The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events) (14 page)

"We have to go after them," Violet said. "We may be their only chance!"

"We can't go after them," Klaus said, still holding the apple. "We have to help Kit."

"Split up," Sunny said, staring after the departing outrigger.

Klaus shook his head. "All of us need to stay if we're going to help Kit give birth." He gazed at the islanders and listened to the wheezing and coughing coming from the boat fashioned from wild grasses and the limbs of trees. "They made their decision," he said finally.

"Kontiki," Sunny said. She meant something along the lines of, "There's no way they'll survive the journey," but the youngest Baudelaire was wrong. There was a way. There was a way to bring the islanders a single apple that they could share, each taking a bite of the precious bitter fruit that might tide them over—the phrase "tide them over," as you probably know, means "help deal with a difficult situation"— until they reached someplace or someone who could help them, just as the three Baudelaires shared an apple in the secret space where their parents had enabled them to survive one of the most deadly unfortunate events ever to wash up on the island's shores. Whoever brought the apple to the islanders, of course, would need to swim very stealthily to the outrigger, and it would help if they were quite small and slender, so they might escape the watchful eye of the outrigger's facilitator.

The Baudelaires would not notice the disappearance of the Incredibly Deadly Viper for quite some time, as they would be focused on helping Kit, and so they could never say for sure what happened to the snake, and my research into the reptile's story is incomplete, so I do not know what other chapters occurred in its history, as Ink, as some prefer to call the snake, slithered from one place to the next, sometimes taking shelter from the treachery of the world and sometimes committing treacherous acts of its own—a history not unlike that of the Baudelaire orphans, which some have called little more than the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. Unless you have investigated the islanders' case yourself, there is no way of knowing what happened to them as they sailed away from the colony that had been their home. But there was a way they could have survived their journey, a way that may seem fantastic, but is no less fantastic than three children helping a woman give birth. The Baudelaires hurried to the library raft, and lifted Sunny and the stockpot to the top of the raft where Kit lay, so the youngest Baudelaire could hold the wheezing woman's gloved hand and the bitter apples could dilute the poison inside her as Violet and Klaus pushed the raft back toward shore. "Have an apple," Sunny offered, but Kit shook her head.

"I can't," she said.

"But you've been poisoned," Violet said. "You must have caught a spore or two from the islanders as they floated by."

"The apples will harm the baby," Kit said. "There's something in the hybrid that's bad for people who haven't been born yet. That's why your mother never tasted one of her own bitter apples. She was pregnant with you, Violet." One of Kit's gloved hands drifted down over the top of the raft and patted the hair of the eldest Baudelaire. "I hope I'm half as good a mother as yours was, Violet," she said.

"You will be," Klaus said.

"I don't know," Kit said. "I was supposed to help you children on that day when you finally reached Briny Beach. I wanted nothing more than to take you away in my taxi to someplace safe. Instead, I threw you into a world of treachery at the Hotel Denouement. And I wanted nothing more than to reunite you with your friends the Quagmires. Instead, I left them behind." She uttered a wheezy sigh, and fell silent.

Violet continued to guide the raft toward the island, and noticed for the first time that her hands were pushing against the spine of a book whose title she recognized from the library Aunt Josephine kept underneath her bed—
Ivan Lachrymose
—
Lake Explorer
—while her brother was pushing against
Mushroom Minutiae,
a book that had been part of Fiona's mycological library. "What happened?" she asked, trying to imagine what strange events would have brought these books to these shores.

"I failed you," Kit said sadly, and coughed. "Quigley managed to reach the self-sustaining hot air mobile home, just as I hoped he would, and helped his siblings and Hector catch the treacherous eagles in an enormous net, while I met Captain Widdershins and his stepchildren."

"Fernald and Fiona?" Klaus said, referring to the hook-handed man who had once worked for Count Olaf, and the young woman who had broken his heart. "But they betrayed him—

and us."

