Intrigue preview

The island was calm, warm salt breezes drifting over the sand dunes that bordered the ocean. Violet Baudelaire sat, cradling the sleeping Beatrice in her arms and staring across the vast expanse of blue. Her hair was long, too long for a ribbon to do much good, although she still wore her faded pink adornment out of habit.

The toddler stirred in her arms, rumpling Violet's crisp white dress. Klaus and Sunny walked along the shore, almost out of sight, Klaus's dark hair and Sunny's dishwater curls flying in the gusts flitting off the ocean as they searched for shells and other debris the ocean deposited on the shores of the almost-empty island after tremendous storms, the likes of which had kept the Baudelaires ensconced in their tree home the night before.

Violet sighed, and continued to search the horizon. She wasn't sure what she sought, only that her mind had convinced itself that something was coming, whether good or ill she could not say. She stood with a wobble, careful not to drop the heavy child. Her hair twisted itself around her face, and she pulled it back with long fingers before glancing once more at the sea. Off the distance, a small dot had appeared on the horizon, but peer at it though she might, Violet could not tell what it was. She shrugged, and made her barefoot way to join her siblings, the dot quickly leaving her thoughts as Sunny ran to show Violet her new treasures.

The dot grew larger as it drifted closer to the island.

---

The next morning dawn arrived early over the crested sand hills, and Violet found herself awakening suddenly, bathed in light from the window. She knew she was up for the day and, yawning, pulled a thin pink shawl over her lacy white nightgown, glancing at her sleeping siblings and the baby in her crib before closing the heavy wooden door behind her.

The sand was cold under her bare feet as she found the spot she had dwelled in the day before. Seagulls swooped overhead, searching for their morning meal in the shallows. Violet let her thoughts wander, trivialities coming and going as she watched the sun rise higher above the water. She suddenly remembered the dot on the horizon: had it been debris from the storm? What had it been – a barrel, or perhaps a mast. The distance had made it difficult to even guess. She shrugged in response to her musings and stood, the cold too much to bear any longer. Hoping to restore circulation, she strolled down the beach opposite of the direction she had traveled the day before, long nightgown trailing in the sand, leaving a trail of swirls in the gritty powder.

Farther along the shore, more pieces of wood and miscellany had collected. Violet saw a metal box, some rotting fruit, a tangled net…and a hand, protruding from under a tangle of planks, netting, and seaweed. She rushed over to the pile and, grunting, pulled the rubble off of the body, which she saw instantly was a man, lying face-down in a pool, dressed in torn clothing, hair gray with a hint of blond clinging to the edges.

With a heave, she turned the man over – and screamed in horror.

---

"Is that…it can't be." Klaus's pale expression was exactly the one Violet knew was plastered across her own face. Sunny sat trembling in the corner with her back against the wall, holding Beatrice protectively without taking her eyes off the body of the man who had caused her family almost all the anguish they had ever known.

"I think it is. I don't know how, but he washed up with the rest of the things from the storm. I just don't know what to do with him."

Klaus looked as if he was about to faint. "I would tell you to throw him back into the ocean, and pray he gets eaten by sharks but—Sunny, can you take Bee out of here? I don't think either of you needs to see bodies at your ages."

Sunny looked at her brother. "But Klaus, he's not dead."

Klaus's face turned stony. "Sunny, just go."

She frowned darkly and strode from the room, still too shocked by the man's reappearance to even mumble about her maturity.

Klaus held his head in his hands for a moment; when he looked up, Violet could see tears streaming down his face. He had grown into a serious young man in so short a time, all he had seen and experienced sobering him, yet even Violet knew the strength it took him now not to entirely break down – she too was exerting the same effort. "Why won't he just die already? We saw him die, and we buried him, and now he's back. How, Violet?"

She bit her lip to keep from trembling even more than she already was. The man hadn't moved, lying still and pale on their living room floor, deep within the tree they inhabited. "It must not have been him. It must have been someone else. Even he couldn't come back from the dead."

"Who then? His twin?" Klaus spat, his fear and anguish transformed suddenly into anger. "I don't care how he got back. I'm going to take what's left of this fiend and throw him back where he came from, and let hell swallow him. Maybe this time they won't send him back."

"We can't do that, Klaus," Violet was horrified at the thought that she would ever defend the man, but she knew what she said was true, gruesome though the prospect of not getting him as far away as possible was.

"Why not?" The venom in his voice frightened Violet, justified though it was.

"Because that would make us just as bad as him."

The truth hung in the air, stale and bitter.

"Fine, Violet. Take him to the far end of the island, pitch a tent, and leave him there. And then come back, and pray he dies of pneumonia before he has a chance to find his way over here." He stormed to the door, where he paused to glare over his shoulder. "But don't say I didn't warn you. On your own head be it." With a slam, he stalked out of the room.

---

It had taken her the whole day to drag the unconscious man to
the far shore. She sat in the sand with a huff, and fell back to look at the sky. The cruelty of life never ceased to amaze her. The bleak truth was that no matter where they ran, no matter how well they hid, the ugly reality of their misfortune followed behind with soft footsteps, waiting to spring and strangle them yet again. Tears poured into the sand as she sobbed, lying in the sand next to her worst nightmare.

So thoroughly overwhelmed was she that she did not notice the body twitch, did not realize he had awoken until she felt the hands on her neck, and opened her eyes to the grey-blue eyes of Count Olaf, who was quickly suffocating the life from her body.

He snarled as he bashed her head back into the sand when she attempted to sit up. "Didn't think I'd find you, did you?"