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Briar was about 8 years old, and her were parents driving her down a dirt road in the Galarian Countryside. As her parents drove, she’d look at any old building, point to it, and ask “Is that Grandma and Grandpa’s house?”. Most other kids would dread a summer at a house older than them with relatives far older than them, but Briar would always jump at the opportunity. The family car soon made a turn down a road to the driveway of an elegant Victorian country house, her grandparents waiting outside the door.
“Grandma! Grandpa!”, she excitedly shouted before hug-tackling her grandparents.
“Hello, Briar dear”, her grandmother gently laughed as she attempted to regain balance.
“Seems like you’re getting bigger every year!”, her grandfather joked. Briar didn’t even bid farewell to her parents before running inside the house, “I see why you’d rather not spend the summer with her”, her grandfather rushed after her.
He tried giving a tour of the house, but before he could say anything, she was overwhelming him with a barrage of questions; “What year was this house built? Was there always a fireplace here? Was this TV here when it was built?”, she moved onto the next room. Her grandpa was out of breath by the time they reached the kitchen, “Grandpa, what’s that?”, she asked, pointing to a wooden square door beside the oven.
“That’s a dumbwaiter, sweetheart”, he pressed a button beside it and Briar heard something move just beyond the small door. When the noise stopped, her grandpa opened the door to reveal a small cupboard. “A chef would put food here”, he closed the door and pressed another button pointing up, “And then send it upstairs-”.
Briar was already racing upstairs to the dining room to see the strange cupboard again, her grandpa sighing, “It’s gonna be a long summer…”.
Within a week, Briar was set up in her own room on the top floor, a room with a dumbwaiter. She was already well acquainted with the house, making almost daily visits to the basement to look for “family secrets” and treasure, her grandparents were growing tired of her constant exploring and frequent questions about the history of the house. One day, her grandma tried introducing her to gardening, bringing her outside to help grow herbs, Briar explored the garden as she did the house to very little discovery.
“Briar dear, will you get me the trowel from the shed?”.
“Right away, Grandma!”, she ran inside the shed, hoping to find something, anything!... but it was just a boring shed. She stepped out of the shed, trowel in hand when she looked up at the house… … … that window?
She spotted a strange window on what should be the floor her room was on. It was a circular window with the image of a six-sided crystal, each of the crystals points longer to create a shine-like image. Her eyes stayed fixed on the window as she walked toward the house, “Grandma, I’m going to the bathroom”.
She climbed upstairs to her floor, her head tilted in the window’s general direction the whole time, she soon found herself facing a door. She tried opening it but it was locked from the inside. She ran to her grandpa who was watching the new TV, “Grandpa, can you open a door for me?”.
He sighed, “Which one?”.
“Top floor, left end of the hallway”.
He reluctantly stood up and went upstairs with a master key. Briar hopped on her heels as her grandpa opened the door- to an empty room with three rectangular windows. Her grandpa left as she went inside the room… that strange window should be here… she looked up…
That evening, she was sitting on the floor of her bedroom, staring at the dumbwaiter in her room. Her eyes were fixated on the buttons… a button to call the dumbwaiter, a button to send it down a floor, and a button to send it up a floor.
“Briar Dear!”, her grandma called as she entered the room, “Time for supper”.
“... … … grandma, can I ask a question?”.
“Oh boy, another one”.
“This is the top floor right?”.
“Of course it is, why?”.
“And this is a bedroom, right?”.
“Yes…? Where are you going with this?”.
She didn’t face her grandmother, “Why is there a dumbwaiter here?”.
She couldn’t see the expression of confusion or fear on her grandmother’s face, “Whatever do you mean?”.
“Grandpa said that the dumbwaiter is for sending food upstairs. Under this room are the dining room and the kitchen, why would anyone need to send food from the kitchen directly to a bedroom”.
Her grandma paused for a moment… “Well… perhaps for a midnight snack? Or just a little quirk of the house? I think you should come down for supper-”.
“Why is there an up button?”.
“Excuse-”.
“If this is the top floor of the house then there shouldn’t be a button to go higher?”.
“... it’s just for maintenance-”
“So this isn’t the top floor? There’s an attic!-”.
