Shahrazád's Ghosts


Chapter 26: Darling (Bella) Part VII


"Sometimes, though not often, he had dreams, and they were more painful than the dreams of other boys. For hours he could not be separated from these dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I think, with the riddle of his existence. At such times it had been Wendy's custom to take him out of bed and sit with him on her lap, soothing him in dear ways of her own invention, and when he grew calmer to put him back to bed before he quite woke up, so that he should not know of the indignity to which she had subjected him."

J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Oooooo

The Scottish castle was haunted with more old ghosts than Edward's temple had ever been. Her sire's presence so transcended death that he permeated the halls of a place he had never even dwelt in during his life. Two hundred and thirty-nine years after his final breath, Darling saw him, heard him, felt him. Everywhere.

He was in the line of family photographs hanging in the hall near a display of an old cross and a series of graduation caps. She stared at those bright, golden eyes and she did not recognize him. Had he been that young, once? Her sire's crimson eyes had been ancient and dark and they seemed to cut through her heart without even noticing her.

He was in the room in the eastern tower where Esme meticulously kept a room for him, despite the centuries passing. She even kept his clothes hanging in a wardrobe and a shelf full of books he had once read. Every morning, Esme placed a new bouquet of flowers on the window sill and let her hand fondly trace the faded old lounge that took up one side of the sparsely furnished room.

His piano was kept in tune. For the first time, Darling heard it play. Back in her human days, she had spent hours watching the silent footage of days past, back when his hands did not shake and he still kept music in his soul. She could watch him paint portraits with sounds in homage to another woman, to the one who came before. The old security video feed did not record sound and by the time Darling's footsteps interrupted the silence of the decaying vampire's days, his piano was buried in dust and sand. The Cullens made sure his piano in their home never collected dust and did not sit idle. When it played, the remembered him.

Edward dwelt in the whispered memories, the scattered thoughts, and the distant glances of the coven who once claimed him. She caught the aborted conversations when she walked into rooms…as if their silence did anything other than shout his name.

He had once even claimed to love them. In all his final soliloquys, in the last words of a fractured soul, he never once spoke of the sadness in Carlisle's eyes or the fear in Jasper's heart and she knew he had never known the new versions of his family members that he had helped create. He was the master sculptor who excelled in crumbling and firing those unfortunate enough to be loved by him, like clay pots.

They believed they one loved him. Maybe they had. Maybe they still did… at least the version of him they had known. Would they have loved the version that Darling met? Would they still keep his photograph on their walls and his memory in the vaulted hallows of their familial shrines if they had known him as she did?

Maybe they would.

Afterall, she did, too.

It was the second time she met Peter, but the first time she learned his name… and her own.

It was Buffy's turn to sleep. Darling was strong enough to walk, but only barely, and only the length of the hall between the barracks and the generation lab. She still felt winded and sore after too many trips between them. She preferred to stay in the generation lab because it was familiar. This was where she had first woken and where buffy had kept her hidden away in a corner for months, keeping her away from the notice of him.

Now, she had to take her own turn guarding Buffy and watching for the return of the vampire. She switched between screens, watching the different video feeds, waiting for him to emerge from the room with the rocking chair where he had been locked for days.

To pass the time, she perused the books on the book shelf. The shelves were filled with pristine books, organized alphabetically by author, and bright lights filled the room. The gentle hum of machines whirred in the background. Buffy had taught her the alphabet, but she could not yet read the words. She searched for any books with pictures and knew which ones had the most illustrations. She pulled one of these down now and flipped through it, running her hands over the hardbound cover.

Her heart stopped within her chest when she heard a subtle intake of breath next to her shoulder. She struggled against her every instinct to turn and face what she knew she would find.

He was there. He had crept up on her without her knowledge and he was taking in her scent again. He wanted her to react. He wanted her to respond. If she didn't, he was more likely to leave her alone. She kept her nose in her book and did not look up. The light breathing let her know he was still there, unmoving, watching her every movement, tasting her in the air between them.

