Chapter Summary: Wow! That voice in the forest did lie to me; my dreams can be wrong about somethings. I wonder what else I'm wrong about. Well, that is ... besides everything ...
Warning: This chapter contains forceful use of profanity and references to and implications of violence.
"Rosalie," I cried out in shock, "where are you going?"
"I'm going to get you a cup of water; you haven't drunk anything in a while, and you've been cr-... well, now you are dehydrated." Her voice floated to me from over by the stove.
"Rosalie, I don't need to drink water now," I called out.
"Mmmhmm," came the dismissive reply.
I heard the door open then close. I felt the cold from the outside steal its way in. Rosalie was ignoring me, and now she was gone.
I heard, to my extreme relief, the door open and close again; she had come back.
Rosalie must have also decided to stoke the fire in the stove, because I heard the sounds of the stove door being opened, and I saw flickers of outlines of her putting wood into the fire.
The chair scraped across the floor and pulled my hand away from me. Rosalie's cool grasp stung my hand, her fingers unwrapping mine from the chair leg and put a cup into my hand.
"You do know what happens when I drink a full cup of water just before I go to sleep, don't you? Right?" Then I added: "I really don't think this is a good idea."
"I'll make sure you are in the outhouse before any accident occurs," Rosalie responded coolly.
"Like last time?" I reminded her. I vividly recalled waking up from my dream where I was peeing to find myself being rushed to the outhouse, ... but too late. I also recalled the horrifying result of that race when I soiled everything, including Rosalie's hand as she stripped me of my clothes. I couldn't imagine anything more mortifying than that (well, besides my dream last night where she lectured about my very embarrassing dream of Rosalie taking me on my bed) ... unless it was me doing it again tonight. Nothing could be worse than that.
"I was rather ... distracted ... the last time. That won't happen tonight." Her assurance wasn't much help: Rosalie sounded 'rather distracted' now.
What did I say about hitting bottom, and then falling through the bottom? Once again, if I could have looked into the future, then I really should have listened to my own warning and the warning in Rosalie's distracted voice. But would have done any good if I had listened? What was the point of being right about these kinds of things if that didn't help any?
But I'm getting way ahead of myself now, aren't I?
But then I started drinking the water anyway. I realized that she would have to stay here and would have to watch me if I drank the water, so I did as she ordered without further protest. I was rather glad that I did obey her, the water tasted amazingly sweet as I drank it: cool and refreshing. I hadn't realized how thirsty I actually was.
"You mentioned something about animals saying how they tasted to me," Rosalie said quietly as I drank. "What did they say?"
I took another sip of water. "Well, Dolly ..." I began.
"Your horse?" Rosalie confirmed.
"Yeah," I answered, but then I grimaced. I probably wasn't supposed to say 'yeah' anymore, was I? But then I pressed forward. "Well, Dolly said she tasted like horse manure to you, and the antelope said it tasted like vomit ..." I thought about what I had said. "Is that true?"
Rosalie was quiet. I wondered how I offended her with my answer. She did ask.
"Rosalie?" I said. "Did I say something wrong?" ... again? I added that thought ruefully.
"No, actually, you description was very accurate." Rosalie's voice was distant. "Surprisingly accurate, in fact, and I wonder how you came to know this so precisely."
I waited in silence.
"Are you going to ask me that?" I finally asked her when she hadn't said anything for a while.
"No," she answered quietly. "I've found that the answers to why-questions eventually become evident with time, and, being what I am now, I have all the time in the world, don't I?"
Was she saying that I wasn't supposed to ask why-questions, too? Had I done something wrong by asking her earlier why she wanted me to go to Heaven?
And then I wondered if she were telling me that you don't get the real reason when you ask a why-question ... so did that mean that it really wasn't because she was being selfish? That she was trying to get me to Heaven for some other reason?
Yeah, her being selfish trying to get me to Heaven ...? That just didn't fly when you thought about it. What could the real reason be?
"Drink your water," Rosalie's scolding command interrupted my thoughts, so I quickly took a guilty sip, feeling I had been caught. She was probably reading my mind again.
"What did ..." Rosalie asked hesitantly. "What did they say you were ... like ... to me?"
Here I had to pause myself. I didn't want to lie to Rosalie, but I didn't want to tell her voices were talking to me. She had probably guessed as much by my screaming at the forest that morning, but to come right out and say that ...?
"Well, I tasted like dessert ... to you ...?" I know Rosalie had said I should think about what I said before I said it, but it was so hard not to say 'um' as I navigated through my answer. "Um, like strawberries and cream?" Apparently too hard. "With a chocolate sauce? Or so I was told."
