Chapter Five
"Oh, she's beautiful!" exclaimed Tanya, her face shining with delight. Tanya had a child of her own, back with its father. They never knew what happened to her. She'd left to get some quarters from the bank and had never returned.
An older vampire had gotten her. She'd passed an alleyway, and it had been so fast. She remembered barely anything from her human life, but this she remembered. It was far too vivid for her to forget. Sometimes she wished that she could forget the gleam in his eyes, the crouch of his hunting stance. His teeth sinking into her flesh, and the unworldly burning that came after. She had tried many times to banish the memory from her mind, but it stayed with her. Much like her own shadow, it followed her everywhere.
"Will you be back soon, mommy?" little Greta inquired, her watery eyes looking up with a strange intensity for the child's age of four and a half.
"In a half-hour. See? Not too long." Greta's face remained stoic, a strange expression to see on her normally cheery face.
"Mommy, come back. Be careful," Greta said, her face unchanged. With the lingering baby talk, the warning sounded strange. Tanya smiled, kissed the baby on the forehead, and stepped over the threshold to walk slowly to her unavoidable and unforeseen death.
Now Tanya didn't take chances with anything, didn't want to risk losing her new family. She now views the child as a foreshadowing of the past impending doom, but at least her daughter and husband were safe together. Whether in heaven or hell, she didn't know.
Hopefully she wouldn't find out the hard way.
"Yes, she's a fairly healthy child, and she'll be a good addition." Tanya jumped back to the present with a jolt, having been unaware that Edmund was talking to her.
"What?"
"Um, well, I was thinking of changing her when she's old enough," Edmund answered, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt restlessly.
"And what could that possibly have to do with my coven?" Tanya asked coldly, baring her teeth ever so slightly and letting out the faintest growl to be sure no one else in the house but Edmund heard.
"Well, um, I was thinking I'd stay here. Raise Mary in Denali."
"You think you're going to raise that girl like a pig getting fattened for slaughter? And under my roof, no less. Well, you're wrong. You won't be permitted to stay here. Mary stays, but you must leave."
"Tanya, I want to change the way I do things. I can't live with myself anymore!" Edmund cried out this last part in earnest, as though he were truly sickened by his own lifestyle. But Tanya had heard enough of his groveling.
"I will not put my coven in danger for your pride! If you want to change, change on your own! Not here!" Tanya shrieked, a truly terrifying sound to hear come out of one so short. At that point Eleazer burst into the room, having heard Tanya's screams.
"What is the matter with you! We will welcome Edmund into our home graciously. I have no doubt he will try his hardest."
"What is his hardest isn't enough? Did you ever think of that? What happens if he goes out of control? He will destroy our home, everything we've built! If it gets too out of control, the Volturi will come. Do you want that, Eleazer?"
"No, but Carlisle trusts him, and that's enough for me." Tanya left the room with one last snarl at Edmund, her eyes looking once again like the animal she was deep down inside. How long would it be before that animal emerged once again?
Tanya escaped to the study where she began to scan the bookshelves full of classics, and pulled out her favorite: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. She plopped down on the couch and began to read, a slight smile replacing the snarl she'd had on her face only minutes before. Within an hour she'd finished all four-hundred and sixteen pages, and she switched to her second favorite: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin. Tanya always wished these books would have staying power, and so far her wish had proven to be the exact opposite of futile.
Tanya stayed like that for hours, flipping the pages of her books with a fervor. Reading had always brought her an unexplainable joy, one which she could not hide, nor did she wish to. She had been so transfixed upon her books that she didn't even notice when Carlisle walked into the room.
"I heard about your little outburst earlier," he said, his voice gentle and even. She could feel the anger bubbling up inside her like an active volcano. No, she would not explode here. Carlisle was only attempting to help her.
"Heard about it? I figured you would've heard it yourself."
"Yes, well, I did hear it. I figured saying otherwise would lighten the mood a bit." Carlisle sat down on the other end of the couch, looking at her with those inexplicably kind eyes. He had always been like a father figure towards Tanya. She couldn't remember her real father, though once and a while when she blew up like this and Carlisle would talk to her, she had flashbacks of a man not too short but not too tall, with her same blonde hair but with stormy gray eyes. Had her eyes been that color once? She had no way of knowing.
"You should go. I don't want to yell at you, too."
"You haven't quite calmed down yet?"
"Well, I was enjoying the serenity of being alone with my books, but I think remembering it all will get me furious again." She glanced down at her book, now reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. She wanted again to escape to a human world without her own troubles, with other problems to deal with, such as Jo's love for Laurie, or Meg's efforts to fit in with other women. However, Beth had already gotten sick, and she was coming upon the part where she always cries. Tamya hated crying, but for Beth she could make an exception. Tanya had never been a big dan of Amy's.
"Well, I would like to talk to you now, before you sit in your anger for too long. Is that all right?" Tanya considered a moment, weighing her options. If she said yes, then they'd have an argument, and she'd never be able to stop crying once Beth passed. If she said no, he'd only come back later after her anger grew and the argument would be much worse. The fighting was inevitable, so she might as well get it over with as soon as possible.
"Yeah, that's fine," she muttered, ready to hear Carlisle's soft scolding that was made to sound like he wasn't scolding her at all. But she knew better.
"Tanya, I can understand your concern, but it isn't okay to just yell at Edmund. He's a very close friend of mine, and he's so gentle. See how he is with Mary? You can't tell me those aren't the actions of a man who is no doubt willing to try his hardest.
"I don't understand how we can risk it. We found a perfect spot here, one we will have to leave, but one we can come back to once all the current generations are gone. It's just beautiful here, perfect for us. And I'm not willing to risk my coven for him."
"I completely understand why you think it's a bad idea, but I think you should be willing to open your doors to him. Now, you don't have to like him, don't have to be kind to him, though I hope you will be, but let him in."
"No! I don't care what you have to say, I won't have it! He is not welcome here, never will be! I won't ruin the lives of my family for that giant mosquito!"
"Tanya!" Carlisle snapped sharply, and she fought back the burning she could feel behind her eyeballs. "That is no way to talk about a person!" Tanya had tried to be civil up until this point, but now she snapped, seeing nothing but a blinding, red-hot flash of fury.
"None of us are human! He has the option not to be a murderer, but look what path he has chosen up until now. All because of a human baby!"
"He is willing to try—" Tanya cut him off abruptly, standing up and snarling, baring her teeth. The animal inside emerged.
"I don't care that he's willing to try!" she shrieked, her pupils dilating in her anger. "I don't care what any of you have to say! He is not welcome here, and if you think otherwise, neither are you!" With that she grabbed her book, sprinting straight through the window, shards of glass glancing off of her icy skin.
She ran straight for the forest, hoping to disappear there. She ran for three miles before she decided to stop. This was her favorite spot in the whole world, the only place she could find peace.
The spot was a rock pile with a small crevice that was just large enough for her body, the moss softening the spot for her. There was a little creek only a few yards away, the sound of the water trickling over rocks calming her nerves. Trees rose fifty feet above her, with a small clearing just large enough that she could see Mount Denali.
She could already feel herself calming down as her footsteps crunched through the snow, and looked down in pleasant surprise when she saw Snowdrops blooming around her boulders, their white petals blending with the snow around them. She sat down and opened her book, having to stop in a few chapters when her tears blurred her vision so much that she could no longer make out the words.
She stayed like that for days, curled up in a ball, clutching the book but never opening it. No part of her moved besides the steady stream of tears falling down her cheeks, freezing solid there. That she could always count on.
The iciness of her skin was colder than the Alaska mountain air.