Chapter 54 Chapter notes
Edward wakes in a motel with no memory of how he'd gotten there. After sitting in a huge grove of western red cedar, he knows what to do. He points the Volvo toward the setting sun, and makes his way back to the only person that ever meant anything to him: Bella.
The chapter title belongs to Simon and Garfunkel
Chapter 54 Homeward Bound Wednesday, November 1st 7 am
Bella and I arrive back at our rented cabin after a full day of hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We peel off our clothes and I chase Bella into the bathroom, where I corner her in the shower. She's giggly until I press my body to hers, and then all levity vanishes as I pick her up and carry her to the bed.
I admire her beauty before I take her, reveling in the noises that she makes as she moves her body under mine. We take our time and find our release slowly. Afterward, we lay naked and kiss. When she yawns, I plant a final kiss on top of her head and playfully roll her over. She's asleep in minutes.
I open my poetry book random to Joyce Kilmer's Trees, one of my favorite verses. 'A tree whose hungry mouth is prest, upon the Earth's sweet flowing breast'… What a lovely line.
I conjure the image of a grandmother tree, shading children playing a game, or a family enjoying a picnic. 'A tree that may in summer wear a nest of robins in her hair'. It's a comforting image, this tree, who looks at God all day and lifts her leafy arms to pray, upon whose bosom snow has lain. Who intimately lives with rain.
Bella sleeps beside me, warm and human. I inhale her scent, grateful for whatever fate has brought us together, and—
My eyes fly open. I feel some uncertainty at the abruptness of the change in my reality. There's a ceiling above me, so I'm in a room somewhere. With a sinking feeling, I squeeze my eyes shut and reach out with my hand to the other side of the bed.
I reach for Bella, but she isn't there.
Light seeps into this room, which is about four hundred feet square. It holds a single bed, a table and two chairs. I smell tile and Formica, so there's probably a small bathroom in the back. This is a motel or a hotel room and it is daytime. That's all I can tell from my surroundings.
After glancing around, I realize with shock that I don't remember how I got here. I don't even know where here is. My phone is plugged into its charger and I snap it open, not knowing whether I've been in this spot, lying supine, for a day or a month. I'm shocked to see that I'm in Libby, Montana.
And it is November 1st.
The last thing I remember is the beginning of the fantasies about Bella, when I was still driving. That was September 26th.
What happened to October?
I vaguely remember paying the clerk, and purposefully not noting the name of the facility. After a few deep breaths, which are a learned response and not physiologically helpful, I remember.
I remember. This is one of those pay-by-the-week places.
A sense of unreality hovers over me. I clearly recall what I was dreaming about, but that's impossible. Immortals don't sleep or dream, but the images persist. Bella. Trees. I realize that what I experienced wasn't sleep, which is a mortal activity that lasts for eight or nine hours, but some sort of weird trance. I wonder if it was brought on by stress.
Desperation builds slowly inside me as I start to feel an overwhelming burn in my throat. I crave the relief, the sheer ecstasy of blood. I imagine it coating my throat and soothing the hollow ache in my stomach. I hobble to the window and twitch the curtain. The sun shines down mercilessly on the strip of sidewalk in front of my room, which is on the ground floor. That's all I can tell from this vantage point.
Across the parking lot, a couple loads their car, while a man in a jumpsuit stands near a small hole, shovel in hand. A nearby truck sports the logo 'Thurman's Plumbing'. Directly across from my room is the office, and a woman with a beautiful head of wavy blonde hair tidies the area in front of the building.
I grit my teeth, nearly crippled from the pain in my throat and the overall listlessness I feel from being so many weeks without nourishment, as I realize that I can't escape to feed.
Not yet.
I probe the minds of the humans to see if they can tell me anything about the location of this room in relation to the other rooms, but they're not thinking about it. The problem with the water main and the dog sitter are the only thoughts and words I hear.
The room is strewn with the items I barely recall buying and the cartons I'd brought with me. Slowly, I begin to pack it all up, leaving out a set of clean clothes. In the shower, I stand completely still, feeling bereft, desperate to feed, my body aching to drink in a way I've never before experienced.
Why couldn't I have woken in the middle of the night? At sunset?
Feeling that the Universe is patently unfair, I dry off and slip into the fresh clothes I'd laid out. I stuff the ones I'd been wearing for weeks into a bag. Another peek out the window shows two men at the hole in the pavement. The sun shines down from a cloudless sky of cobalt blue, and I estimate that it will be at least noon before it passes over the building.