I didn't do perfectly on the hemming and hawing, but I was pleased that I didn't say anything about voices telling me things. No sense in giving more reasons for Rosalie to have me locked away.
Rosalie seemed to be thinking about other things, however, for her reply was filled with an inexplicable relief.
"Not even close," she said, and then she repeated more forcefully: "Not even close."
"Really?" I asked incredulously. I don't recall having portentous dreams before, but the vividness of my dreams now, and how they always seemed to be dead on? Well, I guess I was surprised that they could be wrong, too, because they felt so real.
"Yes, really really," Rosalie said seriously.
"Then how ..." Don't say 'um,' I reminded myself. "How do I taste?"
Silence.
"I mean, hypothetically," I added quickly. Hypothetically, that is, if she hadn't taken blood from my body ... um ... somehow from ... somewhere already.
"Very much like you smell to me," Rosalie answered quietly after a moment.
I thought about that. "Like teary, stinky, sweaty cowgirl smell?"
I had done my share of crying today ... okay, perhaps more than my share of crying today ... and Rosalie's meticulous care of the stove made the cabin a bit more than comfortably warm. When I blushed, which I did often, I suppose it felt like a hot flash would feel like, and the exertion from the walking today and putting on the warm clothes inside ... well, the bath this morning helped, but it being late and all ...
"No, not at all. I surmise you smell to me very much like I smell to you," she replied.
"Just like you? So, like flowers? Like honeysuckle and rose?" I asked surprised.
I couldn't believe it. Maybe being a vampire changed your view of reality, that's why they saw people as food and not as, you know, people to talk with. Maybe that why she saw me as beautiful and graceful because she saw everything through this warped vampire lens.
I wondered, idly, if she smelled, well, not stinky, but just ordinary to herself. I didn't smell like flowers to myself; I wondered if the same was true for her. But I stopped wondering because she was speaking again.
"Not exactly," she responded hesitantly, "your scent complements mine, nearly perfectly, so it is indeed floral, but you have ... your scent is lavender ... and ... and ..." Rosalie's voice became strained, "and freesia. So we ... our scents ..."
Rosalie stopped. I couldn't see her in the darkness, but I could almost hear her internal struggle.
"We don't have to talk about this if you don't want to," I said quickly.
Rosalie was quiet, and then: "It's all right. This is something you wish to understand."
"But it's hard," I said sympathetically.
"Yes," Rosalie said, "it's hard, but I can manage."
I thought about that. Something hard for Rosalie. Best not to push it, especially in the dark where it was really hard to gauge just how hard it actually is for her.
"No," I said, "it's okay. I got the gist anyway."
And I did get the gist. If all I wanted to do when I was near her was to get get nearer, and my draw was like that to her?
She was strong. God! She was strong, I realized, because she could just pick me up at anytime and take me, but she didn't. If it were me? Smelling as she does to me?
She probably wouldn't last two seconds if our rôles were reversed.
God! She was strong.
I thought about all this in silence.
"Rosalie ..."
"Yes?" She was so quiet and patient now: calm, not agitated like a minute ago.
"I'm not gonna ask about ... you know ... but ..."
"But?" I heard a tinge of humor with a touch of caution.
I pressed forward timidly: "What does freesia smell like?"
I knew what lavender smelled like, kinda soapy, right? But I never heard of freesia before. I guess it must smell good, right? But I was curious anyway.
"It smells like lavender," Rosalie said factually, "but it has a more delicate and feminine smell than lavender, not at all cloying. It's sweet and dainty." Then she paused, and I heard a smile in her voice as she added: "... just like you are."
I almost spit out the water I was drinking. Okay, well, I actually did spray a very tiny little bit. Sweet and dainty? She definitely had her view warped. Seriously warped.
I coughed a little bit before I could talk. "Rosalie! You can't do that to a girl when I'm drinking like that!"
"Do what?" was the innocent reply. I didn't know if she was being sarcastic or she really really was ...
"At any rate," Rosalie's voice interrupted my thoughts, "your pronoun does not agree with its antecedent: you should have used 'she's' not 'I'm'."
"Rosalie," I responded exasperated: "that's really annoying. Would you stop correcting me all the time? Huh? Please?"
"I don't correct you all the time," Rosalie corrected me. "Only when you are wrong. Besides, a lady always uses the proper and correct word for the occasion."
"And I ain't no lady," I said, just to irritate her, "and you can't make me one!" I snapped back.
"Double negative." God! She never let up, did she! "And we'll see about what I am or am not capable of doing and what you are capable of achieving." And she just didn't give in.
I sighed.
Rosalie sighed in response.
