Love Lost, Chapter 22: Conclusions.
#43 of Love Lost
Love Lost, Chapter 22: Conclusions.
After circumventing a front gate, Grace telepathically operated a door's knocker while ringing the call bell. She felt tired and impatient. She felt a force gently shove her and her button-pushing finger away from the landing a moment before the door opened only wide enough for a gardevoir's head to emerge.
It projected an annoyed emotion. "This is private property and no appointments are scheduled. What is your business here?"
Grace glanced downward as a humble gesture. "I'm not exactly sure, but I think my parents were here, or near here, a long time ago."
A distant voice within the villa cried out, "Vivian! Why do you stop playing my piano?"
Vivian projected a message into the home, and then another for Grace. "What do you know of these parents you seek?"
"Not much, but I think my mother showed me some things so I could find out about them. May I come in and look around, and see if this is the house she made me remember?"
Vivian sized up Grace. She was not much of a threat, but a little intimidation would not hurt. "You may have a minute. Do not attempt to create trouble; a ghost lives here and he is merciless."
Grace entered and looked around. Although her visions of the foyer were vague and distant, the kitchen and living room were inarguable matches. She felt as drawn to the window overlooking the lake as she remembered her mother having been. Although a few new homes appeared around its rim, the landscape overall was so familiar that she no longer felt her mother's communicated experience as anyone's but her own. The sense of deja vu distracted Grace until she noticed Vivian's reflection in the glass, and turned to see him sit before the piano. He began playing a tune.
The intrusive gardevoir in Grace's visions played it for her once before. She drifted to the piano and interrupted his performance. "I'm sorry, but, tell me if you know a tune that goes like this." She played eight notes a few octaves below where they belonged.
Vivian put his left hand upon her right, stopping her before she could repeat the motif. "You should leave. Your father will become very upset if he sees you here."
Grace's face contorted with shocked disappointment. "W-huh--but, why?"
"Because he betrayed our master to give your mother escape. He gave you to her so a part of himself could be free. That you return will disappoint him; in his fantasies, you two traveled so far from this place that you would never be found by anyone. That is his dream."
Looking around and sensing the area, Grace found a human upstairs, and a shadowy form stood near it. She whispered, "Do you need help to escape?"
Vivian began playing once more, gently. "I am satisfied with my work and my home. The ghost is not, but he is bound by his oath." The tune continued for a few bars, unnaturally shifted into a more somber mode. "You will not leave without meeting him, and since his involvement was the weight behind my warning you not to cause an incident, you will not go quietly if I were to try removing you, no?"
Grace nodded in affirmation; unnecessarily, as Vivian easily felt her re-committing herself to her cause when he noted their situation.
"Play in my stead, I will summon him alone. Our master is not feeling well and shall not be disturbed. It is best that he doesn't know that you were created."
Slipping into position on the piano bench as Vivian slipped off of it, Grace's playing was clumsy and spontaneous but somehow somewhat guided. She watched Vivian float upstairs and vanish. She played on, finding fragments that sounded okay. The back of her mind monitored the motion of a shadow as it approached, becoming larger for proximity, until it occluded nearly everything behind her. She stopped playing in the middle of a measure. She could not bear to turn and look; she knew what he looked like.
"My mother wanted me to find you."
"You have. Now what?" asked the dusclops.
She swallowed hard. "Can I ask you some questions?"
"You may."
"Was she as unhappy here as the memories she gave me make it seem?"
"I never saw her truly happy, but that was not because she found sadness here. She brought it with her."
Grace tried to recall her mother's memories in reverse order, but could not reach before the train station. "Did she tell you anything about what happened to her before she came here?"
"Nothing."
Grace leaned forward over the keys and let her head hang. Fouroughs placed his large right palm upon her shoulder. She reached across herself with her left hand and captured it. "Don't you want to know about what we, she, did after she left here?"
"No. I do not want to feel a jealousy toward stories of her and my offspring."
Grace let a tear drop from one eye. The coldness she felt beneath her palm was so intense she would not have been surprised if it froze that tear before it landed on her skirt. "Don't you want to know about me? Don't you care at all?"
"I do. Is my daughter truly happy when she is where she calls home?"
Thinking it over with great determination, Grace choked up a little. "Yes. Even when everything's going wrong."
"Go home, my daughter. You have given me what your mother sent you to deliver."
Fouroughs placed his other palm upon Grace's, leaned forward, kissed her--as best an ambiguously-mouthed mummy could--on the back of her head for a moment, and shortly thereafter pulled away.
Grace leaned back, struggling to maintain their already-broken contact.
"Did you love my mother?" Grace asked toward the ceiling.
"I am a ghost." He realized that for a Psychic-type, he was not saying enough. "I would have haunted her until the day she died."
Grace whimpered. "It was last year, late August."
Fouroughs walked away, returning upstairs, pausing at the top of the flight. "She has not seen fit to haunt me."
