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17. GUEST
(VISITOR)
For a moment, all I could do was stare.
Absolutely nothing about her had changed since the last time I'd seen her. Her flawless features hadn't aged a single day. Her dark hair still stood in short, perfect spikes, and the clothes she wore were undoubtedly designer. She looked like a model staring up at me from the cover of a fashion magazine . . . and just like a photograph, she was frozen, completely still. Only her dark eyes seemed to change, cycling through a series of emotions—confusion, surprise, and finally relief.
"Edward?" Alice asked. She sounded uncertain. Who had she been expecting? This was my house, after all. "How are you still alive?"
I stared at her for another moment. What was she talking about? I felt like I'd missed a step.
"What?"
"I saw you jump. I saw you falling. You went into the water, and I waited and waited for you to come up, but you didn't."
She studied me intently, still relieved, but puzzled, as well. My plan, I realized, had worked, but maybe it had worked a bit too well. Alice had seen what I'd done, but somehow she hadn't seen anything that had followed.
"I . . . Josie pulled me out."
"Josie?" she asked, her eyebrows lowering slightly.
"She's . . . she's a friend. You didn't see that part?"
"No, I didn't." Her eyes went out of focus for a moment. It wasn't like Alice to miss something so important. She must have been more than a little concerned about the holes in her vision, but then her expression shifted again, her eyes narrowing as she focused on me once more. She seemed caught somewhere between fury and concern.
"Have you lost your senses, Edward?" The words exploded out of her. "What has been going through your head these past few days? The things I've seen you planning . . . Arson? Destruction of property? You spent the better part of one afternoon planning to steal a police car! You always changed your mind before things got too far, but there was always some new scheme to take the old one's place. I've seen you jumping for a couple of days now, but I didn't think you'd really go through with it. I thought you'd just change your mind again, but then you didn't. What on earth is going on?"
I swallowed nervously. It had been quite some time since I'd been lectured by someone the way Alice was lecturing me now. I really hadn't expected her to see the earlier versions of my plan. They must have been further along than I'd thought they were . . . or maybe Alice was just watching more closely than I'd expected her to be.
"I was trying to get your attention," I explained, feeling like a five-year-old who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar just before dinner.
She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.
"I knew something like this would happen. Not this, specifically, but there were so many possibilities, and so few of them were what she wanted them to be." She sighed, lowering her gaze again. "I tried to warn her, to talk her out of it, but she is so stubborn."
I didn't have to ask who she was.
"Once she's made up her mind, there's no changing it. It's like she thinks she can make something work out the way she wants it to by sheer force of will. But you, you're just as stubborn as she is sometimes. How am I supposed to explain this to her? I was supposed to look in on you from time to time, but I wasn't supposed to interfere. I promised her I wouldn't . . . "
Alice was on a roll. I wasn't sure how I would get a word in edgewise. I didn't know what to say, anyway.
" . . . and then I saw you jump, and you didn't come out of the water. I didn't think. I just got on a plane. I knew I would be too late, but I couldn't do nothing. And then I get here, thinking maybe I could help Lizzie somehow, and you drive up. Did you even stop to think what might have happened if your friend hadn't pulled you out of the water? What would this have done to Lizzie? Do you have any idea what Bella—"
I had to stop her before she said that name again in her perfect, bell-like tone of voice. It brought back too many memories I didn't know how to deal with. Too many feelings were rushing back to the surface. I said the only thing I could think to say that I knew would stop her.
"Victoria is back, and the werewolves need help."
It worked. By the time the second word was out of my mouth, Alice had already fallen silent.
"Victoria?" she asked. "Werewolves?" And then she leaned forward to sniff the front of my shirt.
I pulled away slightly, wary of her dark eyes.
"Edward, don't be ridiculous," she chastised, trying to lean closer.
"Sorry, you're thirsty. Your eyes . . ."
She pulled back just far enough to glare up at me. "Yes, well, I didn't have time to take care of that before I panicked and hopped on a plane because someone had decided to jump off a cliff."
