Chapter#1 Reflection
I woke as the sun was going down in the bed of my family's RV. I could feel that we were moving, but it took me a few minutes to remember why. My family was headed to Washington State. Slowly it came back to me, there was a story that been spreading like wildfire among the vampires of a clan strong enough that even the Volturi feared them. When Yohannah had told me the story, I didn't believe it. How could it be true? I was convinced that the stories were exaggerated. Nothing could stop the Volturi. Lucas, my older brother, agreed with me, he had said that it must be some kind of miscommunication, that the story just got bigger and bigger though all the times that it had been told. The first time I heard the rumor it was from Lucas and we laughed and made fun of the idiot who was telling it. It was impossible to believe the stories about the vampire who saw the future, the one that could read the minds of anybody around them, of the newborn who was invincible, who could shield herself and everyone around her from any kind of attack, about the immortal child who grew before their eyes. As time passed, it was all that was spoken about between the immortals. Over time, being told the same unchanging story over and over had a way of making us feel it was true. Yohannah had told me that none of the vampires she spoke to were lying. I had scoffed at her and told her that I was sure that the other vampires may have believed it was the truth, but that it didn't mean it was. Then one night Yohannah ran into a vampire named Randall, and he claimed to have actually been there. Yohannah came back from their meeting in shock. The stories were true, for the most part. The part about the werewolves wasn't true, but there was little else that wasn't. Lucas and I stood by and listened to Yohannah tell the story again. Yohannah was convinced that it was absolute truth. It wasn't until then that we truly believed. Yohannah always knew these things. She knew when she was being lied to.
It wasn't long before we had packed up all their things and hired someone to run the farm while we were away. We used most of our savings to buy an RV and were heading across the country to see this coven. No, not this coven, I thought, this family. A family like ours. Neither Yohannah, Lucas, nor I had ever heard of another coven that did not drink human blood.
Well, tried not to drink blood, I thought. I knew that Lucas was the one who didn't want to come. He tried to hard to live this lifestyle, but it was hard for him to keep up. He was worried they wouldn't believe us, when we came to visit them, because of his deep red eyes. A little over a month ago he went out hunting but didn't come back. Yohannah and I had searched everywhere, we called him on his cell but he wouldn't pick up. After a week he showed up at the house, wearing sun glasses, sobbing. He had been hunting in the woods and came across a hiker. He wasn't able to stop himself. He knew he had failed, he didn't think we would ever forgive him, but of coarse we would, we did. Yohannah could see how remorseful he was, she knew how hard it was to keep it up, more than I did, but I trusted Yohannah completely when she told me that he was sorry, that he meant it when he said that he would never do it again. Yohannah always knew when someone was telling the truth, and I trusted Yohannah, more than I had trusted anyone else in the world. Even thought Lucas was the one who introduced us, I had always felt close to Yohannah. We were kindred spirits.
From my bed in the back of the RV I could hear Yohannah and Lucas in the cab talking to each other. I couldn't quite make out what they were saying but it sounded almost as if they were arguing. I propped my head on my elbow and strained to listen but Lucas had heard me move and warned Yohannah. "Our Miss America is awake," he said, louder than he really needed to. Yohannah could have heard him in the lower voice he was just using. I was sure that Lucas had raised his voice only because he wanted me to know that he knew she was awake.
"You know I hate it when you call me that," I grumbled at him.
He tilted his head towards the rear view mirror. I couldn't see his eyes because of the sun glasses he had been constantly wearing, but I knew he was looking at me. "When it stops being your name, I will stop calling you that." He said with a smirk.
"My name is Meri," I reminded him
"Meri is not a real name, its just a nickname," he said and turned back to face the road.
I tried to make my voice sound commanding, "but its what you will call me."
I heard him snort, but he didn't respond. I knew I hadn't heard the last of "Miss America" Yohannah got up and walked toward the back of the RV. Her chocolate colored skin glistened in the pink light of the sunset. She ran her fingers through her short red hair. "Hey Baby, we're going to need you to do us a favor," she said nervously. I eyed the plastic bag that Yohannah held in her hand and crossed my arms in front of me. Yohannah reached over into a drawer and pulled out my iPod. "We just need to have a private conversation for a little bit," she said apologetically and handed me the bag and the music player. In the bag was a package of ear plugs and the kind of headphones that were made to block out sound.