Suddenly the book was snatched from her hands, but instead of noticing her, his eyes were fixed on the book. The predator vanished and was replaced by someone, or something, else. Wide eyes stared out from a youthful face and he ran his fingers over the worn cover, memories robbing him of his acknowledgement of the present.

"I read this when I was a child," he said, startling her by the unexpected outburst. "I used to pretend I was in Neverland and my neighbors and I would take turns being Pirates and Braves and Lost Boys in the trees in our backyard. We always fought over who got to be Peter Pan. My father helped me make a wooden sword and I put a pigeon feather in a hat my mother sewed for me. I made a sling shot and tried to shoot squirrels in the yard with acorns from the old oak tree."

He sank onto the ground, flipping through the pages, his eyes never once leaving the lines of the text in the book. He moved to the first page, lovingly stroked the page, and began to read. For hours, he sat there, transfixed by the story, reenacting each voice with such animation that it was Darling who also was transfixed. He read it cover to cover before he stopped to remember her existence.

"Once I made my sword, my neighbors said I needed to be Captain Hook. They were wrong. I was always Peter. I belong here, in Neverland. I am the one who never grew up, and who will never have a beard. If my mother had lived, she would have barred our window to make sure I never entered our home again. She would have been right, too. Do you know, I can barely remember her now? What kind of son does that make me? How could I forget her? Though I do so need a mother."

The sadness in his tone was palpable as he ran one hand over the illustration of the little boy peering out over Neverland. He closed the book with a snap and placed it back in her hands. Then he looked up at her, noting her again for the first time since he caught sight of the book. He drew close enough to her that he could twist a lock of her short hair behind her ear.

"If I were to fly to your window, I would watch you every night. If I could lose my shadow, I'd give it to you for safekeeping. If you would tell me stories each night, I would keep you with me forever."

Then he leaned in to kiss her, sweetly, gently, and full of devotion.

"A thimble for you, darling," whispered against her lips.

She was not sure whether her heart pounded out of fear of his proximity or because of the way his kiss burned her from the inside out. But his eyes were bright red and across his bare chest was the unmistakable trail of bloodied fingers - five perfect lines from his shoulder to his right pectoral muscle. Despite knowing exactly how that hand print was made, she could not wish him away from her. He leaned in to kiss her again, deeper this time. He tasted like blood.

"Do not leave me. Do not grow up. Stay with me, here, forever."

"I do not want to die," she whispered back to him.

"To die would be an awfully great adventure," he said. "But one I have failed to achieve."

"To live would be an awfully great adventure," she responded. "And one I want to have."

When he finally stirred and left her there, the book in her lap, she did not know what to think, how to feel. He would not remember her. He never once remembered that thimble or the name he had given her, distinct from the others, no matter how many times she tried to remind him.

She hated him. She feared him. She despised him. But she would never, ever leave him.

In his eyes, he adored her. That was always the secret with him. He loved each and every one of his Bellas, as if they were his greatest treasure, his most wonderful of secrets, his own personal paradise. How could she look away from such veneration? How could she pull herself away from the poisonous lure which would consume her? She knew she would willingly let him consume her, if only he continued to look at her like that.

The worst of it was that gaze did not belong solely to her. It belonged to all of them and Darling would not share. And she did so want to live.

When she learned to read, she read that book again and again and always remembered the boy who would never grow up. The one who had forgotten her name and replaced her with another. The one whose heart would never be fully hers. The one who would use her in every possible way and never once feel an inch of remorse for killing her.

She hated him. She feared him. She despised him. But she would never, ever stop loving him.

As she had loved Anthony.

As she had loved the Pirates and the Lost Boys and the Braves.

As she loved Peter.

She hated them. She feared them. She despised them. But she loved them and she could not stay away. She kept resurrecting them. Again and again, despite knowing that she really shouldn't.

