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25. EPILOGUE: TREATY
(followed by a note from the writer and an FAQ)
I was murdering Chopin.
Not literally, of course. Chopin had died long before I'd been born, but I could hear him suffering, all the same.
Sighing in frustration, I pulled my fingers away from the piano keys.
"Why did you stop? It was beautiful."
I turned to frown down at Bella. She'd been seated beside me on the narrow bench for the last half hour, not moving, not making the slightest sound as I'd tried to force my fingers to remember the motions that had once come so easily to them. I shook my head.
"I'm still out of practice. It sounds terrible."
"It was beautiful," she insisted, her golden eyes wide and earnest. To an untrained ear, it probably would have sounded beautiful, but I knew Bella could hear the difference between how the waltz sounded now and how it had sounded when I'd first played it for her all those months ago.
"No, not yet, but I'm getting there."
Brushing a quick kiss against her forehead, I turned back to the piano, my fingers automatically slipping into the one melody I knew I could play perfectly, the one song they would never forget—Bella's lullaby. But wasn't that the way it had been in the weeks since Bella's return? Some things, like my ability to play this song, had fallen back into place perfectly. Others . . . not so much.
Bella and her family were in the former category. They had slipped back into their old lives in Forks as if the town had been waiting patiently for their return, and in a lot of ways, maybe it had.
Bella's father had had no difficulty in getting his old job back. When Charlie had left the Forks Police Department, none of the other officers had wanted to take on the extra responsibility of being in charge, and no suitable candidate had applied. In desperation, the town council had begged old Chief Branson to come out of retirement until a permanent replacement could be found, but Chief Branson had been missing his bird-watching (and his soap operas, if Mrs. Russo's claims about what Mrs. Branson had told her in the frozen food section could be believed), so he was only too happy to step aside as soon as news broke that the Cullen-Swan family was back in town.
The hospital, likewise, had been overjoyed by Carlisle's return. The nurses had even thrown him a little party on his first day back, complete with a ridiculously large cake. As for Bella and Alice, the gossip over their unexpected return to Forks High School had only lasted until about mid-morning on the third day. By then, everyone's attention had shifted to the rather dramatic breakup of two juniors in the school parking lot that morning. The other students barely acknowledged us now as Bella sat down in the seat beside me—the seat that had formerly been hers—in every one of our classes. No one stared as we made our way down the sidewalk. We were old news.
But not everything had slipped back into place so easily. The music that had left my life had returned, but I still had weeks of lost piano practice to make up for. And the return to normalcy had introduced a new worry, one that I hadn't let myself think about while Bella had been gone—college. Before Bella's return, I'd simply assumed I would end up at Peninsula Community College for a couple of years, then move on to the University of Washington if I could bring myself to care enough to choose a major. Now it seemed like a wasted effort, considering that I had other plans for after graduation, but Bella insisted it was all a part of keeping up appearances, of leaving no indication that anything out of the ordinary was about to happen. Her explanation made sense on the surface, but I knew she was hoping I would change my mind. I also knew she was trying to get back on my mother's good side, especially when information about Juilliard started to appear in the stacks of brochures and applications that Bella delivered to my house two or three times a week.
Still, in spite of Bella's best efforts, my mother hadn't entirely forgiven us for what had happened. I was still grounded, of course, with no end of my punishment in sight. The only times I was allowed out of the house were for school (where I spent all day with Bella) and for work (where Bella frequently found excuses to restock her family's camping supplies). When there was no shift at Newton's, I came directly home from school, either to see my mother off to work or to wait for her to come home afterward, as I was doing today. Bella wasn't supposed to be here when my mother wasn't home, of course, but it wasn't hard for her to disappear through a window or to slip out the back door at the sound of a car in the driveway. And she always came back at night, climbing through my bedroom window as soon as it was too late for us to be discovered.
The only other thing that hadn't fallen into place was the thing that hadn't existed before Bella had gone away, and that was something I didn't know how to handle.
I knew my mother had called Billy as soon as I'd returned from Italy, but I also knew I'd left a mess behind me when Alice and I had disappeared. I owed Josie a phone call, at the very least, to tell her directly that I was okay. I also needed to apologize for a couple of things, but Billy had told me that Josie didn't want to talk, and no matter how many times I'd tried to call her over the last few weeks, she hadn't relented. I didn't know what to do about that.