"Why," I asked defiantly.
"Because I'm asking you to, we've got something we need to talk about before we get to Forks, and I don't want you to have to worry about it until we've decided what we're going to do."
"Well, don't I get a say in anything," I asked incredulously.
Yohannah crossed her arms in front of her. "No, you don't." There was no room for negotiation in her tone. Yohannah and Lucas thought themselves as my protectors, as my parents; it wasn't something I minded much, mainly because there was very little they denied me. It was times like this when I really regretted giving them so much control over me. Overall I enjoyed being taken care of, treated like a princess, by my family but then there were times like this where I wished that they saw me more as an equal and less like a child. I searched Yohannah's topaz eyes for any sign of her backing down. Yohannah's face was like a mask, betraying nothing. I looked away, back at the iPod and the earplugs.
"Fine," I said and put in the earplugs. I grasped at the package that carried the headphones but couldn't get it open. I had a good grip on it with my right hand, but my left hand was completely useless to me, it was mainly there for aesthetic purposes. It had been broken and it healed wrong. I had no feeling in it and didn't realize it was broken and it healed before I realized something was wrong. It had been broken quite a few times actually, and was curled into a claw. I tried to get a grip on the package and rip it apart, but it wouldn't release so I put it to my mouth to try to bite it open. Yohannah sighed and took the package away from me, ripping it open without even the slightest hesitation and set them on my head.
"Sure, you make it look so easy," I teased.
"You know, you should really get that arm fixed," she said.
"The same thing would happen, it would just break again and I wouldn't be able to tell."
Yohannah frowned and headed back to the front of the RV. She sat down next to Lucas, who was smiling at me through the rear view mirror. Yohannah waited until I had turned her play list on to start talking. Lucas stopped her with his hand.
"Louder please," he called back to me.
"Like I could have listened to you conversation anyway, I could barely hear you without the earplugs in." The only reason she could hear Lucas now was because of the psychic bond we had between us. I was always able to hear them, but only when they were speaking directly to me, not when they were speaking to each other. I tried to hear them through my thoughts, but it didn't really work like that. I frowned and turned the earphones as high as the volume would allow. I could barely hear it with the earplugs in anyway. I sat up in bed and watched the trees pass us by. They were obviously in the mountains now, but I was surprised at the look of everything. The forest outside was completely covered in moss. It reminded me of the bayou, but it was too cold. The last trees I had viewed from the window had been the palm trees of southern California before I fell asleep earlier that morning. It was surprising that just a few hours drive could change things so much. "Where are we," I mumbled.
"Washington, we're almost there. It will only be about an hour," Lucas told me. I could hear him clear as a bell through my mind. If it hadn't been for the psychic link, neither one of them would have heard me. I had spoken so softly, but then again, their hearing was so enhanced, maybe they would have, I thought. I often forgot about how powerful they were, it all seemed so normal to me. We had lived together for the past forty years.
I wondered what in the devil Yohannah and Lucas could be talking about. I glanced at them in the front seat. Lucas was behind the wheel but gesturing angrily towards Yohannah. I felt a lump in my throat. I knew that Lucas was a good driver but couldn't help but worry that when you're driving a car at 60 miles an hour on a windy road that you should keep both hands on the wheel at the same time. Yohannah placed her hand on his shoulder said something to him, she seemed to be comforting him about something, she looked sad. He seemed to calm a bit then and Yohannah turned to see if I was watching. She glared at me. I just shrugged her shoulders and looked out the window again.
They were obviously hiding something from me, I just knew it. What could it possibly be? What exactly did they plan to gain by coming here anyway? Yohannah and Lucas had sworn that they didn't plan on joining the already large coven. I was all for meeting other families like us but didn't really see why it was so important to leave our house immediately. What are they keeping from me? Surely they weren't worried about me. According to the rumors, they had accepted the newborn into their coven long before she was a vampire; it would be safe to be around them. Plus the newborn wasn't really much of a newborn anymore; the incident with the Volturi was over a year ago, it would be safer. They would have never brought me here if they were worried for my safety, and I knew that
I was shook from my daydreams by Yohannah's voice. "You can take off the headphones now, Meri. We're almost there."
