Chapter 10, They Live in You, Whether You Like it Or Not
Disclaimer: Aw, you guys know the drill.
A/N: And here we are with Chapter 10 of what is now without question the longest, most complex, and most sporadically updated of all the installments in the Queer Events series! Ain't that something.
Enjoy the chapter, and please remember to read and review, if you've got it in you.
I am on the case! No stopping that now.
Geraldine carefully rolled her deep red lipstick over her lips and, just to test the effectiveness of the application, blew a kiss to herself in the rearview mirror of her bright orange sedan.
"You can't screw this up, Gerry, you know that." she reminded herself sternly, "Your entire career is on the line, here!"
She pointed a finger {topped off with a delightfully red nail, to match the lipstick} at her reflection, "You are going to prove to that fat old dingbat Mr. Johnson that you can be a serious reporter, that you have what it takes to be a success, and that you can do more than write about celebrities having affairs!"
Ever since she'd popped into the Pinch-in-Your-Eye offices for work that morning and heard about A: Laura Strauss, the chief witness in the Dovecotes case going mysteriously missing, and B: Press Secretary Anwhistle opening the case for media coverage, Geraldine Julienne knew what she had to do.
If the Pinch-in-Your-Eye didn't want her help, so be it. She would do it herself. She would investigate the Dovecotes murders, publish her own findings, and...yes, the best part of all!...she'd finally be recognized as more than just a ditzy air-head.
She decided that her first step should be to investigate Strauss's disappearance, and see if there were any connections to the Dovecotes murders. There probably were, Geraldine knew that much.
So here she was, sitting in her car, parked in front of the old brownstone building in downtown Dirty Bastard {not too far from the still scorched remains of the Hotel Plot Twist, which had burnt to the ground at New Year's} where Strauss had lived.
Pretty humble accommodations for a police Lieutenant, Geraldine reflected, looking at the scratched up windows, the graffitied walls, and the smashed light fixture over the door.
Not to mention the news van and T.V cameras that surrounded the first steps...What?
"Oh, poo." Geraldine hissed, "The competition's already shown up."
Channel 6 News, Snicket Land's leading name in, you guessed it, news. For a very, very long time, Geraldine had coveted a job with them, but they'd never replied to the applications she mailed. Numerous times.
From where she sat in her car, Geraldine couldn't clearly see the reporter who stood in front of the building, surrounded by cameras so she could properly be captured at every angle, but she could hear her quite clearly.
"...the noted officer, and the first woman to ever be granted the status of 'Lieutenant' in the LSPD, was reported missing by her neighbors at eight o'clock this morning, following sounds that one neighbor described as 'a struggle'. An LSPD forensics team spent much of this morning searching Lieutenant Strauss's apartment and came up with, in their words, 'nothing of particular interest'. The apartment has been closed off from the public, in an effort to protect any evidence that may have been overlooked. This is Rosette Spats, Channel 6 news."
Geraldine gasped, "Figures!"
If Channel 6 was Snicket Land's leading name in news, Rosette Spats was Snicket Land's leading reporter. She was known far and wide, from the lowest plains of the Grasslands, to the highest peaks of the Dandruff Mountains, for being both thorough and tenacious in her reporting.
She was notorious for always {Always! Geraldine thought ruefully} getting to the bottom of a case before the competition and, sometimes, even the police themselves.
Even more annoying...she was pretty. The prettiest face in news.
And she doesn't even have to try! Geraldine mourned, All she does is put on some pinstripes and attack that red bob of hers with hairspray and she looks gorgeous!
The worst part was, she was almost ten years older than Geraldine, yet Geraldine looked older than her.
"Well, don't panic yet, Gerry." Geraldine told her reflection, "Even if that redheaded cow is on the case, so are you. And you can be every bit the reporter she is!" she popped a stick of cinnamon flavored gum into her mouth, "Or your name isn't Geraldine Julienne, intrepid reporter!"
With that, she picked up her red leather purse {which neatly matched her lipstick and nails, and contrasted nicely with her lime-green power suit, beret, and high-heeled shoes} and stepped out of her car, being careful to sneak quietly past Rosette and her retinue.
As she passed, she heard Rosette say to someone, perhaps a camera man or makeup artist, "That was killer, wasn't it? I tell you, Bobby, it's all in the attitude. News is nothing without attitude!"
With that, the cow may be right, considered Geraldine as she walked down the alley behind the building, No one ever really cares about the news unless the person delivering it has the right amount of spunk.
"And Gerry, baby, you've got spunk." she assured herself, pausing next to a smelly dumpster and a dead cat, "Now, let's see..."
She undid the clasp of her purse and rifled through it with practiced care; she didn't want to mess up her neatly-arranged supply of catalogue subscriptions.
"Ah! Here it is."
'It' was a floor plan of Laura Strauss's apartment building. With a certain savage glee, Geraldine recalled her adventure of earlier in the day, when she'd visited a member of the Dirty Bastard Home Planning Committee and gotten him suitably drunk enough to give her the floor plan for her investigation and then pass out so heavily that he'd never remember giving it to her.
I'd like to see Rosette Spats do that!
Quickly scanning the plan, Geraldine discovered that Strauss's apartment was 3F. Looking up at the back wall of the building, Geraldine counted out the windows on the third floor and quickly deduced which one belonged to 3F.
"And now comes the work out!" she said, folding the floor plan neatly and putting it back in her purse.
She didn't have much practice in this department, having never really done it before, but that didn't matter when you were fueled by determination and the thrill of the hunt.
Taking a few practice hops, Geraldine was able to catch onto the lowest rung of the fire escape ladder. She then, somewhat clumsily since she was wearing high heels, climbed onto the first platform and hurried up to the landing for the third floor.
The window for 3F was located four windows to the right of the fire escape. Adjusting the beret on her head and tightening the strap of the purse around her midsection, Geraldine swung over the railing of the fire escape, letting out a sharp gasp when she slipped a bit.
"Oh jeez..." she muttered, "Maybe I should have worn a pants suit..."
Her biggest concern was that someone passing in the alley below would see up her skirt. She hadn't worn her 'modesty panties' today, instead going with the lacey ones she'd purchased in the unlikely event a rabid fan wanted to sleep with her.
One can always hope, right?
Now, while she wasn't that good at jumping onto fire escapes, Geraldine did possess some skill at acrobatics, having been on the team in high school. She was often ridiculed for having bad form and hot-gluing glitter onto her leotard, but who cares about little details like that, anyway?
So Geraldine, after taking a few swings to steady herself, let go of the railing and vaulted over to the concrete windowsill of apartment 3F, not even cracking a nail as she did so.
"Whew!" she panted as she struggled to control her frenetic heartbeat, "And who says life ends at thirty?"
Her next step was to gain entry to the apartment before she lost her grip on the windowsill and fell down three stories, probably breaking her neck or at the very least her leg.
Luckily, Geraldine had come prepared.
Using her elbow to undo the snap on her purse, Geraldine stuck her head into the bag and withdrew it again, now holding an ivory shoe horn {you know, those things you stick in your shoe to keep them open? I'm not sure if anyone really uses them anymore} between her teeth.
With some more careful maneuvering, Geraldine transferred the shoe horn from her mouth to her right hand and, keeping balance on the windowsill with her left, wedged the horn underneath the window.
"Go, go, Gerry, go!" she cheered for herself, as she pushed up on the shoe horn, using only her right hand, for obvious reasons.
It took a while, but the window finally began to give, pushing up just a little. This was enough for Geraldine, and she let out a whoop for joy as she pushed the window open the rest of the way with her hand and, sticking the shoe horn into the pocket of her blazer for safe keeping, climbed through the window and into Laura Strauss's apartment.
However, before she could take in any details of her new surroundings, Geraldine found a gun being held in her face.
"Holy Toledo!" she gasped, backing up against the wall.
"Stand back!" demanded the pale, shaky young man holding the gun, "Come on, hands in the air, where I can see 'em!"
"What's going on here...?"
"Hands in the air!"
"Okay!" she whimpered, putting up her hands.
The man looked nearly as scared as she was, maybe even more so. He couldn't be any older than twenty-five, and was dressed very normally for a crazed gunman. He had brown hair, cut in that spiky fashion young men seemed to be favoring lately. {Geraldine had covered this topic extensively in one of her columns last February} He wore glasses, behind which he was staring at her with wide eyes, like a spooked horse.
"Who...who are you?" Geraldine asked softly, "A policeman?"