The last few notes of the song drifted away, and I turned to smile down at Bella, but Bella wasn't looking at me. Her face was turned toward the front of the house.
Was my mother home already? I glanced toward the clock on the mantel. No, it was still too early, and Bella wasn't moving toward the back door. I tried to remember what I'd heard in the last few seconds. Had there been a car in the driveway? I didn't think so, but I thought I remembered something loud—a motorcycle?—on the road outside. I couldn't hear anything now.
And then the doorbell rang.
I turned toward Bella, wondering who it might be and if she should find somewhere to hide, but she didn't move.
"Bella?" I said softly. She turned back toward me at the sound of her name, but her expression was unreadable.
Who was at the door? I searched her face, trying to understand what I saw there. Was it . . . concern? Or . . . annoyance? I couldn't be sure, but she wasn't trying to hide. She wasn't trying to hide me, either, so it must not be some emissary of the Volturi, here to check on the status of my mortality.
The doorbell rang again. Whoever it was, they were getting impatient.
Rising from the piano, I walked toward the front window and pushed the curtain aside. There were two motorcycles sitting at the curb—one red and one black. It took me a moment to remember why they seemed so familiar. The last time I'd seen them had been in Jacob's garage. They'd been in pieces back then, no more than random parts scattered about on the tarps Jacob had laid out on the floor, but that had been weeks ago, and there had been more than enough time for Jacob to rebuild them since then.
But if there were two motorcycles . . .
I shifted to the side, pulling the curtain over so that I had a clearer view of the front walk. There, standing just far enough back from the front door that I could see her from this angle, stood Josie, and I could just make out the back of someone standing on the front stoop. It looked like Jacob.
I turned toward Bella, who had slipped away from the piano bench to stand beside me at the window. Surely she knew who was here, but she only frowned as my eyes met hers. After a second, she nodded toward the door. Bella, at least, wasn't planning to cause any trouble. I didn't know about Jacob.
I walked to the front door and opened it.
He was taller than he'd been the last time I'd seen him. I had to look up at him now, even though he was standing outside on the stoop. Somehow, he was still growing.
"Hey, Jake."
"Edward," he said, but he barely even looked at me before his eyes focused on something over my shoulder. His nose wrinkled in distaste. Turning, I saw that Bella was standing several feet behind me. She was watching Jacob carefully.
I took a step backward, toward Bella, but I knew it was a ridiculous gesture. I was only human. How could I protect a vampire from a werewolf, and a huge werewolf, at that? Even standing outside, he filled the entire doorway. I couldn't even see around him.
"We need to talk," he said after several seconds of loaded silence had passed.
I thought back to the last time I'd seen him, when he'd stood inside this very doorway, his hands shaking as he'd argued with Alice. He seemed to be in better control of himself now, but how long would that last?
"Okay," I said warily, "we can talk."
He shook his head, his gaze flickering away from Bella just long enough to make eye contact with me before shifting back.
"Not just to you. I'm here to talk to her, too. I have a message from the pack."
"Oh." I hadn't been expecting that. I stepped back from the doorway and gestured toward the living room. "We've got a few minutes before Mom gets home." I was hoping the reminder might keep him on better behavior, but he sneered and shook his head.
"Not in here. It absolutely reeks in here."
If he was trying to antagonize Bella into a reaction, she didn't take the bait. Then again, if my understanding of their past history was correct, Bella had had far more experience dealing with his ancestors than he'd had in dealing with vampires. Aside from killing them, at least.
"Out back?" Bella suggested. "Edward is already in trouble with his mother. Making a scene for the neighbors would only make things worse."
Jacob stared at her for a moment, hatred burning in his eyes, before nodding. He reached in to grab the doorknob, his eyes never leaving her face as he pulled the door closed behind him.
Bella turned toward the back of the house.
"The last thing you need is Mrs. Russo telling your mother that I'm here."
She wasn't wrong.
"She'll still see that I had visitors," I pointed out.
"Yes, but considering your mother's friendship with Billy Black, I'd imagine she'd view a visit from his . . . offspring a bit differently that she'd view my presence here when she wasn't home."
I sighed. "You're probably right."
"But I do wish he hadn't brought his sister with him." She turned toward me with a frown. "It's already dangerous enough. It'll be even more dangerous if he needs to keep an eye on her."
