Alice. I imagine her as a paper crane. Unblemished wings folded with a peerless precision, a delicate shell to house the heart of the sweetest songbird. She was once a Cullen, I am told. Once, a lot of things. Edward's sister, Bella's friend, Jasper's wife. Now they call her Volturi. That word so small and insignificant to me saturates the room with a rage that is both dark and tempting. My heart gives an irregular, sloppy thump and their eyes all turn to mine. For the first time I am truly experiencing the fear—the thrill—of being here without the numbness of my loss. Wherever this discussion now leads it is not for my ears. I gather my wits and my jacket, then make for the door.

Dark mud and thin fog are canopied by leaves of green. The woods are damp and warm, rich with colour and sound. Breath slow. Eyes closed. I feel a calm in these trees that I can find nowhere else. Too soon it is broken by the snapping of twigs, the dragging of feet. I hear her only because she lets me. Each sound a deliberate warning of her approach.

"That was a whole new level of tension, huh?" Even here in the bowels of the forest, knee-deep in weeds Bella is beautiful. Too beautiful.

I nod in response. There is no tactful way to enquire about Alice, to slake the burn of my curiosity. All I can do is arrange my face into a look that urges and implores.

She takes pity on me then. She tells me the story of Alice: a broken girl left to wither in darkness, turned cold by a stranger and preyed upon by a demon, saved from her torment by a vision of the future. A future with Jasper. "And they fixed each other," Bella continues, "they loved each other until they were whole again." She wears a smile that would once have seemed dopey. On her immaculate, snowy mask it looks only serene.

"Then why did she leave?"

"To make a new future."

Two creatures whose hearts would beat forever, stitched together by the threads of fate - suddenly undone. That even her kind were not guaranteed love eternal must have been a sobering revelation for Bella. I ask how she feels about it all and her smile takes an enigmatic curve. It's better this way, she tells me. Better for whom, I do not know.


The Cullen house is filled with open spaces, dusted with creamy carpet, and spotted with golden sunlight. Patterned china and priceless works of art line the white walls but nothing under its roof is quite as stunning as Rosalie Hale. Startled by her invitation I hover near the door. My hands sweat. Sitting at a vanity, her reflection greets me with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. She looks breathtaking. I look awful.

"You look awful," she says.

I laugh and she counters with a rueful smile. Creatures as lovely as her say what they please. She extends her arm in a placid appeal and I drift to her side without further thought.

"What must you think of me?" Her tone implies an inquiry but questions such as these are rarely answered to satisfaction, and I would be loathe to dissatisfy her. "Perhaps you think me cold," she hums, "cruel? Many do, Bella among them. I'm not... adept at first impressions, or so I am told."

"Guarded," I say, "not cruel. To protect a family like this I imagine I would be too."

A quirk of the mouth, a pinch in the cheek. Rosalie Hale wears her affection with a practised subtlety. She beckons me closer, pats my hair like a child. There is something in her touch that is almost warm, almost maternal. But it is only an echo, a shadowy remnant of a woman who no longer exists. Much of her seems this way. Glossy varnish coating the muddled brush strokes of an unfinished sky.

When I enquire as to why she has summoned me, she looks at my hands, my throat. Anywhere but my eyes. Profound sadness, she says, is something she knows and knows well. First, she speaks of the ephemeral nature of joy; likens human elation to the slapping of waves, the changing of tides. To know utter devastation, she explains, one must first have known complete and total exaltation.

"And did you?"

Her response is no more than an unschooled expression but it answers my question without the burden of words. Yes. For all her poise and power, Rosalie hid something inside herself that was soft and scarred. It was not damaged from a darkness that had taken over, but from a bliss that had been snatched away. I understand now that she holds a sadness so deep that I may never comprehend it.

"But that's not why you're here," she says, "give me your keys."

Outside, she appraises the Kombi with a tsk and a tut. She circles it slowly, grimaces at the paint, the upholstery, the mats on the floor. "It's a Type Two," she runs a neatly manicured hand across the blistered orange door, "popular in the sixties and seventies." For a moment she appears lost in one of her perfectly preserved memories. "The seventies were exciting," she sighs. "Not the fashion, mind you, or the music. But there was something. Something that made even creatures like us feel... alive." She smiles with all the warmth of a stolen sunbeam. "But the most memorable thing? Carlisle's wavy perm!"