She really hoped he was. Getting arrested for breaking and entering ranked a little higher on her list than being shot dead by a mobster or something.
His breath was just now slowing down and his eyes moved up and down Geraldine, scrutinizing her, "Wait a second..." he realized, "You're Geraldine Julienne!"
"Um...I am."
"I am so sorry!" he lowered the gun almost at once and, laughing, wiped the sweat off his brow, "You must think I'm crazy!"
"Well..." she put her hands down, suddenly feeling the need to sit down, "I don't know about that..."
He went over to her and began shaking her still shaking hand with his sweaty, clammy one, "My name is Jerry Saunders, I'm probably, like, you're biggest fan!"
Geraldine suddenly found herself beaming quite brightly, "Really? Oh, that's so sweet of you! What d'you know, I'm Gerry too...well, only I call myself Gerry, but that's beside the point, isn't it?"
"I can't believe I pointed a gun at you." blushing furiously, he set the gun down on a nearby desk, "I thought you might have been Lieutenant Strauss's kidnapper or something."
"Oh?" Geraldine reminded herself why she was here, "Are you a detective?"
"Oh, no, no. The police have left for today. I, like you, am not here under, well..."
"Legal jurisdiction?" suggested Geraldine.
"Yeah. Right. I work for...well," he looked down at the floor and nervously pawed the rug with his feet, "I'm Rosette Spats's assistant. She...well, you see, she sends me to crime scenes and things to look around and, well, find things before other people..."
"Oh my God..." Geraldine gasped, putting a hand over her mouth, "That's how she does it? That's why she's always one step ahead of everyone?"
"Yeah," Jerry admitted sheepishly, "I guess I'm her secret weapon. Not that she'd ever give me the credit...she'd be found out that way and then Channel 6 would be in trouble..."
"Channel 6 authorizes all this?" said Geraldine, "But that's cheating!"
"Yeah, I...I guess it is." he smiled at her, embarrassed, "Look, I've read your column every Thursday since it came out."
"Really?" Geraldine was flattered. Though the Pinch-in-Your-Eye was, as it called itself, a daily newspaper, her gossip column was only published in the Thursday editions. Yet another example of Mr. Johnson discrediting her.
"And I kinda owe my passion for reporting to you." he was twisting his hands around in front of him, sweating nervously again, "I love how, whenever there's an affair, or someone has a baby out of wedlock, you always break everything down by the details, and you list all the possible suspects..."
"Julie's Ghoulies!" Geraldine cited the name she gave to the people she listed as 'suspects' whenever something scandalous happened in the social circles her column reported on.
"...so I guess I might as well show you some of the stuff."
"Stuff?"
"Yeah." he gestured to a yellow duffel bag lying next to the door, "Channel 6 provides us with the top-of-the-line equipment necessary to scope out crime scenes, find evidence, and search out new leads."
"So, while Rosette is down there, talking to the cameras and..." she scoffed, "looking pretty, you go behind the scenes and..."
"Snoop around," Jerry shrugged.
"So I was right." said Geraldine, smiling.
"Right about what?"
"You are a detective! Just not a licensed one."
"No, actually my college degree is dentistry." he shrugged again, "I just didn't want to be a dentist, and Rosette was scouting the university for an assistant and..." he sighed, "Here I am."
"Yeah," Geraldine agreed, "it's tough to find your big break." she looked around the room, "I'm still looking for mine."
"Really? You're...you're gonna stop writing your column?" Jerry sounded surprised.
"Gossip's fun, Jerry, but I want to be on T.V. Like your boss." she chuckled, suddenly feeling more than a little silly, "The reason I broke in here is because I figured I would solve the Dovecotes murder case before anyone else and...become famous."
"Yeah, I...I can kinda understand that." he looked at his bag of supplies and said, suddenly, "You can look around with me, if you like. Maybe we'll find something to help in your search!"
"I thought you were working for Miss Rosette?" said Geraldine.
"Ms. Spats herself always says, 'All's fair in love, war, and journalism'."
"Wise words." agreed Geraldine snappishly, making sure to snap her fingers to accentuate the point, "Now, let's get crackin'!"
"Okay." Jerry bent down behind the desk, "I must have dropped this when you turned up. It's the foremost tool when it comes to searching scenes of violent disappearances or what have you."
He straightened up again, holding what looked to Geraldine like a yellow can with a car's headlight punched into the side.
"What is it?" asked Geraldine, whose experience with fancy technology ended at combination curling irons and hair dryers.
"This," said Jerry proudly, despite himself, "is an ultra-violet light emitter. Only the highest special forces squads in the LSPD carry them." he switched on the light, causing a stripe of purple to shine in Geraldine's face, "It lets you see things that you can't see with the naked eye."
"Sounds expensive."
"It is." Jerry was on one knee now, shining the light around on the floor and under the desk, "It points out spilled beverages, blood, urine..."
"Sexual fluids?" suggested Geraldine, smirking.
"Er...yes." Jerry blushed again.
They spent the next few minutes going around the ramshackle apartment on their hands and knees, shining the U.V light in every corner, crevice, and crack.
As they were doing this, Geraldine asked Jerry, "So, what's it like working for one of the biggest names in news?"
"The biggest name in news, if you listen to her." said Jerry, taking his head out of the air vent which they were currently shining the light in, "She's not a very nice person."
"Somehow I'm not surprised."
"You know, when I first got the job as her assistant, I was thrilled. Then she told me what happened to her last assistant."
"What happened?"
"He was shot in a car chase through the Grasslands." he sighed, "With Rosette Spats, reporting isn't just telling the people the news, it's being the news."
"And it must be terrible for you." Geraldine said, "You're the reason she's so famous, and she never even acknowledges you."
"Not to mention the pay is pretty abysmal." he put the grate over the vent again and started off toward the kitchen, Geraldine following.
"She's been worse since her husband left."
"Oh yes, I heard about that."
And I would've written a killer piece about it in the column, too! But bloody Mr. Johnson didn't want to anger the competition by printing gossip about their employees.
"I don't think she really cared much about her husband," Jerry went on, opening the cabinets and checking each one with the light, "Dulcius."
"Yeah, I know. Dulcius Spats, former supermodel."
"Yep. He left her about a month ago, moved to Lake Lorraine. Some complication or other, Rosette doesn't tell me much about her life. All I know is ever since Dulcius left, she's been doing nothing but nagging and drinking."
"Really?" said Geraldine, sounding almost indecently pleased, "So she's not as well put-together and professional as she likes to think she is."
"No, she isn't." Jerry laughed a little bit with her.
Geraldine found that she liked this strange boy, even if he had tried to shoot her head off.
"Aha!"
Geraldine was snapped out of her reverie by Jerry's excited exclamation, "Look at this!"
He had the light on one of the floorboards under the bed.
"See those little glowing dots?"
Geraldine squinted and saw, indeed, a few spots that seemed to glow as if they were phosphorous.
"What is it?" said Geraldine, really hoping it wasn't 'sexual fluids'.
"Judging by the viscosity and pattern of the drops, I'd say it's blood." he shined the light on the floor surrounding the bed and on the sheets, revealing more spots of a similar nature, "A lot of it."
"So there was a struggle here, after all!" said Geraldine, getting up so fast that she wobbled in her shoes and had to grab the headboard to regain her balance.
"Maybe, but I wouldn't jump to conclusions just yet." Jerry turned off the U.V light and took a standard flashlight from his belt, "Let me see..."
Under a normal light, the Dynamic Duo of Detection {Copyright: Plot Murderer Productions, all rights reserved} could see that the floorboard that had been stained with blood was considerably looser than the ones surrounding it.
"There might be something hidden under there!" said Geraldine in a voice so high-pitched, she wasn't sure if Jerry could actually hear it.
Apparently he could, "Could be. Um...let me check my bag..."
"Never you fear, Gerry Julie is here." from her jacket Geraldine produced the shoe horn she'd used to pry open the window, "This should do, won't it?"
Jerry raised his eyebrows, impressed, "Certainly. Let's see what we've got."
Taking a deep breath for fortitude, {in case there were human organs or such things under the floorboard} Geraldine wedged the horn under the board and began to pry, "Come on, baby, do it for Gerry!" she winked at her companion, "And Jerry."
She could see him blushing again out of the corner of her eye.
Finally, the board was wedged up, revealing the cramped, dusty little space that it had covered faithfully until now.
Jerry shined his flashlight into the space and gasped sharply, "Yes! Look at this!"