Pierre complained again about the lack of live music after a few minutes of Grace sitting at the piano, motionless. Vivian excused himself and returned to the great room.
"Unless you intend to remain, now is a proper time to depart." He conveyed Grace back to the foyer to see her out.
"Um, can I ask you something that will sound really strange?"
Vivian assented with barely a nod.
"I don't know much about... us. Can a gardevoir project itself mentally into another gardevoir's mind, and appear like a person in a dream? Then, have conversations with that gardevoir or make it see visions of stuff?"
"The projections that we normally create in another through physical contact, without physical contact, you mean?"
"Yeah."
Vivian thought back. "Excluding help from technology that I've only heard rumors of, the projecting gardevoir would need a very intimate connection with the other. The unique bond, or a long-standing close relationship, like that of mates, to become so well synchronized that one could appear to the other remotely."
"The unique bond... would that work with a human?"
Vivian's expression turned sullen as he knew he would disappoint her. "No. You could target the human with a sensation, but anything more than a single emotional feeling would be confusing or painful."
"You are a male gardevoir, right?"
Vivian's gills flushed. "If you are soliciting me, you should know that I--"
"No! Well, no." Grace turned at an angle and, spreading her fingers, stretched her arms downward.
Vivian stroked her left gills and she shuddered, becoming equally flush as she felt him capture a glimpse of her thoughts.
"You have given your bond to a human. It cannot be returned and cannot be as it would be had you selected one of our kind. Do not let regret for something you will never experience poison what you will always experience, or you may then have a loss worthy of regret. When the thoughts shared between you are of each other only, you will know that you feel what your instinct seeks. The nature of your bond only determines what challenge you must overcome to receive that reward."
Grace regained her composure, although her stance was shaky. A little levitation helped to mask that. "He knows a human girl. He doesn't realize it, but subconsciously, he thinks of her when he thinks of things that young men can't help but think of once they quit being mere boys. I'm scared."
Vivian stepped back into his home's doorway. "Will you always be there for him?"
"Yes," she piped with a nod.
"You aren't right now."
"I want to be. I--I will be. I will be, soon."
"Does he realize that, all the way down?"
Grace hesitated.
"Close your eyes, open your mind, recall your deepest connection before you came here. Reach to the bottom."
After a moment, Grace's eyes opened, and shined with a brilliant green contrasting the warm tones that the setting sun surrounded her with. "I think--"
"Don't think, Gardevoir. Feel. Feel the memory completely."
"He--he's afraid of being unable to do what he is supposed to do." She blinked three times and fell to her feet.
Vivian shook his head. "Go home, daughter of the one who could not be tamed, and come what may, be satisfied by the happiness you told your father awaits you." Vivian shut the door gently.
Leaving Pierre's villa behind, Grace walked slowly along a trail that she hoped would quickly return her to the main route. The sun was setting and whenever she stopped to concentrate, she could sense diurnal pokemon seeking shelter and nocturnal pokemon stirring and rising. Imagining fighting, in the dark, with a ghost perhaps, did not bring back good memories. Hoping to save some time and energy, she teleported atop a van that happened to pass by. Using her telekinesis and levitation to aid her, she kept a grip on its luggage rack and enjoyed the bumpy ride without being too severely jostled. Once the vehicle found the paved road, Grace contented herself to rest somewhat, awake enough only to maintain her hold. She hardly noticed when the vehicle stopped, but when several doors opened and shut, she roused and started to rise. A fellow, surely the driver, and the police officer that pulled him over stood beside the vehicle. The officer raised a ball when Grace began moving, and with a red flash among blue flashes coming from the cruiser, Grace vanished. In her stead, her dive ball bounced dully and rolled off of the van's roof.
The lighting array above her was tinted a strange color, one that defied identification or name. Grace sat up and found herself seated upon a platform beneath that array. Hopping down, she found the floor to have a subtle grade in all directions. She began walking. She cleared the rail. She reached the wall. She followed it to the round building. She found two gardevoirs sitting beside its door.
The nearest one reacted only by glancing at her. The second leapt up and floated directly to her. It captured her with a strenuous hug that pressed the tips of their antennae together and somehow caused them to overlap and penetrate each other. The gardevoir made a sound that Grace had not heard in a long time.
"Mom? 'Sunny'? Is--"
"Shhhh, let me hold you. Let yourself hold me. Now's our last time."
Their embrace seemed timeless, a befit of their condition. The other gardevoir maintained her glare.
"Mom; I tried. I tried to do what you wanted. I found him, my father, but--"
"What I wanted was for you to be safe. Daughter; I tried. I tried to do what you needed. Did I do okay?"
Grace re-positioned her hands and squeezed a little more tightly. "Yes! But, didn't you want me to find him?"
"No; he already did all that he could for us. But if finding him helped you somehow, then I'm pleased by your success."
Grace pulled away a little to look at her mother's face. "Why did you give me memories of you and him together in that house if you didn't want me to go back and find him?"
