de·lir·i·um/diˈli(ə)rēəm/

Noun:

1. An acutely disturbed state of mind that occurs in fever, intoxication, and other disorders.

2. Wild excitement or ecstasy.


Paris, 2010

They were an eclectic mix, but Agnes was used to patrons in the margins. The eccentric and the desperate; her profession was a church that offered a sacrosanct reprieve to all. A quiet island sanctuary in the hectic modern world. Always and unfailing to comfort and protect. Priests, chemical engineers and truck drivers were all susceptible to its charms.

The twins were born on the 19th of March, the boundary between Pisces and Aquarius: Aubrey first, one minute before the clock struck midnight. Second was Agnes, in the fleeting moments of the new day.

When women stopped to peer under the hood of the pram, Agnes would reach up and pat their cheeks, seize their hair, gurgle and smile. Aubrey merely watched in quiet contemplation. He never grizzled or cried. As they grew older, Agnes was relegated to the spotlight; the golden trophy made to be touched and admired. In her job as mouthpiece, she often forgot her brother had a voice at all.

Today was one of those days. As she entertained their last customers, Aubrey observed carefully from a shadowy recess between a grandfather clock and an encoignure, his transmutable blue eyes analysing the three men in measured detail.

The trio were squeezed together uncomfortably on the small, two-person love-seat reserved for this very purpose; angled at the best vantage point for him to observe and be unobserved. He thought he was pretty good at what he did. But for some reason, his faculties were failing him.

The sunlight pulled out of the parlour room as late afternoon transitioned into early evening, catching on the many crystal ornaments hanging from the ceiling or precariously positioned on the many maple and cherry cabinets. Even in the glooming light, their beauty was unusually striking. Rainbows lingered on their skin, appearing to dance and shimmer.

They looked related, bearing similar stark-white skin, covered in a fine, dandruff-like power, and slightly fusty maroon eyes. The white-haired one was old enough to be the father of the two other black-haired boys. Their clothes were antiquated enough to look out-of-place on the street but aligned perfectly to Agnes's bric-a-brac parlour.

The parlour was painted cream and peach and crammed with various and apparently random objects: portraits and china tea-sets and marble busts and several taxidermic animals carefully positioned in large glass bell-jars. Maps of the Parisian necropolis shared wall space with a large photograph of the Lévi family (Aubrey and Agnes could be distinguished as two precious-metal heads peeking out from behind their father's polio-damaged leg.) The room looked like a Victorian Wunderkammer... or the physical manifestation of an unbalanced mind.

A small space was cleared somewhere in the midst of it all; a performance space for Agnes. She stood on the balls of her feet, bouncing up and down like a prize fighter. Then, with a mysterious signal known only to her, she sprung into motion.

Her hand swept through the air in a gesture of welcome. Her hands and forearms were clad in a thin membrane of white, lacy glove- as were his. She couldn't tolerate sliders and hairbands, so her waist-length golden locks spilled down her shoulders and back unimpeded. She was wearing a gown of golden silk, tightly corseted to her waist and flaring like an upended tea-cup in carefully arranged pleats. Tiny pearls were sewn all over the gown and hung from the skirt in long cords which clacked together as she moved. It was designed to take one's breath away, and to plant one firmly in the realm of the mystical, the supernatural.

Beneath the layers of silk and lace and cotton, the cellphone tucked into her underpants was switched to silent.

"My friends," she announced in a voice as grandiose as her hand-gestures. "I'm delighted to make your acquaintance! My name is Agnes, and he"; she wafted her hand in his vague direction, "is Aubrey."

"Hey," Aubrey said from the shadows. "What's up."

The black-haired man seated in the middle glanced curiously in his direction. "Wonderful," he cried joyfully. "Wonderful to meet you at last, my dears!"

Agnes gave a small curtsey, a poised smile curling across her face. "Am I'm correct in assuming our reputation precedes us? Whose particular service do you require?"

The man smiled indulgently, eyes flickering briefly to the men flanking him. The other black-haired one, no older than a boy, was staring at a stuffed wildcat. He appeared completely disaffected by its snarling canines. Marcus, Aubrey thought. The boy had a plain face, but his crowning feature was striking enough- a full complement of curly, corkscrew hair.

The albino smirked as he stared unabashedly at Aubrey's sister. Aubrey was having trouble reading his name. "We are told you are a fortune-teller, little one."

"Yes, and no," Agnes said airily, her smile widening to a grin, more wolf than sheepish.

Here we go, Aubrey silently sighed.

Agnes moved her whole body like an interpretative dancer- to a customer it was hypnotic, mysterious, magical. The beads sewn into her dress clacked together in musical harmony.

