A quiet knock sounds on Violet's door, retrieving her from a reverie. "Come in," she calls from behind her shoulder, and a beam of light paints a trail on the wooden floor before disappearing after her brother has closed the door behind him. She smiles at him from where she sits at the worktable, an old contraption situated in front of her.
"Good morning," she greets.
"Good morning," Klaus replies before gesturing to her hair—to the ribbon that keeps it from her eyes. "You're back to inventing," he comments lightly.
A hand rises to touch the silken material for a brief moment. "Sort of. This was already here when I came." She holds the device in both hands, giving it one last inspecting look before calling for Klaus to come closer.
He moves to stand beside her seated form, a hand resting on the back of the chair. "It's a music box," he mutters, inspecting the delicate swerves of woodwork and the fine engravings; details that allude to a creation spawned with great care. "Does it work?"
"It didn't," says Violet, winding the key, "but hopefully, it will now."
The siblings watch as the lid of the box opens to reveal a ballerina with dragonfly wings, spinning to a piece of music that sounds both familiar and alien—one that contorts their visages with varying shades of delight and dread. They are silent as they stare, and though their initial feelings are passive in their confusion, their brows soon furrow when the tune drops in dissonance, vaguely disturbing in its drone, and the ballerina begins to spin in the opposite direction, gears catching and scraping.
Violet quickly closes the lid. "Maybe it needs a bit more work," she says sheepishly.
"It has been a while since you've worked with mechanics," Klaus suggests as an explanation, offering his sister a consoling smile.
"Yeah," she says, and although her mien hopes to paint a picture of acquiescence, it rings with a note of melancholy, "that must be it."
Klaus inhales deeply and walks in the direction of the window, preparing for the change in subject. "Anyway," he begins, "there's something I want to speak to you about."
With an acknowledging nod, Violet stands and walks towards him. "What is it?"
He takes out the small, leather-bound book from his pocket. "The book I mentioned earlier…" He flips through it so that he fails to see how his sister's face becomes tense and guarded. Klaus sighs, raising his eyes to meet hers. "It's an account of our time with Uncle Monty. And the way it's written suggests that there are more of these books. In fact… it's likely that Mr. Snicket documented every trial we went through since our house burned down."
A moment is spared in which he awaits her response, but he is met only with silence.
"… What do you think of all this, Violet?"
She stares at the book a moment longer before looking up. "I expected it," she says quietly, taking it from his hands and opening at a random page. "He's always writing down everything that happens, and he seems to know more about us than any other person we've met. It only made sense…" she trails off.
Klaus frowns. "Did you also expect that he was publishing those books?"
This manages to garner a response. Violet's brown eyes widen as she snaps her head upwards. "Publishing…?"
"Yes," he says. "And in realtime, it seems. It's very likely that he enabled all sorts of unsavory people to gather information about us."
To a casual observer, Violet's frown may hint at a vague dismay; a displeasure that, while undeniable, could signify nothing more than a mild inconvenience—but Klaus knows his sister. He sees the darkness that descends and discolors her features, sees as her eyes grow colder, and knows that she is very crestfallen indeed.
But Violet is not one to throw a fit and scream. After a silent inspection of the name of the publishing company imprinted on the first page of the book, she shuts it closed and hands it to her brother.
He dares to make a further inquiry. "Do you still want to stay with him?"
She considers, and with a level tone, she says, "He can help us find Sunny and Beatrice. That much hasn't changed."
"But do you trust him?"
Her hand pulls at the ribbon in her hair and she looks at it with a heavy heart. "I… don't think his intention was ill by any means."
This sentiment is distasteful to them both—the victims of good intentions and bad circumstances.
"The road to hell," quotes Klaus bitterly, "is paved with good intentions."
Violet swallows the heavy lump in her throat and reminds herself that every decision she makes has consequences that touch the lives of four—not simply herself. The burden is leaden to bear, and her shoulders ache.
The breath she releases is shaky. "There is no evading risk," she says; a constantly repeated truth that is most decidedly bitter, "but we will not be a passive presence in our own lives." Looking her brother in the eye, she continues, "If the tide shifts, we shift it back."
Klaus considers his sister, feeling his trust in her become more rooted and steadfast, and he nods. "We stay, then."
"We stay."
And the two siblings set on different paths for the day. The inn, though mostly bereft of inhabitants, hosts some activity inside its antiquated walls. More people check out than in, as if there lingers a voiceless, agreed-upon sentiment that this place holds an air of unquenchable gloom; a spirit of hostility that recognizes every outsider and compels them to leave.
Luckily for Lemony—or perhaps, unluckily—this is a feeling to which he is well accustomed. He sits at the bar, hat lying beside him on the table, and a shot of whiskey forgotten in his grasp. His gray-blue eyes scan the daily newspaper, a heavy frown twisting his lips. It is a report of a young girl's disappearance; the third one this week alone, and he marvels at the public silence on the matter.