Of course, Peter could learn to love Bell. Darling knew this better than she knew her own name. If Darling could learn to love Peter, then Peter could learn to love Bell.

Only, he chose not to. And she would never understand why, but she loved him all the more for it.

She watched Michael and Bell from the shadows, that first day at the Cullens, and she was transfixed by the sight of them. There was no competition. There were no exact replicas of the other to lure away their hearts with promises of fulfillment without cost. There was no ocean of blood between them. There was no deadly game of tug-o-war. There was Michael and there was Bell.

And there was Peter.

Perhaps there was one exact replica.

But it was not Bell that Peter watched and Darling felt the nearly oppressive weight of his eyes on her from the moment she entered the room until the moment she left it.

His gaze was questioning, searching almost. It was not the gaze of adoration and undiluted worship he had once poured on her like a drink offering. This was the heavier and more hesitant sentry of a jaded man, one who saw not a goddess but a woman. He saw her without blinders, yet still he failed to look away. He did not offer adoration, but an invitation, and one which terrified her to her very core to answer.

She could not fail to search him out the moment she entered a room, either, or deny the fact that she only chose to enter a room once she made sure he was within. She could have hidden herself away upstairs, avoided the oppressive weight of social interactions and the eyes of so many unfamiliar people upon her, but she didn't. She would rather be in the presence of Peter than alone and so she followed him like the sun followed the western sky.

It would end. He would stay here. She knew he would stay. And she would go. She would return to Neverland without him, as she had always known she would, and this brief reprieve, this temporary interruption of her future barrenness would end.

And Aro was coming. She needed Peter far, far from Neverland when he came.

oooooo


She could hear Peter approach long before he reached her. He sat quietly on the grass beside her, his eyes lost in the twilight of the grassy moor beyond. She finished up her final text messages before putting her phone back into her purse. She wrapped her arms around her knees and waited for him to come.

"Here you are," he said. He lowered himself onto the grass so he could sit beside her, only a foot of empty space and tall grass between them.

"Here I am," she said.

"Did you get ahold of Slightly?"

"Yes…and Thomas and Nibs and John and Augustine," she said with a sigh. It had taken the better part of the afternoon to relay the information each disparate connection needed to know. Augustine, especially, had taken time. There was no way to rush the old vampire and when a scouting party of Volturi guards was involved, he insisted on even more details than usual.

"Is this a new look for you?" Peter asked as he took in her appearance. She looked down on the slightly torn pair of jeans and oversized flannel shirt she wore.

"An old look. From Before, I guess. Buffy… my, uh, mentor of sorts, gave me her cast off clothes, but she was always bigger than me. But, it's comfortable and Aro would never let me, well, there were rules about everything, there."

She could tell Peter was surprised by her answer. She so rarely spoke of her life…Before… but she decided she might as well be honest, with him at least. She picked at the loose string on one of the rolled-up cuffs of the blue and white shirt and she gave him a wry smile.

"The little one tried to dress me this morning."

Peter gave a boisterous laugh. "She did, did she? Is this what she chose for you?"

"Absolutely not. I think she is offended by the very sight of me now, but the tall one, she let me borrow these."

"You brought clothes," Peter said, obviously thinking of the luggage she carried with her.

"I did," she answered. "But this isn't Neverland… I just… wanted to leave Neverland there and be here."

"I like it," Peter said.

She huffed a breathy laugh and tugged at the band holding up her messy ponytail. Her hair fell down to her shoulders in unkempt waves and she let herself fall back against the grass. The scent of growing things and damp earth engulfed her.

"It's lovely here," she said. "And so quiet. Italy is always so noisy."

"It is a very pleasant place," Peter agreed. "Bell and Michael are very happy here."

A tense silence interrupted their previous ease and she felt the weight of unspoken accusations in his tone. She regretted her honesty now. She should not have baited the little Lost Boy like she did.

"I wanted that for you," she whispered, thinking of the unmasked joy shared by the little family. She saw Peter there, instead of Michael. "That could have been you. I wanted you to have what they have. To be happy. To be loved. To have your own family. To be far from Neverland."

