I blinked. I was trying to focus my eyes as humans do when they first wake. But they were focused. On everything. I could see the dust floating in the air as clearly as each strand on Edward's head as he stood across the room. All at once. My brain was processing it, but my expectations of what vision should be had to catch up with what was happening. Each point of light, whether the lamplight on the desk, the starlight coming in the widows, the soft shine of Esme's lips, all divided into each color, as if I were staring through a hundred prisms at once. But the rainbows did not interfere with the clarity of my sight. I could see it all.

And the smells. I smelled the soft blanket I had changed on…wool, a faint animal scent coming through lavender and cedar, the leather of the couch beneath, the sweat of my human self, a faint smell of rust, flowers, and cookies from my hair, new carpet, the musty smell of dust, and from the doorway, three distinct, indescribable scents that set me on edge.

I meant only to stand up, but the simple movement launched me off the couch and back toward the window. I saw ceiling and floor briefly exchange places – I had apparently performed a flip – and landed near the window in a crouch. A rumbling in my chest erupted from my mouth, a wild desperate growl. I wanted the three to leave me. They threatened me in a way I didn't understand, as if they were going to take from me something that I needed.

I felt as if they were going to kill me, and I'd fight to the death before anyone hurt me ever again.

Carlisle stood in front, arms outstretched, palms up. "No one here is going to hurt you, Rosalie. You're all right."

Edward's lip lifted in a snarl. Both men stood protectively in front of Esme, who peeked over their shoulders, looking worried, but also sympathetic. No one spoke. We might have stood there for an hour like that. Maybe we did. No one had the need to move, and I was surprised to find I could hold that crouch for hours.

But the flames in my throat grew and grew, so the constant growling from my throat continued.

"Rosalie? You're thirsty. You need to hunt, but at least one of us must go with you. Do you understand?" Carlisle took a step forward, and Esme gasped, reaching for the back of his shirt and missing.

"Do you want me to go with you?" Carlisle took another step forward, followed closely by Edward. My eyes darted to Edward's face, and the growling intensified.

"I think you should step back, Edward," Esme said. She pulled his arm until he stood behind her. I felt myself relax a little.

I opened my mouth. I think I expected my voice to be dry and brittle because of the thirst, because of the two days of screaming, because of the terror that had come before. But when I spoke it was clear, not as delicate as Esme's voice, richer and clear, like the tones of a marimba.

"Esme." I hadn't said her name before. She nodded and pulled Carlisle's arm back as she had Edward's, so that she was standing in front.

"No!" Edward and Carlisle seemed to speak at once.

"Do you blame her?" Esme asked. "I think, given what she's been through for the past couple of days, wanting to stay as far away from men is only natural. I can handle her. If you feel the need, you may follow us, but only at a distance. Edward, you know you'll be able to hear everything, and you can reach us quickly should anything happen. Let us girls have some girl time."

Neither Edward nor Carlisle looked happy, but they kept their distance. I straightened up, and the growling slowly faded as Esme approached. I didn't feel a threat from her. It was…not comfortable, but tolerable.

"Rosalie? We need to hunt. Edward and Carlisle may watch from a distance, but they're not going to approach unless you want them to, okay? We're going to go into the woods." She reached out her hand toward me, and I slowly reached forward to take it. Her hand seemed warmer than I remembered it through the fire.

"Okay." My voice was still strange to me.

Edward and Carlisle shrank back from the doorway. When we reached it, they were nowhere to be seen. But I could still smell them, and their scent made a prickle run up the back of my neck and force a snarl out of my mouth.

"Boys," Esme said quietly, "I think you should back off a little more. You're making Rosalie uncomfortable."

Slowly, the scent receded until it was faint. The unpleasant prickling went away. We left the house through the back door. I found myself outdoors for the first time. When I looked at Esme, I was stunned. She sparkled all over, brighter than the foul diamond that still held its place on my left hand. Esme laughed lightly and said, "I know. Look at your arms. If anything, you are more brilliant than I."

