about what types of film to purchase and what type of lenses provided the most clarity. Mr. Romero, a kindly man with a face weathered by time and a past as a beach-tourism model, was most gracious to guide her toward the purple device now stowed in a box under her desk.
Sitting at the foot of her cherrywood four-poster, she scanned the walls for evidence of a woman like the gypsy in her dream. She learned in school what a gypsy was, but she was certain she had never seen a living, breathing one. She was also fairly certain that she had never been to a carnival. R. hated the suburbs and their crude entertainment. Was this a memory from her childhood, from the Baudelaires? As she continued to look at the black and white portraits above her desk, her eyes landed on one of R. Dressed in a sequined gown that spread like an inverted peeled banana to the floor, she was stunning. The eyes, so piercing and playful, seemed to challenge Beatrice's thoughts. She gasped again, taken aback from this image as much as she had been from seeing R. in the flesh moments ago.
After several silent moments of composure, Beatrice, certain it only was anxiety that drove her to such ridiculous thoughts, trekked from her room down the great marble staircase to the R.'s elaborate breakfast hall. R., being Duchess of Winnipeg, naturally had a great number of beautiful rooms in her mansion, but it was the breakfast hall that was Beatrice's favorite. An ornately decorated mahogany table sat square in the hall, adorned with festive and seasonal flowers. Immaculately polished marble statues. Top quality (and undoubtedly foreign) drapes. And the candles! R. had a distinct affection for scented candles; only the most fashionable decorated the mantles and table. Yet, each scent brought back memories of the smells Beatrice had lived her early childhood around: exotic flowers and beach wildlife. It made her feel, for a few fleeting moments, like she was safely back with her siblings, enjoying a light breakfast of wheat toast or bran.
"Darling, are you feeling alright? You looked terribly flushed this morning." startling Beatrice once more out of her fantasy, R. gracefully walked into the room. R. was a beautiful woman, who no doubt would have been quite the scarlet woman in her youth. Black hair fell to her shoulders, and her entire manner exuded an essence of luxury. At times Beatrice felt R. to be rather vain, especially in her selection of clothing – this morning a green tennis outfit entirely too tight for a woman of her age – yet there was an unmistakable grace to her that Beatrice had to admire.
"I'm fine, just a little shaken. I had a bad dream last night."
R. sipped gently on her drink – a highly fashionable wheat grass smoothie – then sat down at the end of the table. "Terrible things, nightmares. Would you like one of my nyquils? They put me to sleep without a single thought."
Beatrice politely declined the drug offer and joined R. at the table. "R., are there any circuses nearby?"
R. sipped on her wheat grass once again, but Beatrice thought she could notice a look of alarm on the other side of the glass. Before she could be sure however, R had turned away to gaze out one of the windows.
"What a queer question. There was a circus if you like to call it, miles away from here of course, down Rarely Ridden Road, a nasty place darling never visit there, known as Caligari Carnival. I had the misfortune to happen by this carnival once with my boyfriend of the time – but it is dreadful darling, don't think of it for a moment longer." R. snapped her fingers for a butler to deliver Beatrice's breakfast, but she looked significantly less pleased when she turned back to face her ward. "Now I have hired a new tennis coach to instruct me, as I have heard through the grapevine that the sport is all the rage at the moment. So if you need me at all today I'll be in the backyard, alright darling?"
Beatrice politely nodded. R. seemed to have a new hobby for every day of the year; fashion seemed to change by the hour in this house. What was queerer still was that these hobbies never required her to leave the Winnipeg mansion. Without further words, R. swept herself up from the table and out the door, blowing a kiss in Beatrice's direction.
With a sigh, the Baudelaire orphan tucked into her food and mused about just what she could do to fill her day. She had been to the library perhaps a dozen times since she'd arrived, but days absorbed in novels could only satisfy her so much. Still, she mused, it was better than Prufrock Prep.
As the bored orphan meandered out of her favorite den, her thoughts drifted to that soulless institution called Prufrock Preparatory School. I have visited the school on many occasions, both the burnt remains that had been the site of the original school, and its current emanation. Both are truly ghastly. One only has to stare at the tomblike buildings, or hazard a glance at the entryway's engraved motto, 'Memento Mori – Remember you will die,' to feel the evil that oozes from every concrete pore. During the time that Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire – Beatrice's older siblings – had attended the school, it was run by a snide and cruel vice principal by the name of Nero, who enjoyed playing his violin awfully to the poor students. The rest of the staff was an alarmingly haphazard assortment of characters of whom included a bank robber, a bananaphile, a deceased sibling of my own, and another dead person I'm not at all keen on discussing. Following the kidnapping and forced enslavement of the entire student body, and of course the murder of the school's entire administration, Prufrock Preparatory was promptly closed. Then, just for extra good measure, it was torched.
