Mythology became a subject of great importance.
Often, when I look back over my first three months as an immortal, I imagine how the thread of my life might look in the Fates' loom – who knew but that it actually existed? I was sure my thread must have changed color; I thought it had probably started out as a nice beige, something supportive and non confrontational, something that would look good in the background. Now it felt like it must be bright crimson, or maybe glistening gold.
The tapestry of my family that was woven together around me was a beautiful, glowing thing, full of their bright, complementary colors. There were threads I expected I would never get to see woven again with mine, such as Charlie's. And there were threads that desperately wished to pull out and burn- dark and ominous. They belonged to the Volturi. If I could not get rid of all three I wished to get rid of those belonging to Aro and Caius. They were the real threats. Marcus was, by what Carlisle told us, uninvolved. "He was like this even when I stayed with them. The whispers were that he'd lost his mate long ago. No one knows for sure. While in their library I came upon a few scrolls of things he'd written. Humanist and epicurean notions put down on paper a thousand years before they were thought of by the ancient philosophers; or even more modern ideas such as moral particularism. The man who had written those ideas had a bright, clever and enthusiastic mind. Something terrible must have happened for him to be reduced to the creature that he is today."
About two months after I was changed, I had my first face to face meeting with my father. I was, understandably, nervous, though I had started feeding Renesmee just a week before without any issues and had been out in public a few times. Mostly around camping grounds, close enough to see and smell the humans, but without having them see me.
It wasn't a pleasant experience, but I wasn't inclined to hunt them. I kept a cool head.
The next step was to meet him.
I knew beforehand how good he smelled. He came daily to visit Renesmee while I and another member of the family were away (mostly Jasper, who was extremely curious about each aspect of my newborn life) and since he would move about the house he would leave his scent. It was a mouthwatering scent, but as long as I knew I was going to smell it I could keep my wits about me.
Not long after, at Jasper's suggestion, Charlie would leave behind a shirt or T-shirt that he'd worn. Those smelled stronger of him, but as the days passed I grew accustomed. "Is this how it was for you?" I asked my husband one evening while we were retreating to our small cottage with Renesmee in tow.
"Yes, for the most part. You smelled much better than he does," he said with a bashful smile on his face.
"I smelled better than him?"
"For me? Yes, much more. There are a few hints of your scent in him as well as in Renee, but the combination proved lethal for me," he said playfully, suddenly dipping me and placing his lips on my neck.
"How very vampire of you."
"It is in my nature."
Besides Charlie, another subject that became of increasing importance was visiting the Volturi. More than four years had passed since Alice promised Aro that I would join the Cullen family in nature as well as in name.
I didn't know that Alice had sent a wedding announcement to the Volturi leaders, until the day that Aro's present showed up; we'd been far away on Esme's island when she'd seen a vision of Volturi soldiers – Jane and Alec, the devastatingly powerful twins, among them. Caius was planning to send a hunting party to see if I was still human, against their edict (because I knew about the secret vampire world, I either must join it or be silenced... permanently). So Alice had mailed the announcement, seeing that this would delay them as they deciphered the meaning behind it. But they would come eventually. That was certain.
The present itself was not overtly threatening. Extravagant, yes, almost frightening in that very extravagance. The threat was in the parting line of Aro's congratulatory note, written in black ink on a square of heavy, plain white paper in Aro's own hand:
I look forward to seeing the new Mrs. Cullen in person.
The gift was presented in an ornately carved, ancient wooden box inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl, ornamented with a rainbow of gemstones. Alice said the box itself was a priceless treasure, that it would have outshone just about any piece of jewelry besides the one inside it.
"I always wondered where the crown jewels disappeared after John of England pawned them in the thirteenth century," Carlisle said. "I suppose it doesn't surprise me that the Volturi have their share. It does surprise me that he never shared that he owned them given my fascination, at that time, about England's history. He certainly likes to show off."
