Title: Secrets

Genre: Mystery and Romance

Catagory: Harvest Moon

Summary: Dia's past had always been a mystery, but when she starts to develop special powers, the mystery begins to unfold. As light fills the darkness, Dia finds that some secrets are meant to be forgotten.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harvest Moon, or it's characters.

Prologue

"Most secrets are meant to be kept, and others are meant to be shared...
but some are meant to be forgotten"

In the little village, not but a waters distance away from the city, the people still held beliefs of an old puritan town. They were to report to the church every Sunday, and every evening before their meals, they were to say grace. Their lives were quite simple, each of them owning only a small house or business. The occasional few had farms, in which they planted rows upon rows of fruits and vegetables. Cattle grazed in some fields, and chickens cooed softly in their coops, and generation after generation these farms were passed down to the next of kin.

Just next to the calm river, and nestled gently next to Mother's Hill, there was a very prosperous farm called Matsudai, and it was managed by a man named Jack. Jack lived off the land, growing everything from tomatoes to pumpkins. He owned horses and cows and sheep, and even a small coop where chickens gratefully laid their eggs. He lived prosperously, and seemed to have everything he wanted. One winter, he married his childhood love, and the two lived happily together. When the news of his wife's pregnancy reached the ears of the village, everyone rejoiced, knowing that a new generation would be there to take over the farm. Jack and his wife expanded their house, a room was now built for the arriving baby, and his name was to be Jack.

The spring disappeared quickly, and the rosebuds were now full grown bushes, marking the path up the Mother's Peak in the summer season. Jack and his wife continued to work the farm successfully, each season bringing more and more to their bounty. The summer soon passed as well, as the warm waters became cold, and the leaves started to fall from the trees. The air was crisp and fall had arrived. The village continued on in their ritualistic ways, just like it had done for generations. Soon, the fall season passed as well, and light snow flurries fell from the clouds. The day had finally come that winter, when Jack's wife was to give birth to their son Jack. But that winter did not go as planned.

The spring returned to Mineral Town once again, but the people did not celebrate as they had years before. Every day of that season, Jack visited the old graveyard next to the church, and every day he carried with him a bouquet of flowers, which he gently separated, and lay to rest on two grave markers. Written elegantly on one gravestone was the sweet name of his beautiful wife, and on the other was the name of his son, Jack.

The farm did not prosper that year. There were no crops planted in the fields, and the cattle and chicken that once nibbled upon the green grass had been sold. Jack was scarcely seen in the town anymore, and often locked himself within his home, which had also lost its shine. The town's people did not know how to comfort him in his losses, and suffered themselves without the produce he once supplied. Soon the season passed, and the next after that. It was fall once again, and suddenly Jack disappeared one day into the woods of Mother's hill. Many figured he went there to get away from his dieing farm and the grief of his lost wife and son. Others believed he had gone there to end his life, which seemed to stick as Jack did not return that winter.

Seasons past, and almost a year had gone by when something strange happened, or rather yet, someone strange appeared in the village. One cool autumn day a familiar figure walked into the hospital, a small bundle in his arms. When he uncovered the mass, a small porcelain face appeared, a darling little girl, framed neatly with the silk blankets. The doctor looked at the infant, confused, for the figure that held the child in its arms was Jack. There was gossip all over the town. Where had Jack been? When had he had a child? Whose child was it? All these questions seemed to plague Jack, as he tried to live a normal life in his old home.

He was shunned, for what he had done was unforgivable, a sin in fact. The people would not forgive him for this child, a child born without a marriage, without a mother at all. Jack soon discovered there was no way he would be able to return things to normal, and found that his only solution would be to leave Mineral Town. He packed up the little belongings he possessed, and with his darling daughter wrapped tightly in his arms, he boarded the ferry.

Jack and his daughter soon disappeared, almost as mysteriously as they had arrived. Over sixteen long years, the people of Mineral Town went back to their ritualistic ways, went back to the simple lives they once lived, and eventually forgot about the man and his ill-conceived child.

The day Jack had left Mineral Town, he had left everything he had once been. As a farmer, he had left his land, as a citizen he had left his town, and as a husband he had left the memories of his wife behind. But there were things he had left behind that would forever haunt him, secrets that he had hidden away the day he left that place. He hoped to keep these secrets hidden away forever from his daughter, protect her from her own past, but the day he fell ill he realized he would be unable to do this.

Years had passed, and just as they had in Mineral Town, the seasons passed as well. Jack was dieing, and he knew he his daughter had no way to support herself after his passing. His only solution was to send her back to her home, her true home, and maybe she too would be able to make a living off the land he had once been so happy with. The day he died, his will was read. To his friends, his small belongings were passed off. After everyone had left, the last line of the will was read:

"And to the most beautiful girl in all the land, I leave my most precious treasure. A beautiful farm, in the land over the water, Mineral Town, a home to me in my childhood. May it bring you happiness and a new beginning. I leave this to my only daughter…
Deity