Chapter 35 Chapter notes
Another character with a lot of potential is Alice. This short chapter is from her point of view. There's a bit of colorful history about the Cullens and Alice has a meaningful conversation with Carlisle.
The chapter title belongs to Stevie Nicks
Chapter 35 Trouble in Shangri-la Monday, October 9th
All the Cullens watch a lot of TV, especially at night, but Jasper alone watches the news channels. He subscribes to newspapers as well and looks at events on his phone. So, he's interested when he turns on CNN to see a story about an anonymous benefactor who's been funding social programs, first in Washington state, and then, all over the country.
He calls his family in and they watch the story unfold. Alice is relieved that she can see immediately who it is, but doesn't say anything. If Edward had wanted them to know, he would have told them.
"Who is it, Alice?" Jasper asks. The whole family looks at her.
"I can't tell. There are lots of threads, all intersecting. And no," she says, as Emmett opens his mouth, "I don't know if it's Edward, or where he is." Of course, Alice knows that her brother is responsible for the mysterious influx of cash into all these social programs, but if he'd wanted the family to know about it, he would have told them himself. It will be their little secret.
They continue to watch the news. Alice smiles to herself when the announcer says that animal shelters have rejoiced. New facilities are being planned and funds have been provided for adoptions, neutering/spaying, vet bills and food. She remembers trying to pick out something for Bella's birthday. Edward had said make it meaningful. Fund the animal shelter.
Alice decides to pay better attention to the news. Jasper calls Jenks, who says over and over that he doesn't know what Jasper is talking about, that he hasn't spoken to the other Mr. Cullen in months. Jasper hangs up, his mouth set. Alice sees that he doesn't let it go.
She immediately looks forward and can't see Edward but sees her upcoming phone call with Jenks. After she tells him that they have a family emergency and can't reach their brother, he says that he would be glad to pass along the message. Best he can do. He won't cop to being the instrument that is spending Edward's money and managing all the programs they've been hearing about.
Then he drops the bomb. He and Mr. Edward had been in contact on a daily basis, but although he's tried numerous times, he hasn't been able to make a connection in many days. He's sorry. He doesn't know where her brother is.
Alice doesn't quite believe him until he says, "Listen, if you manage to get in touch with Mr. Edward, have him call me right away. And I mean, right away."
Esme sits at her desk for hours, working tirelessly on the house in Alaska. Her company is doing the basic work and she will oversee the rest personally. At least it has a roof. Alice chuckles at the times that they've moved into a 'fixer-upper' that was little more than four walls and a hole where the toilet used to be.
To be fair, that hasn't happened in decades, but it occurred often enough to make the entire family wary of every move they made. Since they often settled in unpopulated wilderness areas when they first move into a new place, the 'houses' that had been available were more often than not in need of total demolition. But Esme loved re-doing structures.
Even though she had materials delivered and plans drawn up, the rest of the family just wanted a decent place to settle in right away, and tired of the constant remodeling necessary to make the place livable.
The situation reached crisis level twenty-three years ago when Esme bought a place so bad that it even Carlisle's unwavering patience was tested. He was attending some classes in forensic anthropology at UNC Asheville, so she bought a house, sight unseen, high in the mountains of North Carolina. The seller promised that it was about forty miles to the college.
"It's a darling cottage," she'd told them, "down a short dirt road." It was a shack. Literally, a dilapidated shack, without electricity, running water, or phone service, landline or mobile. Didn't have any windows, and was down fourteen miles of road so bad that after the first severe rainstorm, which occurred the next day, it washed away, leaving only a rock-strewn rut. They couldn't even get a truck in with supplies to builda real house.
Alice still grins every time she thinks about Rosalie's shocked face as they'd arrived, Emmett's howl of laughter, and Carlisle's expression of amused despair. Edward, ever serious and unable to find the humor, had complained bitterly about the possible damage to the cars, covered in dust, with no way to wash them.
Esme had simply stood at her open car door, and heaved a deep sigh. Jasper, with his odd ability to affect the mood around him, had caused them all to accept the absurdity as just another of life's strange adventures. He was also planning a call to their attorney to sue the son of a bitch who had swindled them, but that would have to wait until they could actually get to a place with a phone.
Carlisle had hidden his frustrated expression from Esme and had been forced to run to the school. While Esme dithered over how to proceed, the 'teens' had manually moved enough rocks and debris so they could at least get the cars out.
When Carlisle had returned, he'd told them he'd found them a place to live in a town called Black Mountain. He'd then done some research and pitched his idea to Esme. She could form her own company to refurbish structures. This would keep her busy enough so that when they moved, Carlisle could find the family a decent place to live, Esme's creative side would be nurtured, and there would be peace on Earth.
Alice has again taken to her stair, in what the family sees as her refuge. Emmett complains, since it makes it hard to get up to his room without disturbing her, but she doesn't budge. She sits for hours, head in hand, trying to project her mind to its furthest reaches of space and time.