She had a point. I leaned back toward her. What was she doing?
"Who was with you just now? It sounded like you were arguing."
"Jacob . . . Jacob Black. He's a friend." Well, he had been a friend. I didn't know if he still was.
Alice pulled back to study me.
"Have you been with this Jacob much today?"
I nodded. "Most of the day. He was there when his sister pulled me out of the water."
"So Josie is Jacob's sister?" She leaned forward slightly for another sniff. This time, I didn't budge.
"Yeah."
When she pulled away again, she seemed to be deep in thought. I watched her ponder something for several seconds before her eyes grew wide.
"Would either of them happen to be one of these werewolves you mentioned?"
"Jacob is."
She blinked, her eyes narrowing again. "And you've been with him most of the day, ever since you came out of the water?" she asked.
I nodded.
"Well, I guess that explains the smell," she muttered. "But does it explain what I didn't see?"
"Smell?" I asked.
"You smell awful," she answered offhandedly. Her mind seemed to be on something else as she glanced toward the front door. "A werewolf? Are you sure about that?"
I nodded again. "Absolutely. I've seen them a couple of times. The Quileutes . . . " Surely she must know about the Quileutes. Hadn't she agreed to the treaty, too? "Were you with Carlisle and the others the last time they were here?"
Alice shook her head. "No, I hadn't found them yet." She was still lost in thought. "How long has this been going on?" she asked.
"Sam's been a wolf for a while, but the rest of the pack didn't really start phasing until Laurent and Victoria came back. Two or three months, maybe? Jacob's only been a werewolf for a few weeks."
Alice's eyes widened, and she turned back toward me.
"Laurent was here, too? And your friend has only been a werewolf for a few weeks? Do you have any idea how dangerous young werewolves are?"
I'd seen the fight between Paul and Jacob, and I'd seen Emily's scars. I had a pretty good idea.
"Yeah, bit of a temper problem. I know." Why was she so worried about the pack when Victoria was still out there? "But if it weren't for the werewolves, Victoria would have killed me already . . . or maybe Laurent would have done it before she had the chance."
Alice stared at me for several seconds, apparently trying to align the disjointed pieces of information I was giving her into a sequential narrative.
"Maybe you should start from the beginning," she suggested.
"Alright," I agreed, turning toward the living room. She might have been perfectly comfortable standing in the hallway for the next several hours, but I needed to sit down.
I wasn't about to tell her about the dreams or my strange delusion that Bella had been hiding somewhere around Forks, waiting for me to find her, but that was all I kept to myself. I told her about the pack. It seemed only fair when I'd already told them about her. I made sure to mention their patrols and how thinly stretched they were as they tried to keep me and my mother safe. I told her about the strange image of red hair Josie and I had seen in the water earlier that day, how we knew it had to have been Victoria, and just how close we'd come to disaster. Alice's eyes narrowed at that news, something dark and deadly flashing in their depths. I told her about the wolves patrolling the coastline to make sure Victoria hadn't come ashore after we'd seen her in the water and how I'd spent the afternoon warming up at Jacob and Josie's house. And then I told her about Harry.
Alice sat quietly on the couch, listening patiently to my story. She didn't speak until I had finished.
"Our leaving didn't do you any good at all, did it?" she murmured.
I shrugged. I didn't know what else to say.
Turning her head, she frowned down at the floor for a moment. "I guess I owe you an apology. I acted impulsively today. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions."
"It's not your fault you didn't see everything that happened. What else were you to think?"
She didn't have an answer to that question, but her eyes were studying me in a different way now. It felt like she was looking through me, instead of just at me, and judging by the look on her face, she didn't like what she saw. She had just opened her mouth to say something when we were interrupted by the ringing of the phone.
"That's probably Mom." Rising from the recliner, I headed into the kitchen to answer it. I sensed—rather than heard—Alice following.
"Hello?"
"Edward?" It wasn't my mother's voice on the other end of the line.
