Even after I finished reading to Renesmee, I didn't take her to bed at once. She, Edward, Jacob and I sat in the living room of the cottage, staring into space. None of us spoke, each one of us absorbed in our own thoughts. The only sound was the crackling and occasional snapping of the fire. It flickered over all our faces, turning Jacob's russet skin gold, and making dark shadows on the half of Edward's face that wasn't turned to the fire, and cast a buttery glow over Renesmee's cherub-like, pensive face.
When the faint ticking of the clock announced eight, I shook myself mentally.
I kissed Renesmee on the top of her head. "Time for bed, I think," I hinted.
She looked at me balefully for a moment, then reached for her father.
I passed Renesmee to Edward, and he hugged and kissed her.
"Goodnight, my love. Sleep well."
She nodded, and looked at Jacob.
He smiled back. "I'll come say goodnight in a minute," he promised, as I carried her to her room.
Though she was perfectly capable of undressing on her own, I helped Renesmee change into her cherry-patterned fuscia pyjamas, courtesy of Alice. I brushed her long auburn curls until they hung around her face, smooth and knot free, and watched as she cleaned her straight, pearly teeth meticulously. After this, she smiled sweetly and raised her arms. I picked her up and laid her in the cot, pulling the blanket over her. Even for a November night, it was very cold.
Jacob came in and Renesmee bent her head so he could kiss her forehead goodnight. He tucked her in and smiled down at her.
"Night, Nessie. Sleep tight, honey."
She blew us each a kiss, and closed her eyes. I flicked off the light and we both tiptoed out of the room, though we knew Renesmee's uncanny hearing would follow us until the door closed and our footsteps were muffled by the cream hallway carpet.
"I think I'll go now too," Jacob said to me. "I need a bit of sleep."
"Of course," I replied mechanically.
"Are you all right? You look kind of… off."
"No, I'm fine," I insisted, trying to jerk out of my strange state of being. I felt almost hollow, dazed, after seeing my daughter go to bed after yet another long day.
He looked at me for a moment, then patted my head and strolled out of the door. I didn't even have the heart to scowl at his patronising gesture.
I knew the way I was feeling had everything to do with what Alice had secretly instructed me to do. I had prepared Jacob and Renesmee's false documents, and I now knew what they were for. I was the only one who could help their outcome; it was too risky to confide in anyone exposed to Aro's ominous ability.
I walked slowly to the doorway of the living room, where Edward had picked up the book I had read to our daughter and was perusing it by the light of the fire. My heart seemed like it was made of lead – a dead weight, and icy. It was then I realised I was shaking. My head was numb, frozen, and so was my heart.
Edward looked up and saw me shivering. He was beside me in a second, his hands on my shoulders.
"Bella? What's wrong?"
I shook my head. "Cold."
His forehead crumpled into a confused frown. "But…"
I shook my head harder. "Cold. Inside."
He understood then, and pulled me into his arms. When he released me, I felt a desperate urge for shelter; I guessed it was a human instinct coming back to me in this time of despair. I wandered into our bedroom, Edward following, keeping a hand on the small of my back. I changed into a pale blue knee-length nightdress made of silk which Alice had bought for me, not bothering to complain about the necessities she saw of nightclothes for those who could not sleep.
I crawled into the big white bed and pulled the duvet over me, shutting my eyes tight. I felt Edward appraise me worriedly for a second, then heard his shirt sliding to the floor. In another moment I felt the duvet tug a little and Edward's warm hand on my waist. Funny to think I used to get goosebumps from him doing this. He didn't turn me around to face him; he kept his face pressed into my hair, occasionally kissing it, my shoulder, my neck. I dared not let my eyes open, so kept them squeezed closed to stop the tears escaping and showing my anguish.
It was not the first of sleepless nights but it was the only one in which I felt deprived. I lay curled up, Edward hugging me from behind for what must have been hours. A strange numbness was sweeping over me, dull but growing stronger, fluttering with tiny butterflies of panic. It crushed my lungs, reminding me horribly, though dimly, of the worst human memory I had, of when Edward left me. Little though I needed it, I found myself gasping for air, as dark thoughts and queries swirled around my brain like murky water rippling in a black, fathomless lake. The Volturi would kill us for sure. In a few days the first of our possible witnesses, Tanya and her family, would arrive; but even if we did manage to build up a whole army of supporters, would we simply be slaughtered and brushed aside as the Volturi had done with so many others? Would my new family, with whom I hadn't even spent a year with, be wiped cleanly away, with no more thought than swatting a fly, almost directly because of me?
