"How-" Violet muttered.
"Do-" Klaus stammered.
"We know you have a lot of questions," Sabine started.
"And you'll get answers very soon, but first you need to come with us," Quigley continued. He and Sabine pulled flashlights out of their sweater pockets as the Baudelaires stood up and followed them to the back of the cave, right underneath the flame diversion.
"We had to wait for the fire to die down before we showed you," Sabine said, and with a nervous glance at the sleeping scouts, she and Quigley turned the flashlights on and shone the lights above them. "Look."
Everyone looked up, and saw that there was a hole in the ceiling, big enough for a person to crawl through. The last wisps of smoke from the fire were floating up into the hole. "A chimney," Klaus murmured. "I was wondering why the fire didn't fill the cave with smoke."
"The official name is Vertical Flame Diversion," Sabine whispered.
"It serves as a chimney and as a secret passageway. It runs from this cave to the Valley of Four Drafts. If we climb up there, we can reach headquarters within hours, instead of hiking all the way up the mountain," Quigley said quietly. "Years ago, there was a metal pole that ran down the center of the hole, so people could slide down and hide in this cave in case of an emergency. The pole is gone now, but there are metal rungs on the sides to climb all the way up." He shone the flashlight on the cave wall, and they could all see that he was telling the truth.
"How do you know all this?" Violet asked.
"Well, for one, I've climbed up there. Sabine, too," Quigley explained.
The Baudelaires seemed to freeze, glancing quickly at each other. Sabine knew that it was because they recognized her name, and she desperately wanted to hug them both. She'd missed them.
"What-" Klaus started.
"How-" Violet asked.
"Carm – " Another voice startled the children – the voice of Bruce, waking up halfway at the sound of the conversation. They all froze, just as the Baudelaires had a few moments ago, as Bruce turned over on his blanket, and with a long sigh, went back to sleep.
"We'll talk when we reach the headquarters," Quigley whispered. "The Vertical Flame Diversion is very echoey, so we'll have to be absolutely silent as we climb, or the echoing noise will alert Bruce and the Snow Scouts. It'll be very dark inside, so you'll have to feel against the wall for the handholds, and the air will be smoky, but if you keep your masks on they'll filter the air and make it easier to breathe. Sabine and I will go first and lead the way. Are you ready?"
The two siblings were silent for a moment as they stared at each other, then stared at Quigley and Sabine, then back at each other.
"I know it must be hard to trust me, Baudelaires," said Quigley finally, "after so many people have done you wrong."
"Can you give us a reason to trust you?" Violet said.
"Well, you guys know me," Sabine whispered, carefully pulling her mask off. Even in the dim light, the Baudelaires seemed to recognize Sabine. They gasped in realization, which stirred Bruce again. He flipped around in his blankets and Sabine quickly pushed the mask back onto her face.
"B-but... we thought..." Violet muttered.
"Follow us and all your questions will be answered, Baudelaires," Quigley said. Violet and Klaus looked at one another again and Klaus gave a slight nod to his sister. She nodded back, then they turned their attention to Quigley and Sabine.
"Okay," Klaus said quietly.
"Come," Sabine urged, pulling herself up into the flame diversion. Quigley followed behind her, then Klaus, then Violet.
They climbed and climbed for a long time, the smoke from the Snow Scouts fire filling their lungs even though the masks filtered most of it out. Sabine had to hold her breath to refrain from coughing, since, as Quigley explained earlier, the Vertical Flame Diversion was very echoey and any noise would have alerted Bruce and the Snow Scouts that they had left.
Finally, they reached the top and Sabine found herself in the same position she was in a few days ago, standing in front of the Vernacularly Fastened Door next to Quigley, holding his hand. But, this time, she was not excited to enter the headquarters. It was not because the exhilaration of being part of a secret organization had worn off, but because she had an uneasy feeling in her stomach. The smoke from the cave had followed them up the flame diversion, but there seemed to be much more smoke than a small campfire was able to produce.
"Is..." she started to say, but broke into a coughing fit and waved the smoke out of her face. The fencing mask wasn't doing much to filter it out at this point. Quigley patted her back gently and she finally managed to catch her breath. "Is it just me, or is it extra smoky up here?"
