Here's a new chapter everyone! :) Enjoy!

Chapter Three: The Tower

It took us a few days before we felt confident about our plan. Well, I wouldn't say we were confident it would succeed, we just accepted that it was our only chance. Finally, we would be able to use Olaf's despicable ways to our advantage. After spending a few days debating whether we should follow through with our plan, we waited until Olaf and Esmé were out of the house again. The bald man was on duty now, but we hoped he wouldn't be too much trouble to get past.

The Quagmires snuck over to my room again. We started first, by covering up the painting of an eye that hung in my room.

"We should probably do this right away," Duncan said, "we don't know when they'll be back and we don't want to waste any time."

"I'm so scared," Isadora said, "what if we get caught?"

"We won't," I said, firmly, "we just have to act quickly. Let's go."

We walked out into the hallway and nearly crashed into the bald man.

"Watch it you three," he barked at us, "I was told by Olaf to watch you incase you were up to anything…suspicious so I suggest you behave. Especially you Blondie, you don't want any more bruises do you? If it were my choice, I would've killed you a long time ago. Now scram orphans and don't bother me again."

We sighed and headed back into my bedroom, closing the door behind us. We waited until we thought he was gone to open the door again.

"What did I tell you?" the bald man growled from where he was sitting, which was right across the hall. "Get back in that room. As long as I'm in charge, it's where you'll stay unless you want to get into trouble."

Disappointed, we went back into the room again.

"How are we going to get past him?" Isadora asked. "He looks like he's going to guard this door all day long."

I sighed heavily and sat down on my bed. "Maybe we'll have to wait for him to fall asleep or something."

"But that's a slim possibility," Duncan said, "We need to get in the tower room today. Who knows when we'll get another chance?"

"Maybe what we need is a distraction," Isadora said, "we need to lure him away from the door. Two of us could go up there."

"I guess that means I should distract him," I said, "I could just start singing again."

"No, no, I'll do it," Isadora said, "you've gotten in enough trouble already. We don't exactly want to see anymore bruises on you either, for a different reason of course."

"Either way, I'll be risking punishment," I muttered.

"I know," Duncan said, "but at least this time, you won't be the only one."

I nodded, but I knew I'd never allow the Quagmires to get hurt the way I did.

"So that leaves me to be a distraction," Isadora said, "and you and Duncan can search his tower. But what can I do?"

Isadora left the room and we could hear her reciting couplets to the bald man. This seemed to irritate him as we expected. Then, we heard Isadora break into a run and race down the stairs, the bald man chased after her.

"Let's go," Duncan said. We slipped out of the bedroom and into the hall.

I led the way to the stairs. Duncan followed, a look of fear on his face. I was scared too, I admit, but I knew I shouldn't show it. It would only make this plan seem like a terrible idea—more so than it already was—and I might chicken out. I didn't want to give the Quagmires a reason to either.

We reached the stairs, and climbed them slowly, with caution—For every time we moved to the next stair, it would creak and we had to pause to see if the bald man had heard or not. Eventually, we reached the top of the staircase and I took a deep breath in before pushing open the door to Count Olaf's tower room. Where I was forbidden to be. Duncan followed me hesitantly inside.

"One of us should stand by the door just in case," I suggested.

"I'll do it," Duncan said, taking out his dark green notebook, "let me know what you find and I'll write some notes down in here. That way we can remember them."

"Great," I said, as I scanned the awful, disgusting looking room. Thanks to Esme, it looked a little cleaner than it would have been but empty wine bottles were scattered all over the floor. A dirty shoe sat in the middle of the floor, looking like it would give even someone with the cleanest feet a wart or some kind of infection. The floor was covered in stacks of paper and an assortment of different objects. I noticed a copy of a book called Nuptial Law sitting amongst the objects. I remember Klaus telling me about Olaf's plan to marry Violet and how he had stayed up all night reading that book until he was able to figure out Count Olaf's plan.

On the walls hung many paintings of eyes that stared back at us hungrily. Across the room, a large, open window allowed a chilly breeze to come in. I remember Violet told me she had once climbed up the tower to try and rescue Sunny from a cage during the time they were living here. As I stared out the window, it made me realize just how brave she was.

"Where could the control panel be?" Duncan asked, waking me from my thoughts.

