I consider this to be the most challenging fic/story I've ever written. Because all of the chapters are inspired by songs, I want to make sure that the content fits somewhat (if not completely) with the lyrics. And what happens in this next chapter
has absolutely nothing to do with the lyrics until the last three pages.
It's also quite long, so I apologize for that.
Also, from now on I shall be including a link in the lyrics that accompany each chapter, just to add some mood to the story.
Anyway, enjoy.
***
Two months had passed, and the temperature outside had dropped considerably. Esmé had noticed on the first of November when she went to shut her bedroom window that it wouldn’t close. Instead, it jammed a little less than halfway down, and she had gone immediately to inform Olaf.
But rather than help Esmé fix her window, the Count had told her to shove a towel into the area where the cold air was coming through. It didn’t help much, and by the next morning Esmé had come down with a full-blown case of the sniffles. What made things even worse was that it was her birthday. Olaf warned her that if she didn’t complete all of her assigned chores, then he would cancel her party and give her cake to his acting troupe (whom he had invited).
Esmé was standing in the middle of the living room in her mother’s old gray sweater. It was about three sizes too big on the newly defined teenager, who found herself continuously rolling up the sleeves. Her jeans were baggy and had a hole in both knees, so that when she went outside the cold air would seep through to the rest of her body. She knew that Olaf would be sending her to the bakery ten blocks away to pick up the cake he had ordered. Esmé would have been looking forward to the outing, since her guardian rarely permitted her to leave the apartment. But it was so bitterly cold outside, and she didn’t even own a winter coat. The one she had worn last year no longer fit, and so she had left it back at her parents’ house. The only article of clothing she owned that even
resembled a coat was a hooded sweatshirt with a picture of a frowny face on it. She supposed she would be wearing that on her little outing, lest she freeze to death, which she probably would even
with the proper attire.
Olaf was sitting on the beat-up old sofa with his legs stretched out on the coffee table in front of him. “I told the clerk at the bakery that someone would be coming by at two to pick up your cake,” Olaf said, and rustled the day’s edition of
The Daily Punctilio that he had been reading. “It’s twelve o’ clock now, so you had best get back upstairs and get started on the bathroom.”
Esmé rubbed a little at her nose with her sleeve, sniffling. “Would it be alright if I took a taxi?” she asked.
“It most certainly
would not. How ever will you learn to be an adult if I baby you all the time?”
“But when I went outside earlier to get the newspaper, it was freezing.”
“The answer is
no,” Olaf answered firmly, and rustled the newspaper once more for effect. “Now, get your ass up those stairs and clean out the toilet. It’s filthy.”
Esmé had half a mind to tell Olaf to clean it himself, on account that he was the reason it was so dirty. But rather than ruin what little she had to look forward to, Esmé turned and walked slowly over to the staircase. She glanced back at her guardian in the hopes that he would change his mind, or at least offer to help her. But he did no such thing, and instead turned to the next page of
The Daily Punctilio. With a silent sigh, Esmé laid her hand on the banister and mounted the stairs.
***
Esmé rolled up her sleeves and slid her small, delicate hands into a pair of yellow rubber gloves. Picking up a bottle of cleaner, she sprayed the toilet thoroughly. Next, she scooped up the brush and began to scrub away. It wasn’t too bad, she supposed, considering that it was probably the most disgusting of all her chores.
As Esmé scrubbed, she began to hum. The time seemed to go by quicker that way, and in no time at all the toilet was sparkling. She then moved onto the mirror (which she cleaned using a page from the previous day’s edition of
The Daily Punctilio), followed by the sink and the shower stall. Inside, she found a fair amount of hair that she knew for a fact didn’t belong to her and that was clogging up the drains. She fished it out with a wad of toilet paper and then flushed it down the toilet.
Esmé finished cleaning the bathroom, and the self-fulfillment she felt for her hard work was quite satisfying. She hoped that Olaf would at least make an effort not to mess it up until tomorrow morning, but she wasn’t going to get her hopes up too high.
Esmé felt a little dizzy from all the chemicals, which was actually making both her head and sinuses feel worse. She had sneezed a number of times while cleaning the bathroom, and she wondered if Olaf had any non-drowsy cold formulas somewhere in the apartment.
