AN: Sorry it's taken me so long to update guys, but no longer having a working computer at home makes it very difficult to write and publish FF stories. And please don't ask me how the content of this chapter, I just felt like putting it in. I was in a very weird mood. Anyway, I've babbled on for long enough now, so please enjoy.
Chapter 34: Talents galore
Three days later, Joshua regained consciousness, looking around him curiously. We'd sent Richard and Paul out of the room so there were no accidents, considering how tempting Richard's blood was to us.
"Where am I?" Joshua asked us in a small voice. Elizabeth sighed and sat next to him on the bed.
"You're in your room. Its okay now, Jasper won't hurt you." She soothed him and he nodded slowly.
"Why does my throat hurt?" he asked her.
"You're thirsty. Come with me and we'll go hunt." She replied, taking his hand and leading him out of the house. At that point in time, a squeal filled the air and Carlisle, Rowan and I instantly responded by running out of the room and into my room, where Freddie lived. Inside, a horrible scene met our eyes. Inside the room, Jumpy was sitting on the floor, Freddie's blood spilled right across the room, the young kangaroo lying on the floor, a gaping wound in his throat. I ran forward to the joey's corpse, lifting him into my arms, my eyes stinging with tears that would never come. I gave several dry sobs while Carlisle got the dog out of the room. Rowan pulled me into a hug, kissing my forehead briefly while I cried without tears.
"Kristen?" a male voice asked timidly and I looked up to see who had spoken. Matthew was kneeling next to me, looking confused but sympathetic.
"I'm alright. I'd just grown to love this joey that I'd looked after when I accidentally killed his mother. And having him suddenly killed really hurts." I said, my voice – and my heart – breaking as I remembered Freddie's big, soft, brown eyes and loving nature.
Matthew sighed, closing his eyes. Without warning, however, we heard a heart begin to beat, and little Freddie's wound began bleeding again. I looked down at the baby kangaroo and saw him open his eyes. I laughed with relief as I pressed on his wound, carrying him to Carlisle's office.
"Carlisle!" I called out and he appeared, looking shocked as he took in Freddie's breathing form.
"What on earth!?" he exclaimed, inviting me into his office and asking me to lay the joey on his desk.
"I have no idea. Matthew appeared in the room, asking me what was wrong. I explained the whole 'love affair' with Freddie to him and he closed his eyes, and next thing I knew, Freddie came back to life. It's almost as if the impossible suddenly became possible." I explained as Carlisle stitched up Freddie's wound. I saw his lips turn up in a slight smile as he worked.
"Interesting. We'll have to talk to Matthew, then." He said softly.
"We will. Where's Jumpy, by the way?" I asked him, suddenly remembering Jumpy had been taken from the room by Carlisle.
"Alice has him at the moment. She's taken all three hunting." He replied, lifting Freddie off the desk and handing him to me. "You'd better lock him in your room so no accidents happen. And while you're at it, would you mind getting the family together? We're going to need to have a meeting." He asked and I nodded.
"Sure." I replied simply, walking out of his office and upstairs into my room, placing Freddie into his bed to recover.
"What the hell happened, Kristen? One second Freddie was lying dead in your arms, and then next second, he was suddenly alive!" Rowan asked me, kneeling next to the youngster's unconscious form.
"I have no idea what happened, but Carlisle's asked if everyone can go downstairs to the kitchen for a family meeting." I replied. "I suppose he'll get Matthew to explain." I added, and Rowan nodded silently.
"Alright, I've just let everyone know to meet us in the kitchen." He said after a while.
"Thank you. You didn't tell Carlisle by accident, did you?" I asked him and he laughed.
"No, I was careful who I sent the thought to." He replied, still laughing. We walked out of the room, just as Rowan stopped in the doorway.
"Wait Kristen. Carlisle just had a thought. Bring Freddie. He said to me that we'd better let the family know of its existence." He said to me and I nodded, running back into the room and lifting the baby, which was just coming to, into my arms. I carried him back to Rowan and together we walked, hand in hand, down both flights of stairs to the kitchen located on the ground floor.
The rest of the vampires in the family were sitting around the large glass dining table when we entered. We took our seats in silence, waiting for Carlisle to speak.
"Alright, thank you all for coming for the meeting. Now there are a few things that I need to address. Firstly, to Joshua, welcome to the family. As I'm sure your sister would've explained to you when she took you for your first hunt, we don't attack humans in this family." Carlisle explained to young Joshua, who just nodded silently, nervousness obvious in his bright red eyes. "Speaking of his first hunt, how did he go, Elizabeth?" Carlisle added to Elizabeth.
"He did very well." She replied, her hand on her brother's shoulder to calm him.
"Okay. Now the second thing is that it had recently come to my attention that Matthew has a rather unusual ability. Apparently he has the ability to 'resurrect' the dead. Did you know that you had this ability, Matthew?" he asked Matthew, who shook his head.
"No; I'd revived that joey without knowing I could." he replied, looking briefly at me sitting next to him with the joey in my lap.
"Just a second, Carlisle. What joey are you talking about, Matthew?" Esme asked Matthew softly, confused.
"I'll let Kristen explain that." He told her softly. I sighed deeply.
"A few days ago, after Carlisle and I had checked that Joshua was alright, we went hunting, and I killed a kangaroo without realising that I'd killed a female, and she had a joey in her pouch. I got Carlisle, Alice and Rowan onto the scene and together we decided to keep it. Shortly afterwards, we discovered the joey was male, so we called it Freddie." I explained, cutting the rather long story short. Esme looked at Carlisle sternly.
