Chapter 11
Present Day
Bella tried to not let out a frustrated scream. After all, there were six kids in her cabin who did not need a counselor who was sprouting off curse words. They'd just gotten back from their first ever, spooky bonfire. Some of them were stealing furtive glances toward the windows and Sarah, the youngest of the group, had already checked that the door was locked twice.
Bella had just gotten a letter from Alice and Rosalie, but that wasn't why she was mad. Oh boy, not even close. She was on the verge of going out and hunting a chipmunk just to let out all of her frustration, anger and betrayal. The poor animal probably didn't deserve it, but then again, maybe it had stolen someone's lunch. So it really wasn't so bad.
"Bella?" asked a shy voice from the doorway to her 'room', wet red hair sticking to a pale face filled with freckles and green eyes wide as she looked hopefully at her. Bella sighed and put on a reassuring smile, motioning for Danielle to step in.
"What's the matter, kiddo?" Bella knew what the matter was, a story about a clown and some window; she'd heard the story too many times before and knew what it did to young and particularly gullible minds. Danielle's face paled and looked outside the bare windows at the darkness that was beyond the trees surrounding their cabin.
"What if…" Danielle swallowed and Bella remembered how Rose had once comforted her after she was told a particularly scary story when she was seven. The memory stirred mixed feelings from her: happiness that she would finally be able to help someone who needed her help in overcoming nightmares, and anger at Rosalie and Alice for what they did. "- what if the ghost clown comes?" Danielle swallowed but didn't move her gaze from the window.
"Well, just don't let any clowns inside." Bella shrugged nonchalantly and Danielle's eyes widened before she nodded energetically. "Now, let's go" Bella glanced at her watch and moved towards the area of the cabin where the campers slept "Everybody! Lights out! No one opens the door to homicidal clowns, ok?"
Some girls were already tucked inside their bunks, others, like Sarah, sat on top of their trunks with a flashlight, ready to punch homicidal clowns and other creatures of the night. Danielle quickly jumped into her bed and grabbed her stuffed tortoise while Michaela ran to grab a pop-tart package from underneath the community bed.
Bella turned off the lights. "You only get one hour of flashlights. Sweet dreams, children." She thought of making a comment about flashlights not being able to keep monsters outside, but then thought of Danielle and her wide eyes and decided not to unleash her cruelty out on them.
She went to the back of the cabin, where her bed, a small closet, a decrepit sink and the toilet were. She looked around and decided to put on her pajamas and maybe sneak off after an hour or two to get one of those pop-tarts. She hoped they were chocolate or s'more flavored, she needed the comfort food.
Bella thought back to her e-mails with her sisters, she knew they were hanging out with Sue (the home-wrecker) and her children (the little monsters), but she never thought her sisters would fall for Sue's lies. Even her name sounded untrustworthy. Sue. Why not Susan? Just Sue? Who named their child Sue? Untrustworthy people, that's who. Bella nodded in agreement with herself and grabbed her laptop, wondering if she should write down her anger towards the situation, describe why she was upset and how she could fix it.
A more cynical part of her wondered if maybe she should try contacting her mother. No, she decided, her mother didn't need to be worrying about her daughters' loyalty, or lack thereof. She understood that Sue had no one else to help, but wasn't she rich? Didn't she take all of Charles' money? Couldn't she just hire a nurse, a nanny and a cook? Maybe even a chauffeur?
But no, Alice and Rosalie had to volunteer. They had to come to love the little monsters to whom they now referred to as their siblings. Bella turned to her pillow and whisper-yelled into it. Even if they were doing it for the money, which only made it worse, what could Sue have told them?
'Hey, I've got money and two kids, and you two would make extremely cheap laborers. You can stay at my place and save the money you would spend on food and other things. Also, you may never leave this place and you have to make a blood oath so that you can never be free ever again. Oh, and did I mention, you get no days off. Have fun. Though I don't expect you to.'
Bella fell asleep with bitter thoughts filling her mind and the pop-tart craving forgotten. A week went by, her campers started to feel anxious about leaving. They only had the remaining of this week and half of the next before their parents would come to get them. Bella was going to stay half a week more to clean up and close down the camp with some other counselors. Rosalie and Alice kept writing, no more letters though, only e-mails. They complained about Bella's lack of correspondence with them and asked about how to keep the monsters entertained. Bella ignored them, not sure of what she could say to them that would make them understand she was not ok with their decisions and their view of Sue O'Shea.
Bella gritted her teeth and cranked the speed up on the boat, the girl who was skiing behind her toppled over and the girls who were already inside the boat tried to make Bella stop. When she finally came to her senses they were a good four or five feet away from the girl. "Swim closer!" she barked and the girls inside the boat looked at each other, wondering why their usually calm and collected counselor was being so mean.
From: Bella Swan
To: Rosalie Swan, Alice Swan
Sent: Wed, 07/30/2014 23:58 PM
Subject: I want a sibling-divorce
You don't deserve the last name Swan. You deserve to be bitten by ten different kinds of poisonous spiders and all sorts of stinging bugs. You know what, no. That's too easy. You deserve to be bitten by a thousand mosquitoes in each of your hands, especially your fingers. How could you say such horrible things about Renee? She's your mother too, sure she was a little absent during our childhood, but call her that? No. She is our mother, not Sue. Never Sue. You don't even know Sue's real name. Is Sue short for something? If it is, it's not very trustworthy of her. Sue. Pfft.
At least we know Renee's name is that, we know our grandparents were artists in Chicago and then they came to live in Boston, but they died while defending an art gallery from muggers. What do you know of Sue and her backstory, huh? We know Renee went to school at BU and met Charlie at a midsummer concert in Fenway Park. What do we know of how Sue and Charlie met? For all we know she stalked him for years and one day she brought him coffee, with some sort of poison plant that made him love her and he left us. How convenient of her.
Also, there's no way to know that the kid she's pregnant with is Charlie's. If it isn't the test result with us will say we aren't related at all. So no money, no last name, no nothing for us. Charlie's an only child and his parents died when he was twenty-four, they never even met us. How can we prove that Sue's child is our sibling, huh? Ever thought of that? DON'T GO MAKING DEALS WITH THE DEVIL WITHOUT MY SAY IN IT. You can't just send me a letter explaining how the deal works for all three of us and expect me to be okay with it. What are we going to do if the child isn't Charlie's? You pair of sentimentalist idiots.
End of rant.
Don't think of speaking to me unless you have some of the issues I've mentioned fixed. Also, I don't want to hear you two sing praises of how wonderful Sue is and how she's the mother you wished you'd had. Don't even try, one letter dealing with that is enough.
Back in New York, Rosalie turned to look at Alice. "How do we explain?"
Alice shook her head. "We can't, she has to come and know Sue the way we do, words won't convince her." She sighed as a crash came from upstairs, where Leah and her cousin Emily were playing. Seth didn't wake up from his place in the couch, so Alice and Rose counted that as a victory.
"I'll go." Said Rosalie before Alice could start disentangling herself from her sewing machine.