Disclaimer:
Stephenie Meyer wrote Twilight.
Morgan Locklear wrote a limerick that made the man from Nantucket blush.
Chapter Eleven:
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Alice stood inside a very square, dark bank in Lily, Kentucky, watching Jasper hold a laughing redheaded woman inside the curve of his sickle. The sound of the vault door slamming shut was still fading in the room while the renewed chortles of Jasper's prisoner kept the air fresh with voice.
She knew that Carlisle was on the other side of a metal door so thick that even a hundred vampires could not open it.
"You will never get in there," Senna taunted. "You've lost."
"First of all…" Jasper turned his wrist slightly, sending her head tilting uncomfortably to the side. "We can easily wait them out." He led her to a nearby chair and sat her down. "Unless you have a week's supply of humans down there." He enjoyed watching her face fall. He motioned for Alice to take hold of the weapon and she held it solidly. Alice did not jostle the woman as she watched Jasper approach the shiny round door with what looked like a ship's wheel firmly planted in the center. "Secondly, I'm already halfway in."
He walked over to the vault and inspected it closely.
"Do you know how birds and whales migrate long distances?" Alice asked her captive audience.
"Yes, I suppose," Senna answered.
"Well," Alice smiled smugly looking back over at Jasper, who was already turning the wheel slowly to the left. "Let's just hope that birds don't learn how to walk into banks."
Jasper laughed to himself. He could see where the vault had been touched most frequently and could deduce a possible combination based on hand placement on the wheel, but he chose to use his exquisite hearing to let the safe open itself with some gentle prodding.
Senna watched in horror as he began turning the wheel. She struggled against the corral around her neck but Alice jerked her into a more submissive position.
"You are about one minute from becoming obsolete," Alice told her. "And since you have already proven yourself untrustworthy, I can't think of a single reason to keep you alive."
"Leverage," Jasper responded, without looking up. "Someone in there may trade her for Carlisle." He stopped turning the wheel and walked back to the women. He knelt down in front of Senna. "But Alice is right. We can't trust you. Even leverage is not worth the risk of having you in there with us."
He drew his other sickle and hooked her neck into the back curve just as Alice had. "If you have anything to tell us that might change my mind, now is the time to speak."
Her eyes were wide and wild. She had wanted to play the strong martyr at first but she understood that her life was now measured in seconds. It loosened her resolve and her lips.
"It's just the two of us now," she sobbed. "You killed the Johns. Nicholas is merely our human, and it's only them down there." She was telling the truth.
"I don't believe you," Jasper replied. He nodded to Alice and a second later they pulled their sickles towards themselves and in opposing directions, trapping her neck between the dull edges. Senna gushed blood out of her mouth for only a split second before her head popped off and rolled across the shiny floor like a tumbleweed with a train of red hair.
"The door is unlocked," Jasper told Alice. "Let's go."
Alice handed him the borrowed weapon. "I think she was telling the truth that time."
"Maybe," Jasper said stoically. "But she gave whoever it is down there enough of a warning to spoil our surprise and ample time to kill Carlisle." He strode to the vault. "I worry that we're already too late."
"Oh." Alice was saddened to hear such a well-reasoned theory and she pictured the gruesome potential with maddening clarity.
"Just be prepared for anything." He slowly opened the heavy door but the loud clicks and groans may as well have been a herd of buffalo announcing their approach. Jasper peered around the thick threshold. He saw a room filled with metal boxes and several small open safes, each stuffed with American currency.
Alice swiveled her head around as she stepped into the vault. She checked all four corners and she sniffed the air. Jasper went straight to the round hole in the floor that had once hosted a Jacob's ladder hanging from two bolts.
"The rope is cut," Jasper whispered.
Alice could see where the ladder was once attached to the shaft's brick wall. She sniffed the air again. "Carlisle has been here."
Jasper nodded, he had a lousy sense of smell. He walked to the left and saw a nearby table that normally sat over an opening in the floor. He wished he would have thought of sleeping in a bank vault. It was a great idea unless one had vampire enemies with equal hearing and a basic knowledge of how tumbler locking mechanisms worked.
He suddenly missed his friend, Jacob, who would have also applauded the ingenious defense. The two men bonded on the La Touraine, while Jacob bravely held his desperate fears at bay while they split an ocean. Jasper admired Jacob. He even feared the hidden beast within. In many ways, that fear made Jasper admire him even more.
But there was a human who had a very similar heart and soul to Jacob and his scent was strong in the dark chamber below them. Jasper looked into the hole and saw that it was just a passageway leading away from the bank.
