79. Gifted
I'd seen it in their memories, but it was still hard to believe. If I hadn't been able to watch through his thoughts, I might have suspected Benjamin's abilities to be like Kate's or Jane's. It seemed an easier explanation for what he was doing. If I had been made to feel as though I were roasting in the deepest pits of hell with one look from Jane, there was no reason he couldn't be making us all think we were wet, or wind-blown, or seeing flames that weren't really there. Except that he wasn't. It was no illusion.
The lot of us followed him and Nessie outside to watch in awe as Benjamin made the leaf litter swirl around her feet. The day had been relatively still and calm before. Now, out of nowhere, a whirlwind formed with Renesmee at its center. She clapped her hands and then held them up high, dancing in circles in the eye of a miniature tornado while her hair swirled crazily around her head.
"Again," Nessie demanded when he let the wind dissipate harmlessly. Although a little fluffier than usual, her curls fell tangle-free back down to her waist as though they'd only been caught in a gentle breeze.
Benjamin sent the wind this way and that, buffeting us, or the trees, or making the grass ripple like a green sea at our feet. He opened holes in the ground and then filled them back in. He pulled water from the river and guided it into the sky over our heads, sprinkling us with an artificial rain as he let it fall back to the ground. He hurtled a handful of fire at the driveway, where the flames danced among the rocks as though they were so many wickless candles.
Renesmee brought one of the rocks to me after the flames died. It was warm to the touch, but otherwise unchanged.
It was impressive, to be sure, but I didn't know how much good it would do against vampires. Such a fire would have had much the same effect on me. I had a feeling he could have enveloped me in flames, and Jane's illusion of fire would have hurt more.
Although, if we were able to separate Jane from her head, or Alec or Demetri from theirs, Benjamin's fire could turn them into ash then and there. A faster death than they might deserve, but I would settle for a more expedient end, so long as it was permanent.
It was not healthy to think such things. In fact, it was downright dangerous. As everyone showed off their skills though, I couldn't help it.
Yet, much as our numbers had grown, skilled as several among us were, we were no match for the Volturi. Our friends and family presented little more than an insignificant irritation. We weren't the first coven to have enlisted the help of others, but help or no help, no coven in three thousand years had come close to besting them.
Our one and only chance was for our numbers to make them curious enough to pause. We were innocent, and our witnesses could attest to that, and Nessie could show them. Then they would have to go, to leave us in peace.
No, more likely, Carlisle would invite them to stay for a visit.
Wouldn't that be nice. Aro. In my family's living room. Relaxing on our couch. Chatting with my father, my wife, my daughter. I couldn't picture it.
Had Alice seen it? Could she see it now?
I had only to look around at our gathering, at my half-human daughter and her werewolf guardian, at our golden-eyed cousins and our red-eyed friends, at Bella herself, to feel nothing in this world could be labeled impossible anymore. There was only the possible, and that which had not yet been seen.
With how sheltered Amun had kept Benjamin, he had never before encountered someone whose gifts did not manifest in the physical world. Our abilities seemed as remarkable to him as his did to us. We spent the rest of the day engaged in practice and demonstrations that would have made Aro's eyes glow with the hunger of acquisition, were he here to watch.
Or, when he inevitably did watch, through my memories.
It would serve no purpose to leave, but I felt compromised. Everything we did, Aro would see. Every thought our guests had, he would hear. The only hand he needed to shake in order to do so was mine. I was an unwilling spy in their midst. At least they all knew.
With the imminent arrival of our guests, Bella had not reiterated her request for me to train her in fighting techniques. I was sure my reprieve would end as soon as we were no longer on alert for the next set of friends to show. I was much happier for her to practice other skills.
When Kate demonstrated the charge she could send over her skin, Bella was the only one willing to touch her. Sparks appeared to sizzle and jump across Bella's hand where she held Kate's arm. Instinctively, I wanted to snatch her away, to remove her from danger. Stupid reaction, all things considered.
Immunity. Complete and perfect and impenetrable. Her shield might not have been as flashy as Benjamin's elemental manipulation, but I found it to be just as impressive.
And unlike his, Bella's gift worked on vampires.
Self-conscious as Bella had always been, I thought it would be easier on her to learn from Kate without all of us standing around watching. I could keep tabs on Bella through Kate while the rest of us watched Benjamin, or tested Maggie, or questioned Eleazar or, silently, myself.
