Chapter 62 Chapter Notes
The treaty has been scrapped, as the Quileute are finally seeing the Cullens were never a danger. Carlisle is able to look past the Council's actions, but Edward is still feeling a teensy bit irked.
The chapter title belongs to Sheryl Crow
Chapter 62 Everyday is a Winding Road Friday, November 3rd
Charlie's surgery takes longer than anyone expects, so I drive Bella home. Two minutes into the six-minute trip, she falls asleep and her warm, fragrant head falls onto my arm. I stroke her silky hair as I drive, inhaling her bodily perfume in an attempt to desensitize myself again.
By the time I pull into her driveway, I'm burdened with a mouthful of venom and aching muscles. I stand outside the car for a moment and take deep breaths of the clean, cool air. I feel a bit better by the time I run her up to bed. I slip off her sneakers and cover her with a blanket as I remind myself not to rush it. I've only been back for a single day.
I know it will take time.
Time that I am determined to have.
I wait in her rocker while she naps, falling into old habits. I drag her rocker to the window and open it wide, then sit perfectly still as I count her quiet breaths, the cadence of them a balm for my weary soul. Her heartbeat is so familiar to me, it's almost like a melody. I sit and rock while Bella plays, just feet from me.
Never again did I expect to sit in this worn rocker, in this dated house, watching Bella as she slept. Never again did I expect to smile, or be happy.
I never want Bella to be more than feet from me, ever again. Never out of my sight.
With a chuckle, I realize that neither Bella nor I really want that. Eternity is a long time, as Emmett is so fond of saying. I'll play ball with my brothers; she'll shop with Alice and Esme. But we'll be together. Which is what both of us always wanted.
Just as the sun makes a feeble appearance in the eastern sky, Bella wakes, but doesn't look at me right away. After a few minutes, she sits up in her bed, a glum expression on her face. She gathers up her hair in both hands and finally sees me, sitting across the room. Her mouth falls open and she gasps.
"What?" I ask in alarm. "What's wrong?"
Bella falls back onto her pillow. "I thought it was all a dream," she says, as I rush to kneel on the floor beside her bed. Her expression grows serious as she props herself up on her elbow. "It all really happened, didn't it." Not a question. I nod.
She gives a tentative look at her left hand, to where her engagement ring sits. She gasps. "We're really getting married?"
I chuckle. "Yes, sleepy head! Get up and we'll go see what's going on with Charlie."
A frown crosses her face and she says, "Did you hear anything more from Jacob?"
"No," I answer, "but I got a call from Billy Black. He wants to see Carlisle and me this morning. I told him we'd be up after I drop you off at the hospital."
Bella does her thing in the bathroom while I get her some Ibuprofen from the kitchen. I sniff her bandage and smell only betadine and gauze and the filament used in the stitches. No infection. After I pronounce her wound healing properly, she grabs a granola bar and a bottle of juice, and we're off.
We arrive at the hospital around 9:00 am, and find Charlie asleep, still recovering from the anesthesia. Bella kisses his cheek and sits with him while Carlisle and I go to the reservation to meet with the Council.
On our way there, he says, "I called Tanya to see if she'd ever heard of anything like what you and Alice have experienced. She said that about a year ago, an older vampire named Matthew joined them for a few months. His wife of many years had run afoul of the Volturi and had been destroyed, and after that, he lapsed into a deep depression. Apparently, he woke up one day, about a month later, with no idea what had happened or how much time had passed."
I stop walking and he does as well. "When did this happen?"
"Matthew said it was right after the Vietnam war, so about forty-five years ago? Also, he was a strict vegetarian before he was changed. He and his wife both abstained from human blood. They were possibly the first of our kind to forgo their natural food source, and Tanya wonders if this might have been what allowed the trance to take hold. She thinks that human blood is somehow protective, because she called around, and no blood drinkers had ever reported such a phenomenon."
Carlisle and I walk into the Town Hall and sit in the new plastic chairs in room seven. It looks like the entire Council is present, except for the Chief. Billy Black sits in his place. We are greeted warmly, and Billy says, "How is Charlie?"
