*BPOV*
When dawn came, so did the first allies to our cause. The neighboring clan, Kendra and her mate Pink followed by the shame-faced twins (who looked like they'd rather be just about anywhere else) came flying up the front drive.
"Good morning! I have to admit, I was surprised to hear from you so soon after…well after last night," Kendra chuckled awkwardly as Esme and Carlisle greeted them at the top of the driveway. The rest of us were all standing around in a loose circle in front of the garage, about to break off into groups to run some training drills.
"Good morning! Welcome!" That was Carlisle's voice.
"And please, don't give it another thought," Esme insisted with a warm and welcoming smile. "Trust me, we are no strangers to the shenanigans of teenagers! Those two knuckleheads over there," she nodded toward Emmett and Jasper, "are going to make me go prematurely gray," Esme chuckled mirthfully.
"Premature? You're a hundred and twelve…percent right, Esme!" Emmett recovered with a toothy grin after a murderous glare from Esme. Lumbering over to the smaller group, he added, "Right this way, ladies. We were just about to start doing some drills. "
"Now wait just a minute," Pink raised a restraining hand in front of the twins. "We came as a courtesy, but if you mean to take on the Volturi…" he trailed off with a skeptical shake of his head.
"It would be all our deaths," Kendra finished matter-of-factly.
"Nothing that extreme, I assure you. A demonstration. Of the power of the hornet's nest the Volturi is kicking by enacting this draconian draft. We're hoping to peacefully show them the error of their ways with nothing more than a few parlor tricks, really," Carlisle clarified.
"Carlisle, of course, we all hope for that, but if the Volturi choose to see our demonstration as a threat and respond with violence, we will have no choice but to defend ourselves. We'd be remiss to not prepare for that possibility," Jasper insisted.
"You remember Jasper. He's our resident expert on military affairs," Carlisle pleasantly reintroduced as he silently approached the group, taking Emmett's flank. The tense postures and expressions of our guests instantly relaxed in his presence.
Addressing Pink, Jasper said, "Give me a few days. I bet I could change your mind. I think the Volturi might've finally met their match," he asserted with a confident smile. Then he turned his citrine gaze to me and gave me a little nod.
On his signal, both Alice and Rosalie dashed into the woods in two different directions. I cast my shield over both of them, unfurling it like a vast fishing net billowing in the summer breeze.
Well beyond the treeline now, I could no longer see them, but I could feel their respective energies pushing against the protective barrier of my shield like two fish, no two great white sharks fiercely determined not to be caught.
"What you're witnessing now," Jasper explained to the other clan as they looked on, "is Bella using her shield to block Edward from reading the minds of Alice and Rosalie. Edward will call out as soon as one of them outruns Bella's shield and he can hear their thoughts again."
I focused all my energy on them, feeling the physical strain as they pushed the limits of my abilities.
"Well that's a neat trick, but I don't see how–" Pink interjected, his voice laden with skepticism.
"Now imagine Edward is Jane," Jasper cut in with a conspiratorial smirk.
Kendra gasped in surprise. "She can block Jane?"
Jasper nodded with unrestrained pride. "Not only can she block Jane, but Bella can also block Aro. And Demetri. And anybody she shields is immune to them, too."
"Jesus H. Christ," Pink muttered in astonishment.
"So that's how Alice was immune to our compulsion," Maia deduced, mostly to herself.
Just then I felt the loss of Alice's energy as she tore through the invisible membrane of my shield.
"Alice," Edward called as her thoughts became audible to him again. A few seconds later, he called Rosalie's name, too.
Alice and Rosalie's footsteps could now be heard coming closer instead of farther away.
Moments later they were emerging through the trees.
"Way to go, Bella! That was much farther than last time," Alice cheered.
"Two people is easier than three," I grudgingly admitted. "At least over distance."
"Emmett, get in there," Jasper directed to our much larger brother with a playful swat on the ass. "That was great, Bella. Keep it up. Luckily, you shouldn't need to project it that far. A radius of half a mile or so should be more than sufficient, but over like forty people. Think you can manage that?"
"Forty!" I shrieked, not because I didn't think I could do it, but because I didn't realize our family was expecting so many friends.
"And rising. The word is spreading," Alice confirmed.
I swallowed loudly. No pressure, right?
"Do you need a couple more volunteers?" Ember asked, trailing after Emmett with her sister in tow. I looked back and forth between both girls, scrutinizing them.