"Watch behind us, Alice." Jasper craned his neck but saw nothing but brick. "There might be a back door." Jasper then checked the area just below the hole, expecting to see a trap of some sort but found only the heap of rope and wood that made up the disengaged ladder. A soft landing, he thought.
"I'm going down," Jasper said. "Drop in right behind me."
"Alright."
Jasper jumped.
Carlisle had spent his day with Jeremy, a deranged vampire. He was the second immortal lunatic to kidnap Carlisle in a month.
He was not abused but was treated like a human who tried to pass off a vampire's property as his own. He surmised introducing himself as a doctor when he entered the bank spared his life. His doctor's bag enforced his claim despite being caught in a lie but his captor never searched it to verify his title.
He noticed then how inconsistent they were in their affairs.
They asked him questions that made him feel uncomfortable, questions like, 'Is it true that a tablespoon of salt will kill a human?' Carlisle was afraid that any answer would pique their curiosity so he remained quiet. He did not really understand why they wanted him alive if they were planning to kill his traveling companions with but, from what he could gather, they were going to take him somewhere.
They did not ask him anything about where he got the deed but they continued to pepper him with odd and macabre medical questions that were so outrageous Carlisle began to suspect they were mocking him.
He was introduced to a pair of smiling giants after he had been there a few hours.
"This is John and John," Jeremy introduced when the silent vampires entered the room. "They will be paying your vampire friends a visit."
Carlisle did not respond to the statement. He was not going to provide them with any information, not even inadvertently.
Senna seemed sympathetic. "I'm sorry we don't have any human food," she told him when his stomach grumbled for its overdue lunch.
Carlisle was sitting in a subterranean room underneath the bank's property but not the bank itself. They had walked for what would have been a city block above ground before the brick passageway opened up into a series of dome ceilinged chambers.
Senna and the two Johns made regular trips back and forth through the passageway, but Jeremy never left his sight. The vampire was young looking but old acting and he kept smiling at Carlisle. The smile was not evil, nor was it amused. It seemed unconscious and Carlisle even read it as romantic once or twice.
He felt very vulnerable after that.
Sunset was announced and Senna left with the giant Johns but returned a moment later. She told Jeremy she had discovered a large black carriage outside that looked as if it provided daytime protection to vampires, but no more than a few.
"The animals are gorgeous as well," Senna commented.
"Take them," he told her. "And tell Nicholas to take up watch position."
Senna nodded to Jeremy then looked down at Carlisle, who had been sitting in an upholstered felt chair. It looked comically out of place alongside the nice furniture in the cave.
"Would you like me to give your friends a message from you?" She smiled sweetly at the human.
Carlisle considered many responses to that question. He was most inclined to answer, 'I told you so,' or to decline politely, knowing that she was not going to confront ordinary vampires and that he stood a good chance of speaking to his friends again. He remained silent. It had been his mainstay for the whole day.
They left and Jeremy went back to the map that he had been scribbling on all day. He seemed particularly interested in the railroad lines and bodies of water they crossed.
Carlisle swallowed his heartbeats as he waited for Senna to walk back into the room, but it was the man with the curly mustache who came running into the room forty minutes later in a full panic.
"Miss Argyle is back sir," Nicholas said to Jeremy. He was winded. "She is with a couple who seem to be holding her against her will."
Carlisle kept his face impassive but his heart soared. They had survived the ambush. He was aware, however, that the following few minutes could be very dangerous for him.
"Where are the Johns?" Jeremy asked.
"I did not see them sir."
Jeremy stood up. His mouth popped open then closed again. He made a decision in that moment that spoke volumes about his character. "Cut the ladder."
"Yes sir." Nicholas ran off in the direction of the bank.
Jeremy then produced a rope from a cabinet and tied Carlisle's hands behind him.
"What about your wife?" Carlisle got out that one question before a handkerchief was shoved into his mouth.
"If you spit that out, I'll kill you before your friends get the chance." Jeremy sounded rattled and roughly pushed Carlisle to the floor so he could begin tying the man's feet.
"They ruined everything!" His voice pulsed as he wound the rope around Carlisle's legs. "If the John's are dead then we're all dead."
Carlisle was confused by what the panicked man was saying and he was completely unable to move by the time Nicholas came back into the room.
"The ladder is down sir."
"Go on ahead and prepare the boat," Jeremy commanded and the man trotted off down another passageway.
Carlisle was then dragged by the feet down the long dark hallway, toward the bank vault. The rope and wood that made up the Jacob's ladder he had climbed down earlier in the day lay in a heap on the floor.
