FOUR: TOURIST
Sunday, 11th September
Gwyneth charged up her phone on the boat. Now, sitting on a bench in Castelia Park and waiting for sunrise, she is reading the Pokémon Index Project webpage for venipede.
They are common, she reads. Some say pestilentially so. They breed in great numbers because most of the hatchlings die before they reach their second instar. (She googles the word instar, scowls at the definition.) If they evolve, they can live for up to thirty years, unusually long for a bug-type, probably due to the sheer size of a scolipede. In the wild, venipede and whirlipede hibernate during winter; scolipede usually do not, being big enough to keep warm even in the snow. In captivity, if well fed and kept warm, they often do not hibernate at all.
They are vicious. They kill more than they eat. They defend themselves against predators with powerful toxins and sheer bloody-minded ferocity. Attacks on humans are not unknown; venipede do not attack unprovoked, she reads, but they are very easily provoked. These attacks have become more common in recent years, as they start to live and breed in cities, feeding on trash and coming into dangerously close proximity to humans. The federal government is considering a humane cull, to slow down the population explosion and prevent them from overpredating their prey species.
Gwyneth looks from her phone to the creature sitting next to her on the bench. It's much less attractive than the one pictured on the website. Its shell is notched and scarred, closer to rust than magenta; the segments behind the hump that are bright green in the picture are sickly and yellowish on the real thing. The hole in its shell through which its left eye once looked is grown over with dark, dirty chitin.
"Right," she says, and puts her phone away.
Around her, the park is slowly starting to lighten, the branches picking up the first of the early sun. It's already warmer than it would have been in Aspertia, Gwyneth thinks. She hasn't even come that far east, really. Nika said Castelia was always warmer, because of all the buildings. Gwyneth never really bothered asking how that worked.
She supposes it doesn't matter now. She'll be out of here by this afternoon.
The park is small, hemmed in on all sides by the usual tower blocks. Gwyneth is faintly surprised that there's even enough light in here for all this – a half-acre of trees, flowering shrubs, neat little lawns. Sitting here, she feels like she is trapped in the bottom of a giant tin can, the sky a hole in the dark way up above her head.
Well, she's never liked central Castelia anyway. All these anonymous towers are dull, and the people that scurry between them with briefcases and oversized smartphones are assholes. Gwyneth likes the west side better, especially Thaneway, with its ageing brownstones and population of starving artists. It's cheaper and dirtier, and therefore less threatening.
She wonders if it's late enough for her to bother Shane's friend yet. It's six-ish now; by the time she finds the place, it will probably be seven. Today is Sunday, which means that probably isn't acceptable, but she's had enough of the park. Gwyneth wants to be indoors, and now that she's down to four dollars in her bank account and ten in her wallet, buying a coffee doesn't seem like a particularly good idea.
"We're going," she tells the venipede, although she isn't sure why she bothers, and gets up. It crawls down the leg of the bench and takes up its usual position by her feet, ready to move. Gwyneth is still not entirely at ease with the way it hangs around just behind her, always just a few inches away from getting tangled in her legs. She imagines stumbling and crushing it with her feet, grey meat and strange fluids spread across the sidewalk, and feels ill. The creature must be sensible enough not to get too close. She is sure of that. And it's probably not as fragile as it looks. But she thinks about it anyway.
A few yards down the street, she stops and picks the venipede up.
"Sit on my bag or something," she tells it, shoving it up on her shoulder. "Just stay out of the way, okay?"
It opens its jaws and hisses spitefully. This close, she can smell it, a faint rotting scent like decomposing garbage.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," says Gwyneth, turning away from it. "Whatever."
Castelia's dolphin-brain is flipping. As she walks, the streets begin to thicken; a new shift of cab drivers take to the road, a wave of tired-looking people emerge from their apartments. Gwyneth looks at their faces, grey in the early morning light, and feels a certain sympathy. These are the people who have to come in early to open up and get the store ready. That's her job, most days, or it was before she started this ridiculous journey. For a moment, she considers what she will do afterwards, but it isn't a thought she can sustain. Her future ends in Humilau, Gwyneth tells herself. There is nothing else. Not yet.
She keeps walking. Her hand hurts, and at some point, she tells herself, she's going to have to look under the bandages, maybe get the dressings changed, but other than that she feels okay. She could do with something to eat, but it's not urgent; she could use some coffee, but again, not urgent. She's okay. The buildings get taller and taller, and then they start getting shorter. The cars roar and blare their horns. The streets fill up, little by little, and the sun comes up properly, rose-coloured light scattering itself across the windows, and through the barely-contained chaos of the city rousing itself Gwyneth keeps on walking. She's okay.
She passes a café with all the chairs up on the tables, a man in an apron busily washing its windows and whistling loudly; a seafront bar, cold and unwelcoming in the dawn light; a brace of cyclists, whizzing down the side of the road and raising a symphony of angry car horns. On the corner of Gym Street, she sees two women her own age or younger still in last night's going-out dresses, heels in their hands, weaving back and forth across the pavement on their way home. Gwyneth thinks about dancing, about staying up all night, about drinking too much and laughing and delighting in the last of the summer nights. Autumn is nearly here. The equinox is just around the corner.
The venipede rattles on her shoulder, breaking into her thoughts. Gwyneth tells it to shut up, but she's glad of the distraction. All the equinox can do is remind her of Nika. She doesn't need any more of that.
Thaneway comes at last, the mishmash of glass and stone giving way entirely to rows of brownstones, and Gwyneth stares, dismayed. Since when has this place looked so … nice? The railings have all been repainted, the houses done up. Everything is clean and wholesome. She remembers graffiti here that covered whole buildings, a monument to the street artists and their work. Now she only sees whitewash.
She wanders further down the street, looking for the turning that will take her towards Maxine's place. Lancer Street's still here, despite everything; that makes her feel a little better. The refuge for homeless Henuun kids is still there, although one of the buildings at the end of the road has a skip outside and is clearly in the middle of being renovated. One of these days, thinks Gwyneth, she'll come back and find that Lancer Street's gone too.
