This story references to characters and/or events from The Reptile Room, The Ersatz Elevator, and Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography. There is some adult content in here, including (implied) statutory rape by a creepy evil man (Olaf/Violet), and hints at an inappropriate and one-sided incestual love (Klaus/Violet). Read at your own discretion.
Summary: AU. Lemony Snicket has gone missing, and a new narrator has uncovered his notes. Violet signs Olaf's wedding documents, making her his Countess, and making him the owner of the vast Baudelaire fortune. Klaus and Sunny have seemingly found happiness with the next relative on Poe's list, but how long can it last when their sister is in the clutches of the Count?
A Snake In The Grass
Chapter Two: 'The Gruesome Girlfriend'
I dare say that if you are looking for a tale with any sort of joy in it, you are very much in the wrong place. This tale is not so much a tale as it is the retelling of a series of very unfortunate events that are all woefully true. I myself stumbled across it while searching for my mislaid brother ("mislaid" of course means "I have no idea where he is"), and took it upon myself to finish the narration where he could not. You, however, hold no familial duty, and can turn away from this ghastly story whenever you choose. I highly suggest you choose now.
Violet Baudelaire awoke like she did many other mornings: cold, hungry, and sore. Once upon a time, she had been well-fed, well-cared for, and happy. However, many things had occurred in her life to change that. Her parents had perished in a terrible fire that had destroyed her home. She and her younger brother and sister, Klaus and Sunny, had been sent to live with Count Olaf, an extremely sinister figure. As such, he did sinister things — for example, tricking Violet into legally marrying him, so he could steal the Baudelaire fortune. You must understand that Count Olaf is a very greedy individual who likes to get his hands on things that don't belong to him, such as family fortunes, and fourteen-year-old girls, just because he can.
Klaus and Sunny fared much better, getting removed from Count Olaf's care, and instead getting a new guardian, Uncle Monty. Uncle Monty was a herpetologist, which of course means that he studied snakes, and was planning a trip to Peru, which he was kind enough to invited the two Baudelaires on, as his assistants. Klaus, a researcher by nature, was excited about being a herpetological assistant because of all the new things he would learn. Sunny, a biter by nature, was excited about being a herpetological assistant because she had already made a friend with a common interest in biting, the Incredibly Deadly Viper, who wasn't deadly at all. The two Baudelaires were the happiest they'd been since their parents had died, but that happiness came at a price. For even when Klaus was buried deep in a chapter about the eating habits of the Salad-mander, or even when Sunny was wrestling the Incredibly Deadly Viper, both siblings had Violet in their thoughts, because she was in very formidable danger.
Still, it was hard to let their thoughts get too dark when Uncle Monty was cooking them eggs and telling them a very funny story about a nun and a ninja in Bangladesh.
"And the nun turned to the ninja," concluded Uncle Monty, "and said, 'I'm sorry, I'm just in the habit."
Klaus laughed uproariously — which of course means "very loudly, because like any respectable twelve-year-old, he enjoyed a good religious pun" — and Sunny giggled, for even though she hadn't quite understood the joke, Uncle Monty liked to pepper his stories with funny facial expressions and hand gestures. Even Uncle Monty was chuckling as he served eggs for Klaus and himself, and crisp bacon for Sunny to bite. "That one's a favorite of mine," he confessed. "But Gustav tells it much better than I do."
"Uncle Monty," said Klaus, "When do we get to meet Gustav?" Gustav was Uncle Monty's real assistant, but either Baudelaire was yet to see him. The house was large enough that he could come and go, and always just miss Klaus and Sunny.
"Dear me, bambini," said Uncle Monty, using the Italian word for children, though neither the Baudelaires nor Uncle Monty were Italian. "I hadn't realized that you've yet to meet Gustav. You must be always just missing each other. He works nights, you know." Uncle Monty was not so horrendous a guardian as to let the children stay up all night long. "I'll have him come in later, so you can get to know each other. It's very awkward to go on a trip with a stranger. Once I had to go to Alaska on an expedition with a man I'd never met before, and it was very uncomfortable. I had no idea he was a vegetarian."