"The captain had forgiven the failures of those he had loved," Kit said, "as I hope you will forgive mine, Baudelaires. We made a desperate attempt to repair the
Queequeg
and reach the Quagmires as their aerial battle continued, and arrived just in time to see the balloons of the self-sustaining hot air mobile home pop under the cruel beaks of the escaping eagles. They tumbled down to the surface of the sea, and crashed into the
Queequeg.
In moments we were all castaways, treading water in the midst of all the items that survived the wreck." She was silent for a moment. "Fiona was so desperate to reach you, Klaus," she said. "She wanted you to forgive her as well."

"Did she—" Klaus could not bear to finish his question. "I mean, what happened next?"

"I don't know," Kit admitted. "From the depths of the sea a mysterious figure approached— almost like a question mark, rising out of the water."

"We saw that on a radar screen," Violet remembered. "Captain Widdershins refused to tell us what it was."

"My brother used to call it 'The Great Unknown,'" Kit said, clasping her belly as the baby kicked violently. "I was terrified, Baudelaires. Quickly I fashioned a Vaporetto of Favorite Detritus, as I'd been trained to do."

"'Vaporetto'?" Sunny asked.

"It's an Italian term for 'boat,'" Kit said. "It was one of many Italian phrases Monty taught me. A Vaporetto of Favorite Detritus is a way of saving yourself and your favorite things at the same time. I gathered all the books in reach that I enjoyed, tossing the boring ones into the sea, but everyone else wanted to take their chances with the great unknown. I begged the others to climb aboard as the question mark approached, but only Ink managed to reach me.

The others ..." Her voice trailed off, and for a moment Kit did nothing but wheeze. "In an instant they were gone—either swallowed up or rescued by that mysterious thing."

"You don't know what happened to them?" Klaus asked.

Kit shook her head. "All I heard," she said, "was one of the Quagmires calling Violet's name."

Sunny looked into the face of the distraught woman. "Quigley," the youngest Baudelaire could not help asking "or Duncan?"

"I don't know," Kit said again. "I'm sorry, Baudelaires. I failed you. You succeeded in your noble errands at the Hotel Denouement, and saved Dewey and the others, but I don't know if we'll ever see the Quagmires and their companions again. I hope you will forgive my failures, and when I see Dewey again I hope he will forgive me, too."

The Baudelaire orphans looked at one another sadly, realizing it was time at last to tell Kit Snicket the whole story, as she had told them. "We'll forgive your failures," Violet said, "if you'll forgive ours."

"We failed you, too," Klaus said. "We had to burn down the Hotel Denouement, and we don't know if anyone escaped to safety."

Sunny gripped Kit's hand in hers. "And Dewey is dead," she said, and everyone burst into tears. There is a kind of crying I hope you have not experienced, and it is not just crying about something terrible that has happened, but a crying for all of the terrible things that have happened, not just to you but to everyone you know and to everyone you don't know and even the people you don't want to know, a crying that cannot be diluted by a brave deed or a kind word, but only by someone holding you as your shoulders shake and your tears run down your face. Sunny held Kit, and Violet held Klaus, and for a minute the four castaways did nothing but weep, letting their tears run down their faces and into the sea, which some have said is nothing but a library of all the tears in history. Kit and the children let their sadness join the sadness of the world, and cried for all of the people who were lost to them.

They cried for Dewey Denouement, and for the Quagmire triplets, and for all of their companions and guardians, friends and associates, and for all of the failures they could forgive and all of the treacheries they could endure. They cried for the world, and most of all, of course, the Baudelaire orphans cried for their parents, who they knew, finally, they would never see again. Even though Kit Snicket had not brought news of their parents, her story of the Great Unknown made them see at last that the people who had written all those chapters in
A Series of Unfortunate Events
were gone forever into the great unknown, and that Violet, Klaus, and Sunny would be orphans forever, too.

"Stop," Kit said finally, through her fading tears. "Stop pushing the raft. I cannot go on."

"We have to go on," Violet said.

"We're almost at the beach," Klaus said.

"The shelf is flooding," Sunny said.

"Let it flood," Kit said. "I can't do it, Baudelaires. I've lost too many people—my parents, my true love, and my brothers."

