"We trusted you when you said Count Olaf was a terrible person," Finn said. "Why can't you trust us, Baudelaires?"

"Forcing Ishmael to leave the island seems a bit drastic," Klaus said.

"It's a bit drastic to put a man in a cage," Erewhon pointed out, "but I didn't hear you complaining then."

"Quid pro quo?" Sunny asked.

"If we help you," Violet translated, "will you help Kit?"

"Our friend is injured," Klaus said."Injured and pregnant."

"And distraught," Kit added weakly, from the top of the raft.

"If you help us in our plan to defeat Ishmael," Finn promised, "we'll get her to a safe place."

"And if not?" Sunny asked.

"We won't force you, Baudelaires," Erewhon said, sounding like the facilitator she wanted to defeat, "but Decision Day is approaching, and the coastal shelf will flood. You need to make a choice."

The Baudelaires did not say anything, and for a moment everyone stood in a silence broken only by Count Olaf's snores. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny were not interested in being part of a schism, after witnessing all of the misery that followed the schism of V.F.D., but they did not see a way to avoid it. Finn had said that they needed to make a choice, but choosing between living alone on a coastal shelf, endangering themselves and their injured friend, and participating in the island's mutinous plan, did not feel like much of a choice at all, and they wondered how many other people had felt this way, during the countless schisms that had divided the world over the years.

"We'll help you," Violet said finally. "What do you want us to do?"

"We need you to sneak into the arboretum," Finn said. "You mentioned your mechanical abilities, Violet, and Klaus seems very well-read. All of the forbidden items we've scavenged over the years should come in very handy indeed."

"Even the baby should be able to cook something up," Erewhon said.

"But what do you mean?" Klaus asked. "What should we do with all the detritus?"

"We need weapons, of course," Erewhon said in the darkness.

"We hope to force Ishmael off the island peacefully," Finn said quickly, "but Erewhon says we'll need weapons, just in case. Ishmael will notice if we go to the far side of the island, but you three should be able to sneak over the brae, find or build some weapons in the arboretum, and bring them to us here before breakfast so we can begin the mutiny."

"Absolutely not!" cried Kit, from the top of the raft. "I won't hear of you putting your talents to such nefarious use, Baudelaires. I'm sure the island can solve its difficulties without resorting to violence."

"Did you solve your difficulties without resorting to violence?" Erewhon asked sharply. "Is that how you survived the great struggle you mentioned, and ended up shipwrecked on a raft of books?"

"My history is not important," Kit replied. "I'm worried about the Baudelaires."

"And we're worried about you, Kit," Violet said. "We need as many associates as we can if we're going to return to the world and make sure that justice is served."

"You need to be in a safe place to recuperate from your injury," Klaus said.

"And baby," said Sunny.

"That's no reason to engage in treachery," Kit said, but she did not sound so sure. Her voice was weak and faint, and the children heard the books rustling as she moved her injured feet uncomfortably.

"Please help us," Finn said, "and we'll help your friend."

"There must be a weapon that can threaten Ishmael and his supporters," Erewhon said, and now she did not sound like Ishmael. The Baudelaires had heard almost the exact same words from the imprisoned mouth of Count Olaf, and they shuddered to think of the weapon he was hiding in the bird cage.

Violet put down her empty soup bowl, and picked up her baby sister, while Klaus took the flashlight from the old woman. "We'll be back as soon as we can, Kit," the eldest Baudelaire promised. "Wish us luck."

The raft trembled as Kit uttered a long, sad sigh. "Good luck," she said finally. "I wish things were different, Baudelaires."

"So do we," Klaus replied, and the three children followed the narrow beam of the flashlight back toward the colony that had abandoned them. Their footsteps made small splashes on the coastal shelf, and the Baudelaires heard the quiet slither of the Incredibly Deadly Viper, loyally following them on their errand. There was no sign of a moon, and the stars were covered in clouds that remained from the passing storm, or perhaps were heralding a new one, so the entire world seemed to vanish outside the secret flashlight's forbidden light. With each damp and uncertain step, the children felt heavier, as if their thoughts were stones that they had to carry to the arboretum, where all the forbidden items lay waiting for them. They thought about the islanders, and the mutinous schism that would soon divide the colony in two. They thought about Ishmael, and wondered whether his secrets and deceptions meant that he deserved to be at sea. And they thought about the Medusoid Mycelium, fermenting in the helmet in Olaf's grasp, and wondered if the islanders would discover that weapon before the Baudelaires built another. The children traveled in the dark, just as so many other people had done before them, from the nomadic travels of the Cimmerians to the desperate voyages of the Quagmire triplets, who at that very moment were in circumstances just as dark although quite a bit damper than the Baudelaires', and as the children drew closer and closer to the island that had abandoned them, their thoughts made them heavier and heavier, and the Baudelaire orphans wished things were very different indeed.