I tried not to think about whether or not that last part might be true. But why was Josie here? I thought back to the afternoon of Harry's funeral and how protective Jacob had been when she'd sneaked out of La Push to see me, even after he'd discovered that Alice wasn't here. Why would he let her come with him today? Surely another member of the pack could have kept her from following him . . . or he could have left her at Emily's . . .
Bella opened the back door, offering me her hand as she stepped over the threshold. She paused, turning back to face me as I slipped my fingers between hers. "This shouldn't take long," she said. "They just want to deliver a message, but I need you to stay behind me the entire time, just in case."
"Okay." I pulled my eyes away from hers to scan the backyard, but I couldn't see Jacob or Josie anywhere. Had Jacob left her out front? No, he wouldn't have wanted to leave her alone.
As I followed Bella toward the little nature trail behind the house, I couldn't stop myself from remembering the last time we had come this way. She must have sensed something—a falter in my step or a change in my heart rate—or maybe her thoughts were headed in the same direction as mine because she squeezed my hand gently.
"I'm not going anywhere," she whispered, "not ever again."
That was when I heard it, a quick huff . . . or a scoff . . . something. I looked away from Bella to find Jacob and Josie standing a short distance down the path.
Jacob was standing in front of his sister, but Josie wasn't entirely hidden from view. Her hair was tucked under a familiar-looking baseball cap, and she was staring down at the ground, her arms crossed in front of her. She looked like she was cold—not surprising, since there was a damp chill in the air, and she was only wearing a t-shirt and shorts. How had she kept from freezing on the motorcycle ride from La Push? If she'd been riding with Jacob, his body heat might have kept her warm, but she couldn't have ridden with him if there were two motorcycles out front.
I watched as Josie's gaze moved up from the ground, her eyes briefly meeting mine before they moved on to where Bella stood just in front of me. Something dark flashed in her eyes as they widened, and she seemed to stiffen. I saw Jacob reach out a hand to steady her.
"We're here," Bella said after a moment. "What is this message you were supposed to deliver?"
Jacob's eyes narrowed.
"We're here to remind you and the other bloodsuckers of a few key points in the treaty you agreed to."
"I'd imagine we remember it better than you do, considering that we were actually there." Bella tilted her head slightly. "You're not as tall as your great-grandfather was."
Jacob's eyes grew darker, and I thought I saw him begin to shake faintly. Behind him, Josie was shivering.
Key points? What were they talking about? I tried to remember everything I knew about the treaty. It was mostly boundary lines and places each side couldn't go. There were secrets that had to be kept and promises not to kill humans . . . but I felt like there was something else . . . something I'd heard once and thought must be very important. I just couldn't remember what it was . . .
"Then you'll remember the part where you agreed never to bite a human. Bite," he emphasized, "not kill. If any of you bite a human, the truce is over."
Yes, that was it. I remembered it now, that conversation in the Rabbit. It seemed like it had happened years ago, instead of only a few short weeks. To be honest, I'd forgotten all about it. Did they suspect something? Did they know what Carlisle had agreed to do, or were they merely reminding Bella and her family of that technicality, just in case? Either way, it seemed like the smartest course of action was to keep my mouth shut. If I said anything now, things could easily escalate, and I didn't want to know how that fight would end.
"I'm aware of that," Bella answered. "As I said before, I was there."
A faint breeze blew through the trees behind us, and I watched as Josie's shivers grew stronger. She needed a jacket or something, but I was afraid to leave the three of them alone to go get her one.
"Was that the entire message?" Bella asked after a moment.
Jacob nodded once.
"Good, because I have a few things to say." Her body language changed subtly, becoming slightly less rigid. If I hadn't been standing behind her, I might not have noticed the faint shift in her shoulders, but I was certain Jacob could see it. "First of all, I want to thank you."
Jacob seemed caught off guard. He blinked in surprise.
"For what?" he asked.
"For keeping Edward safe while we were gone." She turned toward Josie. "For getting him out of the water that day."
Jacob scoffed.
"It wasn't for your benefit," Josie said from behind him. It was the first time she'd spoken, and I was surprised by the acid in her tone. It wasn't like her to be that way, but maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised, considering the way I'd left things between us. Considering the way things were now.
"I know," Bella said softly, sincerely, "but I'm still grateful." She turned her attention back to Jacob.
"Secondly, we've found no trace of Victoria on our side of the line. Have you?"
