I should have known. After all the Jane Austin and Emily Bronte novels I had read, I should have known. My answer, my salvation, was to come from within.
Realizing this; well, that was the easy part. Apparently the hard part was to come. Proving your love. People talk about it all the time. Sacrificing for love. Moving, changing jobs, getting divorced, etc. It all seemed so trivial to me now. What did any of them know of sacrifice.
I steadied myself and knocked on the cabin door. It opened almost instantly. I was surprised by who was standing on the other side.
"Rosalie."
"You made it."
"Yeah." I pushed past her and saw Esme sitting quietly on the hearth of the fireplace. She seemed so serene, so peaceful. I went to her and sat beside her.
"Tell me Esme. What's going on?"
She looked at me and for the first time, I noticed the cold steel hidden in her warm amber eyes. I felt a shiver run down my spine. She took my hands in hers.
"I'm here to help you Bella."
"What? How?"
She stood and walked me over to the couch and then gently pushed me down until I sat.
"I've tried to prevent this moment from coming. I thought long and hard about whether or not I should interfere, but in the end, here I am."
"I'm totally confused."
"Shocker." Rosalie mumbled while examining her perfect manicure.
"Bite me." I mumbled. "Esme, I…"
"Let's settle in, shall we? It's going to be a long night."
I sat numbly on the couch while Esme and Rosalie brought in their luggage and settled themselves comfortably. Finally, we all gathered around the table. Esme drank deeply from a goblet. I had no idea what was in there. As vampires, we had no use for food or drink.
"Esme, what's going on?" I asked as I rubbed my temples in a futile attempt to ward off a migraine.
She whipped her hand out with lightning speed and pulled my hand away from my head. Her voice was cool and firm.
"You do not have a headache Bella."
"But…."
She waved her hand in from of my face and I felt the pressure inside my head dissipate immediately.
"How did you do that?"
"I didn't do it. You did." She sat with her arms folded and stared pointedly at me.
"No…. I…"
Esme interrupted, "Alice and Edward are not the only ones that possess extraordinary talents in this family Bella."
"You?" I was stunned.
"What I'm going to share with you, no one besides Rosalie knows. It must always remain between the three of us."
"Why Rosalie? I mean, what does she have to do with this?"
"You are so full of yourself, you know that?"
"Rose! She doesn't understand yet."
Rosalie let out a delicate snort and crossed her long denim clad legs.
"I helped Rosalie the way I'm going to help you Bella. This help comes with a terrible risk though. Rosalie is the only one that has been able to pay the price. Others have failed. I do not make this offer lightly. It comes with a heavy heart."
"You can help Edward? You can stop this link between us?" I was almost afraid to speak the words aloud.
"No, Bella. I'm going to show you how to do it yourself. But, it's a one-way street. Once I show you how to stop, you will never again be able to use this power you possess."
"What power? I don't have a power!"
"It's violence." My head spun around to see Rosalie staring into the fire. I wasn't even sure she had spoken, but then she continued. "It's when we were re-born in violence, I think. It triggers something. Some power. I don't know. I don't know why, or how. But you know the circumstances of how I was made. Well, there's more to that story. There always is."
"I don't understand? What happened?" I moved to sit across from her.
"After…. After I was changed, I sought my revenge. You know this part. I killed the man that raped me. Then, I realized I could kill any man. Anyone, at any time."
"How?"
"With my thoughts."
"What!"
"I'm not sure how it began. I don't think I could do it right away, but soon it started. I was so angry. The hatred just bubbled in me all the time."
Esme had moved to stand behind Rosalie. Esme, so small, so unassuming, suddenly had a presence as large as the house itself. Her hand on Rosalie's shoulder calmed her shuddering. Rosalie took a shaky breath and continued.
"It was Esme that found me. She showed me that I could stop what I was doing."
"The killing?"
Esme turned to face me now and I saw the power inside her. I wondered how I had missed it. I had thought myself rather intuitive, yet I had completely missed that the power of the Cullen family resided in this one small woman.
"It wasn't the act of killing itself, Bella. It was that she had accessed a part of her mind that could do it."
"She was killing with her mind?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"It is something we can all do."
"All vampires?"
"Yes, but it is a rare few that can access those feelings. To harness that control is very difficult. To give up that control is almost impossible. In fact, there has been no one since Rosalie that is capable."
"So, she can still do it if she wants?"
"No." Rosalie and Esme answered in unison.
"How did you turn it off?"
"It's not easy Bella." Rosalie exhaled and for the first time, seemed to look at me with something other than hatred.
"It's almost impossible." Esme repeated.
"But I'm not killing anybody. I don't understand!"
