10
"I say your name with all the silence of the night,
my gagged heart screams it,
I repeat your name, I say it again,
I say it tirelessly,
and I'm sure there will be sunrise."
-Your name, Jaime Sabines.
At last the Baudelaires and the Quagmires had what they had wanted from the moment they met at Prufrock High School and the Mortmain Mountains, and although at first it seemed that everything was unreal, they soon realized that they would not be separated again. Isadora, Duncan and Quigley went to the Baudelaire apartment practically every afternoon after their work, and sometimes the small apartment was full of happy noise and beloved people; one could see Justice Strauss at the head of the table chatting with Quigley, Isadora playing with Sunny while Klaus talked about research with Duncan and Violet balancing with the bottles of Bea while avoiding to step on any of the toys that were in the floor.
They had long dinners full of smiles and something warm, full of affection, and sometimes it was so late that Isadora huddled in the armchair and Violet and Klaus insisted Duncan and Quigley to sleep in their room. Fortunately, they had not disposed of Violet's bed, because it was already very difficult for them to keep their secret.
One of those nights, after Klaus had made a space for them in the girls' room, the moonlight shone very dimly on the wall, creating unusual shadows, and the chain of bells on Beatrice's crib tinkled from time to time, moved by the wind that entered through the mosquito nets. The summer heat made it almost impossible to sleep, but Sunny and Beatrice had been snoring for a while. Klaus had noticed Violet at his side stirring restlessly several times, and he was not surprised when she sighed and asked if he was still awake.
"I haven´t even tried to sleep," Klaus replied, putting an arm under her head and tossing aside the sheets, too heavy for the heat.
Violet hugged him and pressed her face against Klaus's neck for a second, inhaling his scent. And he kissed her afterwards, for a long time, as if telling her how much he had missed all day long to kiss her.
"Do you want to go outside?"
Klaus nodded.
Carefully, trying to make as little noise as possible, they slipped out of the room after checking that Sunny and Bea were okay. They crossed the room, where Isadora slept, and climbed the fire stairs to the roof.
In the city the lights shone with life, oblivious to the pain, and a warm and barely refreshing wind blew against them, causing Violet's hair to fly in all directions. Klaus could not stop his heart from stopping when he saw her, the nightgown stuck to her body, so young and adult...
She sat on the floor and patted the place next to her once.
"Come here, Klaus."
When he sat down, she hugged him again; this time he sank into her neck and Violet wrapped her arms around him. Before, she had only been a sister, now she was also a lover, companion, and his life...
"I like our life now," Violet said. "Except for Mr. Poe, for V.F.D, the secret... I like our life now."
"I wish I could tell them," Klaus replied, unable to contain himself.
He felt Violet nod.
"I know, but we can´t."
Klaus also knew that.
"Klaus, can I ask you something?"
There was a moment when a drowsy silence filled the summer air, and Klaus had almost fallen asleep.
"Whatever you want," he finally replied.
"That time, when I was nine and you were eight years old and we had to take turns between going to the inventor's museum and going to the planetarium, why did you care so much about the sky?"
When Violet mentioned it, Klaus noticed that there were no clouds to block the passage of the starlight, brilliant as the purest crystal, faraway as the life they had once had, unattainable... Klaus had liked them because the theory about the evolution and formation of the stars, and their life cycle, seemed very interesting to him.
All the stars, Klaus had read, begin in the same way: as a matter of a nebula, a cloud of gas and dust. Although in the beginning the stars share more or less the same composition, they often develop at different rates and eventually separate; they live for billions of years, and then they suffer the most violent and beautiful death of all when they explode to become, sometimes, supernovas.
Klaus had found himself thinking about the way people see the stars from Earth, and that somehow it does not matter how long human lives are, how passionate or simple, there is something very much higher.
"When you look at the sky, Violet," Klaus said then, "think that at least one of the stars that shine above have seen humanity pass by, and the world grow old."
Violet pressed closer to him.
"Then they are the memory of our lives, right?"
Fear, love, betrayal...
"The stars are the memory of the world."
Outside the sound of a horn filled the night, the city did not stop. And the world turned its enormous gears, always forward, and time did not forgive. But Klaus held Violet's face in his hands, terribly full of love, and he knew that life had an unsuspected meaning and he remembered the words of Uncle Monty. Almost as if she had read his mind, his sister whispered so that he could hear her words only in his ear.
"Life is an enigma of esoteric things."
Violet leaned back a moment, pulled out her ribbon, and tied her hair. And Klaus looked at her, all the time, because any second with her was a gift and he did not know if the next day would come. She made him feel safe; she was like warm, calm water, transparent only to him.
