Renesmée liked to imagine that the sound of stones vigorously clacking against one another, inhumanly fast and accompanied by melodic voices grunting and moaning, was actually just the sound of running horses. She had no explanation for how her parents' vocal contribution would factor into this imaginary herd of horses that refused to stop touring Isle Esme, ghost horses that never left a footprint or scent, but—
«Oh, Edward! EDWARD!» her mother cried.
Renesmée stared dully at a point on the wall ahead of her.
Next to her, Jacob scarfed down his second plate filled with scones.
He'd be done eating in five minutes, seven if he wanted to talk. Maybe even ten if she let him talk. After that, they would go change, five minutes, and then it would be him insisting they try water skiing. Another fifteen minutes spent on that, if they didn't end up actually water skiing, in which case Renesmée was looking at hours.
So Renesmée had anywhere from twenty-five minutes to an unknown quantity of hours of unmuffled sounds of parental lovemaking, before she could submerge herself in the water and know peace.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jacob's mouth open.
«I've been thinking!» she chirped before he could say anything, and smiled brightly at him. That always served to quiet him, he'd trail off from whatever he'd been about to say and look at her with eyes so tender, they seemed to be melting. «There's this movie Carlisle mentioned the other day - or it's a TV show, I'm not sure. Monty Python.»
Jacob put down his scone. «You guys talked about Monty Python?» he asked.
In the background, the stone clacking came to an end, accompanied by obscene moans.
And Jacob had paused his eating.
«He mentioned it,» Renesmée answered tightly. «Really, I just feel like I'm missing out. It seems pretty famous.»
«You know how your dad is-» Jacob began, but Renesmée cut him off.
Edward Cullen had early on in her life decided that his daughter's upbringing would not be left up to chance. He had seen too many human high schoolers with rotted, unimaginative minds to want to risk Renesmée going down the same path. Besides, over the course of his century upon this earth he had encountered so many stories, so many cultural expressions, that had expanded his mind one way or the other, that he wished for his daughter to experience the same. That, and there were whole genres of movies he found to be unsuited for his daughter, period.
Which in turn meant he'd sat down to make a cultural itinerary for Renesmée, with levels as she matured enough to consume the next tier, and unlockable items she couldn't read without first having read this or that.
Which in turn meant that Renesmée had seen Jeeves & Wooster, but not Monty Python.
It also meant that there was an ongoing cold war going down between Jacob and Edward, one where Jacob wanted to impose his interests and hobbies upon Renesmée and Edward thought Jacob had terrible taste.
Which in turn meant that Renesmée played an awful lot of Skyrim.
«Yes, yes,» Renesmée said with a wave of hand, «what I meant was…» she squinted at the wall, trying to think of something to say, a flow of words that would make Jacob start eating again.
In the background, the sounds of stone sliding across stone, and her father's murmur - not as quiet as he thought it was, not when Renesmée's hearing was what it was - quoting some poem to Bella, in another language. French, Renesmée recognized after a moment.
«- je serai sous la terre et fantôme sans os : par les ombres myrteux je prendrai mon repos : vous serez au foyer une vieille accroupie…» he punctuated each verse with a kiss, and Bella sighed in lazy pleasure.
Jacob was still looking at Renesmée, not eating his scones, like they had all the time in the world.
«What does that mean?» Bella asked.
«It's a poem by Ronsard,» Edward replied, his voice still in that low murmur. «It's about the fragility of human love.»
«Oh,» Bella said softly, and the telltale sounds of muffled rocks sliding around each other followed.
Renesmée cringed.
«I thought,» she finally said, a smile lighting up her features as a glorious path towards killing two birds with one stone appeared before her, «maybe we could go ashore one of these days, find a cinema? There's got to be one we could rent for the day, we're not that far off from civilization. Does that sound fun?»
She gave Jacob a thumbs-up, and her most excited grin.
Jacob was looking at her like he didn't quite dare to believe what he'd heard. «You mean… just us? Not your parents?»
Renesmée nodded, and inclined her head towards the North end of the island, where her parents were back to mimicking a horse herd. Clippety clop, clippety- god, she needed to get away from this place. «I don't think they'll miss us.»
