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Ellington Feint was gazing at the very vintage-looking skeleton key sitting in her palm when someone knocked on the door. The key looked very old, with bronze that she supposed must’ve once shone brightly. Though it didn’t look new and shiny, Ellington knew it was still pretty effective. Cracked open a door to a storage basement for her just last month. She never really got to see the key in its shiny new state, though. When she’d first gotten it, it had already looked like it’d weathered some years. There was a stain on the key that if she used a little imagination, it looked like the letter K.
Coincidentally, also the initial of the very person who had given her this very skeleton key decades ago.
The second set of knocks, three quick ones eagerly following one another, pulled Ellington from her own thoughts. She closed her palm, feeling the shape and the texture and the history of the key, clutched tightly in her hand, and she slowly took a deep breath before stretching out her fingers again, stared at the key long and hard, then called out in a calm voice, “Just a moment.”
She carefully put the skeleton key back into the hidden layer of the handbag she carried with her all the time, stealing one last glance at it before zipping the hidden layer up. Then she turned to look at the mirror, trying to summon a professional and friendly smile. The kind of smile that didn’t felt bittersweetly nostalgic or heartaching. Professional. Friendly.
She walked over the door, opening it up to the splitting image of teenage Kit Snicket, except ganglier and with shorter and darker hair. “Hi, Beatrice, ready?” Ellington smiled, professional and friendly.
Beatrice nodded earnestly, her eyes brightly lit and excited. “Yes, Miss Ellington. We’re set to go - Uncle Jake says the lunch boxes are ready too. He made sandwiches and cake for us!”
When they’d first met, Beatrice had called her Miss Feint or Ma’am, with a polite and reserved and a little shy smile. Ellington had wondered if it was only just because she thought it was proper manners, or if it was also contributed by the fact that her goddamn uncle still insisting on calling Ellington “Miss Feint” even after all these years. (“To be fair, you still call him Mr. Snicket too,” Moxie had pointed out, not even bothering to look up from her typewriter which she was busily typing out tomorrow’s news on.) After Ellington had told the girl feel free to use her name, she’d switched to “Miss Ellington”. A part of her hoped one day she might be able to call her Aunt Ellington like the way she called Cleo and Jake Aunt and Uncle, but she didn’t tell her that, not wanting to push her. She supposed it was the kind of things that took time. Cleo mentioned Beatrice had called her Miss Knight and Miss Cleo for a while before finally calling her Aunt.
“Let’s go pick it up from the kitchen then,” Ellington said, and Beatrice nodded excitedly. “Did you get the chance to find out the flavor of the cake?”
She grinned, delighted and mischievous, her eyes so sharp and bright and clever. “He said it’s meant to be a surprise and we should only open when we’re ready to have lunch, but I saw the strawberries in the fridge seem far fewer than yesterday.”
A sudden unbearable fondness rushed through her unexpectedly. Ellington had thought that seeing the same sharpness and cleverness and observance from Kit’s daughter like she’d seen in Kit all those years ago would only make her heart ache of lost memories, but now Beatrice was standing in front of her, grinning at her, and Ellington just felt - fond. Warm.
Fondness and warmness, two feelings she’d been experiencing recently more than she’d expected, two feelings she had once thought she’d never felt again.
Life was full of surprises.
“You make a great detective,” she told the girl, whose grin got wider, then fell slightly.
“Miss Moxie once told me my uncle - Uncle Jacques I mean - they worked together for a while. He was an investigative journalist. That’s kind of like a detective, right? I want to be like him.” She exhaled. “She says he had this camera he used to take pictures of evidence. I’m going to get a camera someday, too.”
Ellington mentally made a note to herself to buy one for her as a birthday gift sometime soon. “Yeah, he was,” she said softly. “I’ve only met him a few times but I’ve heard he was a very thorough detective. Collected lots of evidence.”
“Uncle Lemony has this drawer with all the pictures Uncle Jacques took .... he never let me see them though. He said it’s just full of sad memories.”