"Jake?"
I turned to see Alice standing in the kitchen doorway. She was watching me carefully. She seemed . . . perplexed.
"Just making sure you were still alive," Jacob answered, something sour in his tone. In the background, I could hear Josie's voice, but I couldn't tell what she was saying.
"I'm fine. It was Alice, just like I—"
"Yeah. I got it. 'Bye." And then the line went dead.
I stared down at the phone for a moment, then hung up.
"They aren't excited I'm here," Alice noted.
"Not exactly. But you're my friend. They'll have to deal with it."
She tilted her head to the side and looked up at me thoughtfully. "So what do we do now?" she asked, but she seemed to be talking to herself. "Things to do," she said. "Loose ends to tie."
"What do you mean?"
Her expression shifted, growing more guarded. "I don't know for sure. I need to see Carlisle."
See Carlisle?
"You're leaving?" I asked. After everything I'd gone through to get her here . . . Suddenly, I had the horrible feeling that if she left, she'd never come back, and it all would have been for nothing.
"It wouldn't be a good idea for me to stay," she began gently.
"Why would it matter? People already know you were here."
"The wolves?" she asked, lifting her eyebrows.
I scrambled for some other excuse.
"Mrs. Russo, down the street. She sees everything that happens around here. She's probably already written down a description of Carlisle's Mercedes, license plates included. It's parked across from our house, so I'm sure she'll ask my mother the next time she sees her . . . "
Alice's eyes went distant for a second, and then she sighed. Apparently I was right.
"And if someone figures out it was you," I continued, "you can't really leave and say you're staying at your old house. People know you moved. They know it's been abandoned since last fall."
She studied me for another moment. Her eyes narrowed, and she sighed.
"Fine, but I need to get a suitcase of clothes, at the very least. And I definitely need to go hunting, preferably before Lizzie gets home."
She closed her eyes for a moment. "You'll be okay for the next hour," she announced, "and I don't see Lizzie coming back before then." She opened her eyes again.
"One hour?" I asked, still slightly suspicious that she might not return.
She nodded.
I glanced at the clock on the microwave. "Okay," I agreed, "one hour."
And then she was gone.
Alone in the suddenly empty kitchen, I looked around, wondering if Alice had ever really been there or if I'd imagined the whole thing. I walked to the front door to turn on the porch light, then stared out through the window at my proof. Carlisle's black Mercedes still sat across the street. Alice hadn't moved it.
Turning away from the front door, I glanced down at my clothes, suddenly realizing how terrible I must look. I'd nearly downed today . . . in the clothes I was wearing now. My hair was probably even more of a mess than it usually was. No wonder Alice had been staring at me. If I still looked like this when my mother got home . . . well, I couldn't do that to her. I shook my head and went upstairs to shower away the evidence of my adventure in the ocean.
When I came back downstairs, the clock on the mantel indicated that Alice wouldn't be back for another thirty five minutes. I should probably get something to eat, I decided, but as I stood in front of the open refrigerator, none of the leftovers inside seemed appealing. After a few more moments, I finally gave up, settling for a bowl of cereal. I washed my dishes in the sink and left them in the drainer to dry. Alice would be back in a few minutes, so I decided to wait for her, but when I stepped into the living room, she was already there.
I set the glass of water I'd been carrying on the coffee table and sat down in the recliner. Alice's eyes were the color of amber now. They reminded me so much of another pair of eyes that I had to look away.
"How are you, Edward?" she asked quietly. "Really, how are you?" She was studying me again with that strange expression, like she was looking at what was inside of me, instead of what was on the surface.
I stared down at the rug in front of the couch as I tried to find the right words to describe what my life had been over the last six months. I thought about the things I hadn't told her, about the dreams and my ridiculous searching, and I told her the only thing I knew to say.
"I'm surviving."