I looked down at my bare arms. They sparkled and caught the light. I looked down at my legs. I was dressed in clothes that were not my own.

"When Carlisle brought you home, you had very little on. I found some things that I thought you might like. I dressed you myself while you were changing. I hope you like it."

The dress was a deep blue silk, with a long flared skirt and a wrapped bodice with a peplum that cascaded over my slim hips. The sleeves were three-quarter length, with a ruffled edging. It was more beautiful than anything I had in my human closet. "It's so pretty."

Esme smiled. "I'm glad you're pleased. I washed you up a little, but there's still a little blood in your hair. We can take care of that after we hunt. You'll probably get messy. The first time is always rather inelegant."

I looked at her apprehensively. I didn't want to ruin the beautiful dress.

"Don't worry about your clothing. I bought another identical to this one, just in case you liked it. I think we all ruined our clothes the first time we hunted. It takes practice to do it neatly, and if your preference is for predators, then you have to learn to dodge the claws."

"Wouldn't that hurt?" It was difficult to talk at all with the dry burning in my throat, but my voice sounded its marimba tone with no sound of dryness.

"Very little can hurt us. Our skin is nearly impenetrable. Here, clap your hand together with mine." She held hers out, and I brought my hand down on hers. The sound was like marbles hitting one another in the playground, if the marbles were two feet in diameter. Loud.

I smiled. I liked that feeling, the idea that nothing would ever break me again.

"You must be getting very uncomfortable. Let's be on our way. You will find that running is the fastest way to get most places. Shall we?" She smiled at me again, and I felt a faint tugging around my lips, as if I were going to smile too.

Suddenly, she was gone. I could hear a rustling in the trees far ahead. "Come, Rosalie," her voice sang out from the trees. "Just run."

I hadn't run since I was a little girl, but I crouched down and sprang into a run. It was effortless. I couldn't feel any strain of muscle, but the trees dissolved into a green streak, with each leaf still visible. I had never felt speed like that in my life, not even when my father brought home the Studebaker, and took me out for a drive. It had been terrifying, bumping along, feeling out of control. Nothing like this. I could have caught the Studebaker easily.

I came up alongside Esme very quickly. She turned her head slightly to smile at me. We ran for a while, until we came to a river flowing through the woods.

"This is usually a good place for deer. They're not the tastiest, but they'll be easy to catch. We're so much faster, you see."

We waited for a moment, and then I heard rustling from downstream. A smell drifted over to me. It wasn't unpleasant, but it didn't smell like food either. More like moss or rotting leaves. A smell of autumn, perhaps, without apples or spice.

"There's one now. I know it doesn't smell appetizing yet, but it will after a while. It grows on you, and if you're able to resist human blood while you're young, you won't ever really know the difference. Do you see it?" She gestured to the left.

The deer was drinking from the stream, perhaps a half mile away. I could see it as clearly as if it were next to me. "Yes," I replied. Liquid like saliva filled my mouth.

"The next part is simple. You simply spring and lock your arms around it. The blood flows better if you get it at the neck, but being so precise will take practice. The abdomen works as well as anything else. Would you like to watch me or just try this one?"

I was so thirsty. "I'll do it." I dropped into a crouch and jumped. I thought it would just give me a head start on the running, so I was more than a little surprised when one leap left me face to face with the deer.

"Now grab him. You can do it." Esme's voice carried, but she wasn't shouting.

I reached out quickly and grabbed it just as it was coiling to spring away. It struggled in my grasp, and I heard the fabric of my dress rip. I panicked for a moment, but heard Esme say, "Don't worry about the clothes, it can't hurt you. Now bite into the neck. You should be able to reach it."

I did as she asked, fighting back the panic that was climbing my throat and competing with the thirst. I sank my teeth into the creature's neck. It was like biting into soft butter. The blood began to flow, and I swallowed it eagerly. The taste was strange. I can remember being given an old teapot when I was a child that I played with in my sandbox. Vera and I would make tea from dead leaves and rainwater. We'd fill it with torn leaves and leave the lid off to collect rainwater. When you poured it into a cup, it looked just like tea. On a dare, I drank some once. It was a bitter earthy taste, and that's what this tasted like. But thicker, like boiled custard.

