Chapter Seven

More Than Memories, More Than Words

Within the heat of passion's war,

Lust is spilled upon the floor.

Staining red the wasted metaphor.

The selfish need for something more,

Claws in vain at closing doors.

-- Violet by The Birthday Massacre

Almost a third of the money from the black folders had been counted into piles on a table in what had been the dining room. Olaf stopped for a moment to crack his fingers and chuckle gleefully to himself. A half-empty liquor bottle lay next to another drained bottle on the floor next to his chair. Now that he had the Baudelaire fortune, perhaps he would buy himself a house—a real house, not the dump he had lived in while housing the orphans. A huge place, like the one he sat in…only more suited to his style. Maybe toss up a few paintings of eyes here and there to add to the décor.

Olaf's head was full of similar drunken musings when a shrill, frightened scream sliced through his foggy consciousness. He was instantly awake, startled into sobriety, and grabbed the knife resting under his chair before creeping cautiously into the hallway. The scream had come from the library where he had left the girl…and if something had attacked her—well, he wasn't about to be its next victim. Having reached the doorway unscathed, he quickly pushed aside what was left of the rotting wood to see Violet no longer sitting on the chaise lounge but instead sobbing on the floor in the middle of the room.

He did not approach her rapidly; instead, he continued to keep one eye on his surroundings as he brandished the knife. "What the hell is going on in here? Is there a reason for the drama, or do you just like annoying me, orphan?"

Violet looked up and her face contorted into a horrified expression so full of fearful loathing that Olaf was taken aback. She babbled to herself, more afraid of him than she had ever appeared when they had met face-to-face in their long history of confrontation.

"P-please don't hurt me, Count Olaf! I swear, I'll run away and n-never turn you in. J-just leave us alone, don't hurt us!"

It was then that Olaf realized that the fever that had caused Violet to faint was now causing her to hallucinate, her worst fears becoming reality to an overwhelming degree. He was not sure how to approach her, only that he had to stop her from doing anything too crazy—he would decide exactly why he felt the need to do so later.

Setting down the knife none too eagerly, Olaf attempted to move closer to Violet, which only made her back farther away. Sighing, he tried a technique that he had been taught with animals as a young child…one of the only things he still cared to retain from his distant childhood.

"I'm not going to hurt you." He tried to keep his voice low and soothing, and kneeled to one knee in an attempt to make himself look less intimidating. He reached out a hand slowly and let it hang open in front of him, outstretched towards the scared young woman.

"Y-you're going to kill my family! You killed my parents, and then Uncle Monty! You'll k-kill me too!"

Her fear was so pure, almost childlike. She could have been five and speaking of the monster hiding in her closet…except that her fears were all too based in murderous reality. A wrenching feeling flickered in his chest, a painful spasm that he could not identify.

"I won't harm you or your family. Come here…it's going to be all right."

She still would not move, only trembled like a small mouse facing a giant, hungry cat. Then an idea formed that he prayed would work.

"Please, Violet. Come here."

Violet jumped at the sound of her name…and that sound above all convinced her that she was not in immediate danger—after all, the real Count Olaf would never call her anything but "orphan" or "wench" or "girl", never her given name. Even in her fevered, weakened state—or perhaps because of it—she thought this true, and took the crouched man's hand timidly.

Olaf helped her stand and then realized he had very little idea of what to do with her. The wound on her head had begun to trickle a thin stream of blood down the side of her face, which she had not noticed in her state. Perhaps he could put her in the room she had stayed in so long ago…back when she and her siblings had first escaped his clutches and come to stay with their snake-crazy uncle.

He studied her ashen face carefully. "Can you walk, girl—ah, Violet?"

In response, her eyes rolled back and she slumped over, caught seconds before she crashed to the tile by the now somewhat annoyed man who held her in his arms for the second time that day. Somewhat disgusted, he bent his long limbs and scooped up his prisoner in his arms.

As he made his way out of the library and up the stairs, Olaf felt the girl shift restlessly in his arms, still delusional from her fever. Though her hands reached out and clung to his shirt-front, her eyes remained closed, restlessly moving behind their lids. She began babbling a mixture of sounds and words in which his own name was almost as common as those of her siblings.

Olaf pushed open the rotting door to the room and unfolded the bed sheets with one hand, finding the layer least covered in debris to place Violet upon. The spacious bathroom down the hall held a supply medical items that was extensive but probably expired; he grabbed what he needed anyway and returned to the bedroom.