Jacob frowned. "The last time was while Edward was . . . away. We let her think she was slipping through. We were tightening the circle, getting ready to ambush her, but then she took off like a bat out of hell. Near as we can tell, she caught your . . . friend's scent and bailed. She hasn't come near our lands since."
Bella nodded. "When she returns, you won't need to worry about her. We'll take care of—"
"She killed on our turf," Jacob hissed, taking a small step forward. "She's ours!"
Suddenly his hands were clenched into fists. The rage that had begun to cool in his eyes burst into flame again. I could see him starting to shake . . . and Josie was standing too close, just like Emily had been. But that wasn't all I could see. In the back of my mind, I could imagine Jacob phasing, imagine him lunging toward Bella. And I could see Bella meeting him halfway, her hands reaching out for his throat, her lips pulling back to expose her teeth . . .
I stepped forward, placing myself between them. The hand I held in front of me was shaking harder than Jacob was. The other one probably was, too, but it was stretched toward Bella, and I couldn't see it.
"You both want the same thing," I reminded them. "There's no reason to argue about this."
I turned toward Bella to see that she was shaking her head. She was also glaring daggers at me, probably annoyed that I hadn't stayed behind her, but her voice sounded calm when she spoke.
"That's easier said than done, Edward." She studied Jacob for a moment before she continued. "Fine. You stay on your side of the line, and we'll stay on ours. You can deal with her if she's in your territory, but if she gets through, she's ours, and if you let her through and she gets anywhere near Edward, you will have me to deal with."
I had expected another angry outburst from Jacob, but he wasn't even looking at Bella. He had turned toward his sister.
"Deal," he said, turning back to us after another moment had passed. I breathed a sigh of relief. "Is that everything?" he asked. I could still hear the venom in his tone.
"For now," Bella answered. "I should probably get Edward back to the house. Lizzie will be home soon."
But I wasn't ready to go, not yet. I was watching Josie now. She was still shivering, but not as hard as she had been before, and she wasn't looking at Bella anymore. She was looking at me.
"Can I have a minute?" I asked.
Bella studied me for a moment. "We have a few," she finally said.
There were so many things I needed to say to Josie, but here, standing in front of Bella and Jacob, was hardly the place, and I could see that she was still visibly upset by what had almost happened. What could I say to her to make her understand? To apologize for all the things I needed to apologize for? But I could see something in her eyes, too. I could see sadness, and maybe an apology of her own. In the end, I said the only thing I could think to say.
"We're still friends, right?"
"I don't know how that's supposed to work," Jacob muttered, but I could see that Josie understood my question was meant for her. Still, she gave no answer. Her eyes were sad as they pulled away from mine. I waited for another moment, but her gaze stayed glued to the dirt at her feet.
Turning, I took Bella's hand, and we made our way back up the path toward the house. We slipped through the back door and sat down on the piano bench again, but I wasn't in the mood to play, not anymore. Time ticked slowly by as we waited. Eventually I heard the sound of two motorcycles starting in front of the house. I listened as the roar of their engines grew momentarily louder, then faded in the distance.
"So if Carlisle changes me," I said, once I knew they were gone, "that would violate the treaty? Even if he didn't kill me? Even if I'd asked him to do it?"
"You don't have to change," Bella reminded me softly. "You could stay human."
"But if Carlisle changes me . . ." I began again.
"We'd have to leave," she said after a long moment. "And if we left with you while you were still human, they would know why. The treaty isn't specific about where we are when it happens—it was meant to prevent us from killing or changing anyone ever again—but there aren't enough of them to search the whole world for us. If we left, we could make sure they never found us, but we would never be able to come back here again."
And I would never be able to come back here again. It didn't seem right. Didn't I have any say in my own future?
"Maybe if I talk to Sam . . ."
But Bella only frowned.
"Do you really think that would matter?" she asked. "I don't know this Sam, but if he's their leader, he's no fool. He sent the two of them here for a reason. We usually avoid each other as much as possible. When Carlisle returned to the area a few years ago, he made a single phone call to Billy Black, so if Sam's only goal had been to remind us about the treaty, he wouldn't have needed to do it in person. A phone call would have been sufficient. He sent them here to remind you, and he sent the two of them to make it personal."
I glanced down at our joined hands.
"Do you think he suspects that Carlisle has already offered to change me?"
"Maybe. Or maybe he's just trying to scare you off before it comes to that point. Still, he took quite a gamble, sending one of the youngest members of the pack here. It's always harder for the younger wolves to control themselves. If I had been attacked, the treaty would have been void."
