Hello all! I'm back! Did you miss me?
Review Responses:
Angryfanfic: I'm trying to, I swear.
Number Ten: (Review 1) Nope, Dewey is still alive. He should pop up in this chapter, but if he doesn't, I can assure you that he'll have a big role in a chapter that's coming up. Thanks for asking! (Review 2) Another good question, but unfortunately, I can't tell you the answer. Yet.
Alysscassandra: 1a. Sure, the fight has shaken them all. 1b. Good thinking, but no, actually. 1c. You're leaning in the right direction...(Sorry, I can't yet reveal what he's hiding) 2. Ah, good guesses, but they aren't related to Lemony (as far as I'm aware of) and they are not the Duchess of Winnipeg. Don't worry, I'll reveal her identity at the end of the book. 3. You're right, of course. It is entirely up to me. 4. Thank you! You're in luck, as that is exactly what is going to happen in this chapter!
JustVildaPotter: I was wondering where you had gone! I'm glad you're back now! Yes, Larry is saved! And Zombies in the Snow is a terrible movie! 1. No idea, huh? Well, you'll see... 2. Still no idea? All will be revealed in the final chapter. 3. Thank you! I hope I do too! 4. Yes, it was what you did first.
ehlia (Review on Chapter Two): Thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
And now, on with the story!
Chapter Sixteen
The sun had set on the Hotel Denouement. As a matter of fact, it had set hours ago. The moon shone brightly over the hotel with backwards signage. As you may know, the moon emits no light of its own, but reflects the sun's light. So one could say, technically speaking, that the sun was shining. But for the sake of simplicity and upholding story-telling traditions, I'll say that the moon was shining.
The stars were out, and the city that was dirty and busy during the day was quiet and peaceful, save for a few families on road trips who were running into complications when it came to finding a cheap, but livable, motel room.
I could continue pretending that the above description was all I had to describe. I could walk away and leave this chapter unfinished, pretending that nothing at all terrible was happening to the characters. But I have sworn to tell you all the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. As a result, we must return to Duncan Quagmire. I can only say that he was living a nightmare.
Duncan Quagmire was living a nightmare. No, it wasn't one of those dreams that seem so real that they feel like one's life. This was an actual nightmare that Duncan had had several times, before, with one teeny tiny variation: it was really happening.
Duncan had been awakened in the middle of the night by the fire alarms in Hotel Denouement's underground library going off. Before he knew it, he was being herded through a secret passageway with a crowd of other orphans. After walking in the dark for what felt like miles- really it was only about one mile- with only scattered flashlight beams to light their way, the crowd had finally emerged on the lawn in front of the hotel.
Now Duncan was looking around wildly, hoping to catch sight of one of his siblings or friends. Currently, he could see no one, and he tried to ignore the constricting feeling of fear that was materializing inside of him. If there was one thing Duncan feared most in the world, it was fire, and to be exact: losing people he loved in a fire.
"Duncan!" Someone called. The boy in question spun around to see Violet running toward him, followed by Quigley and Fiona, who was holding Sunny's hand.
Violet ran to the young journalist and hugged him. Duncan could smell the smoke in her hair, which was tied up in a ribbon. This was odd, as she was wearing a concierge uniform, and Dewey had specifically instructed her not to put her hair up while dealing with the public, for fear of her being recognized from the picture in the Daily Punctilio.
"I'm so glad you're alright," whispered Violet, "no one knew where you were, and I was afraid that if you didn't get out in time, the fire would-" Violet broke off, shuddering.
"Vi," Duncan whispered back, but it was a bit more audible to people standing nearby. "This fire isn't going to kill anyone."
"That's dramatic irony if I ever heard any," Quigley remarked. "In case you're too wrapped up in your girlfriend to notice, Duncan, Klaus and Isadora aren't with us."
Fiona sighed. "Here we go," she muttered under her breath.
But instead of getting into another fight with his triplet brother, as Fiona had suspected, Duncan removed himself from Violet's embrace. He cast a glance at the burning hotel, just a short walk away. Instead of looking afraid, he looked frightened and concerned. "Then we should go and find them, shouldn't we?"
"Are you crazy?" Quigley cried out. "We'll get ourselves killed!"
"Then what do you propose we do?" Duncan's expression shifted to anger so fast you could have missed it in a blink.
Quigley shrugged. "I don't know."
"Then I'm going to find them."