When she laughs the sound is as deep and rich as the bell of a church. Stunning. Hopeful. Real. She is more striking now—parted lips, crinkled eyes—than I have ever known her to be.

Inside the van, she turns the keys and the thing roars to life, lurches forward at her command. We drive to the garage—so much larger than it first appeared—and park inside. The dark walls are spotted with cars, all new and polished, spectacular even under the rows of fluorescent lights. One corner is filled with metal chests and lined with lockers painted cobalt blue, in another sits a pair of motorcycles, a pile of rags, and an assortment of dented tins.

She wastes no time in talking. Instead, Rosalie sheds her creamy woven sweater before plunging her arms under the engine lid. For close to an hour she guts the machine: picking, pulling, and plucking at its gizzards with little effort or exertion. She speaks only to instruct, praise, or direct my hand as she sees fit. Another hour passes as I watcher her work, mesmerised by the vibrancy of her eyes and the dexterity of her fingers. At her request I hold a piece in place. The metal is round, heavy, and slick with grease but she fastens and fixes before it has time to slip away. Her dead hands work at twice the speed of any living, and her eyes see in to even the darkest recesses. Scotopia, she tells me, gives them something akin to night vision.

"Like a cat?" I ask.

"Like a cat," she replies.

With her work complete, Rosalie starts up the van. For a time she sits with her eyes closed and her lips pursed, listening for something beyond my divination. Eventually her face slackens with satisfaction and she silences the motor once more. I am caught in the act of replicating her faraway smile.

"You're rudderless," she says, "and you're sad. And you're starting to wonder if there's any point at all."

I do not question or deny. She allows me only time enough to scrunch up my nose, to wrinkle my brow, before she speaks again.

"The sad truth is: there is no point. There never was to begin with. Beyond the acts of living and loving, of sharing and dying, a single human life is of little consequence or significance. You'll spend your meagre years accumulating knowledge, friends—perhaps even wealth and status—but one day soon your body too will rest beneath the earth." She wipes down her hands and arms, picks her nails clean. "But find comfort in this: I would trade every single decade of my deathless existence for even one more day of real human pain, of real human life. Embrace it. Awful, dark, and terrifying as it is, because there will be a day when you will know incomparable joy. And that day will make these worth their bitter taste."

My arms hang at my sides, weighed down by grease, grime, and the burden of her words.

In her sister, Bella sees only mist and frost. But I can see something else. Something more. Pink and warm and resilient. A blushing rose caught in a drift of snow.

"Thank you, Rosalie."

She tilts her head in an increasingly recognisable gesture. "We're wanted inside."

A soft whistle and sharp gust of air are the only signals of her departure. I make a small attempt at ridding my arms and knees of the filth that cover them before starting towards the house at a dismally human speed. By the time I arrive the entire Cullen family is waiting, arranged around the living room like a row of teeth.

"Hey, what's up?"

Bella huffs and shrugs in a poorly practised attempt at exasperation. "I could really use a favour," she says, "Ren's going to stay at Charlie's for a while and I was hoping you could drive her there. We've got a few things that need finishing up around here."

"Sure."

My response sounds sceptical at best but Bella forges on. She stores the address in my phone, tells me Charlie is expecting me. Edward fixes his daughters backpack in place and ushers her forward with a kiss on the head and a quiet warning to behave.

"So... you have some super secret family business to take care of and you'd like it if I could myself scarce for a while?"

My assumption must be correct. The matriarch and the behemoth both laugh out loud while Edward's shoulders shake in silent mirth. Bella's face is stuck oscillating between a grimace and a pout. She appears unlikely to respond with either.

Edward produces from his pocket a ring containing a single key and fob. "Please, take my car." His saccharine smile does little to hide his intent. Impervious to harm though she may be, Edward's daughter is cargo too precious to travel in a car like mine. I'm too intrigued to be offended.

I load her in to the back seat. She's small and smiling and it somehow doesn't look right. Yesterday she was smaller. Five days ago, smaller still. A month from now she may be full grown. I worry for her. A child trapped in a woman's body. Ren reaches out and touches my cheek; her gift shows me a wisdom and strength that surpasses her frail form. She asks why that makes me sad. I tell her that I do not know.

