|
Post by Jenny on Nov 7, 2008 17:05:50 GMT -5
'I still don't like her,' Colette said uncertainly, and laced her fingers together in confusion. 'And I haven't forgiven her for....for--' it was embarrassing that she had forgotten, and Cora raised a pale eyebrow in her direction. 'F-for Fernald,' she said eventually. 'And for tricking me into joining her and Olaf, and for the fire. But I've started to think maybe everyone else saw something we didn't see.'
Cora sniffed, and turned to the window. 'I don't know, Colette,' she said eventually. 'Perhaps. But I can't say I'm terribly sorry that she isn't around, only that it's upset my sons so much. I certainly can't force myself to miss her.'
'No,' the contortionist agreed. 'But I feel like I should. Everyone else is in a terrible state, Faust is still crying and---'
'--And Fernald?' Cora asked, and never turned to look back at the blonde woman sitting next to her. 'I suppose he's quite upset, isn't he?'
Colette swallowed. 'And I'm not so sure about that anymore either,' she admitted shyly. Now that she and Cora didn't share quite the same views it didn't seem they had much in common at all. 'It didn't look great, I admit, but I've started to see that Fernald might have been telling me the truth after all. And looking at Esmé and Jerome, I find it difficult to think that she could be interested in anyone else.'
~
'How many hours has it been?' Olaf said, and boredly re-arranged the telescope into the same angle it had been before. 'I haven't been counting, but I suppose it's quite important.'
'Six,' Esmé replied from the other side of the room. She had been asleep, but he constantly woke her up with the occasional clatter of wine bottles and his insistance on speaking to her all the time, even though it was obvious she wanted nothing more than to just pretend the events weren't truly occuring. 'Six hours.'
'So they've still eighteen,' Olaf commented.
'Until what?' she asked tiredly, and rubbed her eyes.
'Until I have to do something. I have to manage to make yout husband even more distressed, but I haven't decided how I'm going to do it yet. I suppose it depends on how good you are between now and then.' He poured another glass of wine, and stood to pass it to her. 'Of course, he could just get me the money and my daughter, and then this would all be finished.'
'But he won't,' she said, and took the wine but didn't drink it.
'No,' Olaf agreed. 'Not the first time. Not until he sees what the consequence on you is every time he doesn't co-operate.'
|
|
|
Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Nov 7, 2008 21:12:35 GMT -5
“You wouldn’t hurt me,” Esmé said, hoping that her words sounded more sincere than she herself felt.
“Not seriously,” Olaf highlighted, tilting back his head and finishing off another bottle of wine. “But you had best be watching everything you say and do from now on, Esmé.”
Esmé didn’t answer, and instead pulled the blanket tighter around herself as she shivered. She had eaten neither breakfast nor lunch, and had had no dinner the night before. The glasses of wine that Olaf continued to pass her weren’t of much help, as all they did were make feel lightheaded and nauseous. She wanted to ask if she could possibly have something to eat (at this point, even a piece of bread would do), but was afraid of what Olaf’s response would be. One of the memories that stood out most for her about her childhood and adolescent years was how he had insisted that she was overweight, when clearly she had been little more than skin and bones. The only times he had allowed her to eat was when she had completed all of her chores to his satisfaction, a task which was often difficult to fulfill.
But Esmé was no longer a child, nor was Olaf her only means of support. If the financial advisor was going to get through the next eighteen hours, then she was going to need her strength. And so, setting aside all of her fear, she asked, “Olaf. M— may I please have something to eat?”
The villain turned his attention away from the window, and focused his eyes on the woman sitting underneath the table. “Why, you haven’t asked me that question since you were sixteen,” he said.
“Please,” Esmé begged, and prayed that she didn’t sound as pathetic as she felt. “I’m so hungry. And I… I’m afraid that I won’t be of much help to you if I’m starving.”
“Since when did I ever say that I needed your help? My only request is for you to sit there quietly and not make trouble.”
“Please. All I’m asking for is a piece of bread or something. Anything to stop my head from spinning.”
“From what I remember, your head was always spinning. You never were very bright.”
Esmé was far too weak to argue, and she leaned her head against the leg of the table. She closed her eyes, grateful for the fact that the room no longer seemed to be rotating.
“Oh, alright,” Olaf grunted, and Esmé listened to him rise. “Enough with the sympathy ploy— it isn’t going to work. But I’ll go get you something to eat, if only to stop your incessant whining.”
Esmé waited until he had left, and then looked across the room at the telephone. In conjunction with the pain in her stomach from Olaf’s prior assault on her and being weak from hunger, she didn’t trust herself to walk across the room to the telephone and get back underneath the table before he returned.
Esmé was just beginning to realize why her husband forever stressed the importance of a well balanced meal, when her ex-boyfriend reentered the room. In one hand he held a plate containing a peanut-butter sandwich on white bread, while in the other he held a glass of milk. Esmé was far too hungry to point out that she preferred whole-wheat bread, or ask if the milk was skim rather than whole. Still, her manners overrode her hunger, and she forced herself to take tiny, delicate bites of her sandwich.
Olaf tilted his head to the side in confusion. “What on Earth’s the matter with you, woman?” he asked. “I thought you said you were starving.”
Esmé took a slow sip of milk before answering. “I am,” she replied. “This is how I always eat.”
|
|
|
Post by Jenny on Nov 8, 2008 7:11:38 GMT -5
Olaf had no answer for that, and just shook his head in what seemed to be confusion. 'I suppose it seems odd to me,' he said, and chose rather than sit by the window again to sit on the old couch. 'Because I don't think I ever saw you eat.'
Instead of asking 'and who's fault is that?', which was the first thing she had thought, she simply chose not to answer, and continued taking small bites of her sandwich. She was vaguely surprised to find that there was nothing inedible in the sandwich as well as the peanut butter. It worried her a little that she hadn't seen him make it, and there could be any number of crushed up pills inside it, but she was very hungry. And besides, what else did she have to lose? As long as Olaf never got hold of Emma, then she supposed what he did to her now was a little irrelevant.
Olaf let out an irritated sigh, and retrieved a box from underneath the couch, and a dart from inside it. Her eyes widened, recognizing it as one the same as the one that had come dangerously close to hitting her husband, and he then handed it to her, along with a pen and a piece of parchment.
'We can't let them forget about you, sweetheart,' he said. 'You can write whatever you like. But I'll be sending it, so I'd advise you to think about it carefully.'
She rolled her eyes a little. Basically she could write whatever she wanted, as long as it said everything he wanted.
'What do you want me to write?' she asked after a second.
'How terrified you are,' he answered. 'And how desperate you are to get away. Even if you and I know that actually you're quite happy.'
'Why don't you write it, then?' she asked. 'You'll just have to correct what I write.'
'Because it has to be in your handwriting, moron,' he said crossly, and she flinched at the anger in his voice, afraid that he might turn and strike her again like he already had.
'Well, then why not narrate it?' she said, and finsihed off her glass of milk.
Olaf looked a little irritated, but nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'I'd forgotten you didn't have a brain of your own.'
'Of course not,' she said under her breath, but he didn't seem to hear her, or he ignored her, for which she felt quite thankful.
