Work Text:
[The First Letter. Typed on faded lavender stationery, once fine, with header 'Orecchiette Opera House.']
St. Philomena's Day
Fifth Form|
Prufrock Preparatory School
Dear Lemony,
First, I will remind you that the only letters that Jacques should be looking at are the ones which are addressed to Jacques. As you can see, this letter is addressed 'Dear Lemony': as the name 'Lemony' couldn't be mixed up with the name 'Jacques' even if converted to an anagram and written upside down, I presume neither of you will be confused this time. (By the by, I must congratulate Mr. Jacques Snicket for not having found his morning oatmeal seasoned with sleeping powder in several weeks now. I do hope it proves a pattern.)
When you told me (at the age of ten and over a game of naughts and crosses, I might add) that the world held many traps and treacheries lying in wait for us, to be triggered by nary (you used this word!) but a misstep or a slip of the tongue, I imagine you were talking about something a bit more sinister than my current situation -- but I can't help but think of it now. For want of a nail, a shoe was lost: perhaps if a particular note scrawled on blotter paper had been wanting, my permission to visit Genoa with D. and F. would not have been lost and replaced by an assignment to attend a performance of Turandot at the Orecchiette Opera House to watch, observe, and take notes. You know that note-taking is not my best subject; I've never had your patience for schoolwork (even I don't have Jacques' utter lack of it), and I'm not B., you know I don't understand opera.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail! Let me tell you, Lemony, I didn't even write it -- I don't have your talent for ciphers, and I'd never be so much of a fool as to write one in plain hand after all of our schooling. But O. was, and O. did, and here we are. I'll write no more of it, as Turandot is starting in one hour and O. is yelling something downstairs about gelato.
I am, however, sending you that infernal note, fished out of Mrs. Gallimaufry's rubbish by O. and reclaimed by me when I was sick of his waving it around: so you can know the exact nature of this unfairness.
I miss you. I even miss both of you. But I miss Genoa more. Italy is very nice; you were right about the second-to-last table in the bistro on the Via Estrella; I have to go now.
Love,
Kit
---
[The Note. Scrawled in messy hand on a piece of blotter paper, torn diagonally.]
Snicket,
I hope the Denouements have fun in bella Genova!
His Grace the Esteemed and Glorious Count Olaf
---
[The Intermission.]
When the lights went up, Kit Snicket looked up from her notebook for the first time in several minutes and saw that the boy at her right was no longer at her right. In fact, he wasn't to her left, either, or behind her -- he was standing at the balcony's railing, notebook and fountain pen discarded in favor of leaning with his arms folded over the rail.
As usual, he turned and grinned just as she was about to speak up. "I think she's going to kill him."
"It's a comedy, Olaf," Kit muttered, turning another page in her notebook for no real reason but to have something to do with her hands. The lines were filled with notes in shorthand ("curtains lopsided at a 17-degree angle, drawn almost in synchronization," "mustached man 3 times, dimpled woman 4 times") and she had a painful writing-callus to show for it. Olaf's notebook was empty except for a sketch of a shark eating an unrecognizable but annoyed-looking boy. "Of all things, you ought to know your dramatic genres. Even I know what a comedy is." In truth, it was only Beatrice she had to thank for knowing the word "comedy" meant anything but "something that makes you laugh," but she wasn't going to admit that.
"I know what it is," he said lazily and with doubtful veracity. "If I'd written it, she would kill him like the others. Didn't anyone ever get sick of wedding scenes at the end?"
Kit didn't dignify this with a reply, instead staring back down at her endless tedious notes as Olaf meandered back over to his seat to pick up his own notebook. He eyed it for a moment or two then turned it over in his hands and ponderously tore out the drawing, which he crumpled in his hand and threw behind him; it bounced off Kit's cheek, making her flinch, and fell between their seats.
This was altogether too much for her, so she shut her book, somewhere between closing and slamming it. "Would you rather leave right now?" she snapped, coldly enough to earn a blink and a half-turn to look at her. "I don't think Mrs. Gallimaufry would know the difference from your notes."
He looked at her like she was crazy: an expression she recognized from her own face, often regarding him. "Leave? After I went to all this trouble?"
"To keep me from going to Genoa? Well, there's not much chance of that any more, you might as well go where --"
"To keep you from going to Genoa?" Olaf's one brow furrowed. "What on earth gave you that -- oh, I suppose there was that note. That was just for fun," he said distractedly, but went on before she could say something biting, "but Denouement never saw it, and that was half the point. I don't care about you going to Genoa." He picked his way back into the small cluster of mostly-empty seats. "I wanted to see the play."
Kit might have had a retort, but she had seen the way his eyes had flickered up from his drawing when the lights had gone down, and how he hadn't taken his eyes off the stage long enough to give the shark a properly rounded snout or its victim a mouth that was in the right place -- and most of all, that he'd never looked at what she was writing. So she only sighed and slumped a bit in her chair; he turned to look at her again. "Couldn't you fake a note to yourself?"