He reached into the nook and pulled out a piece of notebook paper, crumpled up into a tight ball so as to easily fit under the floorboard.
"Perhaps a message from the kidnapper?" suggested Geraldine.
"Or a letter from Strauss herself!" said Jerry, unfolding the paper in his lap.
What they saw was a crazed mess of squiggles and wiggles along much of the paper, along with several little notations in a cramped, uneven handwriting.
"Looks like Strauss's handwriting." Jerry observed.
"How do you know?"
"Whenever we cover one of these things, Rosette makes me study documents and things written by the missing person. It does help, I'll give her that." Jerry turned the paper over and shined the U.V light on it, though there were no traces of blood or anything, "She must have been in a hurry when she wrote this. A hurry to write it, and a hurry to hide it. That board could have been pushed farther down; she was a strong lady from all I've heard."
Geraldine nodded, "It looks like a map, doesn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
Geraldine pointed at the various lines and notes, "She made a map. It looks like...hill country, or something, or..." she paused, "Wait a second!"
Again she reached into her purse, this time producing a pocket Atlas of Snicket Land which she kept on her person just in case.
"You carry an atlas with you?" asked Jerry, bemused.
"Believe me, kid, it helps when you're planning vacations. Not that I ever get a chance to go on vacation, but the spirit's the same." she paused in her flipping madly through the pages, jabbing her finger at a particular map, "That's it!"
"The Dandruff Mountains?"
"Yeah, look here." she traced her finger along the contours of the map in the book and compared them to the contours of Strauss's map, "It matches pretty well. She must have been doing her research."
"Look, she made a note here." Jerry pointed at one note in particular, placed at a certain point of the map and circled heavily in ink. The note read: THERE!
"What is 'there'?"
"Apparently, it's the highest peak in the range." Geraldine showed Jerry the Atlas, "Mount Fickle-Nickle. According to the 'points of interest' index, that's where the source of the Swervy Stream is. And," she looked under the heading 'Real Estate', "there's a chateau up there that is officially owned by the Snicket family."
"Royal property, eh?" said Jerry, "I wonder what Strauss wanted there."
"I don't know." admitted Geraldine, "But if you ask me, she didn't seem to be in her right mind. I mean, look at all these other notes she wrote."
She pointed them out, "The snake...took her...avenge him..." she broke off, thinking, "Well, apparently Strauss did claim a talking snake committed all the murders at Dovecotes."
"Yeah, Rosette and I heard about that. She said it was nonsense...that Strauss had probably gone crazy in that place."
Geraldine shrugged, "Maybe. But look...'avenge him'. Remember, one of her deputies was killed at Dovecotes. Carl Sandbag," she was very grateful now for doing all the research she could on the Dovecotes case after being turned down by Mr. Johnson, "Maybe she was tracking the killer, and Mount Fickle-Nickle is where he is!"
"Or," said Jerry, getting all red in the face with excitement again, "she was taken by the killer and, just before he subdued her, she managed to make a map to where he was taking her!"
"Well, they both make some kind of sense." Geraldine got back to her feet, "Whatever it is, Strauss or something..."
"...or someone..."
"...she wanted to find is on that mountain." Geraldine beamed, "And that's our next clue!"
She turned, flashing her glorious smile at Jerry, though her smile faded when she saw that he was looking nervous again.
"What's wrong, Jerry?" she asked.
"I...um...I kinda...have to tell Rosette what we found. I'm sorry, Miss Julienne..."
"You...you're going to tell...Rosette..." For the first time in the past hour, Geraldine remembered that she wasn't a hotshot reporter on the trail of a hot case, aided by her tech-savvy assistant. She was a wannabee reporter on the trail of a murderer, or kidnapper, or victim of murder, or victim of kidnapping, aided by the tech-savvy assistant of a hotshot reporter on the trail of a hot case.
"I'm sorry, but...if she found out what I was doing..."
"Oh, Jerry..." she faltered, unable to stop sounding disappointed, "You...you don't have to do anything."
"What do you mean?"
"It's you, Jerry. You can make your own decisions, can't you? You don't have to...to listen to that...that cow!"
Music began playing, which is good because we've gone two chapters without any songs.
While there will be a Disney song in this chapter, it won't be this one.
MAKE YOUR OWN KIND OF MUSIC {by Mama Cass Elliott}
{Geraldine begins sashaying, waving her hips to the music}
Geraldine: Nobody can tell ya...
There's only one song worth singing...
They may try and sell ya...
Just to do your thing's the hardest thing to do!
{she begins kicking and waving her arms}
Jerry: {speaking} What are you doing...?
Geraldine: {singing} You've gotta...
MAKE YOUR OWN KIND OF MUSIC!
Sing your own special song!
Make your own kind of music...
EVEN IF NOBODY ELSE SINGS ALONG...
Jerry: {speaking} Okay, okay...I get it.
Geraldine: I knew you would.
THE CURTAIN FALLS, OR WHATEVER
Geraldine smiled at him, "Don't you understand? You should, a smart guy like yourself. If you're so fed up with Rosette than you should leave her! Look how brilliant you are! Do you really want to waste your brilliance on the likes of her?"
Jerry chuckled, "I guess...I guess I don't. So...are you saying..."
"I'm saying that we are getting closer and closer to solving the case of the decade!" Geraldine squealed in delight again, "Whoever uncovers the Dovecotes murderer will go down in history as..."
"As a very cunning detective." said Jerry, a small smile forming on his face.
"And also a very intrepid reporter." Geraldine grinned, "Come on...we could be Jerry and Gerry: the cunning detective and the intrepid reporter!"
There was a small silence, in which Geraldine studied Jerry intently, hoping beyond hope that she would get an ally at last, a real partner to do...reporting stuff with.
And, to her delight, Jerry nodded, "Sure," he said, "sure. Let's do it!"
Geraldine was so excited that she hugged him while her purse was hanging off her shoulder, causing it to bonk him on the head.
"Oh! Oh, I'm sorry..." said Geraldine.
"No. No it's fine."
"Say," an idea had come to her suddenly, "do you have access to the Channel 6 studio?"
Jerry said, "Yeah, of course. With all Rosette denies me, she has to at least admit I work with her."
"Good, good...excellent, in fact. Come on, Jerry!" she took him by the hand, {sweaty again} "Let's go nab ourselves a Channel 6 news chopper...'cause we've got a freezing cold northern wasteland to visit!"
It had grown chilly and dry in the pit/cell combination where the four prisoners of the Snow Scouts were being kept.
Chubs knew that it had now been more than two days since he, Isadora, and Duncan had been captured by the crazed descendants of Snicket Land's first rulers. Of course, he only knew this by measuring his bowel movements and calibrating the rate of their occurrences based on the amount of time between them and their daily doses of pease pudding and sour wine. {the only reason they got wine was out of some warped respect to the 'Beggar Prince', Alphonse}
"Sun's setting about now." remarked Chubs, looking up through the bars that covered their pit, where he could just make out the sky turning from orange to dark indigo.
"Sunset...it's been quite some time since I've seen myself a real sunset." nodded Gran Pam sagely, "Not quite sure what all the fuss about it is, to be honest. The sun disappears over the horizon, gone off to shine on some part of the world that's all ocean, or heaven knows what. It comes back, it always does. That's its job."
Chubs nodded with her, "Indeed, Gran Pam. Wise words."
Isadora sighed tiredly and squinted up at the sky, "I wonder where Duncan is right now."
"Wherever he is, I'm sure he's better off than we." said Chubs.
"But he's hurt, Chubs! I don't care that the gunshot wound has closed, he's still feeling pain! That's sure enough to slow him down. Not to mention how cold it is out there...and those freaking eagles, and those blood-sucking gnats that attacked us before..."
"Well, put it that way and it sounds like he's in much more danger than us." said Chubs reasonably.
"That's not helping!"
"You nag an awful lot, don't you, girl?" remarked Gran Pam, "When I was young, back in..."
"...in the Age of Glory." chorused the three younger people.
"...the men used to smack their girls with rubber swatches when they nagged. But I suppose under the Snickets," she spat on the floor, causing the young folks to wince, "such time-honored customs have been replaced with something stupid."
There was a short silence before Chubs said, "I could do with a good smacking, myself, my rump is so sore!"
Isadora lowered her head onto her breast and heaved a deep breath, "Who would've thought my journey of self-discovery would lead me here?"
"Pardon?"
