A big thank you again to whats. the. time. mr. wolf.. And to the people who keep putting my story in their favorites section, or on a story alert. I should be giving shout-outs to you guys too, and will do so in the future.

While not featuring the Cullens directly, this chapter offers more insight into my Mary-Sue's nature, and more opportunity for me to point out the fallacies in Twilight. We'll hang out with the vampires (or one vampire, rather) again in Chapter 10.

On that subject, the next update is on MONDAY, not Saturday. I have a weekend job that keeps me away from the computer for roughly 48 hours.


Viridescent Foliage

When Aunt Joan arrived at the school, she took both Jessica and Maureen home in the car. She eyed her niece and said that while Maureen looked a little under the weather, she doubted Maureen was really running a fever.

"You're probably just exhausted. I don't care if it's a Friday night, you're going to bed early." She announced. Maureen had nodded, not interested in arguing.

While not a competitive girl in the strictest sense of the word, Maureen did enjoy uncovering mysteries. And it was easy to turn them into overly dramatic adventures, just for the hell of it.

Operation: Marble Assholes was a twofold plan. Step the First: Collect Intel from the resident blabbermouth.

"The pale preppies?" Jessica shucked her jacket off as the two girls stepped into the foyer of the Stanley residence. "Oh, you must mean the Cullens!"

"The ones I know are named Edward and Rosalie." Maureen said.

"Yeah…oh, but Rosalie's last name is Hale. She and her twin brother Jasper kept their last name. But the other three are Cullens."

"Wait, they're all siblings?"

"Adopted siblings." Jessica corrected. "Dr. and Mrs. Cullen adopted or are fostering them all. Which makes the dating thing not actually illegal, but it's still really messed up."

"What dating thing?" Maureen frowned.

"They're all dating each other!" Jess said, eyes lighting up at the scandalous idea. "Rosalie's dating Emmett, the big jock, and Jasper dates Alice, the little weird one."

"I had no idea. I thought they were just really insular." Maureen made a face. "That's a little messed up."

"I know, right?" Jessica said. "The whole family moved down from Alaska last year. Dr. Cullen works at the county hospital, and we don't see so much of Mrs. Cullen—she comes to garden parties, but Mom thinks she does all her grocery shopping at the health food store in Port Angeles."

"Wow." Maureen said. What she had previously seen as only a pale, socially inept gang of jerks was now even more of a complicated mess.

"So how did you meet Edward and Rosalie?" Jess asked, clearly wanting a story.

Maureen refused to give her one, at least not one that was exciting. "I spoke to Edward in class a couple times, and Rosalie in the parking lot once. But I met all five of them the first week of school."

"Wait…you met all five?" Jess sounded excessively surprised.

"Yeah…I was sitting at the lunch table they thought of as theirs." Maureen said. "They asked me to leave, and when I wouldn't, they left. Does that count as meeting them?"

Jessica held up a hand. It looked like she was having difficulty processing what Maureen was saying.

"Let me get this straight." Jess said. "You've known the Cullens, known about the Cullens, since the second day of school. And this is the first time you've asked me about them? Asked anyone about them?"

"…yes?"

Jess threw up her hands. "Maureen, what is wrong with you?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Excuse me if I don't care enough about discovering the personal back story of every Tom, Dick and Jane I meet." Maureen scowled.

"Ok, that expression is dumb." Jessica scoffed. "And the Cullens are not just anybody. They're adopted! And really weird."

"Don't forget pretentious." Maureen said.

"Or gorgeous." Jess muttered.

Maureen raised an eyebrow. "The words 'it's a sore subject' are plastered all over that last sentence." She commented. "I'll assume it's got to do with Edward, since he's in our grade."

Jess' expression was one of anger mingled with lust. "He turned me down, freshman year! I liked him so much, and I was super nice to him, but he just blew me off! God, the things I wanted to do to that guy. If I had half the chance, I would've—"

While Maureen had wanted to hear the end of Jessica's highly entertaining sentence, the last words were drowned out by the sudden nudge that Maureen received. Actually, it was more like a painful shove. Forks apparently FROWNED VERY HEAVILY ON NAUGHTY NAUGHTY THINGS.

What the hell? Maureen rubbed her temples. That doesn't make any sense. I've been cursing up a storm since I got here, saying plenty of vulgar things. And I had that conversation with Jessica about boys! This place can't have a problem with se—

NO. BAD. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE—

Owwww. Maureen grimaced. This is absurd. Sex makes babies, that's a given here. How is this place advocating love without sex?