Chapter Nine

The phrase "in the dark," as I'm sure you know, can refer not only to one's shadowy surroundings, but also to the shadowy secrets of which one might be unaware. Every day, the sun goes down over all these secrets, and so everyone is in the dark in one way or another. If you are sunbathing in a park, for instance, but you do not know that a locked cabinet is buried fifty feet beneath your blanket, then you are in the dark even though you are not actually in the dark, whereas if you are on a midnight hike, knowing full well that several ballerinas are following close behind you, then you are not in the dark even if you are in fact in the dark. Of course, it is quite possible to be in the dark in the dark, as well as to be not in the dark not in the dark, but there are so many secrets in the world that it is likely that you are always in the dark about one thing or another, whether you are in the dark in the dark or in the dark not in the dark, although the sun can go down so quickly that you may be in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, only to look around and find yourself no longer in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, but in the dark in the dark nonetheless, not only because of the dark, but because of the ballerinas in the dark, who are not in the dark about the dark, but also not in the dark about the locked cabinet, and you may be in the dark about the ballerinas digging up the locked cabinet in the dark, even though you are no longer in the dark about being in the dark, and so you are in fact in the dark about being in the dark, even though you are not in the dark about being in the dark, and so you may fall into the hole that the ballerinas have dug, which is dark, in the dark, and in the park.

The Baudelaire orphans, of course, had been in the dark many times before they made their way in the dark over the brae to the far side of the island, where the arboretum guarded its many, many secrets. There was the darkness of Count Olaf's gloomy house, and the darkness of the movie theater where Uncle Monty had taken them to see a wonderful film called Zombies in the Snow. There were the dark clouds of Hurricane Herman as it roared across Lake Lachrymose, and the darkness of the Finite Forest as a train had taken the children to work at Lucky Smells Lumbermill. There were the dark nights the children spent at Prufrock Preparatory School, participating in Special Orphan Running Exercises, and the dark climbs up the elevator shaft of 667 Dark Avenue. There was the dark jail cell in which the children spent some time while living in the Village of Fowl Devotees, and the dark trunk of Count Olaf's car, which had carried them from Heimlich Hospital to the hinterlands, where the dark tents of the Caligari Carnival awaited them. There was the dark pit they had built high in the Mortmain Mountains, and the dark hatch they had climbed through in order to board the Queequeg, and the dark lobby of the Hotel Denouement, where they thought their dark days might be over. There were the dark eyes of Count Olaf and his associates, and the dark notebooks of the Quagmire triplets, and all of the dark passageways the children had discovered, that led to the Baudelaire mansion, and out of the Library of Records, and up to the V.F.D. Headquarters, and to the dark, dark depths of the sea, and all the dark passageways they hadn't discovered, where other people traveled on equally desperate errands. But most of all, the Baudelaire orphans had been in the dark about their own sad history. They did not understand how Count Olaf had entered their lives, or how he had managed to remain there, hatching scheme after scheme without anyone stopping him. They did not understand V.F.D., even when they had joined the organization themselves, or how the organization, with all of its codes, errands, and volunteers, had failed to defeat the wicked people who seemed to triumph again and again, leaving each safe place in ruins. And they did not understand how they could lose their parents and their home in a fire, and how this enormous injustice, this bad beginning to their sad history, was followed only by another injustice, and another, and another. The Baudelaire orphans did not understand how injustice and treachery could prosper, even this far from their home, on an island in the middle of a vast sea, and that happiness and innocence— the happiness and innocence of that day on Briny Beach, before Mr. Poe brought them the dreadful news—could always be so far out of reach. The Baudelaires were in the dark about the mystery of their own lives, which is why it was such a profound shock to think at last that these mysteries might be solved. The Baudelaire orphans blinked in the rising sun, and gazed at the expanse of the arboretum, and wondered if they might not be in the dark any longer.