I pace the small room, feeling more and more frantic. After another hour, I can't stand it another minute. Knowing that I am being reckless, I slip on my broad-brimmed hat, put my hands in my pockets, and walk out of my room, hoping that my reflection won't bounce off of a window and freak out anybody who happens to be looking my way.
As I reach the end of the sidewalk, I turn to see a vast forest, stretching endlessly into the distance. I trot slowly into the depths of this sun-dappled grove. The trees here smell different from the ones in Washington, and I realize that they're not the Sitka spruce, Douglas fir or the western hemlock that surround the Olympic Peninsula, but western red cedar. Thousands of them populate this forest, in every stage of development, from spindly sapling toddlers, as big around as my finger, to gigantic matrons, soaring a hundred feet into the air.
After about ten minutes, I come across a small herd of elk. I'm on the first one before he can lift his head from the sparse grass he's munching on. Still thirsty, I take down one more, but the rest of the herd has scattered. I chase after it, as much for the sheer pleasure of running as for the sustenance. I feel invigorated after my meal, and gratefully inhale the scents of this ancient wood.
I hear rushing water, and run until I come to the edge of a wide river, its bank hard-packed and shallow in a few spots. The trees grow to the very edge of the water in most places. A man stands waist deep, a few feet from shore, holding a long fishing pole. Deciding that I'm not in enough control to be around a tasty human, I backtrack, hoping to find the herd of elk again.
I'm drawn to a tree with a patch of dappled sunlight shining on its massive side. As I reach it, I feel that I am in the presence of greatness. This feels like the grandmother of all trees, the one I'd imagined in the poem. She soars at least one hundred and fifty feet into the air. I estimate her trunk to be twelve feet across.
From a botany class I took when Carlisle and I were living in Wisconsin, I know that these trees are revered by Native Americans for their beauty and strength. One tribe thought that the western red cedar was so strong that it could transfer its strength to a person if he leaned his back against it.
They are among the longest-lived life forms on Earth, easily reaching the astonishing age of one thousand years. While gazing upward, I imagine this tree as a sapling. Constantine was taking his place as the first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. William the Conqueror was crowned king of England. Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press, ushering in a dramatic cultural and social revolution.
Carlisle, the most influential person I have ever known, was born, suffered his transformation, was educated, found a wife, and formed a family while this tree soaked up the sun's rays, converted them to food, and sent the nourishment to every leaf, its vast root system winding away from it like splayed fingers.
The end of the Dark Ages; the Renaissance; the age of Reason—these events took place while this tree quietly grew in this very spot. Humanity swelled from a little over 300 million to over 6 billion, and through it all, this tree has stood.
The life force of these trees radiates around them, an invisible aura. Their beauty captivates me, lulling me as a mother would. I collapse onto the ground, soft with snow, fern and cedar needles, and lean my back against her.
I think about my choices as an Immortal, and even though I've been hampered by the sun, I've been able to choose where and how I wanted to live. I've chosen to stay with my family, but I could have done anything. Gone anywhere. But since the day that a slightly-built, chestnut-haired human female stepped foot into the Forks High School cafeteria, I've only had the one. Every other choice I've ever made has been flowing into this moment in time, when I have just the one: go back to a small rainy town in western Washington and beg her forgiveness.
If I've learned anything about life in all my decades of existence, it's that in order to reach an acceptable outcome, you can never take no for an answer. But that's what I'd done. I'd taken the Quileute Council's word that my family had to leave the area and couldn't take Bella with us.
But there are always compromises. I close my eyes and try to figure out why I left Bella without a fight, and a single answer comes to me. For months, I had agonized over ending her human life, and the Quileute gave me the out that my 'conscience' needed. I simply took it on faith that there was no other option, without fully exploring what the separation might do to both of us.
I lean against this massive tree for most of the day, feeling the blood that I'd consumed integrate into every corner of my body. I've never felt this before, as my flesh had always before been in a constant state of hydration.
When I stand, I feel strong and in control once more. In the distance, the sky darkens, and at the edge of the tree line, the huge bowl of the sky hovers overhead, and a million stars twinkle down.
I look to the west and the setting sun, to where Bella is, and I know what to do.
Wednesday, November 1st 8:00 pm
I quickly load the Volvo and check out. The clerk is a plump Montana girl with a head of wavy blonde hair and sparkling hazel eyes, the one I'd seen early in the morning in front of this office. Her complexion reveals afternoons spent horseback riding and tending a garden. I picture her, hoe in hand, turning her face to the wide expanse of sky, long hair blowing in the breeze.