Esmé headed downstairs where she found her guardian sitting at the kitchen table. “I finished cleaning the bathroom,” she announced.
Olaf nodded, and gestured toward the empty chair in which Esmé usually sat. In front of it was a bowl of piping hot oatmeal with raspberries spread all around the top. “I thought you might like something to warm you up before venturing out into the cold air,” Olaf said.
Esmé was surprised yet appreciative of her guardian’s consideration, and she slid happily into her chair. Picking up her spoon, she dipped it into her oatmeal and took a bite. It tasted delicious, with just the right hint of raspberry flavor, and immediately warmed her insides. She hadn’t eaten a thing since dinner the night before, and in a few short minutes she had finished off the entire bowl of oatmeal.
“How was it?” Olaf asked.
“Delicious,” Esmé said, and sniffled loudly.
“Oatmeal with raspberries was always my favorite breakfast as a child. My mother used to make it for me every morning.”
“You have a mother? Where is she?”
“Right now,” Olaf said, “she and my father are off attending a conference in the Mortmain Mountains. When they return in a couple of weeks, I’ll introduce you.”
Esmé smiled and rubbed some more at her nose, which had turned a noticeable shade of bright pink. Olaf reached across the table and snatched a handful of napkins out of the dispenser. “Here,” he said, handing the napkins to Esmé. “You’d better take these with you.”
Esmé took the napkins, using one to blow her nose and stuffing the rest into her pocket.
Olaf looked up, and Esmé followed his gaze to see that he was staring at the clock on the wall. The clock had been made to resemble one giant eye, as if its purpose aside from telling time was to guard the tinier eyes decorating the wallpaper around it. Esmé was dying to know the meaning of her guardian’s strange obsession, but every time she asked he would simply change the subject. She knew from the time she had spent being his student that he had a tattoo of an eye on his ankle. But until she had seen where he lived, she had never given much thought to any significance.
“It’s one o’clock now,” Olaf said. “You’d better get moving if you want to make it to the bakery on time.”
Rather than complain about having to walk ten blocks, Esmé stood up. “Thank you for the oatmeal,” she said, and then ran upstairs to put on her sweatshirt.
***
The time in which it took Esmé to get from Olaf’s apartment to the Very Fancy Desserts Bakery was just under forty minutes. Snow had been ploughed out of the streets and now lay in thick, giant heaps on the sidewalks. Less than ten minutes after Esmé had left the apartment, her feet had become soaked, which was mostly due to the fact that each of her shoes had a hole in the toe. Maybe she would be lucky enough to receive a new pair of sneakers or even some nice boots for her birthday.
Exhausted from her long walk and foggy from the antihistamines she had taken upon leaving the apartment, Esmé never heard the door of the Very Fancy Desserts Bakery open. Before she could stop herself, she had walked head-on into a woman carrying a box, causing herself to fall backwards into a pile of snow. The woman let out a yelp of surprise, dropping the box onto the sidewalk. Esmé silently prayed that it didn’t contain a cake, and when she looked up she saw that the woman was glaring angrily down at her.
The woman was accompanied by two boys— perhaps her sons, presumably nine and fifteen years of age —and all three dressed as though they were very wealthy. While the younger boy bent down to help his mother inspect the box, the older of the two stepped forward and held out his hand to Esmé.
“You look as though you’re in need of some help,” said the boy, and smiled warmly down at her.
Esmé was just about to accept the boy’s hand, when the voice of the woman cut through the air like a bitter wind.
“I’m the one in need of some help here,” she snapped. “Thanks to that clumsy little fool over there, your father’s birthday cake is ruined!”
The older boy suddenly jumped back, and turned around to face the hysterical woman. “Now, now, Mother,” he said coaxingly. “I’m sure the cake is just…” He trailed off, and glanced over his shoulder at Esmé. His expression was almost apologetic, and he smiled reassuringly at the girl still sitting in the snow. “It was an accident,” he added, speaking more to Esmé than to his mother.
“Well, if that silly child had been looking
up instead of
down—”The boy placed a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “I’ll go back inside and ask the baker if he has any more,” he said.