But I couldn't help but smile, and the tension in the darkness eased. We were both bound and determined to have our own way.
We were both so alike.
I took another sip of water as I contemplated the pure impossibility of what I just thought.
"Rosalie ..."
The vampire in question waited for me to continue.
"How do you know what freesia smells like? Do you remember that from when you were ..." But how did I continue? Should I say 'when you were alive?' or 'human?' or what?
Rosalie seemed to understand, because she answered anyway. "A lady is always dressed and perfumed appropriately, so I suppose I had smelled freesia when I was human, ... but I only remember one smell from when I was alive, and it wasn't freesia."
"What was the smell you remember?" I asked curiously. I shouldn't have. I should have heard the regret in her voice.
"Scotch," she answered curtly. "Single-malt scotch."
I gasped.
She continued. "I didn't even know it was Royce's preferred drink until that night. He never really drank around me. One time at a social function he put his lips to champagne, but he grimaced at the taste, so I was afraid he was a teetotaller! Can you imagine that? But it wasn't that, was it? It was just that his preference tended in the stronger direction for his drinks. I didn't know that at the time." Then she added darkly: "But then I did find out."
"It was that night. Royce called me over to him. I didn't even see him before he called me, as I was so wrapped up in other thoughts, but then he called me, 'Rose!' And nobody had called me 'Rose' before, because nobody had loved me before ..."
Rosalie was quiet for a second, and I wondered: was she fishing for sympathy? What she said seemed melodramatic, but the way she said it, so factually, didn't sound like that: it sounded fatalistic.
"And so when Royce said, 'Rose!'" she continued, "I was so taken off guard, so pleased, because finally somebody did love me ..." Then she added regretfully, "... or at least that's what I thought. And Royce had really never acknowledged me before, not really: he was always talking about me or around me, but never really to me, so I thought ..."
She stopped for a moment.
"Well," she said, "whatever I thought, I disregarded propriety, and went right over to him and his friends, ignoring the signs, that is, until I was right there, and then that stench, ..." Her voice turned rancorous with the memory, "that thick, heavy, peaty stench of scotch floating around Royce and the others enveloped me."
"By that time of the night, Royce had a flask of the Glenlivet twelve year that he was drinking. The cheap stuff, just five dollars ..."
I couldn't help thinking: a whole five dollars! That was a day's wage. That was enough to feed Pa and me for weeks ... not that we ate much nor fancy, but ... one bottle? Five dollars? I couldn't imagine it.
"... I found this out," she said dispassionately, "when he knocked me face down in the snow and emptied it on me. 'She smells better now, doesn't she, chums?' he asked sardonically."
Her voice changed when she quoted those words. They became the voice of a strong man, a refined man, ... a cruel man. Royce's voice, I realized.
"And his friends all laughed at the sport of it. The sport of me. And the smell of it in my hair ... I will never forget that smell. I wish I could, but now it's burned into my being. And then he ..."
Rosalie stopped suddenly.
"I'm sorry." she apologized. I realized she stopped for me, because she probably heard my heart beating in my chest. It was beating so hard I could almost hear it.
Then she said very quietly. "I paid him back. Edward and I went shopping one evening when I could bear to be among people again a few months after I was ..." Rosalie paused, then continued more strongly, "and he bought me a bottle of the thirty-three year old cellar reserve. He really didn't want to, because he knew my intentions, but he also knew I was getting that bottle, even if it was over the dead body of the shopkeeper, and Edward didn't like that idea all that much ... although I probably wouldn't have harmed the old man ..." Rosalie's voice here was considering. "So Edward paid, and he got to play the gentleman and flash his money, which always fed his ego. The bottle was seventy dollars, but it was worth every penny of Edward's money for me."
I thought that vampires didn't drink. Well, didn't drink that. And ... seventy dollars? It was impossible for me to imagine spending that much money ... that was taking more than a whole two-week's paycheck and just ... spending it. And on one bottle?
You could furnish a whole bedroom with a ten-piece set ... a nice ten-piece set ... for that much money. All that money, I thought.
"Because when I finally caught up with Royce months later, deep into that night, I poured out a shot for him after I showed him the label, and let him take his time to drink it. 'Thanks,' he said," her voice changed to his. It sounded taken by surprise. Then her voice reverted to hers as she continued. "And I let him enjoy that one last drink. He watched me the whole time he drank it, but I waited. I was patient. I let him finish it. And when he did ..."
I could just feel in the darkness what was coming, and the air was thick with dread.
