Redemption Stories

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The train pulls into the Middlebury station in the daylight of late afternoon, and the sky is grey with falling snow. We don't have any luggage — Jasper carries nothing and in my foolish excitement I had forgotten my belongings at the hotel in Philadelphia, so we merely wait as the train comes to a full stop.

The trip had largely consisted of trading stories, but only the good ones. I don't tell him about the horror of waking in the mirror room, or the unbearable loneliness that followed. And likewise, Jasper never mentions what caused the crescent-shaped scars that mar his jaw, his neck, and his hands. Instead, I tell him of Margaret and Middlebury, and he details some of his wilder adventures with Peter and Charlotte: a car crash in Wichita, an opera in San Francisco, sailing the Chesapeake in a stolen sloop. We speak only of what little good we experienced, and the conversation feels shot with holes — unspoken gaps of misery and despair.

I ache to know about his past, about the scars, about the dead look I had so often seen in his eyes. I may know the present and have glimpses of the future, but the past was what really changed him, and he guards these secrets even more closely than I guard my own.

The train shudders to a stop and, ever the gentleman, Jasper helps me into my coat. "An interesting way to travel," he observes with a half smile as he shrugs on his own jacket. "It feels good not to be covered in leaves and dirt."

I laugh. "Running around in the rain when you're dressed as well as I am is not only an insult to Dior, but an affront to fashion in general."

He opens the compartment door for me, and touches the fabric of my coat as I pass, brushing a hand over the soft black fur that lines the collar. "You are dressed exceptionally well. I've seen Charlotte in some very lovely clothes, I must say, but never anything like this."

I swallow hard, unable only to comprehend anything but the fact that he is very nearly touching me. Except for the brief moment when he held my hand in the diner, he hasn't touched me at all. The small amount of contact now feels like air to dying lungs. It takes all the willpower I have not to whirl around and launch myself into his arms.

"I'll have you in designer looks in no time, just you wait," I say lightly, turning away before I make a fool out of myself.

"Is this before or after we hunt?"

Though his voice is casual, I can hear the strain behind his words. I look back to see that the purple bruises around his eyes are even more pronounced, and his eyes are so dark that they look almost freakish. He is thirsty, very thirsty. A glance out the train windows reveals a platform full of humans. I can smell the blood already, and can hear the pounding of hearts, the thrum of liquid running through veins. Beside me, Jasper flinches like he's in pain; his jaw is flexed so tight that the muscle in his cheek is twitching.

I place a gentle hand on his arm. "We'll hunt immediately. There's a park near the station that always has a few deer. If you're still willing to try?"

He nods silently, and I realize that he is holding his breath. He glances down at my hand on his arm, and then into my eyes. A warm shock moves through me before I peel my hand away and tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. "I'll try to get us through the crowd as fast as possible. Keep holding your breath, and try not to touch anyone."

We step off the train together and onto the platform. Jasper is rod-straight and wide-eyed beside me, his mouth held in a grimace. The odor of human blood is intense after such a long interval of smelling nothing but Jasper's cool cedar scent. Even my own control is a little shaky with the number of warm human bodies brushing past. I watch Jasper out of the corner of my eye and realize that his thirst has reached the breaking point; he is swallowing rapidly and staring at the surrounding humans with far too much intent.

I grab the sleeve of his jacket and steer him out of the train station, obstinately ignoring a woman I know from church: Louisa, a gossipy old thing who likes to nitpick William's sermons after service. I watch her eyes widen at the sight of Jasper, and realize that the whole town will know of his presence within the hour. Wonderful.

Instead of going directly through town, I lead him through the snowy backwoods the long way around. No one should be out here this time of year, not in this heavy of a snowfall. I check the future several times though, just to assure myself that there would be no human blood shed. All I see is a snapshot of Jasper crouched over a solitary doe. He is silent beside me now, crunching through the snow with stiff steps, his hands clenched white-knuckled at his side. Resisting the humans at the train station was more difficult for him than I thought it would be, and somehow I get the sense that he feels ashamed of this.

"Give it some time," I say, echoing Carlisle's words from my first vision of him and Esme. "It'll be hard in the beginning. There will be mistakes. All I can ask is that you try."

He gives me a ghost of a smile, and opens his mouth to speak, but I instantly put a hand out to stop him. "There," I say, barely above a whisper.

