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Moonlight Melody
Chapter 7: Signs of Hope
"So where are we going?" I asked for the thirtieth time that night looking around anxiously.
I was expecting the usual 'wait and see' but he surprised me when he said quietly, "I think you might know."
As far as I was concerned we have never really been anywhere alone unless you counted the many corridors of the hospital. Not exactly the most romantic getaway, if you know what I mean. So this threw me.
"What?" I asked puzzled.
I could hardly believe he was leading me somewhere.
Just the two of us, I thought dreamily and felt my heart soared with happiness.
My mind was at war with the rest of me, though. Every instinct in my brain screamed at me, telling me to go back and that what I was doing (allowing a vampire to lure me alone into the woods behind the hospital) was going to land me in the mortuary. I remembered how close I had come to being bitten by him. I ignored those instincts and galloped alongside him as he moved with unearthly grace. His feet never made a sound as he forged ahead. My feet, on the other hand, stepped on dry leaves and sticks leaving a racket in my wake. My heart thudded in my chest to its own beat and I winced in pain.
"You can see the future, can't you?" he said with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
His reply brought me back to reality and I shook myself out of my reverie. He remembered me talking about that.
"You don't believe me?" I challenged. "I can bet you that you're gonna find a big surprise tonight!"
I was lying. So sue me.
He looked away quickly to hide his face.
"No," he muttered sullenly.
"Yeah right you big liar!" I piped up. He didn't look back at me so I danced around to see the look on his face. He stared right back at me, curious.
"Alright so I don't really see things like visions. It's mostly just that I can interpret and predict better than most people. Just really good at predicting outcomes, I think. I'd be damned if I could see the future!" I giggled at the thought.
Boy would that be funny, I thought, my eyes twinkling gleefully.
"What about you? Any interesting abilities as a vampire?" I asked.
"No."
"Come on!" I said and circled him where he stood silently. "Isn't there some good in all things?"
"Are you referring to the notion of yin and yang?" he asked me wryly.
"Er…" not really. "I guess. I mean can you move objects with your mind? Speak mind to mind? Read em? Move place to place magically? See the future?" I bit my lip, raised my fingers to my temples, and crossed my eyes in an attempt at a gypsy impression. My impressions usually suck.
But I was pleased it had an impact on him.
Jasper snorted. I laughed at him.
"Laugh! It's a good change for YOU and I certainly need the laughs. I ain't gonna beat you senseless if you laugh!" I encouraged him twirling around him.
I caught a weird look on his face. He stared at me as if I might be off my rocker. I put my hands on my hip and laughed sheepishly.
Okay so I was nervous. Didn't people act like fools when they were nervous? When they were in love? I had the greatest urge to dispel the awkward atmosphere around us and I didn't know how I was going to do it. I hated that. I peered into his blank face. He stared back at me sourly.
"You're shy, aren't you?" I smiled and bit my lip.
He didn't like that.
Jasper grunted and strode past me with a sigh, "I don't have time for this," he muttered as he got farther away from me.
"Hey! Hey wait up! I was only kidding!"
Silence.
I navigated my way through the brush of grass and weeds.
"Jasper?"
He didn't answer me and I looked around me. He was nowhere to be seen and I knew I wouldn't hear him if he tried to walk up on me. Not with the way he could move through the woods. With the grace of a tiger, a predator. If he was planning to spring an attack on me now I was rabbit meat for sure.
I started to hiccup and my gaze darted to every corner of the forest that was in rance of my sight.
I shifted from foot to foot nervously and rubbed my arms where goosebumps were currently dancing up and down my skin. The only sounds of the forest were the croaks and calls of various animals around me. I let out another hiccup. Never before had I been more aware at that time that I was in the middle of a forest with a blood-drinking vampire alone in the dark at night.
I was suddenly scared shitless. I always hiccupped when I was freaked out.
God, I'd been an idiot. I knew that already.
Desperately I tried to find him one last time.
"Aw come on Jasper," I called out to him as I put on a joking tone. "Really, where (hiccup) did you—Oh. Wow!"
I gaped in awe at the open area before me and the fear that had been tricking down my spine stopped. (The hiccups, annoyingly enough, didn't.)
