"Can you invent a way to open the door?" said Klaus to his sister, who had already tied her hair back.
"It might be possible to invent a lockpick," she said thoughtfully.
Klaus moved his eye to the peephole, and through it he saw something to make his heart leap - the figures of Duncan and Isadora Quagmire, the noble friends of the Baudelaires who he had feared he would never see again. They were looking up at the door, and he watched Isadora reach over to press the doorbell one more time, and heard its chimes echoing throughout the studio. Isadora and Duncan looked at each other, and Klaus saw Duncan take out a green commonplace book and begin leafing through it.
"It seems like there's no gap at all between the door and the wall, I don't know how to open it," said Violet, but before either of her siblings could reply, the sound of footsteps appeared behind them, very close.
"Oh, how silly of me," came the voice of Arwen San Conflegro. "I entirely forgot that you wouldn't be able to open the door! I'm terribly sorry, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire."
Arwen walked past the children to the door, and placed his palm on certain spot on the wall beside it. There was a beep and a click, and the door swung open, as Arwen stepped back into the fog of the studio.
The expression "small mercies" refers to moments where something good happens in the middle of many terrible things. If you find yourself trapped in a library, for instance, you might be thankful for the small mercy that there will be plenty of interesting books to read in the meantime. Or if you have had the misfortune to be born a human being, with the ability to predict with terrifying certainty your inevitable future oblivion, you might be thankful for the small mercy of managing to fall in love.
The idea of spark of light shining bravely out of the darkness is a popular analogy used to refer to small mercies. This analogy, I'm sorry to say, is not very good, despite its popularity and despite its upcoming use by a very clever young person. A much better analogy would be a small patch of darkness and quietness in a world of blaring lights and noise. Anybody who has attempted to find such a place knows the truth of what I am going to say and that is that a quiet, dark place in a sea of noise will become immediately swamped with the light and the sounds that wash over from the vast sea. A small mercy is not really a candle in the darkness, providing a comforting circle of warm light - it is a candle at the bottom of the ocean, and like that candle, it will be swiftly extinguished.
The Baudelaire orphans experienced a small mercy as the door opened and they ran outside to embrace their friends. Violet hugged Duncan, and Klaus hugged Isadora, and Sunny shrieked with joy and hugged Violet's legs, who picked her up so that she could greet her friends properly.
"Baudelaires! It's so wonderful to see you," said Isadora, pulling away from Klaus and leaning over to embrace Violet.
"Yes," said Duncan, as he let go of Violet and hugged Klaus and Sunny. "I was worried that we had the wrong address, but no - it's written right here in my commonplace book."
"Oh it is, we are so glad that you're safe," said Violet. "Seeing you is a light shining out of the darkness."
Klaus nodded, remembering where the Quagmires had been, and the direction they were heading, when the Baudelaires had seen them last. "But how did you get down?"
"Oh, it was quite a adventure, that's for sure," said Duncan.
"I wrote a couplet about it," said Isadora. "We escaped from Olaf's spectre,
Thanks to a device of - "
"I'm sure the Baudelaires can listen to some poetry later," said Duncan, interrupting his sister. "We have so much to tell you and I'm sure that you have much to tell us, too."
"And we finally have time," said Isadora, standing on the front steps of Arwen San Conflegro's house.
At that moment, Arwen decided to emerge from the studio, smiling and holding his hands wide. "If it isn't Duncan and Isadora Quagmire."
"Yes sir," said Duncan.
Isadora held out her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."
Arwen shook her hand, and Duncan held out his own. "We understand that you are our new guardian?"
"That is quite correct. My name is Arwen, but you can call me Arwen San Conflegro."
He stood back from the children so that he could see all five of them at once, Isadora, Violet with Sunny in her arms, Duncan, and Klaus, all standing on the front steps, their faces glowing with happiness on being reunited. "Don't you make a pretty picture," said Arwen, folding his arms and smiling faintly. "Now you must excuse me as I have to go and work on my latest film, but Violet and Klaus Baudelaire, why don't you give the twins a tour of the house?"
When he said this, Duncan and Isadora's faces fell, and they looked at each other sadly.