A doe is slipping between the bare trees in front of us, her hooves making quiet crunching noises as she walks. When we pause, she lifts her head up to stare at us, her ears twitching in silent evaluation.

Jasper leans forward, then stops. "How?"

The question stumps me. "Like you'd hunt a human, I suppose? Give chase and tackle?"

The sideways smile I love curves up on his face. "Chase and tackle isn't exactly my style, darlin'. I normally get my prey with very little effort."

Despite the horrifying context of his words, I am lost the moment he calls me darlin'. That, combined with the devastating smile, is enough to make me dizzy with love. Far too late, and far too loudly, I let out a giddy little laugh.

The doe jerks up at the sound and bolts. Without the slightest hesitation, Jasper leans forward and charges after her. His run is fast and catlike, almost soundless, and like nothing I've ever seen. The amount of focused aggression actually startles me, and I watch from the treeline, frozen. In less than four seconds he has her down, his teeth biting into her neck. His fingers tighten over the fur as he drinks, and my mouth falls open slightly. The sight of Jasper crouched down, sucking blood from an animal fills me with a insane amount of lust. Both bloodlust and physical lust.

This is a danger that hadn't occurred to me before: the sight of Jasper feeding automatically incites me to do the same. If he were to "slip" in front of me with a human, I don't know if I could stop myself from following suit. Disconcerted, I spin around and hunt on my own, ten times thirstier than I'd been before.

After finding and draining my own doe, I return to Jasper and find the carcass already hidden — clearly that part of the hunt is something he is already familiar with. The snow around him is spotless; not even a pinprick of red on the ground. The purple bruises around his eyes have gentled, and his black irises now have a soft gleam of color — not quite gold, but not the vibrant ruby-red I had seen before. He is staring down at his hands with a strange expression, like he's waiting for something to happen.

"You okay?"

He nods faintly, and my stomach jumps when his eyes move up to meet mine. "It's just... the first time that I've not felt... remorse afterwards. Instead I feel... wonderful." He laughs. "Don't get me wrong, it tasted terrible. But no guilt. Not a whit."

I grin. "Wait until you try a bear."

"Today?"

His enthusiasm is impossible to resist, and I throw my head back into a laugh. "If you'd like. I thought I'd show you around town first, though. At least the house. It's not much, but I'm obscenely proud of it."

"Alright. Show me your world then," he says, his eyes lighter than I'd ever seen. "I'm all yours."

All mine, my heart delights. Words are merely words, of course, and could mean everything or nothing depending on the feeling behind them. But I keep this simple sentence, and the joyful way he says it, bound in my heart like a confirmation. All mine, I repeat, as we walk through the snowy forest together, hands inches apart. All mine.

***

Alice's house is just as fairytale-perfect as the rest of her: a brick two story home covered in a pristine layer of snow. It has a white front porch with a little swing, and a long yard surrounded by snowy maples. I am strangely excited to see the inside of it, to see another part of her, however abstract. What colors does she like? What books does she own? Is she neat, messy, or somewhere in between? I already know that the house will be saturated with her scent — all the things her graceful hands have touched and made. For a moment, I beat my conscience back and allow myself to imagine what living with her here would be like. Would we sit on her white porch swing in the evenings? Would she lean her head on my shoulder while I read Dickens out loud, laughing at the good parts, holding my hand during the bad ones?

It isn't possible, I know. Not in my world. Not with my life and my luck. But it's a secret dream, hidden away unseen, even as I tell myself and know in my core that I'll eventually have to leave her.

Halfway up the snowy walk, Alice suddenly turns. Her emotion drains completely and then refills a second later — a vision. I worry at first that she has seen my feeble, self-serving decision to leave, but she merely looks annoyed. "Oh, dear."

"What?"

"I'm sorry about this. Really sorry. In advance. You might want to stop breathing — there are a few humans coming around the corner."

I trust her enough to stop breathing the moment she suggests it. Even though I'd just drained a deer not but ten minutes ago, my thirst is still blistering, and I know I'm dangerously on edge. Alice opens the front door of her home and all but shoves me inside, shutting the screen door behind me. My arm tingles where she pushed me; I almost want to barge back onto the porch, just to give her another reason to touch me. Instead, I stare through the screen door with an ironic smile — as if this flimsy mesh could stop me anyway.