Ellington mentally made a note to herself to kick down Lemony Snicket’s door and demanded he showed the pictures to his niece. Or perhaps just sneak into his house and crack open the drawers without talking to him, that seemed like a better plan. “I’ll convince him, and if not, I have ways,” she promised.
After all, that’s what skeleton keys were for, right? A skeleton key was a girl’s best friend, as someone very clever once said.
The Officers Mitchum gave her a little shove, and Ellington stumbled into the holding cell of the train. She looked back, eyes meeting the boy who’d just killed her father.
The door slammed shut, cutting their stares off like cutting off her life in this town from her. Except she knew it would never be a clean cut. It was messy and tangled and even as the train drove further and further away from the town where she’d met frie- acquaintances who ended up betraying her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was replaying the image of her father falling down again.
She tried to ignore the replay and focused on her surroundings - the cell. The girl in the cell - slightly older than Ellington, with pale blond-ish hair that looked odd on her, extended out a hand. “Kit Snicket.”
The replay in the back of her mind stopped, like hastily halted image. A scene frozen in time. Snicket. Kit Snicket. Ellington suddenly wanted to burst out into hysterical laughter.
She didn’t.
Her lips curved up into her usual, typical brand of smile, artfully suppressing the hysterical laughter bubbling within her, the bitter sneer, wrapping everything inside carefully. A smile that didn’t reveal anything. “Ellington Feint.”
Kit Snicket appraised her, her eyes slightly wary, and said, in a very practical voice, “Try to make yourself comfortable. It’s going to be a long train ride back to The City.”
Ellington studied Kit Snicket. Eyes slightly tired but with a certain sharpness to them. Perhaps there were more layers of emotions, but hidden behind some sort of invisible curtain. She wore a hat, though it was tilted to the right a little, and Ellington couldn’t see clearly under this light, but there seemed to be traces of darker roots beneath the pale blond hair just slightly below where the hat was tilted off. She was wearing a black jacket all zipped up, and the cuff at the end of the right sleeve had a slight tear, and a pair of black pants.
“Thank you for the suggestion,” Ellington said curtly.
Ellington supposed that Kit Snicket was right, this was going to be a long train ride back to The City.
Technically, Ellington supposed that Kit Snicket hadn’t exactly lied when she said this was going to be a long train ride back to The City. The train was indeed heading back to The City and would take quite a few hours to reach it. Kit Snicket never said anything about them being on this train the whole ride.
Ellington watched in silence as Kit Snicket - she called her “Kit Snicket” in her head, though to be polite, she addressed her fellow prisoner as “Miss Snicket” when talking to her - studied a map she had dug out of the pocket of her pants and unfolded. She was half-curious about what Kit Snicket was looking for on the map, but not curious enough to ask about it. Instead, she opted for quietly observing the other girl instead. She observed the way Kit Snicket furrowed her brows together in deep thought, the way Kit Snicket occasionally looking out the window with a frown, the way Kit Snicket scribbled something down on the map that Ellington couldn’t see clearly. She kept her eyes on Kit Snicket’s right hand holding the pencil, and her left hand falling onto the bench she was sitting on. After all, Ellington had learned the hard way that one could never be too careful when it came to dealing with a Snicket, because who knew what scheme they could come up with. She had to keep an eye on Kit Snicket, in order to keep herself safe.
After a while, Kit Snicket looked up at her and beckoned to Ellington. Suspiciously and slowly, Ellington moved towards her, and glanced at the map that Kit Snicket had been scribbling on. “We will be passing this town in probably around another hour, it’s the best place to escape from here. The town’s big enough to disappear into and I knew of associates there, and far away enough from The City where the train was eventually heading. I have a skeleton key we could use to get out of here.”
“We, Miss Snicket?” Ellington asked rather skeptically.
“Unless you would rather be on the train back to the city, where there probably would be a trial waiting,” Kit Snicket answered calmly.