"Can I get you anything else?" asks the bartender, wiping a glass with a napkin.
Lemony looks up at once, startled, before shaking his head and mumbling, "No, thank you."
"You got a bit of an accent there," she says, inching closer. Her breath is foul and her eyes are glazed over. "Where you from?"
"There and elsewhere…" he shifts in discomfiture, eyeing the closest exit, but a new voice keeps him from leaving.
"Should you really be drinking, Mr. Snicket?"
Lemony turns to look behind him and is met with a pensive, sullen Violet, with Tesla huddled in her arms. She appraises him as though he were a particularly difficult puzzle, or a cog that fails to fit one of her clockwork devices.
"Oh, it's…" he looks at the drink in his hand before placing it on the table, "it's nothing that would cloud my judgement," he says with a small smile.
She hums noncommittally, and there passes a second in which he spies something in her eyes, and it is much more than her usual weariness and despondency. He dares label it as betrayal, and feels his heart sink into his stomach.
"In any case," she says, "I'm going to take a walk around town, see if I can find that church…"
He makes to stand up. "I'll come with—"
"Alone," she interrupts, but when he looks at her with wounded confusion, she remedies in a softer voice, "I think I'd like to be alone with my thoughts, if you don't mind."
Nodding slowly, he says, "Of course." And he watches her leave.
Lemony adjusts his position on the stool and downs the shot, attempting to refocus on the abysmal report in the newspaper.
"What is she to you, if you don't mind me asking?"
But he very much minds. Impediments to his privacy are never appreciated, and he tries to be as polite as possible when he says, "That's my business alone to mind."
Unfortunately for him, the bartender is relentless. "Oh come now," she says with a flippant laugh. "A sister, daughter, coworker, lover…?"
He closes the newspaper and stands. "None."
"What, then?"
Walking away, he mutters, "I have not a clue."
Outside the relative safety of the inn, a storm seems to be brewing. Dark, heavy clouds gather and loiter, amassing in the distance and steadily approaching; the wind is awfully erratic, sending leaves in frenzied swirls and tousling Violet's hair into disarray, but regardless of it all, she presses forward.
Her steps are soft and she progresses as though in a haze. It is not simply the effect of the fog, but rather it is the accusatory gazes of strangers that draw her into surreality—a world where she has earned their distrust; where she is very much capable of inciting it. She wonders if such a world is not surreal at all.
Yet nonetheless, she makes an attempt at cordiality. Her polite nods and smiles are met with scornful scowls and sneers, and she muses that asking for help will be much harder than anticipated.
Presently she stands before a graffitied wall that reads REPENT OR BURN and HE SEES ALL, and although she dismisses the words as the product of overzealousness, unease prickles her mind and implores her to continue walking.
She turns and is immediately startled by an old man standing right behind her. His eyes are glossy and his teeth are rotted, and he regards her as though he can see right through her.
"Sorr—" she begins to say, but he interrupts.
"An omen…"
Violet furrows her eyebrows. "Omen?"
He points at the black bird on her shoulder with a shaking finger, and his voice rises in accusation. "The girl with the raven—an omen!"
But she turns her head and strides away before he can say anything further, looking behind her to see him standing still and staring at her with those unnerving, clouded eyes. She looks forward.
"Don't mind him, Tesla," she mutters, stroking his feathers with a finger, "he doesn't know any better."
The words might as well be for her own comfort.
"You're all shaken up," comes an amused voice from her right—it is a middle-aged man nailing a poster to the trunk of a tree. "Old Tom is batty. I wouldn't let him get to me, Miss."
Violet notes how his eyes are seemingly riveted on his work, but scan her from the periphery with intent curiosity.
She attempts a smile. "I'm quite alright, sir." And her own curiosity is stirred when she moves to look at the poster, frowning when she sees that it is of a young girl who has gone missing.
"Miriam," supplies the man, gesturing with his hammer. "A sweet little thing. She and my daughter used to play together all the time. It's a shame she's gone now."
His choice of words is peculiar to say the least, and whatever little ease Violet has managed to salvage begins to wither away. "But… who is to say she won't be found?"
The man laughs shortly. "Oh darling, no. No, they're never found. This here is a mere formality." He tips his hat, grinning. "Have a nice day now."
And he is gone.
Violet stares at the girl's face. She must be four years old at most; the same age Sunny would now be. Her stomach churns and she thinks she might be sick.
A thought occurs to her, and she chases after the man.
"Sir!" she calls, "sir, wait!"
He stops and looks at her questioningly.
"Could you tell me where the church is?"
She knows from her erratic heartbeat and cynical dread that it is a futile endeavor, and indeed, his already dark eyes darken even more. He takes a step closer, leaning in. "If I were you," he says lowly, "I'd stay silent about the church."
Searching his eyes for an abatement for her confusion, she says, "But…"
"Be smart about this, girl," he says. "Don't ask about the church. Don't mention the church—hell, don't even think about the church. You hear me?"