Duncan began to walk in the direction of the hotel. He didn't get very far, because Quigley grabbed his wrist as he walked by.
"Don't be an idiot. Think about what you're doing. I'm sure V.F.D. can deal with this, but-"
"I'm willing to walk into a burning building if it means saving my sister's life!"
"That isn't something you should have to be willing to do!"
Quigley's last sentence hung in the air, its message clear to both Quagmire boys. Fiona tapped Violet on the shoulder with her free hand and whispered something about leaving the two triplets alone. Then the three girls walked away, in search of Kit Snicket, with whom they could discuss what was being done about the fire.
"You thought I didn't care about you and Izzy while I was gone," stated Quigley, getting straight to the point.
"I get it, you actually cared about us." Duncan crossed his arms. "What do you want?"
"What do I want?" Quigley repeated. "I want you to stop treating me like I'm some horrible villain who ruined your life."
"I haven't been-" Duncan started, then stopped as he realized that this was exactly what he had been doing. "I..." Quigley waited. "I don't know what you want me to say."
Quigley's expression become one of clear disbelief and disappointment. "How about 'I'm sorry'? Why can't you apologize for blaming me for everything?"
"I...I can't see what there is to apologize for," Duncan said slowly. In truth, he knew that he had to apologize, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Apologizing would mean admitting that he had been wrong, that it wasn't really Quigley he was mad at, but someone else, someone he couldn't possibly be upset with.
"I could give you a pretty clear idea," said Quigley in a threatening way. He looked like he was holding himself back from shouting, or worse, punching his brother out of total frustration.
"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I've been an idiot. Are you happy?" Without giving Quigley a chance to answer, Duncan spun around and walked in the direction Violet and Fiona had gone.
He found Violet sitting on the ground, her knees tucked tightly to her chest, her back against the stone wall that encircled the outer edges of the Hotel Denouement.
"Violet," he said, and she looked up.
It was obvious that Violet had been crying. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she had a lost look on her face that Duncan knew well. It was the look he got when everything had gone so wrong that he was sure nothing would ever go right again. He had seen it when he first looked in a mirror after the fire that destroyed his home, when the deaths of his parents and brother had been confirmed.
"V.F.D. isn't going to do anything," Violet managed to say after Duncan slid down into the ground next to her. "Kit called the official fire department, and they're going to send people as soon as they can, but no one knows when that will be."
Duncan nodded. He couldn't think of anything to say, and Violet went on, speaking more to herself than anyone around. "Klaus is in there, somewhere. I need to know where he is. I need to know that he's okay. I...I don't know..." Violet stopped, unable to finish the phrase 'I don't know what I would do without him.' "I promised my parents I would always look after him, and then I went and did this." She buried her face in Duncan's shoulder and whispered something that sounded like: "I'm sorry."
"What are you sorry for?" Duncan asked, rubbing Violet's shoulder. "I'm the one who separated us all."
Violet lifted her head back up. She looked off into the distance, where Quigley, standing alone, was silhouetted against the burning building. "You should talk to Quigley."
Duncan looked at the flames, watching them make their slow ascent, and realizing, for the first time, that they were burning from inside. He remembered the fire that destroyed his own home, and that it, too, had started from the inside. "I don't want to leave you alone," he said to Violet.
The young inventor smiled. "I'll be alright. Really, I will. Go on."
Quigley watched the scene from a distance. Violet seeking comfort from Duncan, which was absurd because it was always the other way around, or so he had overheard Isadora telling Sunny earlier in the day. He wondered how long it would take for Duncan to finally crack, how far the fire had to spread before he realized that Isadora was gone. Quigley's hopes had dropped the moment he had realized what was happening to the hotel. That was the nature of Quigley's life; anyone he cared about disappeared, because he did his best to push them away to prevent getting hurt if they did disappear.
That was how it had gone with Jacques Snicket. He had tried for months to take care of Quigley, had wanted desperately to become some sort of father figure, but Quigley had kept him at a safe distance. And then he disappeared. Quigley had learned from the Daily Punctilio, on the day Dr. Montgomery's house burnt down, that Jacques had been murdered. In fact, it was because of Quigley that Dr. Montgomery's house burnt down in the first place, but there are some facts that I do not need to elaborate on, even though you think you need to know.
"I need to know," said a voice. Quigley was so lost in thought that he hadn't realized that Duncan was walking back over. "Why didn't you ever come looking for us?"