Peter watched her carefully, a slight frown on his face. "That's what you wanted, is it?" he said. "Did you ever stop to wonder what it was that I wanted? You have told me again and again what you think I am going to do, how you expect me to behave, but you never stop to ask me what it is I actually think or feel or want.

"You assumed I would kill Tiger Lily. You assumed Bell would become my mate. You assumed I would become like your sire. You continue to carry this idea of me in your head and you never bother to stop to wonder if it's me or not."

"But I, we, you… you are the same," she accused. "You created an idea of me in your head of a woman who wasn't me. Once I no longer lived up to it and you found the reality, you walked away."

"Darling, I didn't walk away from you," he said. She was suddenly conscious of the fact that this was the first time he'd called her by name since… since Tiger Lily. She tried to tell herself it didn't matter. It did. It really did.

"Don't lie. How many times have you wished I was someone else? How many times have you wished to break the bond and be freed of me?"

He didn't answer. He couldn't. She was right and he knew it.

He ran both his hands through his long hair, which now fell loose down his back in wavy locks and he sighed.

"Jasper is an empath," he said. "He can feel whatever emotions we feel."

Darling's eyes flew to Peter at that.

"Even me?" she asked, hoping she was the exemption.

"Even you."

The idea that someone would intrude into the sacred spaces of her heart in that way was as unsettling as the knowledge that Peter had sifted through all of Barzakh. She turned away, not daring to meet his eyes again, afraid of what he would find there. If Jasper could read her every feeling, if every emotion she had laid her bare, then Peter would hear it.

His thumb on her chin turned her back to face him. "Why didn't you just tell me? Why work so hard to avoid me and push me away? Did you ever, even once, consider that instead of fighting against me all the time you could let it be? Why can't we simply admit that we are drawn to each other like two magnets, for better or for worse, and stop fighting to be apart?"

"Who could help but love you?" she cried out, sitting upright so she could speak directly to him. "Your heart is large enough for all Neverland. I would be a blind fool not to see you are the best man I will ever meet, even if I create a thousand more clones and try for another thousand years. But I'm a blind fool. I didn't know… Not until after Tiger Lily. You proved yourself true while I showed myself false and I knew it was too late. You hated me. You were forced into a bond you didn't want and you deserved better than me."

Peter's brow furrowed and he shook his head. "Darling, I owe you an apology. Actually, I owe you several. You have always known when I did not agree with your actions or decisions. I have made no secret of my thoughts, but I let myself think only the very worst of you based on what I had seen. You are right. I did not fully know you and it was an infatuation based on my own fantasies. Once those had fallen away, I replaced my idolized ideas of you with new ones with you as the villain, which were just as much in error. I did not allow you to grow or change. I did not give you space to be anything other than what I believed you to be, for good or evil, and I was wrong."

"I was just as wrong. I was so angry, so very angry at everyone and everything, before. Then, after Tiger Lily... I wished I could go back and undo that day… undo so much of those past years."

"Then it was my turn to be angry and I clung to my bitterness like a dog on a bone," Peter said. "I suppose I can't blame you for avoiding me as I was. I wished I could avoid myself half the time."

"I wanted to fix it," she said. "You were so angry… so sad… you stopped singing. I wanted to give you what I could never have: an escape. You could have learned to love her. You already have. You would have eventually forgotten even that I once existed to torment you. Can't you see?"

"I would not have forgotten. I could not have loved her that same way."

"Couldn't you?" she whispered. "Weren't you planning to escape with her, to fill whatever hole in her heart that only you could fill?"

He could not answer, because he knew she was correct. Without Michael, without Neverland, without Darling…if all that existed was Peter and Bell, how could he not have learned to love her? Eventually. After enough years had passed.

"Only you would think such an abysmally terrible idea is a good one. Darling, promise me, in the future, please talk to someone else before you do anything… ever."