The necklace was simple – gold woven into a thick rope of a chain, almost scaled, like a smooth snake that would curl close around the throat. One jewel hung suspended from the rope; a white diamond the size of a golf ball.
The unsubtle reminder in Aro's note had interested me more than the jewel. The Volturi needed to see that I was immortal, that the Cullens had been obedient to their orders, and they needed to see this soon. Enough time had passed. They could not be allowed near Forks. There was only one way to keep our life here safe.
Edward still thought that they would wait at least another half of a decade before they would send someone on their behalf. I was less confident. And the only one in the family that could visit them without putting my daughter and father in danger.
We made plans upon plans, but none satisfied or assured that Aro's suspicion would not be raised if I went alone, especially without Edward. I wondered if he would take offense that not even Carlisle would join me. He could not be allowed to see her, not even through someone's thoughts. The Denali's were proposed, but they would also raise Aro's suspicion.
It was imperative that the Volturi would think that we were not keeping secrets from them. I knew, deep in my heart, that we would not be able to hide Renesmee from them forever, but I would do all that I could to postpone the unfortunate moment. Even in the short time I'd known Aro, I'd been able to see that he was a collector – and his most prized treasures were his living pieces. He coveted beauty, talent, and rarity in his immortal followers more than any jewel locked in his vaults. It was unfortunate enough that he'd begun to covet Alice's and Edward's abilities. I would give him no more reason to be jealous of Carlisle's family. Renesmee was beautiful and gifted and unique in her nature.
That very same nature terrified me. Her growth had accelerated after her birth that by the time she was just two months old, she could easily hold her head and sit upright. She had had tentative attempts at crawling and each day she couldn't do it was a blessing. I was terrified of what it meant. I could easily do the math and if her growth would accelerate at the same rate… I didn't like the numbers.
Whenever she did something that was beyond her age, I saw my fear reflected on Edward's face.
She hadn't begun to speak, but she would make noises and she would laugh. She would laugh at Edward whenever he made faces at her or when he would gently throw her in the air. Small, gentle moves that made me envious. I was not as good at distributing my strength as he was and I was afraid that I could hurt her. It would be so easy. It made me think of a conversation I had with Edward when we went into the meadow for the first time, about how easy it would be for him to kill me if he wasn't constantly paying attention to his moves; crush my skull, that was what I could do to her when the only thing I would want would be to caress her soft and rosy cheek.
Those were the only moments when I felt displeasure at being changed.
The family threw themselves into research, looking for any answers, anything to expect. There was very little to be found, and none of it verifiable. Questions gathered and gathered and there were no answers to satisfy them.
A small consolation was to see how well she fit with us. Alice and Rosalie usually began our day with a fashion show. Renesmee never wore the same clothes twice, partly because she outgrew her clothes in a few days and partly because Alice and Rosalie were trying to create a baby album that appeared to span years rather than weeks. They took hundreds of pictures, documenting every phase of her accelerated childhood. Renesmee usually fussed after outfit number five, though she enjoyed the attention. She liked to watch Alice move and found it very funny the way she would move to get her to pose. After she would take a nap in someone's arms. Surprisingly, Emmett was the one who offered the most and assured me with a large grin that his motive was not to study her aerodynamicity, but to bond with his 'darling niece.' Edward assured me that despite the teasing tone, only the second part of his statement was true. "He wouldn't have arms otherwise."
Edward took care of most of the feedings when Renesmee spent the night at our cottage.
"How is Rosalie coping?"
"She feels incredible sorrow at what she could've had. She is plagued by images of Emmett looking children running around with Renesmee, but she loves her and is happy to have this experience and be so involved in raising her."
"I wish there was something we could do for her."
Charlie was also in love with her and would visit the house daily, usually after work, sometimes before. Most of the time I was away, or I would wave to him from afar before running to the cottage. We would talk on the phone about her. I knew he wanted to ask more, but it felt like it was a conversion we should have face to face.
That talk took place in the Cullen living room, on Saturday morning when the weather could not make a concrete decision on whether it rained or snowed.
