A/N: (Updated November 26, 2023) Shoutout to the awesome thatwritermadeofpotatoes for reviewing! You rock, man! :)

.

thatwritermadeofpotatoes ––– Yeah, sorry for the late updates. I hit a wall and life got busy. And you're very welcome :) Thanks! I cherry-picked what I liked about the book and the show and mashed them together to get the best of both worlds. It was actually very hard to do. Lol. Gotta make sure it ain't clunky and that it flows, fits the story, etc.. Glad it turned out good on your guys' end. I was nervous it would be bad amalgamations all put together and clunky.

.

Disclaimer: Me no own ASOUE.

========
Chapter 14
========

Black.

Silence.

Puzzled, I looked around. Everywhere I looked was nothing but an endless void. Was I dead? Did I freeze to death in the Mortmain Mountains? Was the fire in the cave not hot enough to sustain my life? I didn't know. And to be honest, it had me scared. Not knowing what to do, I took a few brisk steps forward, hoping that might illuminate my surroundings.

BOOM!

There was a flash of light, and before I knew it I was flying through the air. I slammed against something hard and fell onto the floor in a heap, my whole body burning. With a pained groan, I looked up.

Fire.

Everywhere.

Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

I scrambled to my feet, my eyes beginning to water and my lungs beginning to cook from the heat. Where was I? How do I get out of here? I was going to burn to a crisp if I didn't act. But wait, aren't I dead? What would happen if I just stood here?

"Quigley!" I heard someone scream. "Quigley!"

My head snapped in the direction of the screaming. It was Mother. She came bolting up to me, Father hot on her tail.

"Mother!" I shouted over the roar of the chaos. But before I could hurry up to them, I fell to the floor again, this time unable to move. The ceiling had caved in and a giant chandelier had me pinned. Mother and Father were about to pull it off me when they both suddenly combusted. Their horrified screams filled the smoky air and they dropped to their knees, skin melting off their bodies. I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to get the image out of my mind. Their screaming continued as I heard the walls around me collapsing.

"Quigley!" Mother screamed again.

I shot up with a strangled gasp. I was met with black again, only this time, the air was cold. I looked around. Judging by the snoring around me, I realized that I was still in the cave. I sighed with relief. It was just a bad dream. Good. I checked to see if the coast was clear, then I took off my mask and wiped the sweat off my face and neck. That was the most unsettling dream I've ever had. I could forget all about falling back asleep–––I was wide awake now. Speaking of which, how long have I been out?

I squinted at the cave entrance, but it was too far away for me to see what was outside. I threw back my covers, got up, slung my backpack over my shoulders, and took out my spyglass. By the faint light of the embers in the pit, I twisted the configuration to 'flashlight' and pressed the button by the golden rings. A bright ray of white light pierced the darkness and I aimed it at the cave floor. Tiptoeing carefully around the snow scouts, I crept over to the entrance to get a better look at what I was up against today. Suddenly, there was a slight snore at my feet and I about jumped out of my skin.

Baudelaires. I forgot that Carmelita made them sleep all the way out here. The path was so narrow that I'd have to step over them if I wanted to go outside. I didn't want to take the chance of possibly kicking them awake, so I turned off my flashlight and extended my spyglass to have a look. The stars had disappeared and the sky was now a dark gray. Oh, shoot! I slept too long! Dawn's almost here! I have to go now! I looked down at the Baudelaires. Violet looked so peaceful dancing around in never, never land. I wonder what she was dreaming about. Hopefully better things than what I was. I really didn't want to pull her back into reality, but I had no choice. I had to secure the sugar bowl, and to do that, I need her and Klaus's help with the Vernacularly Fastened Door.

I shrunk my spyglass, bent down, and shook Violet and Klaus gently, my hand shaking once I made contact with Violet's shoulder. Their eyes fluttered open and looked into mine, confused. Oh, right. We haven't met yet. Not properly. But now wasn't the time. I had to get them out of here before that sinister man and woman came back looking for them. Once we were in the headquarters I could reveal myself. "Come with me, Baudelaires," I whispered. "I know a shortcut to the headquarters."

Violet and Klaus looked at each other.