She rolled her eyes and barked a short laugh. "I was right though. It worked. Bell made you happy. She still makes you happy."

Peter groaned and leaned back on his elbows in the grass. "Fine. I am right grateful for her, and for Michael, and little Mikie. They were… are… good for me."

"Then it wasn't a complete loss."

"If you are hoping to vindicate yourself, there is no need."

"No, I simply wish to prove I was at least partially right and not entirely wrong," she said.

He chuckled. It reminded her just how long it had been since she had been the cause of that sound and the corresponding warm smile.

"Fine. Some good came out of your abysmally bad idea, but I do not think you should take as much credit for it as you are trying to."

"Was that so hard for you to admit to?" she said, gently pushing on his shoulder with her hand. With a blur of movement, he caught her hand and knocked her back onto the grass.

"Darling?" he asked. He was leaning over her now, caging her onto the grass with each of his hands and she could feel her name spoken against her cheek.

"Yes?" she asked, not daring to look away from the heated intensity of his eyes which kindled their own fires in her.

"I don't want to talk about Bell anymore," he said as he trailed his lips down her neck.

"Alright," she answered, hardly daring to move for fear he would stop.

"I don't want to talk at all."

"Then stop talking."

He did.

His lips caught hers to make sure neither could speak again, at least not outloud, until dawn threatened to break and forced them to return to a world of words.

Oooooo


Hand-in-hand, the pair walked back to the castle no faster than human steps would take them. Neither felt hurried to break the intoxicating reverie they had stumbled into or make a misstep and find it all as fragile as frost on a window pane. For one perfect moment, Darling felt like she belonged, like she was loved. She let her full heart overflow in words and laughter and smiles that were all for Peter. Only for Peter.

"So then Slightly says, 'I may be a Lost Boy but for you I'd be a man,' and then she throws a cement block on his head," Darling said. "I've never seen him with his eyes that wide."

Peter's unrestrained laugh reverberated through their clasped hands and her own smile was so broad, she wondered if it could burst through her cheeks.

"Oh, Slightly," Peter said, still vibrating with laughter. "He never told me that one."

"He'll never forgive me for telling you," she said.

"Rightly so. I won't let him forget it."

They fell silent again and followed the banks of a shallow stream that meandered through the Cullen property. They were near enough that Peter could hear the thoughts of the inhabitants of the castle again and Darling deflated. She did not look forward to returning.

At Peter's sudden shift from mirth to concern, Darling could tell he had heard something.

"What?" she asked.

"We need to start training Bell today," he said.

"I suppose."

"Alice has seen Aro accept your invitation. He will be in Neverland by the end of the month."

"I assumed as much… Peter, what do you mean that she has 'seen' it?"

"Didn't you know? Oh, that was one of the many details I meant to tell you later. Jasper isn't the only Cullen with a gift."

Darling frowned and tugged on his sleeve to make him stop walking. He turned to face her and his expression turned sheepish. "She can see the future."

"What?!"

"She gets flashes or images of possible futures, based on the decisions people make."

"She can see all our futures?"

"Yes, well, she cannot see the futures if they involve the hybrid children. They are exempt from her gift and they create blind spots for her. She has greater difficulty seeing complicated futures that involve a large number of players and decision-makers. However, her visions are, historically, quite dependable."

At the sudden frigidity of her posture, Peter drew back and placed his hands on the sides of her face to make her face him.

"Darling… I did not intentionally keep it from you. There was so much happening and I did not want to overwhelm you."

"What else?" Darling hissed back. "What else have you neglected to tell me? I want it all. Now."

He sighed and rubbed one hand across his forehead while he let his eyes wander off across the quickly lightening moor.