Or maybe she'll never come back again. That would suit her just fine, as well. It is not lost on her that Martin used to live around here, before he was shot.
The venipede shuffles off her shoulder onto her backpack, clicking irritably to itself.
"Yeah," says Gwyneth, staring down the street, trying not to see Martin's ghost. "I feel you, dude."
It's divided now, is Thaneway. Gwyneth detects an unmarked border slicing the district in half: money on the east side, dirt on the west. It figures. The city centre is ludicrously expensive, and so is most of the northeast of the city. People must be looking west now. She guesses Brickhead and Salloy are probably moving up-market too.
Not her place to get upset about it, she tells herself, although she is upset, in a distant kind of way. She's only a tourist, after all. And no one likes a tourist.
The thought lingers as she at last turns onto Salmond Street, a road lined with what were clearly once tenement blocks and are now dangerously fashionable apartments. Gwyneth can see the ad copy in her head: Mere minutes from the heart of the old bohemian quarter, these two-bedroom apartments are packed with original features …
She paces down the road, searching for number thirty-one. What kind of person is this Maxine? Gwyneth finds it hard to picture someone who belongs both here and in Shane's circle of acquaintances. She imagines hostility, and then tries to un-imagine it, as somehow disloyal to Shane. You'd like her, he said. And she lives here, in the husk of old Thaneway.
She doesn't do a very good job of un-imagining it.
Number thirty-one is like all the others, tall and dark, façade broken up by window-boxes with a last few summer flowers still clinging to life inside them. When she stops, the venipede crawls off her shoulder and begins to make its way down her arm towards the ground, digging its claws in deep to maintain its grip, and Gwyneth swears at the sudden pain, peels it off herself in a hurry.
"Ow, what the hell?" she snaps, looking at the holes in her jacket. "Just ask, asshole." She puts it down on the sidewalk, less gently than she might have done, and it clicks its jaws at her angrily. "Yeah, whatever," she replies. "You're the one who wanted to follow me. You got nobody to blame but yourself."
She shoves her way into the building, leaving the door swinging wildly behind her without caring how the venipede will follow, and marches over to the elevator, stabbing the button for the third floor hard enough to make her finger hurt. She shrugs off her backpack, struggles out of her jacket and inspects her arm. Great: the venipede's claws have broken the skin. It's always best to walk into a stranger's apartment visibly bleeding. That sort of thing never fails to leave a fantastic first impression.
Gwyneth swears again, and then once more, with feeling. She wipes off her arm on her fingers and then dries them as best she can on the leg of her jeans. There actually isn't so much blood, she realises. The cuts are quite shallow.
The elevator doors open with a ding. Gwyneth drags in her backpack and jacket and, after a moment's hesitation, presses the hold door button for the venipede to follow her. It takes up a position at her feet and waits silently while she pulls on her jacket again, wincing and hoping she doesn't bleed into the lining.
"Hope you're happy, dude," she says bitterly. If the venipede feels one way or another about this, it does not show it.
Ding. Second floor. Gwyneth walks out and stands in front of Apt. 4, composing herself. Okay: Maxine. Shane's friend. You'll like her, apparently. She adjusts her bandages, tweaks her hair into a position, and knocks.
Footsteps, and it opens, and Gwyneth is speaking:
"Hi! I'm Gwyneth – Shane's friend? He said that you …"
She tails off midsentence. She sees Maxine, and sees Maxine seeing her, and knows that right now they are both thinking the exact same thing.
"Let me guess," says Maxine, in a quick, dry voice. "He said 'You'd like her', didn't he?"
Gwyneth's face cracks into an unexpected grin.
"Yeah," she admits, rubbing the back of her neck. "God, Shane."
Maxine sighs.
"The guy means well, but he's cis. You know?"
Oh, she knows. Christ. You'd like her. Seriously, Shane? Couldn't bring yourself to say the damn word?
"Anyway." Maxine steps aside and waves a hand. "Come on in, Gwyneth."
It's a very nice apartment. Gwyneth is extremely aware of that. It is the kind of place in which pale wood and clean lines feature prominently. She feels like an oily thumbprint just standing here.
"Nice place," she begins, but Maxine isn't listening: a dark red blur has just shot between her legs and taken refuge under the coffee table.
"What the―?"
"It's okay!" Gwyneth cries, holding out a hand. "It's – it's with me. Sorry, I should've said."
Maxine stares at the venipede. It gives as good as it gets, even with only one eye.
"Yeah, Shane forgot to mention that," she says.
"That's 'cause I didn't have it last time we spoke," explains Gwyneth awkwardly. "It, uh … I've had kind of a weird trip."
Maxine gives her a long, appraising look, and now she sees more than just the transness; she sees the dirt and the fatigue, and the bandages too. She herself is white, with immaculate lipstick and eyeliner. Gwyneth wonders who is up and about at half seven on a Sunday morning with perfect make-up, and comes to a natural conclusion: a trans woman nervously expecting a stranger to arrive.
"Yeah, I can buy that," she says, glancing back at the venipede. "Is that thing safe?"
Gwyneth tries very hard not to look at her left hand or right arm.
"Sure," she answers. "Totally."
Maxine raises her eyebrows and closes the door.
"Well, okay then," she says. "I was about to make breakfast. You want some?"
Something in Gwyneth's chest seems to rise.
"Yes," she hears herself saying. "Yeah, I'd love that, thanks."
You'd like her. Gwyneth hates being told she'll like people, especially if that's code for 'she's trans like you', but she has to admit that Maxine is not so bad. She's fed her and given her coffee, and she seems to be trying not to be suspicious. Gwyneth can tell that it isn't easy; Maxine almost never looks away from her, always has one eye on the poor Henuun woman tracking dirt into her apartment. It grates. But she's trying, and that counts. It's not ideal, but it's better than the woman in the red leather jacket, and that makes it better than what Gwyneth normally gets.