"Actually," Isadora said, "we're triplets."
"I see," said Arwen, and the Baudelaires wondered whether he really did see, and if he did see, how much he saw, but the Quagmires merely nodded, and turned to the Baudelaires.
The Baudelaires smiled at their friends, as a tear rolled down Duncan's cheek. "I'm so happy," he said, "really this is wonderful. Oh Baudelaires, I'm so glad to see you," and he hugged Violet again.
You may be familiar with the expression 'Don't shoot the messenger.' It is an expression which is becoming sadly irrelevant in our digital age, where most bad news is delivered, much like this account of the Baudelaire orphans and the treachery which always follows close behind them, by pixels on a computer screen. Shooting pixels on your computer screen is generally understood to be a bad idea, so much so that an expression is probably not required. However, at certain times in the past, and at certain times in the lives of the Baudelaire orphans and their associates, bad news was delivered in person, and the expression "don't shoot the messenger" is one used by messengers to ask that the recipient of the message refrain from shooting them.
"But there is something we should tell you," said Violet.
"And please don't shoot the messenger," said Klaus.
"Olaf," said Sunny.
"Sunny means that Count Olaf is here," said Violet.
"In this house," added Klaus.
Isadora leant forward and whispered "Is your guardian really Olaf in disguise? If so, it's much better than his usual disguises..."
"Oh, no of course not," Klaus whispered back. "Count Olaf is upstairs, locked in a bedroom."
A look of hope crossed the Quagmire faces, but Violet shook her head. "It's more complicated than that," she said, before raising her voice so that Arwen could hear the rest of the conversation. "Why don't you come inside?"
"An excellent idea Violet Baudelaire," the voice of their guardian boomed from the doorway. "Show Duncan and Isadora Quagmire inside. I myself must return to my work, as I mentioned earlier, but I'll join you for dinner at, oh let's say, five pm. It will be lovely, our first dinner together as one big family."
Arwen bowed and retreated into the fog, leaving the quintet of children standing on the steps with mixed feelings. Violet's mixed feelings were caused by Arwen's use of the word "family". She felt sad, because it made her think of the terrible fate which had befallen her parents, but at the same time she felt happy that the Quagmires were part of her family now. She felt uncertain, because she wasn't sure whether her guardian had intended to include Count Olaf in their one big family. Klaus' mixed feelings were caused by showing the Quagmires into the house. He felt happy because he was welcoming into his home, but sad because it wasn't really his home and his real home - like his real parents - had been turned into ashes. He felt uncertain because he was welcoming them into a home which contained Count Olaf, imprisoned in a bedroom though he was. Sunny was experiencing what she would have described as "Raskol", a complicated word describing all of her siblings' feelins, along with some additional uncertainty caused by her guardian's unusually early dinner plans. Never in her short life had she known anybody to eat such a large meal at such an early hour. It was a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world she was experiencing, that was for sure. So the Baudelaires took the hands of the Quagmires, and together they walked into the fog.
"I can't see anything at all," said Isadora.
Duncan nodded in agreement, though of course nobody could see him do so in the thick fog. "How do you find your way around?"
"We just follow Sunny," said Violet, turning to Duncan, who had no idea that she was doing it.
"Calajane," said Sunny firmly, leading her siblings and friends through the dense, low cloud.
"I don't want to be nosy, but I can't help asking, why is this room so full of cloud?" said Duncan, wishing he could see enough to take out his commonplace book and jot down the answer.
"It's the Weather Machine," said Violet, as she listened to the footsteps of her guardian fading away. "You see, this is a film studio, and Arwen San Conflegro wants to film scenes in all kinds of weather, and the machine lets him do that without leaving the studio."
Isadora's eyes widened, unseen by her companions. "Weather machine?"
"Yes," said Violet, "this is a film studio you see, and Arwen San Conflegro has a weather machine so that he can film lots of different scenes in all kinds of weather, without even going outside."
"A weather machine sounds like something you'd find very interesting, Violet," said Duncan, as his look of admiration was being totally masked by the heavy blanket of fog.