Jeremy shoved the immobile Carlisle underneath the heavy ropes and looked up when he heard the vault wheel begin turning.
"That's a long drop," Jeremy whispered to the doctor. "But don't worry, you'll break their fall."
To make sure that the human did not get any bright ideas, Jeremy reached in and gently lifted Carlisle's head by the hair before pushing it roughly into the hard brick floor.
Carlisle closed his eyes.
"I have something to tell you, Michael."
Bella, Edward and Emmett were sitting in Michael's upstairs sitting room enjoying a nighttime view of Central Park and the lighted city beyond it. The railing of the balcony was the only obstruction and she was unnerved to see that her theatre's tower was starkly visible from his home.
Michael smiled. "Please, you may tell me anything."
"I saved Lawrence this morning. I'm sorry for yet another conflict between us since I moved here but I felt that since it was my party..."
"Lawrence is of no concern to me today Bella," Michael interrupted. "And I already assumed that you would when I saw you return with Emmett."
"About that…" Emmett had already accepted Michael's apology but the feeling of being controlled like a puppet was still fresh and troubling. He was also forced to observe that Bella was able to counter his suggestions. Suddenly, he connected memories of her locking eyes with him the same way in the past and giving him instructions that he always felt compelled to follow.
"I hope you weren't planning on leaving me there, because I cost you nothing."
"But that's not true," Michael protested. "You cost me Lawrence."
I wonder what else they're hiding from us?
Emmett's God voice boomed in his head and Edward almost cursed out loud. Bella held her expression but Edward was instantly treated to a string of obscenities that would make a Viking blush.
Edward took the opportunity to change the subject. "Does this mean that you have forgiven Lawrence?"
Michael frowned in thought. "I am pleased that Bella released him, but he cost me two hundred and fifty years of progress and that is a monstrous betrayal of trust. No, I do not forgive him."
"Michael," Bella spoke his name with a measure of sadness and disappointment that chilled the room. "You taught me the meaning of forgiveness."
"I am not that man, Bella," Michael said softly. "I wasn't even him when I knew you in Elsebridge. I had been faking it for centuries by then." He saw utter devastation bloom in her eyes. "I'm sorry my child but you were a human and I was a vampire. I taught you what you needed for that life, not what you would need for this one."
"We DO need it! More than anyone, Michael!" Bella was stunned by his obtuseness.
"Wait, please." Michael held his hands out. "You were hoping that I would not be upset about your interfering with my order to Lawrence and I am not." He lowered his hands. "I have not even asked you about the powerful ability we share and, I might add, you did not mention when we discussed the matter of talents last week." He looked over at Emmett.
"Besides, I have a feeling that your friend will ask enough for the both of us."
Emmett was still pondering the Lord's observation and the suggestion was gaining traction. He would indeed be asking more questions once they returned to the theatre.
"Fine," Bella said at last, "but Lawrence is staying with us."
Michael nodded then leaned over to address Riley. "When we're done here, why don't you gather his personal effects and give them to Bella?"
"Certainly." Riley answered but he was watching Edward. He had not forgiven the brash newborn for manhandling him but he did not seek revenge. Instead, he was apprehensively grateful for their involvement.
"Excuse me, Michael," Edward spoke up. "You mentioned something about two hundred and fifty years of progress being lost? Does that mean that you and your...team are going to convert to pig blood for sustenance?"
"We may."
"Well..." Edward rubbed his eye. Bella thought he looked like a cute sleepy baby. Edward was not amused by the intruding thought as he gathered his own. "You just pointed out how much time you lost, so why wouldn't you jump at the chance?"
Michael considered the question. "I've other things to contend with just now."
"Nothing should be more important than people." Edward's statement was simple but profound. His words, unfortunately, were not appreciated.
Michael sighed deeply. "Alright...If I have Riley look into procuring pig blood can we please get to the reason I invited you here?"
Also the reason you kidnapped Edward's parents in the first place, Emmett thought.
Edward shielded his grin from under a cough. Emmett always seemed to make him take everything less seriously.
Bella gestured for Michael to continue and he responded by reaching inside his jacket and producing the small red book. "You will remember that there was a small amount of what appeared to be sand on the first few pages?"
Bella remembered reading the first verse as easily as if she was looking at it through smoke. "I remember."
"I left those intact for nostalgic reasons but now the rest of the book looks like this." Michael flipped past the middle of the book and Bella saw the round knots. "Where have I seen these before?"
"They're monkey fists," Riley answered. "And they normally are found at the end of a heaving line on a ship or a dock."