It took him almost half an hour to sew up the cut on her forehead, and to do so he was forced to tie her arms to the bedposts to stop her thrashing from causing further injury. Olaf doubted she could feel much through her raging fever but had still applied some ice from the kitchen freezer while he searched for the needle and thread in the kit. After he had finished, a small dose from one of the amber bottles stopped her violent movements and allowed her to sink into sleep, but he had not been sure enough to give it to her before fixing the wound. A voice in the back of his mind asked him why he didn't simply dose his captive with the entire bottle, a notion which bothered him almost as much as the fact that it bothered him.

He returned to the kitchen, where half a bottle of liquor and a large sum awaited him, both to be taken care of before his new henchmen arrived.

- - -

Violet woke feeling as if she was lying in a cloud. At first, her vision was blurred and she could barely move, but after several minutes the fog had lifted enough for her to sit up…and realize where she was. She did not scream, despite everything in her being that desired to do so, but simply gazed around her at the room she had lived in so briefly after escaping Olaf's clutches for the first of many times.

Despite its decrepitude, the room that had once been hers there in Uncle Monty's house was relatively untouched by time and weather. A small portion of the ceiling had caved in and a thick layer of dust covered just about every surface, but Violet thought she could still smell the now-crumpled violets that had crusted to the glass vase atop the dresser. Monty had spent so much time making the room seem cheerful.

Spotting her reflection in the grime-spattered mirror next to the vase, Violet was surprised at how haggard she appeared. Someone—Olaf?—had stitched her wound shut tidily…but she did not remember anyone tending to the cut, only sitting next to Olaf inside the cab, and a horrible heat that she knew was fever. Her clothes and body were dirty, the only clean spot around the gash. She looked like she had throughout her ordeal at the Caligari Carnival and her journey up Slippery Slope…like she was on the run from the law, a filthy fugitive. The eyes that watched her from the mirror were cold in their appraisal.

Violet forced the door of the closet open, fighting a small pile of debris, and discovered that the clothes Monty had bought for her and her siblings still hung, albeit limply, on their hangers. She dug to the back of the closet to where Monty had reverentially placed a few of his deceased wife's dresses. Violet remembered him fondly telling her, "The poor dear would have loved to know you were wearing her fine dresses, darling. You'll look wonderful in them...as beautiful as your mother, you are." She missed his kind eyes, and had to stop to wipe her own before choosing a long, midnight blue day dress with a delicate white lace collar that had thankfully not been devoured by moths. A slightly heeled pair of black shoes, still new in their box, still fit her feet.

Before turning back to the mirror, she dug through the rest of the closet until she found a lone white ribbon—somewhat dirty but still useable. This time, she trembled at her reflection. Her face was still dirty but the dress and ribbon had transformed her into a new woman…but whether that woman was Uncle Monty's wife or Violet's own mother she could not say. She looked as if she belonged to the group that had cost the two women, and so many others, their lives. She looked like one of the VFD – all of whom had been slain by the man who had saved her life.

She hugged herself and willed herself not to cry in confusion, instead leaving the reflection of the past and quietly descending the stairs.

While checking one of the sitting rooms, she heard boisterous voices coming from what sounded like the library and laboratory. She made her way there briskly, unsure of what would occur between her and her captor…but filled with a new resolve. She was capable, healed if not whole in body and mind, and prepared to continue her mission. The fact that she was alive stood testament to the spark of good she had so long sought in Olaf, and she was resolved to make him see that it existed.

Violet pushed the glass door open, and Olaf and the large group of henchmen—perhaps twenty-five, perhaps fifty—that stood inside the laboratory turned. She had expected their attention, but what she did not expect was the reaction that her appearance prompted: Olaf leapt backward as if she had pointed a gun toward him.

His pale face indicated to what degree he was shaken—and the fact that he had been unable to maintain composure in front of his henchmen. "Christ, orphan. I-I thought you were Beatrice for a moment…Christ."

The sound of his voice, and of her mother's name, sent a thrill of apprehension through Violet as she waited for what would happen next. Olaf's henchmen had arrived, he had the Baudelaire fortune at his command, and enough bitterness to cause the world an eternity of painful penance.

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Author's Notes

I got a bit caught up in miscellany in this chapter but more action/angst will occur in the next chapter or so, promise! Updates will be a bit more sporadic than before but I will try to work on Intrigue whenever possible. Please keep sending reviews – it's wonderful to hear all the positive feedback, and just as wonderful to know what I need to work on!

Also, please be sure to let me know any ideas you have for upcoming chapters, or anything you would like to see occur – I could always use new ideas! Thanks!

Cheers,

Katrina