No, it would have been far worse than a voided treaty. I tried to push the horrible image from my mind.
"I just don't understand why Sam would make Jacob bring Josie. When she came here a few weeks ago, she had to sneak around the others to do it. They wouldn't have let her come that time if they'd known what she was planning."
Bella began to rise from the piano bench. Outside, I could hear the familiar sound of my mother's car pulling into the driveway. It was time for Bella to disappear, but instead of heading for the back door, she turned toward me, a puzzled expression on her face.
"You . . . you don't know, do you?" she asked.
"Know what?"
"Edward, Jacob wasn't the only wolf Sam sent today. Didn't you see the way Josie was shaking?"
I didn't understand. "She was cold. She was shivering."
"I assure you that she was not cold. I could feel the heat radiating off of her from where I was standing. She was shaking because she's new. That's probably why she didn't have much to say. It was taking all of her focus just to stay in control of herself."
I stared at her numbly. I was hearing Bella's words, but they weren't making sense. It wasn't possible. There were no female wolves. There had never been female wolves. Josie had said so, herself.
A car door closed outside.
"And if you could have smelled them!" Bella continued, wrinkling her nose. "They smelled like two wet dogs."
I didn't realize I was shaking my head until Bella leaned forward for a quick kiss.
"Edward, Josie is a wolf, too. I swear."
I heard the front door open.
"Edward?" my mother called. "I'm home."
"I'll be back tonight," Bella whispered, and then she was gone.
. . . . .
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A note from the writer:
And so we meet again at the end of an epilogue.
First (and most importantly), I want to thank each and every one of you who have been reading this story and offering your thoughts along the way. I try very hard to do these stories justice, and I can't even begin to explain how much time I put into them. There aren't as many of you this time around (at least not reviewing), so I'm doubly appreciative to those of you who take the time to let me know that you're there. Knowing that people are reading and enjoying what I'm writing is what gives me the push to keep going, instead of just giving up part of the way through and turning my attention to all of the other things in life that are always demanding my time and energy.
When I finished Twilight Through the Looking Glass, I didn't know if this story would ever happen. I knew some of what my characters would do next, but there were still a lot of things I hadn't figured out yet, so when life got busy (as it does), this story fell by the wayside. But things have a funny way of coming back around again sometimes. I'm glad this one did because I'd forgotten how much fun it is to play around in this Looking Glass Universe.
For those of you still reading, I'm sure you're wondering about the next story, tentatively titled Shattered Eclipse, and the honest answer is the same one I gave at the end of the last story . . . I just don't know. I know a lot of what will happen, but there are still kinks to work out, and I really need to take a break from writing. Maybe I'll start it next year, or maybe I'll wait another six and a half years, like I did last time. Maybe it will never happen (but if it does, let's hope it's not because I suddenly find myself with a lot of free time and a need to mark things off my bucket list due to another global pandemic . . . ) If I do continue, I'd recommend that you watch my profile for the new story to be posted because it won't be posted as a new chapter to this one. If I ever decide that I won't be continuing, I'll try to add the resolutions to some of those dangling plot points in the FAQ below.
Only time will tell.
Thank you for reading.
Willa
. . . . .
~.~.~.~.~FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS~.~.~.~.~
I've had some really great questions sent to me (some of them more than once) and some very insightful comments that have been shared since I began this story, so I thought maybe I'd include this little FAQ here, at the end of the epilogue, like I did with TTtLG. If you have a question that I haven't answered here, please feel free to ask. (I would recommend not reading these until you've finished reading the story, though, because . . . well . . . spoilers.)
Q: I can't imagine Bella ever leaving Edward! That doesn't feel in character . . .
A: I couldn't agree more, and that was one of the reasons it took me six and a half years to start this story. I simply could not imagine a universe in which Bella could ever leave Edward. It took me a couple of years of thought and sorting out the details of Bella's backstory to understand what my vampire Bella's issues are. Once I understood what "drives" her, I realized that she could and would leave Edward if she thought his life absolutely depended upon it, but that her departure would play out differently than it did when vampire Edward left human Bella in New Moon. When Edward leaves, he wants Bella to think he doesn't love her anymore because he wants her to move on with her life, and he deliberately lies to her to try to make that happen, but in this Looking Glass Universe, Bella doesn't try to tell Edward that she doesn't love him because those words could never come out of her mouth. My Bella is completely honest about why she's leaving, and her honesty influences the way Edward handles the next six months.