—PURE PURE PURE PURE—

Okay, 'pure' sex as a result of pure love. And Jessie's teenage girl lust is apparently evil. Riiight.

"Hey Maureen? Earth to Maureen?" Jessica snapped her fingers in front of Maureen's face. "You still here?"

"Yeah." Maureen brushed the babble of this place aside. Whatever Forks' attitude towards sex happened to be, it was definitely not the issue at hand.

"Thanks for the info, Jess." Maureen said, retreating to her room.

Step the Second was a little more complicated, but a lot more interesting: see what the threads told her.

It was also a good step because it gave Maureen an excuse to start exploring the woods for materials. She didn't know exactly what sort of plants grew around here, but she figured she'd find something. That afternoon Maureen had snuck into her uncle's study, and rifled through his things until she found where he kept his trail maps. The rest of Friday had been spent looking through those maps, and at maps on the internet. Maureen managed to draw up her own rough sketch of the surrounding countryside, enough to keep her from getting lost.

The next day, she slapped her hand down on the alarm clock by her bed at five seconds past six in the morning, after only three short rings had sounded out. She strained her ears—but as far as she could tell, none of the Stanleys had woken up. Delving into the closet, Maureen wrestled out the sack that she liked to refer to as her foraging pack. It was a large, sturdy canvas backpack, with a small zippered pouch on the front, and five spacious compartments held closed with drawstrings. The bag smelled of dried plants, and lanolin—a pleasant, if musky combination.

Maureen opened the zipper compartment, and put in her homemade map, a compass, a lighter, a Swiss army knife and a tiny first-aid kit. That was all she needed to start. With any luck, she'd come home with the rest of the bag full. Maureen dressed warmly, with silk long underwear as well as thick pants and two wool sweaters under the coat her Uncle had bought her. Maureen didn't especially like it—the plastic-y outer fabric and the polyester lining were unpleasant to her. But it was insulated with feathers, and it would keep her warm.

Putting on her new winter hiking boots (also courtesy of Uncle Thomas) Maureen donned a knitted cap, a scarf, and wool mittens with slashes to put her fingers through, if dexterity was needed. Creeping down to the kitchen, Maureen collected two granola bars and a bottle of water. She also left a note, saying she'd gone out walking. Using the key under the mat to lock the door behind her, Maureen slipped out the back door of the house, and headed off into the forest.

It really was gorgeous here. It only took Maureen ten minutes of walking before she felt totally removed from civilization. The ground was mottled green and brown, the thick pine needles green and dull against the yellow-orange leaves that filtered the cloudy light down to the forest floor.

This is the wild, the world that people tried to escape for centuries…and now that they've escaped it, their lives are the poorer for it. Maureen thought.

Compass in hand, Maureen walked aimlessly for a time, simply enjoying her surroundings. She felt the air warm slightly as the sun rose behind the cloudbank. She ducked around heavy branches trailing vines, and squished through muddy patches on the ground.

Maureen closed her eyes. Sing to me. She asked silently. Tell me where you are, for I'm looking for you.

It didn't take much time before she felt the direction to travel in. Maureen knew the feeling well; the hum in the back of her head when she drove past a field of cotton, the itch in her fingers when she visited a sheep farm. Fibers called to her, from plant and animal, the need to transform them into thread was bound up in who she was.

I am a peculiar beast. Maureen thought, unable to keep from grinning. She hadn't done this in so long, and it felt marvelous.

The first plant was hemp—a small patch of it, half-hidden in the cool moist earth beside a fallen tree. Maureen pulled a stalk from the ground and smelled it—Canadian hemp, probably. That's what would grow up here. Maureen scratched her head, thinking. The hemp wouldn't serve her purpose today—like most plants, it would require preparation before she could spin it. But hemp was a good substitute for flax, and the sooner Maureen retted it the sooner she could use it. Maureen took out her knife and cut the stalks, leaving the roots behind. The hemp went into the first compartment of her bag.

The next plant was a patch of nettles. Maureen collected them with her hands covered, just in case she lost her grip and got stung. Like the hemp, they'd need to be soaked and dressed first, but Maureen took them all the same. They went into their own compartment.

Nettles and hemp were all Maureen found for a while. She started widening her gaze, looking for more unconventional fibers. Spider web she found, as well as tufts of fur caught on branches. All collected—they'd be of the most use to Maureen today. And four hours later, Maureen found a small clearing, half grown over with irises. She clapped her hands together in surprise—this was an excellent find. It took her another hour to carefully harvest most of the leaves, but it was worth it. Traditionally iris fibers were used to make rope, but they'd still work.