I turned to smile at Edward and silently asked, Are they trying to be helpful or do they just not want you in their heads?
"Both," he chuckled.
I nodded in acceptance. Heaven only knew the thought of a person as magnificent as Edward getting to hear all of my most unfiltered innermost thoughts whenever he wanted to was as abhorrent to me now as it was when I first learned of his unique ability. For probably the millionth time, I thanked my lucky stars that I could control how much he heard.
*EPOV*
When humans were nervous, anxious, or scared, their thoughts tended to speed up to match the racing rate of their hearts thundering in their chest, accelerated by the jolt of adrenaline coursing through their veins.
This was no different in vampires, except our enhanced brains already worked faster. In a heightened state, this made it unusually difficult to untangle the snarl of frenzied thoughts and conversations that were going on around me.
My eyes darted from one face to the next, not focusing on any of them as the cacophony of mental voices spoke over each other incongruously in my head. It was like listening to a ten-piece band all playing different songs at the same time.
Though her thoughts were silent to me, I could feel Bella's concern radiating off of her. And then without warning, all of the noise went away. The sudden relief was instantaneous when the only thoughts in my head were my own.
I met Bella's worried eyes with gratitude shining in my own. "Thank you," I breathed.
She just smiled and nodded once, and squeezed my hand reassuringly.
"Jasper, you'll be delighted to learn that Bella is shielding everyone right now," I murmured, still staring down at my wife in wonder.
Jasper's eyes widened as he quickly calculated the size of the shield Bella had had to cast in order to accomplish that. You could have built a regulation-size football field in between where he was standing with Carlisle, Esme, Kendra & Pink and where Alice and Rosalie were standing near the tree line, waiting for their cue to run again.
"Well done, Bella!" Jasper praised with sincere enthusiasm. "Now," he called in a voice barely louder than the one he used for casual conversation. Alice and Rosalie would be able to hear him just fine. "Let's see how well you do with moving targets. And that includes you, Edward. You won't be standing right next to Bella the whole time–"
I gave Jasper a withering glare. If he thought I'd be anywhere other than at Bella's side during this ill-conceived "peaceful" confrontation with the Volturi he didn't know me at all. It was simply for the sake of the training exercise that I went along with it now.
"Maia, Ember, you two get to be the Volturi. I want you to try that compulsion thing on anybody you encounter. The rest of us will scatter. Edward, keep calling out anybody you can 'hear.' Everybody got it?" Jasper paused to make sure everyone understood their assignments.
When it was clear that everyone did, he gave the signal. "Aaaand GO!" Everyone sprinted in different directions leaving Bella alone in the clearing just outside the woods. I was the last to break from the group, lingering a moment to press a kiss into the hollow beneath her jaw.
"Quit distracting me!" she growled and shooed me away, though her smile was ear-to-ear.
I jogged backward for a few paces, beaming back at her, wild with pride, and then she disappeared from view as I turned and ran full-tilt into the woods.
*BPOV*
I was still learning the limitations of my abilities, but we had already ascertained that if Edward was under the protection of my shield, he could read the minds of anybody else who was also being shielded. So for the purposes of this exercise, I had to leave him unprotected.
I had to assume the same was true for the twins' power of compulsion, so I left them outside the bubble, too.
As my family and new acquaintances ran farther away from me in every direction, I could feel their respective energies tugging outward on the edges of my shield, like school children unfurling a massive brightly-colored parachute that seemed to magically expand from within.
I wasn't sure how much longer I could go on like this. I'd never attempted to cast a shield of this scale before. A spider could only spin as much silk as her glands allowed, but I had no such constraints that I knew of. In theory, my shield would continue to grow as long as my focus held.
My concentration faltered for just a moment as I felt a strange sensation. I could feel some force trying to suck Emmett's energy, bright white and incandescent–like burning magnesium–through the impenetrable barrier of my shield.
The hauntingly sweet harmony of child-like voices could be heard echoing through the trees. The melody was slow and hypnotic, like a lullaby, with words in an old-sounding language I didn't understand.
It was weird, and hard to explain, but it was like I could taste the trance-like effect of their magic on the back of my tongue as the compelling powers of their song tried to reach Emmett on the other side. It was intoxicatingly sweet at first, leaving an acrid aftertaste.