'Jerome,' he began from the couch, and poured himself another glass of wine, and she started to write.
|
|
|
Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Nov 8, 2008 14:28:16 GMT -5
Carmelita and Andrew had managed to talk Jerome into lying down in one of the sitting rooms. Unfortunately, it happened to be the same room containing Esmé’s favorite red velvet couch, and Jerome had burst into tears the moment he’d gone to lie down.
He was sitting curled up on the left side of the couch, hugging a heart-shaped pillow to his chest. He looked absolutely pathetic, and Andrew volunteered to stay with him while Carmelita went to go make some tea.
Andrew waited until she had left before turning to his brother. “Jerome,” he said. “I need you to know right now that I’m willing to do whatever it takes to ensure Esmé’s safe return.”
Jerome wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, and then looked into those of his younger brother.
“I have all of the money that Father left me,” continued Andrew. “As well as what I make down at the office. I can clear out my entire account and—”
“You’re forgetting one very important detail,” Jerome said.
Andrew backtracked in his mind, and then nodded his head somberly.
“Emma,” the two brothers uttered the name of their daughter and niece at the same time.
“I can’t possibly—” Jerome started, but Andrew cut him off.
“Of course not,” he said. “And you won’t have to, Jerome. I’ll fight him first.”
“Fight him? Andrew, the man is a murderer and an arsonist. If you hesitate for even a moment, there’s no telling what will happen.”
“The fact that Olaf is so dangerous is all the more reason why I must take that chance,” Andrew insisted. “He is holding the woman you and I both love hostage, and so we can’t afford to take our time in thinking things through. We must act immediately.”
Jerome was just about to ask his brother what he meant by ‘the woman you and I both love’, when a deafening shatter followed by a spine-tingling scream pierced through the air.
“That sounded like Mother,” Andrew said, and Jerome nodded.
Even in his state of distress, Jerome found the strength to follow his brother across the room and out into the hallway. They traced the scream to another sitting room, and gasped in horror to discover Cora Squalor laying face-up on the carpet.
Colette was kneeling beside the elderly woman, patting her hand in the hope of reviving her. However, it didn’t seem to be working, and Andrew rushed over to them.
“What happened?” he demanded, and fell to his knees beside his mother.
“We were talking,” Colette explained, “when all of a sudden a dart shot through the window.” She lifted one fragile, pale arm, and pointed an equally thin, pale hand across the room near to where Jerome was standing. “It’s over there.”
While Jerome was concerned for his mother, he had to admit he was more concerned for his wife at the moment. While Andrew worked on reviving Cora, Jerome stepped into the sitting room and looked to where Colette had been pointing. Sure enough, there was indeed a dart sticking out of the wall. Like the ones before it, this one had also come with a note attached to it. Jerome found it necessary to tug a few times before the dart completely dislodged from its place in the wall. Unrolling the parchment from around the dart, he set it down on a nearby end table and took his reading glasses out of his top pocket. Putting them on, he began to read the note. It was in Esmé’s own loopy handwriting, but the actual style in which it was written was far from being that of his precious wife.
Jerome:
I am writing to remind you of the following two things: 1). You have less than eighteen more hours to hand over both Andrew’s fortune and Emma to Count Olaf. 2). If you fail to meet these demands, then I can assure you that I shall be the one who pays dearly for it. If you truly love me, then you’ll stop hesitating and do what you know you must. Andrew has more than enough money to spare, and Olaf is Emma’s biological father. And besides, wasn’t it you who once told me how important it is to help those less fortunate?
Your Loving Wife,
Esmé Gigi Genevieve Squalor
P.S: Enclosed is a sample of what Olaf has already done to me.
Jerome’s eyes had already begun to fill with tears as he finished reading Olaf’s second demand. Jerome glanced down to see that a small photograph had fallen face-down to the floor at his feet when he had unrolled the parchment. Bending down, he picked up the photograph and turned it over. He gasped, and lifted his hand to his mouth in horror.
Pictured on the photograph was a close-up of his wife’s bare stomach, which was covered in what was surely a very painful bruise. It was as if someone had deliberately kicked her, and the realization that Olaf could be so cruel caused Jerome to begin sobbing all over again.
|
|
|
Post by Jenny on Nov 8, 2008 15:54:05 GMT -5
As much as Andrew would have liked to cross the room and comfort his overly distressed brother, who was covering his mouth in what seemd to be horror, and had fallen to his knees after reading the note attached to the dart, he was a little preoccupied with finding out what exactly had happened to his mother.
This information was more difficult to extract from Colette than he had expected.
'What happened?' he asked quickly, but the contortionist simply stared blankly back at him as if she hadn't understood the question. And when he repeated it, she shook her head and said something he didn't understand, and started speaking far too quickly in either French or English for him to understand anything, so he simply chose to ignore her.
He hoped the dart hadn't hit her, and he didn't think that was likely--how otherwise could it have reached the wall? It seemed she'd fainted from the shock of the dart flying through the door, and he was quite relieved when his mother's eyes finally opened, and she caught her breath.
'Andrew,' she rasped, and sat up too quickly, so that her head immediately began to spin. 'There's a dart, and--'
'--We know,' he answered, and helped her to sit up fully, before helping her gently into a chair. He supposed she hadn't been conscious long enough to notice her oldest son sobbing nearby. 'Don't worry about it,' he said quickly. 'You just sit here and rest for a moment.'
Colette rushed to the elderly woman's side as Andrew rushed to his brother's, but Jerome was incapable of telling him anything about what the note had said. Instead of trying to get it out of him slowly, Andrew eventually just prised the note and accompanying photograph out of his brother's shaking hands.
It didn't take him more than a few seconds of scanning the letter to make his decision. 'Jerome,' he said quietly, and lay a hand on his brother's shoulder. 'Esmé didn't write this letter.'
He never had been particularly quick.
'That isn't the point, Andrew!' Jerome practically screamed, and Andrew was surprised his brother was capable of such a noise. 'He's hurting her, Andrew, haven't you seen?'
Andrew nodded, and took a look down at the photograph in his hands again briefly. The muscles in his jaw clenched, and Jerome was thankful somebody else was as horrified and disgusted about Olaf's behaviour as he was, even if he wasn't certain why.
'We're going to get her away from him, Jerome,' he said, and although it was comforting, it was also fiercely determined. 'No matter what it takes, we'll do it.'
~
Emma had been left alone to think after she had upset Faust too much to talk to her and her father any longer. She wasn't guilty for it--why should she be? This was all Faust's fault, wasn't it?
In her loneliness, she decided to return to her bedroom, although the cold wind gripped her. Olaf wouldn't be planning to hurt her, would he, and so she felt fairly confident that she would be able to sit alone without being in danger.
She scooted further towards the window, and looked out. If she squinted, she could see the apartment of the man that had taken her mother, and his dark shadow. Her father.
As she turned her head back to look at the wall behind her with the darts still remaining there, her one eyebrow furrowed.
Perhaps she ought to send a message herself.
~
'I'm still not sure I think the photograph was entirely necessary,' Esmé grumbled, still seated underneath the table where she had been told to stay. Her back was starting to ache from being on the floor for such along time, but she didn't feel able to complain.
Olaf chuckled. 'Perhaps not,' he croaked, and turned to grin at her. 'But personally I think it was a great idea. Can you imagine how your husband's reacted?'