And maybe this is a good place to bring up something else -
One of the fun things about my Looking Glass Universe is that there are things the characters do not yet know that we already know because we've already read the original stories. (Of course, that just means I have to come up with new things to keep these stories interesting.) For example, we already know all the members of the Denali coven (well almost . . . ), we already know about the werewolves, and we already know that Edward has a latent mind-reading ability that no one in the stories will discover for quite some time yet. Edward's unknown mind-reading ability actually plays a part in how Edward reacts when Bella leaves because while Edward can't subconsciously pick up on Bella's thoughts, he can pick up on the thoughts of everyone around her, and in the months between the end of the last story and the beginning of this one, he's been hanging around with Bella's family quite a bit. He may not be getting Bella's thoughts, but he is picking up on Jasper's thoughts about Bella's emotions when she's around Edward. He's also picking up on the others worrying because they know Bella is truly in love with Edward and that if anything ever happens to him, she will never move on because vampires aren't capable of that kind of change. These things are cemented in Edward's mind, so he knows (on that subconscious level) that Bella's love for him is never going to change, which is why he is so . . . absolutely gobsmacked when Bella leaves him. Now, remember that when Bella leaves, Edward hasn't seen a single member of her family since everything went wrong the night of the party. He hasn't been able to pick up on their thoughts about leaving, and he can't read Bella's mind, so he dismisses any passing thoughts he has that something is really, seriously wrong because he has no one's thoughts to back up those suspicions. And when Bella does leave, it throws everything out of balance because something has just happened that Edward knows could never happen.
Q: I hate Josie! Why did you have to have another love triangle?
A: Hey, I'm not a big fan of love triangles either—it's why Eclipse is my least favorite book of the series—but without the love triangle, these stories would have a lot less conflict, which would make them shorter and a lot more boring. I don't dislike Jacob in the original books. He's not an evil character. He's just a guy going through some pretty crazy stuff who's had the misfortune to fall in love with a girl that he's never going to end up with while he's still going through said pretty crazy stuff. I kind of feel the same way about Josie now, poor kid.
Q: Edward would never fall in love with someone else. He's in love with Bella. He'd never cheat on her that way!
A: I completely agree. I also completely disagree. Let me explain . . .
Edward, as we know him from the original books, is completely and utterly devoted to Bella, but that's not just because of who he is. It's also a result of what he is.
Vampires aren't just physically frozen in time—they are also mentally and emotionally frozen. It takes something big to make them change, and when that change occurs, it becomes a permanent part of them. There's a lovely section in Midnight Sun where Edward talks about how Carlisle still looks at Esme like it's the first time he's seen her since the moment he first fell in love with her, even though decades have passed. Carlisle is (for lack of a better way of explaining it) stuck in that moment where he fell in love with Esme, and he will always be there. OG vampire Edward feels the same way about Bella, and that's why he'd never be able to fall in love with someone else . . . or even think of someone else that way.
In this universe, however, where everything is flipped, it's vampire Bella who is incapable of change. She'll never be able to step out of that moment when she first fell in love with Edward. (So no, there will be no Bella in the middle of a love triangle here. There will be no Bella kissing some other guy on a mountaintop, either. Bella and Jacob could never happen in this universe.)
Humans, of course, don't work like vampires. They aren't frozen in time. Humans grow and change. They are capable of falling in and out of love. And this Edward is human, and he is capable of change. But before you start shoving pins into that voodoo doll of me . . .
I knew I needed a love triangle (at least on some level), and even though I wasn't exactly ecstatic about the idea, I had to figure out how to get Edward into the middle of one. Whether he's a human or a vampire, Edward still loves Bella, and Edward is still the "completely devoted" type of guy. Add to that the fact that in this universe, when Bella leaves, she doesn't try to convince Edward that she doesn't love him anymore, and we've got a bit of a problem because human Edward knows Bella still loves him, and he's going to hold on to that as hard as he can, so he's even less likely to fall in love with someone else. I had to figure out how to weasel someone else into his affections . . . and the best way to do that was to have someone else already be there. Edward and Josie actually started years ago. They're an unresolved situation from the past that never got the chance to play out. In fact, you could easily make the case that Bella is the other woman here . . .
