O Mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps! levons l'ancre!
Ce pays nous ennuie, ô Mort! Appareillons!
Si le ciel et la mer sont noirs comme de l'encre.
Nos coeurs que tu connais sont remplis de rayons!
For Beatrice—
We are like boats passing in the night—
particularly you.
Chapter Fourteen
The last entry in the Baudelaire parents' handwriting in A Series of Unfortunate Events reads as follows:
As we suspected, we are to be castaways once more. The others believe that the island should stay far from the treachery of the world, and so this safe place is too dangerous for us. We will leave by a boat B has built and named after me. I am heartbroken, but I have been heartbroken before, and this might be the best for which I can hope. We cannot truly shelter our children, here or anywhere else, and so it might be best for us and for the baby to immerse ourselves in the world. By the way, if it is a girl we will name her Violet, and if it is a boy we will name him Lemony.
The Baudelaire orphans read this entry one evening after a supper of seaweed salad, crab cakes, and roast lamb, and when Violet finished reading all three children laughed. Even Kit's baby, sitting on Sunny's knee, uttered a happy shriek.
"Lemony?" Violet repeated. "They would have named me Lemony? Where did they get that idea?"
"From someone who died, presumably," Klaus said. "Remember the family custom?"
"Lemony Baudelaire," Sunny tried, and the baby laughed again. She was nearly a year old, and looked very much like her mother.
"They never told us about a Lemony," Violet said, and ran her hair through her hands. She had been repairing the water filtration system all day and was quite tired.
Klaus poured his sisters more coconut milk, which the children preferred to drink fresh. "They didn't tell us a lot of things," he said. "What do you think it means, 'I've been heartbroken before'?"
"You know what 'heartbroken' means," Sunny said, and then nodded as the baby murmured "Abelard." The youngest Baudelaire was best at deciphering the infant's somewhat unusual way of speaking.
"I think it means we should leave," Violet said.
"Leave the island?" Klaus said. "And go where?"
"Anywhere," Violet said. "We can't stay here forever. There's everything we might need, but it's not right to be so far from the world."
"And its treachery?" Sunny asked.
"You'd think we would have had enough treachery for a lifetime," Klaus said, "but there's more to life than safety."
"Our parents left," Violet said. "Maybe we should honor their wishes."
" Chekrio?" the baby said, and the Baudelaires considered her for a moment. Kit's daughter was growing up very quickly, and she eagerly explored the island at every opportunity. All three siblings had to keep a close eye on her, particularly in the arboretum, which was still heaping with detritus even after a year of cataloging. Many of the items in the enormous library were dangerous for babies, of course, but the infant had never had a serious injury. The baby had heard about danger, too, mostly from the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind from which the Baudelaires read out loud each evening, although they had not told the infant the whole story. She did not know all of the Baudelaires' secrets, and indeed there were some she would never know.
"We can't shelter her forever," Klaus said. "In any case, treachery will wash up on these shores."
"I'm surprised it hasn't already," Violet said. "Plenty of things have been shipwrecked here, but we haven't seen a single castaway."
"If we leave," Sunny asked, "what will we find?"
The Baudelaires fell silent. Because no castaways had arrived in the year, they had little news of the world, aside from a few scraps of newspaper that had survived a terrible storm. Judging from the articles, there were still villains loose in the world, although a few volunteers also appeared to have survived all of the troubles that had brought the children to the island. The articles, however, were from The Daily Punctilio, and so the children could not be sure they were accurate. For all they knew, the islanders had spread the Medusoid Mycelium, and the entire world might be poisoned. This, however, seemed unlikely, as the world, no matter how monstrously it may be threatened, has never been known to succumb entirely. The Baudelaires also thought of all the people they hoped to see again, although, sadly, this also seemed unlikely, though not impossible.
"We won't know until we get there," Violet said.
"Well, if we're leaving, we'd better hurry," Klaus said. He stood up and walked to the bench, where the middle Baudelaire had fashioned a calendar he believed to be fairly accurate. "The coastal shelf will flood soon."
"We won't need much," Sunny said. "We have quite a bit of nonperishable food."
"I've cataloged quite a bit of naval equipment," Violet said.
"I have some good maps," Klaus said, "but we should also make room for some of our favorite detritus. I have some novels by P. G. Wodehouse I've been meaning to get to."
"Blueprints," Violet said thoughtfully.
"My whisk," Sunny said, looking at the item that Friday had smuggled her long ago, which had turned out to be a very handy utensil even after the baby had outgrown whisked foods.
"Cake!" shrieked the baby, and her guardians laughed.
"Do we take this?" Violet asked, holding up the book from which she had read out loud.
"I don't think so," Klaus said. "Perhaps another castaway will arrive, and continue the history."
"In any case," Sunny said, "they'll have something to read."
"So we're really leaving," Violet said, and they really were. After a good night's sleep, the Baudelaires began to prepare for their voyage, and it was true they didn't need much. Sunny was able to pack a great deal of food that would be perfect for the journey, and even managed to sneak in a few luxuries, such as some roe she had harvested from local fishes, and a somewhat bitter but still tasty apple pie. Klaus rolled several maps into a neat cylinder, and added a number of useful and entertaining items from the vast library. Violet added some blueprints and equipment to the pile, and then selected a boat from all the shipwrecks that lay in the arboretum. The eldest Baudelaire had been surprised to find that the boat that looked best for the task was the one on which they had arrived, although by the time she was done repairing and readying it for the voyage she was not surprised after all. She repaired the hull of the boat, and fastened new sails to the masts, and finally she looked at the nameplate reading COUNT OLAF, and with a small frown, she tore through the tape and removed it. As the children had noticed on their voyage to the island, there was another nameplate underneath, and when Violet read what it said, and called her siblings and adopted daughter over to see, yet another question about their lives was answered, and yet another mystery had begun.