I: Bewitching Eyes
September 21, 2012
7:36 PM: I don’t really know why I’m writing this. Maybe it’s just to make sense of the last seven years. Or maybe it’s just because I need to get all this out. I probably have for a long time. But the thing is I haven’t been able to tell anyone because if I did they’d either laugh or think I was nuts. Hell, sometimes I think I am nuts. Maybe that whole night was just one big delusion and I should just check myself into a padded cell. That night almost seven years ago to the day I saw things that no living person was meant to see, things that still haunt me.
I saw her face again tonight. I was in my cheap motel room here in Eterna City flipping through the channels and caught the end of a Pokemon Contest. The winner was well-known Coordinator named Dawn Berlitz. I want to make it clear that I’ve never met Ms. Berlitz. But I do know someone who has her face. In fact the first time I saw Dawn’s picture in a newspaper I thought it was the girl I met. I realized quickly that it wasn’t though. The face was the right one but the eyes were all wrong. Dawn’s were the eyes of a normal person. I made it my business to learn everything I could about her family though. As it turns out I know one of her relatives.
But I guess I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Before I go any further into what I learned about the Berlitz family I should talk about the time I met that girl. At this point I ask that anyone reading this, whether it be some relative going through my things after my death or just some guy who found this manuscript lying around somewhere due to my own carelessness, to keep an open mind about what I am about to relate. As I said before, it’s a pretty unbelievable tale. And I won’t blame anyone for seeing this as just the ramblings of a man with a screw loose.
We now go back to seven years ago in the Kanto Region. I think I was about fourteen at the time. My family and I had moved from Saffron City to a little seaside village called Maiden’s Peak. The Peak was far from being a bustling metropolis like Saffron. It still is actually. Most of the year it’s just a quant little fishing village. But at the end of summer the Peak’s a popular spot for the tourists. That’s when my family and I came to live there. My mother had been offered a teaching position at the local high school and my father got a job at the town’s historical society. They had both decided, without consulting me of course, that a young man would do well growing up away from the city, not giving a damn about how a move like that would take me away from all the friends I had made over the years.
I still remember the day we moved in as if it had happened yesterday. But then everything from that time is still crystal clear in my mind. I don’t think I’ll be able to forget it as long as I live. My parents and I had just gotten to our house and we started taking in the boxes that were in the back of our van. We were just getting to the last few boxes when someone came to greet us.
He was an older gentleman, bald and just a little bit overweight. He had on glasses, a yellow polo shirt, and the most ugly pair of flannel pants I had ever seen.
“Hi there.” He greeted as he walked up. “You must be the new neighbors. I’m John Fredrickson.”
“Greetings.” My father greeted back as he shook Mr. Fredrickson’s hand while still managing to hold onto the heavy cardboard box he was carrying. “I’m Timothy Norris. That’s my son Benjamin carrying that large box of kitchen plates into the house. My wife Betty’s inside unpacking.”
“Mind if I lend a hand?” Mr. Fredrickson asked.
“You’d be helping a great deal if you brought in that last box for us.” My father answered as he pointed his head to the last box in the back of the van.
It was an hour before we had gotten all the boxes unpacked and put most of what they contained where they were supposed to go in our quaint little cottage. I was still putting away a few things while my father and Mr. Fredrickson were at the dining room table getting to know each other.
“So how long have you been in Maiden’s Peak, Mr. Fredrickson?” my father asked.
“Oh, about ten years I s’pose.” The old gentleman said with a puff of air. “I actually used to live in Celadon City for years. But I got tired of all the crime, smog, and traffic. So when I retired I came out here.”
“That’s more or less the same reason why my family and I decided to move here.” My father revealed. “It seemed like the crime in Saffron continued to climb each day.”
“Personally I didn’t feel comfortable living near our city’s Pokemon Gym.” My mother added as she poured them fresh cups of coffee. “The young woman who runs that place is just strange.”
“Well, you folks came to Maiden’s Peak at just the right time.” Mr. Fredrickson revealed. “Tomorrow the town is having its annual end of summer festival. People come from miles around just to see it.”
“Hey dad, can I go out for a bit?” I requested after becoming sick of unpacking.
“Sure son. Go out and get to know the town.” My father suggested. “Your mother and I can finish putting things away.”
I excused myself and left the house. With nothing better to do I decided to take my father’s advice and go check out the rest of the town. I walked down the old dirt road that led between the house and the rest of the town for what seemed like twenty minutes, passing by a few shacks and other small houses that looked similar to our own. When I finally reached the town I was impressed by all the decorations for the festival that Mr. Fredrickson had mentioned. There were strings of paper lanterns hung over the street and the little shops were all decked out in color.
I reached the end of the street and came to a railing overlooking the ocean. Even back then I had to admit that view was breathtaking. But being the teenager I was I could help but think how much life had begun to suck. The Peak did look like a nice place to live, but there was no arcade, no mall. Not even a stinking movie theater. And the worst part of it all was that Maiden’s Peak was one of those little towns where nothing ever changed, where nothing exciting ever happened. It was the Styx.
“Hi there.” A voice suddenly greeted from behind, causing me to jump and turn around.