Jacob's face lit up like a sun, like nothing could possibly have made him happier than those words.
His hand flashed across the table, taking hers in his before she could react, and he squeezed it. «I'd love to go to the movies with you, Renesmée,» he told her.
She raised her eyebrows at how serious he was acting all of a sudden, but decided to take advantage of his good mood. «You gonna finish that, or are we going scuba diving?» she asked.
It worked, because Jacob shot out of his chair and towards his room before she'd reached the «ing» in «diving».
«Oh, Edward, yes, Edward! Edward!» Bella screamed somewhere out there, the sound accompanied by a particularly loud thunder of stone clattering against stone and Edward moaning, and Renesmée flinched.
It was eleven hours later that Jacob and Bella were finally successful in coaxing Renesmée out of the water.
She'd even had her lunch down there. It'd been good fun, chasing tropical fish and getting to know so many new flavors. Less fun when Jacob wanted to make it a competition, but limited as he was in his human form he hadn't been able to get too much in her way.
«Who knew you'd enjoy scuba diving this much,» Bella laughed, and handed Renesmée a fluffy towel. «We should take these trips to Isle Esme more often!»
Renesmée could say nothing to that.
She dried herself off in silence, as Jacob and Bella watched.
When she was done, Bella held up a pale silk bathrobe identical to her own.
Renesmée shrugged it on with a sigh. «One of these days, momma, we're gonna have to talk to Aunt Alice about packing for practicality, and not aesthetics.»
She noted with some displeasure that her still wet bikini soaked the fabric of the bathrobe. «And she doesn't even get the aesthetics.»
«I think it's great aesthetics,» Jacob muttered.
«It's a beautiful bathrobe,» Bella agreed.
«It's soaking wet,» Renesmée pointed out, and linked her arm through her mother's. Through the skin contact, she relayed an image of how terrible and wrinkly the bathrobe was gonna look once it dried.
«Good thing Alice can't see you, then,» Bella quipped.
Renesmée imagined herself splashing water at her mother, soaking her and ruining her bathrobe. She pictured herself doing the same to the rest of Bella's wardrobe, turning the Isle Esme week into a «Renesmée ruins Bella's clothes» week.
Bella squealed as if she actually had been hit, and pulled away. «You wouldn't!» she giggled.
Renesmée giggled as well. «I would if it taught Alice a lesson. Don't let Renesmée go anywhere there are nice clothes,» she lowered her voice to a dramatically low pitch, «no wardrobe will survive.»
They both laughed.
«Right,» Jacob said with a tight smile, and, with a splayed hand on Renesmée's back, started to lead the three of them back towards the house.
Renesmée resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. That would only trigger a Jacob Panic, and then all traces of good humor would be gone.
They walked in silence.
Perhaps it was because she'd been walking with Carlisle, too, when they had their talk, and it came to mind.
Perhaps it was because there are some questions all children will, eventually, ask their parents.
Or perhaps it was because for the past few days, as she tried to digest all that Carlisle had told her, something had increasingly felt— off.
Either way, she opened her mouth to ask.
«Momma,» she said, «how did you and father fall in love?»
They were sitting in the open and spacious living room of the Isle Esme house, Renesmée and Jacob in one couch with each their own plate of sushi, and Bella and Edward in the other.
«I suppose we should have told you earlier,» Edward hummed, «but I suppose it just never came up.»
Bella nodded, her fingers entangled with Edward's. She'd put on a long floral bathrobe, and Renesmée in her tennis skirt and sports bra could only envy her mother's much more mature and elegant clothing.
(The outfits Alice had picked out for Renesmée were all adorable, and she did look great in them. But, the fact remained that Alice had been devastated when Renesmée had outgrown her childhood wardrobe, only to reason that as Renesmée's was still a child in every way that counted, as well as the cutest little hybrid the world ever saw with her wide brown eyes and pink cheeks, she should still dress to be cute.
And so, the women of the Cullen family formed quite a team: Rosalie was the resident femme fatale with dramatic colors and cuts, Esme the warm and motherly 50's wife with earth tones and A-dresses, Bella the barbie that Alice would take in just about every direction as Bella agreed to it all, Alice herself was the avant-garde androgynous fashion experiment, and Renesmée was the ingenue with ruffles and cuteness.