She can see into the immediate future. Carlisle will be stopped on his way from work by a motorist with a flat tire. He stops to help. Esme finds that the papers she needs are still in Seattle, which frustrates her. Emmett and Rosalie…she doesn't want to think about that.
But if she tries to project forward, it gets hazy real quick. Before, she could project out several months with startling clarity. Now, the immediate future is clear, but then starts to phase out, finally disappearing altogether in just a matter of weeks. The Cullens don't seem to have a future, which is appalling, but neither does anybody else.
She becomes irritable and even Jasper cannot sway her mood. "Edward has done something to himself," she says. "Even if he hasn't been destroyed, he's…walled himself up or something." She turns a tortured face to her mate. "I can't see anything, Jas. I mean, if he were in a dark room, I could see that. I can't see him anywhere."
Her ability to look into the future has been a great boon to the family, but has always come at a personal cost. Alice realized very early on that she had to take responsibility for the things she saw in the future. It wasn't meant to be seen, after all. Sometimes it was private, sometimes painful. She'd seen children dying, with no way to save them. Accidents occurring, with no way to prevent them. She tells herself that she doesn't care much about the human world, but she hasn't adopted the 'vegetarian' lifestyle for her complexion. Like the rest of the family, her desire to preserve human life is strong.
Alice has trained her mind to look at discrete intervals, as she wills, but lately, she's seen things she hadn't intended to see. When looking forward for the weather, for instance, she can see if it will actually be sunny, per the forecast. But she also begins to see things around that possible future.
A week ago, she was looking at the forecast for Emmett and Jasper, who wanted to go hunting, but not in the rain. She trained her mind forward a couple of days and she must have been thinking about the weatherman on the local TV channel. She saw him and his wife standing at a small grave as they said goodbye to their three-year-old daughter. She'd died from a head injury after falling off of her tricycle.
But it didn't rain, and Emmett and Jasper got to hunt, happy under the clouds.
Days later, Jasper asked her about traffic on their trip to Seattle. He'd planned to metaphorically twist their attorney's arm about these mysterious programs they'd seen on TV. She'd casually projected forward and saw that an occupant in the red Ford Explorer next to them was going to die of breast cancer, although she didn't know she was harboring the disease.
But Alice was able to report that there were no speed traps or slowdowns before they reached their destination.
All of these visions don't ease her mind, as they're all projections in the near future, within a few days. It's further out that's the problem. She tries not to think about it.
Alice is an Immortal, and the petty foibles of humans don't concern her. Usually. But lately, she's better tuned to the mortal world. The gift to the Quileute, for instance, was something totally out of character for all of them. She confides her thoughts to Carlisle. He listens and smiles ruefully. "Do you already know what I'm about to tell you? Should I bother?" He says it gently, with a chuckle, but Alice is deadly serious.
She shakes her head slowly. "All right. Come sit down."
When they're both seated in his office, Carlisle says, "Everyone in this family is a member because they have decided, for themselves, to live in a different way than others of our kind." He gestures to her. "You aren't here simply for convenience?"
"No. I—" She thinks about it for a moment. She doesn't want to be a monster, but is that really it? Is the convenience a big part of it? She doesn't want to be a nomad, going from place to place, with no home or comforts, but is that why she is here? For a well-stocked closet and a big screen TV? Dinner, steps away?
"I'll be honest, Carlisle. I like having a home, a family. I like the security of it, the predictability." He smiles and she knows why. 'Predictability' is something she never has to worry about except when she's near the Quileute.
"You like fitting into the human world, to the extent that it's possible," he says.
"Yes."
"Why? Is it because you see something worth saving in the mortals? Something worth emulating? Does there exist in humans something that you strive toward?"
Alice thinks about what Edward had confided in her, about how he felt changed after his interactions with Bella. "I see what Edward saw, I think. The bigger world out there, not just you or me or the rest of the family. I can now put a face to the anguish, right outside our door."
She flings out her hands. "Now what?" she asks, her face screwed up in consternation. "Does it ever go away? This feeling of…camaraderie, of solidarity? With humans?"
Carlisle smiles at her and shakes his head. "It never goes away." Alice thinks back to something Edward had muttered. Once you see, you can never unsee.
"What do I do about it?" she says, aghast. "I can't look forward anymore without the wider human world interfering. Jas asks about the football score, and I see the coach's wife, in a car accident. Emmett asks when his new video game will arrive, and I see the postman's birthday party. I can't block it out!" Alice throws her arms in the air and falls back dramatically onto the cushions.
"Learn how to do something in the human world," Carlisle tells her. "Esme was much happier when she turned her passion for redecorating into a business." Carlisle was happier too, Alice knows, not to have their houses in various states of repair and disrepair, all the time.