It was a wide-open space in the forest. I was up to my hips in tall green grass that stretched out in a wide arch before us about 3 acres. Not too far off was a small pond about the size of a small house. The water seemed to cast an eerie glow on our faces as the moon reflected the surface of the water. And the sky. I gaped in awe. The sky blazed with thousands and thousands of beautiful stars, each winking down at us.
It was the place that I had seen in my dreams. Had he known…?
"Do you like it?" his voice came from not far behind me where his dark eyes regarded me blankly.
"Wow, this place is (hiccup) gorgeous, Jasper!" I breathed and stared.
By the time I had come back to reality I saw that he was already gracefully weaving through the tall grass. I followed him.
Then I realized that he had taken off his hospital shirt blushed. Like a true gentleman he fanned his hospital shirt out on the ground and motioned me forward, "Please."
Beaming with happiness I skipped forward, slid on the wet dirt, and plopped myself onto the shirt. A thick streak of mud ran up my skirt. I hiccupped and gazed down at the mud forlornly.
Jasper's lips twitched into small smile, "Well, clearly that was pointless," he said derisively.
I felt a trill of excitement shoot through me and suddenly the hiccups stopped.
"You just smiled!" I cried and just pointed with glee. Clearly jumping up would be a big mistake, seeing as I'd slipped on my down the first time.
The smile immediately disappeared when he realized I was right. He scowled and spoiled the mood.
To see him smile, was amazing. It was such a human gesture. He had been transformed from a man with a dark countenance to someone who was impossibly handsome and bright. I wanted him to open up to me life a sunflower. To express himself and be honest with me. It was amazing that the smallest, simplest gesture was enough to make me so happy. Was it because I was a girl and the fact that Jasper was happy was enough to make me feel so wonderful?
And then I suddenly realized that to make him happy, to make him laugh and see him smile without a blemish of worry about being a vampire, was everything that I would every want for as long as I existed.
I leaned back on his hospital shirt and craned my head up absurdly high (he was so darn tall), "Smile at me again?" I pleaded.
He didn't reply. Darn. I tried again.
"For me?" I asked, batting my eyelashes at him outrageously flirtatious. Something had to make him laugh.
I wanted it to be me.
Jasper let out something between a forced cough and a sneeze that sounded suspiciously like he was trying to hold in a laugh. Aw, damn him.
I let out a whoop of joy and turned my face up to the stars, "He laughed! He laughed at me!" I sang.
"I did no such thing," he said in a strangled voice.
"You tried not to but it didn't completely work," I pointed out. Then I patted the ground besides me and drew my long white skirts onto my lap. "Sit with me."
Maybe he did it to annoy me but he did the exact opposite. When I looked at him again he was standing a ways away at the other side of the pond between a grove of paper trees.
"I would rather not," he said stiffly.
Whatever, then.
I glowered and then fell back into the ground with my long hair fanned out behind me on his jacket. Who cared about getting dirty.
Silence filled the air. I shifted around on the ground uncomfortably. I brought myself around so that my face was leaning over the edge of the pool. I trailed my fingers gently across its surface and was strongly reminded of the first time that I had ever seen him.
The way that I had woken up with the sounds of his singing in my ears. I still wondered every now and then, 'What had he been singing?' As far as I knew I still had no idea. It was like nothing that I had ever heard before. It was much more pleasing than the silence that currently filled the air.
I began to sing.
"You are my sunshine…my only sunshine…"
"Why are you singing?" Jasper's voice broke through my song and I looked up to find that he was crouched in front of me now. I smiled at him, and shrugged.
"You don't like it?" I sang a little more and then stopped. I dipped my fingers into the cool water, "Someone once sang to me. I mean, I don't think he meant to, but it…it made me really happy! Maybe it can make you happy in some way too."
I saw him move in my peripheral view, "Why would that be?"
I blushed, "Well I-I want you to be happy."
He sighed, "Alice, what is happiness without hope?"
I jerked my head to him, "Are you going to go on about how being a vampire thing means you can never be happy again?" I demanded. I hated the way he would never let me try to cheer him up. "Well, please. Don't. Let's just pretend that none of that matters tonight."
At his attempt to assert otherwise I raised a finger. He started. "Okay, I KNOW it does, but let's just pretend. Make believe."
