She was in the basement that Esme had turned into a classroom, seated behind a wooden desk with the teacher's blackboard straight ahead.
«Words,» Jasper was saying, because it was English class, so that meant it was Jasper who would be teaching. «They are how we communicate with each other, the tools we are given to interpret reality around us. Without words we have nothing, we know nothing.»
He paused to look at her, his usually kind eyes turned ice cold. There was something ominous, something sinister, to his demeanor. His scars, which she would trail her fingers along as a newborn and giggle at, were now distorting his face into something frightening.
She had the sudden, distinct, feeling that this wasn't her uncle at all, but rather an actor cast as Jasper Whitlock.
It was a remarkably good impression, but…
It was wrong, it was all wrong.
Her uncle should never be frightening.
«Love,» the man wearing her uncle's face intoned, and the word appeared on the blackboard behind him. There was no hand, only the quick, scraping sound of chalk against the blackboard as each line forming the letters appeared.
«Imprint,» he continued, the scraping sound working frantically behind him as the words appeared one by one on the blackboard behind him, «family, trust.»
«These are very important words, Renesmée,» Jasper said. «You should know what they mean.»
«I'm not sure I want to,» she heard herself reply.
Jasper smiled coldly, and pulled at the blackboard, making it turn around. On the other side was a screen.
Renesmée saw herself in a white dress, standing opposite Carlisle on the shore of the Salish sea.
«You're in the hospital,» the Renesmée on the screen was telling Carlisle, «a patient came in earlier in the morning, and after several hours he died. You're breaking the news to his wife—»
«Turn it back,» Renesmée told her uncle weakly. «Turn- turn it back,» she repeated, and moved to get up from her desk.
The thing was, she had no idea what she was scared of. She should know, but for the moment, in this classroom, she had forgotten, and she knew that she wouldn't be allowed to remember yet.
But she was scared, she was so scared.
Jasper raised a brow at her. «You'll be taking the blue pill, then?»
«I-I-» Renesmée stuttered.
She wasn't sure. Not when she didn't know what she was saying no to.
On the screen, the recording of Renesmée turned to look directly into the camera, right at Renesmée. «Let's try another example,» she told Jasper, who nodded. Beside her, Carlisle wandered off, fishing out his phone and scratching at his nose before leaving the frame altogether. It was like watching an actor break character, unaware or else uncaring the camera was still rolling.
With a steady hand Jasper reached out to the blackboard-screen again. This time, when he spun it, it brought the room with it. Like a dark space being given shape and colors as the light shines into it, the turn of the screen made the walls of the classroom and all the furniture turn into partially collapsed Ionian columns and a white stone floor with deep cracks in it.
She was in an ancient place, a temple. It was vast, with pillars on all sides, supporting a stone frame high up above that she imagined might have once held a ceiling that had since collapsed in the millennia that had passed.
Jasper, Carlisle, and the other Renesmée were nowhere to be seen.
She spun around, and on the far end of the ruins she was in she spotted a cloaked figure with long, black, hair, and petrified skin looking out through the pillars. A menacing, inhuman, otherworldly figure she had seen only once before, but would recognize anywhere.
Aro.
She froze.
She couldn't outrun a vampire. Couldn't fight him, either. Her gift was her one advantage, Jasper had said once it might be used to make enemies not want to hurt her, but— Aro saw everyone's thoughts, all the time, and it never made him spare them.
«I must say, I do find this just a bit insulting,» Aro mused, reaching out with a hand to hold one of the pillars as he tilted his head back to gaze upwards, where there had once been a ceiling.
Renesmée took a slow step away from him, not trusting him not to whirl on her like a beast should she make any sudden movements.
Aro did not pay her any mind. «I know you've never been to Volterra, and we're hardly on good terms, but putting me in the ruins of the Parthenon? Is it because I'm Greek and ancient? That's not quite the same as being from Ancient Greece, you know. I'm almost a thousand years older than this building…» he held up a finger. «And I take far better care of my things.»
He lowered the hand, and turned halfway towards her. «But you've been given a few wrong impressions of me, haven't you?»
Renesmée opened her mouth, closed it again, and decided to just run for it.
He'd catch her or he wouldn't.
She ran towards the pillars, darted between two of them—
— and found herself reentering that same temple, only through the pillars on the perfect opposite side.
Aro turned to give her a slow smile. «No need to fear, child. I'm only here to give you a choice.»
The temple shrank between them, neither of them had moved but she was suddenly standing a foot away from him all the same.
Aro held out his hand, and the box Renesmée had envisioned— at some point, she didn't remember, but she had envisioned one — appeared in it.
He stroked a petrified finger across its lid. «If you open this box, my dear Renesmée, there will be no going back. Your life will not continue as it does now…»
«What's in it?» she asked.
«Pandora's box held all the terrible things in the world. Things that could not be unleashed. Not without consequence.»
A memory crept into the crevices of Renesmée's mind.
«You're asking if I'll sooner have the ugly truth, than blissful ignorance.»
Aro's sinister smile widened.
Right.
The decision was made in only a moment.