Esmé wanted desperately to apologize to the woman for ruining her cake, but was afraid of receiving any further onslaughts. So far, this was turning out to be just about the worst birthday that Esmé Gigi Genevieve Salinger had ever had.
“Andrew,” the boy said to his younger brother, “you stay here with Mother. I’ll be right back.”
Not wanting to be left alone with the angry woman, Esmé scrambled to her feet and rushed through the door of the bakery, accidentally knocking the boy out of the way.
“Well, I never!” exclaimed his mother. “That girl’s behavior is absolutely appalling. Her parents should be ashamed of themselves.”
Once she was inside, Esmé dashed up to the counter. “I’m here to pick up an order for Al Funcoot,” she informed the baker, using the name that Olaf had told her to give the man at the bakery. Esmé had no idea what the point of the alias was, and when she had asked, Olaf had quickly pushed her out the door of the apartment.
The baker smiled. “Ah, yes,” he said. “I have your order all ready for you. Wait just a moment and I’ll go get it.”
Esmé watched the baker disappear into the back, and tapped her nails (which were short from the amount of times she bit them on a daily basis) against the top of the glass counter. She had painted them the night before with red polish— which was one of four bottles she had gotten at the dollar store in Paltryville— and was disappointed that the polish was already beginning to peel off.
The baker returned in a minute with the box containing Esmé’s cake, and set it down on the counter. “That’ll be twenty-four-fifty,” he said.
Esmé reached into the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt for the money Olaf had given her right before she had left the apartment. To her revelation, she felt no money, and as she fished her hand around some more, she felt her fingers go through a hole. Her mouth dropped open as she realized what must have happened, and she looked pleadingly up at the baker.
“I’m sorry,” Esmé said, “but I seem to have lost the money.”
The baker frowned, and pulled the cake further back on the counter so that Esmé couldn’t reach it. “Well, I’m sorry,” he said. “But if you don’t have the money, then I can’t sell you this cake.”
“But—”
“Excuse me, but do you happen to have any more coconut custard cakes left? My mother accidentally dropped the one you sold us earlier, and we need a replacement.”
Esmé turned at the sound of the voice to see the boy she had met outside standing beside her.
“Certainly,” replied the baker, and hurried over to the other side of the display case.
But the boy was no longer paying attention. He was far too busy looking into the bluest pair of eyes he had ever seen. “Hello again,” he said kindly. “I’m sorry about the way my mother spoke to you outside before. But you must understand that she didn’t say what she did out of spite. She’s just bitter because of my father. You see, he was supposed to spend the evening at home with us to celebrate his birthday, but has to stay late at the office.”
“It’s my birthday, too,” Esmé said before she could stop herself.
The boy smiled. “Happy birthday,” he said, and motioned with his head toward the box on the counter. “Is that your cake?”
“Well, it was
supposed to be. I had the money in my pocket, but I guess it must’ve fallen out during the walk over here.”
The boy looked as though he wanted to say something, but before he could the baker returned with the coconut custard cake. “You’re in luck, young fellow,” the baker said. “This here is our very last coconut custard cake.”
“Thank you,” the boy said. “My father will appreciate it. Coconut custard is his favorite. How much do I owe you?”
“It’s on the house. I don’t expect you to pay twice for something you already bought once. But make sure you tell your mother to be extra careful this time.”
“I will, sir.” The boy reached up to take the cake as the baker handed it to him. “Oh! What might that other box contain?”
“A birthday cake,” the baker replied. “It was a special order, but unfortunately this young lady is unable to pay for it.”
“I see,” the boy said, and Esmé watched out of the corner of her eye as he smiled at her. “What if
I paid for it instead?”
“Well, you certainly could if you wanted to. It would save me the trouble of having to sell it for half price, just because it has the name ‘Esmé’ written on it. That isn’t exactly a name that’s common among people in this city.”
“Even so, I find it a lovely name,” the boy replied honestly. Not once did he take his eyes off of Esmé, even as he reached into his pocket and handed the money to the baker.