Bella remembered seeing a heavy rope coiled at the bow of the La Touraine and with a much larger version of the round balls of rope cradled in the center of the hemp nest. She could see how the name applied as she recalled that the big knot looked like it had fingers wrapped around its treasure.
"You need me to untie knots?"
"I'll be untying the knots," Riley corrected. He was fiercely protective of his valued role and he needed to have continued access to the book. "We need your musical expertise."
He turned a few more pages and prodded one of the knots. The moment he touched it, she saw it the way he did, deflated and loose. After only a moment a tiny bell fell onto the page. Riley nudged it and they could all hear the perfect chime.
"Touch it," Riley encouraged Bella. "You won't be able to pick it up but it will ring for you." He handed her the book with the effort of a sibling forced to share a toy.
Bella poked the tarnished round bell and heard the pure sound again.
"Can you tell me what that note is?" Michael asked hopefully.
"It's E sharp," she said with a look at Edward, who shrugged his shoulders. "It's sharp, that's all I know."
"I knew that she would have perfect pitch," Michael smiled toward Riley.
"Actually, perfect pitch is not terribly uncommon," Edward explained. "And what Bella has is far superior."
Edward looked around and surprisingly, he saw interest. He spoke quickly anyway.
"Perfect pitch is the ability to tell if a note is in tune or not. Many people can do that, but what Bella has is called absolute pitch. It's the ability to correctly identify or create a specific note."
"Well, whatever it is," Riley replied, "it means that we're saved." He was wide eyed and excited, as was Michael.
"I don't understand." Bella looked at Edward, who shrugged his shoulders again. Emmett joined him and it looked like hunchback choreography to her. "Aren't you trying to read from this?" She noticed that the book was extremely light, especially for the amount of soft worked hide that wrapped completely around it when it was closed and bound.
"We think the notes correspond with letters," Michael said.
Emmett spoke up. "Don't they already?"
"Yes but..." Riley held out his hand for the book and Bella gave it to him. He spoke while he fiddled with a few more of the pre-loosened knots on the open page. "There are only seven letters accounted for, A through G. That's about a quarter of what we would need as a key of some kind."
No pun intended. Emmett's inner monologue once again turned the corners of Edward's mouth.
Riley had three more bells out of their cozy prisons. He handed the book back to Bella, who started with the first one again. She tapped them in order, listening as their different tones sprouted from the book.
"E sharp...G sharp...G...E sharp...Well...It's not very pretty."
Edward agreed. He saw wisps of lighted music rising from the book like smoke from a candle but the strange progression of all four bells from E sharp to E flat to E was not terribly inspired.
If true G is seven then the next set of letters should be...
She began counting by sevens and assigning other letters in the alphabet in ascending flats and sharps. Edward would never have thought of it that way but after listening to her it seemed logical, obvious even.
...making' N' a G flat and the sharps would begin with' O'... "Hold on," she told the group. "I want to try something."
Edward watched with the rest of them as she counted on her delicate fingers. Her thoughts began with a series of letters. s...u...n...s.
Her eyes widened and she quickly handedthebook back to Riley. "Can you get me five more, please?"
Riley did as he was asked and handed back the book. Bella poked each one. "A flat, that would be an 'h'. B flat, that's 'I'. G flat, that's...an 'n'. And E is 'e', so...The first word is sunshine!"
Everyone was impressed.
Everyone was speechless.
Michael then slapped Riley on the back so hard that sound of it was like gunfire. "She did it!"
Riley was wondering if his mouth would ever close. He was certain that she was right, the odds of her system being incorrect and yet bearing fruit were too unlikely for him to believe anything except that, at long last, they would be able to continue.
"Bella, would you please allow us to impose upon you to complete the page before you go this evening and then to stop by every few years to listen to another?" Michael was so eager and his request, in the end was very small.
"Of course, but I believe I can have the rest of this book translated in a few weeks."
Riley laughed dryly. "It won't be that easy. I have to get the bells out first and that takes time. These knots have been loosened already." He reached out and turned to the next page to show how tight all the subsequent knots were.
Bella flicked one absent-mindedly and smiled at the muffled chime that escaped from inside the knot. "That's an A."
Michael stood up. "This is incredible!" he shouted as both hands flew skyward. He danced for a while then settled down and looked at Riley.
"You may leave now."
"What?" Riley was bubbling with stark panic.
Michael did not like repeating himself, so when he repeated the command it was laced with malice.
Riley stood up and blinked rapidly.
He left the room with a queasy look on his face.
The American Revolutionary War was relatively short, as wars go. By the time the Dutch officially recognized the United States as its own country - just under six years had passed.