"You see, the future is entirely temperamental, constantly diverging from the set course, changing as a million things change in a million ways. The human mind, is, of course, entirely predictable: a thing of synapses and hormones and wiring that will make the same decision in the same situation over and over." Her hands tumbled through circles in the air. "I could, for example, tell you what you will eat for breakfast tomorrow. However, I couldn't tell you if Schrödinger's cat lived or died."

"Of course!" The black-haired man cried rapturously. Aubrey was a little creeped out by his obvious enthusiasm; the first-timers, at least, usually possessed the social grace to be a little sceptical.

Agnes resisted the urge to exchange a glance with her sibling. Instead, she nodded sagely. Her young face was evenly striated by melodramatic earnestness and sarcasm. "I scry the future in the heavens," she elaborated as her hand cleaved the air above her head in two. "I have tools at hand- cards, crystal balls, tea leaves-" she spun around in a circle, and the light sparkled on her pearled dress. "-which aid divination, sometimes revealing what the stars have hidden- but still."

Here, she delivered a well-rehearsed delicate sigh, her hands dramatically clutched across to her heart. "It is still not a definite art. Unlike my dear Aubrey."

The man's eyes sparkled with curiosity. "Oh-?" His attention switched to Aubrey.

"I read the past," Aubrey said bluntly. He felt stupid whenever he mimicked Agnes's majesticism, so his hands hung loosely at his sides. He abruptly jolted into motion, picking his way through the room towards his sister. He was dressed in an impeccably well-tailored, Edwardian-style silver suit, a man's filigree cravat tied around his neck matching the lacy long-sleeved gloves he wore. The perfect complement to Agnes. Silver and gold. Au and Ag.

He hated it when they matched. It was Agnes who craved the attention their profession provided. Aubrey just wanted to be normal. He didn't like going to school and spending his breaks in the library. He wanted a girlfriend.

His quicksilver hair was combed carefully off his face, revealing a face almost identical to his sister's. It was a touch more rounded, his apple cheeks getting a few shades ruddier when he spoke. "Most people wear their past like clothes, I guess. I look at what you're wearing and make inferences about it."

The man smiled sweetly, his head cocked expectantly to the side.

Aubrey cleared his throat. He scrutinised the man, his eyes travelling up and down and through and beyond. By instinct, he was drawn to the holes first- holes punched through the thick membrane of the man's past. They usually indicated death, especially sudden death; because the person had little time to stitch up the space they left behind, they ripped a crevice wide open when they left.

Aubrey caught himself before he started to think about his mother.

"You're guilty about something," he said eventually. "Your... sister. She meant a lot to you. You were... supposed to protect her. It weighs you down."

Aubrey briefly glanced at the other men. He now had their full concentration, identical looks of horror and shock creasing their papery skin. Aubrey took this as an indicator he was on the right track. "She died some time ago... when you were very young. It happened quickly. Unexpected deaths often leave the largest holes. She meant a lot to you."

Agnes felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. Not again, Aubrey, she thought despondently. You can't depress the customers, it's bad for business!

She remembered a particular incidence wherein Aubrey described the minutiae of a teddy-bear, right down to the fraying threads in its ears and the initials sewn onto its right hind-paw. He ploughed on mercilessly, long after the woman pleaded for him to stop as the tears streaked down her face: he was describing the favourite toy of her terminally-ill child.

They had argued for hours afterwards. Aubrey didn't want to do it anymore. But he couldn't refuse his sister anything.

"And you..." he turned his attention to the white-haired man, the words tumbling out of his mouth in an uncensored rush; "your past is almost blank... that's a sure sign of psychopathy..."

"Aubrey!" she gasped. "You can't say that-"

"... though there's something there," Aubrey said over her. "He drowned, didn't he? And it was your fault, too..."

The man's eyes narrowed to slits.

Red-faced and flustered, Agnes's voice rose to a tremulous yell. "Aubrey, stop right now!"

The fountain of words slowed to a trickle, leaving silence in its place. A flush the colour of merlot rose in Aubrey's cheeks as he gradually came to his senses. He gave a little awkward bow. "Sorry... sometimes it just comes out like that. I can't help it when it wants to be said."

He hastily backed away. The white-haired man continued to glare at him, a chill rolling from him in palpable waves that made the hairs on the back of Agnes's neck stand on end.

"Y-yes," Agnes stammered out. "Aubrey can be a little... hasty, sometimes. I'm very sorry- if we've caused any offence...". She bowed her head in shame, the cupid's bow of her lips puckered into a pretty little pout.

The black-haired man in the middle laughed. "My dearest girl, no! My brother isn't offended in the least!"

Marcus (the only one Aubrey could read the name of; a dismal score for him) still wore the an expression of horror, as if his heart was suddenly wrenched from its cavity. The other continued to stare at Aubrey, pure hatred twisting his features into an animalistic snarl. He seriously doubted the man's expression was one of forgiving benevolence.

