Esme's POV
Like each time I had before, I began turning the pendant backwards, that familiar swirling occurring around us. But I tried to block it out of my peripheral, focusing solely on the spinning rings. I spun it faster and faster, and around me the world moved backward equally in response. I looked up; my husbands eyes amazed at what was happening around him. In fractions of a second, seasons passed, years at a time, days flashed by so quickly the distinction between day and night were impossible. The weather had no effect on us, trees grew in reverse, the barn and the house rebuilt themselves before our eyes. After a minute I slowed down to a speed my supernatural senses could process better.
The seasons passed a little slower, taking a handful of seconds. It was only then that I realized my husband was whispering to himself, counting backwards.
"O-three, '02, 01, '00, '99, '98, '97, '96, -stop!" he said and abruptly I froze, the world around us freezing as well, while I held the knobs in place. We were both still, glancing around.
"What day do you think it is?" I asked softly. It looked to be a warm, possibly mid spring day.
"Sometime in April or May," my husband said, his tone just as soft as mine. I finally broke our stillness, letting the pendant go, and it began to move forward on its own, at its own speed, time moving normally; something I hadn't paid attention to previously. The silence and stillness around us were replace with birds twittering in the trees, and the wind blowing gently, somewhere from the direction of the barn a horse whinnied. I smiled, seeing a perfect image of the home I grew up in. The beech tree was a significant amount smaller than it was in the present day. Where Carlisle and I had been standing on the grass in front of the old house, we now stood in the center of the dirt road that once existed.
"Now what?" my husband asked. I looked at him and then back at the house.
"Investigate?" I suggested as I walked towards the house, and up the porch step, subsequently pulling my husband along via our locked hands. I could hear soft chatter from inside, it sounded like my parents talking. Voices I hadn't heard, except in my memory, since 1920. I grasped the door handle, turning it, and pushing the door open slowly, glancing inside as the sitting room was revealed.
In a corner, in the chair that had always been his, sat my father, young and healthy; one leg crossed over his knee, with a newspaper in his hands. As I pushed the door open further and stepped in, he took no notice to the disturbance or our presence; not even to the door opening. I presumed he could not see it.
I took a moment to take in the sight of the home that I remembered.
All the furniture with it's terribly tacky looking upholstery, the rug that I only remembered as ever being dirty and worn and never replaced, and the oval frames that hung on the wall with semi blurry photos of my grandparents, and my parents wedding photo printed in that soft black and white. On the mantle sat the two oil lamps we owned, as we were not rich in any sense.
"Henry," I heard my mother's voice call from towards the kitchen. Her footsteps approached and my father looked up from his paper, "Could you hold the baby while I start dinner?" my mother asked, stepping into the sitting room. In her arms was an infant, loosely swaddled in a blanket.
Me.
"Just put her in her cradle, Ruth," my father sighed, as my mother approached him. She shook her head slightly.
"I'm trying to keep her awake until after dinner, so she doesn't wake in the middle of the night," my mother told him and placed the lump of blanket in his arms, taking his newspaper and folding it, setting it aside. My father looked down at the blanket and scoffed, then looked back at my mother.
"Thirty minutes, then I set her down. I have to feed the hogs before sundown," he bartered with her, to which she nodded in agreement, and then headed back into the kitchen. I heard her clattering around in there.
I walked closer to my father, approaching cautiously, and perched myself on the arm of his chair, looking down at the baby in his arms. He was bouncing the bundle gently. The child in his arms was wide awake, wide eyed, and watching her father.
"You are a very cute baby," my husbands voice made me jump slightly. I had nearly forgot he was linked to me. I looked over at him and he had a relaxed look with a kind smile on his face. I smiled back at him, and then looked back at little me, "You must not be very old," he added. I looked up and around the room, spotting the calendar on the wall with the dates crossed out.
May 1, 1895
"Three weeks," I said, pointing at the wall for my husband to spot the calendar. Carlisle sighed, and I looked at him.
"And your mother is walking around, cooking, cleaning, as if she didn't even have a baby," he said. I felt a sadness come over me at his realization. How sad it was, that mother's back in these days were expected to resume their duties around the home as soon as they could, while taking care of their child, and healing their bodies. In the present, mothers took months- all the way up to a year and a half off, to look after their child and recover.
"That was life," I said to him, and he squeezed my hand comfortingly. I turned my attention back to the tiny child as she gurgled with a toothless mouth open.