Admittedly, there wasn't much to see. Bella not reacting wasn't all that interesting as a spectator sport. Not to the others, at any rate. I could have watched Bella for the rest of eternity, no matter what she was doing. She was always fascinating to me. The training she was starting with Kate, while uninteresting to the rest of our guests, had me riveted. What if, for the tiniest moment, she managed to move or change or otherwise affect her shield?
I knew she sought to expand her protection to cover more than just herself, but what if, in experimenting with it, she dropped it? I tried to convince myself that I worried she would make herself vulnerable to Jane, but the truth was, I simply couldn't resist the temptation to hear her hidden thoughts. What if, for one minuscule moment, her thoughts were open to me? What if I missed it?
Part of me listened to and responded to our guests, answering their silent thoughts and playing host, steering their attention away from Bella and toward Benjamin - an easy enough task - but most of my attention was focused on the two who stood apart from us.
"It feels like I'm trying to convince my skin to come off," Bella grumbled.
"Well, don't think of it as your skin," Kate said. "Think of it like a jacket you are ready to hang up."
I frowned, and despite my decision to stay out of the way, to give them space so Bella wouldn't feel like a spectacle, I couldn't resist speaking up.
"Kate, you're asking Bella to set aside an automatic defense and intentionally allow herself to feel something she knows full and well will hurt. I don't think that's going to work."
"My aim is not for her to drop her defenses," Kate corrected, shooting an admonitory look at me for interfering. "I don't want you to feel my gift, Bella. I want you to feel this shield of yours. Feel it protecting you."
"Protecting me. Right. Feel my shield. Gotcha."
Bella shook her arms, letting her hands flop at the wrist, as if she were trying to relieve the ache in her muscles, as if such a thing were possible anymore. Determinedly, she placed her hand back on Kate's arm, then muttered an apology and loosened her hold when Kate winced at Bella's newborn strength.
It was easy to forget, as normal as Bella was, that she was only a few months into this life. I had told our guests so, and our cousins knew it to be the truth, but it was hard to reconcile fact with appearances. By all accounts, Bella should not be capable of such rational behavior or restraint. Her very normal behavior was not normal at all.
But then, when had my Bella ever been normal?
"Picture it in your mind," Kate instructed. "The shape, the color, the material it's made of."
Bella tried again, concentrating on giving her shield whatever form she could. I wished I could just see! For once, I was not alone in that desire. Eleazar was also pretending to listen to Maggie and Benjamin, but their gifts were accessible to his in a way Bella's was not. Her elusive gift was nearly as intriguing to him as Bella herself was to me.
"It's not made of anything, Kate!" Bella wailed after a time. "Nothing's there. There's nothing to hold on to."
"Oh, trust me, it's there. But it is also just in your mind. So give it a color, a shape, a texture, something to anchor it to reality for you. Something tangible that will let you manipulate it."
Bella blew out a sharp breath, then closed her eyes and stood motionless. A statue, whose hair fluttered in the breeze, one hand gripping Kate's arm, where sparks she couldn't feel danced and sizzled. Her deepening frown was the only indication she was attempting to do as Kate said.
After a few silent minutes, Bella groaned, "I'm imagining myself standing in a giant hamster ball, and I feel just as silly. This isn't working."
"Then try something else," Kate said, with far more patience than I would have expected. "Something more familiar and easier to manipulate than being inside a big plastic ball."
The Bella-sized hamster ball was followed by an untold number of other imaginings Bella chose not to share, other than that they didn't work. After a full day of practice and nothing to show for her efforts, Bella was morose when we finally bid our guests good night.
Of the two of us, I wasn't sure who was frustrated more. She, for being unable to manipulate her shield, or me for wishing I could watch her try.
"Be patient, love," I said at some point that night. Her abstraction had not abated one whit. Honestly, it was a bit insulting, given how ardently I'd been striving to give her something else to think about. I loved being the center of her attention. I missed it now. "You've only been at it for a day. A few hours, really. Remember what Kate said. It took her years."
"We don't have years," Bella whispered in a bleak voice. "We were supposed to, but we don't. Not unless I can…"
She shook her head angrily, then pushed away from me to sit up. She wrapped her arms around her knees, closed her eyes, and frowned, trying yet again, I assumed, to make her gift do as she wanted.