"I'm going to keep the memory of this moment intact," Violet said, "because everything that exists right now will never be the same again."
One day we will see it as the most remote prehistory.
The Quagmires were aware of the situation in which Sunny and Beatrice were and had promised to help them as much as they could. They also knew about V.F.D and found it a bit strange that no one had tried to contact them. They talked about it one day when Quigley had been absent all afternoon and Klaus and Violet sat at the table with Duncan and Isadora, Beatrice babbling and gesturing in Isadora's lap; Sunny preparing a cold fruit salad to snack on.
"In a way it would have been easier to find us," Duncan said, "we never had criminal charges, so there was no need to hide."
Klaus frowned.
"It's what I find most disturbing," he said, "and as much as I think about it, I do not find an answer that makes sense."
"V.F.D. he was guilty of our parents dying," sighed Isadora, waving a rattle to entertain Bea," even if it was indirectly; and I know that they believed that it was a noble organization, but one can´t be noble or evil, the human being is by nature both."
The friends were silent for a moment, and Violet got up to help Sunny carry the platter of fruit to the table. Then she helped her to get into the chair and everyone ate a few mouthfuls before the door opened, startling them.
"Hi," Quigley said, taking off his jacket to hang it on the rack. "I regret the delay, I stayed in the library studying some maps. And I think we have to talk."
The Quagmires did not have a more luxurious home than the Baudelaire apartment, but it was big enough to start storing a small library where sometimes everyone spent the morning.
"What's wrong?" Klaus asked.
"Fruit?" Sunny asked.
Quigley took a plate and began to serve himself.
"Thank you, Sunny," he replied. "What were you talking about?"
Violet had taken Beatrice and the baby was sitting at the table, causing a piece of mango to slip from between her fingers, and the older Baudelaire was trying to clean up the mess.
"We were talking about how strange V.F.D. is," she answered, "and about our parents. I can´t believe they were capable of keeping so many secrets."
Quigley composed a smile that disconcerted them.
"Then you'll love to know this," he said, "I discovered a property that our parents had together, it's a country house on the outskirts of the city, and it belongs to everyone of us."
He pulled out a map and spread it out on the table, and everyone leaned forward to see it better. Too surprised to speak, the youth examined the document for a long time.
"It's not in the will that Klaus studied," Violet said finally. "We had never heard of... and our parents... if they were so close, why have we never met you before?"
Her voice broke and she tried to compose herself. She hugged Beatrice and gently laid her cheek on the girl's head; Bea touched her neck and Violet sighed. She didn´t want to hide secrets from either Sunny or Bea; it seemed to her that their parents had become strangers and she didn´t want them to grow up feeling the same. It hurt her heart to think of the secret that she and Klaus shared and she wondered if Sunny would understand.
She could not look her sister in the eyes when she came over to give her a hug.
"The property is not in the will," Quigley agreed, "nor in the bank's records. I went to investigate it, that's why I took so long. It's like it's a ghost property. The only thing I could find about that is this map, and the scriptures."
"So, can we make use of the house?" Duncan asked, "Do you remember the project we came up with while we were at the Prufrock? Maybe we could start to make it happen. It would be amazing to be able to finally print the articles that I've been working on."
"Quagmire & Baudelaire," Sunny said, smiling.
Everyone at the table shared a smile.
"It would be incredible to get away from the city a bit, to go to the countryside," Isadora sighed.
Thinking about that gave them hope, but as they discussed all the incredible things they could do, neither Violet nor Klaus was left with the guilt that comes with the secrets.
It started raining shortly after the Quagmires left for home. Klaus had sat down at the table to continue with some of his research and Violet, who had just finished an invention, was trying to make Bea lose the fear of rain by singing to her.
She was curious at the maternal sensation that settled in her heart when she had to hold the baby in her arms, when she gently rocked her as she thought her mother had rocked her. And when she helped Sunny to cook, or when she wrapped her in the night and kissed Sunny´s forehead...
She was still very young, she knew, but in some strange way it comforted her to think that she was the mother of those two girls, at least the only one they had known. And when those thoughts came, others came that made her blush, and her heart filled with desolate longing.
Bea seemed to have finally fallen asleep, so Violet placed her gently in her crib and crossed the hall to go to the room and change her day clothes for her nightgown.
Finally she went to the kitchen to look for Sunny, and ran into her two siblings sitting at the table. Klaus tried to comfort a tearful Sunny, rinsing the tears with soft fingers and Violet could see the alarm in his eyes, a reflection of hers, and hurried to approach.