"I still can't believe that guy," says Maxine, stirring sugar into her coffee. "'You'd like her.'" She smiles mirthlessly. "What is with them?"
"If I knew, I'd tell you," replies Gwyneth. "He wasn't wrong, though. You're okay."
"I'm thrilled you approve," says Maxine, and Gwyneth can't tell if she's being serious or not. "It's not all about the altruism, honestly. I owed Shane a favour, and this is me paying it." She takes a sip of coffee. "Have to say, though, it makes it easier. You being you."
"I can imagine."
She doesn't even need to, not really. Gwyneth is a jerk and she knows it, but even she feels the strength of this obligation. She hates most people, trans women included; still, if Shane called her up saying Maxine needed a place to crash, she would volunteer her couch. It's hard to say why, exactly. Some things, she thinks, you just have to do.
"So," says Maxine, after a short pause. "How'd you end up with the venipede?"
Gwyneth looks at it, squatting in the corner by the fridge. It's calmed down now, and is industriously chewing its way down the length of a raw sausage. She has no idea if this is the right thing to feed it, but given that it's lived as long as it has just eating trash, she doubts it can do it much harm.
"I caught it in Virbank," she says. "By accident."
Maxine raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow.
"And how, pray tell, do you catch something by accident?"
That irritates her, the pray tell, but Gwyneth suppresses it. She's supposed to be being grateful.
"Panic, mostly," she says, instead of telling Maxine she's being pretentious, and explains how she got where she is now: the wedding, the bus, the poison, the ferry. Maxine listens with apparent interest, and Gwyneth does her best not to suspect her of feigning it out of politeness.
"Humilau's a long way," she says, when Gwyneth is done. She says it in the kind of way that makes you think she's getting at something.
"Yeah, it is," replies Gwyneth.
There is another short pause.
"Okay," says Maxine. "Indulge me a sec. You're going all the way to Humilau to see your ex marry your brother?"
"Yeah." Gwyneth has not mentioned who her brother is. She owes Maxine enough to tell her the story, but not enough to put herself through that.
Maxine laughs, shakes her head.
"God," she says. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh, I just … wow. So you're what, planning on objecting? Dramatic eleventh-hour attempt at winning her back?"
Gwyneth grits her teeth. She regrets saying anything now.
"I'm planning on attending," she answers. "She's my friend and he's my brother. That's enough, right?"
She wishes she hadn't added that. Right? It makes her sound like she isn't sure. And it's true, she isn't sure, but she doesn't want Maxine to know that.
"Okay, okay." Maxine looks contrite. "I'm sorry, I – sorry. It just sounds―"
"I know how it sounds," Gwyneth cuts in. "I've got this far. I know how it sounds."
"Right. I'm sorry."
Somewhere deep inside herself, Gwyneth steps back and opens her hands, lets the anger go. Breathe. She's not being serious. She didn't know that you were.
"It's okay," she says, after a second. "I … Nika and me, we … I don't know why I'm going. I just am."
Maxine nods slowly.
"Yes," she says. "I think I see that now."
Something changes. Gwyneth can almost taste it in the air, like the smoke left after fireworks. She tenses, but if she's expecting confrontation it doesn't come; Maxine simply finishes her coffee and stands up.
"Okay, you didn't come here for me to grill you," she says, so lightly that Gwyneth knows that it has to be deliberate. "Saadiyyah will be here about half ten, eleven, and I have some work to do. So, uh, you know. Make yourself at home. Have a shower, if you like; it'll be a couple days till you get to Driftveil and I'm pretty sure there isn't much in the way of plumbing down in the Passage."
Gwyneth relaxes, lets out the breath she has been holding.
"Thanks," she says. "And hey, I'm … sorry. I really appreciate this."
Maxine smiles. It's beautiful in a way that makes Gwyneth's chest tighten with frustration.
"Not a problem," she says. "Like I said. I owe Shane anyway." She refills her mug and hangs there for a moment, awkward; there's that tension again, the instinct to not leave Gwyneth alone here. It passes, and she goes out into the next room in search of her laptop.
Gwyneth drains her cup and sits there for a minute, thinking. A second later, the venipede reaches the end of its sausage and spits the tip out halfway across the room, hissing violently.
She doesn't react. She isn't sure what she would say.
There is a vulnerability in being naked in a stranger's house, and Gwyneth feels it keenly, but her desire to get clean is stronger than her nerves, and anyway she has to admit that Maxine's shower is much nicer than her own: the water is hot, plentiful and comes out with the proper force, slicking her fading hair deliciously against her scalp. (Black roots very prominent now, she notes.) The experience is only slightly marred by the fact that she has to wrap her left hand in plastic and hold it out of the way to keep the bandages dry, and that the water stings like hell as it passes over the puncture wounds on her right arm.
Still, she feels better for the experience. After she's done, she adjusts her face again and goes to buy supplies for the next couple of days – a loaf of bread, some apples, things that are both cheap and able to stand being squashed in her bag. She leaves the grocery store with nothing left but pocket change, and chooses not to think about what she will do when she gets to Driftveil.
The venipede comes with her – even Gwyneth cannot in good conscience inflict its company on Maxine while she's out – and, though initially uneasy under the fluorescent lights, is surprisingly well behaved. Gwyneth wonders if perhaps it was only acting out because it was hungry, but then it starts clicking and rattling at passers-by and she decides that it's probably just a jerk. It's okay. She can understand that.
Back at the apartment, Maxine has set up at her kitchen table, dividing her attention fairly equally between her laptop and a sheaf of red-annotated documents. Gwyneth hasn't asked what it is she does, and doesn't care enough to want to disturb her; instead, she installs herself on the couch, charges her phone, and sees what's on TV. IBN is playing reruns of the Indigo League Champion challenge from the other day, which she skips through without paying attention; the news has a feature about some weird weather phenomenon going on over Sinnoh. Gwyneth watches a few seconds of an abyssal darkness seeping through the sky from above a mountaintop, then changes the channel. Probably just some ghost-types acting up or something.