I detail his injuries and say that he is recuperating from a couple of surgical procedures. Billy shakes his head sorrowfully. "Please tell him that I'll have Jacob drive me up in a couple of days to see him."
"Wait," I say, as he opens his mouth to speak again. "We need to discuss Carlisle's and my presence here on the peninsula. You said the family was banished, and if we crossed the tribe, you would tell our secret."
Billy regards us seriously. "That was not my decision, Edward. The Council lied to you and your father. A Pack member named Michael actually broke the treaty by violating the five-mile rule and hanging out behind your house. His presence is what caused Alice's visions to disappear. The Council used Jasper's abduction of Emery to rid itself of what it perceived as a threat." He pauses and takes a deep breath. "I did not agree with the Council's verdict."
"Last night, I asked Bella Swan to marry me. I'm never parting from her again, so if you plan on—"
"Wait," says Billy. He raises his hand in a halt gesture. "We were wrong. You may disregard our previous statements and demands."
"And what about Bella's Quileute blood? Is that an impediment to her joining my family? Because if it is, I am leaving her human, but we have already decided that we're staying together." Carlisle glances at me. I hadn't told him any of this.
"That is my fault," Billy says. "Charlie is my best friend and Bella is his whole life. I knew it would destroy him if you slipped away and took Bella with you. In reality, she is related to the tribe only by marriage. As far as we know, she has no Quileute blood."
"You told us she was related to your librarian," I say with a frown.
"And so she is. By marriage. We were going to send the blood samples to the medical examiner's office in Seattle. We have someone on staff who was going to swap Bella's results for someone else's."
"What you're really saying is that you had no basis to banish the family and separate me from Bella." Not a question. And I feel my face a hard mask, my mouth, a small, straight line.
Billy nods with a pained expression on his weathered face.
Carlisle and I look at each other, and he's thinking about Alaska, Bree's death, Alice, laying on her bed in her weird trance-like sleep. All for what? So we can find out weeks later that it was all based on a lie?
"How dare you play with our lives in such a callous way?" I demand. Billy Black flinches, and Carlisle, who usually at this point in any negotiation places a hand on my arm with gentle pressure, glowers at them right alongside me.
"I apologize for the actions of the Council," he says, and he reminds me of myself the night before, trying to convince Bella to forgive me, "but your family never had Bella Swan's DNA tested. Why?"
Carlisle glances at me. "With my capacity to read thoughts, I listened carefully to the entire Council, to see if there was some deception," I say. "Since I could hear none, I accepted it as the truth."
Billy makes a face. "The men of the Council didn't know, Edward. The Chief told them she was part Quileute. Only he and I knew the truth. Both of us practiced keeping that thought out of our minds, because we knew you could pick out the deception from our thoughts, and we were successful, if you can call this mess successful."
There's a brief silence, and Carlisle says, "All right. We'll put it behind us if the Quileute will."
A quick vote is taken, without a single dissent. Billy then tells us what happened on Sycamore Row last night. The whole story, not the demoralized, truncated version I'd gotten from Jacob, but the whole gory incident. When he's finished, Carlisle says, "Please accept the Cullen family's condolences on your losses. If there is anything that we can do, please do not hesitate to ask."
Billy Black nods absently. "Since one of the slain was our doctor, maybe you could help us until we sort it out?"
Carlisle has a job at the hospital and a private practice, but he agrees immediately. "I am at your disposal for as long as you need me. It will take a couple of days to reschedule my patients in Forks." He hands over a small stack of business cards. "I can be reached at that number, around the clock. We can sort out the particulars later."
Billy Black heaves a great sigh. "I must apologize to your family again. Even though Alice and Jasper insisted that Edward wasn't here on the reservation, many Elders were unsure if she was being honest, or was mistaken. Brady said he had caught Edward's scent, but Sam said he couldn't have, as he was out of state when the Pack had contacted your family. We now know it was Victoria all along."
"When she stumbled onto E Street last night, she showed me her injuries," I tell them. "I saw at once that she'd been attacked by a Wolf, but what happened to the rest of her? She was losing her sight and didn't seem able to feel what her body was doing. And she went…mad, there at the end."
