CHAPTER 4A: The Haunted House

Thank you 'Tis me' for your kind words. Worry not, I'm not discontinuing anything^^.

September 1st 340 - Monday

Anabel's merry step stumbled to a halt halfway through the school hall. Wide hazel eyes met hers and narrowed harshly. If that hadn't been clear enough, June's jaw clenched and she flipped her long blue hair to make it cover the side of her face Anabel could see.

June was still angry at her. It was so confusing. Four months of hating her for no reason, so forever, but it'd take more to ruin school. Anabel's class would be the same as last year's, so she was stuck with June, but now the seniors' building was all hers and she'd gotten the best teacher. All the seniors wanted Mr. C.

The hall's white-brick walls smelled of new and had been stripped bare to host this year's art and science projects. Instead of class pictures, the eleven classroom doors were of a warm yellow, blank slates waiting for them to come in. In front of n°2, Nico had gathered a big crowd. Anabel pushed herself on tiptoes and craned her head. He was showing off pictures, making big gestures with his hands and puffing up with a whole summer's worth of stories. A marill. Nico puffed bigger with every question hurled his way.

She'd have to wait a while if she wanted any attention on her stories…

A hand jerked Anabel away from the group. "Pokemon, so overrated," Melodi seethed, holding onto her with pleading eyes. She pointed at the shiny seashell hair-stuffs shaped holding up her brick-red hair. "Look what I got!"

"Pretty," Anabel agreed, smiling at Mel's beaming grin. "Where did you get them?"

"I went to this outdoors concert full of old people, but it was a band playing, with an electronic harp, so who cares, right? They let me wriggle my way to the front, I –"

Mel was a talker, a big one, but one with happy stories, and the air sung with a thousand tiny chimes when Anabel listened to her. Mel made everything she did sound exciting, and it was impossible not to smile back.

"… and everyone harped on and on about my future Journey," Mel was saying, "so I found this in a shop." She opened her bag. "It's waaaay too big, but hey, it's a big message."

'This' was a shirt that fit Mel like a nightdress, with a stick-figure holding a big n°1 badge. 'Don't journey. Be the journey' it read.

Anabel laughed. Until she sensed it behind her. Hot anger, burning away her smile.

'She's the one with a problem,' Mom's voice reminded her. 'Stay calm. Politely correct her, change the subject, or walk away.'

"Look who's too good for pokemon." June, arms crossed and mean eyes staring down. "But I guess no pokemon could ever stand you…"

Meanness made June stupid. "Pokemon like anyone who doesn't treat them bad."

Anabel didn't hate pokemon. She just had other plans. Mom hadn't done a Journey. Dad had hated his. Anabel was ready to go to secondary school straight away. That's where people found what they loved to do.

"You're just scared I'd crush you, Tiny." June was beautiful, but inside she was all venom now. "Your pokemon would beg to join my team."

Could evil ghosts really possess people, or was that a myth? Anabel wracked her brain to understand why June was like this, but she was running out of explanations.

"Are you angry at me because I didn't want to watch the pictures of your new vulpix over and over again?" she guessed. "That was in April. I'm sorry."

Heavy thumps had Anabel turn away from June's 'are you really that stupid' look.

Red-faced and running, Skye almost slammed into her.

"Anabel!" Skye's hands tightly grasped her shoulders. "Is it true you bought that place?" she said between gasps. "Mom just said. I thought the city was letting nature swallow it up after what happened."

What?

"You bought that big house! The one six miles out of town. Didn't you?"

"I… we did," Anabel stammered. She was secretly a little scared of Skye and now the taller girl had her in a death grip. "…after what happened?"

June gasped. "You bought a criminal's house?"

"We did not!"

"Yes you did! It was this breeding place before, for the rarest grass types," Skye accused, staring straight at her. "Until they found six dead bodies in there, years ago." WHAT? "Five were pokemon nobody had ever seen before. They were the wrong kind you only get experimenting. The sixth…" Anabel couldn't breathe. Skye didn't lie. Her mom was the town judge. She knew all the crime stories of Verdanturf. "The sixth was the man who called the Jennys and told them everything. He killed himself. The guilt was too much."

"Did your parents know?" Mel whispered, edging away from her.

Anabel could only stare. That's why it had been abandoned so long?

"I bet it's haunted," Nico chimed. Everyone was pressing around them. There was no place to move. "That's how ghost pokemon are born."

"There aren't any ghosts! There's nothing pokemon, just plants growing all over and stuff!"

They'd found a sentret nest with no sentret inside –which was a letdown: sentret were cute-, and that was it.

Anabel tried to breathe but the air was glass shards and mud. They were staring at her like she was scary. How could Mom and Dad not know?