Time passes. The venipede chews a cushion, until Gwyneth swears and drags it away. She looks up guiltily, sees Maxine absorbed in her work, hurriedly arranges the gnawed cushion so it's hidden behind another.
"I swear to God I'll throw you out of the window," she hisses, and whether the venipede understands the words or simply the threatening tone it subsides, after a little indignant rattling, and settles for exploring the space under the coffee table instead.
Daytime TV. Nothing good, even on a Sunday. It's okay. Gwyneth is used to this. She doesn't really do things, any more; you need money to do things, and energy, and motivation, and in the spaces in between the times that she is working she finds she has the first thing rarely and the other two never. She can recite the Sunday morning TV schedule for six channels without missing a beat. It's the sort of skill, she thinks, that you don't boast about.
Another hour rolls by, and there's a knock at the door. Maxine goes to answer and Gwyneth mutes the TV, looks over her shoulder with a mixture of nerves and resentment. This will be her niece, she assumes. The trainer. Who is going to help her out.
"Heya, Max," says a young, fresh voice. "How's it going?"
"Hi," replies Maxine. "It's all right. Can you put Steggers in his ball, please? I'm, uh, less than certain that these floorboards were meant to take that kind of weight."
"Oh! Yeah, right, of course." Gwyneth cranes her neck but can't see; all she gets is a flash of light and the creak of tense wood relaxing back into place. Rock-type, she's guessing. Enduring, hard-hitting, implacable. Not that it's any of her business.
"Come on in," says Maxine, stepping away, and Gwyneth can see the kid now: young, seventeen at a guess, blue jeans embroidered with flowers, pale hijab, killer cheekbones. Not even a little bit nervous, or if she is, she's hiding it well. Every inch a trainer, thinks Gwyneth, and forces herself to unclench her jaw. "So, this is, uh, this is Gwyneth."
"Hi." Saadiyyah raises a hand briefly. "Nice to meet you."
"Likewise," says Gwyneth.
"And yeah, this … this is Saadiyyah." Maxine clasps and unclasps her hands. "Uh, so. Coffee? You're both pretty early, you've got time."
"Sure," says Saadiyyah. "That'd be great, thanks."
"Okay." Maxine looks from Saadiyyah to Gwyneth and back again. "Okay," she repeats. "I'll go do that. You two … get to know each other, I guess."
She goes back into the kitchen and applies herself to the coffeemaker. Saadiyyah takes a seat on the other sofa, eyes on Gwyneth. What's she seeing? Difficult to say, exactly. Gwyneth doesn't know what's going on in the heads of seventeen-year-old trainers. Most kids stick it out till their first winter; a few go back out in the spring; only a very few stay on beyond that. A seventeen-year-old trainer has been around long enough that you don't need to be the woman with the ultra ball. The only problem is that if she isn't that, Gwyneth is not particularly pleasant company.
Well. Gwyneth knows she can see what she is, anyway, but with Maxine for an aunt that's probably not an issue. Anyway, she thinks, she probably ought to say something.
"So you're a trainer," she says. She means it as a question, but gets a little stuck with the inflection.
"Yes," says Saadiyyah. "Rock-types, mostly."
(Nailed it.)
"Looking to become a Gym Leader, or …?"
"No," she admits. "I just kinda like the challenge."
Gwyneth feels the force of Harmonia's electric eye on her. The challenge. Is this a game, then? Is that what this is?
"That all?" she asks.
"Oh, I mean, I really like the rock-type," answers Saadiyyah, looking a little flustered. "I think it's really interesting, the kind of tactics you can build around its endurance and all, but like, it's got a lot of weaknesses. You know? And it's satisfying for me and my partners to overcome that."
There it is, in her voice. The love. Harmonia's sacred bond, right there. Fine, then. With an effort, Gwyneth shoves Harmonia's ghost off her back, and smiles.
"I can tell," she says, and Saadiyyah looks pleased.
"Were you a trainer?" she asks, and Gwyneth tries to hide it but it's too late, Saadiyyah can see it on her face, and now the poor kid doesn't know what to say. "Oh. Um, sorry―"
"It's okay," says Gwyneth, even though it isn't, not really. Stupid of her. Over eight years now and she's still not over it. Grow up, Gwyneth. "I was, yeah. Didn't end well. I don't know if you remember, you would've been pretty young at the time, but you know about Plasma, right?"
"Plasma?" Saadiyyah frowns. Gwyneth marvels: it doesn't seem possible that there are kids running around Unova now who've hardly even heard of them. "Um … hang on, were they like a pokémon trafficking racket? Like Team Rocket?"
"Not … exactly. They stole a lot of pokémon, back when I was on my trainer journey. Ended things pretty quick."
It's a lie, mostly, but it's easier than the truth. No one likes to hear the real story. They just look at her with that uncomprehending pity, and then Gwyneth has to stop herself from yelling at them. And Saadiyyah's just a kid, even if she is two years into a trainer journey: she won't understand, and she doesn't deserve to be shouted at. So. The lie, and Saadiyyah's look of shock and pain.
Better than pity, thinks Gwyneth. Better than condescension.
"Oh," she says. "God. I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Gwyneth clears her throat. "Anyway, that was years and years ago. I work at a Pokémon Centre now."
"Oh, hey, where? I might've seen you."
"Aspertia."
"Ah, never been there. I guess I might now that they've opened a new Gym."
Gwyneth imagines Saadiyyah and her rock-types facing off against Cheren. Now that will be a tough battle, even for him. Good.
"Well, maybe I'll see you there sometime," she lies, and is saved from having to make further conversation by Maxine coming in with the coffee. The clink of cups being put down on the table startles the venipede, which shoots out from underneath it and climbs Gwyneth's leg.
"Huh?" Saadiyah jumps half out of her seat before Gwyneth leans forward, raising calming hands.
"It's okay," she says. "Sorry. Should've mentioned it was under there." She plucks the venipede off her leg and sets it down in her lap. Thankfully, it only seems to have torn denim this time and not skin. "Yeah. You're taking two of us to Driftveil."
