Twilight meets Beauty And The Beast and ends in a dark fairytale that shows the true depth of darkness and light in human nature and the transcendence of true love; inspired also by The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Midnight Secretary, Pride and Prejudice, and Wuthering Heights. AU. AH. Cannon pairings to the max.

Something new. Tell me what you think. Xoxo —ei

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

THIRST

Chapter two, Antidote

England, circa 1687

Days later, when all the excitement had settled, Ben told us about his and Father's encounter in the woods.

"What are you saying?" I cried. "He is out there in the wood alone, dead?!"

"To be sure, we know not whether he is dead," Ben hedged, nervously twisting the new ring on his third finger. "After all, I was able to find my way home."

"This is your fault!" I swooped down on Jessica. "You wanted Father to go. You just had to have your…frivolity!"

She cowered under my rage.

"Bella," Angela sighed wearily. "Let her alone. Suffering your wrath will not bring Father back. And you know Jessica would not have agreed to his leaving if she had known of the outcome. Do not be selfish in your grief. We are just as wounded as you."

Truth be told there wasn't much time for argument. The Swan household had never seen such activity. We were busy from dawn until close to midnight. There was so much to do if all were to be ready for the wedding that was set for early May.

And then, there was the crucial matter of Angela's dowry. We had no obvious wealth so we had to be creative. Jessica had been carefully hoarding a small store of linens since childhood, adding one cherished bit from time to time, which she donated, grudgingly, to Angela, on my stern edict.

Angela had never given a thought to a dowry, not that Ben minded, bless his heart. Perhaps she never thought she would secure Ben's affectations, or, more likely, she had never owned a selfish though in her benevolent head. But in any case, she had not a single pillowcase nor a linen napkin that she could call her own. Always she had sown with the thought of the good of our family.

But now, we fussed and stitched in a furor though she still regarded the whole problem with indifference. Why did she need a dowry, she argued practically, when she was really not leaving home at all?

She and Ben had already decided that, for the first year, at least they had best share our house. After all Ben would have to become of the head of our household and assume the caretaking duties of his wife's sisters lest they become spinsters.

And yet, amid our happiness, we still hoped that one day Father would return. That the open would swing open and he would stand in the doorway, jubilant, and I would tumble into his arms, and smell the familiar woody fragrance of pine that always seemed to follow him wherever he went.

A knock came upon the door.

I hurried forward and whipped it open, my heart rising hopefully.

"Hello Isabella!"

The smile vanished from my face.

Undeterred, Eric of Y— stepped forward into our house. "I have heard that Benjamin and Angela's marriage intentions were announced in the Meeting House. Now that your father is gone, I seek an audience with Goodman Benjamin. Perhaps I can persuade him to make his nuptials a double act?"

All the anger I had been quashing down reared up inside me: all my selfish indignance that it had been Benjamin who had survived and not my beloved Father; that Angela would leave us soon to fend for ourselves with selfish husbands like Eric of Y—; that Jessica didn't even seem to care that Father was never coming back.

"No!" I snapped ferociously.

"No?" He repeated, his tone gracious. "I am now to learn that it is the convention with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favor; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second or even a third time?"

"Heavens, no!" I cried, horrified that I had not yet managed to repulse him. "I am not one of those young women, if such young ladies there are, who are so daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second time. I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make me happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who would make you so. I am persuaded you would find me in every respect ill qualified for the situation," I said sternly.

He continued to beam stupidly at me.

I protested, "Really, Lord Y—, if what I have said appears to you in the form of encouragement, I know not how to express my refusal in such a way as may convince you of its being one."

He merely smiled. "You are uniformly charming! When I do myself the honor of speaking to you next on his subject I shall hope to receive a more favorable answer than you have now given me.

But my patience had yet been exceeded.

"Be gone!" I shrieked at him. "You presence is a scourge on my conscience and I wish nothing with you, least of all matrimony."

And so shocked he was at my utter lack of propriety that leave he did and without another word.

"Isabella Swan!" Angela had come downstairs to catch the end of my diatribe. "Where are your manners?"

Oh, I would have it now.

-x-

And then, one day, abruptly, like we were woken from a dream, a man had appeared in the town square, bedraggled and utterly razed. The town doctor was called for and soon thereafter a messenger was dispatched to our house with the news we had all been waiting for.

We rushed into town, dropping everything in our haste; even Jessica had not needed a second rousting to draw her away from her embroidery.

Our giddiness sped us to the doctor's door, our exhilaration never letting our feet touch the snow-covered ground.

The door opened and Goodwife Clearwater peered out in the street at our beaming faces. Instantly, her face fell dramatically.

"Oh, 'tis you all." She hesitated. "Come in, then."

"Please, tell us—are the rumours true? Is it him? Is it Father?"

"Aye. But you best come in…"

And suddenly, I was afraid. Her reaction did not make sense. She should have been jubilant. But she was speaking quietly, as though she had been at the bedside of a dying man. But Father was fine…the messenger would have said something if he…

"Let me see him!" I said, my tone urgent.

She led us into her house and the smell of tonics and pungent ointments assailed my nose. Finally, she stopped at a white door at the rear of her house. A red cross was splashed across it. She knocked quietly.

"Leah, is that you?"

"Yes. Goodman Benjamin, his wife and her sisters have arrived. Shall I let them in?"

At his directive, she gestured for us to enter.

I had been exalted to see Father, but as we entered, I could only gape at the remains of the wretched man I saw before me.

It certainly was Father, but emaciated almost beyond recognition; his hair, which had been a rich, thick mahogany brown, was shockingly white. He shivered and shook continuously.

-x-

"You did right."