"She wanted you to have them." Sunny tilted her head to gesture at the other gardevoir, and continued, "so you would someday understand her."
Grace glanced at the other gardevoir, still scowling, and moved slightly to obscure her with her mother. She whispered, "Who is she?"
Sunny smiled, very faintly. The rest of her expression, however, shifted negatively. "There was a moment in my life that could have gone two ways. One led me to that house, and led you to me. The other I never knew. She," Sunny glanced behind herself, "she's the gap between them. In a way she's a bridge, in a way she's a void. But what matters is that she promised to be your guardian in a way I could not be. Listen to her, trust her guidance, and accept her help. She will not betray you." Sunny leaned in very close and spoke very faintly, "But, never let her forget that she is condemned to exist in that gap. If you let her leave it, and if you are not strong enough to face her, she will be reluctant to go back." She released Grace from her embrace and stepped back a few steps. The other gardevoir rose and stood beside Sunny. "The instant I looked into her eyes when she hatched, I knew that I was blessed with as much as I had lost."
The other gardevoir grunted.
Sunny shook her head with the slightest possible motion. "I know that hurts your feelings."
The other gardevoir grunted again.
"Thank you, G.V.; for your sacrifice, for your promise, for this."
G.V. shrugged. "Are you ready?"
"Grace, whatever the future holds, keep looking forward. When I died, the only regret I had for my time in that house was that I spent so much time not looking forward to meeting you. The only regret I had for my time in the forest was that I was too worried about your future to let you explore your present. And, the only regret I had after I placed you in that human home was..."
Sunny trailed off. G.V. stepped in; literally, she stepped into the position where Sunny stood causing their forms to overlap and unify. "...I assume, that she spent her last moment of peace planning to kill our pursuers instead of imagining your future. I may be wrong, but I've had a lot of time to think about the impression that she left and you retrieved in that wooded lot."
"How? G.V.?"
G.V. approached. "It's a title, abbreviated."
"But, what was that? Did you--was that really my mother, or were you--" Grace formed clenched fists and her eyes watered. "Was that another of your projections? Did you create that image to mess with my head again?" Grace charged forward, gripped G.V., and with a primal outcry shoved her back until she collided with the sealed double doors. "Why won't you leave me alone?"
"Your mother told you why: I promised to watch over you. Yes, that was a projection; your mother is dead. But, that was her as much as I am me. You believed that she left you those memories so you would find your father, but you were wrong. She left them so you would have a chance at closure, so she could give you a final message when you were ready for it. I have done that part of my job, and what remains, I am continuing to do."
Faint echos of voices penetrated the darkness. Grace and G.V. looked around reflexively. The lighting brightened and became distinctly red. "We will speak again, but for now, I want to rest. Just remember, I'm rooting for you, and when you need me, I'll be there for you. Whether you want me to be or not. I'll be there, where you are, always." The red light became blinding and a sound like an electrical crackle echoed intensely. Grace barely made out G.V.'s last comment: "The promise I made wasn't charity."
Hers was a minor offense, and Detective Fairbanks happened to hear the notice on his scanner and put in a good word for both Grace and Joe, so their penalty was mostly a matter of protocol: four sessions of a weekly obedience course, a fine that would take a bite out of Joe's League account, and a blemish on Grace's record warning that she is officially known to wander off on her own and illegally hitch-hike. It could have been worse. An officer at Rennin P.D. took Grace's dive ball, placed it in a hopper beside a justice ball, and activated the computer to which they were attached in order to transfer the image from the latter into the former. Signed off and out, Joe turned to exit the building but noticed somebody familiar.
"Detective Palmer?" he asked aloud.
Jacob turned and nodded, not really recognizing the teenager and happy at that, because it meant that he was not a known troublemaker.
"I saw that video you were in. The one about the guys who hurt pokemon, especially gardevoirs. Uh, has it gotten any better since then?"
"I can't talk about on-going investigations." He stepped away.
"Wait, just one more thing. You told me and a friend of mine to let you know if we had any more information about what happened in the reserve lots last year. Well, I know one thing," he raised the dive ball he held, "those guys didn't get that gardevoir's daughter."
It was late in his shift, and Joe's words took a moment to register, but he gave Joe a slight and restrained smile. "I'm thankful for every page I don't have to add to those binders."
Joe exited the police department, climbed into James' sedan, and held Grace's ball tightly against his chest throughout the ride home.
The Rainier men returned to a seemingly empty house. Burner and Alice had left a note on the coffee table indicating that they would be back in a few days after spending some time alone together and seeing Alice to her appointment at Palmitoy Penitentiary. James continued through to check on Nel, leaving Joe alone to do what he needed to do.
Joe pressed the trigger of the dive ball's button. Grace appeared before him. They looked at each other, eye to eye.
Each took a step forward, raised all of their arms, captured each other's hands, and spoke together in unison: "Things will be different from now on. Things will be better. I'm wholly doubtless."
Thus ends the first part of this story.