Then I heard Emmett's loud guffaw. "Whoa, that was weird. But no. Score one for Bella!"
*EPOV*
It was fascinating to see how the twins' minds worked as they used their gift. When they were in a certain physical proximity to each other, their minds seemed to emit a kind of signal that was detected by the other sister.
It truly was a singular talent shared between the two of them. It was unlike anything else I'd ever seen. Like two halves of a whole, they had to be together for it to work.
When their voices combined, the soundwave it produced worked like a key to unlock the subconscious mind, overriding their most immediate desire with whatever request they made.
It was an incredibly powerful gift. One that I had no doubt they would want to keep hidden from the likes of the Aro if he didn't already know about them already.
I immediately recognized the throaty, somewhat harsh-sounding language they sang in to be Russian. It was the lullaby that was sung to them as small children by their birth mother. Roughly translated,
Take me, love me, shelter
The shroud that you and I created together
Take me, love me, shelter
The shroud that you and I created together
The light of lanterns walks along the street
Look into my eyes and I'll tell you everything
And I'll sing you a lullaby, look into my eyes
And where is the kindness in them?
Emmett's feet had slowed to a stop when he first heard them, drawn to the eerie lilt of their song, seemingly more out of curiosity than any form of compulsion.
Ember and Maia walked right up to Emmett who towered head and shoulders above them. The twins looked up at him with concentrated faces, but it was Ember who held his gaze as she sang, her voice growing steadily in volume as they tried to override Emmett's free will.
I chuckled quietly to myself as Ember momentarily considered making Emmett break his own arm off and forget where he left it. But not wanting to antagonize Rosalie (or Kendra for that matter) any further, Ember wisely decided to stay on her best behavior.
"Turn around and go back. Forget why you wanted to come this way," Ember uttered harmlessly.
Emmett blinked once at her and grinned. "Whoa, that was weird. But no. Score one for Bella!" he bellowed.
Then placing his palms together, he wedged them between the thin shoulders of the sisters and gently but firmly parted them like the Red Sea. When he'd made a space between them that was broad enough for his hulkish body to pass, he resumed his lumbering sprint through the woods.
Ember's head hung a little as their gift was once again stymied. She was disappointed. When they had tried to compel Alice, they were trying to be discreet. She'd hoped that they wouldn't be thwarted again since this time they had been giving it everything they had to sway Emmett but to no avail.
I cleared my throat, alerting them to my presence as I approached from downwind. The sisters whipped around to face me.
In a voice I hoped was comforting, I admitted"I know just how that feels. But try not to let it bother you. Bella's gift confounds us all," I laughed lightly, repeating the words Aro had once used to comfort Jane for the very same reason.
Following Jasper's instructions to compel anyone they encountered, the girls began to repeat the lullaby they had sung to Emmett.
I opened my mouth to stop them, to tell them that I wasn't shielded like the others were. They had no way of knowing that. But the words died in my throat as I became transfixed by the saccharine melody.
The things I would do with this one if I could compel him, Ember thought wistfully as they sang.
I could still hear her, clear as a bell. But it was as if I couldn't find my voice. Didn't want to because then I wouldn't be able to hear the music, that haunting yet inviting music.
"Sister, careful—" Maia cautioned in between verses. She seemed to sense that something was different this time.
"Oh, relax," Ember muttered. "Bella has them all shielded. I couldn't pull anything even if I tried. See?"
Then Ember turned back to me and flippantly insisted, "Kiss me."
Without another thought, I closed the distance between myself and the girl. Maia gasped, horrified at what she was witnessing.
In slow motion, I could feel my eyes closing, as if of their own accord. It felt like stepping outside of my own body and watching myself as I cupped my hands around Ember's shoulders and drew her closer to me. I could feel Ember's sweet-smelling breath wash over my face as my lips moved ever closer to hers.
When my lips were a hair's breadth from hers, close enough that I could feel her eyelashes on my face when her eyes fluttered closed, it was like the spell had been broken and my will returned. Under the protection of Bella's shield now, I could no longer hear Ember's thoughts and I stood there frozen, in abject horror at what I had been about to do.
My hands released Ember at once as if I had been burned by her. Through bared teeth, I growled in an icy snarl, "Leave." Ember's eyes grew owlishly large in her petrified face and she stumbled backward a few steps.
