Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight; if I did, I would be filthy rich and retired by now.
Note: So begins my epic quest to edit… Hopefully, it's for the better.
Chapter 1
Maiden in the Moonlight
"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."
-"A Dream Within A Dream" Edgar Allen Poe
"Where are you going, Jazz?" My "adopted" brother, Edward, asked from his seat on the white leather sofa placed in the Cullen family's spacious living room. I stopped at the front door, my hand still grasping the expensive gold doorknob. Edward looked up from his book to gaze casually at me with his all knowing golden eyes- the same exact eyes possessed by every member in this house, including myself. Edward, out of habit, brushed his thin, ghostly pale fingers through his bronze hair.
I smiled to myself and retaliated in a musical, southern accented voice that set me apart from the rest of the Cullens, "You tell me." As if the mind reader didn't already know. I opened the door and disappeared into the night. I could hear Edward chuckle as he put his book away to leave, no doubt to go see his Bella.
But he did ask a good question. Where was I going? Not even I knew. My plan, as per usual, was to stroll around in the forest until daybreak in hope of finding answers to the many unanswered questions I've come to ask over the many years of my existence; questions like, Will I always be able to restrain what I truly am? Will I ever be as strong as my family? And how am I to reconcile for all of the terrible, monstrous things that I have done or will do? And the biggest question of them all; what do you live for when you can live forever?
Not once over the century or so have I even come close to an answer. I sighed aloud. I fear, I admitted once again to myself, that I will be forever haunted with monstrous memories and taunted by the retribution that I so desperately crave.
I was pulled from my dark thoughts by a faint disruption carried to me on the winds from the East. "What is that?" The thought left my lips before I registered the thought. Curious and having ample time on my hands, I followed the sound. It led me a few miles east. By then I was able to distinguish that the noise was a voice. Someone, a girl, was singing. I was little ways away, but I could make out a verse.
"The years creep slowly by, Lorena,
The snow is on the grass again.
The sun's low down the sky, Lorena,
The frost gleams where the flow'rs have been.
But the heart throbs on as warmly now,
As when the summer days were nigh.
Oh, the sun can never dip so low
A-down affection's cloudless sky."
I froze, listening to the haunting, alluring tune. This mournful song- I knew it, and I would never forget for two reasons; one reason being that I'd heard it nearly every day when I was human. The memories were fuzzy, but I recalled how the soldiers, regardless of the side in which they fought for, would sing the hymn- Lorena, I believed it was called- in remembrance of their wives and girlfriends at home.
And the other reason, the one that tormented me most even after all these years, came in the memory of a woman singing the very same haunting ballad. Still now, the image burned away at my sanity. But why would such a small recollection scare me so, you ask? Simple. That woman was the first human that I had ever killed.
It was a cold April night. The moon, although only a crescent, shone bright and set the leaves and tall grass alight with a soft, illuminating glow. Several patches of night blooming cereuses were abloom and rivaled the twinkling stars against the pitch black sky. Among the beauty was one greater- a woman with short choppy dark auburn brown hair, who stood in the meadow singing the tune I'd heard so many others sing. But her voice, an angel's voice, could never be put in comparison to any of them.
"A hundred months have passed, Lorena
Since last I held that hand in mine
And felt the pulse beat fast, Lorena
Though mine beat faster far than thine"
But I paid the maiden nor her song no mind, for I had a greater desire to quench; the desire for the rich elixir running through her veins. I could only notice and care for the thumping of her heart as her most delicious blood pumped throughout her body. To my newborn self, the smell was so intoxicating that I could not bear to even so much as think about parting with it. It was irresistible to me; I've never smelled such tantalizing blood. I doubt that I would have been able to fight it, even if I had been an older vampire at the time.
Half-crazed by thirst and the bittersweet aroma, my instincts took hold of both my mind and body. My body crouched and my eyes stalked my prey. Before I knew it, I had already leaped.
So many mixes of emotion- fear, confusion, terror, and déjà vu- each feeling racked my body with tremors, the next stronger than the first. It was an unusual feeling to me. I had grown accustomed to the rush of emotion from the people around me, but the feeling of so many of my own was foreign.