I glanced up, shocked. "How can you think so? I was the very antonym of a proper young lady. How will any of the others in town consider me now? I cannot burden Ben and Angela forever."

"The others will get over there shock in time," he said, unconcernedly. "But you did well. Eric of Y— is a simpleton and an insufferable lout of a man. And you are lucky to be rid of his attentions."

"You are quite biased," I smiled.

"I suppose, but in his case, that doesn't make it any less fortunate for you."

"Jacob," I chided him. "You ought not to encourage me."

"I hardly think I can save you from yourself: you prefer the company of books to men, you reject perfectly suitable proposals, and your closest acquaintance is a red heathen. Perhaps a convent might be in your future."

"Oh, you are far too impertinent for your own good, Jacob!"

He merely laughed, in the strange wild way of his people. We were sitting in a clearing a ways from the edge of the town, surrounded by the quiet, away from prying eyes of both sides.

"And how fares your father?"

"I worry for him," I admitted, biting my lip. "Some days, he seems almost well. He talks as he did, laughs, and I think he may recovers. But such days are few and far between. Most days, he is agued and feverish When he speaks, it is mad talk, of demons and creatures nightmarish and much more that I cannot make sense of."

"What does your healer say?"

I scoffed. "He speaks only of blood-letting by leeches and pours awful concoctions down Father's throat that do little to alleviate his ills. He insists on giving Father laudanum for sound sleep, but I hate to see him so—he does not even recognize us then. I fear we are losing him, he grows only weaker."

"There was a man, once, in our tribe who suffered the same way."

"What happened to him?" I demanded

"He passed on," He said simply.

I trembled.

"There was a antidote." He added quietly. "But we could not save him."

"Why?"

"It is a medicinal herb that grows in only one place, the wood beyond." He gestured widely toward the east, the same wood Father and Ben had escaped from.

"But you know the surrounding wood so well, you could not find it?"

"We know our woods well. But we are not allowed in the woods there yonder."

"But why? Does our government prohibit you from entering it?"

"Your government?" Jacob laughed, the wild sound again. "They could not stop us if they wanted. We let them on our land because we are kind."

"Then why?"

He glanced at me, biting his lip, hesitantly. "The tribe would not appreciate me telling our sacred secrets to an outsider."

"Jacob," I said archly. "I can scarcely repeat a word of anything you confide in me to others. They would have me locked up for consorting with the heathens."

He paused and then, very solemnly, said, "Know you any of our old stories, of where we Quileutes came from?"

I shook my head.

"Our stories stretch back centuries, to our ancestors. Some say they reach back to the days of the Great Flood, when the ancient Quileutes tied their canoes to the tops of the tallest trees on the mountain to survive. There are others that say we are descended from wolves—and that the wolves are our brothers still. Even today, it is against tribal law to kill them."

I wanted to ask him to quicken his pace; what did these stories have to do with Father? But he was clearly engrossed in what he was saying, so I stilled my tongue and waited.

"Then there are other stories, about the cold ones." His voice dropped a little lower. "There are stories of the cold ones as old as the wolf legends, and some much more recent. According to legend, my own chief knew of them. He was the one who made the treaty that kept them off our land."

"Your chief?"

"Yes, our tribal elder, along with my father. You see, the cold ones are the natural enemies of the wolf and of our ancestors that transformed into wolves. Yet, years ago, a coven of these cold ones came onto our land during our chief's time."

"You saw them?"

"I was young then. I do not remember, but my father spoke of them. They were different than the cold ones we had previously encountered. They did not hunt the way others of their kind did—they claimed they were not to the tribe. So our chieftain proposed a truce: if they would promise to stay off our lands, we wouldn't expose them to the pale-faces."

Pale-faces, that unflattering name was reserved for us, the colonialists.

"The treaty was hotly contested at the time, and several elders threatened to dethrone our chieftain, though eventually, he managed to calm them. And in time, it is agreed that his decision was wise as the cold ones have never bothered us."

"If these cold ones are not dangerous to your tribe, then why was a treaty necessary?"

"The cold ones do not pose a danger to those of us who descend from wolves, but there are those among us who are human and who would fall prey to the cold ones without our protection."

"How?"

"This coven claimed they did not prey on men and women. They were able to survive on animals, so we gave them free run of the east wood."

"But I do not understand, why did you not reveal this to our leaders. We have a militia, and a minister, perhaps, together we could root out these cold ones."

"Our chieftain did warn your government when they settled the land. But they dismissed his warning as superstitious drivel. And our chieftain was insulted by their lack of respect. We will not risk the safety of our people to save yours."

"What superstition?"

"Blood drinkers," he replied matter-of-factly. "Your people call them vampires."

In spite of myself, I shivered.

Jacob grinned, his teeth pale white against his brown skin. "When Quil fell sick, we could not risk violating the treaty to retrieve the antidote. Invading territory by either side would be an automatic declaration of war."

"But you are certain the cure resides in the wood." I asked sharply. "Could you describe it so that I might recognize it? And where I might find it."

"Yes, but the woods are dangerous. They belong to the cold ones. I could not accompany you. You risk your life for your father's."

"But you said they do not hunt men and women. I would be safe then."

He laughed shortly. "I would not risk my life on the unholy word of a blood-drinker."

Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I wanted to try something with more freedom for creativity and also a little more darkness than my other fics.

BTW, in case you didn't catch the subtext. In this fic, Jacob is a Native American who's tribe borders Bella's colonial settlement. They're Quiletes, just like in canon and Bella and he are secretly friends because in a small, conservative town, it would be crazy to be openly friends with a "heathen" or Indian back then.

Review, please!