I spun around looking all around the room, studying the paintings carefully. I stopped when I caught sight of the biggest painting. It was slightly slanted, as were most of the paintings, but I had a gut feeling that it was important. I stood on my tiptoes and got so close that my nose almost touched it. I noticed on the painting, was a hole where the pupil should be. It looked so obvious now and I wondered why I hadn't realized it earlier.

I gripped the sides of the painting.

"Duncan?" I said, "Can you help me lift this please?"

Duncan put his commonplace book back in his pocket and helped me lift the painting off of the hook. We placed it on the ground near our feet. I looked up expecting to see a control panel, but all I saw was the obsolete wooden wall. Then, I noticed an even smaller hole on the wooden plank that had rested behind the painting.

Placing my hand against the rough wooden plank, I stood on my tiptoes again so I could try peeking through the hole. But I lost my balance, and leaned harder against the wooden board. It wriggled slightly and I tried pushing harder. The board moved slightly inwards. Then, with Duncan's help, we pulled the wooden board out and laid it on the ground next to the painting.

And there it was; some kind of lens.

"A camera lens," Duncan concluded, though we both already knew what it was.

I noticed underneath the lens was a small screen that looked like it worked like a monitor, though the screen at the moment was blank. And below that were a few compartments. I opened one and found a memory card in it and the compartment below…had rolls of film.

We glanced at each other with wide eyes.

"Do you think there are photos of…us on those?" Duncan asked, nervously.

I swallowed. "I-I think so…" Although we had already come to discover this from Monty Kensicle, it didn't make it any easier to see it for ourselves.

"This is awful," Duncan said, looking angry. "We need to stop this. Here, take some evidence." He started to take out some of the rolls of film.

"No, Duncan," I grabbed the rolls from him, "Count Olaf will notice they're missing if we took them all…but maybe we could take just one…there are quite a few in here. And we can take this roll to be developed and then return the roll later."

As I finished speaking, we heard the front door close. We stiffened. Count Olaf's footsteps echoed loudly in our ears.

"Where are the orphans?" we heard him say.

"Don't worry about them," Esmé said, "you've been working so hard lately, you need to just relax."

"I guess you're right," Count Olaf said, and we heard a wet noise like they were kissing that made both of us cringe.

"How can we hear them so clearly?" Duncan asked, his voice so quiet I could barely hear him.

We glanced at each other as we both realized the same thing.

"Hurry," I said, urgently, "we need to put everything back and get out of here before they see."

He hardly needed my warning, though because they were already helping me put the board back into place as well as the painting. As we did so, something fell out of one of the many compartments. I looked down and saw that it was a photo.

"Come on, Jane," Duncan said, "hurry."

"Go on ahead," I said, "I just have to check something."

"Please don't take too long," he said and hurried from the room.

I picked up the photograph and studied the picture. In the photo was a young woman in a white wedding gown. Her blonde hair was pulled neatly out of her face and she wore a bright smile. She was posing next to a well-built man with dark hair. He was wearing a black suit and was smiling. Any one could see they were truly happy. As I looked more closely at them, my head began to spin, my mouth gaping open. For I realized I knew the people in this photo. It triggered something in my memory, something that had been long forgotten.

**Flashback**

The lake was crystal clear and it stretched out before me. I was sitting on a wooden dock and all I could think about was those pretty flowers I had seen in the lake before. I stood up with shaky legs, and took a few small steps towards them. My tiny hands reached out in front of me to grab one. But as I did, I suddenly lost my balance. My legs moved from beneath me and I nearly crashed into the cold water, but someone caught me.

"Careful, sweetheart," a gentle voice said from behind me. I looked up to meet the bright blue eyes of my mother. I always loved them because they reminded me of the ocean. The rest of her face was blurry, but I knew it was pretty. "Don't go too close to the edge."

I wanted to listen to her, but I also wanted the flower. I reached my hand out toward them again.

"Do you want a flower?" she asked.

As an answer, I kept reaching for them.

"I'll get it, Abbie," the deep voice of my father came from the edge of the dock. His dark hair was soon wet as he jumped into the lake to retrieve a flower for me. "Here you go." He placed the flower in my hands, his face blurred too except for his dark green eyes. "Now, don't drop it."

I stared at the flower with so much curiosity.

"It's called a lily," my mother explained, "It's beautiful, isn't it? Just like you, sweetheart."

I squeezed my eyes shut, as the rest of my memory of that day was too blurry to remember. Tears filled my eyes. This was the only photo I've ever seen of them—of my parents.

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I know the chapters for this story have been kind of short so far, but the next chapter will be much longer :)