Chapter Text
For almost as long as Diana could remember, something about her had been different than everyone else. Some people were different because of the way they looked or the way they spoke, but for her, it wasn’t that simple. She was different because of her sight. More specifically, how strong it was. Because she was able to see things no one else had the power to. And for almost as long as Diana could remember, this ability had been nothing short of a nightmare.
She learned at a very young age that what she was seeing were spirits. And quickly following that discovery, she learned that very few people would believe her if she pointed them out. Her two cousins, of course, were her biggest deniers. They teased her relentlessly and accused her of lying just for attention when she caught sight of something she knew wasn’t human. Her aunt turned her nose up and went on with her business as if the idea of even entertaining the thought was preposterous. Members of the house staff tried to be sympathetic and offer her comfort if the teasing got to be too much, but she could tell even they weren’t sure what to think.
But despite no one believing her, Diana had never lied. She saw things, creatures, some more frightening than others, but no matter how frightening, each one was unwelcome to her.
She would never forget the first time she ever saw one of these spirits. Not because it was a particularly scary or even interesting encounter, but because of the timing of it all. It had been shortly after her mother passed away. The day of her funeral.
Despite being just a few months shy of seven years old, Diana was smart enough to know what the difference between real and fake was. Her imagination never got the better of her, so she quite frankly took it as an insult when she said there was something standing behind a far off tree, watching them as they buried her mother, just for each of her remaining family members to insist nothing was there.
And she never did learn who or what had been watching them. She hadn’t gotten a clear look at it, only being able to make out a vague, shadowy presence with nondescript features. And though she couldn’t so much as make out a face, she knew it had eyes and she knew it was watching her. It was gone by the time the funeral was over, but Diana knew that wasn’t something she could have just imagined. It had been real and it had been there.
Following that, she began to see these beings more and more often. On walks through town, in dusty corners of libraries, in dingy alleyways she would have steered clear of whether there was a spirit there or not. Some of them took notice of her, others didn’t. But of the ones that took notice of her, she learned many of them had one thing in common. They did not like being seen.
She lost count of how many spirits took her ability to see them with great distaste. At best, she would just be followed around and teased. She got enough of that from her cousins so it was annoying, but not unbearable. At worst, they would go so far as to threaten her with words so brutal, they would play in her head as she lay in bed, unable to sleep. It was these frequent terrifying encounters that taught Diana a very important lesson.
If seeing spirits was so awful, then she would just have to pretend she saw nothing. She would keep her head down, make no eye contact. She wouldn’t even take a breath if it meant avoiding their attention. She wouldn’t speak to them nor speak of them. She wouldn’t give anyone anymore reasons to make fun of her or look at her strange. Perhaps then she could pretend she led a regular life.
So that’s what she did. And up until she was twelve, it almost worked. Then came the summer where her aunt announced they would be going to Japan.
Diana had never been to Japan before, something she found both a little odd but understandable. Her family owned a vacation home in a quiet part of Chiba, so it was a surprise she had never visited sooner. But with the financial issues that had taken over her family in recent years, it made sure enough sense that they wouldn’t have the means to travel so far from home.
The only reason they were here now was because Daryl had decided to finally bite the bullet and put the house up for sale, finding no justifiable reason to keep a house that was costing them money they no longer had, especially when they hadn’t touched it in so many years. And of course, Daryl attributed their staying away to lack of money, but Diana wondered how much of it had to also do with the fact that her mother loved this house.
But while this was a place that meant quite a lot to her, Diana had never known why. Her mother had never taken her here nor spoken about it. Even though Diana had spent so much of her time listening to tales that made up every inch of her mother’s life, anything that may have happened in Japan was an inch left untouched. The one thing Diana knew was that the year before her mother’s passing, she had gone out of her way to visit Japan one last time. Whether she had known it would be the last time had never been clear to Diana. But that was also the last time any member of their family had stepped foot in this house. Coming back without the one person who cherished it most just felt like trespassing.
And Diana wanted to feel guilty about waltzing into the house just to pack everything up and sell it. She wanted to be upset and angry at Daryl for making them do this, wanted to feel her mother’s attachment to this place and understand what it meant to her. But it was just a house in a faraway town and Diana didn’t know what was special about any of it.
She was only there to help pack, then be on her way back to England, and that was it.
She certainly never dreamed anything beyond that would happen.
It was the delicate song of a wind chime that made her eyes flutter open. A summer breeze had gently passed through, causing it to catch her attention as it danced above the open door. Which was just as well, because she had unwittingly dozed off.