"Oh." Saadiyyah looks confused. "I thought you said you weren't a trainer?"
"I'm not."
"She caught it by accident," says Maxine, sitting down at the extreme opposite end of the sofa, eyeing the venipede distrustfully. "Right?"
"That's right." Gwyneth dislikes it when people answer for her, but she swallows her pride and does not comment on it. Not like she has anything left to be proud of, really. "I tried to release it, but it found its way back again."
"That's so cool," says Saadiyyah, staring. It isn't how Gwyneth would describe it, but she knows Saadiyyah is a trainer, and a kid, too. The way she sees the world, a partner pokémon is always and forever a good thing. She has no idea how much of a problem an unwanted pokémon can be. "What's her name?"
Gwyneth pauses, suddenly ashamed. There was a time when she was like that, she remembers. A time when she cared. Probably some of that went with Blossom and Corbin, but even after that …
She remembers running into Bianca at the Nimbasa Pokémon Centre that one time, how their munna exchanged greetings in clouds of psychically charged smoke. And Bianca said hi to Gwyneth, and then again to Blossom and Corbin, and Gwyneth felt the same shame as she does now, the awful realisation that the other person is a much better human being than you are.
Maybe she should have been the woman with the ultra ball after all.
"It doesn't have one," she answers, crushing the thought down into the back of her head. "I'm not planning on keeping it."
"Oh," says Saadiyyah uncertainly. "Is there a particular reason for that, or …?"
Gwyneth is tempted to thrust her bandaged hand in her face, say this, say it put me in the goddamn hospital, but she controls herself. She's just a kid. She believes in the goodness of pokémon.
"Like I said, I'm not a trainer any more," she tells her. "This thing joined up with me 'cause it wants to get stronger, but that's not going to happen." She shrugs. It hurts. "Not doing either of us any favours, you feel me?"
"Right," replies Saadiyyah, and although Gwyneth suspects that she does not, in fact, feel her, she lets it lie. "Okay, then. I guess I forget sometimes that not everyone's a trainer."
"You can say that again," says Maxine. "Sometimes I have no idea what you're talking about, all your shrinking defences and rhinoceros manoeuvres. I hope you remember something from your trainer journey, Gwyneth, because otherwise it's going to be a long hike for the both of you."
She means it as a joke, but Gwyneth does remember, enough to correct her anyway: the Strunkenwhite Defence and the Reinhardt Manoeuvre, two classic battling tricks that were old even in Gwyneth's day. She could tell Maxine all about both of them, in the kind of detail that only someone who as a child obsessively read and reread all the trainer literature she could find can manage.
She does not do this. Instead, she laughs.
"Well, it's been a while, I'm kinda rusty, but you know. I'll see what I can do."
"And it's the Strunkenwhite Defence," adds Saadiyyah, looking more at ease now, and Maxine laughs too, whatever-ing and raising her coffee cup to her lips, and yes, thinks Gwyneth, she's right: it is going to be a long hike. A long damn hike indeed.
When it's time to leave, Saadiyyah gets a hug and a kiss from Maxine. Gwyneth remembers what that feels like, the warmth of human contact and familial affection, remembers the day when her mom kissed her goodbye nine years ago, and finds she cannot watch. She looks away, at the square of sky visible through the window, the suggestions of distant birds winging their way across it.
Some people get chosen and some do not, she reminds herself. It's better this way.
Access to the Relic Passage is apparently via the sewers. Part of the storm drain system, Saadiyyah assures her, so it doesn't smell too bad, but Gwyneth supposes it doesn't matter. She has to get to Humilau. She already walked through poison; whatever she has to walk through in the sewer can't be worse.
Saadiyyah tells her all about the passage as they cross the city, heading to wherever it is that will let them access the drains. They found it during the excavations the other year in the wasteland around Route 4, back when they were going to build a housing development out there. It served as an escape route out of the citadel in Hilaan, with exits on the coast at Driftveil and Castelia, the same places that archaeologists found evidence of the ancient Henuun docks.
Gwyneth listens and feels a sudden affection for her. She didn't call it the Relic Castle. Okay, she didn't get the name quite right, but she made an effort, and that's more than most people do.
"It's called Hil'Zorah," says Gwyneth, as they stop on Westway and wait for the lights to change. "The, uh, the citadel, I mean. The city's Hilaan, the fortress is Hil'Zorah." She pauses. "Not that I'm trying to correct you or anything, I just … I'm just saying."
Saadiyyah smiles. She gets it. How could she not? She spends her life weathering the unfriendly looks, telling people how to spell her name. She knows enough to know that Relic is not a word Gwyneth likes to hear applied to herself.
"Okay," she says. "Thanks, I didn't know that."
"Yeah, not many people seem to." Gwyneth hesitates, wondering if that was too bitter, and then decides it's probably okay. "They still call it the Relic Castle."
People are encouraged to say indigenes these days, but it's still You People, still the Relics. Everyone still calls the ruins of Hil'Zorah the Relic Castle, and all those old artifacts in the museums the Relic Crown, Relic Band, Relic this and Relic that. As if the only thing that matters about the Henuun is that there's somehow still a few left over.
"Yeah," says Saadiyyah uncomfortably. "It's pretty bad."
Red light: WALK. The two of them cross the street with a group of other pedestrians, car engines rumbling either side with barely-suppressed impatience. They're off again the second the pedestrians hit the sidewalk, and Gwyneth breathes in the stink of diesel. On her backpack, the venipede rattles aggressively at the departing cars, and for once Gwyneth agrees with it. Goddamn Castelia. Now she remembers why they only really came back here the once. The whole city has that general atmosphere of jerkishness.
"Anyway," says Gwyneth. "You were telling me about the … the passage."
"There's not that much else to tell," replies Saadiyyah. "They opened it up for trainers a year or so ago, and that's about it."
"Full of wild pokémon?"
"Yeah. I don't think it actually has much archaeological value. I mean, there are no like statues or carvings or anything. Not that it – you know what I mean."