“Why are you helping me?” Accepting help from a Snicket, in Ellington’s experience, didn’t usually turn out well. Even when they seemed genuinely sincere and wanting to help, sometimes they could just be making things worse. On the other hand, admittedly Kit Snicket hadn’t actually said anything like “I’ll help you with it” and she hadn’t actually made Ellington any promises, she just directly proposed a solution concerning her own situation, and assumed Ellington would want to join in. It was also herself she was saving, and Ellington’s safety was just a side thing, or perhaps a convenience since escaping with someone else offered twice as brainpower and skills compared to escaping alone. In a way, this made Kit Snicket’s help seemed way more reliable and trustworthy than someone just helping her because it “was the right thing” or “for justice”. Because trusting people to do the right thing more often than not led to disappointment, but trusting people to do something that benefit themselves - that seemed like something she could count on.
Still, she was dealing with a Snicket here, and Ellington felt that she had every right to be wary.
Kit Snicket studied her closely, then said. “I heard about what happened from the prisoner who just left - or at least, her version of the events - and I don’t think you’re guilty of what they are accusing you of.”
Ellington narrowed her eyes, cautious and skeptical. “So you’re helping me out of the goodness of your heart.”
“I don’t think you belong in prison, and it’s wrong you have to stay inside for a crime you did not commit.” Kit Snicket’s eyes met Ellington’s calmly. “But if you do not trust me enough to leave with me, I understand.”
Of course Ellington didn’t trust her. These days, she didn’t think she had the luxury to trust anyone. Especially not a Snicket. But still, when she put aside her anger at Lemony Snicket, she could see why it might make sense to escape with Kit Snicket despite the potential risks that came with the action. Taking her chances in an open world, despite all the dangers ahead, still seemed more promising than prison. Taking her chances with a girl she literally just met might not be ideal, but neither was relying on the cops and the justice system, which in all honesty, made her future seem bleaker.
Though, she reminded herself, she wasn’t just dealing with the girl in front of her. If she wasn’t careful, going down this road might mean dealing with the entire organization the Snickets belonged to. Snickets and their organization who thought they were doing the right thing while simultaneously ruining other people’s lives. Ellington felt her whole body tensing again and her fist slowly curling up, clenching tightly at nothing. Focus, she told herself. Focus on the current situation.
Well, it wasn’t like she would be staying with Kit Snicket for long. Once they escaped together, they would probably each go their own way and never see each other again.
“Okay,” she said carefully. “I’ll leave with you.” After a pause, deciding it was probably more polite to do so, she added, stiffly. “Thanks.”
Kit Snicket gave her a nod, “No problem.”
Kit Snicket very slowly, as not to create unnecessary noise, pulled open the prison door after unlocking it with her skeleton key. Ellington stood behind her, ready to follow her. Thankfully, no one was near this side of the train corridor at this moment, and then Kit closed the door again and locked it from the outside. Ellington had let down her previously braided her while Kit tied hers into a bun, and they’d changed into the spare shirts Kit carried in her bag, but those weren’t huge changes, and they needed to get off the train as soon as they could and preferably disappear into the crowds.
The train came to a stop, and Ellington found herself reaching out on of her hand to grab Kit Snicket’s. They ran fast onto the train platform together, and then towards the exit of the train station.
Their footsteps slowed down gradually as they got out of the train station. The night sky was clear above them, and there was not much traffic on the road. Their hands were still linked together as they came to a stop.
This was goodbye, Ellington supposed.
This should be goodbye.
A car drove past in front of them, and there were a couple of teenagers who were chattering in front of the vending machine a couple of feet away from them. Somewhere in the background, an insect chirped. Then there was the sound of the train leaving the station again, further and further away from them.
They should be safe now, relatively, anyway. Comparatively. For some definition of safe.
They should be safe, and this should be goodbye.
Ellington slowly let go of Kit Snicket’s hand. Slowly, but somehow too fast in her mind. Too fast, too early, too soon, too sudden.
Too abrupt.
Ellington let go of Kit Snicket’s hand, slowly yet too fast.
“Thank you, Miss Snicket,” she said formally.
“Glad to be of help,” Kit Snicket replied.