The boy paused and looked her square in the eyes, which was unnerving enough. "I didn't think of that," he said shortly, with an incongruous smirk, and sat back down.
She was forced to believe him, for lack of alternatives.
---
[The Telegram. Sent 4 years following, Paltryville to Mortmain Mountains.]
KIT, I HAVE ARRIVED IN PALTRYVILLE. DEWEY IS WITH ME AND HAS EXCHANGED THE BRIEFCASE FOR THE RED HAT. HE SENDS HIS REGARDS AMONG OTHER THINGS.
FOR THE RECORD DEWEY THINKS THAT WAS UNNECESSARY. I THINK HE HAS NO SENSE OF HUMOR, WHICH APPEARS TO BE A DENOUEMENT FAMILY TRAIT -- EVEN LEMONY HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR, THOUGH HE IS AN OTHERWISE SAD AND DISAPPOINTING SPECIMEN OF THE HUMAN RACE.
WE WILL RENDEZVOUS AS SOON AS WE CAN. EVERYTHING IS GOING SMOOTHLY. I AM VERY OPTIMISTIC ABOUT MY FIRST TASK AS A VFD COURIER, THOUGH DEWEY WARNS ME NOT TO BE OVERCONFIDENT.
OLAF IS YOUR NEXT CONTACT. DO NOT RELY ON HIM.
MILD AFFECTION,
JACQUES
---
[The Audiocassette. Recorded by O., Volunteer, and transcribed by B.B. II. Session includes volunteer conference at Cafe Grenouille.]
K.: [first words drowned out by scraping of chairs being pulled out, possibly by design] -- and the point is known to us, yes, though if you keep on like that -
O.: Everyone in this city knows where we meet, Snicket. [laugh] The tape recorder's on, by the way. Denouement told me to be more organized.
K.: [pause] Which one?
O.: Does it matter?
K.: If we're taping this to be thor --
O.: Ah. It would to you, wouldn't it?
K.: [long pause] Why do you call me `Snicket?'
O.: That's not your name? You wrote it on all of your exams.
K.: Forget it. [pause] We have business, Olaf, we don't have time for this. Do you have the letters? You were a day late, I was -- beginning to wonder.
O.: It wasn't a very difficult task. Hardly the use of my talents I would have chosen. [papers rustling] It's the lot of an actor to be unappreciated! Always has been.
K.: You really are insufferable.
O.: That's no way to treat your betters. [clears throat; both fall silent for a moment, possibly as another customer passes them by] I've used an alphabet cipher for the last one, with "chaise" as the key.
K.: I see.
O.: Kit, once you're done with those --
K.: Olaf. Stop it.
O.: What in the world is wrong with you? I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't have time for more than one name-change at a time. [K. gives what sounds like a dejected sigh, which O. pauses to hear the end of] As I was saying. "Chaise." The furniture, not the synonym for "pursuit," spelled like I hope you remember if those grades were honest at all.
K.: Alphabet ciphers aren't a V.F.D. code.
O.: Yes, that's true. Most V.F.D. codes have a bit more panache. And don't make as much sense. You like things that make sense, don't you?
K.: Doesn't everyone?
O.: [stops to take beverages from unseen server; K. thanks server, O. either does not or does so inaudibly] You in particular.
K.: [pause] Yes. I suppose so. [another pause - taking a drink?] This shouldn't be difficult.
O.: You're welcome, Kit.
K.: No. Please don't. Just -- look, stop the tape and we can do an audio briefing. Stop it. It's not going to be any use.
O.: You could be right.
K.: There's no need to record any more. You're not going to keep it.
O.: [laugh] Why on earth would I keep it?
END TRANSCRIPT
---
[The Postcard. Written in small, tight but hurried hand in blue ink nearly drowning out the address; back depicts the Arc d'Triomphe and a rather jarringly-colored pink-and-chartreuse kangaroo. Postmarked Montmarch Monastery to the Offices of the Daily Punctilio.]
Dear L.S.,
I'll need to keep this short (not a specialty of yours) and vague (something you're a bit better at) in case it falls into the wrong hands, though I'm afraid to say that I don't know who the wrong hands are. In fact, I don't know exactly what to be scared of. But J. is worried -- he nearly had a seizure when I told him where you work now -- and K. is not with us.
Your newspaper is not a safe place any more. Watch your back. I know you've heard of what may have happened with the C. and C. of S.: I don't want to say anything yet, but B.B. has information. O. is with K., but so is D., and J. is going to find them soon.
Times are changing. Do not worry about J. and I: we are safe. Please leave and find us. You know where to go.
Yours only,
B.