It was 1782 and New York was a happy place again. British loyalists began leaving for Nova Scotia in droves and the curfew had been lifted. Michael did not subscribe to curfews.
Riley kept working the knots and every few years he had something to share with Michael.
Silence
again
reclaimed
the
air
The revolution convinced Michael to take a different approach to the governance of his men. Supported by the fact that he had already suffered a desertion, Michael was forced to see that the Americans had the right idea.
Even
after the
snow
was no
longer there
Michael retained his leadership but gave his men the opportunity to pursue their paths and passions. In addition he offered them an equal cut in a profit sharing arrangement. He announced that he would foot the bill for the continued maintenance of the large houses lined up along Fifth Avenue. In the end, only one man left. His name was Howard and he said he was going to Italy, but Michael found him and killed him less than an hour after his departure.
It was
then when
the world
was fast
asleep
The new country moved its capital from Philadelphia to the newly designed Washington D.C. in June of the year 1800. Some of Michael's group wanted to go see the city and he did not try to stop them. They came back complaining of miserable accommodations and warned their remaining housemates that it was truly a human's world. They declared that Michael represented safety. He could have not have planned it any better.
That a
fur covered
man
came from
his keep
Riley and Michael were giddy at the actual mention of a new player in the story. They discussed his possible role at length and Riley volunteered to double his book time in order to shorten the years between verses. Michael began to grow angry at the staggering amount of people on the streets at all hours. It made the previous population booms look like dinner parties.
The lone
traveler
looked up
at the
sky
In May of 1803, the city was buzzing about the fact that America had doubled in size with the Louisiana Purchase. France was fifteen million dollars richer and Congress was scratching its collective heads. They would have considered themselves lucky to get half that land for twice the amount but Napoleon had just lost an army and the island of Santo Domingo in the Caribbean. He was simply no longer interested in maintaining a French foothold in North America.
And watched
as cloud
after
cloud
shuffled by
New York was alive and going through more growing pains. The water issues were only eclipsed by the garbage issues and both were stinking up Michael's town. He was not cruel to humans but regarded them with less and less empathy. He was reading everything he could get his hands on, but every few dozen months he would listen to Riley read the newest verse in his oldest book.
He could
see that
the sun and
the moon
still hid
As usual, when Michael wanted the poem to give him some usable information it rambled on and on about the clouds and the moon. Riley was a bit more appreciative of the big picture it was painting but took a long break just the same. With Michael's blessing, he spent almost a decade pursuing his own interests but Riley's interests eventually ran back to the book.
And
wondered
just what
his fellow
man did
In 1814, Washington DC was occupied and burned by British troops. Michael had stayed out of the revolution but this was different. He took a dozen men to the capital city to take it back. Cautioned by those who had been there previously, Michael arranged for his army to first recapture and then occupy the Library of Congress. They would have comfort and safety in its lower levels.
While
they stayed
misguided
under
their dome
The capital was rebuilt and Michael was back in New York when news arrived that Napoleon had finally...finally...finally been defeated in Waterloo, Belgium. Michael had enjoyed the Emperor's exploits but, after warring with the British soldiers to take back Washington DC, took joy in his defeat. America would only be strengthened by his return to Paris. History would record that he sent a letter ahead to his wife, Josephine, requesting that she not bathe, for he wanted to smell her the way he remembered her when they were last together.
His faith
was
a bit
closer
to home
Riley had been obsessed by the murky image of the lone wolf described in the poem and quizzed Michael on religious characteristics that might clue them in about his beliefs. Michael directed him to some useful books and two of his housemates, Frederick and Reginald, who had collectively logged more time on religious studies than anyone else in the group. They had even gone to Italy to read books that had not yet been copied. They came back with a few as a gift to Michael.
And he
was
prepared
to reseed
every hill
Michael became perplexed in 1821 when free Africans in New York were given the right to vote yet slavery was still legal. He asked his longtime friend, Boston, how he thought the two extremes could co-exist and the political scholar explained that one would actually help achieve the other. He told Michael that when it came time for New York to follow Ohio's lead and pass a law against slavery that Africans would vote their brothers and sisters free.
But the
world
was
mourning
still
Michael had stopped hypnotizing his men but continued to use humans as his personal marionettes. He periodically made them strip and fight each other for his own amusement and he was materializing in and out of rooms with increasing regularity. He was even able to grab hold of something he wanted and take it with him in a silent vanishing act.
And although
he could
go out
day
or night
Michael could be quite normal for days at a time but then would lash out at people without warning. He seemed impatient, distracted and emotional. Slavery was abolished in the state of New York, because as Boston predicted, the voter turnout was astounding, especially among freed Africans. They helped to evolve a new world order concerning human rights.