Esmé only hoped that her cheeks were too flushed from her cold to betray her deep blush. She was just getting up the nerve to thank the boy for helping her to avoid a very big disappointment, when she turned her face into her shoulder and sneezed. The sound was equivalent to that of a mouse’s squeak, except higher and with a much louder pitch. If the boy hadn’t noticed Esmé blushing before, then he surely did now, and it didn’t surprise her one bit when he smiled.
“I’ll bet you think I sound funny,” Esmé said in a stuffed-up voice. “Don’t you?”
The boy shook his head as if she had just accused him of committing a hideous crime. “Oh, no,” he cried, his own cheeks going quite red. “No, it’s nothing like that! I just—“ He lowered his eyes to the floor in embarrassment. “I think you sounded very cute.”
“Really?” asked Esmé.
With a shy smile, the boy reached into his pocket for the second time and produced a white handkerchief, which he handed to Esmé. As she accepted it, she saw that the initials “J.S.” had been stitched in black thread at the bottom left-hand corner.
“You look as though you might need this more than I do,” the boy said.
“Thank you,” Esmé replied, sniffling a little. “You’re very kind.”
“And you’re very beautiful.”
Esmé was just about to inquire about the boy’s name, when a voice from outside called through the door of the bakery:
“Jerome, what
are you doing in there? We need to get going.”
Not wanting the woman to catch her son talking to a girl who had already caused so much trouble, Esmé took a few steps back from the door. Raising his head up, the boy named Jerome called back: “Coming, Mother!”
“I guess you’d better go,” Esmé said, surprised by how disappointed she felt.
“Yeah,” Jerome replied, and his own disappointment was apparent as he spoke. “I guess.”
Sadly, Esmé watched the kind boy she had only just met disappear through the door of the Very Fancy Desserts Bakery. Taking her birthday cake down from the counter, she waited a moment and then moved stealthily towards the door. Peering out into the snow, she saw Jerome, his mother, and brother climbing into a limousine. It was probably warm inside, with a television and perhaps even a built-in device that made hot cocoa. Esmé pouted, realizing what an unsuited lifestyle that would be for her, and how lucky Jerome was to have been born into it. She waited until the limousine pulled away and was out of sight, before stepping out into the cold once more.
***
Esmé spent the remainder of the afternoon finishing up the chores that Olaf had assigned to her. At half past five, he gave her permission to go upstairs and take a bath. She washed her hair and scrubbed off all the dirt she had picked up during the day. When she was finished, she drained the tub and then slipped into her tattered pink bathrobe before returning to her room across the hall.
Esmé chose what she considered to be her prettiest dress, which her mother had made for her. Because Mrs. Salinger was unable to afford any expensive material, the dress was made of simple pink cotton with a white bow that tied in back. There was a fine lace trim at the bottoms of the puffy long sleeves and knee-length skirt. Esmé knew the dress may have been a little juvenile for someone her age, but it had been the last one that her mother had given her. And therefore, she was determined to wear it with pride.
The only pair of shoes she owned was the sneakers with the holes in them, which she had set to dry by the heater upon her return home. Now that they were dry, she slipped them on over a pair of white tights with a small hole in the left knee and a run down the right leg.
Earlier that afternoon, Olaf had taken Esmé aside and told her that she would be required to sit on the staircase and wait to be summoned. “Make sure that you speak only when someone speaks to you first,” he had explained. “It’s very important that children be seen and not heard.”
Although Esmé thought Olaf’s request a little rude considering it was her party, she hadn’t argued, and instead chose to do as she was told.
At seven o’ clock, the guests began to arrive. The first were two women with white powdered faces, each of them donning a beautiful gown that made Esmé ashamed to be seen. The two women were at least ten years older than her, and she took notice of the way they greeted Olaf. It was as if they had known him for years, judging by the way they each kissed him on one cheek.
Shortly after the arrival of the two white-faced women, a bald man with a very long nose came through the door. Esmé thought his unusual feature caused him to take on the appearance of an anteater, but of course she didn’t say so. She had been sitting alone on the steps close to an hour when Olaf and the bald man approached her.
“She the one, Olaf?” the bald man asked.
“Yes,” Olaf said. “This is Esmé Salinger. Her parents are good friends of mine, but unfortunately they can’t afford to keep her. It was my idea to take her in, so I guess you can say I’m doing both her
and her parents a favor.”