Just as she was about to tell him how much she absolutely didn't want to imagine how Jerome was feeling, she was cut off by the sudden sound of breaking glass. Olaf cursed loudly, and when she next looked up, one of the grubby apartment windows had smashed, though, unfortunately, whoever had fired the dart had misfired, and avoided hitting the arsonist, who clambered to his feet.
'What the Hell was that?' he growled, as if Esmé was to know, where she had been sitting underneath the table all the time, and had simply closed her eyes and leaned against the table at the uproar.
The dart had landed closer to her than to him, but as she reached for it he stepped forward and snatched the dart and accompanying note before she had any chance to read it before he could. I don't think so, darling,' he said, and held the note up to the light to read it properly.
Olaf the letter read, in handwriting that was half of the perfect copperplate script that Esmé used, and half of Olaf's messy slanted scribble.
I haven't been allowed to read anything you've fired into the penthouse so far, the note read. But I'm not stupid. It doesn't surprise me that in return for my mother you're asking for Andrew's money, but what does surprise me is that you're risking the deal by asking for me as well.
The reason I am writing instead of my father or my uncle is simple; I have a question that neither of them are prepared to ask. I am obviously fully prepared to exchange my mother's place for mine, and so my question is that if I were, without anyone else knowing, to willingly exchange places with my mother, would that be enough for you to leave everyone else alone? This would mean that you would no longer recieve Andrew's fortune, but as you may or may not be aware, when I turn eighteen I will have access to my own fortune, which, although not as large is still substantial.
I'm sure you won't need long to think about it.
The letter ended with the scrawled signature that just about said 'Emma Squalor,' and Olaf slowly began to smile. Perhaps that was a better idea than even his own.
'Who sent it?' Esmé asked, not daring to stand and instead just staring up hopefully. 'What does it say?'
|
|
|
Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Nov 8, 2008 17:06:47 GMT -5
“It’s from our daughter,” Olaf replied with a sly grin. Esmé’s eyes widened. “But how?” she asked. “In would be impossible to get a dart here all the way from the penthouse.” “Not necessarily. One would have to possess exquisite aim— and I think we both know which one of us she inherited that from.” Esmé thought back fourteen years ago to the Village of Fowl Devotees. She had attempted to fire a harpoon at the local handyman and missed, hitting a balloon attached to his hot-air mobile home instead. She had never been very skillful when it came to good aim, and it didn’t surprise her that Olaf was using this fact as yet another excuse to disparage her. But the important thing now was Emma, and the contents of the letter she had written to Olaf. “Give me that note,” Esmé said, surprised at how brave she sounded now that her daughter was fully involved. “I don’t trust you, and so I’d like to see it for myself if you don’t mind.” Olaf seemed to hesitate, but gave in quickly, handing the note over to Esmé. She read through it carefully, and he grinned maliciously as she pressed her hand against her red mouth. “She’s incredibly noble,” Olaf commented, “don’t you think? She’s willing to trade her own freedom for yours. It’s actually quite ironic, considering who her parents are.” Esmé scowled. “And we both know that you would never have done the same for me,” she said bitterly. As an afterthought, she added, “Thank God Jerome was there that morning at the hotel.” “You and I had already broken up by that time anyway,” Olaf reminded his ex-girlfriend. “So what makes you think I would’ve even bothered coming back for you?” “I spent an entire year asking myself that very same question.” Olaf raised a single eyebrow. “Oh?” He sounded vaguely intrigued by this. Esmé, however, chose to ignore his interest in the matter, and instead returned to the current topic. “What are you going to do,” she asked, “about Emma?” “Well, the first thing I’m going to do is respond,” Olaf said. “It’s very rude to keep a person in wait.” Esmé couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Since when has that been any concern of yours?” But Olaf wasn’t listening. He was far too busy leaning over the window seat, scribbling out a response to his daughter’s note. *** In light of her correspondence with Count Olaf, Emma Squalor had decided it would be a wise idea to leave the window open to avoid anymore broken glass. When she saw the dart fly across her room ten minutes later, she waited until the object had lodged itself inside the wall before going over to retrieve it. Yanking the dart out, she set it down on her dresser and then unrolled the attached piece of parchment. As expected, she discovered an answer to her previous note, and she flopped across her bed to read it. Dear Emma, the note said, It was very wise of you not to inform your stepfather or uncle that you had decided to write to me. I think you and I will have a much better chance of working together if there isn’t anyone around to disturb us. Trust— which I am sure your stepfather knows a great deal about —is an incredibly delicate issue, and is not something to be taken for granted.
I would like you to know that I think you are making a very brave and unselfish move by offering to trade your freedom in exchange for your mother’s. Knowing that you are heiress to a fortune of your own only makes me want to protect you, and so I can assure you that you’ll be safe with me.
As soon as you’re positive you’re alone, go out to the balcony and wave to the building across from you. I’ll be there and will wave back so you’ll be sure that I can see you.
Until then, my dear.
~Count Olaf
|
|
|
Post by Jenny on Nov 8, 2008 17:58:24 GMT -5
Esmé had started biting her lip, and now felt the sharp tang of blood when she couldn't stop. How could she stop Emma? There didn't seem to be a way of telling her not to do this--Esmé was almost certain that Olaf was unlikely to keep any promises he may or may not have made in his last note, and she also doubted whether he would release her for their daughter in any case. Even if he did, that wouldn't solve anything--if anything, it would make the Squalor family even more upset and determined.
'Isn't there--' Esmé began, and then stuttered. Olaf just turned to glare at her.
'What the Hell are you complaining about now?' he demanded. 'It means you get to see your daughter, doesn't it?'
'So you aren't going to let me go?' she asked, and nodded. 'So you're going to get Emma, me, and Emma's money when she's eighteen. You've tricked my daughter without even speaking to her!'
He laughed over that. 'It seems so, darling,' he said happily. 'Even I'm not sure how I did that. Somehow my genius always seems to prevail, doesn't it?'
'I hate you,' she muttered, and wrapped her arms around herself, wishing they might be her husband's.
'Well, you might change your mind after a while,' he said, seemingly too pleased with his 'genius' to hit her. 'What's the point in leaving now? I'll have Emma, I'll have money, you may as well stay with me and leave your husband to pick up where he was before you arrived.'
She didn't say anything, but she felt a couple of tears escape and slide down her pale cheeks. She didn't think she'd ever needed Jerome so much in her whole life ever before now.
'Stop her,' she willed in a whisper, hoping that maybe her husband could hear her. 'Please, Jerome, stop her.'
~
Emma took a deep breath, and lay the letter down on the desk. Did it matter if anyone found it? Maybe not.
She stepped out onto the balcony, grabbing a sweater first because of the cold, and leant against the railing slowly raising her left arm and slowly waving.
She didn't think too much about what she was giving up, and what she was going to do to Jerome and Esmé. Surely, though, Jerome and her mother could recover, as long as they were together? They still had Carmelita, didn't they?
It was too late to start thinking on that now.
After a moment, something flew across from the window of the apartment across from the penthouse and attached itself to the wall of the apartment, dangerously near to her head, and opened out into a small net. She would have thought it clever, if she wasn't so horrified.