"We could go catch ghost pokemon there…"

"Nico, there aren't any ghosts! It's just –" Anabel fell silent at Nico's hopeful face, struck by an idea. "Listen, my birthday's in November. By then we'll have fixed it all, but you want to do a ghost hunt party?" Her smile tasted like a lie. "The forest around the house is huge."

Ten was a very important birthday. People could get their Trainer's Licenses at ten, with Professors handing out starter pokemon from March to August. It would be Anabel's first big birthday party. Grandma's garden was all flowers and no places to play.

"I'm not scared of ghosts," Roan announced. "I'm coming."

Roan was barely taller than her and had a huge bush of deep pink hair on his head, but he was Skye's best friend. Nobody wanted to mess with Skye.

"I'm not scared either," Nico shouted, and suddenly everybody was shouting and talking about the best birthday parties they remembered.

"I bet there's no swimming pool." June obviously. Just because her new step-dad was rich –

"Who cares," Roan huffed. "It'll be November."

Roan was Anabel's new favorite person.

"Your parents are so cheap they're happy to live over dead bodies?"

The talk became whispers, and everyone was staring, standing close but not too close. Mel had gone to stand next to Silas, as if Anabel wasn't safe to be with.

"They didn't know!"

June snorted. "Liar. They're idiots anyway. They were like twelve when they had you."

Anabel paled. She'd told June everything once.

"You were an accident," June taunted, arms crossed like Anabel was a disease. "They've got to regret it every day."

'Wise people don't have a kid in their teens.'

'You were the best surprise we ever had, Bells. We'd not have had it any other way.'

Grandma's voice warred with Mom and Dad's, and Anabel hated how June always got to her. June had no right to say these things. They had been secrets.

June looked so gleeful but Anabel's tongue stayed uselessly stuck in her mouth.

"Were they actually twelve?"

Anabel didn't quite dare to glare at Skye. "They were eighteen." Mom had been, Dad almost. She mustered a small smile. Skye had shoved June to get between the two of them.

"Can I come over to your house this week?" Skye's tone didn't make it a question at all.

So Anabel nodded.

"Yeah, you'll tell us if there are ghosts."

Nico was usually nice to Anabel, so she didn't scream.

September 4th 340 - Thursday

"Did you warn her that the garden's a re-enactment of the War?" Grandma said as she finished opening all the kitchen drawers and began re-arranging half of them.

Mom and Dad wouldn't like having their stuff moved around, but Anabel was still too annoyed at them to bother complaining on their behalf. They'd known. They didn't care.

'Bells, it's a building.' The smiles, the patient tone, like she was so silly.

"The War didn't leave messes," Anabel grumbled. "Everything was gone."

Their teachers at school had been clear about how bad The War had been. People had gone too far, destroying the wilds, exploiting and experimenting on pokemon without caring. The legendaries had teamed up and attacked with huge armies, destroying whole cities. It had been over three hundred years ago, but no one had forgotten. Every city in Hoenn had been rebuilt and whatever ruins there were of the much bigger, old cities, were deep in the ground under tall forests, or even under the sea.

"I did tell Skye it'll take us ages to make it look good…"

Skye was on time but she didn't come alone. The street became gravel in front of the house and the two motorcycles screeched as they parked next to the trash containers.

What were Jennys doing here?

"You can't let them put Mom and Dad in jail," Anabel breathed.

The two clone policewomen were smiling and that was just cruel.

"Don't be absurd," Grandma said. "Let's go greet them."

Grandma was always neat and never goofy. She knew how things were done and how to act around anybody. Anabel let the rhythmic clack of her square heels soothe her.

She'd been very happy walking behind Grandma, but Grandma grabbed her arm and forced her by her side. Anabel blushed and tried to stand tall.

She had never been so close to Jennys, and they really were identical. The same wavy cerulean-green hair gathered in a ponytail, the same athletic build and strict but pretty faces. It was kind of unfair that nobody other than clones could become a police officer, or a pokemon nurse, but Miss Lecter had explained that Jennys and Joys were always honest, driven and loved their jobs, so it was a good deal for society. There had been other clone lines, centuries ago, but they'd been made illegal after The War.

"Good evening, officers," Grandma said, her lips quirking. "This is all very official for a play date."

The first Jenny didn't look any older than mom. She had kind eyes. "We were told written proof would be necessary to convince young Nico that there aren't any ghosts."

Anabel grinned. Nico had brought it up every. single. day.

"You did this?" she whispered to Skye. Was that what it meant, to be the judge's daughter?

Skye's cheeks went pink, but her jaw stayed set and certain. "If there are ghosts left around here, it's serious enough for Jennys. Besides, they like helping out and mom said it wasn't being pushy to ask."

"Thank you so much."

"You watch and learn."

The smile fell off Anabel's lips. Skye looked accusing. What had she done wrong?

A whistle broke the air. "This is going to be fun," the second Jenny said as her eyes swept over the garden.