"When Duncan and I left you at the Carnival? I've already told you it was my idea to go off and look for 'the Realm of the Serpent'. Well, look where that's gotten us. My father is dead, after trying to kill us all..."
"In his defense, I don't think he ever realized you and Duncan were his long-lost children."
"Be that as it may. I'm reunited with my mother only to learn how she cast Duncan and I away so she could raise her third child to be a secret agent like herself. Then I find out that my mother has gone crazy over all the years. Then my mother runs away and becomes high priestess of caribou and snowballs up in Crazy Land."
"Watch it." hissed Gran Pam; Isadora ignored her.
"And now I'm separated from my brother, I don't know if my other brother is even still alive, my mother shows no sign of ever acknowledging that she knows I exist, and you and I, Chubs, are expected to spend the rest of our lives as these peoples' slaves."
"It's better than spending your whole life trapped in a hole, I can tell you that much." said Alphonse, speaking for the first time in a while.
Isadora looked away, embarrassed, "Yeah, I guess that's true."
They sat for some moments longer, in silence, before they heard movement up above them.
"Hello, down there!"
Bang! Bang!
"We can hear you, already, you know." said Chubs irritably, "You don't have to bang your sodding spears on the bars."
The guards who'd come to visit them grunted, "Stow it, Snicketian. From what we hear, you and your girly friend are lucky to still be alive."
"Are you going to stand up there and heckle us?" asked Gran Pam, "Or do you have something to say?"
"As a matter of fact we do." the guard spread his legs and squared his shoulders importantly, "We're marching out."
"Marching out?" asked Isadora, while Alphonse gasped and Gran Pam cried, "Leaving? Preposterous! The Snow Scouts haven't changed camp since this boy's father," she gestured at Alphonse, "was alive!"
"You speak out of turn, nursemaid," said a guard derisively, "We're not 'changing camp'. We, as in the warriors of the tribe and a select few others, are marching off to war."
Isadora cried, "What?" Chubs said, "Good Lord!" Gran Pam made a shrill sound somewhere between a gasp and an orgasmic moan, and Alphonse shakily got to his feet and said, "The Council's decided? We're going to unite the clans? We're going to invade Dirty Bastard?"
"Keep your pipe dreams to yourself, Prince." said the guard, "We're not marching against the Snickets, and s'far as I know, we don't plan on doing that for quite some time yet."
Another guard said, "We're marching on the Ninipickies of the North."
Isadora said, disbelievingly, "But I thought Alice..." she stopped herself and said, "Barbara Ross helped you defeat them. Didn't you get rid of them before we got here?"
"Oh, the girl's got bite, hasn't she?" said a guard, laughing, "D'you know what they did to girls with bite in the old days, girl?"
"I told her, but she didn't believe me." said Gran Pam, now more interested with the cobwebs sticking to her sleeves than the talk of war and charging.
The guard continued, "We thought we defeated them, but the Council just had word from a most reliable source that the Ninipickies are forming up for a second strike. They're making camp in the Valley of the Four Deuces right as we speak."
"The Valley of the Four Deuces?" Gran Pam had her attention brought back to the situation at hand at once, "But that land's sacred to the mountain clans, all of them! Those Ninipickies are a superstitious lot, they wouldn't dare to amass an army on that soil..."
"Well, they have, and it's got the Council quite upset." said the guard plainly, "So we're going over there to stop them before they get any closer to our camp. And you lot are coming with us."
The prisoners let out a delightful soup of shocked gasps and exclamations.
"Why?" demanded Isadora, "What do we have to do with...with this invasion, or whatever they're planning to do?"
"Council decree. Barbara Ross sentenced you two Snicketians," he pointed to Chubs and Isadora, "to a life of service to the tribe. The Snicketian ambassador suggested we bring you along, use you in the battle."
"Outrageous!" said Chubs, shooting to his feet, "Sirs, I haven't raised my fists in combat since I was six years old!"
"You mean the time when Violet pushed you down the slide at the playground and you split your lip?" Isadora recalled the story.
"It was a misunderstanding, and she never apologized!" roared Chubs.
"Look," Isadora told the guards, "I don't know what Sir thinks he's doing..."
"He has a close connection to our oracle, Barbara Ross..."
Isadora felt the pease pudding from lunch crawl its way up her throat, but she forced it back down.
"...we trust all he says. As for you," he looked at Alphonse, "you have spent years trying to convince the Council to reaccept you to the clan. Just today you suggested amassing in battle..."
"Against the Snicket, not against the other clans!" said Alphonse.
"...the Council wishes to see how much of a warrior life imprisonment has made you."
"This defeats the entire purpose of my plan!"
But the guards ignored him and turned to Gran Pam, "Nursemaid, are you aware of your age?"
"Oh, it's something between ninety and the triple-digits, but to tell you the truth, I lost track after eighty."
"It is costing the clan precious provisions to feed you, clothe you, and water you as a prisoner. Thus, it has been decided that you will be sent out in the first wave of battle to die."
Alphonse looked horrified, "You can't do that! She's an old woman! She's spent her entire life serving our people!"
"She's spent her life serving your family, Prince. And your family means nothing anymore."
Gran Pam shrugged peaceably, "Oh, what does it matter? I was going to die anyway, might as well cut the waiting short."
"Now come on, out you get."
The guards lowered the same rope ladder Chubs, Isadora and Alphonse had used that morning on their visit to the Commons House.
Once they were all out in the open, Gran Pam squinted mightily and breathed in the fresh mountain air with relish, the guards tied their hands together and led them off toward a wooden cart drawn by two caribou.
"You'll be riding with the explosives."
"Well, that sounds dangerous." said Chubs as they were forced into the back of the cart.
"I must say, it doesn't take long to get used to being out in the open." said Gran Pam, leaning against a crate that was, presumably, full of highly combustible materials, "It's a pity they plan to have me dead before sunrise."
"This Valley," said Isadora, wanting to distract both the old woman and herself from the imminent prospect of the battle they would be forced to fight, "you said it was sacred to the mountain clans."
"To all six of them, yes. The Dandruff Mountains hold the most of the thirteen original clans, though they are spaced out around the range. The Valley of the Four Deuces is sacred to all six because of its properties, you see."
"What sort of properties?" asked Chubs, as soldiers in full battle regalia began loading weapons and other supplies onto other caribou carts.
"It is the most alive spot in all these barren mountains. In that Valley, trees grow, flowers flourish, grass is green...the air is said to be so clean, so pure, that it has profound effects on anyone who breathes it."
"Really?" said Chubs, intrigued.
"Yes, indeed, boy. The air can give someone peace of mind, relax troubled souls, even heal physical wounds. There's a reason the Snickets' thrice-accursed ZYK had its headquarters there."
Chubs gawped, "ZYK? It's Headquarters? There?" he was unable to say anything else.
"Certainly. Of course it's been nothing but ruins for more than a decade now. From what I hear Lemony has no plans to rebuild it."
She lapsed into silence and lowered her head, probably to take one of her many naps.
Isadora looked at Chubs, her eyes wide, "ZYK H.Q."
"Indeed."
"That's where Alice sent Quigley."
"Quite right."
"Do you think...would it be too much of a stretch to suppose he was still there?"
Chubs smiled sadly at her, "I'm afraid, dear, that Gran Pam is right. That old place is nothing but ruins since Olaf took a train to it. You know it, I know it...there's no point pretending otherwise."
After staring up at the looming, gray ruins of ZYK for a longer than either Violet or Duncan could care to count, {though, as we've established, there never seemed to be anything like 'time' in the Valley of the Four Deuces} Violet hitched up the skirt of her reedy dress {because I had to call it that at least once before she gets rid of it or something} and stepped over the low, crushed wall.
"Aren't you coming?" she asked Duncan.
He looked up at the sagging walls, the pockmarked roofs, the empty, gaping windows of the facility, and heaved a great sigh, "Violet, you are by far the oddest girl I have ever met."
She smiled, glad that he was still being genial with her. Maybe they could go back to how it used to be. Eventually.
"It's all part of the charm." she held out a hand for him to take, "Come on."
Carefully, Duncan took her hand and stepped over the wall to join her. Standing within the sunken walls of the headquarters allowed the duo to see how very big the place was, and how much it had been destroyed.
Running right down the middle, evidently straight from the view of Mount Fickle-Nickle to the immediate west and going on toward the lake at the far east, there was a sunken trench of gray earth that had been frozen over time.
"And yet the ground in the rest of the Valley is all...grassy." said Violet, "Isn't it weird? It's like...nothing is allowed to grow here."