He kept
himself
mostly
out of
sight
In late April of 1831, Michael went to see the premiere of The Lion of the West at the Park Theatre. It was a comedy that involved a woman juggling three suitors.
It made him simultaneously want to visit Paris and Kentucky.
Jacob wrote a letter to Bella on the morning of July sixth. He was sitting at the kitchen table while Esme cooked breakfast and the smell was so enticing that he was genuinely worried that a droplet of saliva might escape his mouth, smearing the ink.
Bella,
We have arrived safely in Paris and already sold the
Cullen estate for more than expected.
We have made contact with Laurent, who is doing quite
well and even gave me a hand with Jasper's bottles.
He asked if I thought that he would miss one and I nearly
choked telling him that I was certain of it.
We are packed and ready to return but we will
wait for word from you concerning the situation in
New York.
If we hear nothing by August, we are coming anyway.
Jacob
He kept his message short because he knew that Esme was nearly ready with breakfast. He mailed it that afternoon when they all decided to use their current location and funds to find Rosalie a wedding dress.
She and Jacob had made promises to each other in Versailles and told Esme over breakfast that they intended to marry.
"Maybe even before Edward and Bella, if they don't hurry up," Rosalie grumbled.
Esme was thrilled and made the suggestion that she treat the couple to a Paris original. She took them to Worth's haute couture andeven gave Jacob ice cream money when he got fidgety.
Rosalie tried on exactly nine dresses and did not need the tenth. She found her gown. It was Victorian and looked more like a court dress but its numerous embroidered pink and red flowers along the hem reminded her of the gardens where she agreed to marry Jacob. It was eggshell white, almost cream, and had a luxurious round train with more fine floral embroidery.
When Jacob returned, he was not allowed to see the dress despite his protests that Rosalie was no longer wearing it and therefore was not breaking any traditions.
He lost that fight.
But he was allowed to carry the box.
A few days later, they were paid a visit from an appraiser employed by the bank. He toured the home with Esme while Jacob and Rosalie played billiards in Carlisle's study. The books on the bookshelves were bare but the table was staying.
"I made twenty bucks playing billiards one night in New York," Rosalie boasted after mowing a lot of lawn to sink her seven ball.
"Surely, you don't mean to say that you frequented one of those places without a chaperone?" Jacob put his hands on his hips, a trait he had already picked up from her.
"Of course not. Garrett took me."
"The glass guy?"
"Yes. He told me that billiards was all about geometry and that I was a natural." Rosalie punctuated her statement by smacking the cue ball into the three ball with a loud WHACK that left it rattling in the pocket. "He was right." She smiled and made her way to another shot.
"You hit the ball too hard," Jacob said casually.
"I most certainly do not!" Rosalie was touchy on the subject. Jacob arched an eyebrow. "Alright, I do….but I can't stand playing it short."
"You will learn quickly." Jacob rolled his eyes. "Just like chess."
Rosalie laughed and made a combination shot that set up her second ball perfectly after the first one had gone in.
"See?" Jacob responded. She only had the eight ball left and that was just as well since he could hear Esme and the appraiser nearing the room.
"I know this table. I never played much with the cues but, as a child, I rolled the balls across the felt for hours."
Jacob pictured the yellow haired angel child racing around the table that came up to her chin. He wished he could have known her as a young girl but considered himself lucky to have found her when she was still breaking in her twenties.
Esme and the appraiser entered the study. They all exchanged nods while she told him about the single slate table. He was sufficiently impressed, both with the condition of the piece and her knowledge of its manufacturing.
"Carlisle was...is...very proud of the fact that the felt is stretched over a solid piece of slate, not a split piece." She was rattled by accidently referring to Carlisle in the past tense. Rosalie saw her swallow hard and carry on flawlessly. It wasn't until dinner that night when she finally brought it up.
"I don't know what came over me." Esme was staring at her salmon stuffed green peppers. "I hope I'm not tempting fate."
"I think fate is on our side, Mother." She and Jacob had graciously accepted Esme's gift of the wedding dress with a little more ease once they saw how well she did with the appraiser.
"You're right, dear." Esme smiled weakly but she was beginning to believe. "I'm just being superstitious."
Jacob had three stuffed peppers, American corn on the cob and half a loaf of fresh baked bread. He listened to the mother and daughter talk to one another and noticed that they were now speaking as equals. When they left for New York at the beginning of the year, Esme was still very much Rosalie's mother but the two women had developed a new relationship in Jacob's absence. He observed it with approval.