"Yes, well, you'd think so," said Violet, "but actually when I saw it, it was just a small black box with a few buttons. I was expecting something much larger, with all kinds of gears, cables and chambers. It's very strange."
"That does sound strange," said Isadora. "What kind of films does Arwen San Conflegro make?"
"Well, that's the second strange thing," said Klaus, tilting his head backwards so that his glasses wouldn't slip off. "He wants to make a film about VFD."
"VFD?"
"That's right."
Isadora shook her head in disbelief, a gesture noticed only by the bank of cloud. "Why would he do that?"
Klaus shook his head too, purely for the benefit of the fog, if it was watching, which it wasn't. "I don't know."
"I can guess," said Duncan. "The story of VFD is a very interesting one, it's a very fascinating, umm, discourse."
"Discourse?" said Violet.
"It means discussion or conversation," said Klaus.
"Yes, well, it mightn't've been the best word to choose," said Duncan. "But what I mean is, I can see the appeal in wanting to make a film like that. It really is quite a story."
"But it isn't just one story, is it," said Violet.
"What do you mean?" Isadora asked.
"Well, VFD isn't like a machine, with each part playing a separate role but all necessary to serve a single, overall purpose," she said.
"Or a novel, where all of its separate threads serve a single narrative arc," said Klaus.
"Moderno," said Sunny, which meant something like "Or a cookbook, where each page has a distinct, self contained recipe."
"I think I understand," said Duncan. "It's like a newspaper, where each article summarises a different event, but all through the same prism of understanding."
"Or like a poem, where each symbol contributes to an overall theme," said Isadora.
"No, VFD is not like those things," said Violet. "That's exactly what it isn't."
"Oh, I see," said Duncan, looking in the direction of where he thought Isadora might be, but actually looking at Klaus.
"It's more like a busy factory workshop, with all sorts of machines with varying, often contradictory purposes all at different stages of completion."
"Or the Western Literary Canon," said Klaus, "a vast trove of ideas intertwined both with each other, and with the personal and cultural context in which they were created."
"Coria," said Sunny, and her siblings explained that she was drawing on the analogy of a cuisine, a constantly shifting collection of individual dishes that can only be coherently understood through reference to other cuisines external to it.
"I think I understand," said Isadora. "It's like a whole book of poetry, where each poem addresses something different."
"No, not exactly," said Klaus.
"So it's more like all the newspapers in one city, because it contains all kinds of views," said Duncan.
"Not really," said Violet, "it's not quite that simple."
"If anything," said Klaus, "it's more like the abstract idea of news - you can usually know it when you see it, but not always, and people often disagree on whether it is or isn't."
"But VFD is a clearly defined organisation," said Duncan. "Either someone's in it, or they're not."
"I don't know about that," said Klaus, and Violet nodded.
Violet thought about Mr Poe, and Klaus thought about Jerome, and they wondered whether they could be said to be a part of VFD or not, and Sunny thought about Olivia. And all three siblings thought about three other people who couldn't be sure if they were members of VFD or not, and their names, of course, were Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire.
"So then how do you make a film out of something like VFD," said Isadora.
"It's impossible," said Duncan, "no film could capture perfectly something so, so ... "
"Equivocal?" said Klaus, using a word which here means "able to be interpreted in a thousand different ways, many of them contradictory, but all of them containing heartbreak, treachery and a sugar bowl."
"Escher!" said Sunny, which was her way of announcing that they had arrived at the foot of a staircase.
"So I guess we won't be able to be shown around the studio just yet," said Isadora, as she started to climb the stairs.
"Not until the fog is cleared," said Violet, looking back down at the thick white mist that obscured the entire studio.
"But there are some ... interesting things to look at upstairs," said Klaus.
"Interesting? That doesn't sound too good," said Isadora.
"But it doesn't sound too bad," said Duncan.
"I don't even know where to start," said Violet, as the children climbed higher.
The Baudelaires had seen the film posters before, but the Quagmires hadn't, and so they made slow progress up the long staircase while Isadora and Duncan looked at all the strange movies that Arwen San Conflegro had created.
"I think that one was about a wedding between two salmon," said Violet, trying to remember the film that her guardian had explained the day before.
"And I think this one is about eagles stealing a submarine," said Klaus.