He didn't respond.
"Happiness will bring you a piece of mind. Isn't that nice? Even vampires are allowed to have a piece of mind, Jasper. To me, it's kind of like a sign that…somehow, everything will be alright. That there's someone who cares for you and that God is still with you. There are signs everywhere."
"Oh really."
I flicked a bug off my arm and missed. It went flying anyway.
Okay so he obviously didn't believe me. Fine, be like that! I could completely hear him rolling his eyes.
"Yeah there's…" I stop and glared at him. Geeze Louise I was trying to be serious! "Now don't you look at me like that, I mean it!"
I looked around to prove it to him and caught sight of the moon looming ahead. My glare softened. The moon was a sign too, an intimate one.
"There's the sun," I offered instead. "The sun is a sign for a new day. A fresh start. Rebirth." Then I brightened considerably when he moved closer to me as if just the mere thought of rebirth was tempting him. He was no longer on the opposite end of the pool from me. No, now he was crouched a small distance away from where I was sprawled out on his shirt,"Hey now, that there's an idea! Why don't we set the sun on you, Jasper!"
Jasper frowned as if the thought sent him great displeasure, "You would set the sun on me?"
"Sure!" I chirped. I realized too late what setting the sun on him might sound like. Vampires burned didn't they? "OH! No no! I mean I want you to be able to start new. To shed some light on the darkness and be reborn, yknow?"
He scowled and looked at his reflection in the pool in the water. Did he like what he saw?
"Is it really so simple?" he said softly and reached out for something that was out of his grasp.
"As simple as you wanna make it!" I exclaimed.
He sighed and looked up at the stars sadly, "How can I change so easily when something like that goes against my very nature? How to defeat the thirst? The longing to feel the blood run between my lips?"
I paused and plucked at a piece of grasses that peeked out from the mud. I quoted a line from a book I'd read most recently: "…The Dark isn't evil, it's just dark. The choice between being good and bad isn't a one-time-only choice between black and white. It's a choice that people make every day, every minute. We choose to be good."
I looked up and saw that he was looking at me with a most peculiar expression on his face. One of disbelief maybe?
"How do you change who you are?"
"Change isn't immediate, remember. It might be hard and you might make mistakes, but that's why it's so amazing. Because it might seem near impossible. It comes in baby steps little by little."
Speaking of baby steps, I thought and scooched my hips over on the ground a little closer to him. Just a little.
"Just like a flower in bloom," I went on as if I hadn't moved. Hopefully he hadn't seen me.
"What makes you think I can change? I can barely control the thirst inside me," he scooched a little away.
Damn, he had seen me.
"Hey," I crooned. "Humans tame dogs every day! Humans are a species too!" I said and kept scooting right along like an affectionate little inchworm.
"Do I look like a dog to you, Alice?" he narrowed his eyes at me.
I let out a yelp and rolled onto my back when a rock dug into my bottom in mid-scooch. Shit!
"No," I gasped and rubbed my hip gingerly. "You kinna remind me of a lion. You're a leoline sorta fella."
This gave him something to think about. I wasn't sure what but I had a feeling that I was bit by bit getting through to him. VERY small bits.
Then again progress was progress wan' it?
I glared at the rock that had ruined my scooting efforts and dug it into the ground in a sort of twisted revenge.
"What about the stars?" he asked me thoughtfully.
Satisfied I piled a mound of dirt on the darn thing and then looked up at the stars for maybe the tenth time that night. They twinkled down at me.
"The stars? What about them?"
"Do they mean something too? Some sign?"
So maybe he was humoring me. Maybe he believed me. There was just something so sad about someone would cling to anything that might give him even the smallest bit of hope for something he might never have.
I would make sure that he would have his freedom.
I smiled and curled my fingers around my hair. This one I knew. "For every star out there is a little bit that someone cares for you."
And many of the stars up there were mine...
He rolled over onto is elbow and gave me a look, "Are you lying to me now to make me feel better? I don't need to be comforted. Normally it is the gentleman who should be comforting the lady."
I burst out laughing at this. "Er…I don't think we have the right to be thinking about what is normal, if you know what I mean, Jasper Whitlock!"