"What's wrong?" She asked, a tinge of panic slipping through her voice, "Sunny, are you okay?"
"She doesn´t want to tell me," Klaus said, anguished.
Sunny hiccupped and hid her little face in her brother's chest, hugging him so that her hands clenched into fists around the fabric of his shirt, crumpling it, but Klaus didn´t mind that. He looked at Violet.
This was not Sunny's own behavior. She had gone through many, many things. The world had been raw and rough for her very early in her life, and made her an unusual and stronger child than most. Violet could not even remember when it was the last time they had seen her like that, so broken, and that terrified her.
"Sunny, I need to know what happens. Please."
She could still feel her in her arms, she could still remember her, small and babbling, and she knew that for Sunny, Klaus and she were all the world, her everything. She felt nostalgia, a heartbreaking sadness when she realized how much she had grown up and wished she could feel Sunny again nestled in her lap, small, small.
"Can you tell us, Sun?" Klaus hugged his little sister. He wanted to tell her, he wanted her to know that he and Violet would do everything, absolutely everything for her, they would give life... a flash of fear that he had felt when Olaf took her went through his body; he would protect her, he would always protect Sunny.
"I don´t know how," Sunny admitted, soothing her sobs. Violet stroked her hair until she calmed down, but didn´t let go Klaus. Sunny looked at them, bright eyes that Violet still remembered in their father, and breathed a little to be able to speak.
Her siblings waited patiently.
"You can tell us anything," Violet whispered, "anything."
Sunny hesitated a moment before speaking.
"I wish you could be like mom and dad."
Klaus's heart stopped and he heard Violet make a strangled noise, and Sunny's tears ran back down her cheeks though she didn´t sob this time.
"What do you mean?" Violet asked, her hands shaking. "Be like them?"
Sunny stretched out her arms to hug her older sister.
"You know what I mean."
It was a relief not to have to keep secrets. Violet sighed and shared a look with Klaus. How had they believed that she would not understand? She knew better than anyone, and she always made them look things better.
"Sunny," Klaus began, "Violet and I love each other."
Sunny sighed.
"I know, but I want you to love each other the way mom and dad did."
Suddenly it seemed so laughable that Violet could not suppress a smile. That was just the proof that they had always loved each other, always...
"Sunny; Klaus and I love each other the way mom and dad did."
"Are you saying it just to make me feel better?" Sunny asked.
Klaus and Violet shook their heads.
"Of course not. It is true. We regret having kept secrets, but things are not easy..." Klaus' voice broke.
Sunny kissed her siblings in the face.
"I know. Once I said it and my teacher said that it was very wrong, and that it is abominable, but I don´t know what that word means."
Klaus finished wiping the tears from Sunny´s face, his fingers trembling and he could not look at Violet. He didn´t wanted to think about the consequences that would come upon them if it was known, and he didn´t want her to suffer because of him, he didn´t want to know what people would say about her.
"Klaus," Violet touched him, soft on the cheek, "I know what you're thinking. Forget it, we're in this together."
She did not want to say how terrified she was of the possibility of things being different.
"What's wrong?" Sunny asked, drawing their attention back.
Klaus sighed.
"Aberrant means that it is detestable," he explained, "it means that it is something so, but so bad, that it is worthy to be hated."
Sunny frowned.
"Why?"
"Because siblings should not love each other like this, Sun," Violet said, "is forbidden by law."
The three sighed, tired.
"It shouldn´t be forbidden, there's nothing wrong with two people loving each other."
Sunny was so precocious... but still didn´t know much about the world, Klaus realized; she hadn´t known more evil than Olaf, and although this had been devastating and atrocious, how could he explain to her that there are more bad things in the world you can count on? Things that made him and Violet embrace in the early hours of the morning, crying softly, surrendering in each other's arms, extinguishing the fires of the world even for a moment.
"It shouldn´t, but that's the way things are."
"Then I will not say anything," promised the youngest of the Baudelaires, "but it makes me happy to know."
"And it makes us happy to tell you."
Sunny stayed in the bedroom with them, as in the old days when they shared a single bed too small for them, with blankets too thin. Now the bed was wide and the room quiet, and their hearts were calm. And it seemed to them that they had always been her parents, that life had always been this way... and Beatrice and Bertrand Baudelaire seemed to be distant ghosts, but the Baudelaires could mourn for them and think for a moment of a paradise where they could gather together again without fear of the world.
Thank you for the reviews and the support, I hope you like this chapter as much as I like it.