---
[The Minutes. V.F.D. Session XVIII s. iii - Emergency Meeting. Partial record present, as contents of filing cabinet are fragmented due to destruction of Mortmain headquarters. Taken down by Secretary A.P.]
ITEM I: The members present are: Dewey and Ernest Denouement, librarian and spy, Jacques and Katherine Snicket, teacher and scholar, Olaf of S., actor, Arthur Poe, banker. Invited but absent is Lemony Snicket, rhetorician. For efficiency and due to familial ties, each in attendance will hereafter be noted by his or her given name.
ITEM 2: The matter which brings the V.F.D., even in such abbreviated company, to this emergency. Jacques asserts that the possible betrayal of the Count and Countess of S. has become the probable betrayal of the Count and Countess of S., and brings all other discussion to a halt by producing several letters from Bertrand Baudelaire... [material destroyed]
ITEM 5: The argument has not resolved itself: Olaf and Ernest are firmly set apart from Jacques, Dewey, and Katherine in their opinions. Such a division has never .... [material destroyed] ... provided for in the V.F.D. charter, as per Ernest's suggestion ... [material destroyed]
---
[The Photograph. Taken in what appears to be the main map room of the Mortmain headquarters by an unknown photographer, supposed by this researcher and baticeer to be A.P. engaging in one of his meticulous and eccentric acts of recordskeeping. D., E., J., K., and O. surround a table: none seem interested in the camera, which suggests either an act of true candid photography on A.'s part or entire absorption in the topic at hand.
D. and E. are stationary on one side of the table: D. is standing, arms crossed with his eyes squarely on the man directly opposite him while his brother E. sits at his side looking up at D. in thought. Neither brother is pleased -- something they have in common with both one another and the rest of the gathering.
J. also stands, 90 degrees from the two brothers, though in a position of more animation -- he appears to be in the process of putting, or rather slamming, a letter and a handful of photographs onto the table, as well as speaking. He is, in fact, the only person speaking in the entire photograph -- notable, given the probable events it captures. His brow is furrowed, though he does not seem angry: only resolute, his vision fixed on the materials and unmindful of the others at the table.
His sister K.'s focus is less clear: she is seated, much like E., but leaning forward with her arms crossed over her dove-gray sweater. Her eyes are wide but her mouth is set in a line, determined to something unclear: her eyes are fixed somewhere in the cluster of volunteers opposite herself and her brother.
O. stands alone opposite D. and E., evidently the object of D.'s glare. He leans against his chair, typically lazy and arrogant; gray is already beginning to fleck his hair. But it is not his posture which begs comment, or the color of his hair, or even the resemblance he has to the two ghostly, pinch-faced culprits in the photographs on the table -- if one were to look that closely, which is unlikely, because it is indeed none of these things. It is his expression -- not lazy or arrogant, but doubtful -- and it is his gaze, which has settled not on D. who silently accuses him or the photos which form a stronger condemnation.
O. is looking at K. Perhaps in an instant's thought, but while J. and D. demand his loyalty and his parents are offered up to the final judgment of V.F.D., O. is looking at K.
In that, it is a very odd photograph.]
---
[The Unopened Envelope. Manila, legal-sized, fastened with a string and apparently never unfastened (cut with scissors by myself in order to preserve the knot). Postmarked to Istanbul; stamped to indicate insufficient postage. Includes several sheets of plain white paper, text typed in fading black ink.]
Count Olaf:
I don't know what to say to you. To receive a letter after -- at a time like -- to receive a letter from you right now is absolutely unbelievable, and I have no idea what you were thinking when you wrote it.
I would think that this was a cruel joke, or that you had dusted its pages with the infernal poison you've taken to using, but it wouldn't be your style for the former and you have never been clever enough for the latter. So I am forced to take it as it appears.
There will not be any questions in this. Questions provoke answers and you need not find a way to write to me ever again. But I will answer your questions, because I am that much indebted.
Question 1: I'm not sure what to make of it.
Question 2: Bertrand, as you know. It shouldn't matter. You will not find Lemony if he does not want to waste his time on you and you have no reason to look for Jacques.
Question 3: Literature.
Question 4: Theatre.
Question 5: I hope this was facetious, as even you can't be quite foolish enough to imagine that I would tell you that now.
Question 6: No. No, I do not. I am coming to the point where I can understand why you would ask that question -- perhaps even to where I could believe you, even for a moment, which may be a sign that I've spent too much time hiding in dark, musty outposts of late -- but I do not. I have never, I will never. It has nothing to do with the Hotel Denouement. It has nothing to do with Prufrock Preparatory. It has nothing to do with V.F.D., it has nothing to do with the front-row seats at the Grand Guignol and it has nothing to do with the balcony seats at the Orecchiette Opera House. It has nothing to do with the man whose name you are terribly fond of confusing with his brothers' -- yes, nothing, and I don't care if you derive some kind of satisfaction from that -- and it certainly has nothing to do with Esme Squalor, who I am quite comfortable in calling a trivial woman whose actions have had little to no impact on the success of some of our associates and the failure of others.
