"I have been following you. Oh, yes, and it was not as hard as you might think. My sources are very reliable. The trouble was, as the trouble always is, your mind-reading, Edward. The psychic is nothing to me, but you know that already. I possess a wonderful gift that makes me nearly immune to her meddling. But all things in time.
"A little Matthew Arnold goes a long way. Are you familiar, my dear Bella, with the poet? Shameful. Anyway, with a little discipline, I was confident that my mind would be impenetrable as long as I could focus on my books.
"I followed you here because Bella is a human who knows about us. And that simply must not be. So, Bella must either die or become a vampire. I was prepared to do either. And what a perfect place for it! So far from your family and friends.
"But, the strangest thing happened. I was able to receive a truly powerful look at your relationship. A vampire and a human falling in love with each other! It is just so deliciously tragic. So poetic! So belles-lettres! Your doomed romance sang to me because it is so pure, but so tainted by cruel fate.
"Ah, me. I am a hopeless romantic. Always have been, even after I became immortal. Probably more so after.
"I thought to myself: Am I not tired of writing frilly romances and dusty histories? Do I not want to write something with real soul? It was on the plane when I decided. I knew what I had to do. The two of you were meant to be my magnum opus. It is nothing less than my destiny. Our destiny.
"And, of course, it wouldn't be enough to turn Bella. No, no. No. Too trite. Why not give Edward his humanity back? Now there's a story you can sink your teeth into. Ah, I can only imagine the deep, revealing conversations that passed between the two of you after it happened. I wish I could have heard them. Look at you two! Splendid! Absolutely splendid! I love it when things work out for the best!
"Seeing you on the beach only reaffirmed what I knew in my heart to be true. Did you enjoy my Declan character? I'm a bit of an actor, too, you see and I think I designed the character flawlessly, if I do say so myself.
"I suppose this brings me to the denouement. I know you have been waiting to discover exactly what happened to you out there on the beach and what happened to me. I do not know, precisely, why certain immortals have extra gifts. I like to think that we receive powers that reflect who we were in our mortal lives. And I, being a master of fiction, am now able to create a very potent fiction for anyone I choose, myself included. I took your venom away, Edward, and made it my own. I drew the Devil himself out of your body so that your soul could return to you. And, now, I keep the demon in my own body. It is a very fast process, no doubt you've seen, and it all happens with a single touch. I wonder, sometimes, if it was because of my skillful imagination that I received this power, or because I was a particularly venomous person in life. Ha ha ha!
"I do believe that we are up to speed, now. I do appreciate you coming here this evening. I was afraid my little message on the beach was too subtle. I had a short monologue planned for the media, but, in retrospect, it was much too over the top. In acting, as well as in writing, less is more.
"Would you like to hear her story? A lovely child. Melissa, her name was. She was here all alone. Her amor had abandoned her most unceremoniously a day before their anniversary. Today. She came here, using the tickets he bought for the occasion. She was very lonely, a wilted flower struck down by the callous whims of Love. She brightened up spectacularly under all the attention I was giving her. She told me her story and how she came to be here. I knew, then, there was only one way for things to end for her."