Just as she had been contemplating the possibility of trapping her biological father inside the penthouse when he arrived, she noticed him waving her over. Evidently he had realized the possible risk of going back to the penthouse himself--it would involve going near to Andrew Squalor, who was quite ready to kill him, and leaving Esmé alone too long. She sighed in disappointment, and took a deep breath, before climbing across and onto the net, with a last look back at her room.
|
|
|
Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Nov 8, 2008 22:21:19 GMT -5
Focusing her eyes sharply on the neighboring apartment straight ahead of her, she slowly crawled her way across the net. There was a noticeable chill in the air, and she did her best to ignore the wind whistling in her ears, thankful that she had chosen to tie up her hair up in a ponytail that day.
Only when she reached the windowsill and was halfway inside the apartment was when she finally dared to heave a sigh of relief. It was just after the heels of her stiletto boots had come to rest on the floor than did her ears prick up to a familiar sound.
The sound itself was equivalent to that of a mouse’s squeak, and which Emma had been accustomed to for as long as she could remember. As she stepped further into the room, a second squeak followed, and she turned to the right to see a table standing out of view of the window.
And there, wrapped tightly in a blanket and sitting at the table in a chair, was Esmé.
“Mother!” Emma exclaimed, and practically slid across the floor on her way to embrace the financial advisor. “Oh, Mother!”
Esmé rose up from the table and held out her arms, ignoring the blanket as it slid away from her slight shoulders. Emma threw herself against her mother, wrapping her arms around her. Esmé did the same, ignoring the pain in her belly as Emma hugged her tightly.
It wasn’t long before both mother and daughter began to cry. Only when Esmé appeared to be sniffling a lot more than her daughter then did Emma pull back and ask, “Mother, are you alright?”
Brushing the tears from her eyes, Esmé nodded reassuringly. “I’m fine, darling,” she said. “But it seems I’ve caught a cold.”
Emma looked her mother up and down, taking notice of the fact that she was dressed in nothing but her nightgown and matching overlay. Out of all of his wife’s bedtime attire, these items were by far Jerome’s favorite, and it was unfortunate that they had attributed to her cold. Just as Esmé sneezed into her shoulder, a raspy chuckle broke through the air. Still holding tightly to one another, she and Emma turned to see Count Olaf. He was sitting in the dim shadows across from them in a chair, tapping the fingers of both hands together, his right leg crossed over his left.
“There’s something about the way a woman sneezes,” he said, “that makes a man feel superior.”
Glaring back into her biological father’s identical eyes, Emma bent down to retrieve Esmé’s blanket from the floor. Emma— who was only two inches shorter than her mother, who was five-foot-eight —managed to wrap the blanket around her shoulders, keeping her arms tightly around her to prevent it from slipping off again. Even through the thick fabric, Emma could feel Esmé shivering.
“I’ve kept my part of the bargain, Olaf,” Emma said bravely. “Now let my mother go.”
|
|
|
Post by Jenny on Nov 9, 2008 10:31:18 GMT -5
Olaf tilted his head to the side, as if bemused, and continued to tap his fingers together, taking his time to answer her.
'My dear,' he said at length. 'I'm afraid I don't remember anything about agreeing to this bargain of yours. Though I am delighted you've decided to visit your Mother and I.'
Emma's mouth fell open into a perfect 'o'. 'But I said--' she thought back, and wished she'd brought along his response to her letter. He'd said it was very noble of her to want to trade places, but perhaps he'd never said they'd be able to. '--You said you'd let her go!'
'I never said any such thing,' Olaf replied, and stood, crossing the room to swing shut the window and let the net dislodge and fall to the ground between the two buildings. He wouldn't be needing it any longer, he supposed, and it stopped either of the women he'd captured attempting to climb back. 'I'm sorry if you misunderstood me, dear.'
There was a long silence, broken only by Olaf's raspy chuckling, and Emma's cry of outrage. She almost felt like stamping her foot, but managed to restrain herself if only to avoid the humiliation that would have followed that.
'Well, you won't get away with this!' Emma cried, and her mother buried her head in her hands and crawled back to her spot under the table, having heard that a few too many times. He always [/i]gets away with it, Emma.[/i] 'Jerome won't just leave us.'
'I suppose we'll have to see about that, won't we?' Olaf asked rhetorically. 'Although he hasn't come for your mother yet, Emma, has he? Maybe he isn't coming at all.'
'You don't know anything!' Emma hissed angrily, and Esmé wished she could warn her daughter not to anger him. 'You don't know anything about Jerome, and you don't know anything about me!'
Olaf had started to look a little angry, and Emma found herself frightened. Her mother had stood, even though she would much rather have stayed under the table, and wrapped a pale arm around her daughter's shoulders for comfort.
'More than you'd think,' he corrected. 'I almost feel like your step-father and I are well acquainted from all the tales your mother used to tell me--' Emma glanced up at her mother, but her black hair shielded her eyes from view. '--And I do know that you are my daughter.' He paused, and stood. 'And perhaps it would be best for everyone if you learned not to raise your voice.'
Emma said nothing, but was suddenly very aware of the impressive height of her biological father as he towered over her.
She was so lucky to have Jerome for a father.
~
After a cup of tea that Carmelita had prepared (carefully dropping in one of Esmé’s tranquilizers without her adoptive father’s knowledge), Jerome had started to feel a little calmer, if no less worried.
Cora had returned back to her room at the sight of Carmelita, who glared at her, and Colette had helped her along caringly arm in arm, leaving the two brothers and Carmelita to sit alone in the sitting room.
‘Perhaps we should go over to the other side of the penthouse,’ Carmelita suggested, looking nervously at the window. ‘One dart has already come through there—’
‘—Does it matter much?’ Jerome asked softly, and Carmelita felt like throwing her arms around him. ‘I’d rather know about it if Olaf sends something else, however horrific.’
Andrew nodded. ‘And I don’t think he’s planning to send us anything else just yet anyway,’ he said, and looked out of the window himself to see into the adjacent apartment. ‘I say we just stay back from the window.’
Carmelita thought that was a little strange, as it was Andrew himself who was leaning close to it to get a better view of Olaf’s whereabouts.
‘Come and sit down, then,’ she said sensibly. ‘You’re standing right where the last dart came through, Andrew.’
‘Well, he isn’t going to shoot at me, is he?’ Andrew asked. ‘What good does that do?’
Carmelita agreed, but it still made her nervous to see her uncle standing there as if inviting a dart to fly through the window and hit him square in the chest. Instead of dwelling on it, she just looked over to where her adoptive father sat in the chair his mother had previously occupied, looking sleepier by the second. She was pleased she had thought to put a tranquilizer into his tea, even if it would likely make him fall asleep for longer than he’d like. Sleep was perhaps the only thing that might make him relax, even if it wasn’t voluntary.
Just as it seemed they had all calmed down, although Jerome was evidently going to fight to stay awake, Fernald Widdershins knocked quietly on the already open door leading into the room, and waited until Carmelita smiled to step inside.
'Have you heard anything?' he asked, taking a seat in a chair everyone else had avoided because it had been Esmé's usual seat. Jerome managed to work up a half-glare, but Carmelita shook her head at him. How could Fernald have ever known?
'We've had a letter,' Jerome said slowly, and rubbed his eyes. Andrew, who still held it, only turned from the window a second to hand it to the hook-handed man, before turning back again.