I didn't want Charlie to be too spooked by me, so I wore a pair of brown contacts as my own eyes were a deep blood orange color. Those small things were annoying. I could see fine through them, but my eyes kept focusing on the texture of the thin screen at every microscopic scratch and warped section.
Besides the change in appearance I received a few lessons in humanity. "I think I'm fine, I was a human not long ago."
Rosalie huffed, "How often does a human fidget?"
"What do you mean?"
"How often does a human fidget?"
I thought about it, "Only if they are bored or uncomfortable," I answered though I was unsure of myself. Those were the only times I could recall when I would fidget when I was in a stressful situation.
"Wrong. Almost all the time. Whether they cross or uncross their legs, scratch something, adjust their position while sitting, humans are never still."
I nodded and let her and Esme instruct me further and until Charlie arrived at the house I practiced my blinking and my leg crossing.
The car pulled in front of the house and idled for a few seconds. I wondered if Charlie was as nervous as I was. Then the engine cut off, and a door slammed. Three steps across the grass, and then eight echoing thuds against the wooden stairs. Four more echoing footsteps across the porch. Then silence. Charlie took two deep breaths.
I took one last breath.
Carlisle and Esme were the ones who answered the door and led Charlie to the living room where I sat with a sleeping Renesmee in my arms.
It was the first time he was seeing my face from up close and it shocked him.
Slowly, Charlie walked across the room until he was a few feet away from me. The warmth of his body heat beat against me with each pulse of his heart. He was my father, I was not hungry and I was not hunting.
"Bella?" he asked, his voice shaking.
"The one and only," I responded in a lower practiced tone; one that was closer to my previous one.
His jaw locked.
We stared, each waiting for the other to say something. "I'm sorry, Dad."
"Bit too late for that now. But, it's ok," he added when he saw what must have been a hurt glint in my eyes, "I'm happy that you went after what you wanted."
"Even if what I wanted is this?"
"The va-... well, this," he gestured at me and at the room, "is not really what I expected… or even imagined," he said, sighing on the last word. "But I learned long ago that kids will make their own way no matter what we want for 'em."
"When did you first find out about all of this?" He asked after an awkwardly long pause.
"I found out not long after I came to Forks."
Charlie inhaled slowly and held his breath before exhaling.
"He told you?"
"I found out on my own."
"Of course you did," he grumbled. "How?"
I launched into the story of those early days, frustratingly muddied by the human memories. As I did my best to recollect what had happened, panic built up in my chest at the thought that I could lose those precious memories. All of them were dear to me and I cursed myself for not making sure they had been better preserved.
"You see, dad, without Edward, I would've been dead. Tyler's van was coming for me."
I went back to that icy day, when I had had barely a second to register that my life was going to end before I was down on the ground safely in Edward's arms. And his golden eyes had locked into mine with an emotion I didn't understand then, one that I'm sure neither did he. The bond between us had been truly forged at that moment. And I couldn't remember it well.
Jasper could feel my panic building and he hit me with a strong wave of peace, enough to make me stumble over a word, before being able to move on with my tale.
"That's why you ran away that night?"
"I… we…I thought it was the best way to keep you safe."
"Keep me safe? Bella… I am your father! I should have kept you safe!"
His shouts awakened Renesmee and she gave out a cry.
"Give her here," he said softly when I couldn't console her.
It took him less than half a minute to calm her and another one to have her back asleep.
"I'm good with kids," he said when I gave him an amazed look. "Well, those who aren't mine," he bitterly added.
"Dad," I said, putting my hand on his forearm, "you were a good father."
"I should have come after you and Renee."
"You couldn't, dad. You had to take care of your parents."
"After they died, I should have come. I left you alone."
"I had mom."
"But you should have had both of us. Maybe I could have saved you a lot of heartache."
"I am happy now. Blissfully."
"Are you, now?" He asked more for himself than anyone else.