I can't see the humans yet, but I can detect three heartbeats on the other side of Alice's sugar maples. As they round the bend, I catch the whispered clucking sounds women make when they talk over one another with gossip. One voice rises above the others slightly, and I can feel the emotion of irritation mixed in with the suspicion and excitement of the others.

"—Far be it for me to suggest that you're wrong, Louisa dear. But I know my Angel better than that. If there is a man in her house, it isn't because she's fixing to turn scarlet. No one is more resistant to male charms than that girl. You know Clive Bledsoe, that handsome politician from Montpelier? She about threw a fit when he came calling. Hissed like a stable cat when he tried to kiss her hand at dinner."

I glance at Alice out of the corner of my eye. I don't know who this Clive Bledsoe is, but I suddenly feel like hunting him down and ripping his lips off.

"All I'm saying is, it's just not right for a young girl like that to stay single. Not natural. Why, when I was her age, I had a full dance card at every social."

"Speaking of scarlet," the irritated one mutters under her breath.

The three women come into view now, tromping noisily through the snow of Alice's yard. All three are older, with varying shades of grey hair. One is full of eager, jealous curiosity, clutching a dish of human food covered in tinfoil, one is staring at the house with blatant suspicion, and the other just crosses her arms, looking annoyed with them both. They all spot Alice standing on the porch and stop clucking as if on cue.

The one carrying the dish steps forward with a pretentious little wave. "Christmas tidings, Alice honey! How ever are you?"

I step backwards into the shadows of the house, where none of them can see me, and watch Alice's reaction in amusement. She remains on the porch and smiles brightly, as if she hadn't just head every word they said. "Hello Louisa. Annaline. Margaret."

She says the last name with a bit of a twinkle, and I look at the irritated curly-haired woman with new understanding. This was the woman who had taken Alice in when she first came to Middlebury. That would explain her abrupt behavior toward the other two — she was being protective of Alice. She stands now with her arms still crossed, one eyebrow raised, looking very much ready for a brawl.

Louisa's eager eyes rove over the darkened windows of the house. "I saw that you'd just come in on the train, and thought I'd bring you over a casserole. It is Christmas Eve, after all, and you must be tired after your travels. No woman likes to cook when she's tired! Will you be dining alone?"

Margaret rolls her eyes. "What Louisa would like to ask, Angel, is if you've got a man in that house of yours."

Louisa takes it in stride, acting as if the thought had just occurred to her. "Oh yes, that handsome fellow who was with you on the platform! Is he here? Fine looking man, I must say. Tall as a church steeple. He—oh." Her voice drops off with an obvious gasp as I step forward and open the screen door. "Oh my."

"Ma'am. Ladies."

All three of them blink. "Oh my," Louisa repeats, fluttering a hand at her throat.

Alice doesn't glance back at me, but she puts her hand out slightly as if to tell me to stop. I get the odd sense that she isn't protecting them from me, but the other way around. Her little shoulders are set in something like defensiveness, and jealousy seeps out of her. "This is Jasper. He's my..." she fishes around for the right word, "cousin. He'll be staying with me for awhile while he... looks for a job."

All three merely blink again, and Louisa takes in a shaky breath. "Oh my."

There is a long, awkward pause. None of them move. I realize that unless I do something about it, these women will probably stand knock-kneed in the yard forever, gawking at me like a circus freak. I sigh. Not only am I uncomfortable having to hold my breath for so long, but I only have so much time here and I want to be alone with Alice. Fighting off a glare, I send a crushing wave of lethargy toward them, not even bothering to be subtle about it. All three of them, and even Alice, sway as if physically hit with exhaustion.

Her gold eyes blink several times, and she grips the porch rail tightly. "...Thank you for the casserole, Louisa. That was very thoughtful of you to come all the way out here, I'm sure. But you know, Jasper and I, we've been traveling all day, and well, it's hard to sleep on a train. As soon as I put him up in the guest bedroom," she stresses these last words with a stern look. "I imagine we'll both need to catch up on our rest."

"That means 'go away,' Louisa," Margaret says tiredly, grabbing her friend by the arm. "No gossip to be found here— nothing wrong with family visiting during the holidays. Pleasure to meet you, Jasper. Annaline, a hand?"

Both women tuck their arms around Louisa and attempt to drag her away. She only stares at me with a dazed sort of look. "Of course. You... you just give us a ring if you need anything, then. We're real friendly around here. Real friendly. If you need... anything, anything at all... you just go on and give me call."

