The world was never quiet

Lie 18 : I don't care about VFD

Newspaper described this day – as well as the one that followed, for that matter, as a terrible day. The Daily Punctilio wrote about a disaster, a waste. I must admit I can't contradict them here, it has been a disaster and a terrible waste. The problem is that they added details, at best useless, at worst completely untrue and that we can't use those articles as a basis to recreate the series of events. I can't even pretend I really know the chronology since I ended up participating to some of them. The only thing I can suggest to give some sense to the bullshits written in the newspaper, it's to consider it just like you were supposed to consider Hotel Denouement: through a mirror. Reverse the assertions, and you'll be close to the truth.

This day, this damned Thursday, hundreds of people had gathered around and inside the hotel. To draw from this fact the conclusion that they were all there because it was this particular Thursday would be hasty, but whatever the reason, those who were there precisely for this particular Thursday had mingled with the others so that it was impossible to distinguish them without knowing them. I had spotted some faces and some names during the ball and I knew the pseudo-sugar bowl was supposed to make an entrance in the evening. And, of course, that the Baudelaire were part of it.

At least that's what Kit told me when I finally found her around the leftovers of a picnic. She evidently wasn't waiting for me – she wasn't waiting for anyone, anyway. And I wasn't expecting her to be so easily found. Lemony had told me that she had found the Baudelaire on Briny Beach, and I thought I would only find some clues. Not her.

And I didn't think I would find her heavily pregnant. The way she looked at me, when she realized I was there, reminded me of a deer caught in the headlights. The kind of deer that could stick her teeth in my neck if I had tried anything. We stood motionless, gauging each other. The last Snicket – the first, in fact, in age. She looked more like Jacques than Lemony, without the unibrow. Her face showed the same tiredness than the latter, though.

"Cassandre Dupin," she let out with a tired smile that suited her look. "We should have met a while ago.

- I know. Too bad you were late, you would have spared a few trifles.

- I would have given much not to be, believe me.

- Where are the Baudelaire?"

I wasn't in the mood of talking about the past, of what could have been but had never been, of what should have been but would never be. It wasn't the time. She looked at the leftovers of her meal and sighed. She looked fragile – too fragile to be the woman I pictured. She didn't look like the kind of woman to kill with poison darts during the interval of a play. She didn't look like the kind of woman to train kids to be part of a secret organization. She looked like a… Normal woman. A tired, wary, terrified woman. And pregnant, she reminded me of this obvious fact when she ran a gloved hand on her stomach. If she hadn't looked so similar to her brother, I wouldn't have believed it was her.

"They're already in the Hotel. Frank is waiting for them.

- Frank?" I bitterly chuckled. "Or Ernest? Aren't you tired of using those kids?

- We need every available Volunteers. The sugar bowl is almost there and it must not fall into our enemies' hands.

- This is just a rumour," I backed up. My bag weighted heavier than ever on my shoulder. "And why don't you go yourself?

- Snicket are in no one's good books since a great deal of time."

And I am pregnant, she didn't say. She could have. At a pinch, I would have accepted this argument better than the other. I buried my hands in my oversize jacket's pockets and rested my back on one of the huge trees that surrounded us. All those I took for the leaders of VFD, all these women and men that I imagined pulling the strings of the events like a poor farce, all ended up looking like Kit. Sad, desperate, distraught. Powerless. The only ones who really controlled the situation were the Arsonists – and not for much longer.

I didn't have anything to say to Kit and I didn't want to see with my own eyes how much everything Jacques believed in was a damned smokescreen that withered every day a bit more. I had to go back to the taxi and prepare for what would follow. I slowly turned and walked away. Until I heard Kit's sad voice calling me.

"Cassandre. I am sorry for your father. And for Jacques." A shiver ran down my spine. "It's not too late to help us.

- Every times I tried to help you, you always found a way to break me a little bit more. I regret, Kit, but the only ones I will help today are the Baudelaire.

- This operation is VFD's last chance.

- I don't care about VFD." Wrong. We could say many things, but I cared. I hated VFD. But I cared. I stopped but didn't turn. I knew she had the same imploring eyes than her brother and I wouldn't have been able to resist them. "Just like VFD never cared about me. Farewell, Kit."

And I left. She didn't follow – I don't know where she went. But it was the first and last time I saw her. She would die, a few days afterward, on some lost island's beach. And I returned in the taxi. Lemony didn't ask questions, he just explained me the plan. He was going to take a passenger, a real one, to have a reason to wander around the Hotel. I would hide in the boot. I will take care of the suitcases, he won't see you. And he would stay in the taxi. You do what you want, he told me, faking serenity. Oh, but he knew that if I did what I wanted, things would go wrong. But he also knew there was no way to stop me from doing what I wanted.