The coal-haired man seemed the only one of the three men completely at ease. "Tell them, dear Caius, that they are very much forgiven for their... little indiscretion."

Caius twisted his snarl into a mocking smile. "You're wrong," he said so quietly that Aubrey struggled to hear the words. "I don't have a son."

"Good, good," the black-haired man chuckled, awkwardly patting his companion on the knee. "Peace now, brother. Remember our purpose here."

Agnes cast a futile glance at her brother; rallying confidence from his presence."You there," Agnes adressed to Marcus, whose face was once again whiteboard-flat.

"Marcus," Aubrey supplied. Caius's continuing attention withered his words to a weak mew.

"Marcus," Agnes repeated, the charming, faultless smile plastered back on, "you're the only one my brother didn't read... maybe you'd like me to-?"

Marcus said "no" at the same the other black-haired one chirruped a "yes".

"Yes," Marcus sighed.

Agnes leaned towards him, hooking a hand under his elbow. He stood up, and she led him a little way across the room. He was complaint as a lamb.

"Take a seat," she commanded, pushing his shoulders (she didn't have to use very much force) into a plush chair propped up against a low folding card-table. It had a paisley tablecloth neatly thrown over it, at jaunty odds with the plain black box at its centre.

"The tarot is my preferred method of divination," she clarified, partially to Marcus (who wasn't listening) but mostly to the other man, of whom she was the object of a full and rapt attention. "Right," she muttered under her breath.

Agnes undid the clasps on the black box and withdrew her deck of cards. She shuffled so efficiently the cards blurred in her hands. They sounded like rain as the cardboard spines slapped together.

The cards were beautifully illustrated, illuminated in glowing inks- clearly very old. Despite their heavy use, they showed only the slightest signs of wear and tear. Agnes spread them across the tablecloth in a fan, face down.

"Choose the card that stands out the most to you," she explained languidly. "This card is the one that represents you... so choose carefully."

Disregarding her advice, he chose a card with barely a glance. It was the one on the very left-hand side. He handed it to her mutely, his eyes devoid of emotion.

Agnes flipped it over. The picture showed a man standing between two women who wore crowns. The man gazed at the woman wearing a crown of laurel; but she swatted him away with a disdainful glance. The other woman bore a crown of flowers and tentatively reached out to his heart.

"L'Amoureux, the lovers. You desire what you cannot have."

Agnes lay the card above the fan. She swept the remaining cards into a pile and divided it, creating three separate piles below the picture of L'Amoureux. "Now, choose the pile you feel most drawn to. Take as much time as you think you may need."

This time Marcus was a little more careful. The middle pile was arranged less orderly than the others, the ends of cards poking out like dog-ears from a book. Marcus enjoyed reading. It was also smaller than the other piles. "That one," he said quietly, pointing. His voice was raspy with underuse.

Agnes nodded, stacking the piles together again, putting his chosen pile on top. Then, tentatively, she started flipping them over, one by one, splaying them across the table in no detectable pattern. After about twelve cards, she stopped. Some of the cards bore intricate designs, while others had simple depictions of swords, cups, wands. "La Maison Dieu, La Justice, Le Mat, La Papessa," she muttered under her breath, touching some of the cards. "Le Bateleur. Hmmm..." Agnes looked up at found he was staring at her, perhaps just the slightest interest furrowing his brow. "There are many possibilities here."

She arranged the cards in a particular order; L'Amoureux in the middle, surrounded by a ring of more elaborate cards and another ring of cups, hearts and wands, sliding some cards across the table. Others she just touched briefly and let them be. Occasionally she tittered or shook her head as the cards glided across the table, directed by her feminine hands. Once or twice, she felt a little current of electricity pass between her hands and the cards lying inert on the table, as if she were no more a person than a finely tuned dielectric meter.

"Le Bateleur indicates there will be a change in your life, and soon," Agnes said, touching an illustrated card of a youthful man in a colourful, patchwork doublet. Her hand then passed over L'Amoureux.

"You will fall in love."

Here, Agnes allowed herself to smile, though Marcus remained blank-faced. She jumped at the sound of Caius's barking laughter.

"But... she is... enigmatic," Agnes said, touching a card showing a woman with her hands folded neatly in her lap. "She will break your heart."

Agnes gestured at the arrangement of hearts and swords. "I don't know... she may not be as she appears... there will be a decision to make."

Her hand hovered over a crumbling tower; two people fall from a height, terror on their faces. Her hand trembled slightly. "Then... La Maison Dieu. The lightning-struck tower: catastrophe, disaster, chaos- there is burning, blood, pain-" Agnes closed her eyes, but the images come unbidden: cities burning; a labyrinth; children screaming; lining the edges of a tunnel an overflowing array of human skulls...