Fernald's eyes were sadder when he finsihed reading it, and one of his hooks jerked when he turned to the photograph. It hurt him to know that even when she thought she'd finally escaped the long years of violence she'd suffered at Olaf's hands he somehow managed to come back. Fernald had tried his best for years to get her away from the violent arsonist, but he'd failed to protect her then, and he'd failed to protect her again now, it seemed.
It was enough to bring tears to his eyes, but he blinked them back.
'Is--' he cleared his throat. 'Is there anything I can do to help you?'
Neither Jerome or Andrew seemed to hear a word he said, but Carmelita took it upon herself to respond.
'If it wouldn't be too much trouble,' she began, and took the letter and photograph away from him because it seemed to be upsetting him more and more (and because she wasn't sure if he was going to be able to pick it up and hand it to her himself without ripping it). 'I'd like you to find Emma. I'd go myself, but--' She left off there, but nodded her head subtely towards Andrew, who couldn't have been any closer to standing on the window ledge, and to Jerome, who looked ready to burst into tears all over again.
Mr Widdershins nodded. 'Not at all,' he answered, although it was the most difficult thing she could have asked, especially after the conversation she and Faust had had earlier, in which he had obviously taken his beloved daughter's side. He was almost certain Emma would avoid seeing him, and didn't think that would make it any easier to find her in such a large apartment.
Beginning to feel uncomfortable faced with the depressed silence of the three people he was sitting with, Fernald quickly excused himself and began his search for Emma.
~
It had taken the most part of an hour for Jerome to finally fall asleep, where it took his wife ten minutes at the most, but finally Carmelita noticed that his eyes had closed and he had begun to snore. In light of that, she smiled and fetched a blanket to cover him with before crossing the room to stand with Andrew.
'Can you see anything?' she asked, squinting and seeing nothing herself.
'No,' he admitted.
'Then why have you been standing here so long?' she continued, and noticed that his light green eyes had filled with tears.
Reason for Editing: Correcting all the typos. It's time I learned to TYPE PROPERLY.
|
|
|
Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Nov 9, 2008 13:34:17 GMT -5
Andrew had no idea where to even begin explaining to his twenty-five-year-old niece the romantic feelings he had harbored for her mother over the last fourteen years. He had managed to bury them deep after Esmé’s departure, but when he had received word that she had returned, he had to admit there was a part of him that wished Jerome would not have taken her back. Had such a thing occurred, then Andrew would have been more than happy to take the place of his brother and care for the woman who had come crawling back to her husband with another man’s child. It had never mattered to Andrew that Esmé had been involved with a criminal, or that she happened to be four years older than himself. He had been perfectly willing to love her for what and who she was, as well as to raise Emma as his own daughter. Andrew could only imagine the scandal such a decision would have brought about, considering his reputation in the city was ten times that of his brother. While Jerome was simply a billionaire who occupied the most expensive residence in the city, Andrew was famous for his position as a most successful stockbroker in his father’s company. Had Andrew ended up marrying Esmé, then he was certain that the success of the company would have suffered greatly. Though he would not have cared one bit about it. “Andrew,” Carmelita said when it appeared as though he had no intent on answering her first question. “What are you thinking of?” Andrew blushed in a way that reminded the young woman of Jerome. “Of Esmé,” Andrew said. “And how worried I am for her.” “We’re all worried for her, Andrew.” Andrew was between decisions on whether or not to admit that his prior statement was not exactly what he had intended to say. Glancing over his shoulder at his sleeping brother and then back at Carmelita, he said, “I have a confession to make.” “What sort of confession?” Carmelita asked. “I said something to Jerome earlier,” continued Andrew. “But I’m not altogether certain that he interpreted it the way I had intended.” “What is it? What did you tell him?” Andrew turned his face toward the window once more before answering. “That I’m in love with Esmé.” Carmelita gasped. “You can’t be— you are— how long have you felt this way?” “For years,” Andrew confessed, his eyes still focused on the window. “Ever since Jerome brought Esmé to my parents’ estate to meet us.” “And you’ve never told her?” The youngest Squalor shook his head. “No. The closest I ever came was in my explanation of how I hoped to find someone who would make me as happy as your mother makes Jerome. It concluded with Esmé telling me that I was foolish, because in the end I would only get my heart broken.” Carmelita looked over at Jerome, whose chin was resting on his chest. He was still snoring lightly, and it made her feel sad to picture her adoptive mother’s reaction had she been here. Esmé had mentioned a few times (when her husband had not been present, of course) just how adorable she found Jerome’s snoring habit to be, and how it even helped her sleep at night. “Do your brother a favor,” Carmelita said, “and don’t bring up your feelings for his wife again. If we’re lucky, he’s already forgotten all about the conversation the two of you had.” “I can assure you,” Andrew said, “that I have no intention of reminding him of it.” *** Fernald Widdershins was quite certain he was familiar enough with the penthouse to know which rooms were the most frequently used ones, and so he conducted a thorough search of each. When Emma failed to turn up in any of them, he decided to go investigate her room. Although he couldn’t imagine why in the world anyone would want to go back in there after all of the attacks that had taken place over the past two days. The hook-handed man peeked inside, not at all surprised when there didn’t appear to be a single sign of his former boss’s daughter. The only things Fernald took notice of were the facts that both the window and the door leading out onto the balcony had been left open. He couldn’t recall for sure if the window had ever been closed the night before, and he decided that it would probably be a good idea if it and the door were. He stepped into the room and was just crossing over to the window when he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. He turned to see a folded-up piece of parchment sitting on Emma’s desk a few feet away from the balcony. He picked up the parchment to discover a note written in Olaf’s unsteady, sloppy handwriting. “Oh, my God,” Fernald said as he read through the note. Immediately realizing what had happened, he rushed out onto the balcony. When he saw nothing, he raced back across the room and out the door. *** Esmé was still occupying her place underneath the table, wrapped tightly in her blanket. Emma had crawled beneath the table and next to her mother, while Olaf had once more taken up residence at the window. “He isn’t going to let you go, is he?” Emma asked her mother. Sniffling, Esmé shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, though,” she said, and hugged her daughter close to her. “I would never leave you, even if I was given the opportunity.” Reaching into her pocket, Emma withdrew her handkerchief and handed it to her mother. Every year for Christmas, Jerome would buy everyone a handkerchief with their initials engraved at the bottom corner. It was an old tradition created by his grandmother, and which he had decided to carry on. “Thank you, darling,” Esmé said, and dabbed delicately at the corners of her nose, which was sore and slightly pink. “You probably caught a cold from sitting on the cold floor all day,” Emma told her. “Not to mention you aren’t dressed accordingly.” Esmé nodded, and then looked over at Olaf. “Would it be asking too much if I could call my husband?” she asked. “He’s probably discovered by now that Emma is missing.” Olaf flashed his former girlfriend and daughter a wicked smile. “Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said. “It seems that your old pal, Hooky has already made that discovery. However, we can make a little wager on how long it will be until the telephone rings.”
|
|
|
Post by Jenny on Nov 9, 2008 15:15:40 GMT -5
'Well, it isn't going to be long, is it?' Esmé concluded. 'Hook--' she cursed herself for that, and Olaf grinned happily at her slip before he crossed the room to wait by the telephone, patting her on the head patronizingly as he went past. 'It won't take you long to go back to the way you used to be, darling,' he chuckled. 'You're not really all that different.'