I was surprised when he jumped to his feet. I craned my head up towards him in question. "Do you have no tact?" he snapped angrily. "If I really bother you so much why don't you just leave? I'd really appreciate it much better than your pity!"
Okay so he thought I pitied him. Did he really think that I was talking about only him? I would be lying if I said that this didn't affect me at all. To be honest, and I don't know why, it hurt me. That he couldn't realize it. I rolled over so that my back was to him so he wouldn't see it.
I ignored him. "Is THAT what you think? That I pity you?"
He did and his incredulous snort was all I needed to confirm this.
"Well I don't. Do you really think I don't know what it's like to be different? That I wouldn't hate pity too? Do you think my heart condition makes my life the same as any other girl's?"
"It's a natural disease," he asserted.
"YEAH," I snapped. "Well SO'S hunger! My heart prevents me from seeing my friends everyday. I can't go to school. I barely last a month let alone a few DAYS in school before my damn heart gives out from the least bit of stress that thousands of girls go through every day!" I rambled on, tears starting to cloud my vision. Angrily I fisted them away. My voice was starting to get all squeaky and high pitched like it did when I became upset. "I live in a hospital where people think I can't think for myself."
I yelled. "I HATE it! I hate being weak."
A weight fell on my shoulder lightly like the wings of a butterfly. With tears still in my eyes, I rolled over, startled. He wasn't anywhere near me. He had retreated once again to the other side of the pool of water and was looking over at me sadly from where he sat in the grass.
"You're still you, Alice."
"You are too," I retorted.
"Life holds so much for you yet," he shot back.
I stabbed my finger in the air, "No! Oh, no. Even THAT is denied. I can only watch life from afar from my hospital room and think, 'Well theythink I'm too weak. Can't get involved now. Might get a heart attack, now!' And if that's not bad enough, there's the fact that I'm DYING."
At his look of horror I nodded sardonically, "You heard me. My life's been literally cut in two! I won't live long enough to get married. I can't have kids and wonder whether or not he'll look like his daddy when he gets older. Nope. None of that. And it sucks."
Finally he said, "I'm sorry. I guess to some degree we're NOT normal."
I sniffled, "Damn straight! You remember that. I'm right with you. Just like the moon, we un-normal people got to stick together!"
He cocked his head, intrigued, "What? What about the moon?"
"Another sign." I pointed up at the moon in the sky. "The moon is a sign of true companionship. She exists side by side with the sun even during the day when you can't see her too well. She's always there. Always by your side."
"Always…" he whispered. His face had taken on a wistful expression. "But I'll never be so close to you."
"You were there the other night, weren't you? When I was crying my eyes out? You don't have a problem with huggin' me before, did you? You being here now ain't all that bad, now is it?"
"It is…tolerable. But it's still difficult."
I gaped, "What?"
"Alice, you don't realize it but I can smell you from here. It makes me thirsty."
I shrieked in horror and grabbed fistfuls of my skirt to sniff it. He flinched.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to…"
"I've smelled bad all this time and you never said anything to me?"
He laughed, "No, you smell delicious." Then he stopped laughing. "Pardon—"
"Compliment accepted," I interrupted, immensely relieved. I swung myself around on the ground and lowered my feet in the shallow water. "SO…I'm curious. What do I smell like? Chocolate? Strawberries? Flowers?"
"Actually, you smell like warm vanilla."
I felt my heart turn over in my chest and beamed with pleasure.
"That counts as an interesting vampire trait." He seemed to think otherwise. No comment.
"So do you have any other interesting…powers as a vampire?" I pressed.
He gave way, "You consider the ability to smell people better than others a good thing? That is not always the case," he wrinkled his nose with distaste and I sorta figured the guy had a good point.
Not everyone smelled like vanilla, I guess.
"I can tell that you're happy right now. I know that a few minutes ago you were angry and in pain. I always know how you're feeling. I always know how the young man currently pacing in the hospital is feeling. If I wanted to, I could make him feel relaxed instead of worried without saying a word."
I had the feeling that he was talking about Edward. I perked up momentarily distracted. Whoa, Edward was pacing?
So he could hear that? I looked at him curiously. He looked right back at me.
"So you can screw with people's emotions?" I said in an angry voice. Beneath the surface I was actually happy.