I won't waste time and tell you the details of the day. What you must know is that our passenger didn't ask for his suitcases and entered the Hotel without them. I got out only half an hour afterward and sat next to Lemony. He had given me a coat similar to his – dark, long, but suiting me, this time. We didn't speak once.

Until four silhouettes appeared, in full night, in front of the small pool that faced the Hotel. A tall one, two smaller and tiny little thing. I straightened and snatched Lemony's spyglass from his hands. The Baudelaire. Obviously. And a tall lanky man.

"Dewey Denoument," Lemony said. "The last triplet.

- Breaking news, they're triplets. You couldn't have said…

- You didn't ask."

No, indeed. I watched them. Of course, I didn't see much and I couldn't help looking at the dashboard's clock. We were not Thursday yet. Almost. But not yet. And I stared at the Hotel's figure. The last safe place's figure. It took me months to understand the Hotel was not this safe place. It was everything that was under the Hotel that was safe, or at least, that used to be.

VFD's records. The incredible, formidable records of VFD. The collection of every researches made by ever members. In these rooms were the researches made by Kit Snicket about me, because yes, a second Snicket file existed. Or used to. Last time I managed to go to the archives, I couldn't find it. Most of the important files had been recovered or stolen. In these rooms were also the researches made by my father about my mother, even if they had also disappeared when I realized where they were. The tableau of all these lockers ripped open, knocked down on the floor, of all those sheets littering the ground, of those years of research still haunts me – not the way my father's or Jacques' last words haunt me. Rather like something I wish I had never seen.

Things started to speed up when a second taxi appeared and spew two familiar silhouettes – Jerome Squalor and Justice Strauss. Those two happy idiots had done incredibly good things for the Baudelaire. Incredibly good and so extremely useless that I can't help wondering if it wouldn't have been better for everyone to stop trying to help them. All these noble hearts, those Volunteers so proud and unable to act in an useful way… Everything that followed would not have happened if at least one of them had had the spirit to do something.

I don't need to detail what happened. Dozen of testimonies detailed it. Lemony wrote it. All I can say it is that when Esme aimed her harpoon gun at Dewey Denouement, I got out of the car. Contrary to what was planned, Lemony followed. Bathed in darkness, we came closer. I was going to step into the light projected by the Hotel when he grabbed my arm and stopped me, exactly when the Baudelaire ran and shielded Dewey from Esme, doing what no adult dared to do. Oh, I'm not pretending I would have done it for them – I could have run, escaped Lemony's hold and protected the librarian. But I never pretended I was a noble heart, have I?

"Wait," he whispered. "Wait."

So I waited. And the harpoon fired when the weapon hit the floor. History remembers that the Baudelaire fired it. Even in the dark, a few metres away, I saw that their only sin was to have failed to catch a harpoon gun no one could have caught. Lemony released me and we walked to the pool in which Dewey Denouement was slowly sinking before the Baudelaire's powerless eyes.

We kept clear of the crowd that was gathering around Violet, Klaus and Sunny amongst ludicrous screams and stupid cries. Lemony lighted a cigarette and came closer, managed to walk through the crowd and stopped behind them. I followed quietly, I didn't understand what he was doing, let alone why he was doing it. When the three children turned, they couldn't recognize us. We were in the shadow, Lemony's hat hid his face and I was hidden behind them. They stared at us.

"Taxi?" Lemony asked, showing not our taxi but the one that had brought the two jolly fellows. The kids exchanged a gaze.

- We're not sure.

- You're not sure?" I said. "Whenever you see someone in a taxi, they are probably being driven to do some errand. There must be something you need to, or somewhere you need to go.

- We haven't any money.

- You don't need to worry about money." Lemony leaned toward them. "Not if you're who I think you are. Are you?"

Yet again one of those moments that make me wonder what would have happened if things had been different. What would have happened if the Baudelaire had followed us this evening, if they hadn't given enough time for Poe to find them in the crowd? Would have they been happier, sadder? Would their fate be different? I can't answer those questions. I don't know if those children took the good decision when they let us go back to the taxi, and I don't know if those children would have been safe with us. If running from the law would have been easier than enduring it.

We left. We walked enough to go back to the shadow, away from the crowd. We could have set off – I could have set off. I could have given up the thought of saving them, considered that it was a waste of time because it was a waste of time. But I shook my head, once in our new taxi.

"I must go. They're not safe.

- You won't be if you go.

- I'm not safe since my birth," I retorted with a husky voice. "They will set up the trial. Against them. They won't win.

- Obviously."