It was a rather defensive posture, curled up as she was, hands gripping her forearms tight, fingers digging into her flesh. It seemed to me that such a posture would serve to tighten her shield, strengthening her automatic defenses rather than making them more malleable, but what did I know of how Bella's brain worked?
I laced my fingers behind my head and watched her motionless, silent struggle for as long as I could stand, trying vainly the whole time to hear or see. Her shield remained impenetrable as ever.
"Bella, you can't expect to master a new skill in one day. You may not require sleep, but a rest when something is eluding you is still beneficial. Let it go for the night. Kate will be waiting for you as soon as we get back to the house."
"There isn't time to rest. I'm fine, anyway. It's just… It's almost... It's frustrating. I feel like it's right there. Like I can almost…" Bella's eyes had opened when I'd spoken, but now they slid closed again as her words trailed off. She raised an arm, fingers extended as if to pluck something from midair, though nothing was there. She was still and silent for an interminable length of time before giving up with a sigh. "But then it's gone again."
She relaxed out of her tight ball and fit herself back against my side. I wrapped an arm around her, pleased to have her there. It felt good to have her snuggle against me, but there was an air of defeat about her posture that I wanted to change.
"I wish I could see," I said, hoping she would tell me about it.
"I know." Her voice was glum, and when she didn't continue, I was left trying to contain my too familiar, and all too often unsatisfied, curiosity.
"Hmm, yes, well. I always wish I could hear you, but it'd be especially interesting to watch you do what you're doing. To see you figuring out how your gift works."
She was silent again, tracing idle patterns with her fingers across my chest, before propping herself up on one elbow to smile at me. "Benjamin's gift is pretty cool to watch, I bet."
"Very," I agreed, surprised by the direction of her thoughts and the sudden shift in her mood.
"Tell me?"
I smiled at the curiosity in her eyes. It seemed a little unfair for my own curiosity to go so unsatisfied, but how could I resist telling her what she wanted to know?
"It's strange. The best I can say, it's like… he's holding something. Something heavy. And then he… lifts. Like you'd flex a muscle trying to pick up something that you, with your newborn strength, couldn't move. Only, for him, it moves."
"And your gift?" Bella cocked her head at me. If we weren't lying naked together in our own bed, I could almost imagine her with a slice of cafeteria pizza in hand, quizzing me about my hunting preferences.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, how do you get it to do what you want? How did you learn?"
"It wasn't something I had to learn how to use. It's automatic, like yours." I grinned, liking that we shared this. My gift, always so strange, so different from the others', was now something we had in common.
"Yeah but, you used it to find me. In Port Angeles? You said you… listened, searching for me."
How did she remember that? And at that level of detail? Her human life should have been a vague blur by now. I'd barely held on to my memories of my mother, though I'd tried. Almost everything else was gone. By the time I'd been Bella's age, my human life had been a half-remembered dream that slipped away faster, the harder I tried to hang on to it.
But Bella spoke as if the events had happened yesterday. And not for the first time had she spoken so clearly of her human memories. How much of her human life did she keep?
It took me a long minute to answer, but she was waiting, expectant, so I tried to push my awe of her aside to answer her questions.
"Umm, do you also remember that I explained it like standing in the middle of a crowded hall?"
She nodded, and there was no confusion in her eyes; she remembered.
"If you're surrounded by people, all talking at once, you can choose who you listen to, can't you?"
"I guess?"
"You'd still hear everyone, even if you only listened to one person. It's the same kind of focus. Picking which 'conversation' I pay attention to."
"Focus," Bella repeated, nodding and frowning, as if the word held some hidden significance.
"Mostly though, I concentrate on not hearing. Tuning things out. Letting all their thoughts become no more than fits of rain against the glass. The storm is there, but it's outside and unimportant, and I can ignore it."
"But how? How do you do it?" There was frustration in her tone and on her face, in the twist of her lips and the sharp v between her eyes. This was no idle curiosity, nor even fascination with me.
"I don't know how your gift works, love," I said gently. "Mine takes no more effort than choosing where to look."
When I pointed, her eyes followed my gesture to focus on the little pond outside our window.