"It seems to correspond with everything we know about ZYK." said Duncan, bending down to examine the trench.
"What do we know about ZYK, really?" said Violet, "Except that our parents..." she smiled sheepishly at Duncan, "well, half of yours...worked there."
"We don't really know what they did, though. Just that Alice conducted business deals with Sir and, I suppose other people as well, but I guess she didn't see fit to mention them in her diary."
"My mother was Head of the Sociological Society," Violet said, suddenly remembering it and cursing herself for forgetting so easily, "My aunt told me. It ran in the family, I guess. My Granddad had the same position. I don't really know what the Sociological Society did, but still..."
"I wonder where the Academy is?" wondered Duncan, moving around between the buildings, running his hands along the cold, stone walls, "Where they all trained."
"ZYK Academy." murmured Violet, recalling her Aunt Olivia's lively tales of the place where she'd spent just about a year of her life before fleeing from the public eye as an outlaw, "I guess that's where it all began...for all of them."
She really didn't know a thing about her parents' childhoods; just that they'd studied at ZYK Academy before graduating and becoming...proper members, or whatever they were called.
It took a bit of poking around but they did manage to find the correct building. It had been mostly undamaged by the havoc of Olaf's train, and it stood, in its austere glory, at the very end of the 'main street' of the complex, which began at the front gates.
"It looks an awful lot like a prison," noted Duncan, "It seems to fit. I can't imagine anyone actually wanting to work here."
The doors had been removed from the entry, so Violet and Duncan stood in the doorway, feeling the cold mountain breeze whistle past them and into the school building.
"I'm game if you are." said Violet, turning to him.
"Vi, I'm not letting you out of my sight." said Duncan, "Besides, if Quigley turns out to be hiding behind a desk in some classroom, I'm going to want to introduce myself personally."
"Politely, I hope?" said Violet carefully as they stepped over the threshold.
"As politely as I can manage. I'll have to remember what you said about him missing out on...what did you call it?"
"Social skills, Duncan."
They were now standing in a wide, drafty corridor, lined with rusty metal lockers and thick, wooden doors that most likely led into classrooms. At the end of the hall, two staircases led up to the second floor, one on each side.
"It's sort of like Prufrock Prep," said Duncan, "Only...grungier."
His voice echoed in the quiet, empty space. Duncan was so surprised that he jumped a little bit, and had to balance on Violet's shoulder to catch his breath.
After that they both moved through the building in a dead silence, the only sound being their footsteps on the scratched black-and-white tiles of the floor,
The effect of the place was so eerie, so desolate, that it made Violet's heart do a polka in her breast. She could tell Duncan was just as frightened, if not more so, than she was.
The classrooms turned out to be routinely uninteresting and not beyond expectation. Chalk boards, coated with the dust of neglect, wooden desks, some turned over onto their side, as if no one had ever bothered to put them upright after the students ran out, panicking, the day of the train.
The second floor turned out to contain dorm rooms. Aunt Olivia hadn't mentioned the number of the room she'd shared with Esme Squalor...Esmeralda Lowersham, she'd been called then, not that it mattered...maybe she too had forgotten with the intervening years.
"I wonder where my mother stayed." Violet wondered as they looked into rooms containing rusty bed springs and moth-eaten mattresses.
"Touché." agreed Duncan.
At the end of the hall there was a large door labeled 'Administrative Offices'. Something about it made Violet think, with a strange twinge of nostalgia, of Principal Nero of Prufrock Prep, now deceased.
"These must be the rooms of old What's-her-Face." said Duncan, opening the door with a creak, "Remember, that crazy old bat that terrorized your aunt?"
"Madame Anwhistle," said Violet, following Duncan into the room, "she's Press Secretary now, and apparently Lemony Snicket's closest adviser. From all Aunt Olivia told me, they couldn't be a more perfect match for one another."
The private office of the headzykstress was, like the rest of ZYK Academy, coated in dust and cobwebs, reeking of eighteen years' worth of abandonment and filth. A desk, carved out of expensive mahogany, stood beneath a tall bay window through which Violet could see the northern part of the Valley and the mountain peaks beyond. The chair behind the desk, Madame Anwhistle's chair, as well as the chairs in front of the desk where people would sit when called for an audience with the Head, were chintz and just as nibbled away at by insects as the other chairs in the place.
"You don't suppose there are any hidden treasures to be discovered here, do you?" wondered Duncan, bending down to look through some of the drawers of the desk.
"It won't hurt to snoop around, I guess. If she left anything here when she went to the Palace, it probably didn't mean much to her."
She let Duncan rummage while she stood by the window, looking through the smudged glass at the view. Where was Quigley, she wondered. He wouldn't have left the Valley...not alone and without any supplies for the mountain journey.
Then again, he'd be very distressed...mad with grief, with despair... She had broken his heart, after all.
Please be safe, Quigley, she thought, Wherever you are.
"Hello, what's this?"
Violet turned back to Duncan, "What is it?"
"Look here."
He was holding an old leather booklet, like a rather long notebook. He said, "It's a ledger, a record of all the students who ever attended this school, sorted by year, with notes on their area of study and what they graduated to do for the organization."
Violet's interest was piqued. She settled down on the grungy tiles next to him, "Let's find our parents, shall we?"
"Right on it."
He flipped through the mildewed, yellowing pages until he found what he supposed was the correct year.
"What was your mother's maiden name, Violet?"
"Caliban, with a 'C'."
Duncan went down the list of names, "Aha! Look here, Beatrice Caliban; Age when graduated, sixteen, area of study, practical science, chosen path: sociology."
"Practical science, eh?" Violet chuckled, "And not once, ever, did my mother show interest in my experiments. Never!"
"Some people are like that, I suppose." said Duncan, "I wonder, did my Mum graduate the same year as yours...?"
"She must've, or before then. Couldn't have been after though, because by then Olaf would've..."
Something fell out from between the pages of the ledger. It was a piece of paper, just as yellow and musty as the others in the record.
"Hm." said Duncan, picking it up and unfolding it, "Madame Unwhistle..."
"Anwhistle," Violet corrected.
"Yes, Madame Anwhistle, she must have stored it here."
It was most certainly a letter, penned in a careful and elegant script.
It read:
Josephine,
I am sorry. I am so, so very sorry. I have kept my silence all these years out of loyalty to her. I know you understand, or at least, I hope you do. I am so very grateful that you wrote to me. I was beginning to think you'd never speak out from the ivory tower I've locked you in, up at that blasted school!
As to the child you inquire about...Josephine, I'm afraid
But the rest of the letter was missing, appearing to have been torn off quite hastily.
"I don't understand." said Violet, "It's a letter to Madame Anwhistle, obviously, but...who's it from?"
Duncan shook his head, "Don't ask me. I've gotten all goosefleshy just listening to the blamed thing."
Violet nodded, rubbing her arms, "Yeah, I know what you mean."
She stood up suddenly, giving Duncan a hand to stand up as well.
"Come on, let's get out of here. Quigley might be somewhere close."
Duncan nodded, "Yes. We can't let him get too far."
They left, never once realizing that they'd come closer to the truth about the Snicket family than anyone in the Land.
That is, anyone except Madame Anwhistle herself.
Nervously, Tocuna fanned herself with her hands, hoping that the impromptu meeting she'd scheduled would be just as successful as Madame Anwhistle's meeting in the attic earlier.
As she descended the stairs and crossed through the dining room, she could smell the warm, inviting aromas of soup boiling on the stove, and of steaks cooking in the oven. When she entered the kitchen she found, indeed, Hugo and Colette, the official cooks in their motley band, bending over their ingredients, preparing dinner for the last night of the weekend.
Besides those two, the others Tocuna had asked {as politely and nicely as she could, as she didn't want to come off as bossy and arrogant, which Madame Anwhistle and Olaf both had perfected, in different ways} were assembled. Fernald and Flo were sitting under a rack of pots and pans, the former running his hooks gently up and down Flo's arms, causing her to giggle playfully with him. Kevin was sitting next to the knife rack, doing rather an excellent show {perhaps he'd learned it at the carnival} of juggling eight blades with his eight arms. Finally, Enya was lounging in a corner, munching on an onion in that worldly, philosophical way it sometimes had.
When Tocuna entered they all looked up and greeted her with desultory 'heys' and 'hellos'. Flo asked her sister, "Is something wrong, Tocuna? You've seemed pretty shaken up all day today, and I can't figure out why."
