Free "Who Could That Be at This Hour?" (All the Wrong Questions) by Lemony Snicket

of the windows of the library, of course,” Theodora said. “The hawser goes right there.”
    “Mrs. Sallis said the windows are always latched,” I reminded her.
    “Well, they’re not latched now,” Theodora said. “Look. The butler is giving us the signal that all is clear.”
    Sure enough, I could see the faint shape of the open window, right where the hawser ended, and in the middle of that shape was a faint light. Hydrophobia? I thought. No, Snicket. That’s the fear of water. The light did not look like a candle, as it was not flickering, and it was bright red in color. A bright red light reminded me of something that I also could not quite remember. Agoraphobia, I thought. No, Snicket. That’s the fear of wide-open spaces.
    “We’re almost there,” Theodora said. “In a minute the Bombinating Beast will be returned to its rightful owner, and this case will be closed.”
    I did not answer, because it had come to me all at once, like a light turning on. It was the red flashlight the Officers Mitchum had on top of their car. And “acrophobia” is the word for a fear of heights. I let go of the hawser and fell straight down into the trees.



CHAPTER SEVEN
    It was pitch-black everywhere around me, and I felt as if I had fallen into the path of an enormous shadow. I had learned how to do it, in what you would probably call an exercise class, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t difficult or frightening to fall that way. It was difficult and frightening. The fall was quick and dark, and I landed in the tree on my back, with many twigs and leaves poking at me in annoyance. Still I felt it. Then I relaxed, as I had been trainedto do, and lay out on the top of the tree, letting it support my weight, but still I felt the enormous shadow cast upon me. It was not the shadow of the hawser, or of any of the other trees nearby. It was the face that appeared next to me, the face of a girl about my age. I could also see her hands, clutching the top of a ladder she must have leaned against the tree. Somehow I knew, as she blinked at me on top of the ladder, that the girl in question had already begun to cast an enormous shadow across my life and times.
    “That was quite a stunt,” she said. “Where did you learn to fall into a tree like that?”
    “I’ve had an unusual education,” I said.
    “Did they teach you how to get down?”
    “The best way is to wait for someone with a ladder.”
    “Someone?” she repeated. “Who, exactly?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know her name.”
    “Hello,” she said, “I’m Ellington Feint,” and I sat up to get a better look at her. It was not sodark that I couldn’t see her strange, curved eyebrows, each one coiled over like a question mark. Green eyes she had, and hair so black it made the night look pale. She had long fingers, with nails just as black, and they poked out of a black shirt with long, smooth sleeves. And right before she started climbing down the ladder, I saw her smile, shadowy in the moonlight. It was a smile that might have meant anything. She was a little older than me, or maybe just a little taller. I followed her down.
    When I reached the ground, Ellington Feint looked me over and then brushed a few leaves from my collar before offering her hand. The statue felt solid against my chest, and my hands were a little raw from the hawser. I could not see Theodora above me. It was possible she did not even know I was no longer behind her. “You haven’t told me your name,” Ellington said.
    I shook her hand and told her.
    “Lemony Snicket,” she repeated. “Well, followme, Mr. Snicket. I live in that white cottage you passed over. You can rest there from your flight.”
    She led the way through the trees to the cottage I had seen from the road and from the hawser. Curiously, it looked even smaller now that we were close up, with a few windows here and there and a creaky-looking door and a white brick chimney puffing gray smoke into the