"How––?" Violet asked.

"Do––?" Klaus asked.

"I'm sure you have lots of questions," I said. "But we can't talk here. I promise all of your questions will be answered, but first we've got to get to the headquarters. Come with me."

The Baudelaires climbed out of their blankets and I turned my flashlight on again and led them to the back of the cave where the Vertical Flame Diversion was. "I had to wait for the fire to die down before I could show you," I said, glancing nervously at the snow scouts scattered around us. I pointed the spyglass up at the ceiling. "Look."

Violet and Klaus's gaze followed the beam up. "A chimney," Klaus said. "I was wondering why the fire didn't fill the cave with smoke."

"The official name is Vertical Flame Diversion," I said. "It's not just a chimney, it's a secret passageway. It runs from this cave to the Valley of Four Drafts. If we climb up there, we can reach the headquarters much quicker, instead of hiking all the way up the mountain."

"How did you know it was here?" Klaus asked.

"I read it in a book called Remarkable Phenomena of the Mortmain Mountains."

"That sounds familiar."

"It should. I borrowed it from Dr. Montgomery's library."

Violet and Klaus's eyes widened.

"When––?" Violet asked.

"Why––?" Klaus asked.

"What are you doing?" Carmelita asked.

My heart stopped. I knew we should've just kept going and have me explain things later. We looked to find Carmelita still lying down, her eyes still shut.

"Give me those earrings, Rachel," she said, grinning.

I sighed, relieved. She was just dreaming out loud. Good. Our cover wasn't blown. But we have to get out of here now. After yesterday's run-in with those two awful people, I wasn't feeling so lucky. I looked at the Baudelaires. "We'll talk when we reach the headquarters," I whispered. "The Vertical Flame Diversion is very echoey, so we'll have to be absolutely silent as we climb, or the echoing noise will alert Scoutmaster Brucie and the Snow Scouts. I'll go first and lead the way. Are you ready?"

Violet and Klaus looked at each other, looking torn about something. Great. They didn't trust me. But then again, after all they'd been through, could I really blame them? "I know it must be hard to trust me, Baudelaires," I said empathetically. "After so many people have done you wrong."

"We don't know who you are," Violet said. "How do we know we can trust you?"

Yep. Worst fear confirmed: Violet didn't trust me. We're off to a real good start. But, maybe I could get her to come around. I thought for a moment, fishing for the right words to reel them in. "Klaus, you mentioned the word 'xenial' when you were talking with Carmelita about that silly pledge. 'Xenial' is an adjective that means being welcoming to strangers."

"He's right," I heard Klaus murmur to Violet.

"I know that having a good vocabulary doesn't guarantee that I'm a good person," I said. "But it does mean I've read a lot. And in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil." Wow. That…was the dumbest reason I've ever come up with. C'mon, Baudelaires, please throw me a bone here. Please trust me.

Violet and Klaus looked at each other again, and judging by the looks on their faces, they still weren't entirely convinced. My heart sank. "You can take your mask off now," Violet said. "They're asleep."

"There are enemies everywhere," I told her, shivering, remembering that sinister man and woman on a mission to hunt me down and do who knows what to me. "Follow me." I turned off my spyglass, put it in my pocket, and headed over to the ladder just above my head. I gripped the bottom-most rung and pulled myself up. After climbing up past the cave ceiling I looked down. To my relief, the Baudelaires were following me. Fantastic! Just what I wanted. Sugar bowl, here I come!

/

"We're close," I panted after quite a trek upward. The V.F.D. eye was now bigger than a manhole cover. Already, my fingers began to burn from the anticipation of opening the hatch again…or was that the borderline frostbite in my hands from gripping cold metal nonstop without gloves on? It didn't matter. The headquarters was just ahead and soon we'd be inside warming up by the fireplace. I could muscle this out a little longer.

"What do you think we'll find up there?" Klaus asked from below.

Violet craned her neck to look around me. "I know what I hope we'll find," she said.

