The last rays of sunlight fade into oblivion, and with the death of the day, comes the dawning of night. The lights of the obscure town do not fend off the consuming darkness, but rather revel in the shroud of secrecy, whispering secrets that are delighted with their sense of mystery. But where human intrusion subsides, nature provides with earnest profundity; the stars shine bright in the clearing sky, and the crescent moon hangs with a desolate string, offering luminance nonetheless.

In the small room, there is only the ticking sounds of a typewriter and the shifting shadows of static objects that gain movement by the flickering fire of a candle.

Violet lies in her bed, shivering under the thin cover and observing. She can only see Lemony's back and the dark impression of his form on the wall beside him. He taps the keys with great ardor that is unpronounced in his persona, and they protest loudly and incessantly. What could it be that he is writing? Is it an account that concerns her? Should she trust him?

She does not trust him.

But such specificities are made redundant when she lies so vulnerably mere feet away from him.

For the tenth time, she considers leaving him and setting off to find her siblings, but she is too wise to do so. Should she leave, where would she go? She is with no resources, be it information or nourishment, she has nothing. Despite his peculiar disposition, he does not seem set to harm her. If he is anything like his brother and sister, she can be certain that he never would.

But harm has befallen her by good people before. They never meant for it, but causality does not concern itself with the intents of those who perform the actions.

Her curiosity burns inside her head. She wants to know more about him. If only to relieve herself from this great discomfort and be able to shut her very tired eyes to sleep.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asks at last.

Lemony jolts, taking in a breath. So intrenched he was in his documentation, the vivid descriptions and raw emotions of stories he prefers to believe are fictional, that he forgot about being in the company of another person.

He turns to face her, and for a moment longer than what would be perceived as normal, he stares. His face betrays mild shock, eyes widening and tearing. The moonlight reflects off her face gently, making it glow, and her brown eyes are deep and inquisitive. Her burdens are many, but she warps them with the hands of an artist until what remains apparent is the beauty of wisdom, it radiates from her being, gently as to not overwhelm, but it cannot go amiss. She always does so.

She shifts slightly and furrows her eyebrows, "what is the matter?" Beatrice asks.

Beatrice?

No. Violet.

Lemony clears his throat and closes his eyes momentarily. "Nothing," he says quietly, and as quickly as fascination claimed his countenance, grim dismissal takes its place, much akin to… disappointment?

Violet is considerably confused, and it seems it is the dominant emotion she feels towards this man. He stands from his seat and trudges towards the window, hands lapsed behind his back and his face solemn. He gazes far into the townscape until he surpasses it altogether and enters the world he actually inhabits. The world of dark contrition and ghosts from the past.

Lemony opens his mouth to speak, but before a word escapes his lips, he closes it again with dismissal to whatever he was intent on saying, and wets his lips.

"I made a promise," he says.

Violet's eyes snap in his direction, contrite and dazed, "a promise?" she says softly.

He nods slowly, remembering, seeing faces so vividly, "I don't believe your parents have told you about me, but we were… colleagues," something about the way he releases his utterance, so heavily and hurt, makes Violet suspect that there is more to it than he is indulging, but she does not press.

"We go long back, before you were conceived," he continues, his voice distant, as if he has travelled to the times he speaks of. "We shared a vocation in an organization that smeared our lives indefinitely; whether we acknowledge its purpose as good or bad is of no relevance. What matters in this instance is its influence," here, his voice quietens into a bereaved whisper, "and its influence would claim the lives your parents."

Violet says nothing, and her face remains detached and grim, but she feels his words burning inside her heart.

"Your mother… she made me promise to look after any children she might beget," he lowers his head, and Violet wishes to know what it is he would not disclose, "I do not contemplate letting her down. That is why I brought you here."

"And if you have let her down?" utters Violet with a broken whisper. "I am one out of three of her children. What about Klaus and Sunny?" she continues, a tear escaping her eyes at the mention of her siblings. "You promised to take care of all of us, didn't you? Why didn't you save Klaus and Sunny? You have let her down."