I moved on with my story, modifying it as I went along; instead of James attacking me, I said that I did fall down the stairs when we were about to return to Forks after James had been killed.
"Who did it?"
"I'm not sure. Edward never told me."
I tried glazing over the events of my eighteenth birthday and Edwards leaving, but after years of half truths, Charlie seemed that he would be content only with the truth. "Why did he leave?"
"He wanted me to give a chance at a normal life."
"Didn't work much."
"I didn't want it. It was him or nothing."
"So you tried to…?"
"No, that story was the truth." There was no need for Charlie to know about my Edward hallucinations and how much comfort they had brought me during those days. Or to know that in the end I had given up and let myself be dragged into slumber by the soothing coolness of the water.
"Then why did you jump off a cliff?"
"It made me feel alive." It was a half truth, because it had also helped to alleviate the pain that had been my dutiful companion, never wavering in its duty and dulled only when I heard Edward's voice or when Jake was near.
"Bella…"
"In my defense, all the reservation kids did it."
"All of the boys did. And they are huge."
I shrugged, "I really didn't take that into consideration."
Charlie took a long deep breath and somehow exhaled a longer one. He looked at me and then he lifted a finger and closed his eyes, continuing his deep breaths. I could hear his heart rate settling down. I'd had to stop my breathing when he became agitated as his smell started coming in much stronger towards me and I wondered if fear made a prey more enticing to us, before reminding myself that I was not hunting, I was home with my daughter and father.
"And then through a game of telephone Edward found out that you jumped. What I don't understand is why you couldn't have just called him."
"Because he sort of disappeared. And Alice was worried that he was going to harm himself."
"He told me that he was going to."
"When?"
"At your,"-he choked on the word, "funeral."
"Oh! Again, sorry about that. It was necessary."
"But why was it?"
I told Charlie about my reasoning and then about the Volturi, "so you see, in the end only two options remained once they found out about me. Death or…"
"Death."
"Don't be dramatic, dad."
"You know me, can't stop," he said with a monotone voice.
"Then we came back home and decided that we were going to do it after my highschool graduation."
"But why get married?"
"Edward wanted that, I was more… reticent to the idea. But since what I wanted was to spend the rest of my life with him, did it matter when we got married?"
"When did he propose?"
"The day after we got back," I told him, glad that I could not blush anymore.
"What?! How? You never left the house that day!"
"Yes, but that doesn't mean that Edward wasn't there."
Charlie exhaled and rubbed his brow in desperation. "Edward, come here," he called, careful not to wake my daughter.
Edward came into the room seconds later and Charlie directed him on the armchair opposite the sofa, then looked at him and said, "I think I told you then to never come into my house again."
"Technically you said not to come through your door. You said nothing about windows."
"I think the message was clear."
"It was, but… having her near me again after all that time. It was a feeling that was hard to give up."
"But how did you get in?"
"I jumped," he said nonchalantly.
"How many times had you done that before?"
I gave Edward a look telling him that there would be hell to pay if he told the entire truth. Charlie didn't need to know that my husband and I had spent almost all of the days of our 'courtship' (Edward's term, not mine).
"Just a couple of times."
"So all the time. Ok, good, good. You could teach a thing or two about sneaking around to spies.
"It's easy for us."
Charlie closed his eyes and exhaled, before turning to me again.
"And when did you say yes, Bella?"
"Right before graduation, it was all done very quickly after that."
"And you weren't…?"
"No, Renesmee was my only pregnancy. And we didn't think we could have a child together."
"You've said that before… wait, what happened when you fell in that river?"
"I was perfectly fine."
"Of course you were," my father mumbled.
I thought that from that moment on it would've been easy to glide over the events that happened around the time I graduated highschool, but Charlie proved to be a cop despite his bewilderment at all of the things he was finding out.
"But what happened with the woman and the other guy? Victoria and Laurent."
"They're dead. They were taken care of a long time ago." Edward knew that the wolves secret wasn't ours to tell. We could at least honor the help they had given us that way.