Jessica was eating an afternoon snack at the kitchen table when she heard noises in the backyard. She went to the back door, and opened it. Maureen had dragged one of the Stanley's old plastic trash bins out of the garage, and was using the garden hose to fill it with water.

"Where have you been? Jess called to Maureen. Her cousin looked up, grinning—she was streaked with dirt and sweat, and looked elated.

"Foraging." Maureen called. She gestured towards her empty backpack—the contents had been spread out in bundles on the lawn. "I'm going to make nettle linen—there's some hemp here, too."

"You found all that?" Jessica asked. "In the woods?"

"Yeah. I'm going to ask Uncle Thomas about setting up a heater underneath the trash bin—not enough to melt it, obviously, but if I keep the temperature of the water high the retting would be done in less than a week. That'll still give me time to improvise some dressing tools."

Jessica shook her head. She'd given up trying to understand Maureen's shoptalk long ago.

"Isn't there some rule against walking into the woods and taking stuff out like that?" She asked. "Some kind of law for protecting the environment?"

"There's no hunting season for fiber plants, Jess. And if there is, I don't care." Maureen turned off the hose. "This is what I do."

"Well, have fun playing with stinging nettles." Jess said, rolling her eyes.

"Will do."

Although Maureen was unsuccessful in persuading her uncle that it was okay to light a fire underneath the trash can, he did allow her to soak the nettles and hemp in the backyard, after she explained in detail that no, she was not making drugs. Maureen collected the rest of what she'd found—the spider web, fur and iris fibers—in a wicker basket she'd found in the basement, cleaned her clothes in the washing machine and took a much needed shower. By the time Maureen felt clean it was nearly dark, and dinnertime to boot. Maureen ate with gusto, hungry from her long hike.

When the dishes were done, Maureen returned to her room, and locked the door behind her. She set up her spinning wheel, and began spinning a bundle of undyed white wool. The decorative basket was on her lap—spider web, iris fibers and fur tufts separated into three piles. This was going to be a bizarre yarn, unconventional and strange. Maureen focused all her concentration on it. Nothing would happen unless she gave it her all.

"I'm here to ask you a question." She said aloud, as she fed bits of leaf fiber and fur into the wool she was spinning. Her foot moved up and down on the pedal, her fingers twisted the thread.

"There are strange men here, strange women, and I know not who nor what they are." She said, her voice taking on the rhythm of the clicking wheel. "They were here before me, but they move like strangers, holding all in contempt. I would know them."

The wheel spun.

"I would know who they are." Maureen said. She spaced the webbing, fur and leaf fiber carefully—she had a lot of wool to finish, and all the thread needed to be infused.

"I would know them, as the forest knows them—as Forks knows them, as this whole place knows them. As plant and animal and spider's web knows them, I would know what they are, and what they desire."

Maureen continued to spin, and continued to speak. She changed the bobbin when it was necessary, but did not break her concentration. She was no longer Maureen Stanley—she was Spinner. She was utterly herself. Her words were not a pre-recorded spell, nor any kind of magic that was easily categorized and controlled. But they were words nonetheless, and words—especially in conjunction with action—were a powerful force. And that was Maureen's power, Spinner's power. This was her element.

When all the wool and all the web, fur and leaf fiber had been spun together, Maureen took the thread to her loom. She wrapped a long piece of black cloth around her eyes, once, twice, and took up the loom's shuttle. Weaving blind was neither a quick nor easy thing to do. But it was better for the final result, that she let her hands guide her instead of her eyes. The picture would be clearer that way.

Maureen did not speak out loud, but she continued to focus her thoughts, willing the loom to twist the thread, to give her the answers she needed. She knew instinctively when the piece was done. She unhooked it from the loom by touch—it wasn't that big, barely two feet by two feet. Shuffling her feet to keep from tripping, Maureen walked across the room and laid the tapestry flat on the desk. Only then did she pull off her blindfold.

She looked down at the picture, formed from the blotches that the fur, spider web and iris fiber had left in the wool.

"H-uh." Maureen said, letting the syllable roll around her mouth before she let it out. "H-uuuh."


What's in the picture Maureen wove? We don't know! I guess it's one of those cliffhanger type things. Dun dun dun!

Tune in again on Monday for the next chapter. In the meantime, if you like something in the story, leave a review to tell me so! : )