You always were eager to claim credit for yourself. Here I can say you are entirely justified in doing so.
Question 7: I don't know. I don't think so. But you should be aware that we are the only ones in our organization -- if it can even be called that now -- who still hold that opinion.
Question 8: Since you've never demonstrated that you know what the word "promise" means in anything other than a theoretical sense, I will have to say that no, I don't believe you.
Dewey is in no debt to you, because what you did was in no way for him. That is a pretense too ridiculous even for you. Don't bother him again.
This should be enough.
Katherine Snicket
---
[The Second Letter. Printed on white stationery: border of dark blue flowers, header reading 'His Lordship the Magnificent Count Olaf' accompanying the V.F.D. eye. Postmarked 13 years following, from Count O.'s residence to the Mortmain Mountains via two blind messengers and a courier pigeon.]
Dear Kit,
Literacy, you know, is a trait not actually copyrighted by the Snicket family. This may come as a surprise to you.
I see you've all finally taken to addressing me by my justly deserved honorific! It's been long enough. Your correspondence is chock full of it: Count Olaf this, Count O. that, the Count, the darkest noun in some ridiculous metaphor of Lemony's, or some other styling. I suppose I am slightly less disappointed in you lot now, even if it does take a schism, the deaths of the previous Count and Countess, your brother's poorly falsified passing -- oh, come on, now, what do you take me for? -- and the lighting of several fires for you to recognize nobility when you see nobility. I can only imagine that you're so dedicated to the proper chronology of peerage that you waited until after you'd murdered my parents to assign their title to me. Your consideration is appreciated.
Beatrice and Bertrand Baudelaire are dead. Bertrand's mansion burned spectacularly, but neither of them screamed. Their three children are now in my custody, courtesy of my friend Arthur Poe. Violet is a charming girl and Klaus is too precocious for his own good; I foresee a bright future for them. I thought you might like to know -- congratulations would be very much in order if you ever do feel like giving them! Don't have any children, Kit. They really are difficult and I don't envy Lemony's position, which is why I'm being so generous in bringing it to a close as soon as I can.
Said brother of yours, by the way, is alive and currently hiding on a houseboat in Sydney Harbor. I thought you might want to know. Write him sometime.
I suppose you hate me now, at least. That's very well. A long time ago I made you a promise that you may not have seen, or thrown away, or ignored completely: that's also very well. I still mean to keep it someday.
After all, we're long past the time when we could have changed things like this. You and I both know that.
Send my regards to Dewey,
His Grace the Esteemed and Glorious Count Olaf
---
[The End.]
"You're a wicked man. Do you think one kind act will make me forgive you for all your failings?"
He doesn't, of course.
Kit is looking at him now -- looking at him wearily, with a familiar look. It says a number or things -- it says I'm tired, it says I have no idea what you're up to, but mostly it says I don't have time for this right now, Olaf. It's a look he knows very well -- he knows it from the Orecchiette Opera House, from drama class, from their graduation ceremony, from meetings at Mortmain and the Hotel Denouement, possibly even from countless letters and telegrams if one can convey a look in writing, as he always suspected Kit could.
It is familiar. He can forget that she is exhausted, drenched in seawater, in labor, her hair in twisted salt-crusted ropes, hollows under her eyes -- it is familiar, so he can pretend it's the same.
There's a heavy coldness in his chest now that stabs pain whenever he breathes; it hadn't mattered when he'd gotten it, with the Mycelium choking his lungs and his blood. He wonders dimly how much time he has left. Typical of Kit to be in trouble now.
His voice comes out weak when he speaks again: not that much time. "I haven't apologized."
In truth, he's not sure what to apologize for. It's a bit absurd now, in front of the Baudelaires: where to begin? Apologies are for broken vases, he thinks vaguely. Not for anyone in their organization.
Not that much time. He concentrates on keeping his eyes open until Kit speaks: Bourdillon's "The Night has a Thousand Eyes," naturally, and all from memory. Always the good student, Kit?
There's only one V.F.D. poem he can think of which is suitably melodramatic and suits the occasion -- but it's too short, and he wants something longer, long enough to keep him awake. His diction is clear and slow, as slow as it can get without giving his purpose away: it's too short and he needs to stay awake. He needs to stay awake until she's asleep.
It isn't for her, he tells himself again. He's done enough for her. He has to stay awake now -- but the poem is too short, the last line comes too fast, and he has to be awake.
Not until she's asleep. Not until then. Something is crying, wailing, but it's not her -- she'll go to sleep soon, and so will he. But not until then.
Not until then.