The Clusterous Forest kept rustling and shivering on the other side of the tracks, and from time to time I looked into its thick and swirling depths, until at last I found a place that had been cleared a little. There was even a small path, winding its way into the seaweed and disappearing within its whisperings. I stood and thought. I thought about my sister, and I thought about my chaperone and my other associates and the people of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, and last of all I thought about Ellington Feint. I wondered what she’d known about her father. I wondered if villainy was like Armstrong Feint, someone once kind and gentle who lowered himself into treachery, or more like a mysterious beast, hidden in the depths and summoned to wickedness. But all these questions seemed wrong. They weren’t my job. Like Hector and Widdershins, like Josephine and Monty and the rest of my associates, my job was not to ask questions about villainy, but to try and repair its damage.
I turned and kept moving. I walked away from the city, where I’d had my early training, and I walked away from Stain’d-by-the-Sea, where I no longer belonged. I walked away from the tracks and into the wild and lawless territory of the Clusterous Forest. I moved quickly. I moved quietly. The beast shivered in my coat. My apprenticeship was over, but there was still work to be done.
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ALSO BY LEMONY SNICKET
ALL THE WRONG QUESTIONS
“Who Could That Be at This Hour?”
“When Did You See Her Last?”
“Shouldn’t You Be in School?”
“Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?”
ADDITIONAL REPORTS
File Under: Thirteen Suspicious Incidents
Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ALSO BY LEMONY SNICKET
COPYRIGHT
Copyright
Text copyright © 2015 by Lemony Snicket
Art copyright © 2015 by Seth
Cover art © 2015 by Seth
Cover design by Gail Doobinin
Cover © 2015 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: September 2015
ISBN 978-0-316-22505-2
E3