Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Perfect Season for Insanity ❯ Chapter 1

I

The win blew helpless, delicate leaves in miniature whirlwinds around her feet as she took in the changing autumn landscape. Her thick, heavenly hair fell down to the middle of her back; it was the colour of a raven's wing. Her eyes were a dazzling emerald green and they complemented her light complexion beautifully. The last rays of the fading sun set her copper highlights ablaze as it sank beneath the burning tree line. As another wind blew, this one to herald the coming of night, she hugged her gray sweater duster closer to her petite body. She smiled as her mind absorbed all the autumnal beauty. "Autumn is the perfect season", she mused as she strolled toward home.

She was nearing her overly large house as she headed down the rolling hills of Bay View Avenue. To her left she saw the familiar old white Victorian house at the corner of Bay View Ave. and Bougainvillea Lane. Between the house and the sidewalk, dozens of summer sun worshipping flowers were beginning to give way to the more hardy autumnal blooms. Wisteria frutescens, Vesuvio, Calgary, Goldenasters. Each type of flower battled valiantly to be the flower of their owner's eye. The vines that snaked around the old iron fence prepared for the coming winter season. She smiled as she eyed the widow's walk atop the house. Images of a frantic whaler's wife nervously pacing in her long dark dresses awaiting the return of her fiancé's boat to dock in Salem Harbor inundated her mind. She remembered the old house wives tales well; the ones she heard from her mother and her mother's friends. "Do you see that house over there dear, the one with all the lovely flowers in the front lawn?", her mother had asked her as they walked down the street. "Yeah Mommy, I can see it!", she said excitedly. Her mother smiled at the sight of the precocious little ball of energy that she called her daughter. "Well", she began, "many, many years ago a handsome young whaler lived there. One day while he was on the widow's walk, he saw a beautiful young lady marveling at his garden. `I see that you've become quite taken with my flowers', he called down to her. `Yes, indeed I have. Your garden rivals that of all the other gardens here in Salem-especially those of the whaler's', went her reply. `I have but one true rival', he called. `May I ask whom this rival of yours may be?', she asked. `Your beauty', he proclaimed. After several months of courtship, the whaler asked the young woman's father for his daughter's hand in marriage. Later he found that he was to go to sea for seven long months. When she began to despair, he told her that he loved her dearly and would find a way back to her and presented her with an engagement ring. A few days later he left for his voyage across the seas. Every day, for seven months, she would climb the steps to the widow's walk and would wait for her love to return. The seven months passed and she grew more and more excited. Months passed without sight of her love. As time passed, she became more and more depressed. Them, on the night she drew her last breath, the anniversary of his long awaited return, she said, `I will always love you and none shall take your place. We will find each other my love and be united on the other side.'" Her mother gazed at the widow's walk, "Some say that she never left the widow's walk; that she still waits for her love to return to her." "But Mommy, that's silly! She knew that he would never come back!", the small child protested. The woman turned her attention to her daughter. "Yes, she knew that he'd never return but she still loved him and hoped, beyond hope, that one day he would come back to her", she said. "I still think that she was being silly. Mommy, do you love Daddy like the way that the pretty lady loved the whaler?" "Of course I do, you know that baby." "Do you love ME the way that the pretty lady loved the whaler?" Her mother, "Of course I do, you know that too. Now who's being silly?" The child giggled, "Okay Mommy!" With a smile, her mother urged her daughter back home.

She let out a sigh at the pleasant memory. "Ah, the ol' days! Whatever happened to them?" As she continued down the street she saw her house; the corners of her mouth fell. Another memory, this one less enjoyable, crept into the front of her mind. The memory was that of a wedding-her father's wedding. It was the marriage of her father to his second wife Pricilla Mae Brown. The atmosphere inside the church was stifling; the guests tried their best not to be too antsy as their wedding attire clung to their wet bodies. As she stood their, as Pricilla's maid of honor, `She's just doing this to get on Dad's good side', she thought over her father's courtship of the prissy woman. /after the death of her biological mother, due to cancer, her father fell into a deep depression and began to drink heavily. "My wife is gone. My life is worth nothing", he said that while drank in his study. He was like that for a year-then one day, he stopped. Out of the blue he stopped drinking and began to sober up. When she questioned him, he said nothing and she thought that he'd finally cracked. Then, six months later, She appeared into the scene. Pricilla-the evil woman that had stopped her father's drinking and changed him. She never found out what exactly Pricilla had done to him, but she was sure it wasn't good. Ever since then, she had tried to be a goody-two shoes. She would buy her things, whether or not they were needed; be it CDs, clothes, makeup and the like. It was as if Pricilla was trying to take the place of her mother and she hated her for it.

As she walked up to the house, she noticed her father's car in the driveway. `Maybe now Dad and I can spend some together, just like we used to.' She smiled at that thought. Before Pricilla, she and her father were the best of friends-they did a lot together and he always kept his promises to her. All that changed when She came around. She frowned, `Dad hardly keeps any of his promises anymore. `I know he doesn't mean anything by it, but everything has changed because of her. She's always whisking him off some place-business of otherwise.' It was true. They always went off to some destination for long periods of time leaving her alone in the huge house. It's not that she didn't enjoy the privacy, in fact she loved it, she just wished that she saw more of her father and less of her. With a loud creak, the front door opened and announced her arrival home. "Is that you, Rachel, dear?", Pricilla asked from the kitchen. "Yeah, it's me", she said, "where's Dad?" "He's still working but he told me to tell you that he'd see you in the morning if you happened to fall asleep before he can get home", she called. `Great, that means Dad will be at the office all night and I'll have to spend the night with her'. As dearly as she loved her father, she never voiced her disdain for the woman. He genuinely seemed happy, as happy as he could be, with her and she couldn't bring herself to hurt him like that. `No', she thought, `she's just using him. He doesn't mean anything to her. That's why she's perky'. She shook her head in disgust. The woman was only ever perky for one of two reasons: she'd either had a cup of coffee or she did "it" with her Dad. That's how she got the nickname "P.P."-Perky Pricilla. She always used the name in secret but one day she slipped up in front of her. When she realized how much she hated the name, it only gave Rachel more fuel to add to the ever-growing fire of hatred she felt for the woman. She was careful though. If her father ever caught wind of the name he'd have her head. Instead, she used the name whenever she truly had a bone to pick with her. `I hate perky people, they're too perky!' With a sigh, Rachel headed up the stairs to her room. Neither she nor Pricilla had noticed the pair of eyes that had followed her ever since she first left to for her walk.