“BRIAR!”, her grandmother snapped, Briar looked back at her in fear. She grabbed Briar by her wrist and pulled her downstairs by force, “No one goes into the attic, young lady. The only thing up there is a family embarrassment, do you understand?”, Briar meekly nodded, “Don’t ever think of the attic again. Don’t question us about this house ever again. And stop acting like you are Indiana Jones. Understand?”.
Briar nodded again, being seated for supper.
Her curious mind had been well silenced, barely a word came out of her for another week. She’d help in the garden or run errands with her grandfather, but her sealed lips could barely contain her wandering mind. Whenever her head began tilting up toward the attic, her grandparents would strike it back down.
One day, her grandparents had to attend to business in Motostoke, leaving Briar home alone, believing she was "mature enough" not to wonder about the attic. Briar sat in her room, occasionally glancing at the dumbwaiter and at the ceiling, she was forbidden from talking about it… but how would one even get up there?
She saw an attic door in the hallway ceiling, but the rope was cut… … …
She glanced out the window to make sure her grandparents weren’t returning yet… she pressed the call button on the dumbwaiter and listened to the mechanical whirring and shuffling. When the sound stopped… she carefully crawled inside, it was big enough to hold her and it was strong enough to carry her at that age. She reached her hand beyond the door, pressed the up button, and quickly folded herself inside as the dumbwaiter slowly rose to the attic.
The dumbwaiter came to a stop at the wooden door like on other floors, it was dark and Briar struggled to get the door open by hand, she kicked the door and it swung open with a cloud of dust! She shielded her eyes a bit before slowly crawling out of the dumbwaiter… every inch of this mysterious attic was covered in dust, the only thing she could make out was the crystal shine window she’d seen the week before. Sunlight entered from that window above a closed desk, she cautiously approached it, every step she took leaving a dust imprint on the floor.
She used what little strength she had to slowly open the desk, small tufts of dust seemed to fly like rewarding fairy dust as she was greeted with a collection of books and letters. She examined some letters… Many were addressed to Paldea and had “Request Denied” or “Return To Sender” written across them in big red letters. There were several notebooks on little shelves… but there was one book that stood out among them, it was in the middle of the desk, and it had a hint of scarlet red peeking out from under a blanket of dust.
Briar blew on the books, waves of dust flying around her as her eyes were met with the most amazing book cover she had ever seen. It was all red, with golden accents surrounding the image of a strange lizard-like pokemon she had never seen, strange symbols were at each end of the book, and under the creature was the book’s title:
“The Scarlet Book”, Briar read out loud.
She began going through the pages and found herself captivated by illustrations of almost fantastical creatures and locations. She kept seeing the image of a man in a suit, he had gray hair and a black mustache… he looked a bit like a mix between Briar and her grandfather. She reached the “About The Author” section and read it out loud,
“Heath, author of the Scarlet Book, shown here with his partner Cyclizar. A natural historian as well as a writer, he was chosen for the Area Zero Expedition and penned this account upon returning from the Great Crater of Paldea”.
“Heath”, she repeated… … …. “This was his house… this was his study!”, she excitedly proclaimed, looking around the mystery of a room. Maybe she saw it in that moment, but this day and this room would define the rest of her life.
The next day, she went to town with her grandmother and pretended to be interested in the largest book she could find so that her grandmother would buy it for her. She’d pretend to be so fascinated that she wanted to read it all day, so her grandparents could let her stay home and read it, and when she had the house to herself, she’d ride the dumbwaiter up to Heath’s study. She spent her days reading from the Scarlet Book and cleaning the dust away with a single feather duster, every time she’d discover something new like a vintage record player, his actual notes from his trip down to Area Zero, samples of crystals he collected… and her favorite item in the attic: A massive framed picture of Heath and his expedition team standing before Area Zero itself, the only full landscape of it that Briar would ever see. When her grandparents were returning, she’d sneak back down to her room, send the dumbwaiter to the lower floor, and flip a few pages into the book, reading until her grandparents came to check on her.
When summer was coming to an end, Briar carefully placed the Scarlet Book back where she found it and proceeded to ask her parents to bring her back to their grandparent's house every summer just so she could keep reading about her ancestor.