The Elders all look at Billy, who tells us haltingly at first, then in a torrent, what the Chief had done during the snow of September. "He used the Wolf amulet and called forth the ancient magic to help us," he says, shaking his head. "We don't access the magic for this very reason. It is powerful and dangerous."
Carlisle says, "Alice said that you told her and the others about the ancient magic that the tribe used against a band of vampires that terrorized your villages. Is this the same kind of thing?"
Billy nods slowly, but I hear a lot about the magic from the Elders, who are all thinking about it. They don't understand it, but it is real. Each foe that the tribe encountered was driven away by this magic, or so they think. Madness, blindness, sickness. These maladies all affected the different groups that tried to subjugate this ageless tribe. Carlisle glances at me, knowing that I am hearing the unspoken words of the Quileute ruling body.
Billy says, "The Chief didn't have the authority to meddle with the ancient magic. Quil says that the runaway spell was responsible for the cascade of unfortunate events that we've all suffered. He says the spell has used the energy from both of our supernatural factions to go wild. Last night we used the amulet again to disable it."
"How did you accomplish that?" Carlisle asks with interest.
"Long story," Billy says, "but our Seer assisted us." I see it in their thoughts. They all gathered at a fire pit behind the Chief's house. A huge fire was kindled and the Chief said some words read from a paper he'd unlocked from a box in his living room.
"Forgive me, but how does Quil know that the spell run amok has done all the damage?" Carlisle asks.
Billy says, "Quil, as the Seer, has many visions that are straightforward, that need little interpretation. He also has hundreds of visions that he can't make sense of, some from many years ago. He studies them when events occur to see if he can link them. After much reflection, he says that he found prophecies that foretold Emery's abduction, the Council banning your family and telling lies, Bella Swan's suicide attempt, the attack on Henry Upchurch, and of course, the worst tragedy of all, the murders yesterday on Sycamore Row and Brady's attack that gravely injured Charlie Swan."
I listen carefully and find out that Henry Upchurch was the youngest of the famed bloodline, yet to transform. I relate this to Carlisle.
"What happened to Henry?" asks Carlisle.
"We found his body a couple of days ago, in an alley, with his throat mutilated. One side showed small puncture wounds, but the other side showed massive injury. The spinal cord was visible." Billy winces, and I can see it in his mind. Good lord. His flesh was torn or bitten away from behind his ear, all the way down to his collarbone.
"The flesh on that side was ragged, as if huge bites were taken out, but the edges looked chewed," Billy continues. "We found no chunks of flesh near the body, and of course it is possible that they were carried away by an animal."
Carlisle is picturing the damage to the boy's throat and what might have caused it, and he's coming to the same conclusion as I have: she ate him. She actually ate the boy's flesh.
"So Victoria didn't know about the treaty, or the fact that the tribe is protected by magic," Carlisle says with an edge to his voice. "Since treaties and magic only work as a deterrent if enemies know about them, the Quileute were protected from the Cullens, the only group of vampires that were never a threat to begin with."
Billy nods. The irony of the situation isn't lost on him. "In light of this reality, we have decided that the treaty is no longer necessary."
Carlisle clears his throat. "Just to be clear, we are now welcome on the reservation? And all tribal members know this?"
"There are no restrictions on the Cullens anymore," Billy says. The Elders mutter to each other. Billy shakes his head. "We have wronged your family, and yet you have not taken it personally."
Well, I have, but I'm not fessing up now.
Billy says, "There is something you might be able to help us out with." He tells us about the three missing Quileute and asks if I could help in the search. They all smell so bad that I'm not sure I can locate them, even if they're dead and decomposing, because they smell like that anyway, but I tell them I'll try.
Carlisle says, "If we are allowed back into the area, tribal members will still continue to phase. This is acceptable?"
Billy nods thoughtfully. "This is a natural progression. Jasper should not have come on our land, but he did not hurt Quil's grandson. In fact, since his return, the boy has excelled in school and has begun to take the history of the tribe, and what might be his legacy, much more seriously."
"Legacy?" I ask.
"After the ceremony to disable the spell, Quil took to his bed." He doesn't say that the old man is dying of liver cancer, but all the Elders are thinking about it and are already mourning his passing.