After about thirty more rungs, I pushed the hatch open again and climbed out. This time up seemed to have went by real fast as opposed to the first time up. I reached my hand out and helped Violet out of the Vertical Flame Diversion, then Klaus. Man, what a climb. I'd forgotten just how arduous it was. I slouched over, trying to catch my breath for a minute. The cold air really didn't help my lungs any.

"This looks like the tunnel we found under our house," Violet said, her and Klaus walking up to the Vernacularly Fastened Door. I hurried up to them.

"V.F.D. built these passageways everywhere," I told her. "An underground organization needs a way to travel underground. According to Remarkable Phenomena of the Mortmain Mountains, the headquarters is behind that door."

"It's an impressive lock. How does it open?" Violet asked, leaning closer to examine it.

"It's called a Vernacularly Fastened Door," I said.

"So it opens with language," Klaus said. "'Vernacular' is a word for 'a local language or dialect.'"

"The keyboard is wired to the hinges," Violet said. "You have to type in the right phrase."

"Three phrases," I said, taking out my notebook and flipping to the page with the access codes for the headquarters. "These phrases change every season, so volunteers need to have a lot of information at their fingertips to use this door. And if you get them wrong, it locks forever. The first phrase is the name of the scientist most widely credited with the discovery of gravity."

"That's easy," Violet said. "Sir Isaac Newton." She reached forward and punched in 'SIR ISAAC NEWTON' on the keyboard.

Just like that, one of the hinges began to turn in the top left corner of the door. Violet and Klaus smiled, and though they couldn't see it, I smiled with them. One down, two to go. My breathing quickened.

"What's next?" Violet asked.

"The second is the Latin name for the Volunteer Feline Detectives," I said. "I found the answer in Remarkable Phenomena of the Mortmain Mountains. It's Panthera leo." I walked up and typed in 'PANTHERA LEO' on the keyboard.

More turning from the hinges. My heart was now pounding in my head. I could barely wait.

"What's the last phrase?" Violet asked.

I sighed. The fun part. The million dollar question. "The third is the central theme of Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet."

"That's why you asked about it at the campfire!" Violet said, looking at me. I felt my throat swell shut. Those eyes again. Paralyzing me so effortlessly. How she did it, I'll never know. "You needed someone to help you open the door."

"There are people I'm looking for," I said, Duncan and Isadora springing to mind. "People I've lost."

"Us, too," Violet said quietly.

"Our mother," Klaus said.

"Our father," Violet said, looking down.

"Sunny," Klaus said.

My face fell. She looked so sad, like she was ready to cry. I wanted to hug her, but I couldn't. Not right now, anyway. She didn't know who I was. Hell, she barely even trusted me enough to climb up here with me, let alone let me break the touch barrier with her.

"We can find them," I assured them. "But only if you can tell me the central theme of the novel Anna Karenina." If we didn't know that answer, then we might as well climb back down and hike the long way up to find them.

"The central theme of Anna Karenina," Klaus said, "is that a rural life of moral simplicity, despite its monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy."

My eyebrows rose. "That's a very long theme," I said.

"It's a very long book," Klaus said. "But I can work quickly. My sisters and I once tapped out a long telegram in no time at all."

"Too bad that telegram never arrived," I said quietly.

Klaus reached for the keyboard, but hesitated. "Y'know, our mother had us memorize it…"

"She was preparing us for this moment," Violet looked at him.

Klaus looked at her for a moment. "We won't let her down," he said finally, then began typing furiously. I watched him intently, my excitement crescendoing with each click of the fastened typewriter. Sweat began to break out on my forehead, but I didn't dare remove my mask to wipe it. We were still exposed out here. I tried to reign in my breathing, as it was gradually becoming more frantic the longer Klaus typed. Finally, he typed in 'TRAGEDY' and the hinge turned a bit, then stopped.

The door didn't budge.

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. WHAT?! IT WON'T OPEN?! I'M SCREWED! The sugar bowl…it was just beyond that door… And I messed everything up. I had one job and I blew it. There was no way of getting it now. The only way to get inside was sealed shut forever, and there were no other entrances to the headquarters that I was aware of.

Or were there?

I was not looking forward to climbing all the way back down and hiking the long way up Mount Fraught. But, at least I'd have Violet to keep me company…and Klaus.