"That's when I forced the entire contents of the rest of the bottle down his throat. That was probably the worst thing I could have done to him that night, and I had done many things to him already, but forcing him to take that rare and exquisite spirit in one gulp instead of savoring it as he would have in other circumstances? That offended his sense of pride, all right, wasting that bottle of scotch that he valued so much more than me."
"That was the last thing he tasted in his mortal existence: his precious and refined single-malt scotch. And I hope," her voice turned fierce and vindictive, "that scotch is the fuel that feeds the flames that burns him in Hell eternally, because that smell is the last smell that I experienced in my mortal life, and now I'm stuck with it eternally."
My throat was closed with the fear and the intensity I felt from listening to her story.
"Scotch: that is the smell I remember from my humanity," Rosalie concluded with regret, "but I wish it wasn't."
It was quiet for a moment.
"Rosalie ..." I said, "may I tell you something?"
I pressed on into the silence, "I'm sorry for ... that, but you have to just let it go."
"Oh, but I have," was Rosalie's easy reply.
"So your hoping that Royce burns forever is letting it go?" I challenged gently.
It was quiet for a moment.
"You should have seen me before," Rosalie said. "No, strike that. It's a good thing you didn't see me before, but let's just say the Cullens probably regretted choosing to add me to their happy little vampire family. I was much, much worse until ..."
I waited for Rosalie to continue, but she didn't.
"Being better than 'much, much worse' isn't being better, Rosalie," I said.
"I assume you've read Sense and Sensibility before," Rosalie said quietly.
"Yes, I have," I answered.
I was getting used to her sudden topic changes. I suppose this one will lead to her point eventually.
"Well, you, like Marianne, have not been acquainted with the ways of the world, and neither I do wish that upon you, because Marianne's acquaintance scarred her forever. But be that as it may, you have no idea what I've ... what it's ..." Rosalie's voice became hesitant.
Then she turned serious: "I hope that you never do. Just understand that there are some things I just can't let go."
I thought about what she said. "You can't? Or you won't?"
"Good catch," Rosalie voice was rueful. But that's all she said.
"Marianne was happy again," I offered. "You could ..."
"Get myself a man? That solves all problems then?" Rosalie said spitefully. "Just like for Marianne? 'Oh, I'm happy now because I've replaced one man for another!' Is that it? Just like Esmé wanted for me? 'Oh, have Edward and then you'll be happy and everyone will be happy.' Is that it? Or just like mother or the whole population of men? 'Oh, what's wrong with Rosalie? Is she just bitchy? Or is it her time of the month? You know what she needs? What she needs is a good fuck to settle her down. That's what she needs.' Is that what you're saying?"
Rosalie was panting with fury.
I waited a moment.
"May I finish?" I asked quietly.
The quiet from Rosalie was just pure anger.
"Marianne chose to be happy; that's how I see it," I said. "She made her mistakes, but she chose to move on and chose to be happy for her sister and with her family and chose to let the ways of the world give her a little bit of wisdom, even if it was hard-won wisdom, and, yes, she got married at the end, but she did that after she found her happiness, not to make her happy."
"Oh, and everything is always so neat and tidy with the handsome prince sweeping you off to your happily-ever-after. That's why those stories are fiction! And given the story you told me of your own family situation, you should know that!" Rosalie was holding onto her anger.
"Rosalie," I said quietly, "I was happy with my family ..."
Rosalie snorted furiously.
"... and I see that you are ..." very ... "angry, but I prefer that you not take it out on me, so would you at least not use language like that? I've never heard that word before, and I'd prefer not to hear it said like that from you."
Rosalie was quiet.
"Then how do you know what it means?" she asked quietly.
"I don't," I answered, "but I can guess from how you used it that it isn't very nice."
"No, it isn't very n-..." Rosalie stopped. "Well, I mean ..."
"You are just so pure," Rosalie said sadly, "and I've trespassed on that." She continued regretfully, "I'm sorry for saying that. I shouldn't have told you any of this."
"Rosalie, I asked, you told me ... not exactly in the way that I like to hear," I said, accepting her apology, "but I'm really not this perfect thing that you say that I am."
"I could say the same thing to you." Rosalie answered.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I see how you see me and how you see yourself," Rosalie said, "You see me as this perfect thing: this beautiful, powerful creature. You idolize me, whereas I hope you've seen just now, there is nothing in me to admire. You see me as beautiful and yourself as ugly, whereas in truth, the exact opposite is the case."
Well, I saw her that way she said I saw her because she is the things she says she is. As to idolizing her ... maybe that was too strong a word ... I mean, really, I didn't idolize her.
Did I?
"Rosalie, that's just not true. You already know you can't make a PBJ, so you're not perfect." I tried to make light of the heaviness of the situation.