Which on Isle Esme translated to a plethora of bikinis with cuts and colors deemed girly and feminine just as Bella's bikinis were all ridiculously sexualized (now that Renesmée did not envy her), and tennis skirts, tennis skirts galore.)
Edward smiled as he heard Renesmée's waspish thoughts directed at Bella's elegant bathrobe. «When you're older, Nessie.»
At Bella and Jacob's questioning looks, Edward smiled secretively. «She's growing up.»
Jacob's fingers found Renesmée's, and he beamed down at her.
«Do you want to begin?» Edward asked Bella.
Bella laughed. «There's not much to tell on my end. I was just this ordinary, kinda plain girl who moved from Phoenix to Forks to give my mother some space with her new husband, and who spotted a very beautiful boy across the cafeteria,» she pecked Edward lightly on the lips. They beamed at each other. «My friend told me they were the weird and incestuous Cullens, and left it at that.»
«We were listening in on that conversation,» Edward murmured. «Emmett wanted to know how juicy the gossip about us was.»
«Pretty juice,» Bella opined.
«Really, I think it was pretty tame…» Edward replied playfully, leaning closer to Bella so they could do butterfly kisses. «No secret cult rituals, no illicit affairs…»
Renesmée clamped down, hard, on the thought that wanted to surface.
(How was she going to keep this secret? How, in a million years, was Renesmée supposed to keep all that Carlisle had told her secret?
Discipline, vigilance, and more discipline and vigilance, that would have to be how.
But— god.
How had Carlisle been able to do it?)
Edward didn't give her a look, but she saw his eyebrows tighten. He was paying close attention.
Renesmée thought about the human Bella Swan, and she did not dare to think about anything else.
«Get on with the story, losers,» Jacob jeered.
Bella laughed. «Alright. So, I'm looking at this beautiful boy across the cafeteria and then, later, in Biology class, I find out that everyone is supposed to partner up. Only, everyone else already has a partner. Except for one student.»
Renesmée found herself leaning forwards in her seat. «Was it love at first sight?»
Edward laughed at that, a louder, freer, laugh than she was used to hearing from him.
She looked at him, then Bella, questioningly.
Bella bit her lip. «Will you tell her?»
Edward covered his mouth with his hand as he composed himself. «Of course. Of course, yes— sorry, Nessie. Oh, how do I explain this…»
He looked into the air for a moment, a light frown on his face as he tried to put words together.
«You didn't like each other?» Renesmée asked.
That was— unexpected.
She felt oddly proud of her mother, as if Bella had accomplished some great feat. And, to be fair - for Bella Cullen, or Swan as she had been then, not liking Edward had to be a herculean task.
But Edward only smiled, and shook his head. «Not quite. I think I'll explain this like— you know how there are different ice cream flavors?»
Bella laughed. «That's the same example he used with me!»
Edward nodded. «You remember so much,» he told her in wonder.
«Ice cream flavors?» Renesmée prompted.
«Yes, yes,» Edward nodded. «There are many different flavors, and different people have different preferences. Some like chocolate, others like vanilla. Some flavors appeal to a person more than others.»
Renesmée pursed her lips as she tried to figure out what her father was getting at. «Were you… not attracted to my mom at first?»
She looked at her mother, her beautiful mother's wrists like bird bones and mahogany brown hair that flowed down her back. She hadn't been that different in life: Renesmée knew that for a fact, she'd seen countless photos. And sketches made by Edward himself, dozens of them, sketches of Bella Swan smiling, laughing, gazing somberly into the distance or else up at the artist, sleeping, and even a few where she made funny faces at the artist.
They were clearly sketches made by someone who found her beautiful.
And in Renesmée's humble opinion, her mother had been beautiful, even for a human.
«I quite agree. Your mother was beautiful,» Edward told her.
«Seconded,» Jacob said, and grinned at Bella.
She rolled her eyes at him.
«No worries, Nes,» Jacob added in a lower tone to Renesmée, and squeezed her fingers.