"And it comes as naturally to me as that. I look. I listen. I don't have to try to make my gift work. It just does."
A knowing look entered her eyes. "I don't think you give yourself enough credit. You control it more than you know."
"You think so?" I asked, amused. Trust Bella to know me so well, she would know my gift better than I did.
"You try to hear me."
"Try and fail."
"Yeah, but you try. You... do something. Don't you?"
I contemplated her in silence, trying to figure out a way to explain that might help her. I brushed my thumb across the purple shadow just beneath her amber eyes. I twined a strand of her hair around my fingers, feeling the indestructible strength in the thin strands and their incongruous softness when I rubbed the silky lock against my own cheek.
"Listen," I finally said. "Outside right now, can you hear the birds? Do you know in what direction and how far away they have nested? How do you know?"
As I spoke, she looked automatically in the direction of the pair that had begun stirring, twittering softly to each other though it was still dark. Dawn wouldn't break for another hour or so. They would already be out, filling the air with their songs and looking for their morning meal when it did.
"Listen harder. Can you count the different insect species surrounding our home? There's a light rain falling about two miles west of here. Did you notice when it started? Or was it just there, in the background? And over those noises, can you hear Renesmee's heartbeat?"
She didn't answer, but I could tell she was doing as I instructed, casting her attention in the directions of the various sounds as I pointed them out.
"Alright, now ask yourself this: You could hear all of those things before, but now that I've called your attention to them, can you go back to ignoring them?"
Bella watched my eyes, a look of concentration in hers. I stared back, wishing I could just see, wondering if she was trying to let me. After a few long seconds, her lips twisted and her shoulders slumped slightly.
"That doesn't really help me," Bella muttered.
"I'm sorry, love. I told you, my gift doesn't take effort. As long as there is someone there to hear, I hear them. Present company excluded, of course," I said with a laugh, touching a finger to the tip of her nose. "I didn't have to learn how to use it any more than you had to learn how to hear or see. From the start of this new life, it was simply there. A sense that was just on."
"Just like mine. It's just on. Even when I was human."
She seemed annoyed, as if the similarity that so pleased me had the opposite affect on her. Then again, I didn't really like that I couldn't turn mine off.
"Well, we don't need you to turn yours off," I tried to reassure her. "As much as I would like to hear you, I'd rather have you protected."
"But what good does that do me, if I can't protect you, too?"
This was the source of her frustration. She'd told me before: There wasn't a point to forever without me. What did her immunity matter when I was vulnerable to Jane's gift? To Alec's and Aro's? And our daughter was vulnerable as well. Every one of our family and friends were. A chain was only as strong as its weakest link, and that had never been Bella.
"You won't need to protect me, Bella. It won't come to a fight. It won't."
Bella shook her head at me, her eyes pleading for something more than glib reassurances.
"Alice would not have told us to gather all our friends together for a mass slaughter, Bella. This will work."
"Did she see that? Did she see us surviving their attack on us?"
"She saw the Volturi coming; she never actually saw them attacking."
"But did she see us surviving? Did she see us, after they left?"
I couldn't respond, but she knew the answer was no.
"Alice saw us asking them to come here," Bella pressed as she pointed back toward the big house, "which we've done. But after? If she saw us surviving, wouldn't she have told you so?"
"Not if telling me would have changed things. Love," I said, cupping her face to forestall her arguments as she started to shake her head again, "I've spent decades watching Alice's visions come true, and I've watched them change course entirely, due to something seemingly innocuous and unrelated. And - and this is my most compelling explanation for her behavior - why do you think she left Jasper in Maria's army as long as she did?"
I watched as the panic slowly faded from Bella's eyes.
"Do you have any idea the number of times she watched him narrowly escape death, knowing he might not, and knowing there was nothing she could do about it? She knew they would be together someday. But she also knew that that future - this future - could only happen if she let it happen naturally, if she didn't interfere. She had to wait, or ruin everything before it had the chance to come about."
"And what? You think she didn't show you we'll survive because knowing the future would have altered it?"
I sighed, wishing I had a better answer for her. "I don't know, Bella. I do know that Alice never does anything without good reason. She told us to gather our friends to witness for us. She sent Peter and Charlotte to us! There must have been a reason. And knowing Alice as I do, I believe that reason is our family's survival. All of us."