Gwyneth nods, trying to set her at her ease.
"Sure," she says. "I know what you mean. Sometimes an escape tunnel's just an escape tunnel, right?"
"Right."
They reach the corner where earlier that morning Gwyneth saw the two drunk girls making their way home. Home by now, she thinks, and briefly imagines a crappy apartment on Conning Street, waking up on a Sunday afternoon with a hangover and a lover, sun streaming in through the curtains you were too wasted to draw last night.
"Where exactly are we going?" she asks, to distract herself.
"It's by the docks," replies Saadiyyah. "There's like an office you have to check in with? And there's a path down through the sewers to the point where they hit the tunnel."
"Right."
Now they're walking along the very edge of the city, where it slopes in lines of concrete and steel down into the ocean. Docks, ships, cranes, stevedore throh whose cracked red skin glows like hot rock in the sun. Noisy as hell, too. Gwyneth is almost thankful she ended up getting the late ferry. At least it's quieter at night.
"D'you live here in Castelia?" she asks.
"Yeah, technically," replies Saadiyyah. "Up in Halleybrook. Not that I've been home much the last couple years." She smiles self-consciously with her supposed grown-up-ness, and Gwyneth's chest aches with a dull burn that is more than the residue of the venipede's poison. Bumming around Unova with some pokémon and no fear of the future, imagining yourself a sophisticated traveller. People say the journey's better in Kanto, that they let kids go as young as ten and they get even more out of it, but Gwyneth doesn't believe it. Nothing can ever even come close to Unova in the summer.
She doesn't say any of this. She would sound like another adult trying too hard. This would not be an inaccurate impression, but it is not the one she wants to give.
"Guess you're pretty busy," she says instead, and leaves it at that.
The city rolls by on one side, the ships on the other: liner, freighter, yacht, even an old-fashioned galleon at one point, the wood and canvas standing out in a pop of warmth from the cold metal all around. Saadiyyah points it out as they pass, isn't that like a pirate ship?, and Gwyneth agrees that yes, it is. She wishes she had more to say than that, something like yeah, there are these historical ship re-enactment societies, but she's got nothing. She never was the kind of person who knew interesting things about the world. She was just the person to whom that kind of person dispenses their trivia.
But the thought fades with the ship out of view, and the venipede patrols back and forth on her pack, occasionally clicking loudly in her ear for no reason she can see other than to annoy her, and Castelia keeps on getting louder, even on a Sunday, as if the cars and the docks are competing for who can make the most noise; and they walk on, silent now and graceless, and eventually Saadiyyah says that it's just up ahead on the right.
It's not the most impressive building, just a little brick hut squatting under a corrugated-iron roof by the entrance to one of the jetties. Gwyneth isn't even entirely convinced that it's actually open, but Saadiyyah walks straight in regardless and she follows into an underlit room that seems, if anything, smaller than it appeared from outside. Uninspiring, but instantly familiar: walls papered in ageing flyers for local tourmanents, lost pokémon posters dating all the way back to the Plasma days, adverts for imported poffins and poké puffs. Chipped Formica counter with a bored twenty-something chewing gum behind it. Yes, this is Unovan pokémon training, just like Gwyneth remembers. The smell of cheap adventure pervades the room as if ground into the woodwork.
"Hi," says Saadiyyah. "Two for the Relic Passage, please?"
She glances apologetically at Gwyneth as she says it. Gwyneth nods her acknowledgement and hopes her meaning is clear. Saadiyyah didn't pick the name; it's not her fault she has to say it here.
"Okay," says the guy behind the counter. "Trainer cards?"
Saadiyyah hands over hers, and the guy inspects the photo for a moment before running a handheld scanner over it. Fancier tech than back in her day, thinks Gwyneth. It used to be that the card was just a sheet of laminated plastic. In some indefinable way that she tells herself has to do with her dislike of state surveillance, she thinks this was better.
"Right. Next?" asks the guy, and Gwyneth half-laughs, shakes her head.
"Ah, no, dude, I'm not a trainer. I'm just trying to get to Driftveil."
"I'm escorting her," says Saadiyyah, to clarify, and the guy nods, clearly uninterested.
"Okay, whatever. You got to sign a waiver, then, so you don't sue if you get squished by a boldore."
"If only," mutters Gwyneth. And then, louder: "You got a pen?"
"Sure, right here."
Gwyneth scrawls her name in the usual series of spiky lines along the bottom and hands it back.
"There," she says. "That all?"
"Just gotta go through the regulations," replies the guy. "No fires, no pokémon large enough to block the way, no graffiti, no removal of archaeological material, no entry to the Relic Castle, no acidic or other pokémon moves liable to cause damage to the passage, no digging, no moving the boulders, no battles in the main passageways. There are emergency phones at either end and in the designated campsites. If you do meet someone and want to battle there are various open caves along the route clearly signposted as permitted battle locations." He pauses to breathe. He has not mentioned, perhaps has not even noticed, the venipede. "Okay, have a nice day, and enjoy your trip!"
"Thanks," says Saadiyyah brightly. Gwyneth nods, less enthusiastically, and the guy presses a button under the counter that unlocks a door to his right with a mechanical click.
"See you," says the guy, and Gwyneth follows Saadiyyah through the doorway onto a narrow concrete staircase that turns at a sharp angle and plunges down into the earth. It's steep, very steep, and with the residual stiffness from the poison Gwyneth has some difficulty getting down it. She wonders if there's a lift. There was a girl she met back on her trainer journey, Delarivier (she always remembered the name, because who the hell is called Delarivier?), who was going round Unova in her wheelchair, and Gwyneth has never forgotten the precision of her disdain for the man who told her that Lostlorn Forest wasn't wheelchair accessible. I got through Twist Mountain, she said, witheringly condescending. I think I'll manage, buddy.
"You okay?" asks Saadiyyah, from the bottom of the stairs, and Gwyneth realises she's been grimacing. She lets go of the handrail and straightens up, sheepish.
"I just got out of the hospital yesterday," she says. "Kinda sore still."