Her blood is sweet and her long, white throat has a strong pulse that beats enticingly. But strangely, I do not hunger for her. She chats animatedly with me, saying that I'd paid for another two weeks, and happily refunds my credit card as she flips the OPEN! sign over and prepares to lock up the office.
We're together in the small, unventilated lobby for a little over seven minutes, and even though my thirst is not fully sublimated, I have no desire for her blood. And this is a strange thing, because no matter how practiced the Cullens are, we always thirst. Even Carlisle, with all his decades of practice, is sometimes drawn by the call of blood, though I've never once heard in his thoughts that he is even remotely tempted.
We've all made a moral decision to live honorable lives, as doctors, entrepreneurs, as lowly high school students—but not murderers. Not anymore. Well, Jasper is the outlier here, but he tries. And that has to count for something.
Because we are what we are. And we can only do the best that we can do. Carlisle has said this so often, and we've repeated it to ourselves and to each other so many times, that it almost feels like a family motto.
My body's disregard of the woman's scent puzzles me for a moment but I put it out of my mind. I set the GPS to alert me to traffic slowdowns, check the gas gauge, and fly out of Libby, Montana. I can be to Forks, a mere 600 miles away, in about eight hours, if I'm lucky.
As I drive, I listen to the radio and hear a story about a mysterious benefactor who funded numerous social programs around the country. I sigh, thankful that I wasn't named. I call Jenks and he's frantic, but once I convince him that I'm okay, he calms down.
"I heard something about it on the radio," I say, and he gives me a weak laugh.
"Impossible to keep it under wraps. Anyway, if you check your phone, you'll find roughly ten thousand messages. I almost called your family."
"Did Jasper contact you?" I had fully expected it.
"Yes, numerous times. Alice called as well. Said there was a family emergency and they needed to speak with you. I told her the best I could do was to get a message to you, but by then I couldn't reach you. I called her a few days later to say I still hadn't heard from you and she said that it had been taken care of."
"So they don't know anything," I clarify.
"Mr. Jasper came up here once, demanding to know where you were and how I was assisting you. But I told him I hadn't seen you in months. Which was true!" He takes a few shaky breaths and I immediately feel contrite that I'd worried him for so long.
I wonder what the emergency was, and consider that it was probably just the family, wanting to know where I was. I'll call them soon.
"Okay, Jenks, tell me what we've paid for."
Half an hour later, Jenks is finally finished talking. He'd hired staff to oversee hundreds of projects, spending tens of billions of dollars, first in Washington state, then all around the country. I check my bank account and find that I'd gone into my trance way before he'd spent it all.
I hadn't had time to dump any property, cash in bonds or sell stock. It was just cold hard cash that I'd wired. "Jenks, I'm almost home, so what do you have left that was planned but not yet funded?"
He begins to rattle off a list and I stop him. "Okay, listen. I'll wire funds tomorrow. Call me and we'll get back on track. I tell him how much more I have to spend and there's another one of those pregnant pauses. Finally, he clears his voice. "Okay, Mr. Cullen. Will do."
My GPS alerts me to a highway closure as we near Tacoma, and my luck runs out as traffic comes to a sudden halt. Emergency lights strobe eerily in the distance and the faint wail of an ambulance whines as it nears.
After about fifteen minutes, the Life Flight helicopter hovers overhead, then lands in a small cleared area beside the highway. I get out of the Volvo and see the highway peppered with broken glass, twisted metal and a dark stain. The scent of fresh human blood blows in my direction, and to my dismay, my body reacts. I sit in misery with venom pooling in my mouth and my core as tight as a drum. I ache to run into the woods and feed, but there's no way that I can do that.
Effectively trapped until this situation is resolved, I fiddle around with my phone and try to think about something else. Finally, I lean my car seat back to watch the full moon as it makes its way across the sky, vowing that the next full moon will find Bella and me watching it together.
The highway is shut down for three hours. What I can hear from the police, paramedics and witnesses is grim. A pick-up truck suffered a blow-out, causing it to flip in front of a sedan, where it burst into flames. The driver was killed along with several occupants of the sedan. Five dead, two badly injured, glass, twisted metal and fuel spilled over nearly a mile of Interstate.
As soon as I can find a place, I pull over and escape into the woods. I find a few deer, and after feeding on two, feel marginally better. I'm back on the road in less than an hour and navigate through Seattle traffic, only to be stopped again. Finally, I'm on the 101, heading toward Bella.
Heading toward home.