"What was wrong with the ..." she paused, then spelled it out slowly: "P.B.J.?" Rosalie asked in surprise.
"Didn't I tell you that ... oh, wait, I just told you about the soup." Oops, this was embarrassing. "Well, never mind; the PBJ was ... okay."
"Hm," Rosalie said dispiritedly.
She sat and I rested in the silence for a moment.
"Also, I wasn't suggesting that getting a man would solve your problems." I said, correcting her assumption, "I don't know anything compared to you, so I wouldn't make that suggestion, anyway."
"Oh, really?" Rosalie asked in disbelief.
"Yes, real-..." I started to snap back, but then I remembered I had said exactly that three nights ago. "Um, whoopsy daisies! I mean, I wouldn't suggest that unless I was heavily medicated." I cringed as I apologized: "Sorry 'bout that!"
The cabin would be bright red if my blush provided light as well as heat.
"About that," Rosalie said in a reproachful tone.
"About what?" I asked timidly, not knowing what else she would mention from that very embarrassing night.
"Did someone go through the foodstuffs and has that somebody been contemplating self-medicating recently?" Rosalie's accusation caught me totally by surprise.
"My... my throat was hurting, and I ... I didn't take one drop of it anyway! I swear I didn't! Honestly!" I couldn't believe she knew this! How in the world did she find out? Does she know everything?
"Calm down! Calm down!" Rosalie said placatingly. "Yes, I saw you didn't take any, but I'm curious. You did contemplate it, didn't you?"
I think my blush would now set my pillow on fire. I nodded my head shamefacedly.
"But you chose not to because ...?" Rosalie pressed.
I whispered my answer: "'cause you'd get angry when I managed to kill myself by hugging the stove again. Besides, it wasn't right: you didn't say I could, so I thought ..."
"So, all on your own, when nobody else was looking, you did what you thought was the right thing," Rosalie finished for me.
I just shook my head. She was always turning things that I did totally upside down, painting me as this saint or something.
"Hm," Rosalie said.
"I read your book, Rosalie, I'm not this perfect thing. I read your book without permission," I argued.
"That shows prudence: I would have read it too, in your position, to see if it threatened my life."
I keep forgetting that there's just no arguing with Rosalie, she was just always right and perfect and hard.
But I picked up a different thread. "You said you'd read it to me; will you read it to me now?"
"Not tonight," Rosalie said.
"You said," I whined.
"I didn't exactly say that, no," Rosalie countered. "But, if you insist, I will start reading it to you. Perhaps during quiet time tomorrow."
"Tomorrow! Always tomorrow!" I groused.
"Which is almost upon us ..." Rosalie scolded. "If you find a way to stuff more hours into your temporal day, please let me in on your secret ... not that I need it for myself, but it's hard enough to keep up with all the things you need to do in a day."
The time passed in quiet for a while.
"You've always had it hard, haven't you?" I said after a while. "You've always had to make your own way, fighting for every single thing, and then it all falls apart. I wonder when you'll have your happily-ever-after, like Marianne."
"You're doing it again," Rosalie said, snapping me out of my reverie.
"What am I doing again?" I asked in confusion.
"Idolizing me." Rosalie took the empty cup from me.
"Good girl," she said patronizingly after she checked the cup.
"Thanks a lo-... Eep!" My retort was lost in my surprise. I felt a damp cloth touch my cheeks and then gently wipe away my dried tear tracks. I guess I had been crying some tonight. I rolled my eyes at my own understatement.
"You know, Rosalie," I said after the cloth left my face, "that's very sweet of you, but you could warn a girl."
I just knew all these heart attacks couldn't be good for my constitution.
"I'm sorry," Rosalie responded easily, "I assumed that you could see me as clearly as I see you. I don't remember what it was to see through human eyes."
"Well, not all of us can be Miss Perfect!" I groused.
"Yes, not all of us can," Rosalie replied cryptically.
I sighed.
"Now, the long day has extended into a rather longer night; lie down and close your eyes," she commanded in firm motherly tones.
"Yes, Mo-...'am." Eep! That was close; I almost said the 'M' word. We don't need another shouting-at-me outburst like the one on our way to the outhouse earlier today.
Note to self: don't say the 'M' word, either.
I was just collecting these notes to myself, wasn't I?
And Rosalie was just one prickly pear, wasn't she? One prickly, sensitive, caring, hurting pear.
I complied with her instruction quickly, hoping she didn't catch my almost-mistake.
Chapter Endnotes:
I am indebted to the reader Massrié for citing canon, chapter and verse, to verify the Royce back-story.
Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility is freely available on the web at, e.g.: Project Gutenberg.