The main worry eating away inside my brain was Renesmee. Her name ran around my head like the constant buzzing of bees. Would she flee in time, while we were fighting? Were J. Jenks's false certificates good enough to keep her and her soulmate safe? Would Jacob find them and understand in time? Could they meet up with Alice and Jasper when they got there? My chest ached as a wave of despair washed over me – how I wished I could go with them…
As Edward kissed my neck, I knew he was the one person I would not have to worry about in all of this. He and I had each accepted that neither would or could live without the other, so if he was marching into a battle to the death, I would follow gladly. Our love would continue, even after our existence had ceased, both for our daughter and for eachother, and there was nothing anyone could do about that.
He held me close in the night, pressing his face into my hair. He must have known something was wrong, and I knew he must have been dying to hear my thoughts, wishing he could comfort, reassure, possibly even writhing in his desperation; but he knew me well enough not to ask. And even if he did, I could not tell him.
"The odds... the odds are always stacked against us."
I remembered Edward telling me that almost one year ago, when he was trying to convince me that he loved me after the excursion to Italy. It was a dim human memory, but I could picture it almost clearly in my mind. But he had been right. The most unnatural couple on earth; predator and prey; the lion and the lamb.
"What a stupid lamb." "What a sick, masochistic lion."
I clenched my teeth together to stop myself screaming in agony. I kept my eyes closed.
It was a while until I remembered that I could not cry. In my new body, the pricking in my eyes must be some kind of illusion – my eyes would never shed another tear again. They would remain dry forever, but still I kept them shut tight, trying to block out the world…
I heard Renesmee shift in her cot. I heard her eyes flutter open. And I heard the soft cry break from her lips.
Edward stiffened. We both sat up, his arms still around my waist.
"I'll get it," he whispered, and he was gone.
Almost robotically, I sat up in bed and finally opened my eyes. The curtains were closed, so only a faint white glow around the window showed any signs of time. I recognised it as moonlight
I followed Edward to the door of Renesmee's room which linked into ours.
We hadn't shut the curtains there, so the strong light of an almost full moon spilled into the room, turning everything outside various shades of silver and white, leaching them of colour like an old bone.
His skin did not do the same things it did in the sun, to throw shimmering rainbows in every direction like a giant crystal prism; I could see him quite clearly in the hoary illumination. It made him look as if he were carved from stone, every line and surface sharply defined. The moonlight ran over his bare and toned chest like a silver waterfall, turning his hair grey. His eyes were black as the night outside, where trees dipped in glitter swayed in a gentle and soundless night wind. It made me want to cry again to see Edward standing there, flawless and perfect, as he always was.
In his arms, and held to his chest, was Renesmee. Her back was to the window, so all that I could see of her was in shadow. She was whimpering softly, her heart fluttering anxiously. The pitiful sound broke my aching heart.
"Daddy," she whispered.
"I'm here sweetheart," he said in a low soothing voice. "Bad dream?"
"Nightmare," she murmured, and pressed her hand to his cheek.
I wished I shared Edward's talent, that I could also hear what was troubling her in her night time explorations. But his face remained expressionless as he lowered her hand and kissed it.
"It's only a nightmare, little one. Don't let it upset you." He began humming the tune he had written for her. I watched as she nestled into his neck, relaxing and soon going limp in his arms. I felt my eyes burn while he carefully replaced her in the cot. It reminded me forlornly of how he used to reassure me in the times I used to sleep, when I had bad dreams and he would sing to me. But I had no need of his help to make me sleep now – I couldn't sleep any more than he could.
I didn't realise my feet had carried me forward until my hands were resting on the bars of the cot, and I was looking down at my daughter, now lost in slumber once more. I brushed a single ringlet away from her face. I couldn't bear it if she was taken away from me.
"Bella," Edward whispered in a tortured voice.
As I turned around, I noticed with dismay that he looked aged. His hundred years of pain and emotion burned in the back of his eyes, and his wrinkled forehead, creased with worry lines, gave him the look of someone who had suffered a lot more than he should. The sharp shadows cast by the moonlight threw half of his beautiful face into shadow. For the first time, he looked old, ancient. The suffering he usually hid had leaked onto his face. I hated to see him like this, weak and crippled, though I knew even he couldn't play the role of strength forever, and this was what he truly felt shining through. I wanted to take him in my arms and protect him, as if he needed it, and kiss all his sorrows away. It was hard to know that I was one of them.
"Please, Bella, tell me what's wrong," he pleaded.
I shook my head. "I can't, Edward." My voice, even in a tone softer than the wind, broke.
His face was agonised, and I wished more than anything that I could confide in him. "I need to know," he begged.
"It's nothing, Edward," I whispered. We both saw through the lie.
In unison, we walked slowly to the window. I wrapped my arms around his waist, and he put his around me. Holding eachother, we stared up at the moon, over the silver-tipped forest and the distant pinpricks of the stars, the hazy black sky; down upon the world that had become ours, and we wondered when it would shatter over our heads in a smattering of glass and silver shards, like a mirror, like a ripping heart; the severing of our own private heaven.