"The smoke certainly is stronger," Klaus agreed. Violet said nothing, just stepped closer to the intricate door. She reached her hand out as if to touch it, but Quigley stopped her.
"Wait," he said. "This is a coded lock. If we don't operate it properly, we won't be able to get into the headquarters."
"How does it work?" Violet asked. Sabine could practically see the levers and gears turning in the mind of her inventive friend and she smiled softly.
"It's called the Vernacularly Fastened Door, so–" Sabine started to explain.
"So it operates on language," Klaus finished. "Vernacular is a word for 'a local language or dialect.'"
"Of course," Violet said. "See how the wires are curled around the hinges of the door? They're locked in place, unless you type in the right sequence of letters on that keyboard. There are more letters than numbers, so it would be more difficult for someone to guess the combination of the lock."
"That's what we learned," Quigley confirmed. "You're supposed to type in three specific phrases in a row. The phrases change every season, so volunteers need to have a lot of information at their fingertips to use this door. The first is the name of the scientist most widely credited with the discovery of gravity."
"That's easy," Violet said, and typed in the name, Sir Issac Newton. When she was finished, there was a muted clicking sound from the typewriter keyboard, as if the device was warming up.
"The second is the Latin name for the Volunteer Feline Detectives," Sabine said. "I found the answer in a copy of Remarkable Phenomena of the Mortmain Mountains. It's Panthera leo." She leaned forward and typed it in. There was a very quiet buzzing and the children saw that the wires near the hinges were shaking very slightly.
"It's beginning to unlock," Violet said. "I hope I get a chance to study this invention."
"Let's get to the headquarters first," Klaus said. "What's the third phrase?"
Quigley sighed, and turned to a page in his commonplace book. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "Another volunteer told me that it's the central theme of Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet."
Sabine could practically see Klaus's smile from behind his mask. She knew that he was an avid reader, and had been absolutely positive that he would know the answer to this one even before Quigley had mentioned it. "The central theme of Anna Karenina," he said, "is that a rural life of moral simplicity, despite its monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy."
"That's a very long theme," Quigley said.
"It's a very long book," Klaus replied. "But I can work quickly. My sisters and I once tapped out a long telegram in no time at all."
"Too bad that telegram never arrived," Sabine said quietly, but the middle Baudelaire was already pressing the keys on the Vernacularly Fastened Door. As Klaus typed the words "a rural life," the wires began to curl and uncurl very quickly, like worms on a sidewalk after it has rained, and by the time Klaus was typing "the preferable personal narrative," the entire door was quivering as if it were as nervous as the Baudelaires. Finally, Klaus typed "T-R-A-G-E-D-Y," and the four children stepped back, but instead of opening, the door stopped shaking and the wires stopped moving, and the passageway was dead quiet.
"It's not opening," Violet said. "Maybe that isn't the central theme of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina."
"It seemed like it was working until the last word," Quigley said.
"Maybe the mechanism is a little stuck," Violet said.
"Or maybe a daring life of impulsive passion only leads to something else," Quigley said.
Sabine doubted that Klaus was wrong, and after a few moments, Violet's hypothesis was proven true. The wires finished uncurling and the door swung open with a slow and eerie creak. The whole thing seemed much more menacing than it had when Sabine first arrived at the headquarters, and she grabbed Quigley's hand again in fear.
"I'm not sure why, but I don't have a good feeling about this," she said quietly.
"I don't either, doll," Quigley replied.
Sucking in deep breaths, they carefully stepped inside the headquarters and they all were taken aback in shock at the state of it. Sabine's jaw dropped as she slowly pulled her mask off and let it fall to the ground. She walked farther inside and choked back her sobs as she took in her surroundings. Flashbacks from her parents' death filled her head, and she wiped the tears off her face as they fell.
The reason that Sabine was crying was because the whole headquarters had burned to a crisp. The pristine, white walls that she had come to call home over the past few days were now blackened with ash. The normally welcoming air was filled with smoke, and it rattled her all the way down to her bones. She was rattled even more when she heard her friends' pained cries.