"Skip ahead a little," Carlisle said, as I stood up from the arm of my father's chair. I lifted the time turner and turned it forward, at a much slower and processable pace than I had been turning it backwards to get to this point. I watched as the little version of me grew before my eyes, crawling, climbing, walking, running. Carlisle was watching the little one move about at a fast forward speed until I reached 1901.
When I stopped and let time move normally again, rapid little footsteps filled the air above our heads and moments later this little six-year-old in a mid calf length little dress came rushing down the stairs giggling. I smiled as her little caramel waves swayed to each side as she ran.
"Esme Anne, no running in the house," my mother scolded from the kitchen, where little Esme had disappeared to.
"Sorry mama," a little voice murmured.
I pulled my husband towards the kitchen and stood in the doorway. My mother was stirring something in a bowl. The little girl struggled for a moment to climb up onto one of the kitchen chairs and lean on the table.
"Elbows, Esme," my mother scolded again, and Esme pulled away from the flour covered table.
"Can I go play outside?" she asked her mother, in a very confident voice, with an equally confident face, and I chuckled lightly.
"You stay away from the field and the barn," mother warned, and the child nodded, jumping from the chair, landing on her feet with a loud thump. I could see the look in mothers' eyes that she wanted to scold little me but held back as she ran out to play.
I looked at Carlisle who was grinning widely,
"Quite the enthusiastic little thing," he laughed lightly, making me smile, as we followed my six-year-old self out the door. I stood on the porch, the two of us watching Esme as she giggled happily, running off towards the beech tree. She circled the trunk of it, searching through the grass. She bent down, digging through the grass and when she stood up, there was a little caterpillar on her hand, and she was smiling gleefully at it. She was totally entranced by it as she sat down against the tree trunk, and pulled a blade of grass, offering it to the little insect; giggling again when the bug accepted it.
Her attention wasn't drawn to it very long, before she returned the caterpillar to the ground and sauntered off nonchalantly across the yard.
Towards the barn.
"She's gonna get in trouble," Carlisle warned in a teasing, singsong voice, as we both watch her peer into the barn, before slipping through the barely open door. There was silence for several minutes, before a commotion ensued.
An agitated bleat from a goat, a high-pitched scream, something metal crashing loudly to the ground, and then crying.
My mother flew past us, dashing off the porch and towards the barn. I stood still, watching, remembering what had happened.
"I'm sorry mama," the teary-eyed little girl in my mothers' arms sniffled, as she carried the child back towards the house. Mother's face was a mix of anger and sympathy. I later recognized it as that motherly look of disappointment I often used on my vampire kids. More often than not, on my boys.
"I told you not to go in the barn," mother scolded as she carried her daughter up onto the porch and sat on the porch swing with the girl in her lap. Esme sniffled again, rubbing her tears away, "What happened?" mother asked her, and between sniffles, she responded.
"I wanted to feed the goat…and then he ran at me…and pushed me over," she coughed out. Mother smoothed out her hair and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
"You need to be careful. Those animals are dangerous. You're lucky you weren't harmed," mother scolded softly, explaining it to her child. Esme nodded and leaned into her mother, who wrapped her arms around her daughter and sighed, "Esme Anne, what are we going to do with you?" she asked herself, the corners of her mouth turning up slightly, and carried her child inside.
Carlisle chuckled softly, pulling me into an odd embrace; odd due to the entanglement of one of our hands with the chain.
"Yes, my love, what are we going to do?" he asked, pressing his lips to my forehead, smiling. I giggled lightly.
I lifted our hands between us, and turned time forward more, seasons passing, people scurrying, nature changing…
When I stopped where I wanted to be, I slipped out of my husbands embrace, pulling him after me, off the front porch, and towards the beech tree, which had grow much bigger than the time we had arrived, but still smaller than its present day self.
"What year is it?" Carlisle asked, looking around. I pushed him down into the lush, green, summer grass, where he leaned his back against the trunk of the tree, and I and flopped down into his lap.
"You'll see," I said quietly as the front door of the house opened.
Right on time…
"I'm just going outside!" a young woman's voice called back at her mother in the house, before letting the screen down slam closed, and she walked purposefully across the grass towards us. Her blouse loosely tucked into her ankle length skirt that swayed as she walked barefoot through the grass. Tucked under an arm was a roughed up looking sketchbook. I felt Carlisle's eyes on me before his lips pressed to my hair. I smiled as my 16-year-old self placed her pencil between her lips and grabbed the lowest branch of the tree, hoisting herself up beside us, and climbing up.