I wanted to ask how Bella was, if she was surviving too, but then I remembered that day in the forest, the way she'd held herself and cried dry tears. I couldn't stand to know that she was suffering . . . or that she wasn't. No matter what Alice would say, hearing the words would only make me think of that day again, would only make me feel worse than I already did.
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees as I tried to rub the images out of my eyes with my fingertips.
"Does she know you're here?" I asked instead.
"No," Alice answered softly.
"Did you tell her you went somewhere else?"
"No. She isn't with us right now. She doesn't know I left."
I stared down at the rug again.
"Where is she?" I asked after a moment.
"Right now, she's somewhere in England, I think. She's thought about coming home a couple of times, but she always changes her mind."
I didn't think I could stand to know any more. Not right now, at least. "You said you flew here. Where did you fly from?"
"I was in Denali, visiting Tanya's family."
A safer topic, definitely. I looked up again.
"How is Jasper? Did he come with you?"
Alice shook her head. "He didn't approve of my interfering. We promised . . ." she trailed off. Something flickered in her eyes before vanishing. "Do you think Lizzie will mind my being here?" she asked.
"Mom loves you, Alice."
"I certainly hope she still does. She'll be here in just a moment."
Her timing was perfect. Only a minute had passed before I heard my mother's car in the driveway.
Motioning for Alice to stay in the living room, I walked toward the front door to open it, but as my mother made her way up the front walk, her eyes were focused on the ground. She didn't even notice I was there until she was a few feet away. She looked tired, so desperately tired.
"Hey," I said as she stepped through the door. And then I reached out to hug her because she looked like she needed it. "I'm so sorry, Mom."
She hugged me back fiercely for a moment, then pulled away.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"How's Sue?"
"She's . . . dazed. I don't think it's sunk in yet. Sam is staying with her." She sighed. "I just keep thinking about those kids. Leah's just a little older than you are, and Seth's just fourteen." She shook her head. "Bad memories," she mumbled to herself.
I was trying to decide how to bring up the subject of Alice as I reached out to close the door, but my mother stopped me. Her eyebrows lowered as she stared across the street.
"There's a car . . ." she began. "It looks like . . ." She trailed off, as if afraid to say Carlisle's name out loud, but by the time she'd turned back toward me, Alice had already appeared in the living room doorway.
"Hi, Lizzie," she said quietly. "I'm sorry I came at such a bad time."
"Alice?"
"I was in the neighborhood, so . . ."
My mother glanced sideways at me, clearly wondering how I was handling Alice's sudden appearance.
"Is the rest of your family . . ."
"No, I'm alone." Several seconds of silence passed. We all knew which member of Alice's family my mother was really wondering about.
"Alice is going to be around for a few days, and she thought she'd stop by. She was going to stay up at the old house, but it's been empty for a while. Then she thought she'd get a motel room, but . . ." I didn't need to finish. I knew exactly how my mother would react.
"No, we can't have that. You should stay here, Alice, not in an empty house or some cold motel room." She frowned. "All we really have is the couch, but it's yours if you want it."
"Thank you, Lizzie. I know it's horrid timing."
"No, it's okay. I'm going to be busy the next few days with the funeral and all. It will be good for Edward to have someone to spend time with."
She glanced toward the kitchen. I didn't imagine she'd had much to eat since Harry had been brought to the hospital, but she looked more tired than hungry. Still, she needed to eat something . . .
"There are leftovers in the fridge," I told her. "I didn't know when you'd be home, so . . ."
She gave me a tired nod. "It's okay. I'll just eat a little something and head to bed. I've got the next few days off, by the way. Carolyn and Nancy switched their schedules around. I don't know what I'd do without them." She smiled at me sadly, then made her way into the kitchen. I heard the sounds of cabinets opening and cereal being poured into a bowl. Like mother, like son.
As my mother ate her makeshift dinner, Alice followed me upstairs to the linen closet. She wouldn't really be sleeping on the couch, of course, but we had to keep up appearances.
"So, aside from Jasper, what do the others think about you coming here?" I asked as I unearthed a spare set of sheets from beneath a stack of towels.