"Oh. Sorry."
"Don't be. You didn't put me there." She limps down the stairs to join Saadiyyah. "It was this asshole," she says, pointing at the venipede on her shoulder. "Hit me with the nastiest poison sting I've ever seen. Like, if it was a battle, it would've been disqualified for excessive force."
Saadiyyah's eyes widen.
"And you're … you're okay with it sitting on your shoulder?"
"If it's gonna hang around with me, I want it where I can see it," says Gwyneth pragmatically. "Anyway. Which way from here?"
She's standing on concrete, and under concrete, too, and between even more of it. An inadequate fluorescent light illuminates a rusting iron railing separating her and Saadiyyah from a deep channel with a thin trickle of brown water running along the bottom and through a grate further up the tunnel. It is as dull as Gwyneth had expected a sewer to be, if less foul-smelling.
"We follow the white line," says Saadiyyah, pointing to a mark painted along the wall. "I don't think we stay in the sewers very long, it's just that this was like easier than digging a new shaft to get down into the passage itself."
"Okay," says Gwyneth. "Lead the way."
She does, and Gwyneth follows along the concrete shelf, listening to the water flow in the channel below. The city noise is muted down here, a low buzz that emanates from the ceiling like an almost-too-loud party on the floor above your apartment. If Gwyneth listens to the sound of the water running, she can half forget it's there at all. She guesses some people find it eerie, but for her this place is surprisingly peaceful, like a forest in autumn when everyone has gone home to escape the growing chill in the air. The cool damp of the concrete. The distant gurgle of water flowing. Gwyneth remembers Wellspring Cave again, how after Nika came back for her it changed from a labyrinth into a cathedral, cold and quiet and restful. She remembers sitting by the water on a ledge and talking to her, really talking to her for the first time while the woobat whispered and cooed overhead.
"It's okay," says Nika, in her memory. "It's not really what I thought it would be, either. But it's a lot better than staying home. Right?"
And Gwyneth finds she cannot disagree; in fact, at fifteen, this seems to her like a deep and penetrating insight, and she finds herself telling Nika that she's really wanted this for years, that yes, it's the journey and the pokémon, of course, she loves that, but really it was the going away that appealed to her, the chance to meet people who know nothing about her and to whom she will always and only be Gwyneth. She barely knows Nika, and she has no idea why she's saying it, but still she tells her about running away from Blake (though she doesn't say his name; she will never say it aloud ever again, and Nika will never ask), and how Hilbert has become something huge and weird and alien, and how she wants just to have a chance to be herself, just herself, without a history or a brother hanging round her neck.
Nika listens to it all and the smile of understanding on her face gleams in the dark like a candle flame. Because she knows all about running away, of course. She's been Nika to everyone she met since leaving Humilau but at home she's still Veronika, the model student and obedient daughter, even to the point of agreeing with her parents to wait an extra year before going on her journey because (in their words) they are concerned for her safety, and because (in hers) they are concerned she will pick up bad influences. And now she's free of them, of sanctimonious conservatism, of the accusatory eyes of painted saints on the walls, free of papal disapproval and the weight of a crucifix, and she is determined to pick up as many bad influences as she possibly can.
She doesn't say all of it just then: there will be weeks, months, even years for her and Gwyneth to finish telling each other the stories of themselves. She tells her that her name is Veronika, though – the first person she's told since Humilau, Gwyneth will learn in time, and feel the special pleasure that comes with being entrusted with a secret. She tells her that she was looking for an escape from home. She tells her that she only asked about Hilbert to make conversation, because she wanted to get to know Gwyneth herself and couldn't find a better way to do it.
This is the turning point. Gwyneth is doubly ashamed of herself now – for getting upset, still, but also for misjudging Nika. She apologises, asks Nika if she will forgive her, and Nika, sensing in the way that empathetic people do that though this seems ridiculous it is in fact deadly serious, tells her gravely that she does.
They catch up with Tomás and Ashley later on, on their way out of the cave, and as they emerge blinking into the rose-coloured shafts of sunset light emerging through the branches of the trees, Gwyneth feels her heart soar. Unova! It's all so beautiful, and it's all right there, all this gorgeous, magical country laid out for her to roam through. How could she have felt so bad earlier, when this was right here? She has friends, and a minccino who rides around on top of a munna like a silky little knight on a flying horse, and most of all she has the land: the old stomping grounds of her ancestors going back five thousand years and more, now all hers for the wandering.
Around the campfire that night she's herself again, talking and laughing as if the last few days had never happened; and her cheerfulness is such that it intrudes into Tomás and Ashley's bubble and draws them out of it again, and they sit all four together by the fire, their pokémon caught up in the mood, rolling in the grass and flicking weak play-versions of battle moves at each other for fun. As if this was the cue they had been waiting for, the fireflies come out again that night, thickening the air with transient constellations, and long after Ashley has retired to her tent and Tomás wandered off with Rafa for a late-night walk Gwyneth and Nika lean back against the slope of the hill, watching Corbin floating among the glowing insects and the occasional leather whisper of a bat.
Summer is coming, says Nika.
Yeah, says Gwyneth. It is.
When they reach Nacrene a few days later, the group splits up a little. Ashley's heard a rumour that there are wild yanma in Pinwheel Forest, and Tomás wants to go there with her – to prove her wrong, he says, because there aren't any yanma there. It's all very plausible, and neither Gwyneth nor Nika feel the need to make things awkward by telling him that it's also an obvious lie. They also think it would probably be best if that was a trip the two of them made alone, so Nika excuses herself, saying she wants to challenge the Gym, and Gwyneth says she'll come with her too. She doesn't know if she actually wants to challenge the Gym at all – she feels vaguely queasy about the thought of a creature as small and soft and fragile as Blossom going head to head with a seasoned herdier – but she figures she can make a decision once she gets there.