A test.
He caught it.
Jasper pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow, "Screwing with emotions is an obtuse way of putting it, but unfortunately accurate."
I frowned. Had he tried it on me?
Instantaneously, he picked up my suspicion like a bloodhound and quickly added, "I've tried it on you many times but I think you're immune to such tactics. Your mind is much stronger than others. I can't begin to count the number of times that I've attempted to make you feel disinterested when you were first pursuing me."
It dawned on me then and I laughed haughtily, "So you're the reason behind the string of annoying string of headaches!"
He had the grace to look chastened, "I'm sorry. I was trying my best."
I grinned and swished my feet around for good measure, "I guess it's good for me that I don't back down then, huh?"
He considered me for a moment solemnly sitting there with my feet swooshing through the water giddily, "Yes…it is a good thing you're so stubborn."
I smirked with satisfaction rolling deep in my stomach.
"What about Edward? He got any special…powers?"
He blinked, every bit the confused vampire, "Excuse me?"
I flapped my hand impatiently and lifted my skirts up to my thighs. With a plop I stepped into the pool and waded around, "Edward. The one you were fighting with tonight."
I looked up at him beneath my eyelashes to watch for his reaction. What did he think of Edward?
His reaction, upon realizing whom I was talking about, was evident in the way that his jaw suddenly grew taut and his eyes flashed.
Why? I wondered.
"Do you…dislike Edward? I mean, that whole thing where he yelled at you tonight…he meant well by it, didn't he?" I asked cautiously.
"He is just…" he started. I almost laughed when I realized that his unconscious death grip on a cluster of California grass had uprooted a chunk of earth the size of a small boulder. Yup, roots and all. That was vampire strength for you.
Weirder still, I accepted it immediately like a flower to water.
"Whoa," I pointed to the poor piece of the ground he'd pulled up as easy as a turnip. "Take it easy there, pal."
He looked down in astonishment. Carelessly he tossed the large clump of California grass over my head. I watched it go up and up and up.
Geeze, I blinked.
It fell with a dull thud on the other side of the glade. Amazing.
Quickly I turned back and got back to the point, "Aw, don't hate 'im! He's a nice guy! Really! He bought that mirror for me to dance in and…and.." I struggled for a good excuse and then gave up. "Don't hate him." I added.
Jasper leaned backwards onto his elbow. He was careful of where he put his hands now, I noted with some amusement. "I don't hate him."
I frowned and twirled around in the water, confused, "Wait. What?"
"I HATE the control that he has over it. How easily he can stroll the halls of that hospital." He turned his head in the direction of the hospital. I couldn't see the building through the trees but I knew surely, he could. "I don't even have a shred of that kind of control."
Aha! "So you envy Edward Cullen?"
"No," he said it scornfully.
I glided around in the water grinning, careful to keep my back to him. Ha, he still had a sense of male pride even if he wasn't human!
"What are you so amused about?" his voice wafted over to me and I could have sworn I'd stepped on something slimy.
"So what's he do?" I asked when I realized with a twitch he'd surreptitiously avoided my question.
"Edward?" he was frowning again. "Telepath."
I whipped around, forgetting to hold up my skirts and stepped on the squishy thing in the water again. "What! He reads-He reads MINDS?"
Oh my god, how many times had I thought embarrassing things around him? Had it heard it all? Oh my goodness, what on earth had he overheard me thinking without me knowing?
Then I remembered the look of horror and annoyance that had flashed on his face when I'd first met him. The questions that he had answered when I had never asked any. The way he had easily curtailed my anger at times by saying just the things to calm me down.
He had accidentally answered my thoughts instead of my words! A rookie mistake! I burst out laughing and relayed this to Jasper who smirked when he found out.
"I guess there's so much to learn, isn't there?" I sighed and started to thrust my hands into the water to search for the squishy object that I had stepped on twice now.
"Are you sure that this is something that you would even want to risk learning something like that?" he asked tentatively.
To my delight the object was a little green frog. I picked it up and brought it up to my face in greeting. It croaked at me sullenly as I said with steadfast determination ringing in every word.
"Yes, Jasper. I do."