"You're not killing, no, but it's not always about killing. Sometimes whatever skill you've harnessed is useful, such is the case with Alice and Edward. They are prime examples. They have unconsciously harnessed a 6th sense, if you will. They both think it's an oddity. They don't know why they have these skills, but they don't really question it. Rosalie was different."
"You think I'm controlling what's going on with Edward's sight?" I sank to the stone hearth.
"I know you are." Esme wandered the small room and peered absently through the curtains. "You have made this psychic link with him. In Rosalie's case, it was hate. In your case, it's love."
"This is happening because I love him?"
"In a word, yes." She turned and leaned against the wall. "Your mind is so engaged in the quest to help Edward and restore his sight somehow, someway, that you've actually created the ability to do so."
"Esme, I don't follow you at all."
"You still think like a human! How many extraordinary things have you seen as a vampire? How many extraordinary things can you do now? Yet, you still live within the confines of the human mind. You need to open yourself up to the world as it exists for a vampire."
"I do. I'm trying."
"Your mind did this Bella. Your mind bridged a gap between you and Edward so that he would be able to see again."
"If that's true, then why isn't it working?"
Rosalie suddenly turned and stalked towards me. "Because it never works Bella! It's like a cancerous tumor. It takes over."
"She's right Bella. It's not something that can be controlled."
"You just said that the gift Alice and Edward have is the same thing as this! Why is it okay for them?"
Esme crossed to me and sat down. She gently put an arm around my shoulders. "This is hard to explain, I know. As Rosalie said, what you and she had is like a cancer. What Alice and Edward possess is more like a benign tumor. Their minds created their abilities, but they coexist with them peacefully."
"How can I get my mind to stop then?"
"Now, comes the fun part." Rosalie spoke. I turned expecting her devilish smile, but instead I saw genuine apprehension on her face. It frightened me.
"Bella," Esme spoke, "I need to put you in a hypnotic state."
"That doesn't seem so bad." I chuckled weakly.
"It's not that simple." Rosalie started to unpack a mysterious black case that I hadn't noticed previously.
"I guess I should've known that."
"You and Edward are linked now. The distance helps, but they link is in place and it only grows stronger each day."
"You mean, this could hurt him?" I jumped up from my place on the hearth.
"There's no 'could' about it." Rosalie said.
"How much more am I going to hurt that man?" I said through my sobs.
"Bella, honey, this will be over soon. Then you and he can both get on with healing."
"What could go wrong?"
"You could never wake up." Again it was Rosalie that delivered the facts with a splash of ice water.
"What about Edward?"
"There's no way to know for sure if the psychic connection would be severed if you were comatose, but he would not be linked to your vision if you had no brain function."
"Okay."
"Let's begin. Rosalie?"
"I'm already prepping Esme."
I watched numbly as those two bustled around the small cabin and prepared an area that looked like a cross between an operating room and psychic's parlor. There were I.V.'s, a EEG machine, electric paddles.. and a crystal ball.
"I thought this medical stuff wouldn't work on vampires."
"Everything has been retrofitted to accommodate our 'sensitive' nature."
"Did Carlisle help you with this?"
Esme and Rosalie both turned to me and suddenly stopped what they were doing.
"Carlisle knows nothing of this."
"Why?"
"It's complicated Bella and someday perhaps I'll tell you the whole story."
I opened my mouth to ask my next question, but then I caught Rosalie's eye. She was shaking her head 'no.' I heeded her warning and instead waited silently.
Esme had apparently finished her preparations to her satisfaction and was now gently guiding me toward the bed. I laid down and waited. Rosalie moved about with practice and efficiency while connecting me to all the various equipment. Esme sat next to me in a wooden chair from the rustic table set. She held my hand and with her other hand, touched my forehead. I looked up into her eyes. She was staring into my eyes with an intensity that frightened me.
"Are you sure, Bella?" Esme asked.
"Yes."
I remember a flash of heat so intense I thought I'd burn up instantly. Then a pain inside my head that was brighter than the sun. I could feel my body involuntarily arching up off the bed. Then I floated down, or it seemed like floating. I was in a dark, warm place. Relaxed, safe, and peaceful. I could faintly make out noises from what seemed like far, far below me. Voices that were anxious, clipped. 'Bella, Bella, Bella.' They said this word over and over. I wondered what it meant. It seemed important somehow that I answer them. I tried to force my mind to think, but it was too sluggish. I gave in to the gentle wave of serenity that washed over me and returned to the safe, dark place.
A/N: We are getting closer to the end. I think 2 or 3 more chapters should wrap it up. The next chapter is partially completed, so it should be up in a day or two. Thoughts/comments/reviews are always welcomed. Thanks for reading! P.S. I have a new story posted called "Five Years Later." Please check it out. I think I have an obsession with pulling these star-crossed lovers apart and wondering if I can get them back together again….