He wondered how much the trauma of being kidnapped by Michael had contributed to their close bonding and free exchanges, but suspected that the women were already well on their way to becoming friends by the time the theatre was completed.
Esme slept in her own bed that night. Technically, it was now owned by the bank, and in three weeks time she would either have to be at the Hotel d'Angleterre or on a ship back to New York.
And back to Carlisle.
Esme closed her eyes.
Carlisle opened his eyes when he thought he heard his name.
The back of his head announced every heartbeat with fresh pulsing pain but he did not feel any signs of an external wound. He suspected that he had not been unconscious for very long.
The ropes crisscrossing on top of him were heavy and offered little in terms of a view. He was certain, however, that he heard Jasper say Alice's name and moved his head back and forth, looking for the source. He also began using his tongue to push the large handkerchief from his mouth.
He found a small gap in the ropes above his right eye and saw a distant square of light above his head.
The handkerchief was almost out when the light was briefly blocked by someone jumping down through the hole in the ceiling. Carlisle was still bound by ropes and trapped beneath the weight of even more but he used everything he had to throw himself against the wall, hoping to avoid the majority of the impact.
Jasper, although not as fast as Edward, was able to see his landing area shift as he dropped the thirty feet in what felt like slow motion. He kicked his foot out, making contact with the wall and skewing his approach to the ground.
Jasper landed with only one foot in the ropes and could immediately smell how close he was to Carlisle.
"Alice! Wait!" Jasper checked the passageway behind him to be sure that he was alone.
"What is it?"
"Carlisle." Jasper reached in and pulled his friend out from under the ropes. Alice watched his actions and dropped through when both men were standing.
"Are you alright?" Alice cut the rope at his feet while Jasper sliced the bonds at his wrists.
"I'm fine," he said irritably. "They saw right through me."
"We couldn't have known that we were going to run into the actual Senna," Jasper remarked, inspecting the man's head after Carlisle put his hand up to it twice. "And you, my friend, have a concussed skull."
"I'm lucky. He wanted you to accidentally kill me."
"I almost did." Jasper was somber.
"Who is down here?" Alice asked.
"One human and one vampire. They spoke of a boat. I think there is an underground river somewhere down here."
"There is." Jasper and Alice answered in unison but she further explained the tandem statement. "We can hear the water and from the sound of it, it's big."
"And fast," Jasper added.
"Do we follow or do we retreat?" Carlisle asked.
"We aren't going to pursue them with an injured member in our group," Jasper reasoned. "Besides, we got what we came for."
"My bag is back there," Carlisle announced.
"I'll go get it," Alice offered.
Jasper shook his head. "We should go together." Jasper had never used a doctor's bag. As a mortician, his tools were usually surgical and therefore remained on his work table, awaiting his use.
They crept forward, Jasper up front and Alice in the rear. They reached the one and only chamber Carlisle had been allowed through and his bag was sitting in plain sight. Jasper took the opportunity to scout the adjoining rooms and, a few moments later, his echo chased his voice into the chasm.
"Come take a look at this!"
Carlisle and Alice walked through a laboratory of some kind and through a narrow opening where the sound of rushing water reached even human ears.
"Be careful," Jasper warned. "There are only a few feet of a ledge."
Carlisle poked his head in and Jasper took his arm. Alice followed and stared sixty feet down at a dark blue channel that occupied the bottom portion of a very large cave chamber.
"There's another ladder," Carlisle pointed out. "That one isn't cut."
There was a sheer drop but a shelf near the surface of the water would have been a good dock for a vessel.
"We don't need to go any further," Alice went into mother mode. "We're going to get out of here." She took Carlisle's other arm and Jasper relinquished his hold as they all left the ledge. "Carlisle, you are going to sleep in the carriage under Jasper's care tonight. I am going to drive us out of town."
Both men favored the idea and they walked back to the pile of ropes below the bank vault. Jasper threw the rope up a few times until it caught a hold of something above and then Alice quickly shimmied herself up. She secured the line for Jasper, who was able to climb the ladder normally.
Carlisle stood on the bottom rung as instructed and held on while Jasper and Alice pulled him up together.
They took the cash on their way out of the vault.
When Michael returned from the play, Riley asked him for the book.
It was not uncommon for such a request. Riley often killed a few hours at night when he first started working on a new page. He liked to get that first seed and make sure nothing had changed.
Something had changed.
Riley learned over time that the sensation of the knots getting bigger was his way of making sense of the increased ease at which he was able to untie them. He had more control of his interpretations and felt like he had found a new beginning in terms of embracing the journey.
