Thank you to everyone who reviewed my last chapter (including those who review as Guests, to whom I can't respond but I love you anyway). I thought it was really funny when a few of you suggested I kill off Edward instead of Alice. I won't say I cackled at your dismay, but there was some villainous hand-rubbing and I did pet a bald, red-eyed cat once or twice. I know it was a doozy, and we aren't quite out of the woods yet, but we're getting there. (Is it sad that I talk about this story like it's really happening? Actually, don't answer that.)
In case you didn't notice, for my birthday a few days ago I began posting a new story, Dreams of Jacob. I did this specifically with you, my long-suffering Slow Burn readers, in mind. You deserve a nice, un-death-y reward for hanging in there. Go check it out! And now, for something completely different.
By the time Jake and I got back to the clearing, everyone had gone, even Leah's two dead ones. We followed their trail back to town. The trip back took hardly any time at all, or maybe I was just dreading what lay at the end of it. Twice I stumbled and fell; the third time this happened, Jake slid beneath me before I hit the ground, and carried me the rest of the way to the Cullen mansion.
We were the last to arrive. The wolves were in clusters around the yard, whining and growling and pacing, but Jacob carried me past them and into the house, where I saw Rosalie and Emmett forcibly restraining Jasper. Most of the furniture on the first floor was broken into smithereens. I could guess by the stiff way Edward held his right hand in place, the glisten of saliva that rounded his wrist, and the look of pure loathing Jasper leveled on him, how it had happened. Alice's corpse was laid on the sofa, the only piece of furniture to survive the scuffle.
"Renesmee," Edward said, and his voice was solid with grief and fury. "Are you happy now? This is what your moonlighting has wrought."
"Moonlighting?" I echoed uncomprehendingly.
"You just had to get mixed up in this, had to drag your family into it, and now Alice—"
"If you had been there—" shouted Jasper.
"We thought it was for the best," whispered Bella, hovering near me and placing one hand on my hair. I didn't feel like being touched by her of all people; when I thought about how much she could have helped us, how many lives she could have saved...
"Well, it wasn't," yelled Jasper. "If we'd had your powers on our side it would have been a cakewalk, it should have been—"
"This is not our doing, Alice knew what she—"
"We didn't know, we—"
"You made this happen!" Edward screamed.
"You let this happen!" Jasper roared back.
Jacob took my hand and led me outside. I could still hear the shouting as I crouched on the lawn and put my head between my knees. One by one the wolves came to me, touched their warm tongues to my face and my hands, pressed their bodies against me, and if I didn't feel comforted at least I didn't feel alone. I twisted my hands in their many-colored hides, remembering how much they had to mourn and trying to impart some sense of calm. Elizabeth hovered the closest, her hot, charcoal-colored body wrapping around me like a blanket while Jake in his human form rubbed my back.
"They'll hate me forever," I said hollowly. Elizabeth took my hand between her teeth and bit down hard enough to make my eyes water.
"They won't," said Jake, leaning into me. "This is not your fault."
"But I—"
"Snap out of it," someone said. I turned to see Leah standing on a second-story porch, her hands balled up into fists and a frightening look in her eyes; I hadn't even heard her come outside. "What would you have done differently along the way?" she demanded vehemently. "Would you have abandoned us when those assholes came after us? Never fought with us in the first place and abandoned the thousands of humans those leeches hunted for food? This isn't proof that you made the wrong choices, it's proof that you made the right ones."
"Go easy," began Jake.
"No, she's right," I mumbled. "Leah, how's Seth?"
"He'll make it," she said, "As long as his body can fight off infection. The Doc's got him patched up. He needs time to heal. We'll bring him home as soon as the Doc says he's okay to move."
"I'm glad," I said. Without another word she vanished back into the house to watch over her little brother.
"I'm so sorry about Matt and Dale," I began to say to Jake, but he shook his head and I stopped.