Klaus sensed that Uncle Monty was on the brink of another fascinating story, and was just about to ask what had happened to the vegetarian, when a loud crash came from down the hall. The three of them looked at each other for a moment before jumping up and dashing (or, in Sunny's case, crawling) out of the kitchen towards the Reptile Room.
They were in fact right that the Reptile Room was the source of the crash. The Korean Hapkido Lizard had escaped from its cage, and was trying to battle the Wan Vinkle Snake, sleeping soundly on a footstool. The escape had agitated the Bellowing Skink, which was making a dreadful sound so loudly that Klaus and Sunny had to put their fingers in their ears. All of that was waking up the other reptiles, and the result was complete pandemonium. "Pandemonium" of course means "everything that could make sounds was making sounds. The Mangrove Warbling Toad was singing show tunes at the top of its tiny lungs, the Beardtop Lizard was making electric guitar sounds and pointing at things, and the Neon Vegas Snake was blinking furiously and spelling out foul words. Everywhere the Baudelaires and Monty looked, there was just a flurry of motion and chaos."
"Klaus, would you please restrain Alastair," said Uncle Monty, referring to the Hapkido Lizard, and raising his voice to be heard over the pandemonium.
Klaus immediately set to the task, and as he tried to grasp the wriggling lizard, he couldn't help thinking that Count Olaf merely would have ordered him. It is always much nicer to ask 'please', particularly when you are asking someone to do something unpleasant.
Uncle Monty also said please when he asked Sunny to snap her four sharp teeth at some of the animals to quite them down.
He did not, however, say please when he asked himself to help make sure everyone was in the proper cages, and that the cages were securely fastened, if only because saying please to himself would have looked silly.
Finally, the pandemonium was restrained, but by that point, their breakfasts were cold, so they went about preparing for Peru. Uncle Monty catalogued each and every one of his reptiles. Klaus curled up with another book to study snakes. Sunny bit coils of rope into useable lengths. They were all very busy indeed, which was good, because if you are busy enough, you might forget to think about unsavory things, such as your sibling being taken by shady characters with questionable intents.
Normally, the trio would have worked well past lunch, straight into the afternoon, and have an early dinner, but their stomachs all rumbled with the memory of missed breakfasts. Uncle Monty suggested that they go out to eat, and spend a leisurely afternoon at the movies, as a reward for their hectic morning.
They all thought lunch was delicious. However, Klaus was of the mind that the movie was very peculiar. It was about hippos in a library, and while it had excellent dance numbers, a lot of the soundtrack seemed to be bells ringing at inappropriate moments. He decided it must have been an art film, for those rarely make sense at all.
When they returned home, Sunny was already asleep and had to be carried up to her room by Uncle Monty. A bleary-eyed Klaus made a detour to the Reptile Room, picking up the book he'd read earlier with the intent of returning it to the makeshift library in his bedroom. Perhaps it was because he was so sleepy that he was surprised as he was when he came across a man in the Reptile Room. To be fair, the man had come out of the shadows, and was tall and thin, and to a sleepy boy could well resemble Count Olaf in the dark. Klaus jumped, the shadowy man said "Ah!", and someone turned on the light.
There are many different ways in the world to feel relief. Perhaps the main character in the movie you are watching gets together with their love interest. Or perhaps you are getting to use the bathroom after a very long bus ride. Or perhaps you discover that the shadowy man lurking in a darkened room of your home is not the evil villain you thought he was. Such was the case with Klaus, who discovered that the tall, thin man with a brown beard and a stained t-shirt was indeed not Count Olaf.
"You must be Klaus," said the man. "Monty has told me so much about you and your sister."
Sisters, Klaus corrected mentally, but out loud he said, "And you must be Gustav."
"One and the same," said Gustav with a warm smile. "Tell me, is Monty busy?"
"Upstairs, putting Sunny to bed."
"Well then, my questions will have to wait until later. Family comes first, after all." He winked at Klaus, clearly trying to be friendly, but Klaus felt a Devil's Tongue — a very effective knot — loop itself and pull tight within his stomach. Family did come first, and Klaus had just spent the day watching a movie instead of trying to find a way to rescue Violet.
