The angel had landed, supposedly, sometime in the 1920s. No one had ever seen a body, or even a stray feather to indicate its presence. There was only a hole in the middle of the woods, gaping like open jaws, sides crumbling, seven feet into the ground. A fissure shaped like a person.
"Do you see those indents next to the thighs?" Alice asked, gesturing daintily to the spots where the shape of the body was distorted; stretching from where the creature's knees would have been and stopping just below the torso, the earth was crushed even deeper in two long shapes. "Those are supposed to be the wings."
The angel's landing spot hadn't been destroyed by local teenagers a thousand times over only because it was so far removed from anything. Though it had been roughly a century, the hole had remained more or less the way it was discovered. The weather had done some damage, but an old, poorly constructed roof had done a fair job of protecting it from the elements. The informational sign, put there some twenty years ago, was in much worse condition than the open earth.
Then again, a hole in the ground could always be dug out again.
Jasper didn't say as much out loud, because he didn't want to ruin his wife's– or his little sister's– mood. Jasper watched them peer happily at the space which had once held an angel. Bella's eyes, turned gold within the last year, were alight with excitement.
Her first few years of being a vampire had been stressful, and very painful for her at times. Not being able to see her father and her best friend was still something that bothered her. But the worst of the bloodlust was over, and they moved now so she could have yet another whack at high school, something she was excited for. (Though why, Jasper couldn't imagine.)
They'd stopped because Bella had thought it would be fun to look at, and everyone– even Rosalie– was doing whatever they could to make her first year starting afresh as good as it could be.
Strange as it was, Edward, standing back from the others, was the one who was permeating the air with thick aggravation, the one who was making Jasper's day a little more confusing, and just a little more uncomfortable; ...along with Emmett, who was in a worryingly mischievous mood. As he thought this, a splash of fierce emotion brought his attention back to Edward.
And he worried:
How could Edward be so upset when Bella looked so happy?
A cloud of guilt and annoyance entered Jasper's consciousness, and he knew that Edward had heard him. He turned, smiling and thinking, It's okay; I understand... Once you've seen the grand canyon, holes in the ground just aren't that exciting, do you find?Edward grinned crookedly at Jasper, and the blond turned back to the rest of his family with the same sense of relief he had every time he saw that look on Edward's face. This was the happy Edward they'd thought had faded away; the brother they lost when they left Forks... and the brother they gained when Bella's heart stopped beating.
"Well, girls!" Emmett exclaimed suddenly, stepping in between Alice and Bella and throwing his arms around them. "Sisters."
Alice swam in Emmett's touch, so tiny beneath his massive biceps, trying in vain to escape the crushing half-hug. Bella on the other hand threw her own arm around his waist and declared, "Emmett, my dearest big brother– right after Jasper of course!" Bella threw a wink in Jasper's direction, one she had obviously meant Emmett to see. "Is there something you wanted to say?"
Six people there chuckled– but neither of Jasper's brothers did. Emmett had a mock somber look on his face, and Edward was quiet behind them.
"Alice... Bella... I love you both very much, and it pains me to be the one who destroys the pure innocence of my sweet sisters, but there is something you must both know about this place where an 'angel' once lay: There has been no angel here."
"Awh, Emmett!" Alice whined, "Why do you have to ruin things! We were having fun pretending anyways..."
Emmett laughed uproariously, and the others' confusions mingled in the air and on their faces.
"I didn't say something special hadn't happened here. I said there was no angel."
Bella pouted, her full lips pulled into a more devastating, 'heart broken' expression than perhaps even Alice could have managed– each member of the family (but mostly Edward, of course) had discovered all too soon her natural ability for wheedling.
Emmett cleared his throat. "You see, girls, once upon a time in the, er..."
"1920s," Alice supplied in a short, clipped tone which was somehow still friendly.
"In the 1920s!" Emmett continued with more enthusiasm. His voice dropped to a huskier level, sounding like a swarm of bees buzzing in the summer. "There were a couple of vampires. A man and a woman. And one day– or perhaps over the course of several days..." Emmett grinned luridly.
He pointed grandly to the hole before them, finishing: "They fucked themselves right into the ground."
"Emmett!" Bella and Alice both moaned– along with Rosalie, who looked horrified. "That's an awful thing to say about a place where angels are supposed to have walked," the gorgeous blonde sniffed afterwards, honestly offended; perhaps because she still clung to the thought of the holy world, as a saviour from the one she lived in.
Emmett told Rosalie simply, a serene smile briefly taking over his face: "Vampires fuck where an angel has walked all the time."
Only Emmett could make such a thing into a compliment, and only Rosalie could handle being called an angel and a monster all at once– she would have flushed were she still human, so pleased were her emotions.
"Seriously, though," Emmett added, and crouched down, pointing to the areas next to the thighs– the imprint of the angel wings. "That's where his knees were, see? ...I'd say this guy was about Jasper's height."
Jasper peered in, Carlisle doing the same, along with his daughters. Esme stayed back, shaking her head in exasperation. Edward's mood had gone beyond the boundaries of Jasper's skill– who needed magic powers? His foot tapped impatiently on the floor, his mouth set in a hard line. He wanted to leave.
But Jasper knew he was the only one to have noticed– Even Esme, though she pretended otherwise, was completely drawn in by Emmett's idea. "My, my, son," Carlisle finally muttered in disbelief. "I think you're right."
While his family chattered and drifted away from the gaping earth, Jasper stood rooted to the spot, staring at the indentations along the thighs– and so did Edward, offensive fury coming off him like a stench. But there was something else there, too, something that made Jasper cringe with indignation and shock.
Emmett was right about another thing.
The male vampire was very close to being as tall as him. Within a few inches of Jasper's height, in fact.
And if he was reading the emotions coming off of his brother properly, within a few feet of where Jasper was standing.