A pokeball shone white-and-red in the woman's tanned hand.

"What –"

Anabel's jaw dropped. No one, four.

Four flashes of white energy revealed four machamp.

Machamp.

Four of them.

Towering, muscled, so muscled, eyes glinting.

Anabel took one step back, and then one cautious step forward. Just… their grayish skin, their four huge arms, and those faces, not-human and yet-

Anabel jumped back with a gasp when they moved, but they were just flexing their arms at her.

"This is Anabel, ladies and gents," one of the Jennys began. "She doesn't think you can fix this garden." Hey, what? "Show her, what machamp do to walls."

Show her they did, with fists as big as her head and punches that made wood seem like paper.

At some point, Anabel's jaw forgot how to shut itself. The old shed's walls –the shed Mom and Dad said they might get around to removing around November- were a scattering of debris, and it had been less than five minutes.

"I don't believe you've broken it unless you show me all the pieces," Grandma called.

And Grandma began to clap. And the Jennys began to clap. And Skye. One of the Jennys took a gong out of the pack on her motorcycle.

The officer gave Anabel the smooth metal disc and its mallet. "Encourage them. Give them stakes. Like a battle."

Go-ooooooong!

Wow, loud. Anabel grinned.

Go-ooooooong!

"So the female is the strongest. I see." Grandma said, her voice a shout to top the claps and the gong.

The machamp had slowed a little, but hearing that, they all accelerated. Soon the shed was one big pile of rubble and the pokemon went to tear at all the old pipes in the ground.

Pride stiffened those pokemon's strong shoulders. They wildly ripped, smashed, and lifted, over and over again. They shoved each other and waved their clenched fists but, somehow, they felt like a family.

It had been just half-an-hour when the Jennys got one of the machamp to move the containers, each as tall as Anabel, and line up to throw everything they'd gathered inside.

"Pick one machamp for your team," the Jenny urged. "Encourage them and tease your opponents like we do."

"That one," Anabel decided breathlessly. "You! You'll be mine. You're going to win."

Their eyes met and suddenly Anabel could tell him apart from the other three. He had a swing in his arm and the ground shook as he ran. He struck his massive chest with his fists and a roar burst from his chest.

Skye scoffed. "Yeah, right. Mine's the girl. She's toughest of all."

"Kids, I'll go easy on you." Grandma sat in the grass, which, with her dark blue suit, was even more unbelievable than the four machamp. Her eyes were smiling, like she didn't doubt she'd win for one single second.

Anabel grinned. It was on.

She had never shouted so much. She had never thought Grandma could shout and laugh so much.

"Ghosts, no!" Anabel screamed when Grandma's machamp won. Her stomach twisted in denial. "He can't have won, it's not fair!" She blinked back angry tears and chuckled apologetically at Grandma's pointed look.

Grandma gave her an evil grin. "You chose flashy over focused and steady, little girl. Big mistake." She clapped her hands with a delighted laugh. "Now that's how you make a pokemon from wildstock to do chores".

Grandma's machamp was strutting smugly while the other two males sulked. The broad female jumped on the winner's back, and started punching him, but it had to be all play, because he wasn't complaining.

"Machamp love carrying and breaking heavy things," the Jennys explained. "Ours are very special: few pokemon have the temperament to work long-term with the police. It's our duty to value them and adapt as much as we can to them. Learn that, and pokemon will do wonders for you."

Anabel stiffened her eyes darting to Grandma.

Grandma shook her head, her silver earrings glinting in the sunset. "You forget I journeyed as a girl. It made me who I am and I would do it again in a heartbeat. You loved my stories, when you were little, before you decided to listen blindly to your parents."

Stories… Anabel squinted, searching for memories she'd not looked for in a long time. There'd been… a marowak... Yes… she had liked them.

"So?" Skye's voice was loaded with warning.

"That was awesome," Anabel breathed. "It's so great you could make them come."

Skye's satisfied smile lit up her face. "I had to show you. You get it now."

Get what? But Anabel nodded gratefully, glad Skye was happy too.

"You know where my Journey's photo album is," Grandma later added in soft tones, as Skye and the Jennys disappeared beyond the gates with one last wave.

The machamp had just left the best trees and the good shed intact. Sad tufts of grass and upturned mounds greeted them instead of a jungle of weeds. It looked less wild now, but not much more like a garden.

"It looks like a herd of rhydon had a party," Anabel whispered, her voice hoarse.

"It's an easy fix with a good gardener. I'll call one by next week."

Her mind full of machamp Anabel just didn't know.

'Journeys, the kingdom of children using pokemon for ego-boosts. The era of hiding behind badges count and battles rules as an excuse to ignore your failings.'

Dad's disgusted face was horrible enough in her mind. Anabel could never face it in reality.