I'd imagine that Edward/Josie would play out a bit differently than Bella/Jacob did. Edward can be oblivious sometimes, but he's not as oblivious as Bella was about Jacob. He does realize (on a much more conscious level than Bella did) that he has some pesky feelings for Josie . . . he's just not sure what to do about them.
Q: Why do you keep talking about Mrs. Russo?
A: Because everyone needs a nosy neighbor. Those of you with sharp eyes and a good memory may remember her from Chapter 15 of TTtLG. I tell myself that she was probably there in the original stories, too, watching with wide eyes as Edward and Jacob argued on Bella's front lawn. We just didn't know about her character because Bella and Charlie weren't exactly in her gossip circle, whereas Lizzie seems like she would be more likely to be.
Q: What's up with the old movie references?
A: I'm not a fan of black-and-white horror movies, but Josie is. Cheesy old horror films are one of her favorite things. Those of you with sharp eyes and a good memory will remember that in Chapter 8, Edward and the twins watch an old horror flick about an alien invasion. Later, after he and Josie have spent a lot of time hanging out, Edward references The Wolf Man, another old horror movie that they would have watched. Made in 1941, it stars Lon Chaney, Jr. and is the first of several movies featuring Chaney as Larry Talbot, a werewolf. During this time period, Hollywood churned out a number of monster films, many of them starring Chaney or Bela Lugosi as whatever monster the movie was about. (Lugosi is probably best known for his portrayal of Dracula, but he also had a part in The Wolf Man portraying the werewolf who bit and turned Chaney's character. Well, actually, the werewolf that bit Chaney's character was played by a dog that turns back into a man—Lugosi—when it is killed. Conversely, Chaney's character is never a canine when in werewolf form. He's always just a man with lots of make-up on. It's a glaring inconsistency, but it's exactly the sort of thing Josie loves about old horror flicks.)
Q: What is this weird mind-reading thing between Jacob and Josie? How is it supposed to work, and why did you add it in? What's the point?
A: I had important reasons for that little addition . . . and I'm going to call it an "addition" rather than a "change." After all, nowhere in the books does Meyer say twins can't do that when at least one of them is in the pack. For all we know, that is a part of werewolf lore that we've just never been told because we haven't encountered that situation in the OG universe . . . That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
How I imagine this working is similar to (but not exactly like) the connection Jacob and Sam discover in Breaking Dawn—the book, of course, not the movie. For those of you who don't remember, while different packs aren't able to read each other's minds, two alpha wolves can communicate telepathically. It's not an "always on" thing like inside the pack. It's more like speaking aloud—they only share the thoughts they want to share. (And unlike my "addition," Jacob and Sam can only communicate this way while they're both wolves. For Jacob and Josie, this works even when one or both of them are human. It just took Jake becoming a wolf to trigger it.)
The next obvious question is why I did this, and there is a very practical reason for it. When I was writing the first story, I realized how pivotal Edward's mind-reading ability is to the original series, most notably in the last two books. Whenever we have wolves and vampires/humans in the same scene, Edward is the only reason anyone knows what the wolves are thinking. (And before anyone thinks it, having a wolf in human form wouldn't work either because that person wouldn't be able to hear the rest of the pack while they were human.) The easiest solution to this problem was to create another wolf translator. That way, if we have a group of wolves that includes Jacob and a group of vampires/humans that includes Josie, Jacob can just tell Josie what all of the wolves are thinking so that she can voice those thoughts to everyone else (or vice versa, as we learn in the Epilogue). It solves the missing mind-reader problem . . . if I were ever to keep writing beyond this story.
Q: Finn? I thought his name was Aidan.
A: It was when I originally posted Chapter 19 . . . but then he became Finn. Finn, the mysterious extra member of the Denali coven, has actually been around for a long time (see Chapter 14 of TTtLG), but it took me a while to figure the character out. Once I understood his personality, no name that I came up with seemed to suit him. When I was writing TTtLG, I thought of him as Patrick (although I always knew that was just a placeholder name). Later, he became Drew before he cycled around to Aidan, but even as I posted Chapter 19, I knew the name still wasn't right. Then, a couple of weeks later, I stumbled across a mention of Fionn Mac Cumhaill, the mythical Irish hero, and I realized that the character should have been named Finn all along . . . and that even if he wasn't named that originally, he would totally have changed his name to Finn anyway.