"Why isn't it opening?" Violet asked, equally as appalled as I was.

"It sounded like it was working until the last word," Klaus said tensely.

"Maybe the mechanism is stuck," Violet suggested, eyes darting all around the door for an answer to the problem.

"Or maybe a daring life of impulsive passion leads to something else," I said, praying that wasn't true.

We stood there for a minute, contemplating what we should do next when the giant V.F.D. dial rotated with a squeal and the locking bars shrunk back with a deep thud!, the door creaking open just a crack. My heart slammed on the gas again and I found myself grinning from ear to ear. THIS WAS IT! This was my chance to complete my objectives, well, two out of the three, anyway. I still had to find Duncan and Isadora. But I can bring the sugar bowl and the Baudelaires with me when I go to do that.

"We could walk in on the entire organization having a meeting," Klaus said excitedly.

"Or one of our parents," Violet said.

Klaus grabbed the door and pulled it open. There was a whoosh of hot air filled with dark particles, and we all started coughing. My jaw dropped again.

Ashes.

Just ashes.

An enormous field of black ashes by a giant frozen waterfall.

Tears welled up in my eyes. My worst nightmare had come true: I was too late. "It must've been beautiful," I managed to choke, walking toward the waterfall, churning up black dust as I went. I stopped at the edge of the ashes. "I read that there was a large window," I moved my hand in a circle in the air. "When it was your turn to cook, you could look out at the waterfall while you were chopping vegetables or simmering a sauce. It was supposed to be very peaceful. And there was a mechanism just outside the window that turned some of the water from the pool into steam. The steam rose up and covered the headquarters, so it couldn't be seen through the blanket of mist."

The Baudelaires trudged up to me and looked around. "It was ashes," Klaus said to Violet. "Ashes from the fire fell into the pool at the bottom of the waterfall, and the stream carried them down the river."

"But the pool is frozen solid," Violet said. "The stream couldn't have carried the ashes anywhere."

"It wouldn't have been frozen when it happened," Klaus said. "The heat from the fire would have thawed the pool."

"It must have been awful to see," I said. I could just imagine the whole headquarters aflame. I could hear the shattering of glass as the windows fell away; I could hear the crackle of the fire as it consumed everything it could; I could smell the thick smoke as it floated upward and blackened the sky; I could see the books in the library falling from the burning shelves and tumbling into ashes. The only thing I couldn't picture was who was in the headquarters when all this was taking place.

"Do you think any of the volunteers…" Violet said.

"There's no sign that anyone was here," I said.

"But how can we know for sure?" Klaus asked. "There could be a survivor someplace right now."

"Hello?" Violet called into the wilderness. "Mother? Father?"

Only her echo answered her.

I could see the tears in her eyes as she called out again for Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire. I looked down at the ground. I wish there was something I could do to help her. I couldn't take this torture anymore. Her pain was killing me.

"Mother?" Klaus tried. "Father?"

Only his echo answered him.

The four drafts began to blow and with a creak and a loud bang!, the Vernacularly Fastened Door slammed shut.

"This is where everything's led us–––the maps, the codes," Klaus said, looking at Violet.

"The Snicket File," Violet added.

"One of our parents has to be here," Klaus said. "Jacques Snicket said there was a survivor of the fire."

Survivor of the fire? Jacques told me that the Baudelaire parents had died in a fire, so it couldn't have been them he was talking about. Could Jacques have been talking about…me? I doubt it'll help, but let's see what happens. "There is," I said.

"Where?" Klaus asked.

"Here," I said. Well, since we're at the headquarters and nobody but the Baudelaires are here, I guess it's safe to reveal myself. "I survived the fire that destroyed my home." I reached up and took off my mask. Man, that wind felt nice on my face after all this sweating.

Violet and Klaus's eyes widened. "Duncan?" Violet asked breathlessly.

Duncan? Boy, that was an insult. I'm going to pretend she didn't say that. But then again, Duncan and Isadora probably thought I was dead so they might have told them that I was, so…this might be a real plot twist for them. "Quigley," I corrected her politely. "Quigley Quagmire. I was hoping to find my brother and sister."