They nodded at each other, and prepared to each go their own way. Except Ellington had no idea where she was going to go, really. This was a whole new town to her. Perhaps she should try to find some hotel to sneak into, or some abandoned coffee shop, if there was one. Every town should have an abandoned coffee shop.
Ellington didn’t find any abandoned coffee shop, but she did overheard someone on the streets mentioning a bookstore that’s been shutdown months ago and now unoccupied. It’s no coffee shop, but it sounded like an okay place to stay the night in a time where she had nowhere else to go.
She didn’t have a skeleton key on her like Kit Snicket did, but she knew that entering through the front doors with key wasn’t the only way to get into a place. Besides, since it was abandoned, people probably wouldn’t mind a broken window or two.
After reaching the bookstore, she could see through the glass windows that there were barely any books left in the place. A couple of old shelves that look rusty and at most three of four books scattered around. Ellington frowned in concentration, going over the possible next moves in her head.
She walked around the store, and found a window was left open in the back. It was not too hard to climb, she realized as she eyed the window speculatively.
It took her a while, but she finally got into the bookstore after climbing in through the back window. There was a bench in the corner, which should be enough at least for tonight. She set her bag down, and closed her eyes briefly.
It had been an exhausting day.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she heard the sound of the door opening and her eyes fluttered open quickly. Shouldn’t this be an abandoned bookstore?
And then she saw Kit Snicket walking in.
“.... Miss Snicket?” Ellington managed to enquire in her most leveled, calm voice.
Kit Snicket looked slightly surprised to see her too, though she quickly recovered. “Miss Feint,” she greeted with a nod.
An awkward silence fell between them.
Of course Kit “I-have-a-skeleton-key-that-I-use-to-open-any-lock” Snicket would walk right in through the front door, Ellington thought. And a part of Ellington wanted to be mad about it, or to sneer at Kit Snicket using the easy way just because she conveniently had a tool, but Ellington would be lying if she said she wouldn’t have done the same with the said given tool. It would’ve been absurd not to use it if she had it.
She sighed inwardly, and thought that she was probably just a little annoyed that Kit Snicket had such a tool at her disposal but she had to climb through high windows at the back.
“Fancy running into you again,” Ellington said finally.
Kit Snicket quirked an eyebrow, and smiled a little. “Same,” she said.
Ellington blinked, slightly taken aback at how - how disarming the small smile on Kit Snicket’s face was. It’s a weird, unexpected feeling. A fraction of second of free falling and the disorientation following it after the landing. She steadied her foot on the ground, even though she’d actually been sitting the whole time. “Well,” Ellington cleared her throat. “I should rest. It’s been a long day.”
“I have a spare skeleton key,” Kit Snicket said before they parted ways the next day. She carefully took out a small plastic bag and reached her hand inside to bring out a violet flower keychain with lots of keys on it.
Ellington arched an eyebrow, refraining herself to comment, “A spare key?” Because those sure looked like ... a lot of spare keys.
Ellington watched as Kit Snicket methodically took one of the keys off from the violet flower keychain, and handed one over, “Might be useful to you. A skeleton key is a girl’s best friend.”
Ellington hesitated for a moment, before making her mind up to take it. Kit Snicket’s fingertips brushed across Ellington’s palm briefly. “I could use a best friend,” Ellington said, before adding. “Thanks, Miss Snicket.”
Kit Snicket opened her mouth slightly and looked like she wanted to say something at the “best friend” comment from Ellington, but changed midways and simply said. “No problem.”
They looked at each other for a moment, and in the back of her mind Ellington wondered what Kit Snicket had wanted to say.
“Goodbye, Miss Feint,” Kit Snicket broke the silence.
“Goodbye, Miss Snicket,” Ellington replied.
Ellington turned around and left the abandoned bookstore. It was only when she was a couple of steps out of the bookstore before she realized she wouldn’t particularly mind accidentally running into Kit Snicket again really soon.
Ellington didn’t run into Kit Snicket again.
At least, not for a few years.
“Could you tell me more about Mother?” Beatrice looked at Ellington, eyes curious and wondering and yearning. She leaned forwards a little, propping her arm onto the table in front of her. Ellington gazed out the window at the sceneries fast flying past them as the train ran forwards, and then looked back at Beatrice again.
