Evelina
The thought had somehow morphed into a poisonous little mantra. Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion who can't even battle.
Every morning she swept the Gym's floors from seven in the morning till lunchtime. Furio never seemed to care whether she finished or not. This morning she started on Battlefield 1 – there'd been a challenger last night. She pushed the broom around some splintered flooring. Chuck was particularly hard on battlefields. He'd used Growth-reinforced teak for his floors but his machoke had smashed it like balsa wood anyway.
Tigerlily Champion who can't even battle …
After eight days of that she was … she was tired. Sleep didn't help. She didn't want to think. Or emote. Or let the damn thoughts be.
Her phone had been quiet for days now. She'd told him to leave her alone, and he had. She'd asked him to stay once, and he'd stayed. That was a perfect moment. Rare and treasured, like seeing a shooting star. First out he'd found, he'd taken. No, that wasn't true. She'd given him permission to leave. Well thought-through, Evelina Joy.
She was hardly getting anywhere. A vacuum cleaner would have made better progress. The challenger's gligar had left a coating of fine sand on the floor. It drifted and floated almost like smoke under the bristles. She was so tired. She'd dreamed of Qara so many times she could remember the town in the waking world.
Sometimes she had to remind herself it was nothing more than a phantasm. Qara. That city on the hill, all fading beauty and old stone. Prisoned by a vast and empty world. Where everything was subtly alien.
There were no pokémon in Qara.
… if Qara was a phantasm, then surely waking loneliness was a phantasm. And yet.
She'd brooded on Qara for too long. There was the increasingly-familiar sensation of imminent unreality itching at her eyeballs. The insistent sense that this world was not real, no more than a vivid dream. It was like standing inside the TV screen, like dreaming whilst still being awake. Loneliness hit as a wave. Eve hurriedly dropped to a knee, running a palm over the sand, trying to concentrate on the exfoliating roughness of it, that this thing is real. Her eyes insisted that it was not, but her hands disagreed.
For a moment, she could hear the sound of the wind swirling around stone towers.
The world appeared to solidify in some ineffable way. This world was real. Of course. Obviously. Qara was nothing more than a bad dream.
Lunchtime had crept up on her. How long had that, well, moment lasted for? She leaned the broom against the wall and trudged off towards the refectory, leaving the sweeping unfinished. Eve was last to the table. The waiting gym trainers all gave her the same expectant look. Lateness earned her a gentle rebuke from Chuck – he took the communal part of mealtimes as seriously as everything else. Today it was rice tossed with lentils, edamame, and chopped eggs, seasoned with chilli flakes and black pepper, still piping hot and fragrant with coriander.
Eve picked at it listlessly, while the others laughed and joked in-between wolfing down theirs. Sometimes they engaged with her in a polite, cursory sort of way. They weren't ignoring her, but she wasn't one of them and they all knew it.
Garden chores were supposed to follow lunch. Eve sat on the verandah, ignoring her scheduled work. She was wondering where her pokémon were – she hadn't seen much of them, almost as if they were avoiding her. Bailey was lurking near a rhododendron bush, the sun glinting off her armour. She probably knew why they were being elusive, and wasn't telling.
The decking needed sweeping yet again. Little blue and pink flowers were sprouting from the edge of the planking. Josh would have known what they were, common name and binomial probably. It was a shame. They were supposedly weeds, but they were pretty weeds.
Eve squinted up at the sky, almost painfully clear and blue. Gail was soaring high on the wind, taking no notice of her. She'd hardly seemed to be come back down to earth since leaving Goldenrod City. The wind rippled the glossy emerald green of the lawn – the forretress pivoted slightly to stare at it.
Chapter Thirty Three – Nowhere Girl
Evelina
Long acres of green meadows that had never known the plough. Sound of the wind whistling about the tower. She was standing on a cliff of cold, pale yellow stone stapled to the earth with square towers. The wall, which inspired one word above all others: monolithic. The wall, which was the end of her world. Within its confines, she was alone, where even her name was not her own.
I want to go home.
Somewhere, a wingull called. But there were no pokémon in Qara.
Chapter Thirty Nine – Low Tide
Evelina
She was seated on a verandah in the Cianwood City Gym. Eve pulled out a hair and stared at it for a moment, shining in the sun. She sank her head into her hands. Tigerlily Champion who doesn't even know what's real. Tears welled, but she was too tired to even cry. This was ridiculous. Tigerlily Champion! A Joy who can't cope, for gods' sake!
Eve didn't know what she would do when everyone found out.
"The object," Chuck repeated, "is not to control."
The smell of incense drifted through the solarium, mingling obnoxiously with the smell of teenager. Strange how you don't notice it till you get a touch older, Eve reflected dully. The thought might have been distracting if she seriously thought the meditation would make a difference. During these group meditations she'd learned to simply sit quiet and still.
"You might be feeling frustration. Anticipation. Worried, anxious. Any number of distractions. Let those feelings be. Let them be and accept them. Do not attempt to control your feelings, and they will not control you."
Chuck had been saying a lot of things like that. Eve couldn't fathom out the line of logic. Doing nothing changes nothing.
"- in your own time, open your eyes … and come back … to normal alertness."
There was a general sussuration and stretching of muscles.
"Good," Chuck continued. "Now to put your new state of mindfulness to use. To your evening chores, students. Go on, get! Eve, front and centre, sport."
Chuck shut the door before settling back down. "So. How have you been feeling?"
"I'm bored rigid from sweeping and I haven't slept soundly in over a week," Eve flatly replied.
"And in your heart?"
"I'm coping."
"You know, this room is also a sanctuary. Whatever's said in this room, stays in this room."
