This is just a little blurb that popped in my head from a prompt posted in The Fic Lab on Facebook. This week their prompts were all Halloween inspired and this is what my imagination came up with.
Thanks to My-Bella, my partner in crime, who helped me flesh this out.
I promise I am working on the next chapter of Blown Away too! See you all soon, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own Twilight or any of its characters. But I wish I did.
Air, I needed some fresh air. Running down the halls of the castle, the sound of my shoes echoed off the damp stone walls so loudly it rivaled the sound of thunder and gave me no clue as to if he were following me or not. Coming to the large arched wooden door, I heaved the heavy portal open and stepped out into the dark night onto the tower balcony. Panting to catch my breath, I leaned over the wrought iron wall. My mind was overwhelmed with what was facing me, all I'd learned since coming to Vienna, and fraught with unease to choose either of the options facing me. Shutting my eyes, I thought back to Tanya begging me to see a fortune teller with her, "because it was almost Halloween and would be fun," she'd said. That was shortly after we'd arrived here and I had no belief in such things. But now…now suddenly what the palm reader had told me made so much sense…
The scent of sage and lavender wafted in the air of the small room. "Give me your hand, dear," the woman with long red hair had requested. "You must open your hand if you wish me to read your future," she'd added when it seemed as if my hand didn't want to open.
"Come on, Bella," I heard Tanya whisper from outside the curtained doorway.
"Quiet please, and step back from the door," the fortune teller ordered her. Looking back at me, she asked, "Are you ready now? It doesn't hurt."
Nodding, I opened my hand and laid it palm up on the small table we were sitting next to. I didn't know what I was expecting but when she took my hand in hers, I somehow immediately began to relax by the warmth of her touch and the calm feeling it instilled in me. It was bizarre but wonderful. She stared at my hand for what felt like forever tracing the lines on my hand like she was deciphering some kind of puzzle. In fact, when I glanced up to look at her face, she had a somewhat puzzled expression on it.
"Is something wrong?" I asked. I'd heard how people claimed to get life altering messages after partaking in such hocus pocus events, but I didn't put any weight on it, not believing any of it to be true.
"No, but what I am seeing is very rare." She seemed very hesitant to tell me anything, which I found rather unusual. Weren't these sort of things scripted?
Having enough of this I started to pull my hand away and stand, but she held tightly to it. "Sit please, my child. I'm not meaning to frighten you."
"Well then could you get on with it. I'm sure my friend will be a much more entertaining customer for you."
She stared at me for a moment, like she was trying to read my thoughts or something, before looking back down to my hand.
"Do you believe in reincarnation?" she asked.
"Reincarnation?" Why was she asking me this?
"Yes, when a soul is reborn into another body, sometimes hundreds of years later."
"I..I don't know? I've never really thought about it. Look lady if you are—."
"I never seen this myself, but knowledge of it has been passed down through generations of my family," she stated with conviction. "Look," she directed me. "This is your lifeline," she followed the path of the crease in my palm with her long fingernail.
"Ok, looks long to me. Isn't that good?" I was trying to indulge her to get this over with.
"Yes, but see here," she pointed to a smaller line that ran right through the center of my lifeline. "Your line is broken by this smaller line right here. In all my years I have never seen anything like it, but I do have knowledge of it and I am certain of its accuracy. It indicates one life ending and a new one beginning. Two lives lived by one soul. Reincarnation is the closest explanation I can give you for you to understand, but that's not quite what this is."
Again I went to pull my hand from hers, and again she refused to let go. "There is more you must know." She closed her eyes and seemed to meditate for a few moments. Without opening them she began to speak again. "I see a man coming into your life. He is handsome beyond words and will be a great protector of yours. But there is an air of darkness that surrounds him. He will bring about a great change in your life and you will be forced to make a great choice."
She then opened her eyes and watched me for my reaction. I could see that she truly believed in what she was saying to me, but I on the other hand didn't place any truth in it.
This time I was successful in removing my hand from her grasp. I stood and thanked her, "Thanks, but I'm done now."
I was just about to the door when she called after me. "You can't escape this, my child. You will have to make a choice one way or the other. Your path has been set."
I quickly exited the room and went outside to wait for Tanya who came back fifteen minutes later, beaming with how she was going to have a wonderful life according to Carmen, the fortune teller.