"Now," shrieked Bella, sounding more like a mountain lion than a person as she jumped down to the ground from the branches of a towering redwood. She was now standing in front of me like a furious angel, crouched down low as if to spring at the girl if she so much as warbled another note.
"I didn't think…I didn't mean–" she stuttered in shock and fear.
Maia growled and took a protective stance in front of her sister at Bella's display of aggression. And then we were loosely surrounded by the members of both our families who looked on with tense eyes.
I was immediately aware of the danger that loomed if Bella lost her barely controlled newborn temper. We may have had the advantage in numbers, but if a fight broke out here and now, she could easily get herself hurt before we could get the situation contained.
"Bella, love," I cooed in a gentle voice and placed my hand on her shoulder. "Easy now. No harm done…" I said soothingly.
"Speak. For. Yourself," Bella snarled in a deadly tone, still glaring at Ember over Maia's shoulder and poised to strike.
"First she tries to take Alice's Birkin bag and now she tries to take Bella's man. I knew they were bad news!" Rosalie spat from where she stood between Alice and Emmett, arms-crossed and hip jutted
Still crouched in front of Ember, Maia now tried to deescalate the situation. "Ember didn't mean anything by it! We didn't know your mind-reader was unshielded. She didn't think it would work. She was just trying to prove a point! And it was stupid, wasn't it, Ember?" Maia addressed her twin over her shoulder.
Just then Jasper released what felt like a carpet bomb of calm over the entire group.
"Maybe I should've been more specific when I said to try to compel us," Jasper said dryly, giving Ember a stern look of disapproval. She stared intently at her shoes, artificially calm, but no less mortified.
"Stand down, Bella, it's over," Jasper placed a hand on Bella's arm and her body instantly relaxed.
"But–" Bella started to argue in a half-hearted voice, still affected by Jasper's sedative touch.
"We're losing focus!" Jasper reprimanded impatiently. "If we can't work together, the Volturi will wipe the floor with us. Is that what you want?" he spoke to the entire group, now. "Or does living on the run, always looking over your shoulder sound like a better alternative?
"Nobody is saying y'all gotta be besties, but find a way to get along for the greater good. These aren't our enemies!… Though you sure have an interesting way of showin' friendship," he snorted. "Let's break for today. We have to be getting to class anyway," Jasper concluded with a derisive roll of his eyes.
"You go to school? With humans?" Pink asked, equally fascinated and horrified.
"We pose no threat to humans," Carlisle answered in a neutral tone, a comment that Rosalie scoffed at. Carlisle ignored that. "We'd love to tell you about our lifestyle, but perhaps this isn't the best time," he added diplomatically.
"Come on, Bella. You'll need to hunt if you want to go to class today," I suggested gently, taking her hand and tugging it in the direction of a fresh elk trail I'd picked up not long ago.
She stalked away from the twins but stopped to tell Jasper, "If you want to practice with my shield, you better find another way for them to contribute. Because if I so much as hear them humming the State Farm jingle, I'll deliver them to Aro myself!" Bella fumed, followed by a chorus of growls from Kendra's clan.
"You and what army?" Ember muttered under her breath, eliciting another round of snarls from Rose and Emmett.
Ember wisely bolted then, followed in short order by the other members of her family.
"I'd say that went well, don't you think?" Alice quipped to Esme who stood there frozen, a look of astonished abhorrence etched into her features.
A/N Happy early Valentine's Day, lovelies! A few notes about this chapter…I searched high and low for some kind of traditional eastern European hymn or lullaby with words that translated to what I was imagining, and the closest I could come up with was a song called "Lullaby" by Russian pop duo Rauf & Faik, which is where the twin's siren song came from lol.
Also, it is fanfiction award season again and She's My Blackberry Pie was nominated for Top Ten Completed fics of 2021! I would be so grateful if you wouldn't mind voting for me again! Thank you SO much for taking the time.
To vote for "She's My Blackberry Pie," type twifanfictionrecs dot com into your browser (sorry, FF won't let me post the link)and scroll down to the contest with a bajillion nominees and fill in the bubble for SMBP. You can vote every single day through the end of the contest on 2/25! You wonderful people came through for me in the March 2021 contest, and I really hope we can make it happen again. If I make the Top Ten, I'll write y'all the ooey-gooey sweetest slice of lemon meringue pie you've ever read, and that's a promise! Til next time, folks! Thanks for reading, reviewing, and VOTING. xoxo-Amanda
