I couldn't figure it out. There was nothing unusual about it. It was just an umbrella. A flimsy, pink, car stopping umbrella.
It was Sunday night. Bella had been out for almost two days now. She was in a coma....I had cracked her skull. Not too seriously--she hadn't needed surgery or anything. But Carlisle didn't think that she would be waking up for a day or two more. He urged me to go home until she did. I wasn't going anywhere.
Chief Swan had looked frantic when he had first got to the hospital Friday morning. Even though I couldn't read his mind it was easy to see his genuine concern for his niece. Originally Charlie had been outraged to see me near Bella, but after Carlisle explained that I had pushed Bella out of the way of the car he grudgingly allowed me to stay. (Admittedly, neither Carlisle nor I mentioned that I had probably done more harm than good trying to help Bella.)
With no other outlet available to him Chief Swan had turned his impotent fury on the hapless Mike Newton. With all the citations and fines he was facing, it looked like Newton wouldn't be driving anywhere anytime soon. Charlie was probably overreacting, but I understood the emotion. He needed to be doing something that felt like helping. It was the same reason I was still holding onto the umbrella.
It was two in the morning and I was waiting in Carlisle's office when Emmet and Jasper joined me. I knew from their thoughts that Carlisle had sent them to try and get me to hunt with them. Emmet bounced in jovial as usual prepared, if necessary, to take me hunting by force. The umbrella was sitting next to the door on a small table and seeing it Emmet immediately picked it up. "Why do you have this?" he asked recognizing the umbrella from earlier.
"Put it down Emmet," I told him firmly.
"Why? It's raining out. I could use an umbrella." Emmet smiled tauntingly at me and opened the umbrella. He began twirling it over his head, "Tut, Tut, Edward looks like rain," he chanted in a childish sing-song voice. Jasper snickered.
Normally it would have been funny. Emmet meant for it to be funny. But I just wasn't capable of that right now. I had almost killed the girl I was infatuated with and the only thing I could do to help her was keep the damn umbrella safe. Moving at lightning speed I went to snatch Bella's umbrella from Emmet trying to be careful so I wouldn't break it. As soon as I got close enough to grab it it was like I ran into an invisible force field. I bounced back a bit from the force of it breaking one of Carlisle's office chairs in the process. What the...I heard from both Jasper's and Emmet's minds.
It would have been more mine and Jasper's style to discuss what had just happened but Emmet had other ideas. Not bothering with the door he dropped straight out of the window still holding Bella's umbrella. The instant his feet touched ground he was running towards the forest surrounding the hospital. After a brief hesitation Jasper and I followed suit.
We started out easy. Small rocks and limbs thrown at only a fraction of our true strength but as the night wore on we were hurtling boulders, trees, and occasionally each other with full vampire force. But it didn't matter what we threw. The little umbrella repelled everything without so much as a scratch to its shiny bubblegum pink exterior.
"It's magic," Emmet finally concluded.
"Theres no such thing," Jasper disagreed shifting through his mind for a more logical explanation.
"There's no such thing as vampires either," Emmet pointed out.
Jasper's cell phone rang saving him from having to answer. It was Alice. We could all hear her chirping voice speaking to Jasper at vampire speed, "You all need to come home right now. None of you are going to want to miss this." Alice sounded excited even by her standards. " And bring the umbrella. Eleazar wants to see it."
"Eleazar is here?" Jasper questioned in surprise.
"All the Denali's," Alice replied happily. "You are not going to believe what Eleazar has to tell us," she added. "Oh, and make sure that Edward comes home," Alice must have seen my indecision about returning to the hospital. I had already been gone for several hours and the need to check on Bella was becoming urgent. "Carlisle just left the hospital and Bella is fine," this Alice directed at me. "Besides Edward your the one that should be most interested to hear what Eleazar has to say."
"It's about Bella?" Jasper guessed.
"Come home!" Alice demanded and hung up.
*******
We weren't far from home so we arrived in a matter of minutes. Alice met us at the door and ushered us in quickly. My entire family was there including our adopted cousins the Denali coven. I could hear from my family's minds that everyone already knew that I was in love with Bella Swan. Thanks Jasper. I was definitely never going to live this down.
I was surprised that Emmet hadn't started teasing me yet, but I guess he had been too distracted playing with the "magic" umbrella. The reactions in the room were widely divergent. Alice was happy for me and Esme was overjoyed. Rosalie and Tanya were both upset. Most of my family was amused but indifferent. The reactions that really caught my attention were from Carlisle and Eleazar. They were both scared for me.
"Edward," Eleazar greeted me with a nod. "I hear you have an interesting friend."
"Isabella Swan...," I agreed slowly.
Eleazar nodded. He was thinking about Carlisle's call from two months previous right before I had been banned from Bella. I had been avoiding Carlisle a lot the last couple of months so I had never picked up on it before, but apparently Eleazar had warned Carlisle about the girl. I had always wondered why Carlisle had never followed up on his promise to research Bella...but apparently he had.
"I want you all to understand that I don't know how much of this is true," Eleazar began. "When I originally heard this story, I laughed it off. I thought it was a myth. It wasn't until I talked to Carlisle about Edward's friend two months ago that I had any reason to believe different." Eleazar paused, "as some of you may know, I lived with the Volturi for many years."
"You did?" Jasper interrupted surprised that the gentle Eleazar could ever have been a part of the vicious predators he remembered from his earlier existence.