"I'm gonna have to go collect the...the bodies," he said hoarsely. "Are you going to stay here?"
"I'll help you," I offered. I didn't know what else to do with myself.
"You don't have to—"
"Let me, please, Jake? Let me come help you get the bodies." I couldn't imagine allowing him to do it alone.
"Okay," he relented. We climbed into one of the Cullens' vehicles and sped away.
We made it back to the clearing quickly, and then tramped through the bushes to pick up pieces of Dale and Matt by hand, trying to be as respectful as possible as we laid them on a tarp in the back of the Jeep. It was somehow the most gruesome part of this whole nightmarish day. I spent a lot of time dry-heaving, but only when Jacob wasn't looking. I needed to be strong for him.
Then we had to bring them to the rez, arrange them in the forest where Leah's pack had laid the other two casualties, call 911, pretend we'd found them after an animal attack, and bushwhack through a jungle of red tape. The sun was well down before we were free to go.
"Come on," said Jake. "I'll take you home." Not back to the mansion, not to Charlie's house, but to the rez. Home.
Jacob didn't even suggest that we sleep apart. I crawled into his bed and he crawled in right behind me, and we were both asleep before the blood had begun to dry on his sheets.
Waking up sucked. I'd had such lovely dreams, where Alice was alive and no one wanted to disown me. But I couldn't sleep forever. When I finally wrenched my eyes open, it was already early the next afternoon. I'd slept for twelve hours.
"Hey, pretty girl," Jake said softly when he heard me stirring. He'd been in the kitchen, but he came to kneel beside the bed. He threaded his fingers gently through the tangle of bloody hair over my right ear. He had an expression that I couldn't quite place, part-exhaustion, part-sorrow, part-something else. "You want some breakfast?"
I nodded mutely. I was famished. I knew if I didn't eat quickly, before I woke the rest of the way up, the reality of the situation would strip away my appetite. I scarfed a bowl of cereal and a few handfuls of bacon.
"Your family's been calling," Jake said gently. "I've been holding them off for you, but they want to know you're okay."
"Which ones called?" I asked.
"Rosalie and Esme called. Your mom did too, but Edward took the phone away from her before she could say much." Of course he did.
"Jake," I said, "We really need to talk." His eyes widened and he nodded, looking terrified. But I couldn't say anything else, because my breakfast was coming back up. By the time I had finished making a cereal-bacon-bile punch in Jake's kitchen sink, my phone was ringing again.
"Rose?" I said into the mouthpiece.
"Hey, baby girl," she said quietly. "When are you coming back? The shouting's over. We don't know where Jas is and we want to see you, sweetie. I want to see you."
"Is Edward still there?" I asked, more coldly than I meant to.
"No," she said. "We don't know where he is, either, but he said he needed to think. Bella's here though, and she's really worried about you. We all are, but we can't come to the rez, so..." She sounded so fragile that I became remorseful at once.
"I'm sorry, Rose, of course I'll come. Thank you for...for..."
"Any time," she said softly, and hung up.
Jacob had gone out to run patrols after only a few hours in bed with me, returning before I woke. Now he had to go out again, but he promised to come back in a few hours so he could be with me when I visited my family. While he was gone I took a long shower, and halfway through cleaning the dried blood from my still-tender scalp, I thought of what Alice would say of my raw bald patch. I started sobbing then, big heaving ones that didn't bring relief. By the time I got out, all the hot water was gone and I was shivering and goose-pimpled all over. I sat on Jake's bed, wrapped in his ratty bath-towel like a security blanket, drying off for a long time. I didn't even start to pull on clothes until I heard him walking up the drive. I felt numb and disconnected, cried out and miserable.
I met him in the doorway to the bedroom.
"Ready to do this?" he asked. I nodded. He folded his arms around me and rested his chin on the top of my head. I breathed in as much of his scent as I could, held it in my chest like a drug. I forced away tears and tried to smash my emotions into something resembling neutral, digging my fingernails into Jake's hip-bones until he grunted. I would cry again later, when it had a chance of doing some good.