She frowned up at him. «Not sure I'm following…»
«The point I'm trying to make with the ice cream analogy,» Edward said, and Renesmée turned her head to look at him again. «Is that sometimes, once upon a blue moon, you stumble across a flavor that is extraordinary. A flavor you would do anything, go anywhere, give yourself over completely, to sample.»
Renesmée stared at her father, uncomprehending.
«Your mother's scent was that flavor,» Edward concluded quietly, his eyes intent on Bella.
Renesmée blinked. «Her scent?» she echoed.
Surely he didn't mean...
Edward said nothing, too busy looking into Bella's eyes.
«Father,» Renesmée said intently, «what do you mean, momma's scent was that flavor?»
«I mean, that from the moment I smelled her, there was not a human in the world that could compare. No one ever has, and no one ever will. Your mother was la mia cantante, my singer, because her blood sang to me.»
Renesmée felt her grip on Jacob's finger's grow tight, and the color leave her face.
She'd—
She'd never thought about what her father being with a human woman meant. That was simply how it was, her mother had been human when Renesmée was conceived and she turned when it was time to birth her.
She'd given no thought to what his father's opinion on her mother's blood might have been, it hadn't occurred to her that he would have one at all, why should he? He'd loved her, they'd married each other. Her mother had not been like other humans to him.
«Don't worry, don't worry,» Edward said, and in a flash he was kneeling before her, taking her available hand into his own and smiling up at her. «Your mother was never in any danger from me. I craved her blood, yes, and it dominated my mind for quite some time, I was nearly mad — but I wouldn't let the monster in me get the better of me. I refused to give in, and in doing so I got to know your mother.»
«W-what… how?» Renesmée asked.
She had the sudden, dreadful, feeling that she did not want to hear the answer.
«I couldn't read her thoughts,» Edward told her, and turned back to Bella to meet her smile. «Here she was, the human whose scent was the most torturous to me in the world, who I could never ignore, never let alone, who simply by existing had become the center of my universe - and she was a complete mystery to me. I had to know her.»
«And that's how, from my point of view, the beautiful boy from the cafeteria first glared at me in Biology like I'd killed his cat, mailed its body to him, and then stolen the package from his doorstep. Then he disappears from school for a week, and when he gets back it's to ask me a million questions. Everything that had ever happened to me, every thought or opinion I'd ever had, he wanted to hear it.»
«And you answered me so easily, so full of trust…» Edward mused.
He returned to the couch to sit with Bella, taking her hand into his.
«Pretty boy wants to know, who am I to say no?» she grinned.
«When did you fall in love?» Renesmée asked in a thin voice.
Edward turned back to look at her, and his smile was awed. «I already had.»
Renesmée felt her grip on Jacob's hand grow ever tighter, though she did not relay a single thought.
«Only, I didn't know it yet. No, it was that next day, when Bella fell into danger, and I endangered the secret to tell her, that Alice told me. Well, she announced it to the whole family, but— her words struck a chord in me, for all that I wouldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it, it was unheard of.»
Bella nodded. «I struggled to believe it too when you first told me. There you were, a god, more beautiful than anything in the world, and there was I, boring born middle-aged Bella Swan…»
«It's I who was unworthy of you. Always will be,» Edward whispered, and caught Bella's lower lip in his mouth in what quickly escalated into a makeout session.
Jacob's fingers tightened incrementally against Renesmée's.
«That,» Edward said when he broke away from the kiss, «was the first time I visited Bella at night.»
«And I, meanwhile, found myself the sole center of attention from this boy who had saved me, doing something impossible, only to deny everything.» Bella said. «Little bells were starting to ring, as all these indications that something not quite human was afoot with Edward and his family made itself known. I researched it, even tricked Jacob into telling me his tribal secrets… and in the end, I realized he was a vampire.»
«Nothing gets past you,» Edward murmured.
Well, Renesmée would think that having a boy from school visit her in the night would be enough of an indicator that something was up with Edward, but…
Well, she had just thought that, hadn't she, so she had effectively said it.
Edward winked at her. «I didn't say I told Bella I was there.»
Renesmée blinked. «But you said— no.»
Her eyes widened in slow horror. «No, no, no…» she said, unable to keep it to herself.