She looked so much like Kit - the Kit that Ellington remembered from their teenage years.
“You said you met on a train, right? And you and mother also own a coffee shop together.” Ellington had noticed a while ago that Beatrice referred to Kit as “Mother” and Violet as “Mom”.
“Well, yes,” she began. “Though that were actually quite a few years between those two .... we didn’t meet again after parting ways really soon after the train, and didn’t meet again until years later.”
“And opened a coffee shop together?” Beatrice furrowed her brow questioningly, like she was trying to piece the timeline together.
“Well, not quite, that was even later. When we met again at first, we were both on the run - for different reasons than the first time, the time we escape from the train - and she drove me across the Hinterlands on a stolen car.”
“Wow.” Beatrice’s eyes widened. “What happened then?”
Ellington paused for a moment. “A lot of things. But not including me giving in and dancing to some cheerleading music in a faraway hotel.”
Beatrice furrowed her brow. “Uncle Lemony was a cheerleader,” she said.
“Yeah,” Ellington smirked slightly, the memory of coming across one of his cheerleading photos vivid in her head. “Yeah, I know.”
“Do you think maybe we need to stop running into each other while we’re on the run?” Kit Snicket asked as she sped up the car past the speed limit as if the speed limit sign they just drove past was a roadside decoration. She didn’t look much different than the last time Ellington had seen her, aside from the dark hair after the blonde wig was taken off. She was slightly older and slightly taller now, of course, and there was a sharper edge to her smile - or maybe it was just Ellington hadn’t had the chance to see she drive last time - but overall she looked quite the same.
“Then we might never get to run into each other,” Ellington said, a half-amused smile playing up her lips, before belatedly wondering if her answer hinted at how she wanted them to run into each other again.
Kit chuckled - and Ellington came to the sudden startling realization that she’d become Kit instead of Kit Snicket in her head - and said, “You have a point.”
Kit tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, and Ellington noticed the small earring on her right ear. It looked like the shape of a key. Which was - fitting, really, for Kit “A-skeleton-key-is-a-girl’s-best-friend” Snicket. Fitting. Neat. Secretive. Sexy.
Well, that was a slippery fucking slope and Ellington had no idea how she reached that last adjective.
“Hold on tight,” Kit warned as she saw a police car on the left in the crossroad in front of them, and sped up even more. A rush of exhilarating feeling surged through Ellington as the scenery outside the car flew past quickly beside her. She could ride this feeling all the way into the sunset, really. And into the night. And all the days beyond, even.
“You sure are one of the best getaway drivers I’ve ever known, Miss Snicket,” she said loudly as the wind blew past her outside the rolled-down car window.
Kit turned a little - it was probably a dangerous move considering she was driving, but Ellington wasn’t really considering that at the moment - to grin at Ellington, her eyes sparkling from the rush of speed and her lips pulling up into a smile so wide that Ellington thought might stretch to the key earring on her right ear lobe, and said, “Call me Kit.”
And Ellington found herself smiling too.
The small hotel room had barely anything other than the bed, but surprisingly it did have a turntable. A vinyl - slightly dusty looking - was placed inside. If this was some kind of movie scene, Ellington thought, the music she heard after she started playing the vinyl would be probably be some rare piece of a less known jazz artist, or at least some classical music, maybe.
It was neither, and some extremely upbeat music - the kind of music cheerleaders danced to at pep rallies, perhaps - and Ellington stared at it for a couple of seconds.
On the other side of the room, Kit giggled.
Ellington turned to glare at her, and Kit giggled harder. After a moment, Ellington let a reluctant smile slowly climbed up her face.
“Want to dance?” Kit asked, wiping away tears of laughter.
“To this?”
“Don’t be a music snob,” Kit said, sly and teasing and challenging all at the same time. Amusement danced in her eyes. Ellington’s gaze landed on Kit’s jacket that hung on her shoulders and almost falling off.
“But it’s one of my defining positive traits,” Ellington said with a half-smile.