"Tempting." He says it with a sigh. Propped against the wall of the garage, Jasper paints a long, lean shadow. Green, blue, black.

A curious combination of fear and attraction heats my skin. It crawls up my neck, pinches at my ears, renders me dumb. I remember all too well his lips on mine. Cold and smooth. Sour and delicious. I can think of little else while I stare at his well-formed mouth.

"Honestly," he says, "I am sorely tempted to just get in the car and let you drive away with me."

Ren giggles from the back seat, shaking me from my stupor. I ask him if he would like to join us. A question he seems oddly troubled by. He makes an approach—soundless and slow—his eyes always on mine.

"Never offer me something you don't truly mean to give."

Though more riddle than response, I can see his statement for what it truly is: a warning. Of what precisely, I am not sure. But I nod my head sharply. I turn away on unsteady legs.

With a little direction from Ren, and one or two lucky guesses, I find the home of Charlie Swan. It's small and white with uneven windows and a smudge of front yard. A short drive of muddy brick winds up the side, drowning in lashes of decaying summer leaves. The porch steps creak. I take them one a time and the sound makes my chest grow large, my heart feel warm. Every single thing about this house screams home. An unfamiliar feeling. I knock on the door in a short staccato, brittle chips of paint loosening at my touch.

When he answers the door I am immediately struck by how little he has changed. A few more greys in his mop of curly hair, his moustache a little more severe. But he is Charlie Swan. A plaid shirt, dusty jeans, and demure smile worn like a uniform. Perfect as a second skin.

"Hi, Mister Swan. Bella said you'd be expecting me."

Ren darts forward and offers her grandfather a brief hug before disappearing over the darkened threshold. A woman's startled laughter rings in the distance.

"Lena King." The offered greeting is little more than a mumble. "Been a long time." His arm waves lazily in a gesture that seems to beckon. I follow him inside.

He leads me in to a kitchen with stark white walls, cabinets that beam a cheery yellow in the afternoon sun. A quaint invitation. The little table we sit at is a solid slab—oaken, brown—rimmed with mismatched chairs and scored with shallow cuts. He makes tea from cheap bags. It's strong, hot, and prepared by hesitant hands. The chief of police offers me his condolences with a practised ease and I am furious to think that such a thing should ever become so simple, so straightforward. He talks in to his mug. The kitsch thing—chipped and lightly stained—is so much easier to look at than my bloodshot eyes, or my quivering lip when he asks about my future. I tell him I have no plans beyond the very next breath I'll take. No design greater than to simply survive the coming days.

"But I can do that here," I say, "with Bella. Plot a course for my future, finally figure out what it is I want to do with my life."

"Wish Bells had spent a little more time doin' that."

"Don't worry Mister Swan, we're still young. Bella's got plenty of time to figure out who she is."

His eyes meet mine. They urge, implore, they burrow away until my throat feels dry, my shoulders feel heavy. "She was just so young." And though he could be talking about her marriage, her child, her retreat into a whole new family that he is not a part of - I know that he speaks of her death. We both understand that this Bella is not his Bella.

There is little to say after that. I leave with an odd sense of foreboding.

I drive until the trees close in on me. They tower and twitch, they blot out the sky, they cover my darkness with their own. Then I see it. The thing. It's black and oily, and streaks across my vision like a shadow made flesh. I gasp without thought. The car lurches then halts. Tight against the wheel my fingers fold and flex, my knuckles pale and pop. The car fills with a sound like a rasping wheeze. It scratches at my ears. It claws and scrapes until I crush my hands to my head to dampen the din. But the noise is inside me. It is me. My own terrified breath struggling out of my mouth, burning my lungs. When I finally think I have regained my composure there is a rap on the window—short, sharp—that starts my panic anew.

The girl is pale and narrow. Her cloak hides all but her face: thin and grey with a broad, toothy smile. Such a haunting vision. She leans forward to tap the window again. It would be quite a pretty picture were it not for her eyes: brilliant and vibrant, stained the colour of mulled wine. I know what she is, what to expect, but my end does not come. Instead, she motions with her hand, one bloodless finger twirling in place. Lower the window. But even as I'm thinking no my hand obeys, the partition falls.

"Hello Lena." This smile is small, close-lipped, and barely dimples her sallow face. "Looking for a little direction?"