“She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she? You hear that, girl? This man’s doing you a huge favor, so you’d best be grateful.”
“I
am grateful,” Esmé told the bald man, not wanting him to think for one minute that she wasn’t.
“Esmé, allow me to introduce Flacutono,” Olaf said, “an associate of mine and a member of my acting troupe.”
“It’s very nice to meet you, sir,” Esmé said, and held out her hand to the man her guardian had just introduced.
“Pleasure,” Flacutono said, and gave Esmé’s small hand a pathetic shake. She wondered if it was because she was young, a thought which caused her to become mildly offended. Turning to Olaf, Flacutono asked, “Say, Olaf. Where do you keep your wine?”
Olaf smiled, as if he had been waiting for an excuse to break out the alcohol. “Come right this way,” he said, “and I’ll show you.”
Flacutono winked at Esmé, and then followed Olaf into the kitchen.
Resting her face in her hands, Esmé sighed heavily. She wondered how much longer it would be until she could start having fun. At the rate things were going, the only fun she was going to have was when the time finally came for her to blow out the candles on her birthday cake.
Esmé was just beginning to feel sorry for herself, when the doorbell rang for the third time that evening. She glanced around to see if Olaf was anywhere in sight, but didn’t see him. The doorbell rang once more, which prompted Esmé to stray from her assigned place and go answer the door.
She opened it to find a young man no older than eighteen standing in the dimly lit hallway of the building. He was very handsome, with dark eyes and light brown hair. He was almost as tall as Olaf, with a strong jaw and a long face on which was planted a gentle smile.
“Wait, don’t tell me,” said the man, and Esmé was surprised to find that he spoke with a thick British accent. “Let me guess… you must be Esmé, the birthday girl. Am I right?”
Esmé grinned. “Yes, that’s me,” she answered rather proudly. “I’m Esmé Gigi Genevieve Salinger. I’m thirteen today.”
“So I’ve been told,” replied the man. “I’m Fernald Widdershins, by the way. Would it be terribly forward of me if I asked to come in?”
“What? Oh, no, of course not!”
“Thank you,” Fernald said. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “Before I forget— and I tend to do that
a lot —I brought you something.”
Esmé looked up, startled. “You mean like a… a present?” she asked timidly. The evening was half over, and so far not one person had come bearing a gift. She may have come from a very poor family, but Esmé had always been given
something on her birthday. It had hurt her feelings to realize that there were people in the world who were inconsiderate.
“It’s just a
little something,” Fernald explained awkwardly, and reached into his pocked. He then produced a gray velvet box, which he handed to Esmé. “But I hope you like it anyway.”
“I’m sure I will,” she replied. Lifting the lid, she discovered that the box contained a small jewel attached to a silver chain. The jewel was her birthstone— blue topaz —and matched her eyes exactly. It was the first gift she had ever received that was not handmade, and she wondered briefly if that made it any less special. But the necklace was so beautiful that she didn’t stop to consider such things, and instead removed it from its box.
“Girls like jewelry, right?” Fernald asked, watching Esmé slip the necklace over her head. “I swear: I can be such an
idiot at times. I never seem to know what sort of present to get someone, so I just end up giving them money instead. If you ask me, it’s terribly impersonal. It’s like saying you can’t be bothered to get them something really nice, you know?”
Esmé had just opened her mouth to explain to Fernald that money was every bit as good of a present as a necklace (especially when you came from a very poor family), when Count Olaf and Flacutono reappeared.
“Well, Esmé, I see you’ve met Mr. Widdershins,” Olaf said, and then turned to the younger man. “I hope she hasn’t been pestering you, Fernald. After all, children have a tendency to make nuisances of themselves without realizing it.”
“Esmé hasn’t been anything of the kind,” Fernald replied defensively. “She’s been the perfect hostess from the moment I arrived.”
“Well, I hate to break up your little conversation,” Olaf went on, “but I need someone to serve the guests their food and drink.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the kitchen. “Esmé, you’ll find the trays on the table in the kitchen. But don’t you
dare spill a drop of that wine. It’s very expensive.”