"As a doctor, I interact with the human world routinely, and every day I learn something new from a patient. Did you know that you can get rid of toenail fungus with Vicks VapoRub? A patient told me this. I had no idea."
Alice is irritated. She'd wanted Carlisle to tell her the feeling would diminish, that she would be able to go back to normal. "I don't know what I could possibly do in the human world," she says petulantly.
"Oh, Alice, you can learn anything." He gives her a hard look. "But if you want to feel better, you have to extend yourself. You have to put away the idea that you can have whatever you want, whenever you want it, and make room for a schedule. You do this to a small extent for school, but since you can skive off any time that you want, it doesn't really count. Make a commitment, Alice, the way Esme and I have. Make yourself accountable."
Alice mulls it all over when she's alone. The others have gone to hunt one last time, but she's not thirsty. She walks through the house and remembers specific events. Edward, quietly playing the piano; Esme and Carlisle, holding hands at the table; Rosalie and Emmett, playing a video game together. Jasper's smiling face, everywhere she looks. To Bella's birthday party, the event that started the whole thing tumbling down around them.
What does the gold thread in her visions mean? She projects forward, but it remains elusive, winding through the others with no clear end in sight, until it disappears with the rest. Are Edward and Bella together, at the end of this thread? He'd refused to accept the clearest of her visions, where she'd seen Bella leaving her vast human family and joining them on the other side of reality. The Quileute had dashed that future onto the rocks of despair. Or had they? Where was Edward, and what is this damn gold thread?
The family sits for the last time at the dining table. They're packed and ready to go. Alice sees an uneventful trip. Also, that the family beside their pump at the first gas station they stop at is on a trip to see the grandmother in Alberta. She sighs.
Esme says, "Is anyone planning on coming back for items left behind?" They know they'll be able to do this, per Edward's conversation with the Chief.
"I'm coming back for the rest of my clothes," Alice says, "and while I'm here, I'll bring the Christmas decorations. In a few weeks. Before the holidays."
These decorations are special, from holiday trees going back decades. They are one-of-a-kind items, bought on trips they'd taken, in every country and city they'd lived in. Made of spun glass, carved wood, woven wire and cleverly shaped plastic, they are whimsical, humorous and beautiful. They've spent many Christmas seasons without the decorations, as they couldn't take them overseas, but Alice will be damned if they're not going to enjoy them this year.
She could have rented or bought a trailer and transported them on this journey, but she secretly wants to come back here to see if anything has changed, to see if her presence will alter a possible future. If there even is a possible future.
Rosalie rubs her hands together. "I can't wait for Christmas this year. We can cut a big balsam fir. The house will smell so good. And we can put our presents underneath, and not have to worry about a human giving herself a paper cut when she unwraps hers."
Everyone turns an appalled eye on Rosalie. Even after all her decades as an Immortal, with her vast amount of time spent among humans, she has no social skills. Rosalie can't see how tone-deaf this sounds. Or more likely, simply doesn't care.
Jasper, who has been oddly quiet, does not calm them with his unique ability to affect the moods around him. He squeezes Alice's hand and says nothing. She knows he just wants to get this behind them, to start fresh somewhere else. He's confided to Alice that he feels responsible for the chain of events that has led them here.
Emmett turns to answer Esme's question. "Alice can come back for the damn decorations, and the family may return to live here at some time in the future. But I'm never setting foot on this wretched peninsula again. Never."
"What about you, Carlisle? Any thoughts?" Alice asks.
"I'm ready to begin working at the little clinic on the island," he says. His face falls, and Alice sees that when they arrive, he buries himself in work. She's certain that it has to do with Edward's disappearance.
"I am so ready to be done with this place," Rosalie says. "So ready to start someplace new, although I am not going to that tiny little high school on the island. God, it's worse than Forks."
Esme frowns at Rosalie, so to avoid the lecture she sees might materialize, Alice says, "I can't see how long we'll be in Alaska, so does anyone have any ideas of where they'd like to go next? Afterward?"
Rosalie, ever clueless says, "Anywhere that a human wouldn't want to follow us. Arctic Circle? Greenland?"
Alice is relieved that the family ignores this last faux pas. Nobody even looks at Rosalie, who doesn't notice, as she is busy admiring her reflection in the screen of her phone.
"I think I'd like to go to the Amazon again, find a place deep in the rainforest," Esme says. The family nods and murmurs. They take a vote, with Emmett's 'I could give a fuck' counted as a draw. Esme frowns and slaps him lightly on the arm.
Chairs are pushed back and then returned to their place at the mahogany table, the spot of so many family meetings. Alice can't see if they will ever sit here again. They disperse. Esme directs each of them to a task, to check windows, lock garage doors and unplug appliances.
When the house is secure, Esme presses a button and the steel shutters fall into place. They take one last look around, get into their respective automobiles and leave.
They don't look back.