Edward ducked his head in embarrassment. «I realize how it sounds, yes. But— I convinced myself that she was in danger, that if I wasn't there to watch over her something might happen to her. And I wanted to listen to her dreams, if I couldn't hear her thoughts then I would listen to her talk in her sleep…»
It was Bella's turn to duck her head. «I was mortified when I found out. And flattered, but… well, I'd been saying his name a lot. It was embarrassing. I'm sure you can imagine,» she said.
No, Renesmée could not.
Having her dreams eavesdropped on was quite normal, yet one of those normal things she was increasingly finding herself wishing she could shield herself from. She didn't want to deny her mother listening to her dreams, not when it gave her so much joy, and there was no helping it with Edward, but…
She would have liked to have some kind of rule, to enforce when she wanted to fall asleep and know no one would be listening.
She could not relate to how Bella had felt, at all.
It gave her the oddest feeling of sadness, that her mother had once been in that situation yet still didn't understand.
Edward hummed quietly. «You know you can just tell us,» he told her softly.
Renesmée nodded, not thinking anything.
Bella, meanwhile, was gazing lovingly upon Edward. «Knowing that you were a vampire only made me love you more. There I was, this ordinary, boring girl with an ordinary, boring life who would have gone on to live an unremarkable life… and then there was you, entering my life and lighting it up. You came in like Prince Charming.»
Renesmée… no, she couldn't think anything, she couldn't let herself.
There were too many thoughts to be had, all of them aching to be let out, beating and convulsing like a heart underneath Poe's floorboards making it impossible for her to seem perfectly at ease, to think normally, when there was that barely restrained deluge of thoughts waiting to roll in over her the second she allowed herself to look down, down upon the floorboards, where something terrible was saying thump-thump-thump…
Was this what it meant to hold Pandora's Box in your hands?
«Prince Charming didn't go around biting people,» Jacob pointed out.
«Edward didn't either,» Bella retorted. «In fact, there was a very distinct lack of biting people happening. I was his singer, yet he didn't bite me.» She gave a triumphant shrug.
Turning back to Edward, she continued. «When he knew that I knew, he invited me into our meadow for the first time. I knew he could kill me, but I didn't even care. I was his…»
«Just as I am yours,» Edward murmured back.
Bella smiled at him, hopelessly infatuated.
Renesmée stared at them both, pictured Pandora's Box sitting there in her hand, the lid so easily removed. It almost seemed real.
If she focused on it, her thoughts would not wander elsewhere.
She dedicated her mind to that empty space in her hand, willing an object into existence. She imagined its weight, its feel, the painted decorations, how hard its sides felt—
Jacob spoke up.
«It actually was love at first sight for me,» he mused.
The box in Renesmée's hands disappeared, and she clenched her hand.
«When I saw you, Nessie, that first moment— that was it. Everything I had been was undone, the Jacob Black who loved Be— Billy, who could live a life without you by my side — that man was gone in less than an instant. My universe was rewritten, and you became my new center of gravity.»
«Huh?» Renesmée said.
She knew she was Jacob's imprint and all that, hard to miss, but…
That was some choice of words.
Jacob smiled down at her, and turned in his seat so they were facing each other. «My body and soul became yours in an instant, Renesmée. Nothing will ever be quite like it…
Renesmée stared up at him, something—
Something deep, and awful, dawning upon her.
«I'm your imprint,» she breathed.
He didn't seem to realize it was a protest.
«Yes,» was what he said, his smile growing wider. «You are.»
Renesmée turned to look at her parents, at Bella, but they were still gazing into each other's eyes.
She turned back to Jacob, stared at him, and then down at their hands.
She wanted to pull away, to get her hand back, but…
Pandora's box needed to stay closed.
«I think I'm tired,» she heard herself say in a robotic voice. «Long day. I need to go sleep. No, I don't need dinner, it's fine. I need to go to sleep, I think.»
A/N: The poem in question is «Quand vous serez bien vieille», by Pierre de Ronsard, and is dedicated to his lover, who in the future will be an old woman huddled before the fireplace, dreaming of her sweet youth with Ronsard.
As all other chapters save the first one, this is betaed by The Carnivorous Muffin who is amazing.