When Lemony turns at the heat of her painful assertions, he sees that she is not looking in his direction. She is hugging herself tightly, face downturned and eyes wide and tearful. He recognizes this expression because he has worn it too many times to count. She is inside her own mind, her own dark world, berating and chiding herself.

"You have let her down…" she whispers again.

For the first time in his life, Lemony assumes the role of the optimist, although he might not necessarily believe the words he utters. All he knows is that he cannot bear seeing Violet in her self-destructive pit, hurting beyond her physical injuries and the pain of separation from her loved ones.

"No," he says gently, "you are simply the first one I have found."

She looks up and he wants to cry when he looks into her eyes.

He averts his gaze.

"I have not let her down," he finishes quietly and firmly.

Violet wipes a hand across her eyes and faces away, as if ashamed at her vulnerability. Crying in front of people— in this case, strangers— is something she usually goes through great lengths to avoid; her emotions set aside in favor of logic. He does not seem to judge her, however. In her current state, fetal and weeping, he shows compassion towards her that has evaded his predilection thus far.

His words soothe her a little, and she allows them to sink in. She finds herself nodding, and desolately, she says, "I hope you are right, Mr. Snicket."

Lemony sees her retreating into her covers, cocooning herself with a protective shield and shutting him out. From his documentation of the eldest Baudelaire, he knows that the Violet he has now witnessed is a well-guarded secret, shunned from prying eyes into hiding. The scared, tortured girl is buried deep within the confident, capable young woman, prevented from surfacing under strict control. But sometimes, even the most resolute of people are brought down to their knees.

Today, Violet faced a trial of gravity unprecedented before and she broke down under its crushing weight. Tomorrow, she will continue to carry the world atop her shoulders with an unaffected expression and a hand stretched out to help those who need her, never asking for help herself.

He lingers by her bedside for a while, feeling distraught and conflicted.

How he wishes he could be the help she so needs and so deserves. How he wishes he was as selfless as she.

They have both made the same promise to Beatrice Baudelaire. One of them withstood insurmountable suffering trying to protect it, and the other created an escape and called it vicarious striving. He knows that if either of them is deserving of chastisement, it is him.

Violet senses his hovering presence and she feels stifled, wishing he would leave her alone. The room is now very quiet, quiet enough to hear their individual breaths, and the candle has burnt out, sending the premises into complete obscurity.

The last words she hears before she blacks out and merges with night are a hushed admission of fears shared between the professed strangers.

"I hope so as well…"


Violet opens her eyes to warm sunlight. She finds herself overcome by deep resignation, quiet and numbing, it settles in her heart and relaxes her half-lidded eyes. It feels like floating. Last night's outpouring of emotion proves to be useful, regardless of the subtle embarrassment that nudges her in the back of her mind.

Lemony is not there, but she didn't expect him to be. With a look to her left, she sees a neatly written note and a sum of money on her pillow.

Pale fingers flip the note, and the words trail off from her lips softly, "have gone to attend some errands. Will be back when the sun meets the horizon…"

What a mystery this man is.

Violet realizes she still does not know a thing about him, and that their conversation last night merely succeeded in making him more enigmatic. Yet she shares a dwelling with him.

Her lips twist into a mirthless smile, sardonic and sad, yet bemused all the same. Her mother would not have been pleased at this arrangement.

Her bare feet lightly touch the cold of the wooden floor and she lifts herself with some difficulty from the bed, wincing all the while. The wounds are healing, but all too slowly.

With a glance from the window, she takes in a breath and decides to view this as an adventure. A town ostracized by others into isolation, scarcely touched by external influence; an innovation unique in every sense of the word. She notices the steam urging the gears into motion in a process made arduous by the untreated rust, but one that retains its grace all the same. The beauty here would be subliminal and not overt. Violet dislikes the too obvious in any case.

And so with her white, torn dress and cold bare feet, she walks the streets of Eldritch; a ghost in what is becoming a ghost town. The few townspeople glance her way with bewilderment and sometimes with scorn, but she acknowledges no beholder and looks about their forms, at the brick stoned buildings and their high chimneys.