"Rose is . . . Rose." She didn't need to explain any further. I knew what she meant. "Emmett was concerned, but he didn't want to say anything in front of her. Carlisle, Esme, and Charlie are on a hunting trip, so they don't know yet. I'll hear from them in a few days, when they get back."
I was yawning as Alice and I tucked sheets into the couch cushions. I wanted to stay up and talk some more, but the events of the day had taken their toll on me, and even though I'd already taken a nap that afternoon, my body craved more sleep. My mother had only just headed upstairs to bed when Alice pushed me up the stairs after her.
My dreams that night were filled with fleeting, unrecognizable images. I didn't see Bella in them so much as I felt her. By the time I awoke the next morning, the sun was already up. I crept out of my bedroom as quietly as I could, wondering if I could talk to Alice before my mother got out of bed, but I was too late. Her bedroom door was open, the bed neatly made, and there were voices coming from the kitchen. Slowly, carefully, I made my way to the top of the stairs to listen.
" . . . sorry about your friend," Alice was saying.
"Thank you. And I'm sorry about last night. It had been a long day, and I—"
"No apologies necessary. I came at a terrible time. It was a sudden trip, and I should have called to warn you."
"Don't be silly, Alice. You'll always be welcome here." The refrigerator door opened and closed. "Can I . . . can I ask about your grandmother?"
Several seconds passed before Alice answered.
"Grandma Claire passed away a few months ago." Of course. Carlisle's imaginary mother. The one they'd supposedly left Forks to move closer to.
"Oh, Alice, I'm so sorry! And now you come to visit in the middle of this." My mother sighed sympathetically. "I'm so sorry," she said again.
"Thank you."
There was another moment of silence.
"Is that why you're here? Are you moving back?"
"It doesn't look like it. At least, not for a while."
A cabinet door opened and closed as the scent of freshly brewed coffee drifted up the stairs toward me.
"How is he, Lizzie?" Alice asked. "Tell me the truth."
My mother took her time answering.
"He's . . . not himself anymore," she finally said. "Not like he was before. He's . . ." The sounds of her moving about the kitchen fell silent. "For days after you all left, he'd just sit and stare at nothing, like a statue. I could hardly get him to eat. If I'd try to talk to him, if I'd distract him, the look on his face, the pain in his eyes . . . Alice, it killed me. I couldn't stand to see it, so I just let him be. I didn't know what else to do. After about a week, he started . . . moving again. He went to school. He went to work. He did his homework, and his grades never suffered, but it was like he was a robot, like he was on autopilot, and if he did seem to feel anything, it was always that same pain."
Hearing her talk about it brought it all back to me, the agony of those early days, but I could hear her pain, too. Some part of me must have realized how worried she'd been, but I hadn't been able to process what I had been suffering through, so I hadn't let it register. Hearing her talk about it now only made me feel worse.
"He's lost weight," Alice said. "His face is thinner. His clothes don't fit like they used to."
"He still doesn't have much of an appetite," my mother explained, "but at least he's eating now. He still hasn't gained back all of the weight he lost."
I looked down at the t-shirt I was wearing, at the pajama pants below it. I knew I'd lost weight in the beginning, but I hadn't really considered whether or not anyone else had noticed. How much had I lost? How much had I gained back? I didn't know. I couldn't remember how my clothes used to fit . . . before.
"He's stopped listening to music," my mother continued. "He's stopped humming the way he always did, when he didn't even realize he was doing it. He hasn't touched the piano since she left, not even once. Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and hear him saying her name in his sleep. He doesn't wake up, but he just keeps saying it over and over again, like he's begging her for something. It breaks my heart, Alice."
I heard the refrigerator door open again. When it closed, it sounded like she'd shut it a bit more forcefully than she'd needed to.