“Yes, sir,” Esmé said. “I mean no, sir. I won’t. I’ll be extra careful.”
Esmé scampered off in the direction of the kitchen. She was halfway there when she heard Fernald say something to Olaf that she couldn’t understand, followed by the laughter of both her guardian and Flacutono. Esmé knew that the laughter of the two adults sounded cruel, but she reminded herself that Olaf was her guardian now. He treated her the way he did in order to help her grow emotionally, and wasn’t that one of the responsibilities of being a parent? Esmé knew that the way Olaf was raising her was very different from the way her own parents had raised her, but she also trusted in the idea that he cared for her.
Esmé retrieved the trays— one contained the food, while the other contained the wine —and quickly returned to the living room where everyone was gathered. As she scanned the area for Fernald (she hadn’t gotten a chance to ask him if he preferred to be called that or Mr. Widdershins), she noticed that two more guests had arrived.
The first exceeded even Olaf’s impressive height of six-foot-three, was ten times as wide, and looked like neither a man nor a woman. Esmé had to stop and wonder how many times the person was asked that on a regular basis, and figured that it couldn’t be a very pleasant topic. She made a mental note not to say anything regarding the person’s gender if it decided to speak to her.
The second, Esmé could tell, was much more attractive and pleasant to look at. This person was a young woman, perhaps four or five years older than Esmé. The woman had gentle blue eyes that sparkled from behind a pair of movie star-shaped glasses, and straight blonde hair that flowed down her back. She had more curves than Esmé could ever hope to achieve, and the sea-green chiffon that made up the woman’s beautiful gown simply accentuated her figure.
Esmé was beginning to wonder who this mysterious person could possibly be, when Olaf advanced over from the other side of the room and swept the woman into his arms. Esmé watched as he kissed the woman passionately on the mouth, blushing a bit at the realization that it wasn’t exactly polite to stare. Esmé waited until the lips of Olaf and the woman had disengaged before striding over to them.
Olaf’s girlfriend (or whoever she was) settled down onto the couch, with him leaning against the armrest beside her. His arm was wrapped around her tightly, as if he thought Fernald or Flacutono (or perhaps even the person who looked like neither a man nor a woman) might steal her away.
Esmé wasn’t short for her age, but she was small, a fact that made it quite difficult for her to balance a pair of trays in both hands at once. She had gotten no further than “Would you like a glass of” before the tray containing seven glasses of wine slipped from her grip and into the lap of Count Olaf’s girlfriend.
The woman let out a horrified shriek, and Esmé reared back. She accidentally dropped the tray containing the food as she went to cover her mouth. The woman began shouting at her, and then Olaf began shouting at her, and before poor Esmé knew it, every eye in the room was on her.
“I— I’m
sorry!” she cried, and squatted down on the floor to pick up a napkin from one of the fallen trays. “Here, let me help you!” She leapt back up, leaning over and doing her best to scrub out the stain as best she could from the woman’s dress.
“Olaf, stop her!” the woman protested. “She’s only making it worse!”
Instantly, Esmé felt the hand of her guardian close tightly around her slim wrist and yank her up. “Pardon us, darling,” he said to the woman, “while I have a word with my daughter.”
Esmé whimpered as she felt herself being dragged across the living room towards the kitchen. Olaf glanced back at her from over his shoulder several times, his shiny eyes burning with what Esmé could only interpret as rage. Was he going to punish her? Did he not know that what had happened was all an accident?
The next thing Esmé knew, she was being flung through the entrance of the kitchen with enough force to send her to the ground. She looked up to see Olaf towering above her, his face red and his eyes shining furiously.
“You little idiot!” he snarled. “Do you have any
idea what a
spectacle you’ve just made of us
both? Do you even have a single
clue who that woman you just spilled two-hundred dollars worth of wine all over even
is?!”Tears pouring down her cheeks, Esmé shook her head.
“That is Kit Snicket,” Olaf continued, his voice showing no sign of relinquishing its anger. “My girlfriend. It is because of
her generosity that I manage to send your parents money every month, and after tonight she’ll probably never speak to me again. So if your mother dies, don’t come crying to
me about it.”