Far in the distance stands a structure that surpasses its neighbors in altitude, stretching high as to escape the smoke from the funnels and reach the clouds of vapor. It is a clock tower.

Violet halts to take in its anatomy, admiring the details of the design. The complications are assembled into an undismountable whole, and even from afar, she can see how the cogs grind and turn, moving the hands of the clock with beautiful synchronicity.

A strange magnetic effect pulls her in its direction, her senses unaware of being moved, but rather surmising that the structure itself is moving towards her.

There comes a sudden disruption in this magnetic field and Violet finds herself repelled to the side by its exertion.

"Watch it, girl!" a gruff voice croaks, and a cane is raised threateningly in front of her face.

"I'm very sorry," says Violet, declining her head politely, regardless of inculpability.

The man halts and reconsiders. He sizes her up, digging his indented cane into the cobbled street. Slowly, he leans in towards her face, a leather clad hand rising to brush a strand of dark hair from her porcelain face.

"If it is money you need, I think I have a way you can get some," he slurs, foul breath of smoke and wine emanating with every syllable he enunciates.

Violet recoils backwards so quickly, she almost trips.

The wind strikes her with sharp needles as she runs against it, breath catching and labored. When she is certain she has escaped the man's availed reach, she stops and takes greedy gulps of air, images from a past that feels so far behind her resurfacing in her mind.

You are such a pretty girl. I will not dispose of you.

She dismisses them ardently.

The man is degenerate, Violet has no doubt about that, but she can follow his trail of reasoning. Her clothes are tattered and damaged, unfit for a worker of a respectable profession. But money has to be claimed from a source, and the mind ties the sight of a desolate, homeless-looking girl with prostitution.

She needs to buy new clothes.

Her hand withdraws from her pocket the money Lemony has placed for her, and she searches the stores around her until she finds a small parlor with different sets of attire on display. She chooses a simple black dress with a white blouse underneath; the collar of which is laced with a matching black ribbon. The kind vendor provides her with pardon when her money falls short on buying shoes; she is an elderly woman with no children of her own and great compassion for all creatures, instantly she is made sympathetic by the wretched state of the girl who entered her store.

When she exits the shop, donning clothes that are clean and comfortable, her head is held up higher and she feels more in tune with who she is— or maybe who she was? Violet is not sure.

Hunger is quick claim her every thought with nagging expediency, and whatever she planned to do is pushed to the margin. Her body is alarmingly weak, using up energy that it does not have. But where can she get food? She has used up all her money already on clothing, a decision that she is quickly regretting. How foolish of her not to account for that factor; nourishment tops the list of essentiality for survival, and she exchanged it for an object of vanity. Where is her logic that she prides herself on?

An embittered sigh escapes her and she bites her lip, trying to calm herself down.

No, she doesn't feel like herself. Everything is wrong and nothing can fix anything.

Surrender whispers to her again with such allure, and she strains her ears to listen. Sunny is not there to tug on her dress with that smile she misses so much, and neither is Klaus, who would place a comforting hand on her shoulder. We're going to get through this, he would say, we always do.

They are not here. She is all alone. Survival is meaningless if she has no one to survive for.

But her mind speaks to her in a voice it has never used before.

You are simply the first one I have found.

If there is any hope for finding her siblings, Violet will be damned if she gives up. Such selfishness on her part will not be forgiven.

She will have to return to the tavern and wait for Lemony to bring food.

When has she become so dependent on others?

Violet's frustration towards herself rises to a peak, she clenches her eyes shut with great intensity, begging her thoughts to quieten. Must she torture herself if there is no one to do so?

What great irony it is to be able to manipulate and mould objects external to one's being with the mere power of the mind, but not one's own thoughts.

There is no escaping this morbid sense of self-hatred and embittered morale. Violet makes peace with this fact and returns to the place that is not her home.


I enjoyed writing this one, I hope you enjoyed reading it. There is nothing straight forward about their thoughts and feelings, and it's like a journey I'm taking alongside them.

This chapter was inspired by "Song of the Surf" by No-Man.

Thank you to those who have reviewed. :D