So we sat there for the next few minutes…actually I don't know how long it was, I lost track of time…not saying anything to each other. Me, wading around in the small pool eagerly looking for more little friends and Jasper reclining on the soft dirt closest to the water humming the song that I had been singing earlier. It was one of those silences that you wouldn't disrupt because you knew that it just felt right.
And then I noticed the bright sliver of gold peeking out over the trees and panicked.
He immediately noticed the change in the atmosphere and bolted up from where he sat, "What's…"
"Oh my GOD!"
"What is it!" he barked, his eyes wide with alarm.
"We have to GO! NOW!" I took his jacket off the ground and tossed it to him.
He ran until he was in front of me and gripped my shoulders, "Alice what is going on?"
"The sun! Run! I'll see you…"
His face twisted into a weird expression before he hung his head and hunched his shoulders in.
"What?" I shrilled. "You're going to burn and…and explode iinto a thousand little…." I paused and frowned when I realized his was shaking with repressed laughter. "Are you?"
He shook his head furiously. His shoulders still quaking with silent laughter he was trying to hold back, "I can…I can assure you that I won't burn, Alice."
I stepped back from him feeling like an idiot. So vampires didn't burn? I really didn't know much about them. I was going to have to brush up on my vampire studies if I didn't want to make an idiot out of myself again. The idiot didn't stop laughing. Not that I wasn't happy for him. I was still sort of embarrassed as you might guess.
"Does anything…happen?" I asked faintly.
He finally stopped laughing and took a deep breath. His face was troubled and reluctant, "Yes. I can…I can show you."
He was taking a chance. I couldn't have been more surprised or impressed. A feeling of pride broke out on his face when he tasted this in the atmosphere. He was proud of himself too.
"Are you sure? You don't have to if you—"
"No," he cut though and took a deep breath to steady himself. "I want you to see. To see both sides of
me."
I smiled, "Okay then, Mr. Whitlock. Let's have it then!"
I moved around the glade until I found a comfortable spot near a brush of California grass. He stood there and continued to hum as the sun slowly made its way into the sky. I sat calmy in the shadows of his silhouette watching him face the sunrise with a sort of resigned courage. His long golden hair whipped in the wind behind him and still he stood there as the sun slowly ascended into the sky.
You are my sunshine…my only sunshine…when you're not happy…my skies are gray…
I can't say when I started to see the changes in his skin. But when he turned to me, sparkling (actually sparkling) my eyes widened in awe. I smiled widely and laughed as his skin twinkled like the stars we had seen in the sky.
He was beautiful.
If I had to say, I think I would have said that the stars he showed me in his skin was a sign too. A sign that held a meaning in itself.
A sign of hope.
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That took me a long time. It was all dialogue, but luckily I had it all planned out already. A lot of editing but I gotta say it came out pretty nice. I might have had a little too much fun in this chapter lol with all the singing and fooling around on Alice's part. She's nervous so she tends to act a little odd when she does that. Yknow how some people will try to make you laugh, make you smile or SOMETHING when things get awkward between two people? There you have it.
(btw, wasn't sure what she smells like. No one seems to know 0.0 but my guess would be vanilla. It's sweet and warm)
I guess this is point where Jasper starts to come out. He still won't get close to Alice. Like hold her hand or hug her without freaking out. At first he tries to stay calm and unaffected by her attentions but it doesn't really work. Alice is just too bright and cheerful of a person to let anything ever get her down, including Jasper. It might be good for him because he totally needs it.
And then there's some people who might wonder where I got the quote. It's a fairly popular vampire series. One I LOVE to death (sighs happily). I love the Edward that the author created in that series too! He's so cool! Some might have recognized it. It's from Laurell K. Hamilton's The Killing Dance. I don't know if everyone reads the author's long Afterword but I found it was totally worth it for the quote at the end. It matched this story perfectly and I couldn't help but throw it in here.
Other than that, that's pretty much it for chapter material. I thought I'd let you all know too that I'll be leaving for California soon to spend some time with family over in San Jose. I'll be gone from the 1st of September to the 17th. So it might take a while for me to pop out another chapter. I'm sorry XD Hopefully the latest I can finish the next chapter for you all is the end of September. I'm having a few conflicts with the plot so I can't say for sure yet. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