"Well, that's why I've called you all together here." she pulled a chair from the little table by the pantry and sat down in the midst of them, so they could speak as equals, "It's about our...er...our conference with Madame Anwhistle in the attic earlier."
"Oh." said Kevin dismissively, now chewing on the tip of a butcher's cleaver with gusto. Enya asked her, "Is it about that fit of hysterics you went into? If you don't mind me asking."
"No, Enya, it's fine." she was used to Enya's frankness and didn't mind it being so blunt, "Well, it's just that I don't think we were all thinking very...very clearly, maybe, when we decided to...to frame Kit Snicket for the murder of her brother."
There was a short silence. Fernald asked, "What d'you mean?" which, in my opinion, he seems to say a lot.
"If we killed Lemony and made it look like Kit had done it, well, we wouldn't be protecting her or her baby at all! She'd be executed for treason and I doubt they'd have the courtesy to wait for her to give birth before killing her!"
She sighed, "Maybe we...maybe we can, as a team," she smiled with as much effort as she could muster at them all, "go to Madame Anwhistle and back out."
"And you don't think she'd be just a teensy bit angry that we're chickening out on her?" asked Colette, twisting her neck around one-hundred-eighty degrees so she could stir the soup and talk to Tocuna at the same time.
"Listen, I agree that Lemony is a disgusting...a horrible person!" said Tocuna, shaking with the force of her words, "But if we kill him and get an innocent person killed for it, what does that make us?" she stood up and looked at them all imploringly, "We may be criminals, but we most certainly aren't assassins!"
She broke off, panting heavily. After a short pause, Enya said, "While I agree it isn't the most tasteful way of going about it, Tocuna, it is the best...perhaps the only chance we have at getting away from Olaf and actually being better off for it! This woman, as unpleasant as she may be, has promised us comfort, social positions, even jobs in the government if we want them!"
Kevin added, "We may not be assassins now, but there's always time to learn."
Fernald nodded to agree with them, "Tocuna, I understand why you're panicky and all that, but you have to realize, love...it's for the best."
Tocuna noticed Flo look at the floor, fidgeting slightly, as if afraid to speak up.
Colette spoke up, switching off the gas on the stove so she could speak to them without worrying about the soup.
"As much as I hate the idea of killing anyone...that man, like his skeezy old head case of a Dad before him, tricked someone into cursing me and a bunch of other innocent people who were abducted from their families in the middle of the night, locked us in a cage for eighteen years and forced us to...to..." she turned a sickly shade of green and Hugo had to rub her back gently for her to go on, "eat each other in order to survive...all as part of some experiment! Some desperate attempt to make super spies that never worked!" she had tears swimming in her big eyes and now began to sob, "Tocuna, honey, it may seem sick to kill him...but he deserves it and, well...too bad for his sister."
She slumped against the stove, her long black hair dangling dangerously close to the simmering soup. Hugo was toying with a wooden spoon he'd picked up from the counter, looking in a jumpy way at them all.
"Lemony Snicket, and his father, and his grandfather before him, have all committed vile injustices, many of them directed at the people of this Land. Colette is correct that his father, Jacob, swindled and bewitched a group of innocent victims of kidnapping, many from his own Palace staff, and cursed them with...terrible mutations."
Colette patted his humpback, smiling sadly.
"And it is true that, after Jacob's passing, Lemony continued to improperly and irresponsibly rule this country, at the same time forcing us, his captives, to cannibalize each other for sustenance. It is true that, if not for the..." his voice cracked, and he too began to cry, "...saintly actions of the very woman he tricked into cursing us in the first place, Colette, Kevin, and I would not be here today!"
Fernald sniffled and scratched at his nose with one of his hooks, almost drawing blood. Flo patted him on the shoulder, her eyes still on the floor.
"But," Hugo concluded, "his sister never held power! She never had a chance to prove what kind of leader she would be. We have no right to punish her for things she never did! Certainly she may have considered killing her brother! I am sure many in this fine country of ours have! But she doesn't deserve to be killed because she wanted to do it! If so we should all be killed, all of us in this room, for wanting to kill him!"
Tocuna felt a hopeful smile beginning on her face. Was Hugo going to agree with her? Would she have at least one person at her side?
But then Kevin spoke up, "Yeah, Hugo, you can say that all good and well. But say we don't kill Lemony and frame Kit. Kit gets to go on living, and Lemony gets to go on committing 'atrocities', as you call 'em. Sounds like he won right there, while you get the morality prize. Meanwhile, if we kill Lemony, frame Kit, and Kit gets executed." he clapped his third and fourth hands together for emphasis, "Bam! No more Snickets. A clean slate, just like that. No more atrocities."
Hugo had nothing to say that, at least not for a while. Slowly, he leaned back against the counter and said, "Put that way...well, put that way...perhaps there is no other way."
"Oh, no, Hugo!" gasped Tocuna, "Please!" she was beginning to feel tears coming up to her eyes. Hugo did not look at her. He did not look at anyone else in the room.
Only one hope now.
Desperately, Tocuna appealed to her sister, "Flo, please! Remember your vision! You had it this morning, you said it might mean something, like the one you had last time..."
"Yes, Tocuna, that's what I said this morning." said Flo very suddenly, looking very uncomfortable, "But maybe you and Fernald were right this morning. Maybe it was just some stress-induced hallucination. Maybe I was giving my other 'vision' too much credit for coincidentally having snakes and wolves in it. This one made even less sense than that one." she went over to Tocuna and took her hands in hers, "Oh, Tocuna...remember when we were little? At the orphanage?"
Tocuna smiled at her sister, "Yes, of course I remember..."
"We used to stay up late, all wrapped up in the bed sheets, and we'd talk and talk and talk about the high life. Of making lots of money and marrying rich movie stars and businessmen...being comfortable, being stable for once. Isn't that the only reason we turned to crime in the first place? To live the high life."
Tocuna was crying in earnest now, "I don't see what you..."
"That life, that life we've always dreamed of, will be handed to us once we do what that old Anwhistle woman wants! We could live in...oh, a big beautiful mansion, just like you always wanted! And it would have a garden, and an ornamental pond and..."
"And an aviary." Tocuna said sadly, "For tropical birds."
"Yes! All of those things, Tocuna...I know it's hard to grasp. You always did have a...a good heart." Flo squeezed Tocuna's hands lovingly, "But kindness can only get you so far."
Gently, Tocuna let go of her sister's hands, "I'm sorry, Flo. But I guess, after all these years, the high life just isn't for me after all."
She left them all in the kitchen, and hurried about taking matters into her own hands.
She had to do something.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Dewey asked before leaving the bedroom.
"I'm fine, Dewey." Kit assured him, "Thanks for the tea." she sipped from the steaming cup.
Dewey smiled at her, knowing that his smile, at least, was still charming enough to look at, and did not need to be covered by his mask. He left the bedroom and stepped back into the corridor, satisfied that he'd comforted Kit, who he'd found sobbing hysterically on the bed, but also dissatisfied that she'd been too distressed to actually tell him what happened.
But Dewey felt he had a little enough idea of who was responsible for getting her into such a raw state of emotion. And when he got his hands on that upstart excuse for an absolute monarch...
"Excuse me! Excuse me, um, Dewey?"
Dewey, surprised at hearing his name being called, in a relatively friendly manner, by anyone in this house, turned around to see the chubby white-faced woman who worked for Olaf. Try as he might he had trouble remembering any of their names besides Olaf's own nicknames for them. {Hooky, Pasty Face #1, Pasty Face #2, Transgender Bender, Stretchy the Elastiwoman, Octofreak, Quasimodo, etc.}
Pasty Face #2 drew up close to him, breathing deeply and looking mighty troubled.
"Er...is there something you want?" Dewey asked mildly, making sure Kit's door was closed securely. She didn't need to be bothered with any of this impending nonsense,
"Well, actually, the reason I'm here is so I can warn you."
"Warn me?" Dewey instantly became more alert, his old battle senses from his few weeks at Palace Guard training camp kicking into high gear, "What is it? What's wrong?"
"There is a plot," said Tocuna, looking in every direction as if to make sure no one was lurking around a corner, eavesdropping, "A plot to take Lemony Snicket's life."
Dewey smirked, "That's it? Well then, you can sign me up for the after party..."
"That's not it! Madame Anwhistle, Lemony's adviser, she's been planning to kill Lemony so she can take his place on the throne, and she's enlisted my...well, Olaf's associates, all of us, to help her."