But I swallowed again and again, because it was slowly lessening the fire in my throat. The struggling stopped, and the deer went limp in my grasp. I drank until nothing else would come, then I dropped it and stood.

I surveyed the damage to my dress. It wasn't much, just a rip in the bodice.

"Excellent, Rosalie. You didn't spill a single drop! I know I didn't do that well my first time. How do you feel?"

"Not bad. I might like another, though."

"You do tend to have a little more on your first time out. Later, that one will be all you really need for a couple of days, but for the first few weeks, we'll probably take you out once or twice a day so that you can keep satiated. It will be easier for you that way."

"Will you take me?" I asked her. I didn't want to go with Edward. I didn't really even want to go with Carlisle.

"If you want me, I'll be there. I promise," Esme said very seriously. She reached out and touched my cheek softly. I was touched by the gesture. My mother had stopped touching me that way years ago.

"Thank you," I said.

"You're entirely welcome. Now, let's see what else we can find. Would you like to try something else?" I nodded, feeling suddenly shy around Esme. She was the kindest person I'd ever met.

"Let's run upstream a bit. We'll have scared all the wildlife away from the area with the noise and smell. We'll run into the forest for cover and then parallel the water. Ready?"

This time when she took off I was ready. I ran alongside her until she said, "This is probably far enough. Let's stop and listen a while." She crouched down low to the ground and listened for a while. Then we both heard a yelp from the distance.

"Excellent," Esme hissed softly. "Coyote. I was going to wait for predators for a while, but coyotes are small, and you did so well with the deer. Now, can you point out where he is? Use all your senses."

I could feel a faint heat coming from the woods ahead of me where the yelp had sounded. "Heat?" I asked Esme, unsure if it were simply my imagination.

"Yes. That's the blood flow. What else?"

I could smell it as well, less muddy than the deer, warmer and more meaty. "I can smell it too. I think it's there, about a quarter of a mile away." I pointed. The distance I was estimating based on the fact that I could feel the heat and smell it so much more clearly than I could the deer.

"I think you're probably right. Predators are a little faster, and it's best if you can grab them from the back. The claws and teeth won't bother you, but they will damage your clothes."

I nodded. I wanted to avoid the sound of the ripping fabric. It set my teeth on edge. I sprang and found myself face to face with a coyote that made a quick snarl and then ran away from me. I overtook it quickly, scooped it up in my arms, and sank my teeth into its neck. It let out a loud yelp of pain, but the struggling stopped quickly. This blood taster better to me. It had a sweetness and clarity to it that the deer blood hadn't had. I drained it quickly.

I felt much better after that, and jogged back to Esme.

"Oh, you got a little dribble there," she said, smiling. "But that was excellent. You are going to be quite a hunter, Rosalie."

I liked the sound of that. No one had ever complimented me on anything other than my beauty before. I also liked the idea of my own strength, my own predatory nature. It made me feel powerful.

"Would you like to return to the house? Perhaps you will be able to meet Carlisle and Edward properly now that you're not thirsty. It takes a long time to learn to ignore those feelings of competition when you're in need of a hunt. This time, let's walk so that we can talk to one another."

"I would like that, Esme." And I meant it.

"How are you feeling, Rosalie?"

"Better now that I ate," I smiled.

"That's not really what I meant. You've had so much trauma the past few days. And the transition isn't easy under the best of circumstances."

"I'm not sure, really," I said. "I don't think Edward likes me. That makes me angry, I think. I feel strange around all of you. I don't really know you, and to have you speak of me as if I'm family is…" I ran out of words and was distracted by the beauty of my own voice.

"I know it's difficult. I hadn't met Carlisle at all when he found me and turned me. I was in similar circumstances to you. I was gravely injured and would have died otherwise. Carlisle chose to save me. I'll never really know what he saw in me that made him want to keep me near. He's tried telling me, but I still don't really understand. I don't think I'm meant to."

