A nervous laugh escaped me as I averted my eyes away from her wondering ones. I could feel the venom abandoning my extremities leaving me in a frozen state. I had to fight against this natural reaction of my body, it was happening far too often recently. It was only her. It was Alice.
In the furthest recesses of my mind, I knew that it was not the act of divulging I feared. It was her reaction. Those beautiful inquisitive eyes of hers would soon turn to disgust and horror; how could they not?
"Alrighty, perhaps that was too hard of a question to start with. That's okay! How about I tell you what I know and then you can help me sort of fill in the blanks?" she offered almost apologetically. How was it that fate had brought this pure and innocent soul back to the frightening monster once again?
I returned my look back to her, taking in the unusual color of her eyes. They were no longer a harsh topaz or void-less onyx, though they did still change colors. Right now they were a brilliant golden color with rays of yellow and brown. Her left eye possessed a freckle of sorts in the bottom corner of her iris; a feature I had often admired in her eyes before. I used this to remind myself she WAS my Alice.
She did not wait for my response. "So, as you have probably gathered, I have…visions? I guess that's what you could call them. Sometimes they're predictions of things that could happen, but sometimes they're almost like flashbacks. This field for instance," she gestured around us with a sparkle in her eye.
"I have seen this place a million times, each on a different occasion. I can tell the visions from the flashbacks easiest with this place. The visions are very fuzzy, like there hasn't been a definitive decision yet. The flashbacks though, they could make a killing in a box-office." She laughed a beautiful song. I listened carefully for her depictions of these flashbacks. I knew that they would tell me what I needed to know about her knowledge of us.
She hesitated, looking at me for permission to continue. If that permission was to come from herself or me, I could only speculate.
With another nervous laugh, she began. "Well, I'm much different for one. Faster and less fragile for sure." She paused "Sometimes I have these blazing red eyes and sometimes I have ones that match yours and your family's. It's not that that I mind. It's my physique. Its so small and malnourished. My hair is always cropped and spiked in a million directions like this!" She grabbed the ends of her hair and pulled it out to either side with a smile.
As she let her tendrils fall, I smoothed them with the back of my hand, into the curled pattern it belonged in. Her breath quickened and her heart sped up, but only for a moment. Her talent of composure was incomprehensible, it went against every aspect of her nature. Then again, as did our very existence.
"Anyway," she continued after a breath. "Over the years, I've seen so many different versions of myself and various events that I don't even know which are real. So, I guess that's what I'm hoping to get out of this conversation, and maybe that'll make things a little easier for you. I won't be frightened or disturbed; I'll be rather relieved to hear the truth finally."
I could only shake my head. It was incredible what this small woman did to me.
"Well, I suppose that's as good of a reason as any." I joked.
"Indeed!" she giggled as she readjusted her position in the snow like an impatient child. It was incredible that the temperature had no ill-effects on her body. I suppose that was another truth that'll be discovered from this conversation.
"Do you remember when we first met?" I inquired.
"Do you mean the hot chocolate incident or the diner?"
I was taken aback. She knew a great deal more than I initially had hoped.
"Huh, I meant the hot chocolate, but I guess that answers more than one question. At the Twilight Walk, you said my name. Did you hear it in a vision?"
"Hmm. That's a sort of complicated question. I wasn't fully…in my mind at that time so it's a little confusing. It felt like I said your name out of familiarity because I didn't make the connection to my visions initially. It was the fact that I knew your name that made me realize you were Him. Just a little more breathtaking in person." She winked.
I let out a rough laugh. This was all uneven terrain that I wasn't prepared for. "I'm sorry, this is just all a bit odd to go through without forcing you into any positions. You see, when we first met, you were going through the same thing. You had had visions of me ever since you could remember and knew everything of my past and our present and future."
She reached her hand out hesitantly towards mine.
"So, was this with me?" she whispered with the face of a worried puppy whilst pointing the closing distance to my left hand.
I twisted the antique band on my ring finger instinctively. It had become a habit of mine since she had disappeared. I met her eyes again intently and nodded slowly fear setting deep within me.
"I knew it!" She cheered and moved closer to me. "I knew there was something between us. It feels almost supernatural. It's all very angsty and young adult fiction." She tittered.
"We use the term mates, although that can be a bit…incongruous" I wanted to reach for her. To draw her into my lap, to smooth away the wrinkle between her brows.
"I like it. It implies finality and certainty. Something I have certainly been lacking in this life. Won't you continue?"
"We are, or at least you were…Immortals."
"As in vampires?" She uttered softly.
"Yes, vampires." I hesitated waiting for the horror to reach her face, but it never did. "We met in 1948 in Philadelphia. There was a storm, and I was out during the day — something I was not completely comfortable with yet. I knew standing in the rain would only attract unwanted attention, so I ducked into a little half-empty diner off of the beaten path." I decided the part about my diet and eye color could wait for another time.
"You were there — expecting me, naturally." I chuckled, absorbed in the memory "Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small figure hop down from the high stool at the counter as soon as I walked in and it came directly toward me. I was fearful of your intentions, but the emotions that were emanating from you were like nothing I'd ever felt before." I brought myself back to the present so that I could observe her reactions. She was absolutely engrossed in the story.
"I was raised in Texas with a high respect for women, but you were unlike anything I had ever experienced. The first thing to come out of your beautiful mouth was 'You've kept me waiting a long time' I couldn't help but comply with Southern traditions and offer my apologies." I smiled at her. "You held out your hand, and I took it without stopping to make sense of what I was doing. For the first time in almost a century, I felt hope. It was automatic and terrifying to feel so devoted and vulnerable to anyone but myself. You told me of your visions, of us being together and joining Carlisle and his family. I could not help but believe you. You cannot simply experience a real life fortune teller who knows everything of your life and not."
"Wow…That's. I've never seen that before, but I feel like I can picture it. That's such a weird feeling."
"We can stop Darlin'. I do not want to overwhelm you." I extended.
"No! Absolutely not! I like the feeling. I like finally having definitive knowledge of what's real. So, your emotion thing and my visions. Are they vampire things ?"
"When we become like we are, our existence as a human is amplified. Anything we possessed in our prior life is brought over stronger and more fine-tuned. I was very attuned to others in my human life, so when I transitioned, I gained the ability to sense and manipulate the emotions of others. Your visions are a tad different. We never knew much about your human life, but we did know that you had always had visions."
"Great, I was always a freak." She laughed.
"No, not a freak, just gifted Darlin'." I cringed at the thought. Alice's disappearance was so calculated that we had always expected foul play. There was only one we knew of with the ability to ensure her capture willingly. I shook the thought from my mind.