Klaus said goodnight to Gustav, who said he'd be there for breakfast, and to Sunny and Uncle Monty as well. When he'd first come home, he'd been tired, but he now was wide awake, the thick knot in his stomach making him unable to sleep. After such a short time, he'd already begun thinking of Uncle Monty's house as home.
Home is a difficult word, because it means different things to different people. For some, it is where they feel safe; for others, it is where all of their personal belongings are kept. For Klaus, the idea of home had always been at the Baudelaire mansion, with his library, his parents, and his sisters. That home had been cruelly taken from him, but even without his parents, even in the Count Olaf's dreadful, rundown house, he'd still had a sense of home, because of Violet and Sunny.
Klaus liked Uncle Monty very much, he certainly enjoyed studying, and he was looking forward to Peru. But this was not his home, nor could it ever be, because Violet was not there. With Violet, Klaus realized that night in the dark, he was always home. He loved Sunny as well, but she was just an infant, and no matter how intelligent she was, he could not have conversations with her the same way he could with Violet. Nor could the two of them laugh over shared memories, because many of his memories were from a time not so long ago, before she was born.
The knot settled in, and Klaus fell into an uneasy sleep.
One of the places where Violet felt a sense of home was within her own mind. She felt at her most comfortable when she was thinking and inventing. Unfortunately, Count Olaf gave her little room to invent. He didn't particularly care for his wife doing anything that he didn't assign to her himself. As such, he gave her enormous lists of tasks that usually involved her getting filthy. There were very few things in Count Olaf's house that weren't covered n dirt, dust, grit, or grime, including Olaf himself.
There are a few instances in which it is acceptable to scream. For example, if you were at the monkey house at the zoo, and a wayward primate had escaped its enclosure and jumped onto your head, you would understandably be surprised and scared enough to warrant a scream. Or better still, if a stranger was to pull you into his van, or you found yourself in the vicinity of a burning building, or any other sort of emergency situation, you would in fact be very wise to scream. However, though it is understandable that you might find yourself in a situation where you are so angry that you want to scream, it is not necessarily advisable. For one thing, it is not particularly polite. For another thing, it is very annoying to those around you. Especially if your voice is high-pitched and obnoxious.
Violet had just finished scrubbing the floor of the kitchen, which she was quite surprised to find was a cheery butter yellow color, because it was so dirty that she believed it was black. She was putting away her scrub-brush when she came across one of these such voices, echoing all around the house.
"Olaf!" the wailing screech declared, "You getting married was not part of the plan!"
"Plans change," Olaf said loftily, which of course means, "he was very casual about something drastically altering Violet's life."
"Weddings are not in right now," the voice informed Olaf, using 'in' as shorthand for 'in fashion', which of course means "whatever is popular". Violet would later learn that the owner of the voice was very concerned with what was 'in'. She would now learn, as she crept curiously from the kitchen to the front hall, that the owner of the voice was a woman.
The owner of the voice was in fact a tall woman with a thin body covered completely in brightly-colored feathers, and a thin face completely uncovered in feathers. She had very long fingernails, each of which was pierced in the middle so that more feathers still could dangle from them, and one hand was curled around an empty martini glass (that had feathers dangling from the stem).
"You're married," Olaf said.
"Yes, but the wedding took place when weddings were still in." As Violet studied the strange woman, she noticed that her other hand was wearing a gold band. "It was held at the Vineyard of Fragrant Drapes. I mean Grapes. You know what I mean. You've been there. It's a hideous place." Actually, the Vineyard of Fragrant Grapes is a very fantastic dwelling, a delightful vineyard where one can stroll for hours with a dear friend, until one gets interrupted by the appearance of a heinous, tattooed villain. "Anyway," the woman continued, "weddings were in then, and they are not now, so you can't marry her."
"But I already have. Besides, my darling Esmé, affairs are very in, which means that the two of us, with our two affairs, are four times as in."