"What if you're wrong?" The words weren't even a whisper, just a soundless shaping of her lips, as if to speak them aloud would give them more weight.
"If I'm wrong? I don't suppose it really matters."
The look Bella gave me was one of utter disbelief.
"You're convinced that I have my soul, and I know for a fact that you still have yours. If we don't survive - we will, but if - well, I'll just have to find you in the afterlife, won't I? And we'll spend our eternity in heaven, instead of here on earth. Either way, we'll be together. As long as you're with me, I don't suppose I'll notice much of a difference."
Our little slice of heaven…
It was difficult having to leave every day. It was jarring to go from the peace of our relative solitude to the overcrowded mansion. So many vampire minds made the usually wide, airy rooms feel closed in, stifling, and made our cottage feel spacious and grand in contrast.
Only a few months earlier, our house had been overflowing with guests attending mine and Bella's wedding, and a graduation party prior to that. It had seemed so odd at the time. A place that had always been private, suddenly filled with people. Humans had filled our home, celebrating some of life's biggest milestones with us.
What did it matter that I had graduated many times before and intended to do so again in the years to come? Were we to limit ourselves to watching a single sunrise? Or enjoying a piece of music only once? Were we to make love one time only, and then never again? Some things were worth repeating.
Alice had been right, of course. The parties had been a good idea. The wedding had been perfect. Whatever else may have been going on in our lives, it was right to take the time for, well, living.
I wished I could tell the wind that I loved my sister, and believe it would carry my words to her ears. I wished I could believe she was watching me now, that if I spoke out loud, she would hear me tell her she'd been right about everything.
Whatever she was doing, it was important. The arrival of Peter and Charlotte proved that my sister was acting for the good of us all. Of course she was! Alice always did. Surely she was too busy looking for more help to be idly watching me. There wasn't time to waste. She had made that clear.
And we had wasted none of it. A mere week after they'd left, Carlisle and Esme returned home with Alistair, the last of his friends they'd been able to find. My parent's eyes were shining with hope when they first saw everyone here, gathered together to protect our family.
Garrett's arrival had been followed a few days later by Mary's and then Randall's, two other nomads that Emmett and Rose located. I was jubilant over their success. To track down three nomads in such a short time was a feat unto itself. They returned home a few days after Carlisle and Esme, though my hope that they would also bring yet more witnesses with them was in vain.
My family had done their part, and I had done mine - albeit with a great deal of help from Nessie. Everyone that Alice had told us to find, had come. And all who came, stayed. Our house was almost as full now as it had been for our wedding, only this time our guests were vampires. It seemed just as odd as having all those humans here.
Perhaps people always felt strange when their homes were invaded by family and friends. I had always done my best to block out that kind of human drama. It was a good thing none of these guests needed beds.
As crowded as our house felt, even counting the absent werewolf packs, our numbers remained pitifully few. I would have felt far more comfortable if there were more of us to give the Volturi incentive to pause, though, admittedly, I was unsure exactly how many guardians would ever feel like enough where my daughter's life was concerned.
My reassurances to Bella aside, she was correct in at least one respect. Alice never actually showed me that we would survive this. I wanted to spend my life with Bella, not my afterlife. It would have been nice to have more than my certainty to sustain me. I'd been certain, and proven to be utterly and absurdly wrong, on far too many occasions.
The dread had been clear in her mind. Alice had known what was coming for us. But she'd refused to let me see! Was it because Bella was right - as she always was? Had Alice left because she knew we were doomed?
Why, then, would she have had us gather our friends?!
Because, I reluctantly reminded myself, with Alice, cause and effect didn't necessarily follow the usual paths. She saw things to come, and knew they had to happen - because in her mind, they already had - but she didn't always know the whys and the wherefores. Emmett had suggested we gather our friends, and we had done so. Therefore, Alice had seen it.
But, as Bella had asked, what about after?
Alice had refused to show me what came next. She'd seen something! And that something, whatever it had been, had caused her to take Jasper and flee in terror.
I couldn't believe she would simply abandon us. I couldn't. That was not within the realm of possibilities. It wasn't! Alice knew how to navigate the potential futures better than I did. If she had known our plan would fail, she would have had us alter it.
The only conclusion I could draw was that there were too many possibilities to even begin unraveling the countless threads. The outcome of the Volturi's visit was a Gordian knot that only the fullness of time could sever.