Kit’s gaze lingered on Ellington, and shrugged off her jacket. “Really?”
Ellington swallowed. “Yes,” she managed to say. “Positive.”
“You’ve said the word positive twice for two sentences in a row,” Kit noted, raising an eyebrow slightly.
“It would seem so,” Ellington agreed. “That’s lack of creativity on my part, I suppose.”
A moment of silence, and then Kit asked. “Want to turn that thing off and look at the stars on the roof of the hotel?”
When they had their first kiss under the starry skies, Ellington was glad they chose to come up to the roof for stargazing instead of dancing in the room.
Ellington swallowed the bite of Jake’s sandwich and looked out of the train window. Grasslands were coming to an end and townscapes were appearing. She remembered it to be the town that she and Kit had once escaped from the prison on the train and went into. It had been so long ago - so, so long - like an eternity away. A lot of things had happened since then. They had parted ways at the abandoned bookstore, and then ran into each other again that time Kit drove her across the Hinterlands and went stargazing at the rooftop of a small hotel that had not much stuff in the room but a turntable and vinyl with cheerleading music. They had spent two weeks on the run together then before Kit’s organization intervened in some police paperwork and got her cleared off her records. And then they had gone on their separate lives again with the feeling of their first kiss - and the second kiss, and the third but not the fourth, that’d been later - on burning on Ellington’s mind, imprinted on her lips.
They’d met each other a few times since the Hinterlands wild road trip, before Ellington realizing that Kit was never going to be fully disentangled from VFD. But she was willing to not involve Ellington in the VFD schemes she was running - and that - maybe that was enough. Partially. Somewhat.
Growing up was about compromises and practical arrangements, Ellington had thought. Practical arrangements such as running a coffee shop together in The City and not getting involved with the VFD plans Kit and her friend who tied his hair back with a bright yellow ribbon were planning in the next room as she made coffee. It’d been practical. Sensible.
Growing up was about compromises, about subtly keeping an eye on each other’s safety but not directly interfering in the plans that sometimes seemed to have to do with fungi and sometimes opera. About making coffee for each other and falling asleep in the same bed and occasionally babysitting her best friends’ daughter who wanted to pick a coffee machine apart to see how it worked. It’d been a good arrangement, for as long as it had lasted, anyway.
It’d been a good few years.
Kit was gone now, though.
The thought still brought a sharp stab to her heart, but looking at the smiling girl with chubby cheeks in front of her, it seemed to hurt less now.
She thought about the skeleton key she’d put in her bag earlier this morning before they Beatrice had knocked on her door.
Ellington put the sandwich aside and opened her bag to fetch something. A few seconds later, she found it.
“Your mother - Kit - she was good with a skeleton key. Well, good without one too, she still knew many useful lockpicking skills without using one. But usually she liked to carry more than one on her in case she lost one of them. There’s this really antique one that looked like it belonged in a museum. Didn’t make it less useful and effective, though. Worked like a charm. Works like a charm, to this day, even.”
Ellington hesitated, carefully taking the said vintage skeleton key out of the hidden layer inside her handbag. Well kept and carefully held onto. So carefully held onto that it made her feel like what she planned to do would be parting with a very important memory. And yet, it also felt right, somehow. “Thought you might want to have it. Kit - Kit would want you to have it, I think. She used to say - a skeleton key is a girl’s best friend.” Ellington’s breath hitched a little, but she found herself laughing a bit at the memory. Kit had always been so resourceful, she thought, slightly wistful, but surprisingly not with much pain now.
Beatrice’s eyes lit up, and Ellington handed the skeleton key to her carefully.
“Thank you thank you!” Beatrice beamed at her, her smile so blindingly bright, brighter than the sun shining through the train windows, even.
“Want to get off the train at the next stop and go into town and try that out?” Ellington asked, feeling herself smile.
Beatrice nodded eagerly. “Yes!”
Kit would be proud of that, Ellington thought. She nodded at the girl in front of her, “Let’s pack our lunch back into box first,” she suggested.
It was going to be a new adventure.