Violet wasn't sure which offended her more, the adultery — which of course means "breaking the sacred institution of marriage by not remaining faithful to the person you married, even if you forced them to marry you so that you might have your hands on their fortune or their strategically-placed apartment" — or the poor math. Still, she couldn't help but feel a little relieved. Perhaps if Count Olaf was being adulterous, he'd be more inclined to leave her alone. The thought strengthened her resolve somewhat, and she coughed to announce her presence.
The woman looked at Violet with the utmost distaste, as you or I would look at something stuck to the bottom of our shoes. "Scrawny little orphan, isn't she?" she said, dragging one long fingernail down Violet's cheek. "I'm Esmé Gigi Genevieve Squalor, the city's sixth most important financial advisor." She did not offer her hand for Violet to shake, as one would do in polite company. It was all right, however, seeing as how Violet would no more have shaken Esmé's hand than she would have pet a vicious lioness.
"Esmé is also a member of my troupe," Count Olaf said. He stretched out his two filthy hands, clapping Esmé on the shoulder with one, and clapping Violet on the shoulder with the other. "Ah, my two starlets, together at last," he said. "How delightful."
Violet could think of several words to describe the situation, and none of them were 'delightful'. I myself have had numerous encounters with Count Olaf, and not one of these was delightful. In fact, each was worse than the last (except for the one at the Vineyard, which, while only the second meeting of myself and the odious Olaf, was by far the worst).
"Yes, delightful," said Esmé dryly, which of course means, "she, like Violet, found nothing delightful about the situation." "Why doesn't the orphan make herself useful, and make us some lunch."
"I have a name, thank you," Violet said, who no more appreciated being called 'the orphan' by Esmé than she did by Olaf.
An interesting thing happened at Violet's outburst. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Count Olaf puffing out his chest slightly, with a dangerous, leering smile crossing his face. Violet wondered if while Olaf didn't like it when Violet stood up to him, he actually enjoyed when she displayed that same level of backbone to others. She mentally catalogued this observation, just as Klaus filed away every bit of knowledge he learned from reading his books.
Esmé, on the other hand, was not as impressed. She thought Violet was very rude, which she in fact was, something that would be greatly bothersome if it had been anyone other than Esmé on the receiving end of Violet's rudeness. "Yes," Esmé said. "Well, Veruca—"
"Violet," Violet corrected her.
"Flower names are not in. But you're just an orphan, so I suppose you wouldn't know any better." She smiled as though her cruelty was a source of amusement. "Olaf and I would like some lunch."
"She makes a good roast beef, when she's smart enough to listen to her superiors," Olaf said, and Violet was surprised to find that underneath the boasting and the insulting, there was an almost-compliment.
"Roast beef is not in. An acceptable lunch would be wasabi," Esmé said, naming a food that is a garnish and not a full meal. In addition, it is an acquired taste, which of course means few people can stomach it. "Wasabi is very in."
Olaf's expression — furrowing his long eyebrow and sticking out his gruesome tongue — showed exactly what he thought of having wasabi for lunch. But he didn't protest, and Violet was left to the task of going to Dickens' Grocery and stocking up on wasabi.
At the grocery, Mr. Dickens fixed Violet with a smile so warm and bright that it had the same effect as hugging the poor, tired girl. "How are you doing today, Violet? Did your husband's dinner party like the roast beef?"
It is a trait that perhaps comes with age, that when people ask you questions such as "How are you today," they do not particularly care to hear the answer. "How are you today?" is often an empty statement, meant to be polite. This is an unfortunate side effect of growing up for many adults. Some adults, however, still practice sincerity, and ask questions about one's well-being because they genuinely want to know. Mr. Dickens was one of those such people, a very caring man in addition to being a very capable grocer. He liked most of his customers very much, and wanted to know how they were doing because he considered them to be friends. Violet felt at ease instantly in his presence.
"The roast beef went over well," she said, "Thank you." Violet noted that he was behind the main counter, and said, "Is your butcher better?"
"He is indeed," Mr. Dickens said. "If you liked my slice of beef, maybe you should try his. He might get offended if he thinks mine was better." The grocer winked.
Violet smiled, wishing she could try some roast beef since she hadn't been allowed to eat any last time, but Esmé had other plans. "Actually, tonight we're supposed to have wasabi."