"What happened to Brady?" I ask. "When he attacked, I couldn't hear his thoughts."
The Indians murmur and I hear their sense of loss. "Victoria told Dr. Pierce that he had eaten the chunks he bit out of her leg. We can think of nothing else that might have caused him to revert to the true wolf." Billy shakes his head. "He has gone up into the woods, and we cannot find him. We believe he is lost."
I think of the almost unendurable stress we've all felt since the beginning of the school year, all because we have strayed from our true nature. Not to drink human blood, but to be the wild animals that we really are.
How much heartache have we wrought in our attempts to fit into the mortal world? I think of the freedom of being a wolf in the wild, with no ownership, no responsibilities, and no pressures to conform, other than those set down by nature. To drink ice-cold water in a clear mountain spring, sleep in a den that you've dug with your own four paws, to run free and untethered, having no cares, as the wind rushes through your fur.
Quite suddenly, I am filled with longing to escape into the wild with the wolf, to live a natural life. Henry David Thoreau, in Walden, postulated that man toiled every day of his life and then died, having never enjoyed that which he had worked so hard to achieve.
And yet, I have not plowed fields or milked cows, nay have I ever tired, but my soul is weary, and I long for escape. Only one thing prevents me for vanishing into the dark and mysterious woods, never to be seen by civilization again: Bella.
We will live in a cabin that we forge with our own two hands. We will run free like the wolf, beholden to no man, to no one.
Carlisle and I stop by the house so we can both shower and change into clean clothes. Back at the hospital, he begins a shift and I head straight for Charlie's room. I only want to see Bella.
When I walk in, I see that he's sleeping and Bella is slumped in her chair, eyes glazed in exhaustion. I drive her home and she sleeps for hours. She wakes, asks about Charlie, eats and drinks, and falls back into bed. On Sunday, she finally wakes up, takes a bath, and looks like the Bella that I remember.
"Are you feeling better? How's the arm?" I hold her close and inhale deeply, but catch no lingering scent of infection or disease.
"It's okay. And yeah, I feel a lot better. How's Charlie?" She's clear-eyed but still seems fragile, somehow. I'm worried about the water calling to her, and wonder if she needs to speak to someone about it. I vow to discuss it with her later. Contemplating suicide is serious, and I'm not so naïve as to believe that she's totally healed just because I happened to walk back into her life.
"I spoke to Carlisle this morning. He said that Charlie's in a lot of pain, but that's to be expected. Charlie called earlier, Bella, when you were still asleep. He asked me to tell you that wants a word." I wish we could put this off, but it's not my decision to make.
Bella's face loses all color. I had planned on taking her to the Lodge for their pancake brunch this morning, but Bella can't eat when she's nervous. And this is a conversation that she's been dreading. She'll be forced to tell Charlie the naked truth. Maya will have told him what she knows, and that will be the blunt facts, the mechanics of it. Bella will have to be honest if he asks her if I was in her room at night, but there's so much more that she'll need to confess, not the least being that she's going to join my family after graduation.
"Won't you come with me?" Bella pleads.
She is pale and trembly, and I wish I could accompany her, but Charlie was very specific. "This is a conversation that Charlie told me he wants to have with his daughter." Not with his daughter and her undead boyfriend, I think.
As I drive to the hospital, Bella drums her fingers on the dash and worries her lip. As I park and twist the key out of the ignition, she looks at me, wide-eyed. "What do you think Maya has already told Charlie?"
"She phased into a giant Wolf right in front of him. He's had more than a few questions about that. And no conversation about the Wolves makes any sense unless the reason is also included. You'll have to fill in the blanks. Tell him the truth, Bella. All of it that you know." I squeeze her hand gently and it's as cold as ice.
"I love you, Bella. And you love me. People that love each other spend their lives together. Tell him that. Remind him that his love for Maya hasn't changed because she's a Supernatural being now.
I left a girl behind when I thoughtlessly departed Forks. I returned to a woman. She's strong and capable, and I'm sure she'll get through this conversation. There will be a lot of tears and maybe some shouting, but when she leaves, Charlie will know her plans.
I just hope there's no water that she can think about falling into before I can get her back home.