Carlisle was looking up, watching this younger me casually go about her climbing. I noticed the smile creeping onto the corners of his mouth. I playfully hit his chest.
"Are you looking up my skirt?!" I asked, fake-appalled. Carlisle chuckled,
"Does it count as perverted if I'm married to future you?" he laughed lightly, and we both looked back up as teenage me settled onto a thick tree limb, about 15 feet up the tree, and opened her sketch book. I was still nestled into my husband's lap, resting my head against his chest.
"This tree gave me the perfect vantage point to sketch the barn," I told my husband, even though I had mentioned it to him several times over our life together. He smiled, kissing my neck softly.
OoO
We sat under the tree as the day passed by peacefully at its normal speed. Occasionally we would look up when above us we would hear humming, frustrated scribbling, or mumbles as the girl perched in the tree limb talked to herself. It was mid afternoon when the screen door squeaked open, my mother, wiping her hands on her apron, looked around the yard, scanning for her daughter.
"Esme! Come help with dinner!" she yelled loudly, summoning her child. Immediately above us, teenage me closed her sketch book, tucking the pencil in the spine.
"Shoot!" she cursed to herself for letting the time escape her and began descending the tree hastily.
"Esme!" mother shouted again, cupping her hands around her mouth to make her yell louder, when she didn't get a response nor see her daughter running towards home. I perked up from position against my husband, who also sat up straight, tensing.
"Coming mother!" came a shout from above us. Carlisle inhaled nervously.
"I wish I could catch you," he said, knowing what was coming, as did I. My mother hollered again, her expression clearly displaying her knowledge of her daughter up a tree.
"Esme Anne Platt what are you doing?!" she yelled in disbelief.
"Nothing I-!"
A gasp mingled with a frantic whimper fell from her lips as her foot missed the tree limb she was aiming for, followed by an ear-piercing scream as she fell towards the ground, landing in the grass only a few feet from where Carlisle and I sat. Her sketch book flew from her side, and a sickening snap was heard as her body hit the ground with a heavily weighted thump!
Immediately it was followed by another piercing scream from her lips, that became painfully mangled with cried of agony.
"ESME!" my mother shrieked, seeing the fall and running as fast as she could, holding her skirt up to run faster.
I felt Carlisle's embrace around me tighten, almost as if it would offer comfort to younger me as she writhed in pain on the grass, curled up in a ball on her side, clutching her leg and choking on cries . Mother was on the ground beside her in seconds, hysteria already setting in. To her, I'm sure she thought I was dying.
"Henry! HENRY!" she called frantically for my father, who was just walking out of the barn with his farm hand trailing behind him. When they heard my mother scream and he saw his wife and daughter on the ground, the both bolted towards us.
"Ruth what happened?!" he asked mother frantically, seeing his daughter writhing in pain and sobbing.
"She fell out of the tree," mother explained, her hysteria relaxing a touch now that father was there. My skirt had slipped up to my thighs when I fell, and everyone could clearly see the ugly distortion that was my lower right leg. I felt Carlisle lean closer, his underlying doctor mode kicking in, even though he couldn't help the situation. I caught a moment where the farm hand was staring at my legs, quite in a daze, and father caught it, pulling my skirt down to cover them.
"Thomas come help me get the cart. We have to take her to the hospital," he said, and stood up, "Ruth, stay here,"
The two ran off towards the barn to fetch the horses while mother stayed and tried to calm the crying girl curled up against her lap.
I stood up from my husband's lap, pulling him to his feet. He looked extremely worried for the whimpering young woman.
"I'll be ok, you know that," I told him to relax his nerves, "You can't change the past," I added.
Father and Thomas came along several minutes later with the cart, and between the three of them, loaded me into the back of the cart on a pile of blankets and straw. Mother climbed up onto the wagon and held her daughter, as father gave Thomas instructions to finish his work before leaving.
With one hand I heaved myself up onto the back of this cart and Carlisle furrowed his brow at me.
"What are you doing?" he asked, his hand raised towards me, involuntarily connected and forced to follow.
"Well it's 1911, our car is in 2023," I said logically, "And I don't know about you, but I would very much like Dr. Cullen to attend to this leg," I added the last part with a smirk, and Carlisle hopped up himself, right as the horses took off at my fathers command.