On the way over, he let me drive, so I would have something to do with my hands. I drove the speed limit the whole way, unusual for me. I didn't want to get there.
Emmett met me at the boundary to Cullen land. He ran up beside the Jeep as I was getting out and picked me up for a bear hug before I even had my feet under me.
"Hey, Em," I said. "How are you doing?"
"So-so," he said. "They're all waiting inside."
"Why aren't you in there too?"
"Are you kidding me?" he said morosely. "It feels like a fucking funeral in there. I'll go in with you, though, if you want."
"It's okay," I said. "Emmett, I wanted to say...well, I wanted to say thank you. For fighting with us. It, it means a lot to me, and to the wolves, and..."
"Hey, no problem, Ness," he said. "I'll always be on your side, okay?"
"I'm so sorry about Alice—" I began to say.
"I am too," Emmett interrupted.
"What?" I said, confused. "But you didn't—"
"Well, neither did you," he said. "So stop apologizing, okay? We're all sad about Alice. We all miss her like hell. And nobody's blaming you."
"Edward is—"
"Nobody who matters is blaming you," he amended.
"Yeah, okay," I said, not really believing him.
"I'm gonna go destroy something big. See you, Nessie." He gave me one last squeeze and disappeared into the forest. I walked at a slow human pace up to the front door. If Alice had been here she would have met me on the porch. She always used to do that.
I didn't need a key now, though. The door swung open before my hand reached the knob. Quicker than thought, my mother swept me into her arms.
"Oh, baby," she burst out, "I'm so sorry I wasn't there, I should have been there, I should have protected you..."
"I didn't need protecting," I said somewhat stiffly. My mother pulled back and looked at me sorrowfully.
"Honey, you have every right to be mad at me. I messed up, okay? I should have been there. I know that now." Her dark-gold eyes were openly penitent, her perfect heart-shaped face strained, her beautiful shell-pink lips caught between her teeth in a habit she'd had as long as I'd known her. She was so lovely, a perfect specimen. And she was loving, too, and gave her heart wholly when she gave it at all.
But I could see that she was only sorry because her inaction had contributed to the death of a family member. If none of our side had died, she would have gone on believing she'd done right to stand down with Edward. She still didn't get it: she thought she could just look out for her own and still walk the moral high ground. She didn't believe she owed a thing to anyone she didn't know personally.
I supposed I'd always known that, in a way, but it was brought home to me especially hard now. She wasn't so loathsome as my father, who would gladly have traded Alice's life for unlimited faceless strangers; but she only acknowledged wrongdoing when it came back to burn her. I'd done a lot of shitty things in my life, but at least I had a little empathy.
"It's okay, Mom," I mumbled, pushing myself gently out of her arms. "How are you holding up? I heard Jasper vanished."
"Yes," she said. "He didn't say anything, he just ran off last night." She led me into the living room, where all the broken furniture had been removed. The room looked bare and sad without its usual chairs and tables and the fresh flowers Esme so loved. Alice's body was gone, and so was the couch it had rested on. Everyone stood around, not even bothering to pretend to shift and shuffle as they usually did.
"Hey, Rosalie," said Jacob as he followed me into the room. Rosalie nodded jerkily at him. "Thanks for helping us out. We owe you."
"Yeah," said Rosalie. "Well, don't worry about it."
I went to Rosalie and took her hand. "Thanks, Rosie," I said quietly. "Your help yesterday—I don't know what we would have done without you."
"They were your enemies," she said, her expression softening. "That made them my enemies."
"Nessie," Esme said behind me. "How are you holding up, dear?"
I shrugged. "How are you holding up?"
"Carlisle and I were just preparing the body for the funeral. He'll be down shortly. Since Jasper wasn't here to do it—" Of course. For all intents and purposes, she was Alice's mother. It was only natural that she should see to the arrangements. The thought made me feel worse. She'd known Alice for so long, had loved her as a daughter, and now she had to bury her. It went against the natural order of things—but then, what about vampires was natural?
