Compass

by Verity

I knew that as slow as I might move, melting like a glacier, I'd never find you altered, my north star, guiding me like the needle spinning around in a compass.

Compass, by Verity

Disclaimer: Everything you recognize here belongs to Stephanie Meyer, not me.

I saw you first, I felt your lips brushing slowly, softly over my forehead. "You're home now, dear," you said. I knew it.

Then I got a direction.

I had to wait for Jasper, first. He was going to meet me in a bar. I knew that we would see each other and our eyes would turn black with desire from the memory of our old life. Everyone in the bar would turn to each other in lust and we would sneak out the back door lest we succumb to temptation.

Long-limbed, golden-locked boy. He stood over me, rocking on his heels, tall in jeans and a worn cotton shirt, like anyone might wear. "Somehow, I knew you would be here," he said to me, "I just knew."

Under the dim lights, his eyes were shadowed by the cowboy hat he would not have time to take off, and all I said was, "I've been waiting for you for a long time."

We tore into each other like animals in the alley. I didn't hurry home because I knew you'd always be waiting for me, I knew that as slow as I might move, melting like a glacier, I'd never find you altered, my north star, guiding me like the needle spinning around in a compass. So I took my time with him, learning his white skin and his secret silver scars.

I watched the wide plains of Montana in my head, like a radio play I heard faintly from the next room, hearing your words, seeing you on that flat land, while I walked and talked and drank the blood that wasn't quite sweet enough from those foolish does that couldn't quite outrun me. Jasper might be more vicious, but I had no memory of being a human, could not imagine what it might be like to be hunted, to be less than the strongest thing to go bump in the night, and that ignorance made me bold, and it made me thirsty for the dream of you that had planted itself like a weed in the back of my mind.

When we left I ran the whole way. I could run miles and miles, just on the feeling of your lips touching my forehead, and I knew just how it would be, and I wanted to feel it on my skin, not through my invisible eye. All I knew was hunger and thirst, desire free from fear, and I ached to feel this delicate, trembling, tenuous thing, that I could not name, that I could not have dreamed of. Because I had no dreams.

"Alice," you said, but you said my name in my mind, still, and although I knew you'd call me, somehow I felt cold and dull inside, because you were not calling my name right now, and you had never even imagined me, even though I'd seen you, and even though when Jasper used to call my name I pretended it was you, because I wanted so bad to hear you, to know you, to be part of you like fire blown apart by wind. And the wind was blowing now, across these plains, as I ran, crisp like a brand new sheet against my skin, and I wanted to fall asleep wrapped up you, even though I couldn't remember what it was like to fall asleep.

It was nearing dawn, but we made it, and I knew that you were inside, and we still had to meet Carlisle, and the boys, and Rosalie, but we were there, and my heart was heavy and bright at the same time, and I felt nervous, because Jasper was, too. Carlisle came out, and suddenly, I was very calm, we all were, and he said, "Who are you? This is our land," and I said, "Yes, I know. We have come to join you. We have given up what we were, to be like you."

And I saw him seeing our yellow eyes. And I saw the bronze-haired boy, Edward, that's it, seeing me seeing him seeing. "It's safe," Edward said, and though his voice came from far away, we all turned to the source, and in turning, toward the house, and you came out, the timing somehow changed, somehow shifted.

I don't remember anything for a while, I know we all made each others' acquaintance, and I shuffled forth some surface thoughts, but inside I was dying, although I didn't remember dying, and if my heart could beat it would have thumped hard and hurriedly, like it was racing me to the finish, the very moment when you would bend over me, and I'd lose all rational thought. But I still couldn't see, and why not, why could I not see, just where it would come, and when, and I smiled very well and talked very well, even though you were just reserved and polite but still warm, warm, like I felt sometimes when I lay in the sun.

"Do you want to hunt?" asked Jasper, and I was distracted from my reverie, and said, "No." I could not feel hungry, did not know how to want, felt everything stripped away from me, as I watched the Carlisle and all three boys hunt down a bear with Rosalie at their side, forgot how to hunt, forgot how to exist. There was a chaise by the big window overlooking the back of the property, and I lay down on it, and stared out, at the mountains a grey blur in the distance, at the brightening sky, at the cattle in pens, like a living pantry.

And you bent over me. I could smell your skin, and you smelled more delicious than any man or woman had ever smelled to me, and you hovered, just one second, before your lips brushed slowly, softly over my forehead. "You're home now, dear," you said, and I felt alive, even though I could not remember, could not dream, what it had been like to be alive - only imagine.