Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death by suicide, child abuse, ableism, and death.

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire have just crossed Lake Lachrymose on the Fickle Ferry. The three are orphans, about to be taken into their distant relative Josephine Antwhistle’s care. The banker Mr. Poe, who is legally charged with overseeing the Baudelaires’ estate and making arrangements for their care, is with them. He offers the three children a bag of peppermints, forgetting that all three—whom he has known since birth—are allergic to peppermint. Violet and Klaus politely thank him. Violet is busy thinking about ways to improve the ferry’s engine. Klaus wishes that Mr. Poe would have brought him some reading material instead of candy. Sunny, who is still an infant, simply babbles, and no one is sure what she is thinking.

Mr. Poe tells them that a taxi will take them to Josephine’s home. Josephine, despite being their “second cousin’s sister-in-law” (5), has asked that they call her Aunt Josephine. She cannot meet them at the dock because she is frightened of Lake Lachrymose. Mr. Poe thinks that this might be because she recently lost her husband.