Something had drastically changed.
A round silver ball with holes in it fell from the stingy monkey fist. Riley could see that there was a small silver ball inside. It was a beautiful single closed bell, a sleigh bell.
He looked everywhere for a letter but the bell was smooth except for the slivers of missing silver.
It was tiny but made a very defined and very bold chime. Riley, not sure what else to do, began working on the next knot.
And the next.
And the next.
The Civil War had come and gone before Michael even noticed that Riley had not uncovered anything new. When he asked Riley about it, he was shown the bells. Suddenly, Riley's need to own a piano in the 1850s made sense to Michael.
"So, it's up to the old tricks again?" Michael pondered. Riley was certain that he would be angry but he seemed to take it in stride.
"I don't know how to turn these bells into a phrase," Riley reluctantly admitted. "I have tried everything."
"The last time this happened, I moved to New York from Shanghai."
"I was there," Riley said dryly.
"I'm not moving away this time but it might be nice to get out of the city."
"I could find a nice piece of land near the park," Riley suggested. He was desperate to steer the conversation away from the book.
"Above the park!" Michael exclaimed.
"I'll get something to you. Right away."
Riley found a brilliant parcel of land that sat halfway along 110th Street, right above the park. Michael allowed his companions a hand in the design of the new estate and was rewarded with a modest four story abode that boasted sixty bedroom suites, five sitting rooms, eighteen fireplaces and two carriage houses, but no kitchen and no bathrooms.
This would later prove inconvenient when Michael kidnapped the Cullens.
The house took some time to complete since the government was using up all the good contractors to rebuild both sides after the war. It was completed in 1874 but Michael took well over a decade to furnish and enhance it.
They were moved in by Christmas of 1888 and just in time. New York was undergoing another boom. Michael enjoyed choosing his victims as they stepped off the boat in Manhattan and was rather put out a few years later when the construction of Ellis Island meant that by the time people came to him they had been processed and could potentially be missed by someone.
He settled into a new routine by the summer of 1892 whereupon he sampled the warm coffee in a boardwalk diner and whispered his address into the ears of lone patrons or unlucky couples.
On one such night he entered the diner with two of his men who were likewise inclined to take a trip downtown. Michael had only stepped in through the door when his attention was caught by something he thought had just been a memory mirage.
He saw the familiar heavy gothic locket around the neck of a woman sitting near a window. He was compelled to approach.
"That is a lovely locket you are wearing, Madame." Once he got close, he could actually smell his child on the silver charm. "But it is not yours."
The man she was with cleared his throat. Michael looked at him and smiled. He then moved his gaze to the younger woman and froze.
She looked like she was about to jump across the table at him but he told her in Italian to be still and she deflated a little.
Michael quietly told his men to step forward and the male spoke up.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
"Forgive me, sir," Michael said, still hoping to salvage a non-conspicuous exchange. "My name is Michael and I frequent this diner often enough to know that you are new to it." He fixed his gaze on the woman wearing the locket and waited for her to feel the need to tell him what he wanted to know.
"We were on our way to..." She began and Michael was certain that he would find Bella wherever she was going. The man interrupted her, infuriating Michael. He decided that they all deserved to spend some leisure time with him. The time for inconspicuousness was gone, Michael was going to take the three humans and let the owner of the locket come looking for them.
"I am curious about you three people." Michael's voice made him sound both angry and exhausted. "And when I want to know more about something I cannot be deterred."
He reached out and grabbed the silver locket around Esme's neck and used it to pull her to her feet.
Both of her companions stood as well but Michael's counterparts were ready for them. The scuffle attracted attention of several patrons, as did Esme's outcry, but Michael silenced the diners' rumblings with a hypnotic gaze to the onlookers.
"Now," Michael pulled the woman by the chain until her nose was almost touching his. Her feet were barely touching the diner floor.
"Who gave you that locket?"
NOTES:
I have been made aware of a fandom-wide response to this crisis and hope you will join me in participating in their efforts as a contributor or a donor, or both. Please visit fandomfightstsunami(dot)blogspot(com) for details.
I will also be participating as an author for the upcoming Fandom for Sexual Assault Awareness fundraiser. For more information on this event, please check the link on my author's page.
If you would like to read the poem in Michael's red book uninterrupted, I have published the poem as it's own story, "Michael's Book". I have included today's verses there and, as more are revealed, I will update the document. It is an interesting piece without the trappings of Brutte Parole but, in the end, its commentary is paramount.
See you next week for Chapter Twelve: A Farewell to Arms
MOG