Esmé kissed her daughter on her forehead, as if that would stop her little girl from thinking any further into how her mother must have been before she married Jerome. It was a story she'd never told Emma, for what she considered excellent reasons, and she could feel that the moment Olaf realized this he was bound to tell her the whole, twisted tale.
'So how long do you think it'll be, Emma?' Olaf asked, idly drumming his fingers on the table. 'How long until your ste-father calls us to ask how you got here, and until I tell him you swung over of your own accord?'
Emma didn't answer, and Esmé chose not to react either. Whatever Olaf said, the two of them knew that Jerome would understand immediately why Emma had tried to secure her mother's freedom, and that she had not left the penthouse for any reasons that weren't utterly noble.
'You two are no fun,' Olaf muttered after a few seconds of waiting for either one of them to move. 'Haven't you got anything to say?'
'Not without using the word 'husband',' Esmé murmured in response, 'And you told me not to do that, didn't you? I'm doing as I was told.'
'For once,' Olaf agreed. 'Though now that you've finally decided to listen to me for the first time in your whole life, it's actually quite boring, isn't it?'
There was a long silence when Esmé didn't know how to respond best, until Emma finally sighed.
'Oh, for God's sake,' she said. 'I don't know, three minutes?'
'I've warned you once about using that tone with me.' her father responded, and Esmé's arms tightened around her daughter's shoulders.
'No, you haven't. You told me not to raise my voice, and I didn't, so--'
Before she was able to finish, Olaf had once again stood, and had crossed the room to the table, causing Esmé to let out a frightened little squeak. 'Get up,' her father said, as Emma stared down at his feet and the tattoo of some strange eye pattern she had never known about before. 'Get up, and look at me when I'm talking to you!'
'Esmé, I expect you to look at me when I'm talking to you!' a younger Count Olaf bellowed, as if she had not learned that lesson long ago. The problem was not that she didn't know that she was supposed to look up, but rather that she was afraid to. Eventually the nineteen-year-old forced herself to turn her eyes up towards the furious ones of the man in front of her.
Was she always going to feel like a child when he was angry with her? As he looked at her expectantly, waiting for a proper explanation as to why she had raised her voice to him in front of his frightening acting troupe, her tongue seemed to go somewhat numb, she stopped being able to draw breath properly, and she had to say something, just anything as long as it was soon, or--
He had raised his arm before she had thought of anything to say to him that might calm him down, and just as she managed to stutter a slow 'sorry', his fist connected with her jaw, which in turn caused her head to slam back against the wall, and her teeth to unexpectedly close on her tongue, filling her mouth with the metallic copper taste of blood.
Her head throbbed, and there was definitely blood on the side of her mouth, and her jaw almost felt like he'd finally punched her so hard it had dislocated, or shattered entirely.
'Do you have something to say to me, Esmé?' he asked, and knelt in front of her where she had crumpled in a heap at his feet, curling his lip as if just having to look at her disgusted him.
'Sorry,' she forced out, but her tongue was defnitely gashed, and it hurt her to move it and her jaw to say the words (It hurt even more that it wasn't her that needed to apologize).
He nodded, and turned away, brushing off the dust he had collected by kneeling. He didn't help her up. 'Clean up,' he told her, and wondered if her jaw was going to click back into place like last time, or whether this time it was broken. 'And then come to bed.'
Her sobs were silent, but that didn't make them any less real, and it took her a couple of minutes to climb to her feet and stumble into a bathroom, pressing a towel to the back of her head, which came away a little bloody. She willed her eyes not to shut of their own accord, willed herself to stay awake, not to faint, and gave a little cry of pain as she forced her jaw to shut back.
She gripped the edges of the sink, held on, tried to stop her head from spinning and throbbing, and tried to stop herself from stumbling, but she couldn't, and she had to do something, but there was nobody to help her, and she didn't know what to do, what was she going to do?
'Get up!' Olaf bellowed, and grabbed his daughter's thin arm to drag her into a standing position. 'I told you to look at me!'
Just as Emma evidently refused for a second time, and Olaf raised a hand, Esmé climbed up from her spot under the table, wrapped her arms around her daughter and took the blow instead.
What was one more time?
~
'Mr Squalor!' Fernald cried, darting back into the sitting room where Carmelita stood with Andrew and Jerome still lay asleep. Only the younger Mr Squalor was able to turn.
'It's Emma,' he cried. 'She isn't there, there's a letter from Olaf--' he was sounding like Faust, but he couldn't help it. 'She's gone!'
Andrew was across the room in a amoment, and read the letter quickly, while Fernald leant against the doorway to rest from running back to the room so quickly. Carmelita followed behind him, but her eyes had already filled with tears, and she already knew what had happened.
'She went instead of Esmé,' Andrew croaked. 'She tried to get Esmé back.'
'But she isn't here,' Carmelita said softly. 'Esmé hasn't come back, has she?'
'Olaf doesn't keep his end of many bargains,' Fernald reminded gently, and was fairly shocked when the red-haired twenty-five year old threw herself into his arms and began to sob.
