An Age of Valour
by the Lady of the Mists
Chapter Twenty-four: Memories of Past
Lydia could hear Hayden's quiet breathing as they carefully walked up the stairs through the mansion, keeping a close eye and ear out as they snuck through the halls. Her heart was pounding in her chest as Umbreon strayed close to his trainer, his red eyes darting every which way. He, too, could tell that they were in danger, grave danger, just by being here.
She knew that coming in here was a bad idea; she knew that. But why was Alicia's boss so interested in wanting her dead or captured? As far as she knew—which, admittedly, was very little—she had done nothing to earn the man's hatred. That, more than anything else, intrigued her. If she had done nothing to the man, then why was he so interested in her? And why did her uncle seem to know so much about this, but wasn't confiding in her? Didn't she have a right to know?
Umbreon gave a small whine and she petted him gently. "Shh, quiet, boy," she whispered just as she heard voices up ahead.
"Get down!" Hayden hissed, pulling her behind a statue and clamping a hand over her mouth. She didn't bother fighting him, lest it bring attention to them, but something about this was vaguely familiar to her. Lydia slammed her eyes shut as her mind started being tugged in another direction, to another time and place.
There were men coming . . . coming for the both of them and Mama. She was a little baby in her crib as a little boy, three years old, wandered over the crib, his dark hair framing his fearful face. "Quiet, Lydia," he whispered and she stopped crying, looking up at him in absolute trust as he lowered the door on the crib. "Don't worry, I'll take care of you."
Giving him a happy smile, Lydia allowed him to pick her up, carrying her through the house they were being kept in. She kept quiet as he held her, singing the song Mommy would sing to them at night under his breath.
It was quiet . . . too quiet . . . and then she saw her mommy stretched across the hall and he gave a gasp of horror. There was red stuff everywhere . . . it lay in a puddle around her mama.
Whether it was the sight in front of them or he was getting tired of carrying her, he slowly sank down onto the ground with her in his arms, allowing her to curl up in his lap, laying her head onto his chest.
"Lydia?" Hayden yanked her from the memory and she shook her head, pulling herself into the present as she looked around the hallway, staring at the place where she had just seen in her . . . memory? Hallucination? Imagination? She couldn't be sure of what it had been. "Are you all right?"
"This place . . ." Lydia whispered as she looked around them. Hayden looked at her, then his blue eyes flickered around them, something flickering behind his eyes. "I've been here before."
Pulling away from Hayden, she took a step towards the spot where, in the vision that she'd just had, her mother had lay dead.
She knew that it was her mother, because she looked exactly like the picture that she had in her locket her uncle had given her. There was no doubt that the woman from her vision was Rosemary Talon.
"We should leave," Hayden said sharply and she looked at him. He had a grim look on his face as he looked at her, true pain evident in his face. "Lydia, listen to me, we need to either get out of here or continue on. And personally, I really think it should be the former."
"It was you." Hayden, about to move back towards the entrance, froze on the spot. "You were here . . . with me. I saw it, Hayden. We were here, together, in this place, in this very spot. My mother . . . she died here." Lydia shook her head; it was unable to comprehend this, but at the same time she knew it was completely true. "But this wasn't where I was born."
"No." For the first time since she had met him, Hayden's voice trembled slightly. "It wasn't. You were born . . . away from here, at Jack's. In Cherrygrove City," he added quietly.
"Uncle Jack's?" Lydia asked slowly. "Why would I have been born at my uncle's? Was . . . was Mum staying with him while my dad was on business or something?"
Hayden looked at her quickly. "Uncle?" he repeated softly and he scoffed, shaking his head. "Uncle. They really haven't told you a thing about how things really went down, have they?"
"What are you talking about?" Lydia was starting to get angry now. Up until a few days ago, she had been . . . well, maybe not happy with how much she knew about her mother, but content. And now, he was making her question everything that she knew about her family.
"Let's go," Hayden said sharply as he walked back towards the entrance. "Ask your uncle about it the next time you talk to him. Ask him what really happened between him and your mother."
Lydia stared at his back as she hurried to catch up with him, Umbreon right behind her. "You know, it might be a little bit easier for me to trust you if I had some idea of what exactly you wanted with me," she told him, "or even who you were."
Hayden turned around so quickly that she almost slammed into him. His blue eyes were intense. "You'll find out when you need to know," he said quietly. "You want me to be honest about something? I'm not telling you everything I know, because you're strictly on a need-to-know basis. Just ask your uncle about it. Look him in the eye and ask him. Use your powers and you'll know if he's lying or not. Then ask yourself whether or not you can trust me . . . and whether or not you should be trusting Jack."
Lydia couldn't think of anything to reply to this as she walked after the older trainer, shoving her hands into her pockets. If she was honest with herself, she knew that there was something that her uncle was hiding from her. And Lydia knew, deep in her heart, that there was something about Hayden that stirred up memories that were deeply locked inside her mind.
It wasn't just this place that had awoken those long-forgotten memories of when she was only a baby. Maybe it was the mansion and Hayden. Or maybe it was being there, in the exact same position, in the exact same spot as they had been twelve years ago.
Either way, she knew that while she hadn't found out a single thing about Alicia and her boss, she knew that she had found something equally important out.
If only she could figure out what it was.