Stifling a yawn asking permission to escape, she blinked as she regained sense of her surroundings and surveyed the desk she was sitting at. She lifted her cheek from the palm it had been resting against while glancing down at her other hand. Lying flat on the wood, it held a pen. And just inches away, flipped open to the page she had been writing on, was a journal.
She wasn’t granted time to gaze at it for long because at that precise moment, she heard footsteps marching down the wooden floors of the house, unmistakably coming towards her. Her eyes widened and without thinking twice, she slammed the journal shut and placed her arm over it in a halfhearted attempt to shield it from the woman she knew was coming.
Her eyes darted toward the wind chime and she did take a moment, however, to send it a quick smile.
“Thank you for the warning,” she whispered, grateful for its timing. If Daryl had found her asleep just moments before they had to make their leave, she would have had a fit.
She straightened up in her chair and seconds later, Daryl was standing at the entrance to her room with her hands on her hips.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. Her eyes flickered to the journal, seeming to linger on it, before glaring back at her. “We need to leave. We can’t miss our flight and you’re the one who wanted to make one last stop before we head to the airport, remember?”
Luckily for Daryl, all of her things were already packed and waiting inside the car, minus what lay in front of her. But the journal was never going with her in the first place. It would remain here, where it belonged.
“I remember,” she replied to Daryl’s question. There was something important she had to do before leaving Japan. Of course she hadn’t forgotten. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Hurry.” Daryl gave her one last pointed look before sighing and turning away, going back the way she came.
Alone once more, she let out a small breath and shook her head. Leave it to Daryl to be crabby right up until the last minute of their trip. But disregarding the cranky woman she had the great pleasure of spending an entire flight next to, she slowly stood up from her chair, stretching and eventually wincing at the many creaks in her body. She had to stop falling asleep at desks, but then again, she always said that and it always happened again.
Despite the demand that she hurry, she lingered in place, unable to find it in herself to leave so quickly. Unlike Daryl, she hadn’t spent their whole trip with a permanent frown on her face. This had meant something to her, something so special she could hardly put it into words. Still, as she peered down at her journal, she gingerly caressed the cover, hoping these words were enough.
These words, left in this house, in this world. None of this was something she could just walk away from so easily, and though she had days to prepare for this moment, that didn’t make it any less difficult.
Sighing, she opened her journal and flipped through the pages until she reached the very one she had been writing on before. Her gaze traced over her scribbling, rereading everything she had shared. She wasn’t sure who would ever come to read it, but she hoped at least one person would. Someone who she knew would treasure each tale just as much as she had, and never forget any of it.
An idea struck her and, reaching the end of her entry, she picked up her pen yet again, deciding it wasn’t quite done. She needed to add one final thing. Chewing on her bottom lip, she mulled over the exact words she wanted to say, and once she had them, she quickly scrawled them down. When the last of the ink graced the page, she pulled away the pen and a small yet satisfied smile pulled at the corners of her lips.
“That’s it,” she murmured to herself. “I suppose I have nothing else to say.” In the moment, that much was true. However, she did have somewhere to be and there, she would say one last thing to one last person.
She figured she had kept Daryl waiting enough. And as hard as it was to walk away, she was anticipating where she was going.
She closed her journal once more. Though, instead of finding some place to stow it away, she decided she was happy with where it was and stepped away from the desk, keeping it as it was, like a moment frozen in time. She went over to the door she had left open and slid it closed. She considered taking the wind chime down to bring back home with her. It was a trinket she had grown quite fond of.
But she didn’t want this house to change. She wanted to leave it the way she remembered it. So she left the wind chime in its rightful place and with that, she turned away.
As she left that room, and then that house, she found an unexpected grounding feeling settle over her with every step she took. It embraced her and assured her that she was leaving, yes, but a part of her would always be here. And she knew a part of here would always, always be with her.
“Finally,” Daryl huffed when she joined her inside the car. “Please tell me you haven’t forgotten anything and we can leave now.”
“Almost,” she reminded, fastening her seatbelt.
Daryl rolled her eyes. “Explain to me, what is so important you need to do it right before our flight?”
There was a slight pause before her answer. She knew no matter what she said, Daryl would most likely never understand, and she had grown tired of trying to explain things long ago. Yet, perhaps it was the sentimental state she was in that prompted her to respond truthfully.
“Saying goodbye to a friend.” Daryl raised an eyebrow, understandably so because she had never mentioned this friend before. But she felt no desire to elaborate. Some knowledge was better when it was just hers. “Let’s get going. We don’t want to be late.”
Daryl didn’t press her with anymore questions as their driver took his cue and began leading the car further and further away. She looked back and watched the house become smaller as the distance between them grew bigger. Her lips curled into a sad smile.
Whatever happened there now would be someone else’s story.