"Alright..." said Dewey, still not understanding what part of this involved him.
"And she doesn't want it to be easy to pin the murder on either her or any of us, of course, so she wants to frame someone for the crime so they'll be executed instead."
Dewey stiffened, "She's going to frame me?"
To his surprise, Pasty Face #2 shook her head, "No. She's going to frame Kit."
Dewey felt his heart skip a beat. He grabbed onto the doorknob, thankful that Kit couldn't hear any of this. She had enough to worry about already, and that was bad for the baby as it was. Add a little more stress to the mix and who knows what could happen?
"Madame Anwhistle knows that Lemony wants to take Kit's baby and use it as his heir, she plans to use that as a 'motive' for Kit to kill her brother. I don't know how she plans to do it but..."
"I think I know." said Dewey gravely, "Thank you. Thank you so much for helping me...what is your name?"
"I'm Tocuna, and I am only too glad to help. I didn't want to tell Kit because, well, she's so heavily pregnant at this point, and..."
Dewey nodded, "You did the right thing telling me. I'll do everything I can to protect her."
Tocuna squeezed his hand, smiling with such great relief it almost made Dewey grin with her, "Oh, thank heavens! I'll leave it in your hands, then. And don't worry about me ratting you out." she put a finger over her mouth, "My lips are sealed."
And just like that, she was off downstairs again.
Now, as she'd said, it was Dewey's responsibility to make sure that Kit was safe. As good as it would be to have gotten rid of Lemony for good, Kit's death was too steep a price to pay in exchange for his, not to mention the baby. He had his duty as a father to protect the baby as well as its mother.
And, indeed, if Madame Anwhistle was plotting the assassination and frame-up job, Dewey believed he knew just what she was planning to use for it.
He had to get to it first.
"I tell you, Sunny, I've got to start taking charge in this place!"
Olaf took a deep swig of his eighth drink of the day: a rum-whiskey shaker with orange juice and extract of pomegranate. He held up a bottle of some obscure decoction he'd drunkenly mixed some minutes before and held it to Sunny, who was snuggling up close to him in bed.
"Twoo." said Sunny, which meant, "Ain't that the truth? You have worse management skills than a squirrel."
She sipped some of her own beverage, a rum-vodka-whiskey shaker with more orange juice and extract of plums, for this one.
"Whenever I actually want one of them, they're nowhere to be found!" lamented Olaf, "They're probably off boozing and losing like the losers they are!"
Another swig. Sunny had to agree with Olaf, though, that the mysterious absence of all seven of his associates was more than a little strange. Of late, it truly seemed as if they'd been avoiding him.
Sunny had spent enough time trying to avoid her siblings to know how to spot the signs.
Still, there wasn't much they could do about it at the moment, and besides, they were leaving in the morning anyway.
"I've already got the whole next step planned out, babe, you wait and see!" said Olaf, "Once the Blackwoodshires report on who they find in the valley, we'll first have to check if it's any Quagmires, or any of your siblings."
Sunny sighed, thinking again of seeing Chubs, Duncan, and Isadora in the eternity mirror, but not Violet. She still had no idea what could have happened to Violet, nor had she any way of knowing where the other three were. It was simply becoming very real to Sunny that, again, she was going to have to go off on an adventure with Olaf.
Olaf continued, "If it is one of the kids, or Alice, or even the mysterious third Quagmire sibling, we'll do all the killing necessary," he winked at Sunny, "You don't have to watch if you don't want to."
That constituted as a flirtatious joke with him. Yet another puzzle of Olaf that Sunny liked or did not like depending on her mood and the situation. Now she smiled lukewarmly at him and let him continue.
"After that complication is out of the way, we can part ways with those annoying, loserly Blackwoodshires, and go to Cape Bugaboo." he beamed at her, "How d'ya like that, Sunny? A real resort island! I'll work up disguises for us; the hench-idiots can be our servants, or something... It'll be a real proper trip, nothing like this silliness up here!"
Sunny smiled again, letting Olaf continue his drunken rambling.
She still harbored a hope, a small, small hope that her siblings, or at least one or two Quagmires, would show up at the chateau.
If only so Sunny could choose between them or Olaf. She had to know what she was like, as not even she knew the kind of person she was.
Lucy ran into the little mouse hole of a room she'd been given, next to Mother and Father Blackwoodshire...
Mother and Father...pah!
She locked and bolted the door behind her and, with the last ounce of willpower she had, sank onto her knees so her head was lying amongst the sheets, and she was sobbing, sobbing, sobbing.
They had lied to her. For fifteen of the sixteen years of her life, Lucille Sabina Rachel Katherine Tench had thought her parents had died in an accident, that their old aristocratic friends, Lord and Lady Blackwoodshire, had stepped in to take care of her and raise her to adulthood.
But now...now she knew the truth.
Her parents had been murdered. She should have known really, Lucy told herself. Maybe it was just that she was too stupid, too cheerful, always dripping with that silly optimism of hers!
Well, now she knew where optimism got her. And she didn't even have the grace to hear the truth from those...those rats themselves! She had to overhear that absolute maniac Count Olaf talking about it, so very flippantly, as if the murders of George and Laura Tench meant nothing, and the lifelong deception of their daughter meant even less than that.
She cried, and cried, and cried, not caring if anyone heard in the hall outside. She was so absorbed in her own sorrow that she didn't even consider what would happen when she next saw her 'parents'. She couldn't just go on pretending she'd never heard anything. She couldn't go on just...just being their servant! They had killed her parents...they deserved nothing from her.
But how would she reveal to them that she knew? And, more importantly, how would she protect herself from them when they knew that she knew?
They were obviously very powerful, and just as ruthless as her friend Colette suggested last night.
She continued to sob, the breaths going in and out of her lungs in great, wheezy gulps.
She was so consumed by her tears that she almost didn't register when a soft new voice became apparent in the little bedroom.
"There, there, my child. Please don't fret. I know this whole thing is just frightful, but you must be strong. Can you do that? Can you be strong for me?"
Slowly, Lucy lifted her head to look about her. The source of the voice was a stout, older woman who seemed to have just inexplicably appeared out of nowhere. She wore a nice-fitting sky blue sheath sort of dress that hugged her slightly wider-than-usual figure very nicely.
Lucy had never had a granny, from all she knew her parents' parents had died long ago, {unless they'd also been killed by the Blackwoodshires} but just looking at this woman, and Lucy suddenly felt as if she was crying on her bed, being consoled by a dear old grandmother.
The woman gingerly sat down on the bed, gingerly ran her fingers through Lucy's hair.
"I knew you would find out sooner or later. It was just a matter of time, and which way the winds of destiny decided to blow."
"D-d-destiny?" stammered Lucy, drying her tears with a raggedy old hanky.
"My name is Beverley Elliott. I am one of this Land's Guardian Spirits."
"W...what?" Lucy didn't understand. She'd never heard of Snicket Land having guardians of any kind, much less spirits.
"There are thirteen of us, and we each govern different aspects of the human life. My job is Love and Mercy, which is why I have chosen to come here and tell you about the destiny that you must accept tonight, if you ever wish to right the wrongs committed by Florine and Elnora Blackwoodshire when you were just a little girl."
"...what destiny? Why did they kill my parents?"
Bev ran her hand in slow, circular motions, along the small of Lucy's back. The action was almost motherly...as far as Lucy could remember, no one had ever touched her like that before.
"Your false parents, the Blackwoodshires, are acolytes of a cruel cult that worships a dark and malevolent force that has its roots in the very beginnings of this world. Fifteen years ago, they discovered who you truly were and what you would grow to do and, in service of the monster they worship, killed your parents and took you, an infant, into their care, to prevent your destiny ever being fulfilled."
Lucy nodded slowly, processing everything she'd just been told.
"But what is this destiny?" She asked, sounding more than a tetch impatient, "What am I supposed to do?"
"In a mountain notch some more miles east along this range." Bev gestured vaguely in an easterly direction, "There lives one of the thirteen clans that once roamed freely across this place that is now called Snicket Land. This clan is called the Snow Scouts, formerly they were known as the Masked Men, and they were the most superior of all the clans before the Snickets came from across the Great Sea."
Lucy nodded slowly, having heard a very tiny bit about the clans from the Blackwoodshires.