"I've been getting a lot of requests for wasabi lately," Mr. Dickens said. "It's just a garnish, you know, not really a full meal."
"I know," Violet said glumly.
"And it's very hot."
"Yes," Violet said. "But Olaf's girlfriend insisted on it."
"Olaf's girlfriend?" Mr. Dickens said. "But he's married. Married people don't typically have girlfriends."
"It's an affair," Violet explained.
"You poor girl," Mr. Dickens said with sympathy, because even though it was quite clear that Violet had about as much regard for her husband as she did for a wart on the bottom of her foot, it is never pleasant news to discover that things were actually much worse than you originally thought. The grocer came out from behind his counter and opened his arms to embrace her. "You poor, poor girl."
Mr. Dickens was a very kind man, but even so, he was a grocer and Violet was a customer, so the act of hugging her was out of the ordinary. However, there were many things unusual about the entire situation, such as an unwashed Count marrying a fourteen-year-old girl, or a man possessing no talent — for anything except villainy, that is — claiming to be a renowned actor, or an entire road that smelled like horseradish from start to finish, so a hug between two tentative friends actually seemed quite ordinary. And a hug, while helping Violet's situation very little, served to make her feel much better. A hug is not, perhaps, what she needed most; Mr. Dickens would have been much more useful if he had swooped in to rescue her from Count Olaf and reunited her with Klaus in Sunny, or better still if he had gone back in time, which I'm sorry to say is quite impossible, and saved the Baudelaire parents from a very fiery death. However, a hug made Violet feel loved, if even for a few moments, if even by someone she didn't know terribly well.
Violet was always of the mind that for every problem, there was a solution. She would tie her hair back with a ribbon, to keep it out of her eyes and enable her to think better, and she would come to a conclusion and invent something to solve the situation at hand. But sometimes, a situation is so profoundly horrible that even a mind as advanced as Violet Baudelaire's was, there seems to be no solution, and nothing to do. When things get that desperate, even the best of minds will allow themselves the luxury of crying, something that is ultimately useless for solving a problem, but makes you feel much better. So when tears started to fall from Violet's eyes, there seemed very little point in trying to stop them, because she could think of nothing else to do. Violet sobbed for the sad state of affairs that she was in, and for the sad state of Olaf's affair with Esmé, who was a reprehensible excuse for a person. Reprehensible, of course, is a word that means "she was loud, rude, and had horrible taste in clothing and food."
Mr. Dickens hugged Violet firmly, like a father might hug his eldest child, and while this comforted Violet considerably, it also served to remind her that her real father was never again going to hug her. I would like more than anything, reader, as I'm sure you now do, and as I'm sure Mr. Dickens would, had he known what Violet was thinking, to calm Violet's cries and reassure her that everything would be okay. But to do so would be filling Violet with false hope, for as it turns out, things would in fact not be okay.
Violet murmured softly, so quietly that the words got lost like moths in a hurricane, "I miss them so much." It is unclear whether she was referring to her parents, doting but dead, or to her brother and sister, safe but very far away.
Mr. Dickens answered in the best way possible, the honest way, and told her, "They miss you, too."
Happiness is often fleeting, readers. Fleeting of course means "it is over terribly soon." A day spent at the beach with your siblings can be cut short by the arrival of a coughing man in a dark car. A taxi cab ride you were enjoying, going to meet an individual you care deeply about, can a wrong turn when you discover that your driver is in fact a villainous villainess wearing a robe made out of avocado leaves. And a caring hug from the closest thing to a friend that you can find can be interrupted by remembering that he may care, but he is not your family, that your family is gone, and he cannot save you from your unfortunate circumstances.
Dear readers, it brings me no happiness whatsoever to research and report these events. It brings me even less happiness to reveal that things will in fact get much worse for the Baudelaires. The only happiness that you can receive from this tale is simply if you put this down, walk away, and forget you read the sad story of the Baudelaires. I can only advise you heartily to cease reading this manuscript, and instead read about rabbits in a field, or kittens in a basket, or laughing velociraptors, or something much more cheerful.