Of course, Charlie had many more questions and the rest of the afternoon was spent answering them, until he asked one of the more important ones: "It's still bugging me how Alice knew about Edward. There must be more to that story."
"There is," Alice intervened out of nowhere, "I can see the future."
"What?"
"I can see the future, Charlie."
"You can see… the future?"
He looked down at Renesmee, still asleep in his arms, "Can all of you see the future?"
"No. Only Alice can."
"Some of us can read thoughts!" Emmett's voice boomed across the house and I promised myself that the next time we would arm wrestle I would make him bet his signed Honus Wagner baseball card or his Batman comic book collection from the late '30's and '40's. A few decades without them should do him some good.
Charlie moved a finger in the direction of Emmett's voice and raised a brow.
"And it's not me!"
"Then who? Dr. Cullen?"
"I can," Edward admitted. "Yes, I can hear what you are thinking right now."
"I think I am going to have a heart attack," my father said, breathless.
"He's not," Alice added loudly and unhelpfully from another room.
"Can you do…? Like them?"
"No," I responded more bitterly than I had expected. "Well, Edward can't hear my thoughts. He never could."
"I guess it's something. Okay, so," he said as he counted on his fingers, "seeing the future, mind reading and not having the mind read, anything else I should know?"
"I can sense and influence emotions," Jasper said, coming into the room.
My father stood on that information for a long time before asking, "did you make me like Edward more?"
"No, sir."
Edward frowned at Jasper without Charlie noticing and I wondered what he had mentally said to my husband. Later I would find out that it was: 'I'm not that powerful.'
Charlie left early in the afternoon, after watching a football game with Emmett and playing with his niece. He was stalling for more time, but he promised Billy that he would be the one to take him to Sue's birthday dinner.
I knew he noticed that Renesme was not looking like a typical two month old, but he said nothing. That was a problem for another day. As was the request he made to be turned. I wanted it, but feared it at the same time. I did not think he would ever be a Cullen, not in the real sense. Charlie was, like Carlisle, the head of the family. And to condemn him to have an outsider position forever seemed particularly cruel.
There were advantages to having someone changed at a much older age and who would resemble me so much when the time came for the next Cullen family move. I found the notion of going back to highschool with a baby incredibly hilarious. We had decided to stay in Forks until Renesmee was about one year old before we would move. There had been discussions regarding where our new home should be. Carlisle desired for us to go to England for a few years and I did like the idea of Renesmee growing up in one of those picturesque medieval villages, playing with other children.
I hoped the children would play with her. Most people were wary of us despite our incredible beauty; they knew something was wrong even if they had no words to vocalize it. I hoped that part of our nature would be, in her, neutralized by her human nature. To me there was nothing about her that screamed or would scream danger, but I was also her mother.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I could no longer hear the engine of Charlie's car. It had taken a lot out of me and despite feeding just the night before, being enveloped by that delicious scent had me ravenous again. I didn't want to tell my family exactly how much I needed to hunt, I had been so in control of myself the past couple of months.
Renesmee was safe in Edward's arms, I knew she would still be sleeping for another half an hour, it was enough time for me to clear my mind.
I needed to hunt. And I needed to do it alone. I had to sort and process my thoughts and emotions: the joy of having the meeting go so well, the anguish at relieving some of my darkest memories and at seeing Charlie hurt by the things I'd kept from him, the anxiety regarding my daughter's future and the fear that I might have condemned her to a life of rejection from everyone but her family. And the dread I felt whenever I thought about the Volturi and what they meant for our future.
After assurances that it would be a very short hunting trip, I was out in the forest breathing in its clean, green and watery scent and sneaking my feet into the soft earth. The sky was still cast over but no more rain or snow fell and I could hear the creatures big and small coming out of their hiding places looking for food or to stretch their limbs.
When I was far away from the house I stopped in a small clearing and cleared my mind of everything but the hunger. I let my senses expand, I could hear everything, I could see everything and I could smell everything.
And that was when the scent hit me.