"I told you," said Quigley. "I tried, but by the time I reached Prufrock Prep, you were in an elevator shaft under 667 Dark Avenue."
"Oh." Duncan looked at the building in front of him. "You know, I really am sorry. And...you aren't a villain that ruined my life."
"I know that. I only have to look in the mirror to see that I'm not Count Olaf."
"And I didn't hate you. Not really. I'm sorry if it ever seemed like I did because, it wasn't you I..."
Quigley's eyes widened as Duncan trailed off. "Our parents?"
Duncan stared at the ground and whispered: "Yes."
"Excellent. I hate them too."
"No," Duncan looked up again, alarmed. "I don't hate them. I can't hate them, not when they're-"
"You can hate someone who is dead if they were really horrible to you."
"They weren't horrible to us. They weren't even home most of the time."
"That's exactly the problem! We were raised by our butler! We never celebrated our birthday on our actual birthday! Work trips meant to last for a week would cause them to disappear for a month! They were always gone when they should have been there, but you and Isadora were too wrapped up in your books to notice!" Quigley was shouting, but he didn't care who heard.
"I agree with you," Duncan said quietly. "But they were there for us, sometimes. Remember the year they hired us each a tutor for our specific interests?"
"An yes, so they could distract us from the fact that they vanished for six months?" Quigley watched Duncan's face fall as he comprehended the truth of this particular time frame. "You know I'm right. Deep down, you've always hated them."
"I can't say that I hated them, but..." Duncan hesitated. "As far as parents go, Katherine and Cameron Quagmire are some of the worst."
"Condolences," squeaked a voice from behind Quigley. Sunny had snuck up from behind while the boys were talking, and now chose to utter a phrase which here means: "I'm sorry you had such a terrible childhood." Unfortunately, Duncan took her word as: "You shouldn't talk about your parents that way."
"You see!" Duncan gestured to Sunny. "Even the baby thinks we're crazy for thinking that way about our parents! We've got to be some of the worst children in history!"
"No loco," Sunny insisted, which meant: "I don't think you're crazy."
"Sunny doesn't think we're crazy, D," said Quigley, who was finding that he could understand the youngest Baudelaire. "She said she was sorry about what we went through."
"Helpful," Sunny said, and pulled something out of the very large pocket in her dress.
"Now she says, if there's anything she can do to help us..." Quigley's voice trailed off as he took the object from Sunny and realized what it was. A small cardboard notebook, with a pitch black cover.
Duncan seized the notebook from Quigley and began flipping through it feverishly. There were large sections of pages ripped out here and there, but there was no mistaking what it was. "Where did you get this?"
"Pock-Picket," Sunny explained.
"She says she noticed it sticking out of Count Olaf's pocket earlier today," Quigley translated.
"But...but that's impossible," Duncan said, stopping at a particular pair of pages in the notebook. "He burned the notebooks. I was sure he..." Duncan stopped as he began to read the pages, and didn't say anything more for a long time.
"Duncan, what-" Quigley looked over Duncan's shoulder at the notebook, and this is what he saw, in Isadora's handwriting:
"You may think that the Baudelaires ought to prevail, and be tucked someplace all safe and sound. Count Olaf captured and rotting in jail, his henchpeople nowhere around.
"But there's no happy endings, not here and not now, this tale is all sorrows and woes. You might dream that justice and peace win the day, but that's not how the story goes.
"You might think that two parents, both brave and both true, would live 'til a nice ripe old age. But I'm sad to say I have bad news for you: the curtain rings down on the stage.
"Yes, there's no happy endings, not here and not now, this take is all sorrows and woes. You might dream that justice and peace win the day, but that's not how the story goes."
At the bottom of the page, in an untidy scrawl that must have belonged to Count Olaf, more lines had been added to the poem:
"The world is a pair of ill-fitting pants, and other dire, hideous clothes. You may think that three children would lead pleasant lives, but that's not how the story goes.
"Some people smile at the end of the day, and some people laugh, I suppose. But to me, there's nothing but gloom and despair, that's just how the story goes. That's just how the story-"
And that was as far as Quigley got before Duncan threw the notebook to the ground, stepped on it, and began grinding the pages to pieces under his shoe.
Okay, so that chapter was all over the place. I swear I do have a plot I'm trying to get at. This isn't Cats. (I really liked that movie, even though no one else did.)
See you next chapter!