Before Sunny could misremember the plot of Arwen's only unsuccessful movie, the children heard the sound of footsteps, specifically the sound of dirty feet in shabby shoes, carrying a tattooed ankle around the room in which Count Olaf was currently imprisoned. Klaus and Violet looked at each other, wondering if it was right to have brought this bad news into the lives of the Quagmires. They wondered whether maybe it would have been best to keep the facts of Olaf's presence as hidden away as the Count himself, and gazed at the Quagmires, who were still looking at the movie posters. Despite their uncertainty, they were right to tell their friends - like splinters, and unlike the truth, a hidden villian will always come out sooner or later.
"Olaf", said Sunny, raising an eyebrow at her siblings.
"I don't think we need that word translated," said Isadora, turning around from the posters to face the Baudelaires and listening to the footsteps.
"It's a word we've heard more than enough," said Duncan sadly.
"How did he come to be here?" said Isadora.
"He tried to fool Arwen with one of his disguises, but Arwen saw right through it and imprisoned Olaf in the room," said Violet.
"Chekov," said Sunny, and Klaus explained that she meant something along the lines of "he hasn't managed to cause any trouble - yet."
"Arwen hasn't called the authorities," said Violet, "because he wants Count Olaf to star in one of his films."
"But Count Olaf is a terrible actor!" said Isadora.
"I know, I agree." said Violet, nodding. "The truth is that Arwen has a plan for his VFD film, but we can fill you in on it a little later." Violet sighed, and looked at Klaus. "Why don't you show Isadora the library where Arwen keeps all of the books he uses to research his films, and I'll go and have a look at the workshop with Duncan. Then we can meet back here afterwards and decide what we're going to do."
"Ok, that sounds like a good idea," said Klaus. "I've been looking forward to checking out the library. Sunny, why don't you go with Violet, there will probably be more interesting things to bite in the workshop than in the library."
"Newark", Sunny said, nodding, as Violet bent over to scoop her up.
The five children finished climbing the stairs, and the Baudelaires took a few more steps before they realised that the Quagmires were no longer following them.
"This place," said Duncan.
"It's so strange!" said Isadora.
"Yeah," said Violet, nodding and remembering how stunned she'd been on seeing the mirrors for the first time.
"The corridors really aren't in keeping with the open plan of the studio, are they?" said Klaus with a smile, repeating Arwen's description.
"What?" said Duncan, looking oddly at Klaus. "I meant the mirrors, this is so strange, it's like some kind of carnival."
"Don't mind Klaus, he's trying to make a joke," said Violet. "I wish I could say that you'll get used to the mirrors, but I'm not sure it's true."
"And I wish," said Klaus, "that I could tell you that the bedrooms aren't even worse, but I am sure that it's false."
"Perhaps the workshop will be different," said Duncan.
"Or the library," said Isadora.
"I sure hope so," said Violet, and she started walking down the middle corridor, which led to the library, kitchen and studio. The other children followed her, the Baudelaires looking at their feet to avoid the mirrors and the Quagmires looking in awe around them.
"What are those," said Duncan, pointing to the black sprinklers that hung from the ceiling.
"Those are Vaporous Flame Dampeners," said Klaus, as Duncan took out his commonplace book and started to take notes. "It's a sprinkler system, in case there's a fire."
"Oh, well that's a relief, I suppose," said Isadora, looking up at the sprinkler which hung over her head, and the children kept walking.
"Well, here's the workshop," said Violet. "We'll go and have a look around here, and then I want to take another look at the weather machine. We can meet you two in the kitchen for lunch."
"Sounds like a plan," said Klaus, as he and Isadora continued down the corridor.
Violet turned back to the workshop door, and pushed it open. The room was dark, but it was fitted with an automatic light which flickered on as soon as she stepped inside. The light revealed a huge workshop, full of all kinds of machines and construction materials. Violet's inventing brain tried to take in every item in the room at once. She saw anvils and bearings, cardboard and drillbits, eagle feathers and gears, but before she could finish taking in everything her eyes set on a human figure, hunched over one of the work benches, who turned around in surprise as the lights turned on.