And she has but to nod, befuddled and unnerved. "I do."
Thinning his lips, he gives her one last look before walking away.
She would be damned if she heeds his advice.
"I suppose that's that for outside help…" she mutters.
A sigh escapes her as she surveys her surroundings. Undistinguished houses and shops occupy the streets, and they extend to the very end of her line of sight. She ignores her starving stomach that begs for attention, and walks.
Hours pass and steal away the day—she goes through alleys and main roads, hidden passages and declivities, yet her search bears nothing but aching muscles and strained joins. Rain has begun to pour; a gentle trickle that precedes an uncompromising shower, and she seeks shelter in a dingy diner, where she sates her hunger with a sandwich whose bread is stale and cheese is bitter.
Sitting by the window, she loses track of time, trailing the descent of raindrops down the stained glass. Only when the lights go out does she stand to leave.
And back to the inn she goes.
Perhaps it was a subconscious impulse, but she has prolonged her return for as long as she could manage. And now, standing within the cold, damp walls of Vesper Inn and under the feeble lighting of a small ceiling lamp, she struggles to make out the features of the sole presence in the bar.
Violet wonders if it is her body or her spirit that is more spent.
She sits beside him, and he raises his head at once from its reclining position against his forearm. From his blatant confusion and glazed over eyes, she knows that he is entirely inebriated.
Nonetheless, she speaks.
"Were you planning on telling me?" Her tone is calm, but against the pin-drop silence, it rings obtrusively in his ears. He fails to answer, so she elaborates. "That you were writing books about us and publishing them?"
Lemony shakes his head slowly, refusing to look at her. "No," he whispers. "Not if I could help it."
She swallows, and he hears the sorrow in her next word, "Why?"
"… Because I knew this conversation would come up." His arms drops, and the glass stirs, but she catches it before it falls. "Because I hate confrontations." He releases a small laugh. "Because I am a coward."
His every answer dismays her, and that much is obvious.
"But why would you do that, Mr. Snicket?" she presses, voice hardly above a heated whisper, rigidly controlled as she recalls every misfortune that she was forced to endure with her siblings, now imprinted forever and crystallized in history. Her eyes burn and her face twists with the effort to subdue her tears. "Don't you know of the risks you have put us through? Don't you care?"
"Of course I care," he is quick to answer, an edge and a tremble to his voice. He raises his eyes, and they are obscured by vehement tears that are yet to spill. "I care," he repeats. Swallowing and wetting his lips, he says, "Your mother… I promised her to look after you in any way I could." He raises his shoulders in a feeble shrug. "That was the only way I knew how… to make sure that a part of you lives on even if I couldn't protect you. You were never gone that way. I was always with you, and I—I promise you I didn't publish any of those books until a significant time has elapsed—I would never knowingly endanger you, but publishing them is the undeniably selfish part of me that made me seek sustenance by the one way I was willing to expose myself to the world and please," his voice breaks, and he brings a shaking hand to dispel the fallen tears.
"Please stop looking at me like that—like I betrayed you—like I haven't spent my nights and days with only you and your siblings in mind for the past three years; researching and scouring and dreading and crying—!" his timbre descends as he looks her in the eye. He whispers, "Please don't hate me. I couldn't bear it."
Violet sniffles and wipes at her own eyes. She takes the bottle out of his grasp and places it far from his reach. "I don't hate you, Mr. Snicket," she whispers tiredly, fatigued beyond explanation.
Lemony has the look of complete gratitude that mingles with years of exhaustion and misery, and he seems unable to hold himself upright any longer. He rests his forehead on his palm and his sunken shoulders shake slightly with suppressed cries. Violet's words might be simple, but the relief they offer him is immense.
He does not believe he could lose another loved one in this lifetime. Even if they are still alive. Even if they reside near him in their flesh and bone.
Questions that beg for answers still resound in Violet's mind, but she abates their resonance in favor of respecting the man beside her—this strange and sad writer to whom she has become attached, for better or for worse. She rests her hand against the back of his shoulder and caresses until his tears have ceased.
After a while of silence, when he has calmed and his senses dulled, he looks up at her and says in a quiet confession, "Looking at you is painful in two different ways."
Violet considers this and says, "How so?"
A rueful smile twists his lips. "I see Beatrice, and the pain is sweet." But it soon falls as his face becomes entirely melancholy. "I see Bertrand," he whispers, "and it grows bitter."
It is a revelation that fails to surprise her. He will not remember this, she knows. "I wonder if you ever see me," she mutters, shrugging faintly. "Just me."
But his gaze is faraway and detached. She sighs and stands up before heading towards the stairs.
"It's past midnight…" says Lemony.
She stops and looks at him. "It is."
"It's your seventeenth birthday."
But he knows better than to wish her a happy birthday. For that, she is grateful.
A sad and dark chapter, but also one that is necessary. Thank you very much for your reviews—honestly, what keeps me going is seeing that people enjoy this story, and your feedback means a lot.