"I know she's your cousin," my mother said, the tone of her voice growing harder. "And you know I like her, but whatever she told him that afternoon can't be what she told me. It was like some part of him died. And she said she would keep in touch, but I don't think she has. After about a month or so, I tried to ask him if he'd heard from her. He told me some story about how busy she was, but it didn't feel right. I asked a few times after that. He'd tell me something about her school in Florida or how she was making new friends, but I could tell he was lying. I kept asking. I thought maybe he'd feel better if he'd just tell me the truth, if he'd talk about it, but he just kept lying, so I stopped."
"I'm so sorry, Lizzie. She wouldn't talk about it. We didn't know."
"It isn't your fault," my mother said, but then she sighed. When she spoke again, the anger was gone. "I shouldn't blame her. Your family has been through a lot lately."
"For what it's worth, I don't think Bella is doing very well, either. Things were rough for a while, and now Grandma Claire . . . We all miss her, but Bella is taking it very hard."
Something inside of me crumpled. Because there was no Grandma Claire.
"Then I truly am sorry for your loss."
"Thank you," Alice said again. A moment of silence passed before she continued. "Edward seems to be getting better. At least he seems more like his old self now than what you said he was like a few months ago."
"Yes. He's been hanging out with Jacob and Josie Black. Their mother was a friend of mine, and they spent a lot of time together when they were children. He and Josie . . ." I heard the sound of her setting silverware on the table. "Well, I shouldn't speculate, but they were close when they were kids, and they've been spending a lot of time together lately. He seems happier these last few weeks."
"I'm glad to hear it."
My mother went back to stirring something in a bowl.
"Or maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see," she admitted. "He still doesn't listen to music. He hasn't touched the piano—it's like he doesn't even see it anymore. And sometimes when it's quiet, when there's nothing else to distract him, I still see that pain in his eyes. It's never really gone away, and I wonder if it ever will. And now I just . . . I worry. You should know that you're welcome here, Alice, and Edward seems glad to see you—he really does—but what will it do to him when you leave again?"
"I don't know, Lizzie. I don't know. I'm starting to wonder if I should have come at all. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize." Another sigh from my mother. "Maybe it will be good for him."
"I hope you're right."
The conversation drifted off into silence. I waited for several moments as my mother stirred something on the stove, but no one spoke again. There was nothing more for me to overhear, so I made my way carefully back down the hallway to get dressed and make my appearance.
"Good morning," my mother said as I stepped into the kitchen a few minutes later. Alice was seated at the kitchen table, watching my mother make breakfast. As her eyes met mine, she gave no indication that she knew I'd been eavesdropping. But she must have known . . . right?
"I thought I'd make some breakfast while Alice and I caught up."
"I'd help, but I am a nightmare in the kitchen," Alice added.
"Edward can feed you. He's a good cook."
"I'm tolerable." I shuffled over to the cabinet for some juice glasses, watching out of the corner of my eye as my mother scraped scrambled eggs onto three plates. How was Alice going to pull this off?
I shouldn't have worried. While my mother caught us up on the recent gossip from the hospital, Alice put on quite a performance, lifting the fork toward her mouth whenever my mother glanced her way and chewing theatrically. I wondered what Alice would do about the food that wasn't disappearing from her plate . . . until I realized that no matter how much I seemed to eat, the pile of scrambled eggs in front of me never changed, even though Alice's plate got emptier. A second piece of toast even appeared after I'd finished my first. The little sneak was making me eat two breakfasts.
When my mother left soon after to head to La Push to help Sue finalize the funeral arrangements, Alice and I promised her we'd do the dishes. It was the least we could do. Then we spent the rest of the day catching up.
Carlisle was teaching part time at Cornell and working nights in Ithaca, she told me. Esme was restoring a seventeenth century house, a local landmark, in the forest north of the city. Chief Swan—he wasn't the chief of police anymore, but I couldn't stop thinking of him that way—had spent some time in Mexico, but he had recently rejoined the others. Emmett and Rosalie had just returned after spending several months in Europe, and Jasper was studying philosophy at Cornell, but Alice had the most interesting news. She had been working on a project of her own, searching through old records and trying to piece together her past from the information James had revealed the previous spring. She'd managed to track down the asylum where she'd spent the last several years of her human life, but so far, nothing she'd found felt familiar. She still didn't remember one moment of it.