Agnes took a deep shuddering breath, running a hand over her eyes. She snapped them open again and pointed to the last card, a little apart from the others. It was blank for the number inscribed on the bottom. "Death."

"But that is just one possibility... the future rarely follows a foreseen path..." she clumsily swept up the cards and jammed them back in the box. "You must go now," Agnes said, springing to her feet. "No charge. Thank you."

With one fleeting look at her brother, she paced out of the room. Aubrey withdrew soon after, more quietly, until just Caius, Marcus and Aro remained. Marcus hadn't moved; staring blankly at the space the cards were.

"The boy was talented," Caius admitted after a time. "If I could restrain myself from ripping his head off."

Aro nodded in agreement. "Unfortunately, we have no present need for his particular talent... talented he is, undoubtedly. We shall have to keep a close eye on him. Such a shame about the girl, though... I was so sure, after everything we heard about her. But there isn't the remotest possibility that-" he glanced across at his black-haired brother, who appeared to be in deep contemplation. "- and twins... it was just so promising. But she was nothing but a facade for her brother's true talent."

Caius shrugged. "You'll get your pre-cog one day, Aro."

"One day soon, I hope," Aro simpered lightly.

"I hope..." Marcus repeated, in such a quiet voice it was though he hadn't spoken at all.


Across the street, there was a sudden flurry of motion as a murder of crows were disturbed from their evening roost.

The murky surface of a puddle pooling in the concave alleyway was as flat as a mirror.

Then, lazy rolls of water breathed across it. Then, ripples. Then, waves that rapidly grew bigger and bigger into a spitting crescendo; a tempest in a grungy backstreet. It gave a soft creaking noise, like the rocking of a ship. It was a furiously muddy tornado. It hissed and spat and steamed its dirty, overzealous broth all over the alley walls.

In its ecclesial zenith, the waterspout gave birth to a girl. She lysed from the miasma, pale and blotchy face-first, like a newborn.

The water's afterbirth splattered all over the walls and caked the girl in brown sludge. Her hand flicked to her face and wiped a small window for her eyes.

They oscillated in their sockets rapidly as she took in her surrounds. She tilted her chin upwards, following the plastic guttering to the tiled roof of the three-story apartment complex. She flinched as a raindrop hit her face, streaking a clear path down the edge of her jaw. As homeostasis kicked in the girl shivered in her thin summer dress.

Just a few seconds ago- she was sure of it- she had just jumped from a cliff. And unlike the heroine of a certain saga, she had considered its sinister consequence.

For a minute she took the twisted contortions of stone and metal as the gates of the abovelands, but dismissed the notion almost straight away. Her surrounds smelt terrible; cat's piss and food spices and a rat infestation (and faintly, the smell of sea-brine); she was surrounded by discarded flyers, empty bottles, bursting bags of a foul odour. The cast-off debris of a undoubtedly human civilisation.

She forced herself to assess the situation logically.

I don't know where I am. My parents are dead. And a monster... a monster is chasing me.

The girl looked over her shoulder, but the thing that called itself her brother hadn't jumped off the cliff after her. The glance only revealed a dead end to the alley; a wall painted with some sort of artistic fluorescence. There was no sign of the waterspout, or indeed, a puddle. It had divulged all over its surrounds.

She pulled a strand of seaweed from her shoulder, the relief spilling into her chest as a breath she didn't realise she had been holding.

There was no space, no time for second-guessing her decision. The suicide note was the fall itself... the head-rush, the flailing arms, the encroaching midnight Aegean sea... and a clawing, despearte realisation that she didn't want to die. She would've let the monster have its way with her if it let her live at the end. She would do anything to remain alive. Honour is a faculty of those who have never had to endure.

I have a second chance, the girl thought, ignorant of exactly how correct she was. I will endure.

With these buoyant thoughts in mind, the girl took her first steps in the curious new world.


Author's note: Hi there :) This is my first fanfiction - and the longest thing I've ever written. You'd be doing me a big favour by leaving a review and telling me what you think!

I just want to clarify the ages of the protagonists before the story progresses...

Apart from the story's premise, I try to stay with the cannon presented in the book, the guide, and Stephenie's FAQ (though at times they contradict each other). Unfortunately, this means Marcus is not an absurdly attractive forty-something, but a somewhat lankier 16-year-old boy. (The guide says two things regarding his age; he was turned before he was twenty and is the youngest of the Volturi coven. If Didyme's 17... Marcus is 16.) Afton (you'll meet him soon) is 24. Aro is 25, Caius is middle-aged (*sigh*) as per book cannon.

Happy reading!