"Why didn't any of you tell me we had a joey living in the house?" she asked.
"We weren't sure how you'd react. And we wanted to make sure the joey had a surviving chance before we told you." Rowan answered her quickly to spare Carlisle having to explain and end up upsetting her. Esme's face softened at his words and I could see Carlisle shoot Rowan a thankful glance behind her back.
"Alright. So do you know how old the joey is?" she asked us suddenly, looking at Freddie's sleeping form lying in my arms, which were now resting on the table so everyone was able to see the tiny creature.
"No, although when I found him, he was still latched to his mother's teat, so he was obviously no older than a few months. And considering his size, he's probably only about a month or two old." I said, and I couldn't help but smile as I looked at little Freddie.
"Back to business," Carlisle interrupted with a slight smile. We all looked back at him. "Does anyone else have any hidden 'talents' that we should know about?" he asked, looking particularly at the newborns.
"I realised not long ago that I'm able to see into peoples' pasts' as far back as their birth." Elizabeth said softly. Carlisle looked surprised.
"That's almost the complete opposite of mine." Alice said, not looking surprised. I guessed she'd already seen Elizabeth say that.
"An interesting ability." Carlisle muttered, even though he knew we'd all be able to hear him. "Anyone else?" he asked, but all the remaining newborns shrugged their shoulders. He sighed.
"Carlisle, why don't we go out into the forest to see if there are any other talents?" Esme suggested and Carlisle thought it through for a moment.
"Good idea Esme." He said. "I'd like everyone to go to the clearing west of the house. Kristen, please return Freddie to his bed and lock the door." He added to me and I nodded, standing up and walking upstairs to my room. I placed Freddie in his bed and gave him the bottle filled with another female kangaroo's milk, which he latched his mouth onto eagerly. With that, I stood up and walked out of the room, locking the door after me.
Arriving at the clearing a minute later, I saw the remainder of the family standing in the clearing waiting for me.
"Alright, now would you mind bringing us a rabbit, Kristen? I would like Matthew to demonstrate his ability before we get caught up in other abilities." Carlisle said to me and I nodded gravely. I didn't like the idea of killing an animal if it wasn't meant for food. I willed a grey-brown coloured rabbit into my arms and, sighing deeply, I snapped its neck. It fell limp in my arms, its heart no longer beating and I handed it silently to Matthew. Closing his eyes, Matthew held the rabbit at arm's length. We all held our breaths, wondering if we were mistaken about Matthew's ability.
All of a sudden, however, the rabbit's heart started up again and it opened its eyes, struggling to get out of Matthew's grip. He handed it to me and I felt its neck to make sure there was no longer a break, before letting it go. It disappeared into the forest rapidly.
"Thank you Matthew." Carlisle said while the remainder of the family, excluding Rowan and I, were looking at him in wonder. "Okay, who's next?" he asked, interrupting everyone's thoughts. Elizabeth began laughing at this point, and we looked around for her, and found her with her hand actually inside a tree.
"What on Earth, Bethy?" I asked her and she just laughed harder, removing her hand from the tree and falling to the ground with laughter. We all stood back, and allowed her to calm down in her own time.
After five minutes of non-stop laughter, Elizabeth finally calmed down and got to her feet.
"Okay, now that you've calmed yourself down, how could you have your hand in a tree, without harming the tree in any way?" Carlisle asked, obviously confused.
"Apparently I can change my macular density." She replied simply. "Hey Emmett – throw a punch at me. Your hardest punch." She challenged Emmett and we all looked around at the subject of her statement to see his reaction. Emmett was just grinning as he clenched and unclenched his right fist. He took slow, deliberate steps towards Elizabeth and we all held our breaths. Esme had her hand on Joshua's shoulder to stop him leaping forward to defend his sister.
As soon as Emmett reached Elizabeth, he drew his fist back and punched her shoulder as hard as he could.
"Aaargh! My hand! What the f--- did you do to my hand, Max?" he yelled at the top of his lungs, clutching his right wrist with his left hand. Carlisle and I ran forward to see the damage done.
"Okay Emmett, let's have a look at the damage done." I said, taking his hand into mine and pressing on some points. "Oh my god…he has a broken hand." I whispered and in my peripheral vision, I saw Carlisle's eyebrows come together in an expression of confusion.
"But how?" he murmured, looking sincerely at Emmett's broken hand.
"Hold on…" I said in an undertone, pressing on different points of Emmett's hand and realising that the bones were no longer broken. "His hand's healed." I said, a note of slight surprise evident in my voice.
"Um guys…Helen's coming here. She's in Australia, and she's not alone. She has a group of fifteen vengeful vampires with her." Alice said, her golden eyes blank as she saw the vision of the future. We all stopped and turned to her in horror.
"What do they want?" Carlisle asked and Edward and Rowan's eyes widened as they looked at Esme. Carlisle obviously also saw the direction of their gaze, because he instantly ran to his wife's side.
"Esme." Alice replied shortly.
"Why would they want her? What would they want with my wife?" Carlisle asked, his voice hard and tight.
"I'm sorry Carlisle, I can't see that. They haven't decided what they're going to do with her, but they know that if they target her, they won't only hurt you, but also the rest of us, too."