"Mother!" Violet called. "Father!"
"Mom!" Klaus yelled. "Dad!"
She walked over to them and wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders. They leaned into her for a moment before walking away and examining the rest of the charred remains of what was once a beautiful building.
"What... do you think everyone..." Sabine stammered as Quigley walked up to her and pulled her into his warm embrace.
"They left, Sabine. It's alright. They had that meeting or something, remember?" he whispered soothingly. Sabine sniffled as Quigley pulled off his fencing mask and started kissing the tears off her cheeks. She closed her eyes and melted into his arms, feeling safe despite the destruction around her.
Suddenly, Violet muttered, "Duncan?"
Sabine's eyes snapped open and Quigley let go of her as they looked around.
"Duncan's here? Where?" Quigley asked.
"N-no, you just... you look just like him," Violet shook her head.
"That's because he's Duncan and Isadora's triplet," Sabine explained with a sigh, disappointed that her friends weren't there.
"Quigley?" Klaus muttered. Quigley nodded in confirmation.
"You're dead," Violet said in bewilderment.
"You perished in a fire along with your parents," Klaus whispered. "Isa told me so."
"No," Quigley said. "I survived, and I've been looking for my siblings ever since. I know that they're in the mobile home with Hector now, but I still want to find them."
"But how did you survive?" Violet asked. "Duncan said that the house burned to the ground."
"It did," Quigley said sadly. He looked out at the frozen waterfall and sighed deeply. "I suppose I should start at the beginning. I was in my family's library, studying a map of the Finite Forest, when I heard a shattering of glass, and people shouting. My mother ran into the room and said there was a fire. We tried to go out the front door but the main hall was filled with smoke, so she took me back into the library and lifted a corner of the rug. There was a secret door underneath. She told me to wait down below while she fetched my siblings, and she left me there in the dark. I remember hearing the house falling to pieces above me, and the sound of frantic footsteps, and my siblings screaming." Quigley put his mask down on the ground and looked at the two Baudelaires. "But she never came back," he said. "Nobody came back, and when I tried to open the door, something had fallen on top of it and it wouldn't budge."
"How did you get out?" Klaus asked.
"I walked," Quigley said. "When it became clear that no one was going to rescue me, I felt around in the dark and realized I was in a sort of passageway. There was nowhere else to go so I started walking. I've never been so scared in my life, walking alone in some dark passageway my parents had kept secret. I couldn't imagine where it would lead."
The two Baudelaires looked at one another for a moment. "And where did it lead?" Violet said.
"Well, I ran into Sabine, and we tried to go get Duncan and Isadora, but that hatch was locked too," Quigley shrugged.
Sabine could hear the sadness in his voice and she wrapped her arms around his waist from behind him, letting her chin rest on his shoulder.
"Where'd you go from there?" Violet asked.
"We went to the police, but they didn't help us. Then a lady named Kit Snicket found us and took us here. We joined the organization and trained for a while; us finding you was our first mission," Sabine said. She looked around for a moment and then realized another reason why meeting the Baudelaires felt weird. There were only two of them. "Where's Sunny?" she asked.
"Someplace nearby," Violet said. "She's with Count Olaf, and Olaf wanted to find the headquarters, too."
"Maybe Olaf has already been here," Quigley said, looking around at the wreckage. "Maybe he's the one who burned this place down."
"I don't think so," Klaus said. "He wouldn't have had time to burn this whole place down. We were right on his trail. Plus, I don't think this place burned down all at once."
"Why not?" Quigley said.
"It's too big," Klaus replied. "If the whole headquarters were burning, the sky would be covered in smoke."
"That's true," Violet said. "That much smoke would arouse too much suspicion."
"Where there's smoke," Quigley said, "there's fire."
Violet and Klaus turned to him and saw that he was not looking at them, but past them. He pointed at the part where the large window in the kitchen would have been, and as Sabine and the Baudelaires looked to where he was pointing, they saw a small wisp of green smoke, wafting up into the sky from the peak of Mount Fraught, at the top of the slippery slope.
𝔼𝕟𝕕 𝕠𝕗 ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