"Physician confidentiality applies to Gym Leaders."
"I have a moral obligation," Chuck replied. "It's up to you whether you want to believe it."
Eve said nothing for a long moment. "I'm tired," she said, rather more honestly.
Chuck gave her a long, thoughtful look. "Tell me about your starter. I'd guess it was … the ledian?"
"Er. Yes," said Eve, taken aback. "Um. Lyra found me, I think. It was a rainy summer, I remember … her egg just appeared one day under the cherry tree. Don't ask me why it wasn't guarded by the swarm because I never found out. Nobody complained when I decided to hatch her – it's the sort of undirected compassion everyone thinks we're supposed to have. Nobody really thought of her as a starter. I didn't either, for a while.
I suppose an atypical starter is appropriate for an atypical start. I didn't have that big family send-off with tears and 'I'm-so-proud-of-yous' - what's the point of all this? I have a recurring Nightmare and I want it gone!"
"Ah. Could it be that the student does not wish to know the Way of Master Chuck of the Cianwood Gym? Does she now wish to follow the Way of the Evelina of Cherrygrove Pokémon Centre?"
"I didn't say that, but -"
"Tell me about your Nightmare," Chick said abruptly.
Eve growled with suppressed frustration. "I'm always in a town. Qara. There are no pokémon. My pokémon are missing. Nobody knows me and I don't know anyone. And there's always a mirror, or a reflection, where I see my hair's undyed. Sometimes I see it when I'm awake. Then I'm not sure whether Qara is a dream or Cianwood is," Eve sighed. "What difference does it make what I dream?"
"Sport, everything you practice here is relevant – your work, your meditation, your sleep therapy -"
"What sleep therapy?"
"… didn't the hospital tell you to sleep with something living?"
"No."
"Can it be that the old lore has been forgotten?" Chuck murmured disbelievingly. He shook his head as if to clear it. "Right. When you go to sleep tonight, take one of your pokémon with you. But for now, back to your Nightmare."
Eve huddled her knees to her chest, and contemplated going back to the Gym. It was getting chilly as the sun slipped towards the horizon. She'd wandered along the point, where the cliff path looped around the boundary of the lighthouse, sitting in a hollow among the coarse coastal grasses. The Great Western Ocean evoked memories of the Orange Archipelago; hot days and warm nights on tropical seas. Pestering Josh into an impromptu waltz on Trovita Island. Sailing by that pod of wailord, their spouting making the water sparkle and shimmer in the sunset. Victory against Livesey, Gail snatching her fletchinder from the sky. Memories far removed from Qara or Cianwood Island.
She gazed listlessly at her phone. So much for being the golden mareep for once. Tigerlily Champion who can't even battle. Wouldn't that just be a gift to the likes of Riley? The little bitch.
Eve thought of the cheers, the banners, the chants of the Tigerlily finals. It had been a hard battle. Fragments of Bailey's shell had gleamed evilly in the grass. Clouds of black smoke rising from burning flowers. Eelektross writhing into the air with a flick of its tail, as if struggling free of its Ultra Ball. Its Thunderbolt lighting up Lyra within her Protect like a miniature sun. Eelektross collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut, hoisted on its own petard. Lovelace sobbing openly into Winters' arms. Whitney, Champion Cynthia, and best of all, Imperial Champion Pemberton applauding through a veil of confetti.
Tigerlily Champion who can't even battle.
The one thing she could hold over everyone. It wasn't one of the professions. She didn't get pregnant. She'd won a pokémon tournament. It didn't matter what you won so long as you were the best. It was hers, on her terms. Tigerlily Champion who can't even battle. Reduced to beating the likes of 2nd Mate Livesey. 2nd Mate Livesey was a second-rate trainer. 2nd Mate Livesey didn't care that she'd lost. She still had soft grey rainwater eyes. She still had satin smooth hair despite all the salt. She still had a glorious figure from climbing the rigging all day.
Eve focused on her phone screen. No new texts. No missed calls, either. She'd told him to leave her alone, and he had. Not a word, for almost a week. He wouldn't ever call now, she realised. The person who saw Eve and not just some nurse. And who wanted to know about her and what she wanted. Who … she could trust.
She'd managed to drive him away. Oh gods, are you stupid, Evelina Joy.
Eve wasn't sure how long she sat crying into her own arms. She looked up at the sound of wingull screaming. Gail was practising mock attacks over the retreating tide, scattering them all before her.
"Reckon I could still catch her," Meowth bragged. He was sitting primly on an outcrop of rock, all four paws together.
"I need you with me tonight," Eve said sharply. "You'll have to cancel your debauchery."
Meowth completely ignored her tone. "I thought you'd never ask."
Eve cancelled the piping alarm. Meowth, curled up at her navel, lazily opened up one eye. She took in the rumpled dojo uniform hanging behind the door. It occurred to her she'd need to do a load of washing today -
There was no hint of Qara.
She still felt tired, wrung-out, like she could sleep for days. She still didn't want to be near the Gym trainers at breakfast. But for the first time in days, she didn't have a terrible loneliness clinging to her bones.
"Sweet Eostre." It actually worked.
There was an envelope wedged under the door. The address had been carefully stencilled on: EVELINA JOY, CIANWOOD CITY GYM, CIANWOOD CITY, CIANWOOD ISLAND, CN1 8GD. It wasn't a letter, but a single photo. It showed the sea at night, the waves glowing a gorgeous blue from mass evolution. Josh was standing in the surf. There were tears on his face, but she'd never seen him look so happy.
Eve turned the photo over. There was a single, handwritten, sentence - 'Wish you were here x'