I glanced at him. His face was only lit up by the dashboard's gleam, so his face looked even more angular. Even more impressive. He was staring at the scene in front of him – the Baudelaire taken away by this poor joke of justice in Hotel Denouement. Olaf was there, they were all there, the stupidest, the noblest, the traitors, the worst and the best (though the best tended towards death lately). And soon I would be there too. The sugar bowl they were all looking for in my bag.

"Will you be waiting for me?

- I'll be on the beach at the first sight of smoke.

- There won't be any fire.

- With you, there's always a fire."

I can even begin to tell you how right he was and how wrong I was. He eventually turned his head toward me and put his hand on my cheek. It was a strange gesture, coming from him. Caressing my cheeks like he did. Was he scared he would never see me again? Was he sure I wasn't going to make it either? I tried to smile and grabbed his hand. I squeezed it and left the car. I walked to the Hotel, in the crowd, my bag on my shoulder.

When I managed to enter, I stepped into an utter chaos. The Baudelaire had created that. They'd been recognized, of course, for the wrong reasons. Of course. I could barely see them from where I was standing and I tried my best to always be hidden behind a hat, a nightgown or a vase. When the decision to organize the trial the day after and to put the Baudelaire in room 121 until everything was ready was taken, I didn't wait for the crowd to clear and walked to the stairs.

I waited for a long time to make sure I wouldn't bump into anyone. Waste of time, really. I had only just stepped out of the staircase when I ran into Frank. Or Ernest. He looked hard at me for a while, and I couldn't tell whether or not he recognized me or not. His face, perfectly unshaken, didn't seem to hold any emotion. As if he was waiting for me to say something, anything to help him know if I was a friend or a foe. Neither, I wanted to say, but I just adjusted my bag on my shoulder and tilted my head.

"My condolences," I let out. "An unfortunate incident.

- Thank you. Are you who I think you are?

- If you are who I think are, then yes."

He didn't look happy with my answer, but nodded. He shifted and let me by. I waited for him to disappear in the stairs to reach the 121. The door was thick – too thick, a bit too much for a hotel room. The lock was too complex for me to pick it, even with all my dexterity in the matter. But there was a slit under the door, barely big enough to let a ray of light pass. Just enough for me to lay down on the floor and press myself against it.

"Baudelaires," I called them. "Baudelaires, come closer.

- Who…

- It's… It's Cassandre." I hadn't uttered this name for such a long time, it almost felt like it wasn't mine anymore. "I came to help you.

- Cassandre ? But you're…

- There's no time for that, Violet. I'll be at your trial. I'll help you escape. My… Associate will wait for us outside."

Silence lingered. Just like a dozen of minutes ago, they were conferring, trying to know if they could trust not a stranger this time, but the girl who promised them months before that everything would be fine and that she would find them. A girl they thought dead, murderous and missing. A girl they had not seen since a hospital burnt. A girl who didn't look any more trust-worthy than a complete stranger.

"They're against us, all of them. We should…

- Believe me when I say, Baudelaire," I sighed. "That those people wouldn't separate cheese from the Moon, even if they'd stuck their nose in it.

- But running is not a solution." I didn't sigh again but god I wanted to. "Our parents…

- Your parents were not perfect. No one is. Being noble is an incredible thing, but it only goes so far. You must save yourself."

Another silence. Hearing all day long that VFD used to gather formidable volunteers with a noble heart makes you want to become one, obviously. The Baudelaire were noble hearts and I think they still are, wherever they can be. And I suppose that, contrary to me, they still needed to hear they weren't lost, they were still noble, they would forever be and even if they weren't as noble as they used to be, it still was enough. Lemony never bothered to tell me those things because I know I've lost it all long ago and I'd probably never be noble anyway.

But I understood them. They had suffered many torments, but they never did anything wrong. Never. Of course, Caligari Carnival had burnt behind them. Of course, they'd lost the Quagmire. Of course, Jacques died when they were in the Village of Fowl Devotees. Of course they had to lie. But they would have died if they hadn't do it. If, like I did, they'd yield to ease or anger, frustration or sadness, they would have gotten by fine but at the cost of their nobility. They were the lightest side of a coin, and I was the darkest. They were still entitled to light – I could only have shadows. And yet I was free from their dark cell, in a blinding corridor. Irony truly is everywhere.

"I'm not asking you to trust me," I whispered. "I ask you to do what's necessary. You deserve to make it.

- You'll be there?

- I will. As close to you as possible." I kept quiet for a few seconds. "Try to sleep."

I stood up and, slowly, went back to the staircase. The night would be long, very long. And I had no idea the day that would follow would be just as long, as well as the following night and day. I had no idea that I was getting to the end of my own story – at least, Cassandre Dupin's story.