"She'll need to be cremated," said Carlisle, appearing behind me and putting a hand on my shoulder. "But we'll wait for Jasper's return before we proceed."
Carlisle and Esme didn't offer apologies for their non-involvement as my mother had. They'd done as they believed right at the time, and this unexpected outcome couldn't change that fact. I didn't know whether to admire them or condemn them for it. In the end, their obvious grief took the edge off my anger. I stood around with my family and Jake for hours. Then Jake left to run more patrols—the wolves didn't want to let their guard down, especially now when they were so vulnerable—and I stayed. Esme made me some dinner, which I picked at but didn't really eat, and at about midnight I went to bed in my old room.
Jasper and Edward were both back by the time I woke up. I ate a quick breakfast, which thankfully stayed down, and then showered and trekked out with my family to a clearing in neutral territory, where we met Jake and Leah and a good many wolves. Jasper carried the body, wrapped up in many elaborate layers of raw white silk.
Some time in the last twenty-four hours, Esme had come out here and erected a pyre. She'd made it beautiful, rounded every corner and sanded it smooth. She'd even carved images into the dark wood; when I looked closely, I saw that they were tiny, dancing figures carrying garlands of hibiscus. A large, blooming honeysuckle that had been transplanted here in the night climbed up the wooden structure, and its ambrosial scent swam through my head.
Jasper laid the body on the pyre, and then Esme began piling on sand verbena, pearly everlasting, columbine, aster, and sage. She tucked forget-me-not into the folds of Alice's wrappings and clustered milfoil where the head would have been. Then the rest of us stepped forward to lay little tokens at Alice's feet: a busted-up baseball from Emmett, a tarnished key from Rosalie, an old celluloid record from Edward. In his elegant hand, now faded on the label, was written Alice's Tango. She had played it for me a few times: it was the first recording my father had made, sprightly and saucy and utterly Alice, a precursor to the CDs he would burn for Bella.
My mother tucked a single pearl button from her wedding dress in the fold that covered Alice's right hand. Beside it Esme placed a watercolor painting of the whole family, and Carlisle laid a few yellowing hand-written letters on top of it. From my pocket I pulled a little vintage lipstick-tube, still half-full of a lipstick color Alice had devised herself. I placed it between Rosalie's and Emmet's offerings and stepped quickly away, hating to be so close to the thing that wasn't Alice anymore.
Then Jasper stepped up to the body. He had no token. Instead, he raised his right wrist to his mouth and bit deeply through the flesh. A river of venom gushed from the wound, which he held over the pyre. He dripped his venom all over the body and the flowers and the gifts, watched stony-faced as it soaked into the delicate silk wrappings.
"This is all I have for you," he said quietly. "Everything I am is all I have to give."
When the stream of venom had slowed to a trickle, and Jasper was wavering where he stood, he stepped back again and turned away. He looked faint; if I didn't know better I would have expected him to pass out any moment. I'd never seen a vampire so nearly drained of his venom before, and it obviously did a number on him. Or perhaps that was just the sorrow of losing the only true love he'd ever known, the woman who had led him to become his best self.
"Jasper, would you like to—" Carlisle began, but Jasper shook his head.
"Someone else has to light the fire," he said, his voice no more than a whisper. "I can't."
So Esme struck a match. Saturated with Jasper's venom, the little body exploded into light. We stood and watched it burn, the sweet smell of sage and flowers and the cedar of the pyre filling our nostrils. Jacob stood behind me, his strong arms wrapped around my shoulders and his chin resting on my head.
By the time the fire had burned down, Jasper was gone. No one had seen him go.
Oh, Jasper. KEEP YOUR HEAD ON, BOY! One million Knackard Land Funbucks to anyone who correctly divines
what our freshly unhinged Southern friend is going to do next!