"Yes," Eleazar affirmed with a small smile at Jasper's surprise. "I have a talent that Aro found valuable. However, that is another story and not really relevant to the matter at hand. Suffice to say that I worked closely with Aro for far more of my existence than I care to admit." Eleazar paused, his mind began to wander down the dark path that his life had been with the Volturi, but then he purposely stopped himself and refocused.
"Aro was always so obsessed with growing the Volturi," Eleazar began again. "It pleased him to call the members of the Volturi his family...but it was really an army that he was creating. Aro collected powerful and uniquely gifted vampires from all over the world. I always wondered what his goal was. Early on it became obvious that no other coven could hope to stand against him...so I always had a hard time believing that his only desire was to police the vampire world. I found myself questioning...was Aro merely power hungry?...or was there some other reason for his obsession? One morning, half joking, I mentioned my concern to one of my friends, a ancient vampire who had been a longstanding member of the Volturi guard. In answer he told me a story that I believe years later Carlisle heard an abbreviated version of as well. Keep in mind that when I heard the story it was little more than a legend. I put little store in it and other vampires who over-heard the tale openly scoffed. I think though, that the story may relate to your friend."
"So tell us the story..." Emmet was getting impatient. Rosalie, Esme and Alice frowned at him and he visibly shrunk into his seat.
Eleazar smiled and taking pity on Emmet told the story quickly, "thousands of years ago, living amongst the humans were very powerful beings that were virtually indistinguishable from normal humans. These beings often smelled far better to a vampire than other humans do. Sometimes they smelled so much better that the desire to drink one could drive a vampire to insane acts. Ancient vampires even a had a name for these beings. They called them la tua cantante, singers, because their blood sings to our kind. The problem was that these singers where not normal human victims. As I mentioned before they were very powerful....and it wasn't always the vampire who was the victor. At some point, these singers began to ban together, possibly in defense, to destroy our kind. According to my friend, vampires almost became extinct. Aro, he said, created the Volturi to fight against these beings."
Eleazar paused again taking in our stunned looks with another smile. "It worked supposedly. Banded together the Volturi eliminated the threat. Saved the world for vampires." Eleazar added wryly. "My friend said that while most have grown complacent--non-believing even, Aro himself remains vigilant. That is why he still builds the Volturi."
"So...besides being unusually edible, what are these beings? What makes them so powerful? What exactly can they do?" As usual it was Jasper who got right to the heart of the matter.
"No one knows what they are," Eleazar replied. "My friend said that the humans believed they were Gods." Both Eleazar and Carlisle chuckled at that. "As for what they can do....I was hoping that Edward could answer that question," he said gesturing towards the umbrella I was still carrying.
All eyes turned to me. Quickly I filled everyone in on the last two months ending with our adventure tonight with Bella's umbrella.
"So...her eyes glow, she is immune to your talents, (with the possible exception of Jasper) she can make you feel mild physical pain without touching you, she is very intelligent, she dispatched four would be attackers in a matter of seconds, and she has a magic umbrella?" Eleazar summed up.
"Doesn't sound too threatening," Rosalie was scornful. "I fail to see how any of that would do her much good against one of us."
"We don't know how Bella did what she did to those men," I pointed out. "She may be more powerful than you think."
"Yeah if nothing else she could hide under the umbrella," Emmet added. "Nothing is getting through that thing."
Everyone laughed as Emmet had intended. "May I?" Eleazar asked gesturing towards the umbrella.
I handed it to him. Curios he turned the umbrella round and round examining it from every angle. After a moment he came to the same conclusion I had. It looked entirely ordinary. Eleazar decided to put it to the test.
"We should probably do this outside," I told him. The umbrella may be indestructible. But, Esme's furniture wasn't.
Still examining the umbrella Eleazar's thoughts switched suddenly to something else. "Carlisle, how long do you think that this girl will be out?" he asked.
"Not more than a day or two. Why?" Carlisle replied.
"Is it possible that you could arrange for me to see her?" he asked.
"Probably--If we could distract her Uncle...." Carlisle's eyebrow was cocked, silently questioning Eleazar's intentions.
"I have a talent." Eleazar answered the unasked question. "Judging from Alice's and Edward's experience there is a good chance it won't work. But if it does...I will probably be able to tell you what Edward's friend is capable of."
I could see in Eleazar mind how it worked. His talent was the ability to recognize talent in others. It worked best with vampires, but he was also sometimes able to see potential in humans-- generally in those who were very gifted. It definitely explained why Aro had kept him around.
"We don't need to distract Charlie," I pointed out. "Seeing him would probably work just as well as seeing Bella."
"Yes, very likely." Eleazar agreed nodding thoughtfully. "Well...shall we see about this umbrella?" he asked.
The interest level in the room peaked. Even for Rosalie who practically loathed Bella, magical umbrellas constituted something of a novelty. There never going to believe this...Emmet thought, as we all filed out.
*******
I was planning to head back to the hospital when Carlisle again intervened in my life. He insisted that I accompany my siblings to school assuring me that he would keep a special watch on Bella and call me if there was any change in her condition. Eleazar was going to accompany Carlisle to the hospital. His hope was to see either Bella, Charlie or both. He also agreed to call when and if his talent revealed anything. Sulkily I went to school. To be fair, I knew that Carlisle was right. Going to school was the correct way to keep up our act. People would question if I skipped school to loiter at the hospital all day. But still, I had never found my teenage charade more irksome.