That’s when I first met her. She looked to be in her early teens. Her blue hair went past her shoulders and she had on a white sun hat, a powder blue shirt, and a black skirt that ended above the knee. At the time I thought she was cute. I guess I still do. But what I remember most about her were her eyes. Her eyes were a striking light blue, but as beautiful as they were there was something very unsettling about them. Crazed would be a good word to describe them I suppose, but I’m not sure if that word does them justice. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, maybe because we can tell certain things about a person just by looking in their eyes. Her eyes seemed to be the eyes of someone who had seen something they weren’t meant to see, something that had changed her forever. Oh, if only I had known the whole truth at that time.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” She chuckled. “I’m Dusk. And you are?”
“Oh, Ben Norris.” I answered after getting over my initial shock. Though her eyes still unsettled me a great deal. “Do you live around here?”
“Nope, just passing through.” She replied. “Do you live here?”
“Unfortunately.” I sighed. “My folks decided it’d be good for me to grow up in a place like this, or some crap like that. Like they could ever understand.”
“I know what you mean. My mother and sisters don’t understand me at all.” She revealed. “That’s why I ran off on my own.”
“You’re a runaway?”
“You could say that.” She then looked out over the ocean to her right. “You see that statue over there?”
I turned my head in the direction Dusk was looking. Atop a pillar of rock jutting out of the ocean was a statue of some kind. I couldn’t tell for sure from that far away, but it seemed to be the statue of a woman. The little town had suddenly become interesting.
“Hey, I wonder who…?” I began to ask, but when I turned my head Dusk was gone.
I brushed Dusk’s sudden disappearance off and decided to go check out the statue. The whole time though I kept thinking about her. I couldn’t get the look of her eyes out of my mind. I kept wondering who Dusk was and where she came from. What was it that her family didn’t understand about her? Why were things so bad that she felt she had to run away from it all? I recall coming up with several different theories, one was that she was simply a victim of some sort of abuse.
I put the puzzle that was Dusk out of my mind though when I finally reached the statue. It was indeed the statue of a young woman with long hair adorned with a single flower. She had a sad expression as she looked out over the ocean. And right away I had gotten the impression that she was waiting for something. I soon noticed a small shrine on the cliff right across from the statue, thinking that perhaps it would provide answers.
Inside I found a portrait of the young woman that the statue depicted. Her sadness was magnified by the somber black and white tones of the painting. As was her beauty it seemed. Before I knew it I was captivated.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” a voice commented from behind, causing me to jump and turn around yet again. Standing behind me was a diminutive old woman with long matted grey hair. She wore purple robes and held a wooden staff in her hand. “You’re not the first young man to fall for her looks.”
“Who is she?” I asked.
“A young maiden who lived over two-thousand years ago.” The old woman explained. “The handsome young man she fell in love with went off to war overseas. She vowed to wait for him on that cliff until he returned. But he never did.”
“Did he die?”
“Who knows?” the old woman shrugged. “But the maiden continued to wait and over time her body became one with the cliff. That is how this town got its name. It is said that she still waits for her over to return.”
“How tragic.” I commented as I looked back at the portrait.
“I would forget about her young man.” The old woman went on with an odd grin. “She is dead after all. Though there is one other part of the legend. They say that the maiden’s spirit still haunts this place, and that she sometimes leads young men to their doom.”
“I find that hard to believe.” I scoffed as I looked back at the paining again.
“Believe what you will. But if I were you I’d stay away from this place.” The old woman warned. “Especially right now. We are nearing the summer end festival, and that is the time when the maiden’s spirit likes to come out.”
“Look, I…” I began to say. But when I turned my head back the old woman was gone.
That was two sudden disappearances in one day. But just like before I brushed it off and left the shrine. I decided to head back to the house, as it was getting close to dinner. But as I began to walk I glanced and noticed Dusk looking at the statue of the unfortunate maiden. As I came closer to her I noticed that she seemed to be talking to the statue.
“…Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to bring him back.” She said to the statue.
“Uh, hi Dusk.” I greeted. Dusk turned to me and was once again confronted by those eyes. Those eyes seemed to make me forget all about the maiden’s beauty.
“Hello Ben.” Dusk greeted back with a smile that seemed unsettling due to her eyes. “I was just talking with Nadeshiko.”
“…Who’s Nadeshiko?” I asked hesitantly. For I knew what the answer had to be.
“Why she’s the maiden, silly.” Dusk explained, confirming what I had thought. “The poor girl’s been waiting ages for her true love to return.”
“Well that much I know, but how do you know her name’s Nadshiko?” I asked, thought yet again I knew the answer.
“She told me of course.” Dusk answered matter-of-factly. “We’ve been talking since you went into the shrine.”
“I see…” I replied, thinking that she was probably off her rocker. Yet there a part that actually believed her.
“Could you do me a favor and meet me back here around midnight?” Dusk requested. “It’s mean a lot.”
“…Yeah, I can do that I guess.” I agreed. Though at the time I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because it was a way to escape boredom.
“Yay! Thank you!” Dusk happily replied. “I’ll see you later then. We’re going to have so much fun tonight!”
And with that she began to skip away humming an eerie tune. To this day a part of me wishes that I had turned down Dusk’s request. But looking back I know there was no way I could have. For ages the maiden of the peak had captivated men, but I was captivated by Dusk even more.