One would think no-one would dare reconsider reopening this blight of a book in the opus of academic learning, but there are those out there who are just plain mean.
Only a year later, the owner of Lucky Smells Lumbermill, a short but entirely tedious man only known as Sir, felt that principalship was the logical next step to take after managerial duties. Closer to his corporation he built a new Prufrock Preparatory, which was no less ridiculous than the original. Beatrice, during her stint at the school, never once saw Sir's face. Due to terrible scarring the new principal constantly kept it covered – a product of the fire he had only just managed to escape at Hotel Denouement. Beatrice endured not a violin, but a school ran by a parsimonious simpleton. The word parsimonious here means 'cheapskate' and simpleton means 'total idiot.' To cut spending, the floors of the classrooms were dirt. To reduce resource needs, the only classes taught were arithmetic (which only required a nonchalant and monotone voice) and technology, which was done at Lucky Smells (and involved what by any other definition would be 'hard labor.')
It was the greatest blessing of young Beatrice's life when after five years of torture; she was rescued by R. one afternoon only a year previous. The news that she could return to actual civilization in the city was the best gift she had been given since before her siblings' disappearances. Now, Beatrice mused to herself as she started absentmindedly climbing the stairs, that is enough nostalgia for right now.
Over the years, and in my lifetime the word 'years' certainly holds a lengthy girth to it, I have been through many people's attics. Often I live in people's attics when I am a guest, or more frequently, hiding from the authorities. An attic is an eerie sort of place, one that a person may avoid for many years after first storing things inside. For you see, attics house memories. Memories, like dreams, are duplicitous creatures that can cause the remembering person a great deal of pleasure or discomfort. Attics are places where memories can be shelved and left till more appropriate times. I once lived in the attic of a woman named Madame Lulu and discovered a document that indicated she had failed her clairvoyance exams. When I politely inquired with her later about the matter, this shelved memory clearly resurfaced at the wrong time, and I was thrown out of the house.
Beatrice never lived in an attic, (and to be honest, she had to admit she never lived in a proper house before) and thus was as unaware as I was of the dangers of memories when after an hour of strolling through the halls and up the staircases of Winnipeg Manor she stumbled upon a rope hanging from the ceiling. It was brilliantly odd. One must pull on things which are brilliantly odd.
The musty room revealed to her held a cornucopia of shelved memories. Boxes lined every wall, and the floor was covered with a mixture of Winnipeg memorabilia amidst absolute junk.
Clearly this wasn't R.'s first try at tennis, for right in front of the trap door were three broken rackets. Old dresses hung on a rack in the corner, as well as what appeared to be an overflowing trunk of costumes.
Should I really be here? was the question Beatrice asked of herself, and I'm afraid no one was there to tell her the answer, which was less "No" and more like "You need to get the hell out of this house altogether."
Curiosity got the better of her. Especially when she saw a box out of the corner of her eye with a series of initials she hadn't seen or heard of in a while. A series of initials more unfortunate than my entire opus on the Baudelaires. V.F.D.
With a glance over her shoulder, she quickly scampered over to the VFD box. It too was as old as the days, and appeared to have been unopened for quite some time. With a tug she yanked the cobweb covered lid off and discovered the untouched memories inside. Atop the pile laid a newspaper article, which Beatrice began to read.
Annual Winnipeg Ball A Winner!
By reporter Geraldine Julienne
At last night's spectacular Winnipeg Masked Ball, attended by anyone who was anyone (which does not include me apparently, which was utterly ridiculous and entirely insulting as I am a very distinguished journalist) has been declared the party of the year by a number of interviewed passersby. The actual events of the ball are highly secret, which would suggest suspect activities, but since everyone was wearing beautiful clothes I could hardly think they were part of any dirty organization I've written about in other articles...
Beatrice raised her eyebrows. What awful writing, she thought aloud. Oh Beatrice. If only you knew.
…..The only photo I was able to receive was one I found left on the ground outside the Winnipeg mansion, depicting the Duchess herself, as well as two uninteresting individuals of indeterminable age.
The photo that followed indeed featured three people, a man and two women. The male had his arm wrapped around both women on either of side of him, and had a foolish grin on his face. The woman to his left was a fairly tall woman with blonde hair and a brilliant smile, whose face looked almost identical to Violet Baudelaire. Yet, even this peculiar coincidence did not distract Beatrice from fervently gazing at the woman to the man's right, whom the caption beneath identified as 'R., Duchess of Winnipeg'.
This woman looked nothing like R. Nothing at all. Neither, for that matter, did the green mansion behind her look anything like the mansion she was in now. No, this was entirely different person altogether. As Beatrice anxiously laid the photo back into the box, she began to think she unpacked memories which were never meant to resurface. Ever.