|
|
|
Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Nov 9, 2008 17:10:43 GMT -5
Andrew turned to check that Jerome was still asleep and assure himself that his brother wasn’t listening to the conversation. “The time has come,” Andrew said, “to take drastic measures.” Carmelita looked up from where her face had been buried in Fernald’s chest. “What do you mean?” she asked. “What are you going to do?” “I’m going to rescue Esmé and Emma,” Andrew said, and tugged confidently at the front collar of his sports jacket with both hands as he prepared to step through the door. “What?” Carmelita asked. “All by yourself?” Andrew nodded calmly. “You can’t be serious,” Fernald interjected. “Do you have any idea the type of danger you’ll be putting yourself in all alone? You’ll be better off if someone goes with you.” “Is that an offer, Mr. Widdershins?” Andrew asked. Fernald glanced down at Carmelita, and then across the room at the sleeping husband of the woman he himself had planned to marry. “Indeed it is, Mr. Squalor,” Fernald said, and felt slightly assured as Andrew smiled at him. “But how are you going to get to the other apartment from here?” Carmelita asked. “Olaf said that we’d all be in terrible danger if we left the penthouse. And I don’t know where Jerome keeps any rope.” But Fernald was already grinning. For once, his past as one of Olaf’s henchmen was going to come in extremely handy. “Do either of you know where he keeps his collection of ties?” the hook-handed man asked. *** The last thing Esmé Squalor remembered right before she had blacked out was a throbbing blow to the head, followed by her daughter’s terrified screams. The first thing the financial advisor became aware of when she opened her eyes half an hour later was a swollen lip and the taste of blood in her mouth. She supposed she must have accidentally bit her lip when she had gone down. Her head was absolutely throbbing, and she discovered that she was lying across the floor on her belly, her face resting on its left side. The bruise that surrounded her stomach still hurt, and felt as if it had been added to after she had fallen to the floor. Her left nostril was completely clogged, and when she tried to sit up an intense pain shot through her head. This caused her to become dizzy, and she almost didn’t see the small figure sitting in front of her. It was Emma, and Esmé saw that the girl’s wrists and ankles had been bound tightly in rope. A piece of duct tape covered her mouth to prevent her from speaking, and Esmé could faintly see the manifesting tears in her daughter’s eyes. “Oh, darling,” Esmé gasped sadly. She sat up, holding her hand against the side of her head as it throbbed. Using all of her strength, she managed to crawl across the floor to her daughter’s side and remove the tape from her mouth. “He’ll be angry that you did that,” was the first thing Emma said, her voice hoarse from crying. “What if he hits you again?” But Esmé didn’t seem to hear the question. “Did he hurt you?” she asked. “No. Oh, Mother… just look at what he did to you.” Esmé merely shook her head, and wrapped her arms around her daughter. “Don’t worry about me. I’m not important.” Emma was just getting ready to say something to prove her mother wrong, when a sinister voice cut in: “Well, well. You weren’t out for very long… how was your nap?” Both Esmé and Emma turned to see Olaf standing at the end of the hall with a tray of food in his hands. “What do you mean by tying up my daughter like this?” Esmé demanded. “Don’t you know she’ll never leave me?” Olaf walked over to the table and set down the tray, which contained a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. “You’re sounding more and more like your old self already,” he replied gleefully. “Maybe that blow to the head was enough to knock some sense back into you.” “You didn’t answer my—” “I was getting to that. The reason I decided to tie Emma up was because I couldn’t have her calling for help when I left the room. It’s obvious from her previous behavior that she has no intention of listening to anything I tell her, and with you lying unconscious on the floor, there would have been no one to convince her otherwise.” Kneeling down behind Emma, the Count reached into his pocket and removed a pocket knife, which he used to cut away the rope binding her wrists together. “I’ve brought you some dinner,” Olaf said in a false fatherly tone as Emma leaned forward to undo the rope around her ankles. “It’s on the table if you want it.” Emma shook her head, and went to sit beside her mother. Lacing her arm through Esmé’s, Emma leaned her head against her mother’s shoulder and looked down at the floor. “You look an absolutely fright,” Olaf said, taking notice of Esmé’s bloody, swollen lip and slightly running nose. “I insist that you go into the bathroom and make yourself presentable.” Esmé looked down at the floor along with her daughter. “I don’t know where it is,” the financial advisor answered softly. “Then perhaps I should show you.” “I’m not so sure that I feel up to standing yet. I’m still dizzy from before.” “Oh? And whose fault is that?”Esmé sniffed. “Stop that!” Olaf commanded. “It’s disgusting!” Emma glanced around for the handkerchief that she had given her mother earlier, and soon spotted it underneath the table. She crawled over and snatched up the handkerchief, then returned to her mother’s side. “Here,” Emma said, and placed the handkerchief in her mother’s hand.
|
|
|
Post by Jenny on Nov 10, 2008 13:25:16 GMT -5
Esmé gave her daughter a grateful smile, and pressed it to her nose first, and then flipped it over and pressed it to her lip. 'Thank you, darling,' she said softly, and patted her daughter's shoulder through her sweater as her head once again came to rest on her shoulder. Esmé had always been good at offering comfort to her daughters, while finding it impossible to calm herself down if she became distressed. However, it was very difficult to know what to say to Emma now that there seemed to be no silver lining to their situation.
Olaf had decided that if neither Emma nor her mother were going to eat the grilled cheese sandwich he had so lovingly prepared, it was best not to let it go to waste, and had sat down on the couch to eat it, spraying crumbs everywhere except the plate. Because for the few minutes it took him to eat this and drink his next glass of wine he was unable to look at the window, or at any possible changes in the penthouse, it was Esmé who first caught sight of something strange happening.
It was difficult for her to see properly without the use of Olaf's telescope, and without crossing the room, but it seemed like there were two people waving directly at her, now that Olaf no longer sat at the window, and they seemed to have a long, long line of neckties between them.
They were trying to warn her, weren't they?
She smiled after a moment, but made sure to turn her head away from Olaf's possible vision. He hadn't looked up from his grilled cheese sandwich yet, and the two figures in the penthouse had stopped trying to attract her attention and left the widnow.
They were coming to get her. Her and Emma.
She hoped neither of them were Jerome--one of them had seemed like Fernald, from the odd shape of his arms, but she couldn't tell about the other. She hoped her husband had the sense to stay behind and that the other figure might have been Andrew. Jerome wasn't up to all the climbing that would be involved, and he certainly wasn't up to fighting with anybody, especially not a violent murderer (who no doubt had a variety of weapons stashed around his apartement to use besides his own strength). She admired Fernald for coming to her rescue for a second time, but she couldn't help but feel it a little foolish all the same. What if something were to happen to him, while he tried to get Emma and herself away from Olaf? What about Colette, and Faust? He had a family to look after now, and it seemed a great risk to her to take his life into his hands to rescue a woman who was nothing to him, who he hadn't even spoken to for over a decade, excluding the last few days before her kidnapping. And as much as Andrew didn't have a family of his own, she was fairly certain both Cora and his father's company would totally collapse without him if anything were to happen to him. But, as much as she found it difficult to rationalize their behaviour, she couldn't help but be very, very pleased, and very thankful.
And then, suddenly, panic gripped her. How was she going to keep Olaf away from the window? They were going to have to fire some sort of harpoon or something at the window ledge in order to scale the building at all, and if Olaf noticed it, there was no doubt that he'd wait for them to get three quarters of the way up and then cut it and let them fall to their deaths.
They were going to need an hour for that, she imagined. How was she going to keep Olaf away from the window for another hour when he checked it every three minutes? Fernald and his mystery accomplice were going to need five minutes to get out of 667, and then another couple to decide how they were going to climb up, which she thought they probably hadn't even considered yet. But from then on, Olaf couldn't be allowed to so much as look back at the window again until they had reached the top, for everyone's safety.
'Mother?' asked Emma after a second, ahving observed nothing out of the ordinary. 'Are you OK?'
Emma knew it was a silly question: her mother's lip was still swollen, her face looked bruised, and her nose still looked like it was bleeding a little. But her mother's expression had changed from one of sadness to one of deep thought, and Emma had to wonder what had brought it on.
Esmé nodded, but couldn't help a small smile from creeping across her face. 'Yes, darling,' she answered, and her blue eyes twinkled. 'I'm alright.'
Emma wisely chose to say nothing, but she did notice that her mother's attitude had changed. Before she could try to get it out of her, her mother turned and began to stand. It took her a few moments, and she grimaced and raised a hand to her head when she tried to straighten up.
'Looks like I can stand after all,' she said, after she'd managed it. 'Is the bathroom just straight down the hall?'
Though she'd never been able to stop his anger, after a certain number of years living with Olaf, Esmé remembered gradually learning how to force him to unknowingly do ask she asked. She knew that by acting as though she was fully prepared to go on her own, Olaf would instantly decide to accompany her. It was strange that such reverse-psychology had always worked with somebody so much more intelligent than she was, who so often saw through such ploys. But, as she knew he would, Olaf decided to stand.
'No,' he answered. 'I'll come with you.'
But then he looked back at Emma, and smiled to himself. 'I won't tie you back up, sweetheart,' he said, falsely nice, and she breathed an inward sigh of relief. 'But if you call anyone, I'll hear you.'