I wait until they edge around the wall of sugar maples to speak. "That was interesting."

"Welcome to Middlebury," Alice says with sigh. "The other two aren't bad— Margaret's wonderful, of course. But Louisa is known for two things: gossip, and men. Her husband died about five years ago, and ever since she's been on the prowl. She prefers them young and handsome, so I suppose you're just her type."

"She looked like she wanted to eat me."

Alice glares into the distance, and again I feel the curious sting of jealousy in her aura. "She wanted to do more than that, I'm sure," she mutters darkly. "That was odd, though, what happened before they left. Did you notice? All of the sudden all three of them just sort of... shut down. I felt it too. It was like we'd all been drugged."

"Oh, that." I pause, unsure how to tell her. She'd explained her own gift of seeing the future right away, but I had refrained from mentioning my own until now. The emotions emanating from her just felt so... wonderful. Open, warm, unguarded. It was so unlike anything I'd felt, especially from Peter and Charlotte who knew my gift well and tended to veil themselves around me. Part of me was afraid that once I told Alice about my ability, she'd close up too.

"I have a talent as well," I admit slowly. "I'm able to sense and control the emotions around me."

"Of humans?"

I nod. "And our kind."

Dread fills the air around me, until I'm completely drowning in it. "You can sense emotion?" she asks faintly.

"I try to give others their privacy as much as I can, but it's impossible for me not to sense the emotion of someone near me. It isn't something I can shut off or ignore." I wince at the amount of fresh horror surrounding her, and scramble to recover my good-standing. "Controlling, emotions though, is a choice. For the most part, I try to refrain from doing that, unless it's just calming someone down a little when they reach the threshold of panic or anger. For instance, you're... fairly horrified right now, so..."

I sweep a sudden wave of calm over her, voiding out the horror and humiliation, and watch her eyes soften. Gracefully, she sits down on the porch step and wraps her arms around her mid-section. "Oh."

Abruptly, as I had feared, all of the glorious emotions that had been coursing through her before are cut off. Aside from my induced calm, the only things left are fear, embarrassment, and caution. The absence of her joy makes me even sadder than I thought it would. I am surprised by how much I want, need, to see her smile. Alice somehow just isn't Alice when she isn't beaming with happiness and life. I sit beside her on the step, practically towering over her petite frame. I want to put an arm around her, but I'm honestly a little afraid of what the combination of my desperation and her sadness would do.

Instead, I shade my eyes and squint into the distance. "Wasn't there a house you wanted to show me around here somewhere? And wasn't there talk of bears, too?"

She glances sideways at me and gives me a glimmer of a smile. "If you're trying to cheer me up, it won't work."

"Yes it will."

She laughs and stands up, brushing herself off. "We'll start with the house rules, then. Rule number one: Alice is always right. Even if you think you're right and she's wrong, you're wrong. She's always right. It may be possible to be simultaneously right, but according to nature, you can only be right if she is too."

I follow her in through the front door and wait as she flicks on the hall light. "Do I dare ask if there's a rule number two?"

Something like a half-smirk curves up on her face. "No, that's pretty much the only rule you'll need."

The house layout is very open, despite its small size. A kitchen and a large living room make up the first floor, and up the stairs are two bedrooms and a bathroom. She keeps it neat, I notice, very neat, almost like a display home. The hardwood floors are shining, the tabletops are free of dust, and nothing is out of place. I think of Peter and Charlotte, and their magpie tendency to pile stolen objects haphazard all over a room. They'd be shocked and impressed to see such organization.

With a great deal of endearing excitement, Alice opens the first upstairs door to reveal a light, wood-paneled room. The first thing I see is the window: an enormous wall-length bay with a view of a deepening red sky and rolling white hills. There is no bed — only a roll-top desk, a plush leather reading chair, and a wall full of bookshelves. Writing supplies and reference books are neatly stacked on the desk, along with a spotless typewriter. It all has a new feel to it, as if she had just bought it all a month ago or less. The bookshelves, though, are curiously empty. I look to her in question.

"Your room," Alice says lightly, dusting a hand over the desk. "It isn't much, and we'll have to bring in a bed or at least a cot in order to appease the church ladies, but it's at least it's your own space. I left the bookshelves empty on purpose... I thought you'd like to decide what to fill them with."

