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The Baudelaires had only just settled into bed when, from downstairs, a crashing sound echoed throughout the house.
“What was that?” Violet is the first to speak, and all three heads turn in the direction of the stairs.
“It sounded like a window shattering,” Klaus replies worriedly, the sound of pattering footsteps loud against the wooden stairs as they race downstairs to the source of the sound. “Aunt Josephine!” He shouts, swinging wildly around the corner of the stairs, eyes dead-set on the library. In the library was the wide glass window, the only glass in the house…what if- no. He couldn’t think such thoughts, not when Aunt Josephine had welcomed them into her home so warmly and bought them presents and promised to keep them safe.
“Aunt Josephine!” Violet echoes, and they stop in their tracks to see…
Aunt Josephine, chest and shoulders heaving, hands above her head like she’d just thrown something extremely heavy.
“Children!”
“Aunt Josephine!” Violet and Klaus repeat in unison, staring at the wild scene of the wide window with the vague misshapen figure of a person crashed through it, as if someone had jumped straight to their death.
“Guh-yee,” Sunny babbles, which in this case means what is going on here?
“Now, Sunny, I don’t know what that means, but I’m sure that can’t be grammatically correct,” she berates.
“Wh-what happened here?” Violet translates, voice shaking and breath staggering from both the race down the steps and the shock of the scene in front of her.
“Oh,” Aunt Josephine looks around, as if only just realising that she was standing in the middle of a pool of glass shards, next to a window with the shape of a person carved in the middle, hands above her head, heart pounding. “Oh,” she repeats. “Oh, oh, oh, what’ve I done?” She wails, immediately curling inwards, hands clutching at her hair, as if trying to tear her face apart. “Oh, what’ve I done?”
“What have you done, Aunt Josephine?” Klaus prompts.
“Oh, I can’t believe- I can’t-” she pauses to take a huge breath. “Oh, I suppose I’ve got to explain this to you children, don’t I?”
The children pause, waiting, blinking at her in confusion.
“We were only halfway through our fried-egg sandwiches when Captain Sham told me that he was really…Count Olaf. My face fell in shock! Never would I have thought that let him back into my- back into our lives, let alone agree to dinner with him! He said I had to write out a will saying you children would be left in his care,” she pulls out a small letter here packed with her small, fancy handwriting, “or he would drown me in the lake. I was so frightened that I agreed immediately; what else could I do? Of course, then I knew my life was truly in danger. I waited for my opportunity, and-” She pauses to shake her head and wail again, tears starting to form in her eyes.
“And?” Klaus prompts.
“Oh, Baudelaires, I’m so sorry. I know how grammatically incorrect it is to end a sentence with the word ‘and’, but this is just so difficult for me to talk about,” she heaves a deep sigh before continuing. “I waited for my opportunity, and hid in the library, closing the door, making sure he could hear the click. Then, I waited. I knew he’d come to check, I mean, I was his one-way ticket to the three of you and your enormous fortune. I had to do something! I had to- I had to hurt him somehow. It was him or I, children, you have to understand. I grabbed the metal statue in the side of the room, and when he burst through those doors-” Aunt Josephine promptly bursts into tears again.
“You- you-” Violet stutters, now grasping a vague idea of what Aunt Josephine had really done, but unable to say it, both hesitant and disbelieving.
“Yes, children, I smacked him upon the head with all the strength I could muster, channeling all the anger and fear I had, and he just- he just- he just dropped. Dropped, like he was dead.”
“And then?”
“Well, I couldn’t very well just leave him there, and what if he awoke? When I agreed to become your guardian, I promised with every ounce of my heart that I would keep you safe, especially from that despicable man. I couldn’t stop then, could I? Children, I’m not the fierce and formidable woman I once was, but maybe I could do this one thing. This one thing, for you children, so I could save you like I couldn’t save Ike. I tossed the statue out of the window,” she motions to the misshapen-person-carving in the glass window, “and dragged his body and tossed it out with the statue. I- I heard nothing as he fell, and the plunge down isn’t one he could’ve survived in that state. Violet, Klaus, Sunny, I think- I think Count Olaf’s-”
“Dead.” Violet and Klaus finish for her in unison, staring at each other unblinkingly. What now? What were they supposed to feel? Aunt Josephine had murdered someone in cold blood, but that murder had been of the man who was intent on ruining their lives for as long as he lived. They didn’t feel like celebrating, not with the dim mood and Aunt Josephine’s wails resounding in the background, but the edges of Violet’s lips turned upward, more comfort than excitement.
“He’s gone,” she declared, half a hesitant question and half a relieved statement.
“He’s gone,” Klaus agrees, and they turn back to Aunt Josephine, who’s rocking on the balls of her feet, arms wrapped around herself.
Slowly, the children inch towards her, and then they’re putting their arms around her, and pulling her from the debris, and the four are sinking towards the ground, all on their knees, all still connected, hugging as if letting go would somehow invoke a tear in reality, and Olaf would be alive again, and they would once again be slave to his evil schemes again.
Now, the Baudelaires weren’t criers, but they each shed a few tears, and Aunt Josephine seemed to suddenly remember her role in their lives, immediately turning to stroke the backs of their heads, muttering, “It’s okay. It’s okay, you’re safe now. You’re safe now.”
“Thank you, Aunt Josephine,” Violet whispers, and she startles.
“I’m not a fierce and formidable woman like I once was, but I think I’ve realised that to keep you safe and be the guardian I promised I’d be, I need to be that woman once again. If- if you’d all be willing to help me?”
“Of course we will,” Klaus reassures, and maybe that’s all they can say in that moment.
This one moment, where everything is perfect, and Olaf is gone, and Mr. Poe is yet to interfere and ask just how the death of Captain Sham transpired, and they’ll have to worry about what will happen to Aunt Josephine; this one moment, where nothing is after them anymore and maybe, just maybe, they can look forward to a future with a new guardian who has all the answers to all their questions, who’s not ready to answer them just yet, but will in time; this one moment, where everything is right in the world once again.
And in this one moment, Violet, Klaus, Sunny, and Aunt Josephine all smile the softest of smiles, barely cracking through their faces, because for this one moment, everything is perfect.