It wasn't a totally unfamiliar scenario. I'd had to face the possibility of killing Bella in our meadow with no guarantee that I was strong enough not to. At least then, the possibility that we would leave the meadow together had been there, in Alice's mind. She couldn't tell me how to solve my problem, only that a solution existed. I'd had to learn through experience that my desire for Bella to stay alive was stronger than my need for her blood, in order for it to truly become so. Sometimes, the only way to solve a problem was by facing it.
And so we would face this one.
As if to prove that what I'd been telling Bella was the truth, as if Alice had timed their arrivals as precisely as she always timed her own entrances, just when I needed to hear from her most, two more of our friends arrived. The Amazons, Zafrina and Senna. Alice had told them of our need for help, that we needed them to come without delay, and that she was in need of their other sister's help. The three were usually inseparable, but Alice had insisted Kachiri accompany her and Jasper on their secret mission.
There wasn't a single word in any language ever spoken by mankind that could encompass the hope and relief and joy I felt upon our newest guests' arrival.
To have proof that Alice was still working to save us? As if I needed more proof than Peter and Charlotte's arrival. As if I needed more proof than my own memories of the past fifty odd years!
But more than the proof they provided, Zafrina was highly gifted. Her power rivaled, perhaps even surpassed, Alec's. It made me wonder what would happen if the two were using their powers on the same subjects. He could blind, but she could make people see - whatever she wanted, and only what she wanted. Her illusions were so real, so detailed, it seemed more likely that I had been teleported into the midst of their jungle home, rather than merely viewing a product of Zafrina's mind.
But that was all it was - a projection, an image, from her mind directly into another's. Yet it was so real, it seemed I could hear the call of birds and the whirring of insects, smell the fragrances of unfamiliar flowers, and could almost taste the warm, dense, tropical air.
Knowing our ways, Zafrina even had a jaguar slink through the branches. As I watched, he turned to stare directly at me and hiss a challenge that, were he real, I would have been happy to accept. My venom flowed in response, and it was all I could do not to launch myself at the big cat. Bella had been neglecting her thirst, and it had been even longer since I'd last hunted.
If not for Bella in my arms, invisible to me just now, but solid and far more real than anything else in the entire world, I would swear I was there, not here.
I could imagine the panic I would have felt without my gift. I could see that I was still standing in my yard simply by looking through Zafrina's eyes - or anyone else's for that matter. I couldn't see her, but she was watching me. It was just as disconcerting to her now as the first time I'd looked directly at the empty space where I knew her eyes were, and grinned.
"Impressive," I said.
The tropical rainforest disappeared as Zafrina stopped projecting and allowed reality to reassert itself. Her lips twitched in a wry smile. There wasn't a direct translation for the tone of her thoughts, but it amounted to a return of my compliment.
Having listened avidly as I'd described what I'd been seeing, Renesmee wanted to see for herself. She stretched out a hand, but although our two newest arrivals had allowed her to show her memories to them, accepting her without hesitation, Zafrina made no move to go to her now.
"What would you like to see?" Zafrina responded when Nessie spoke her request aloud.
"What you showed Daddy."
And there, in Nessie's mind, was an image like the one Zafrina had placed in mine. Around my daughter, a jungle, completely new and unfamiliar to her, blossomed to life. It seemed she was clinging to a tree, rather than sitting in Bella's arms. The rest of us were nowhere to be found.
Nessie was thrilled. The trees were so different from the ones she knew. It looked as though Zafrina had filled our yard with every flower the Amazon woman had ever seen. A cat like the one Zafrina had teased me with padded along the branches overhead. It seemed a gentler creature than the one she had shown me. Nessie watched it lay down on the branch, dangling a paw over one side, as if in invitation for her to join it.
When the image faded, Renesmee gave Zafrina a huge grin and immediately asked for more.
Zafrina was happy to oblige. The Amazon basin was a vast and varied landscape, with more rivers and mountains and flora and fauna than a human could hope to see in a lifetime of travels. Zafrina was able to bring it all to our backyard, and Nessie couldn't get enough.
I approved. It was a much better pastime than most children's entertainment. Zafrina's pictures were far more realistic than any television program could provide, with the added benefit of no commercials. Win-win.