She took the box from him, and watched as it opened, the sides falling away to reveal new sides, and then new ones, unfolding like a never ending flower. And it kept opening, somehow growing larger, until all the world was covered with it.
The Parthenon and Aro were both gone, and she was back in the classroom with Jasper, who looked up from his book at her return. 'Lolita', another book Edward didn't want Renesmée reading.
«I take it our lesson can resume,» he said, and turned to the screen, which showed the Parthenon. Aro was standing there, scrolling through his phone. At Jasper's attention, he gave a light shrug and a nod, indicating he felt he was done. Jasper spun the screen, and the blackboard returned.
«Imprint,» Jasper said, pointing to it on the blackboard.
«You knew Jacob would be whatever you needed him to be, and that you were the most important thing in the world to him. You knew this connection was supernatural in origin.»
Renesmée nodded quietly.
«You believed this meant you had to entertain him with Xbox and other activities, putting in however many hours so Jacob will have the Renesmée fuel he needs to get through the day. Correct?»
«But that's what he wants!» Renesmée protested. «He's completely dependent on— on Xbox, and waterskiing together! A-are you saying he didn't…» she trailed off, the words leaving her.
If she didn't play with Jacob, if she wasn't happy to see him, if she didn't make time for him, always, then she would never hear the end of it, from him or her parents.
Jasper wasn't making sense, but she had—
She had this dreadful feeling that she knew where he was headed.
Before she could ask, however, Jasper steamrolled on.
«You knew Sam imprinted on Emily, and they're married. He had to break his engagement to Leah because he imprinted on Emily. Correct?»
«That was different,» Renesmée tried, «everyone is different, so– so imprinting is different, just because Sam and Emily couldn't–»
Jasper smirked. It didn't suit him. «Paul imprinted on Rachel, now they're married as well. Kim and Jared, yet another couple. And with Quil— terribly upset about imprinting on a child, isn't he? Why do you suppose that is?»
«Look—» Renesmée pleaded, but Jasper continued mercilessly.
«Family,» he said, pointing to the next word, while 'imprint' faded. «Do you know what makes someone family?»
Renesmée opened her mouth desperately. «In the technical sense it means being related to someone, biologically or legally, but it can be a broader term. If—»
«There are two families,» Jasper cut her off, «the family you are born with and the family you choose. They may overlap, but the latter is reserved for those you want in your life. What characterizes a person you want in your life?»
Renesmée opened her mouth again, but Jasper wasn't interested.
He tapped the first word that had been written on the blackboard, and 'family' bled away just as 'imprint' had. «Love. What, Renesmée, do you think love is?»
Renesmée opened her mouth to answer something she'd been taught, something she'd read in a textbook, but the words died on her tongue.
A horrible smile spread across Jasper's face as he watched her hesitate.
Renesmée looked away. «I don't think it's what my parents have,» she admitted in a weak voice.
«Finally, a decent answer.» Jasper said, that grimace calling itself a smile still distorting his face. «Do you think it's what Jacob feels for you?»
«I-I don't… I—» Renesmée stuttered.
But, she knew.
«Correct,» Jasper whispered, something in his eyes like the shark that has had its first taste of blood. «Now tell me, do you love him?»
«Y-yes, yes,» Renesmée stuttered, «of course I do. As a friend, or a brother maybe. He's my Jacob, he's always—»
Jasper only laughed. «What do you know about love?»
«I love my mother!» she protested.
«Let me ask again, then. If Jacob were to disappear from your life, how would you feel about that?»
Relieved, her mind supplied without missing a beat.
Her eyes widened.
Jasper laughed again, a horrible sound.
«As for what you know of love… you failed to see it when it was spelled out to you, didn't you?»
Renesmée stared in incomprehension, only for Jasper to spin the blackboard again.
She was looking at herself, sitting in a tree with Carlisle as he spoke disjointed fragments of past sentences.
«My feelings for Aro were unlike anything I had experienced before, or after for that matter. I was mad about him. Finding his face pleasant to look at, his lips inviting, or enjoying his proximity, always looking for excuses to be around him… Seducing me wasn't very hard. Embarrassingly easy, really.»
Jasper flipped the screen back, and they were back to the blackboard.
One word remained.
«Trust,» Jasper read slowly.
«No,» Renesmée said, «back up a bit. Aro took advantage of Carlisle, Carlisle left, that's not—»
«Renesmée,» Jasper said with a heavy sigh, «I have a lesson to teach.»
«Well, you didn't finish the last one!» Renesmée argued, and stood from her desk. «Why are you even—»
Jacob flipped the blackboard, and this time, the screen depicted Renesmée in her bed on Isle Esme, sleeping.
Only, she wasn't alone.
Her head lay nested in Bella's lap, and Bella's hands were on her cheeks. Jacob was sitting on the bedside with her hands in his, and Edward was standing next to him, staring stiffly ahead.
All of a sudden, Renesmée's cheeks felt very cold, and her hands hot.
She opened her eyes, and above her was Bella, staring down at her, her hands at each of her cheeks.
She sat up abruptly, and sure enough, there was Jacob beside her, holding her hands.
«What was that about Carlisle?» Edward asked quietly.
A/N: Many thanks to The Carnivorous Muffin, beta.