"Well, none of the other Cullens have an obvious gift. Some of the children do. Khalid is a tactile telepath. He can project his own thoughts and images through physical contact. Kassim gathers memories. With a touch, he can glean preserved memories. The pair can also communicate with each other entirely through physical contact. It's rather amazing. It's as if they have each received a specialized version of my gift which they share just between each other. None of the children seem to have a version of your shield though, which is unfortunate. I would have liked to see what variations our combined gifts could have created. It is interesting, though, that Khalid and Kassim's gifts are not hindered by your shield. They are able to share thoughts and gather memories through your shield.

"Do not worry, though, I have not given them access to my memories. I did not think it right, without your permission.

"Well, now, Mikie has not manifested anything yet and Isabella has no obvious gift, except that a love for music seems to be a family trait. I wonder if Michael can take up an instrument now that he will have access to so many instruments?"

Darling stopped walking and stopped breathing. When Peter noticed he tugged on her hand and tried to get her to face him again.

"Darling, what is it?"

"Peter… why would our gifts have anything to do with the gifts of Khalid and Kassim?" she said. She tried to pretend she didn't know the answer. When she saw him look away, she knew. "Peter, the Cullens have not been gathering random vampire's children, have they? Who? Who are their parents?"

Peter ran a hand through his hair and looked back at Darling. "You hadn't figured it out? I thought… Isabella's hair is exactly the same color as mine. Khalid and Kassim look so much like you. I thought you would have figured it out by now."

"When?" she hissed. "Where? Who? Tell me. Now."

For a moment, they ceased being Peter and Darling and she became the queen of Neverland again. By the command in her tone and the fierce glare in her eyes, Peter shrank back and relented.

"They were all born in Chad. Badiyah died giving birth to the twins."

Darling sucked in a quick breath and she clung to Peter's arm. "Badiyah's death… was in childbirth?"

"Yes."

"I wondered. Not then. We didn't know then. Later, after I knew… Peter, who was Isabella's mother?"

"Alice never knew her name. She died giving birth in Barzakh. Alice found her when she burned down Barzakh and ended your sire."

"Alice… came to Barzakh? Alice lit the match… not Edward?"

"Yes. She could not see Isabella, but she could see enough of Edward to know he was beyond saving and needed to be ended. She came to deal with Edward and then she found Isabella there and brought her home.

"The twins only found out about Isabella at the dig in Barzakh. They met there. The Cullens only found out about the twins when they brought Bell and Michael here in January. No one has heard if there were any other children."

At Darling's sudden hitched sob, Peter drew closer to her and tried to place his arms around her. She pushed him away and fell onto the ground so she could bury her face in her knees and hide away. It was too much to take in. She closed her eyes, hoping it would make her world stop spinning, that it would somehow make sense of what she was hearing.

"Edward didn't light the match?" she finally managed to say, between sobs.

Peter knelt before her and hesitantly placed a hand on her shoulder. "No, Darling. What is this about?"

"Edward didn't kill Margaret?"

"Who is Margaret?"

"Edward didn't kill Margaret. Alice found her. Margaret lived. Margaret lived. Oh, Jane, your Margaret lived!" she mumbled to herself, again and again.

Then she lifted her head enough to see his face, begging him to understand. "Hook's claws, Peter, do you know what this means? Do you know what this changes?" She saw nothing but confusion there, but she didn't care. She stood to her feet and began to head back to the castle. "I need to see her."

"Who?" Peter asked. He caught up with her to stop her, blocking her way so she stayed in place long enough to answer him. "Tell me what this is about."

Just like that, Darling was no longer queen. It was her turn to shrink before him. She nodded once. Then dropped her shield.

He needed to see. He needed to understand. She let the scents and sounds and sights of Barzakh during those last days flood through her mind, putting flesh back on the corpse of the old ruins he had seen, and let him experience it as it had been, when she was there.

"My baby. I need to see my baby," she cried out. "I need to see Margaret."

oooo


Author's Notes: Well, since you all are the best readers ever and I was so encouraged by all your reviews, you get the next chapter sooner than anticipated. Besides, it's kinda an important chapter and we've all waited long enough for it.

We only have one more chapter in Scotland and then it's time to go back to Neverland and finish up our story!