"The original ruling family of that clan has been deposed and imprisoned since the last proper ruler in the line, Rhodes of the Plain, was killed in the Snicket takeover. Rhodes' son, Twilliam of the Plain, was murdered by his people after the clan's relocation to these mountains. After that, the tribe formed a Council of Elders to govern their clan for themselves. Twilliam's ailing wife, Celene, and their young son Vandicamp, were imprisoned in dark, damp cells where they spent, in the mother's case, the rest of her life, and in Vandicamp's case, most of it." she took a deep breath and continued, "Vandicamp bore a son with a fellow prisoner, a woman named Elisa, but before he could properly meet his son, who would be named Alphonse of the Plain, he escaped the camp of the Snow Scouts and began his journey south, deeper into Snicket Land, hoping to confer among some of the other clans and work together with them to topple the Snickets once and for all. As he was crossing through the Dark Forest, he came upon a zoologist studying the mating habits of a certain breed of songbird that only lived in Tulson Wood. He had what they would nowadays call a 'fling' with the young woman, before leaving and...well, vanishing, never to be heard from again." Ben sighed and smiled sadly at Lucy, "The woman's name was Laura Tench, and she discovered she was pregnant not a month after Vandicamp left."
Lucy gawped, feeling very indecent indeed.
"I'm...I'm the daughter of..."
"Of a prince, yes, technically, though the rights to rulership among Rhodes' descendants has been deposed. For the moment. But, yes, my dear. You are royalty." Bev smiled sweetly.
"But...if this Vandicamp was my father, what about..."
"George Tench? Well, as you know he was also a zoologist, waiting at home in Cattlebury village while his wife conducted research in the forest. When she returned, Laura made no bones about lying to her husband, but immediately told him that she'd had a sexual encounter with a member of defrocked nobility." she chuckled, "George, being rather eccentric as scientists are, was surprised, but not quite angry. He became glad at the prospect of being a father, and promised his wife he would help her raise the child no matter what happened."
Lucy suddenly felt very choked up, and put a hand on her throat so as to swallow a sob. Bev patted her arm again, "Your parents loved each other very much, Lucy, don't you think any differently. However," she adjusted herself on the bed and continued, "as I told you, the Blackwoodshires, also living in Cattlebury and having numerous connections through which to spy on people, eventually learned that little Lucille Tench the newborn was the youngest member of the ruling family of what was once the strongest clan in the land. And here is where a bit of old arcana comes in. Before the Blackwoodshires, there were many who worshiped the strange demonic entity as they, going back centuries. You see, there is an old text, the author of which has been lost to the sands of time, which reads:
'When the cast off child, a girl, cast down from three generations of noblemen before her, grows to woman's estate, she shall make the ocean rise, shall breach the borders of the land, and shall at last bring our Unknown to the world of men.'"
Lucy at first didn't understand what Bev meant but figured, if she was truly descended from princes, she should stop asking questions and apply her brains.
"I am...I was the cast off child." she said.
"Yes, Lucy. The cast off child, daughter of Vandicamp, who was son of Twilliam, who was son of Rhodes. You are the third generation after the falling of the powerful family you belong to. The Blackwoodshires noticed this at once and immediately set about plans to take you from your parents and keep you as their own."
"But...but why? What does it mean to...to 'make the ocean rise' and 'bring the Unknown to the world of men'?"
"It means, suffice it to say, nothing good. The 'Unknown', sometimes called the Great Unknown, is the deity the Blackwoodshires worship. Your destiny, my dear, is to breach the barrier between our world and the Great Unknown's, and bring it here, into the World of Men."
Lucy was suitably horrified, "But...but I don't want to...to summon some demon!"
"The Blackwoodshires wanted you to, though. So they had your parents killed by a pack of mad eagles when they were hiking through this very mountain range. Afterward, they used their connections in the Legal Offices in Dirty Bastard to doctor your parents' will and grant custody of you to them."
"They're that powerful, aren't they?" Lucy voiced what she'd known for very long, but never quite wanted to say out loud.
"Indeed they are. Their plan has been to keep you in their custody until you turned eighteen, the traditional age at which a girl reaches 'woman's estate'. At that time..." she shook her head mournfully, "Well, they assumed destiny would fulfill itself."
"And...what am I to do now?"
"You must subvert destiny and make it your own. It's all up to you what you decide to do in two years. But you must choose carefully, and be of your own mind when you do. Thus, I see it only fit that you leave here..." another smile, "and rejoin your true family."
"The Snow Scouts?" gasped Lucy.
"You have a brother waiting for you there. You should make that your first step, reclaiming your birthright, rebuilding the family that these three generations before you have tarnished."
Lucy nodded, "I...I suppose...I suppose I must do it, mustn't I?"
"Not 'must', dear. You don't have to 'must' your way through anything. You may, if you see it fit. Well?" she cocked a thin black brow, her blue eyes twinkling curiously, "Do you?"
Lucy paused a moment, so overwhelmed. So much had happened in such a short time. She'd had her entire perception of life turned on its head. She wasn't cut out for this! She was a scullery maid in the service of that pair of fat, self-important peeresses.
"My parents..." she said at last, "I guess I'll do it. Just to honor them. All three of them."
George and Laura Tench...and this Vandicamp of the Plain person, who seemed so mysterious and had started so much trouble.
Bev laughed lightly, a happy, twinkly sort of sound, "Oh, my dear Lucy...I am so proud of you."
She waved her hand and the window flew open, startling Lucy and letting in a cool evening breeze. Bev looked out at the quiet darkness, and smiled again.
"You can almost smell the winds changing." she said, "Yes...things will be very different now. Very different indeed."
Cue music!
THEY LIVE IN YOU {from The Lion King, again...I know, I know, it's just that the music is nice and the songs neatly fit into a variety of situations. Like this one}
Bev: Night...
{the stars suddenly seem to be shining brighter in the sky. Lucy draws the sheets closer around herself, unsure of what will happen next}
And the spirit of life...
Calling!
{the wind blows through the window again, carrying strange whispers with it, whispers which cause Lucy to stand up, joining Bev at the window}
And the voice...
{Bev strokes Lucy's cheek lovingly}
Just the fear of a child...
{she hums musically, the wind beginning to stir the hair and clothes of the two women}
The young child strives!
Just waiting to see...
There's no mountain too great!
{she gestures at the peaks of the Dandruff Mountains that surround them}
Hear these words and contemplate...
Have faith!
{the room goes dark, and all that can be heard in the whispering of the wind. But is it wind really? Or is it more...SPIRITS? Bev and Lucy rematerialize, standing on the ice of the lake just outside the chateau. Lucy looks absolutely stunned to have just teleported, but Bev takes it all in stride}
Bev: They live in you!
{she twirls Lucy around, dancer-like}
They live in me!
They watch over...
Everything we see!
Into the water!
{she spreads her arms, causing the ice to crack spectacularly, proving that ghosts do indeed cause global warming}
Into the truth!
{she gestures to the shimmering image of Lucy in the frigid cold water}
In your reflection...
They live in you!
{all goes dark again. Then, suddenly, they're running alongside the high mountain cliffs, surrounded by the eagles, who fly on either side of them}
They live in you!
They live in me!
They watch over...
Everything we see!
Into the water!
{she takes Lucy's hand and jumps over the cliff with her. Lucy gasps, terrified at first, before she finds that, somehow, she and Bev are flying with the eagles}
Into the truth!
In your reflection...
They live in you...
{it goes dark again. When they next pop up, Bev and Lucy are riding astride in a suspiciously familiar canoe...the same one the kids spent the time between Book 5 and this one making. Don't question it. Beverley Elliott is magic. Lucy's wardrobe has now changed. She looks very surprised to find herself wearing riding leathers and furs, clothes similar to those of the Snow Scouts. Her hair is finally down from its usual tight bun, flowing freely around her waist}
Bev: {speaking} For you, dear.
{she hands Lucy a bow and a quiver of arrows, which Lucy takes, a proud smile slowly spreading over her face}
Bev: {singing} They live in you!
They live in me!
They watch over...
Everything we see!
Into the water...
{the canoe plunges down a falls and surfaces, completely intact}
Bev: Into the truth!
In your reflection...
THEY LIVE IN YOU!
THE CURTAIN FALLS, AND RATHER AWESOMELY, IN MY OPINION
A/N: And that was that! Hope you enjoyed all the little twists and turns this chapter took, especially the saucy little revelation at the end. Things are building up now to a shocking and stunning climax! Or at least I hope that's what it will be. I'm working on the last two chapters now, actually, so with all luck we won't have any more prolonged delays.
Update Coming Next Friday!:)