Q: So what was your favorite thing to write in this story?
A: Chapter 21, hands down. I just love the image of Jane staring at Edward, completely confused because her gift isn't working on him . . . and then her shock as she realizes why. Up until that point, Bella had been an anomaly, an annoyance, but in that moment, everything changes, and suddenly Jane realizes that Bella could render her completely powerless against other people, too. It absolutely terrifies her—she's a bully suddenly realizing that someone else can beat her up—and it's wonderful.
I also love Bella instinctively shielding Edward. In the original series, Bella can't figure out how to use her shield until she gets tricked by a (fake) threat to Nessie. I imagine it would take a similar circumstance for Bella to successfully use her gift for the first time in this universe, too, even if she doesn't know how to control it yet. And yes, I've been planning that moment since about the middle of Twilight Through the Looking Glass.
The original version of this scene has always been a bit frustrating for me. We know that Aro plots . . . a lot . . . especially after the confrontation in Breaking Dawn, so it feels like there is probably a lot happening under the surface of that first meeting in Volterra that human Bella can't pick up on. Vampire Edward would have known what Aro was thinking, of course, but we don't have a Midnight Sun version of New Moon, so I made up my own . . . sort of. Human Edward doesn't realize that he's "very perceptive," as Aro puts it, and even though he's still human and doesn't have his full mind reading ability yet, I figure the extra adrenaline in his system during this scene might heighten ALL of his senses, even the extra one he doesn't know he has. He's able to pick up on a lot of things that human Bella couldn't, and even though large chunks of conversation in this scene are almost word-for-word the same as in the original book, Edward's point of view adds a new layer to everything that happens.
This also happens (a bit) when Edward encounters Laurent in the meadow. From the moment Laurent steps into sight, Edward subconsciously knows (rather than just suspecting) why Laurent is approaching him, even if he isn't consciously certain of it. That's why he's looking for clues like the color of Laurent's eyes and the clothes that obviously belonged to someone else (in other words, one of Laurent's victims). It's also why he's a bit quicker at countering Laurent's questions about why the Cullens aren't there—he's had a few more seconds to think about what to say because he was picking up on the direction of Laurent's thoughts before Laurent actually spoke. We can also make the case that it's possibly what makes him think of Alice, as well. Edward has been trying so hard NOT to think of Bella and her family, but if Laurent had thought, "Irina told me about Alice . . . I wonder if she'll see this about to happen . . ." Edward could have picked up on that and thought of Alice and what Bella had said about having Alice keep an eye on him. It's all very twisty, but it's lots of fun to write.
Q: In Chapter 24, why doesn't anyone mention that Bella can hide Edward from Demetri? If Bella is shielding Edward, Demetri won't be able to find either one of them.
A: This is another one of those things that we know but the characters don't. At the end of OG Breaking Dawn, Bella has learned enough to be able to do this, but at this point in our Looking Glass Universe, she's only managed to shield Edward once, and she isn't entirely sure how she did that. It was an instinctive thing, not an intentional thing, and she has no idea how to replicate it or even whether or not it would work against Demetri.
Q: Wait, Edward didn't propose? Why not?
A: New Moon ends with Bella and Edward each wanting something that the other is hesitant to give—Bella wants Edward to be the one to change her (when Edward doesn't want her to change at all), and Edward wants Bella to marry him (when she is uncomfortable with the idea of marriage). Bella has wanted to be changed for quite some time, of course, but now the situation is more balanced because Edward wants something from her, as well, and that gives her a bit more leverage than she has had before.
At the end of this story, however, things are much more one-sided. Edward has already set a plan in motion for Carlisle to change him after graduation. He wants Bella to be okay with this, but she is very upset. He knows there must be a reason why she is so set against him becoming a vampire and why she's so convinced that she's going to hell, but he also knows this is something that Bella has intentionally kept from him. He wants her to accept his decision and to open up and tell him the truth, but he knows how hard this will be for her. It's an entirely one-sided situation, with Edward being the one who wants everything from Bella. Adding a proposal in there would only make the imbalance that much worse. Unless Bella was the one to do the proposing, of course, and . . . no.
But I do have plans for the proposal, I promise, and if you read Chapter 24 carefully, the sentiment is still there. Edward is very specific about wanting to spend the rest of his life with Bella. He just doesn't frame it as a marriage proposal.
If anyone else has anything else they'd like to ask, please let me know!