--
"Lydia!" Jesse exclaimed the moment that she entered the campsite. She glanced up at him and saw his panicked expression. Jennie didn't look completely calm either. At once, Jesse ran up to her and embraced her tightly. "Jeez, where have you been? We woke up and found you gone—why'd you take off like that?"
"Just needed to take a walk," Lydia said quietly, glancing behind her. After they'd gotten out of the mansion, Hayden had disappeared into the night, leaving her safely behind. "Sorry, I didn't mean to freak you guys out. I just needed to take a walk for a little while."
"A little while?" Jennie repeated, looking incredulous. "Lydia, you've been gone for almost two hours. We woke up after Umbreon went after you." She shook her head as Lydia sighed. "You want to be honest with us?"
Jesse looked at her with a faint wounded expression and she sighed, giving in. "All right, I thought I sensed somebody in the woods and went to go check it out. Turns out that Alicia and her buddies were nearby. There's a mansion back there that they went into."
"Tell me that you didn't go into the mansion," Jesse said, covering his eyes. "Tell me that you didn't go into that mansion, Lydia, by yourself in the middle of the night, locked in there with a bunch of people who we're pretty sure want you dead."
Lydia stared at him. "You want to run that by me again?" she asked sceptically. Jennie laughed as Jesse smiled. "Okay, I didn't go in there, not by myself, anyway. Hayden was with me."
"Who?"
"Our mysterious stranger," Lydia answered with a sigh. "He showed up again, right when I got on the porch and wasn't about to let me go in by myself, so he went in with me. I swear, there's something about that guy that I just don't get. He keeps showing up and probably saving me, but he won't tell me what's going on, just gives me cryptic messages before going off and disappearing into the night. What's that all about?"
"Guys can be so annoying," Jennie agreed while Jesse rolled his eyes. "What kind of cryptic message did he leave this time?"
"Just to ask Uncle Jack what really happened between him and Mom," Lydia said, rolling her eyes. She thought it better not to mention that she'd been in that mansion when she was a baby, with Hayden, and that mansion was the place where her mother had died.
Jennie opened her mouth to say something, but her brother jabbed her side. "Enough, Jen," he muttered, annoyed about something. "Why don't we grab something to eat and then start heading down the road, okay? We're not that much further from Ecruteak, anyway, are we?"
"About a day's walk," Lydia answered quietly as she stared up at the barely lit sky. It wasn't even dawn yet.
"Good, so the sooner that we get back on the road, the sooner that we'll get there and the sooner we'll be able to get a fourth badge, talk to Dad, and wander around aimlessly in the ghost town," Jesse said as he stood up, digging through his bag to dig up three packages of Pop Tarts for breakfast.
"These are so disgusting raw," Jennie grumbled as she bit into it. Lydia smiled faintly, but in reality, she wasn't even paying much attention to what she was eating. Her thoughts were still on that memory that she'd stumbled upon when she'd been in that mansion.
She knew that she'd hit on something important when she'd been at that mansion, when she remembered being there with Hayden twelve years ago, but she couldn't figure out what it all meant. He knew more than he was saying and it kind of bugged her that he wasn't telling her what he knew, but what if he really was trying to protect her?
Her mother, dying in front of them.
Her father, mad with rage at her betrayal of becoming a Pokémon trainer and blaming her for the death of her mother.
Her uncle, kept from her for ten years until she had contact him and now kept secrets from her about this mysterious stranger.
Had Hayden been telling her the truth? Was there something, in fact, that he was particularly keeping from his niece? She knew that there was something that had happened between her mother and uncle and that it was the reason why her father despised her to the point that he had ignored her for what amounted to her entire life.
And why was Alicia and her boss so interested with her? The two secrets were entwined; Lydia was sure of that.
How am I supposed to fight them if I don't even know what they want with me? Lydia thought in annoyance. Why was I in that mansion twelve years ago with Hayden? Why did people tell me that she died giving birth to me when in reality, she was murdered by someone? And who is Hayden, anyway? Why do I trust him more than I trust Uncle Jack?
She knew that was true; in the few days that she'd known him, Lydia trusted Hayden more than she did her uncle. There was just something about him that she didn't understand, yet trusted.
"You know, you tend to work things out better when you talk about them with friends," Jennie commented with a grin as they walked down the road that would lead them to Ecruteak City. "Are you sure that you don't want to talk about it? 'Cause we'll listen. Well, I will. Jesse will pretend to be interested in girl problems and then fall asleep halfway through."
Jesse stuck his tongue out at his sister and Lydia smiled faintly. "It's not that I don't trust you guys," Lydia said simply. "I do. I just have to finish working this out in my head before I can tell anybody else about it. All I know is that people are hiding something from me. Uncle Jack, my father . . . everyone in my life that I've ever trusted. And I've got a feeling that your dad might very well be connected with whatever's going on. Alicia's people want something from me. And if nobody is going to tell me," she added, rounding on her heel to look at them, "then I'm gonna find out on my own." Jesse and Jennie looked at each other before returning their gazes towards the tiny, brunette trainer. "Are you guys with me?"
Jesse placed his hand in the middle of their circle. "I'm with you," he said with a grin. Both girls stared at him, then at each other. "It's a guy thing. I really need to get some male friends."
Jennie chuckled as she placed her hand on top of her brother's. "We're both with you," she said as Lydia slapped hers onto Jennie's.