A wolf howling drew my attention back to the present. My gaze swept over the lands below the castle walls illuminated by the bright light of the full moon. On the right sat the woods and the river that ran between the two. Once the animal stopped crying in the night, I could hear the rushing water, lapping against the rocky shores that bordered it. To the left was the family graveyard. A graveyard where a weathered and moss-covered tombstone that'd had a name carved into it many decades ago had led me to another shocking revelation.
"This stone has your name on it, Edward Anthony Cullen, 1819-1844. Is this some long-lost ancestor you were named after?" I asked.
"No."
"A stranger with the same name as you?" I'd chuckled at the thought, but people were known to give their children certain names for strange reasons. Maybe this guy on the stone was famous or something.
"No. This is my family's private burial land. Only family members can be laid to rest here."
"Then how is…" As my fingers traced the carvings in the stone, my mind swept back over all the unusual things I'd observed about Edward over the short time I'd known him and tried to make sense of it all. I also recalled the local legends I'd researched about the family that had originally owned this castle and how they'd died. If only family was buried here, and this grave didn't represent an ancient ancestor of his with the same name. It could only mean one thing.
"Tell me what you're thinking," he demanded, standing behind me so close I could feel the energy flowing off him.
"I don't know…so many things…"
He took my hand and placed it on his chest over his heart. "What do you feel, Bella?"
"I—I don't understand." Somewhere in my head I knew what he was telling me, but it just wasn't registering.
"There is no life in this body, Bella. There hasn't been for nearly two hundred years now."
I grasped tightly onto his shirt, holding on for fear I might faint, as I sucked in heavy pulls of air, trying to calm my own heart's rapid pace. Squeezing my eyes closed tightly I felt Edward take me in his arms, holding me closely as if I were the most precious thing in the world to him. It was then that I realized that whatever the explanation was for the tomb, the fortune teller, for whatever it was that Edward might reveal to me about himself and his family, none of it mattered. I didn't know how, and I couldn't explain why, but I knew he'd never hurt me.
Even now as I stood here, facing the toughest decision of my life, I still believed that to be true.
I'd not heard so much as a pin drop, yet I could feel that Edward had joined me. "Come, my love, take a walk with me."
Edward took my hand in his and led me back into the castle and down the stairs through a part of the castle I'd not yet seen. With ease he pulled open another large door identical to the one leading to the balcony and led me outside where I gasped at the sight before me.
"Come," he said as he urged me forward towards the stone circle. I turned, taking in my surroundings. The stones were much taller than Edward and as far as I could tell in the moonlight, they were made of the same stone as the graveyard markers. He brought us to a stop at the center of the circle where another wide stone with a worn away flat surface lay. Upon it was the brass chalice featuring double dragons facing each other with ruby eyes on it that I'd seen Edward retrieving from the museum, along with a matching dagger, and what looked to be a bottle of wine.
"That day in the graveyard, when you didn't run in fear from me, I could have sworn my dead heart leapt in my chest. And since then, with all you've learned of me and my family, you have remained here with me. I know it is not easy, but I am once again asking you to choose me, my love, to choose us. The clock will strike midnight soon. You must choose now, Isabella." He came up behind me, his breath against the skin of my neck sent chills down my spine. But not from how cool it was, but because of the overwhelming feelings of desire it stirred within me.
I turned to face him, placing my hand over his heart. Though it uttered not one beat or sign of life, he stood here in front of me on this Halloween night. I could see the longing in his eyes for my answer. He gently swept away the hair that had fallen into my face and tenderly caressed my cheek. Leaning in, he kissed me. His lips captured mine in a kiss so heady it threatened to render me unconscious. Sensing my need to breathe he slowly broke the kiss, his lips moving down along my jaw, neck, and finally stopping at the juncture where my pulse still beat in time with my heart. I was certain I felt the slight scrape of his fangs dragging across my skin as he pulled away. Another chill swept through me with a shot of adrenaline at the thought of what those elongated teeth of his could do to me. Would he make the choice for me?
Resting his forehead against mine, he whispered, "An eternity of love and happiness beyond your wildest imagination, or returning to the simple life you've been living with no memory of my existence or the passion between us."
"Edward, it is time," came another voice from the shadows behind us. "She must choose now or it will be too late."
Happy Halloween, Everyone!
~EA