“No!” Esmé sobbed. “I don’t want my mother to die! Don’t let her die— please!” She scrambled to her feet and rushed over to her guardian, tugging on the sleeve of his jacket in desperation.
“Get
off me,” Olaf snapped. Esmé ignored him, and instead continued to tug mercilessly on his arm. Jerking it out of her grip, he raised it into the air before bringing it swiftly down once more.
Esmé cried out as she felt Olaf’s hand come crashing down against the left side of her mouth. The sudden blow caused her to lose complete use of her legs, and she fell once more to the floor. She soon became aware of something warm and wet as it trickled down the side of her mouth. Lifting her hand, she touched the spot where Olaf had struck her. As she drew her hand away, she saw that her palm was smeared with blood.
“Go over to the sink and clean yourself up,” Olaf ordered. “Then get upstairs to bed.”
Esmé saw no reason to remind her guardian that it is often bad manners to leave your own party, and remained on the floor as she listened to Olaf leave.
A few minutes passed before Esmé finally lifted her head, and when she did she was surprised to see Fernald Widdershins. His worried face was staring back at her from the entranceway of the kitchen, and she wondered if he had heard or even
seen what had happened. She figured that he must have, or why else would he be looking so concerned?
“I heard shouting,” Fernald said as he stepped into the kitchen. “Are you alright?”
Esmé covered her bloodied bottom lip with her hand, wincing at the pain it caused her. She watched Fernald as he advanced over to her, and felt him practically lift her into a chair. He then knelt down in front of her, and very slowly drew her hand away from her mouth.
Fernald frowned, but didn’t ask any questions about what had happened. “Wait right here,” he said, and Esmé could easily sense the concern in his voice.
While she sat crying softly at the table, Fernald went over to the refrigerator and grabbed a handful of ice. He dropped the cubes into a plastic bag and then returned to her side.
“Here you are, love,” he said, and handed her the bag. “This’ll help keep the swelling down.”
Esmé took the bag of ice and pressed it carefully against her sore mouth. Her face was still sticky with tears, and she allowed Fernald to gently dry them with a napkin. She thought him so kind, and the longer she looked at his face, the redder her own seemed to get.
Esmé was just starting to feel a little better when Count Olaf suddenly burst into the kitchen. “Fernald!” he growled. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Fernald dropped the napkin he had been using to wipe away Esmé’s tears, and then slowly turned to face the angry man. “Nothing,” Fernald said, and Esmé thought she recognized a lining of fear in his voice. “I was just—”
“Esmé, get upstairs,” Olaf said. “I want to speak to Mr. Widdershins. Alone.”
After what had recently occurred between her and Olaf, Esmé wasn’t going to risk another violent altercation. Leaping off the chair, she raced out of the kitchen, but not upstairs to her room. Instead, she flattened herself against the wall and listened.
“Do you expect me to just turn away,” came the voice of Fernald Widdershins, “and pretend that I didn’t see what was right in front of my eyes?”
“The eye is very useful,” Olaf said. “It shows us things, some of which we aren’t meant to see. The eye can also play tricks. How can you be so sure that what you saw tonight wasn’t all in your mind?”
“What I saw was no trick. I know for a fact that you struck her— I saw her
bleeding.”“I know you did. And I could hear you
breathe.”“What you did doesn’t even
begin to justify—”
“You’re playing with fire, Fernald,” Olaf interrupted casually. “And when you play with fire, you get burned. It doesn’t matter whose side you’re on.”
There was a long pause, and then Esmé heard Olaf laugh. He had mentioned something once about having smoked his very first cigarette at age ten, and so by twenty-eight his laugh was nothing more than a high-pitched wheeze.
It was at the exact moment when Olaf began to laugh that Esmé sneezed for the first time all evening. Realizing that the antihistamines she had taken earlier were wearing off, she decided to go upstairs before she was caught. She zoomed through the living room, making sure to be as quick as possible so that no one would spot her. She didn’t want anyone asking her questions, and she
especially didn’t want to be the focus of Kit Snicket’s anger.
Esmé didn’t let out a single breath until she had clamped both hands down on the banister. She swung herself up onto the first step, and then raced upstairs to her room.
***
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