He left the threat hanging unsaid: but after seeing what he had done to her mother, Emma had no desire to be on the recieving end of his anger again. 'OK,' she said quietly, and held the grey blanket close that her mother had left behind when she'd stood up.
|
|
|
Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Nov 12, 2008 14:31:01 GMT -5
Esmé took one last, fleeting look over her shoulder at her daughter. The financial advisor then allowed the treacherous villain to lay his scraggly hand on her shoulder and turn her in the direction of the bathroom. Lowering her head, Esmé began the slow walk down the hallway, feeling the jagged fingernails of her ex-boyfriend digging slightly into her soft, pallid skin. They soon arrived at the bathroom, and Esmé was grateful to see that it was not by any means filthy. In fact, it looked as though no one had ever used it. She assumed that the apartment must be new as well as vacant. Turning to Olaf, she asked, “Where are you going to be?” He chuckled, as if Esmé’s question was ridiculous. “Since we’re on the top floor,” the villain said, “I’m not concerned with you trying to escape through the window. I’ll sit out here and wait for you to finish with whatever it is you’re planning to do in there.” “I was hoping I could take a bath,” Esmé said, pulling her overlay tighter around herself. She was beginning to feel as though she had a fever, which couldn’t be good if she and her daughter were going to be rescued later on. “I’m so cold.” “How long are you going to be?” Esmé shrugged. Her baths at home could last up to an hour at most, if only because she almost always ended up falling asleep in the tub, surrounded by feathery suds and hot water. Jerome would usually find her in there, with the back of her head propped up on a towel draped over the back of the tub. He would smile and laugh, before leaning down and scooping her slipper, sudsy body into his arms and wrapping her up in a fluffy towel. “As long as it takes for me to get warm,” Esmé said, hoping that Olaf would leave it at that. To her surprise, he nodded. “Very well,” he replied. “I suppose I don’t need to worry about you escaping, do I? Just don’t expect me to run your bath for you.” Even though Jerome was usually the one who took care of such things (and only because he offered), Esmé herself was perfectly capable of doing something as simple as filling up a bathtub with water. When she entered, the first thing she did was lock the door behind her. Next, she leaned over the tub and turned on the tap. As the tub began to fill, she slipped out of her garments and then slid down into the hot water. It felt a little funny not to have any accompanying bubbles, but she could manage just this once. The entirety of her body was covered in goosebumps, and as she draped her arm over the rim of the tub, she looked down at her newly inflicted wound. So that she wouldn’t be forced to look at it, as well as to offer herself a little bit of comfort, she slid her arm down into the tub and rested her hand on her stomach. She wished more than anything that it was Jerome’s hand softly caressing her hot, feverish skin. She felt so worried for her husband now. The thought of never being able to forgive herself if anything happened to him caused tears to intrude at the backs of her eyes. She covered her face with her other hand, and began to weep. “Jerome,” she whispered. “My darling…” *** Emma wasn’t about to risk another outburst of her biological father’s wrath, and she took a quick peek down the hallway to make sure he wasn’t anywhere in sight. When she spotted nothing, she dashed over to the window and peered through the telescope. There didn’t seem to be anyone in sight, but she did notice what looked like a rope constructed out of her stepfather’s neckties. Just what in the world were her family and the others planning to do? Surely they weren’t planning to swing across from the penthouse to the other apartment— a rope like that wouldn’t support anything heavier than a salami! Emma glanced briefly over her shoulder at the hallway, and when she still saw no sign of the villain, she turned back to the telescope. This time, she gasped. Standing there on the balcony outside Emma’s bedroom window was Carmelita. Not knowing if her sister could see her, Emma lifted her hand and waved. Carmelita looked around. Had she seen Emma? The teenager waited a few moments, and then waved again. “Carmy,” she whispered. “Please let me know that you can see me…” Carmelita’s eyes suddenly seemed to be sharply focused on the lens of the telescope. Emma waited once more, and grinned broadly as Carmelita lifted her hand in response. She had seen Emma! *** “Carmelita, what are you doing out here?” Fernald Widdershins demanded. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous?” But Carmelita didn’t seem to hear him, and instead grabbed him by the sleeve. Pointing in the direction of the window of the other apartment, she said, “Look there, Fernald, and tell me what you see.”
|
|
|
Post by Jenny on Nov 12, 2008 16:47:55 GMT -5
He started to squint. 'Maybe I'm losing my sight,' he said softly. 'I am a bit older than you, after all. But I don't see anything.'
'It's Emma,' she told him impatiently, and raised her arm to wave to her sister again, and her sister waved back again. 'It's definitely her, Fernald. How can't you see[/u] her?'
'What concerns me most,' Fernald said, and began to tug lightly at the rope of ties they had constructed. It seemed fairly strong--but what did he know until he strated trying to climb on it? Andrew wasn't slight, but he looked a little less broad than Fernald was, and probably a little lighter, and the hook-handed man had started to worry a little about the presence of a knot not tied as well as the others. Then what? 'Is that Emma is able to sit at the window. Where's Olaf, and where's Esmé?'
Carmelita didn't want to answer that. 'Perhaps they've managed to trap Olaf somewhere,' she said unsurely. 'Besides, you said you saw Esmé a minute ago, didn't you?'
'It could've been Emma,' he said unhelpfully. 'And doesn't it worry you that now he's got Esmé and Emma, he might find another way into the penthouse and do some more damage? They're trapped either way, whether he's there or not.'
'The quicker you go,' she said. 'The quicker we'll get them out, won't we?'
Fernald rubbed his hooks together nervously. 'But then Andrew and I are leaving you, Colette, Faust and Cora--with an unconscious Jerome, as well--all alone. What willy ou do then, if Olaf comes to get you?'
She didn't answer. 'Manage,' she said simply, and before he could ask anything else, a soft knock was heard at the door, and little Faust stepped in, dressed ina baggy jumper and a baggy pair of jeans, which made her look even younger, and even thinner.
'Daddy,' she said quietly, and rubbed her pink eyes, as if she had been crying not too long ago. 'Why are all those ties joined together?'
Fernald didn't answer for a second, but then crossed the room to wrap his arms around his daughter. 'We're going to get Emma and Mrs Squalor back,' he said, and Faust looked up at him with eyes that were both hopeful and fearful. 'Or at least we're going to try.'
~
Esmé had never wanted a clock so much before in her whole life. She had no idea how long she'd been sitting in the bathroom, unable to get any warmer no matter how much hot water she added to the bath. Had Fernald even left the apartment yet?
She decided to rinse her hair through once more, and then dry off and redress in her nightgown and overlay, as much as she would've liked warmer clothes.
What now?
~
Colette had been attaempting to take a nap, but she hadn't been unaware of the commotion going around in the penthouse, and eventually ventured outside to find a long rope of neckties outside her door, and Andrew Squalor at the end.
'What--' even she couldn't think of the words. 'What is this?' she asked after a moment. 'And who in the world has this many neckties?'
'My brother,' Andrew answered promptly, and Colette noticed him remove his own and tie it carefully on the end. 'And it's a rope. We're going to get Esmé and Emma.'
'With a rope of neckties?' the contortionist asked incredulously, and Andrew just sent her a level glare.
'Yes,' he said simply. 'Have you a better suggestion?'
|
|