"My name was Mary Alice Brandon. I had a little sister named Cynthia. Her daughter—my niece—is still alive in Biloxi."
"Have you figured out why they put you there?" I asked. As strong as Alice's gift was, it must have presented itself in some way while she was still human, but I'd heard horror stories about the things that went on in asylums in the early part of the twentieth century. How could anyone do something like that to their own child?
She shook her head. "I couldn't find much about them. I went through all the old newspapers on microfiche. My family wasn't mentioned often. They weren't part of the social circle that made the papers. My parents' engagement was there and . . . Cynthia's." She said the name like it felt foreign on her tongue. "My birth was announced . . . and my death. I found my grave. I also filched my admissions sheet from the old asylum archives. The date on the admission and the date on my tombstone are the same."
After an awkward moment where we both considered the implications of this, Alice moved on to lighter topics. The Cullens were together again—except for Bella—and were spending Cornell's spring break with Tanya and her family. I didn't know Tanya or any of the others, but Alice caught me up on them, just the same.
It was late when my mother came home, and she looked just as tired as she had the night before. She told us about the plans for Harry's funeral the next day, but she didn't stay downstairs very long. She wanted to get back to the reservation early the next morning, so she headed upstairs to bed. I stayed in the living room with Alice, talking until I finally nodded off sometime in the early morning hours.
. . . . .
The sun had yet to peak over the cloudy horizon when my mother tiptoed downstairs the next morning. She was wearing the same black dress she always wore to funerals and carrying her trusty black flats in one hand. I pretended to sleep as she crept over to the recliner to check on me. I didn't move a muscle until I'd heard the front door close softly behind her.
Alice, who'd been pretending to sleep on the couch, sat up, pushing the quilt that covered her aside.
"Anything interesting today?" I asked.
She paused for a moment, then smiled and shook her head. "No, but it's still early."
I didn't have any interesting plans for the day, either, but I did have a lot of chores that I'd fallen behind on. Spending time in La Push didn't exactly help to clear my to-do list. My bedroom was a nightmare, and the pile of laundry atop the overflowing hamper in my closet was getting out of hand.
As I changed the sheets on my bed, Alice stood in the doorway of my bedroom, casually asking questions about our old classmates at school and what they'd been up to since she'd left. I wasn't sure why she wanted to know about Jessica and Lauren, but I soon realized it was a test. Alice was just trying to figure out how much I knew, how much attention I'd been paying to the people around me. Based on how little I could tell her and the disappointment in her eyes, it was a test I was apparently failing.
I was sorting laundry on the floor of my bedroom when the doorbell rang. I glanced up at Alice, not sure who might be visiting, but her expression was one of puzzlement. How could Alice not know who was at the door?
"Edward," Alice said. There was a hint of frustration in her tone. "I have a fairly good guess who that might be, and I think I'd better step out."
"Why? What do you mean?" And why did Alice need to guess who was at the door?
"If this is a repeat of my egregious lapse in foresight earlier, then it's most likely Jacob Black or one of his . . . friends."
I stared at her for a moment, trying to pull the pieces together. It took me a second, but it finally clicked. "You can't see the werewolves?" I asked.
She frowned. "So it would seem." I could see from her expression that she was more than a little annoyed by this discovery.
The doorbell rang again, twice. Someone downstairs was getting impatient. I walked around my bed and out into the upstairs hallway.
"You shouldn't have to leave, Alice."
She laughed, but there was a dark edge to her laughter. "Trust me, it wouldn't be a good idea to have me and Jacob Black in a room together." She reached up to pat me on the shoulder. "Don't worry. I'll be back just as soon as he leaves." And then she disappeared through my mother's bedroom door . . . and probably out her back window.
Downstairs, the doorbell rang again.