At the mention of Kit's brothers, Violet thought to reach into her pocket, and she retrieved the ornate ring, emblazoned with the initial R. "Sometimes the things you've lost can be found again in unexpected places," she said, and held the ring up for Kit to see. The distraught woman removed her gloves, and held the ring in her bare and trembling hand.

"This isn't mine," she said. "It belonged to your mother."

"Before it belonged to our mother," Klaus said, "it belonged to you."

"Its history began before we were born," Kit said, "and it should continue after we die.

Give it to my child, Baudelaires. Let my child be part of my history, even if the baby is an orphan, and all alone in the world."

"The baby will not be alone," Violet said fiercely. "If you die, Kit, we will raise this child as our own."

"I could not ask for better," Kit said quietly. "Name the baby after one of your parents, Baudelaires. The custom of my family is to name a baby for someone who has died."

"Ours too," Sunny said, remembering something her father had told her when she had inquired about her own name.

"Our families have always been close," Kit said, "even if we had to stay apart from one another. Now, finally, we are all together, as if we are one family."

"Then let us help you," Sunny said, and with a weepy, wheezy nod, Kit Snicket let the Baudelaires push her Vaporetto of Favorite Detritus off the coastal shelf and onto the shores of the island, where eventually everything arrives, just as the outrigger disappeared on the horizon. The children gazed at the islanders for the last time—at least as far as I know—and then at the cube of books, and tried to imagine how the injured, pregnant, and distraught woman could get to a safe place to birth a child.

"Can you lower yourself down?" Violet asked.

Kit shook her head. "It hurts," she said, her voice thick with the poisonous fungus.

"We can carry her," Klaus said, but Kit shook her head again.

"I'm too heavy," she said weakly. "I could fall from your grasp and hurt the baby."

"We can invent a way to get you to the shore," Violet said.

"Yes," Klaus said. "We'll just run to the arboretum to find what we need."

"No time," Sunny said, and Kit nodded in agreement.

"The baby's coming quickly," she said. "Find someone to help you."

"We're alone," Violet said, but then she and her siblings gazed out at the beach where the raft had arrived, and the Baudelaires saw, crawling out of Ishmael's tent, the one person for whom they had not shed a tear. Sunny slid down to the sand, bringing the stockpot with her, and the three children hurried up the slope to the struggling figure of Count Olaf.

"Hello, orphans," he said, his voice even wheezier and rougher from the spreading poison of the Medusoid Mycelium. Esme's dress had fallen away from his skinny body, and he was crawling on the sand in his regular clothes, with one hand holding a seashell of cordial and the other clutching at his chest. "Are you here to bow before the king of Olaf-Land?"

"We don't have time for your nonsense," Violet said. "We need your help."

Count Olaf's eyebrow raised, and he gave the children an astonished glare.
"You
need
my
help?" he asked. "What happened to all those island fools?"

"They abandoned us," Klaus said.

Olaf wheezed horridly, and it took the siblings a moment to realize he was laughing.

"How do you like them apples?" he sputtered, using an expression which means "I find this situation quite remarkable."

"We'll give you apples," Sunny said, gesturing to the stockpot, "if you help."

"I don't want fruit," Olaf snarled, and tried to sit up, his hand still clutching his chest. "I want the fortune your parents left behind."

"The fortune isn't here," Violet said. "None of us may ever see a penny of that money."

"Even if it were here," Klaus said, "you might not live to enjoy it."

"Mcguffin," Sunny said, which meant "Your scheming means nothing in this place."

Count Olaf raised the seashell to his lips, and the Baudelaires could see that he was trembling. "Then maybe I'll just stay here," he said hoarsely. "I've lost too much to go on—

my parents, my true love, my henchfolk, an enormous amount of money I didn't earn, even the boat with my name on it."

The three children looked at one another, remembering their time on that boat and recalling that they had considered throwing him overboard. If Olaf had drowned in the sea, the Medusoid Mycelium might never have threatened the island, although the deadly fungus eventually would have washed up on its shores, and if the villain were dead then there would be no one on the beach who might help Kit Snicket and her child.

Violet knelt on the sand, and grabbed the villain's shoulders with both hands. "We have to go on," she said. "Do one good thing in your life, Olaf."