My feet acted before my brain. Before I knew it, I was straddling the border of the forest looking onward into the meadow, cloaked in the shadows created by the ancient barrier of trees. In the meadow grew tall blue grasses and various breeds of bright hued wild flowers. Despite its meager size, the crescent moon illuminated the scene and set the field alight. The grasses waved in the wind, leaves on the trees bathed in the moon's rays, and several patches of moonflowers bloomed and glowed like candlelight. I doubled back to the flowers, and recalled another name for those flowers- the night blooming cereus.
And in the middle of it all stood a young maiden. She stood straight, only reaching a few inches over five feet, and stared heavenward, lost in the clear starry night sky. She was singing.
"A hundred months...'twas flowery May
When up the hilly slope we climbed
To watch the dying of the day
And hear the distant church bells chime."
Her song reached out to entangle itself around my frame and pulled me closer to the beauty. I could see her, not even half a football field away, from my hiding spot behind an old oak. And a beauty she was.
She wore a simple white sundress, which wasn't the most practical article to wear in the middle of April (especially in Washington where it's cold and rainy). The dress did not do her slim, petite body justice, and something about her made me think that nothing in this world ever would. Her hair was a dark shade of auburn brown and hung in spiral curls past her shoulder blades. Her porcelain skin sparkled celestially in the moonlight- similar to the effect of the sun on my own. She looked so delicate, I thought.
My observation came to an abrupt stop with a single strong gust of wind. The rueful torrent blew in to tangle in the maiden's hair- whipping it this way and that. The dancing air current floated across the field and drifted into the line of oaks. Her bittersweet, intoxicating scent overwhelmed me. Instinctively, I sprung back a few feet, but made a mistake by snapping a young tree in half. It was happening all over again.
For a reason I'll never know, I looked up. She was looking, too. Dark, smoldering gold orbs met mix matched eyes. Her left eye was a stunning light sky blue, and the right was a dazzling emerald green. I lost all ability to breath. I tried to peel my eyes away, but something held them there. I found myself mesmerized by the captivating shades and hues and colors in her eyes.
She had no warning, no clue. I sprang forth with the agility and ferocity of a hunter and easily grabbed hold of her tiny body. Without a pause, I clenched down on her neck with my teeth and gripped her neck with one palm. I smiled into her neck when I heard her gasp, and then begin to struggle by flailing about. She managed to smack me in the nose and BREAK it, but the lust for her blood was all that drove me. I had barely even noticed.
Then all too soon, she fell silent as I lapped up the last of her warm, delectable blood. She fell limp from my arms once the blood was drained. Her once writhing body slipped from my hands and she crumbled to the grass like a broken doll. Finished, I turned to leave, but something pulled me back, made me look once more upon her. The image sent a shockwave through every nerve in my body. Her fingers twitched and she gasped desperately only to find the only passage for air crushed beyond repair. She looked up at me with confused eyes; her stunning, hauntingly beautiful eyes.
Then she died. Looking up right at me, she took a strangled raspy breath and ceased all movement. I couldn't hear her strange fluttering heartbeat anymore. Something panged in my chest. I clutched at the spot angrily, irritated by the unreachable pain. But I could hear Maria calling me. I took one last look at the woman before I left. I couldn't help but feel, as I walked away, that I had left something behind along with her.
She blinked. The quick reflex gave me enough time to cut loose from her grasp. I expected her to run, in fear of the beast hidden among the shadowed timber. But she did no such thing. Instead, she nodded politely and looked back to the stars and continued the century old ballad.
"We loved each other then, Lorena
More than we ever dared to tell
And what we might have been, Lorena
Had but our loving prospered well"
I was befuddled. Could she see me? No, surely not. No human could possibly see so far. But, was I even sure she was human? I listened, hearing past the song. I could hear a heartbeat- an odd, rapid paced, irregular pulse. The beat resembled a hummingbird thrumming its wings, I thought. Odd; inhuman.
Another breeze ransacked the foliage, but this time, knowing the delicious, otherworldly aroma to come, I began to panic again. I took one last glance at the maiden. She didn't seem to be bothered by my presence. A foolish human, I bitterly warned her silently. Then, with my breath still held, I turned to run back to my coven.
What a foolish woman. She stared straight into the eyes of a beast, and merely turned away. I laughed dryly. There was no way it could be the same woman. If it were, she would have run. She would have run far, far away from the man- no, the sadistic vampire who had killed her so many years ago.
"But then, 'tis past, the years have gone
I'll not call up their shadowy forms
I'll say to them, "Lost years, sleep on
Sleep on, nor heed life's pelting storms."