On the way, they're stopped by a man in his thirties who passes on an elixir and some advice about the Gym Leader's strategy: she has a small pool of partner pokémon she trains, he tells them, and the bonds between them are strong, so that when one is defeated the other one jumps in with vengeful enthusiasm. The trick, then, is to dodge or block that first attack from the second pokémon, to let it waste its energy, and then take it on once its desire for revenge has dimmed.
Nika thanks him and turns to Gwyneth: isn't that amazing? She'd never even thought of a strategy like that. And Gwyneth agrees it's pretty amazing, yeah, but privately she's worried that it might also be manipulative and unethical. Does Lenora mean to do it, or does it just kind of happen? She feels that there is an important distinction to be made there. Her question is never answered, but a few years later when Lenora announces she is retiring to focus on her museum work, Gwyneth finds she is not sorry to see her go.
At the Gym, Gwyneth discovers that Nika is very, very good. She's not Hilbert, and maybe she isn't even Cheren, but she's much better than the boy who goes before them and whose challenge lasts for less than ten minutes. She's better than Lenora is expecting, too; she leads with a lillipup that Nika's pawniard, Britomartis, sends fleeing back to her in just two hits. Lenora stares, taken aback, then laughs and claps her hands while Gwyneth and the other kids watching cheer like crazy.
"This is going to be one of those matches, huh?" says Lenora, grinning, and sends in a watchog whose first attack Britomartis is not quite fast enough to dodge; she does not manage to recover, but she stays up and keeps throwing punches, and by the time she sinks to her iron knees the watchog is moving slowly, hissing in frustration at having taken so long to beat down a relatively untutored opponent. Nika is unfazed, and sends out her vullaby, Hekate; she's usually too slow to do much dodging, and she can't fly very well, but the watchog is so tired now that even she can flutter around and stay out of range of its attacks, striking back with gusts and feint attacks that wear it down until it's so exhausted Lenora recalls it out of compassion.
And that's it: Nika has three pokémon but only registered two for the competition, the other being her starter, a lillipup named Ajax that her parents bought her (because he was non-threatening, she says, with the full force of wounded teenage pride) and which, bred as a pet, does not actually like battling. He will eventually return to Humilau and become a permanent fixture at her parents' house; for now, however, he stays in his poké ball, and Nika steps forward with the biggest grin to accept her badge and TM.
That was good, Lenora tells her. She got two excellent hits in on the lillipup, which Lenora might have put down to fluke except for the way she handled the watchog, having Britomartis hang on to wear it down so that Hekate could finish it off. Is this her first Gym challenge? Her second, admits Nika, and even so, Lenora looks impressed. Well, now. She'll be waiting to hear about the rest of her victories from the other Leaders, then.
Nika glows, and on the sidelines Gwyneth feels like she might burst with pride that she knows her. How could she ever have thought badly of Nika? She's so cool, and not only that but so kind, and so good a trainer. And when she rejoins her, flushed with excitement, Gwyneth can hardly even find the words to tell her how amazing that all was. Instead she says they should celebrate, and so while they're waiting for Nika's pokémon to be healed at the Centre they eat ice cream in the park under an electric-blue sky, and decide to stick around Nacrene a while longer. Challenging Gyms is only one part of a trainer journey, after all. There's sights to see and people to meet, other trainers to battle and nature trails to walk. And summer is coming. Gwyneth can feel it approaching her like the heat from a wildfire.
Oh yes, summer is coming, and she's a pokémon trainer, and she has the first real friend she's had in years. She wishes she could hold onto this moment forever, the cold ice cream and warm sun and Nika's metallic smile and the twitch of Blossom's nose. But only for a second, because the next moment is better still, and the next, and the next.
Summer is coming, she says again, and Nika nods, understanding at once.
Yeah, she says. It really, really is.
That was when summer meant vacations, though, before Gwyneth ever had to worry about earning a living. Now, it doesn't mean a damn thing. Even so, summer's ending now, and some part of her still registers its retreat as a disappointment.
"This is it."
Gwyneth blinks. The gloom of the sewer seems more pronounced after the bright light of the memory. A little way ahead, Saadiyyah has stopped at a corner; when she catches up, Gwyneth can see around it, to where concrete gives way to raw stone. At the other end is a single arc light and a metal box that presumably houses the emergency phone, either side of a doorway framed with three huge, sand-smooth slabs of stone.
"I guess so," she says.
The two of them approach the doorway. This close, Gwyneth can see the writing on the lintel, rows of square, deeply-cut pictograms that remind her as always of her father's books, the ones that her mother still keeps on the shelf even though neither she nor her children can read them. Heniil is one of the oldest continually-spoken languages in the world, Gwyneth has heard. You can trace it from the modern Henuun right back to the people who built Hilaan, three thousand years ago.
"What does it say?" asks Saadiyyah, noticing her looking and making all the wrong assumptions.
"Oh." Gwyneth tears her eyes away, swallowing. The millstone is grinding at her gut again. "I, uh … I can't read it."
"Oh." Saadiyyah pauses. "Sorry."
"No, it's like – I mean, my dad was Henuun, but he died when I was a baby. So I never … yeah. Never learned."
Who are you, that do not know your history? Gwyneth has only a few halting words of Heniil, and she refuses to allow herself the heritage without the culture. Mostly she doesn't think about it, believes herself white; sometimes, in the dead of night, she is overcome with guilt at her betrayal and rushes frantically to Wikipedia, reading everything she can about her people and their history. She makes vows to learn the language and for a few days tests herself furiously over and over, trying desperately to form the alien sounds with Unovanized lips: zalaan, ìkbi lo, kêra'ti Gwyneth. And then it passes and she's too tired or there are more important things she needs to do and the sense of her unworthiness fades as the guilt returns to background levels.
Gwyneth wonders if Saadiyyah has this problem, too. She hopes not. She seems like a nice kid, and Gwyneth doesn't doubt that she has enough problems without this one as well.
"Anyway," she says. "Doesn't matter." She forces a smile and turns back to the doorway and the dark beyond it. "We'd better get going," she says. "Sounds like a long walk."
"Right," agrees Saadiyyah, who does not speak Arabic, and they enter.