Never, in all my life, have I felt anything like I did in that moment — standing next to Alice in a room that she had made for me. When I turn to look at her and find her eyes glowing with happiness, I have no breath and certainly no words. A simple "thank you" seems appallingly inadequate.

"I don't know what to say," I finally manage, in a dry, humble voice. I touch the typewriter like one might touch a holy relic. "I hope you're not expecting to spend a lot of time with me, because I may never leave this room."

She laughs. "If that was supposed to be a compliment, I think you missed your mark. Come on, now— you can spend the rest of eternity in here if you want. But first— my room."

Her room is directly across the hallway, and much smaller room than mine. It is surprisingly simple, free of the usual knickknacks and lace that I'd seen in other female bedrooms. The walls are bare, and the only thing to suggest wealth is the richness of fabric on the curtains and the bed, all in varying tones of red and gold, like fresh autumn leaves. I stare at the bed in amusement, noting that it takes up most of the room — an amazingly large sleeping space for a woman who is a) very small, and b) incapable of sleeping.

"Why a bed, if you never sleep?"

A puzzling amount of humiliation floods through her before she can stop it. She averts her eyes from mine and gives a carefree little shrug. "All part of the act, of course. We have to keep up appearances. I have a kitchen too, in case you missed that. And—" she dances to the side of the room and throws open a door. "A closet!"

In the tiny space provided, she has managed to cram hundreds of hatboxes, clothes, boots, and heels. It is like an explosion of fabric and color, every shade of the rainbow, every type of texture. For more than an hour, she explains her favorite pieces to me, and I listen with patience and empathy, able to sense, even without my gift, that this is more to her than just a hobby. There is a desperate pride in her voice; as if she somehow believes that this — a room full of dresses and heels, is the only thing that makes her real.

Amidst all of the rich fabrics, fur, and suede, one thing manages to stick out. On the highest shelf (she must have used the stepstool by the door to reach it) is a scrap of worn grey material that looks glaringly out of place. I'm tall enough to reach it, so I take it down and unfold it while Alice opens yet another hatbox. It is a one-piece garment of some sort that ties in three places in the back, a gown like the ones I'd seen hospital patients wear — very old, almost falling apart, with rusty stains at the collar that I recognize as blood.

"What is this?" I ask, holding it out to her.

She freezes upon seeing it, and sadness — deep, deep, sadness, swallows us both whole. The emotion is too thick to fight through; a tremendous swell of loneliness, ache, and longing. It hits me like a physical blow, affecting me so deeply that I can barely stand on my own two feet. I drag the stepstool over and sit instead, leaning over with my arms on my legs, eye-level with Alice as she kneels. She holds the gown in trembling hands and brushes a thumb over one of the bloodstains.

"It isn't a happy story," she says softly, and looks up at me with pleading gold eyes.

I think of wars, of newborns, of killing, and Maria. "Neither is mine."

"Will you share?" she asks, barely a whisper. "The best stories, I think, are the ones that have the darkest beginnings and the hardest fights. It makes the ending that much sweeter— more like a victory than anything."

My story is the last thing I want to tell her. It feels a little like explaining a nightmare to a dream, except worse, much worse. Because I know that as soon as she sees me for what I really am, as soon as she hears what I've done, she won't even want to share the same country with me, let alone share the same house... the same life. I can already imagine the look of horror and disgust on her pretty face. The fear when she realizes what a danger I am. The disappointment when she sees I'm not the man she thought.

But it's better for it to be now, I think. Better for her to tell me to leave before I get too comfortable and too attached. Before quiet evenings spent reading on the white front porch. Before the empty bookshelves have a chance to be filled. All of these things are dreams, secret hopes, like the ancient spruce twig still tucked away in my jacket pocket. And all of these things could be taken away in an instant, in one breath.

"I'll share if you'll share," I agree quietly. "But it's not like a book, Alice. You need to know that. There is no happy ending for me, and no redemption."

She inclines her head slightly. "Margaret always says that God only writes redemption stories. Maybe your story, and mine too... maybe they don't have unhappy endings. Maybe they just aren't over yet."

"A work in progress," I say, and ache with all my heart to believe it.

She smiles. "A story that's just begun."

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A/N: That was a rather long chapter that kind of got serious there at the end. I suppose that's what I get for drinking wine and listening to film scores while writing. The quote "God only writes redemption stories" comes courtesy of my wise and wonderful best friend, who could put Hallmark out of business if she ever chose to use her powers for good instead of evil.