"What had happened to you?"

"I jumped off a cliff," Esme said, quite matter-of-factly. I stared at her, surprised. She was such a calm person. I couldn't imagine her doing something like that. She caught the look on my face and said, laughing quietly, "I wasn't always the person I am now. There was pain and darkness in my life before. But the last was the worst. I lost a child. He lived only hours after he was born, but I didn't think that I could go back to my life before. So I chose not to."

We didn't speak for a while. I let that sink in. I wondered if that's what I would have done had been able to survive the horrible things that those men did to me. I doubted that anyone would have believed that it was Royce. Anger surged up in me so strongly that I felt I'd explode. I bent to pick up a rock, thinking I'd throw it, but my angry grip was too much for it, and when I threw it, it was already sand.

"I'm so sorry for the reason that you are here with me now," Esme said quietly. "But please believe me when I say that there is hope that you won't always feel this way. Men were cruel to me in life, too. Well, one man was cruel to me."

I looked at her questioningly. What had she survived? "My husband. He was a brutal man. I was bruised every day of our marriage. He hit me, pushed me. Once I remember falling down the stairs. I had overslept, and breakfast wasn't ready when he got up. He was a very angry man, and found fault with almost everything around him. My life was a constant stream of beatings and belittling. And it ended when I was pregnant with my son. He had tried not to hit me for months. He had seen his mother lose a baby that way, when his own father kicked her. So he'd tried. Even though he still shouted at me when my sickness got in the way of cleaning or cooking, he didn't strike me, not like he had before. Until the last day." She paused for a moment. Her eyes sparkled a little; she was clearly lost in a memory.

"We had argued after church. I had spoken to a man I'd known in school. He was a dear friend whom I hadn't spoken to in years. He was visiting relatives. He was very glad to see me, and I suppose he held my hand a bit too long when he greeted me. My husband was furious. He shouted and shoved me the whole walk home, called me vile names. It was horrible. I kept my arms wrapped around my stomach, trying to shield the baby. I didn't respond to any of it. He kept on and on, shoving me harder and harder, calling me worse and worse things. We finally got home, and went inside. I tried to retreat to the bedroom, thinking maybe he'd leave me alone while I changed, but he grabbed me by the arm, hard, twisting it behind me until I thought it would break. 'That baby in your worthless belly probably isn't even mine, is it? God only knows what you get up to when I'm not around to watch you. You filthy whore.' And he shoved me flat on the floor. He stomped me in the back. The pain was excruciating. I could feel the baby react, kicking and punching me from the inside. My husband picked me up and threw me on the bed. 'Is this what you want, you whore?' he asked. He raped me, violently. I could feel my flesh tearing inside. When he finally left, I heaved myself up, and it was like the world came to an end. My waters poured from me, even through the baby wasn't supposed to be born for another two months. When I looked down, there was so much blood…" her voice broke.

I was appalled. I'd never heard such a terrible thing before. Except maybe what had happened to me.

"He wouldn't take me to the doctor. He left the house, telling me that if the little bastard died, so much the better. He didn't want to raise another man's child. I had to walk a mile to a neighbor's house for help. By then the baby was on the way. He was born two hours after I got there, before the midwife or the doctor could get there. He took a breath and cried a little, but he was blue. He stayed that way. He just wasn't big enough to make it. Another hour or so passed, and he was gone." She wiped away something from her cheek. A tear.

"My husband wouldn't come, so the midwife offered to take me home. I refused, knowing that I couldn't go home without my baby. The neighbors let me sleep for a while. When I woke up, the house was dark. Everyone else had gone to sleep. The baby was laid out next to me. He was cold. I lifted him up, and got out of bed. The pain was horrible, and I was still bleeding, but I had to leave that place. I carried my baby, stumbling through the woods. I didn't know where I was going, but when I came up to the cliff's edge, clearly visible in the moonlight, I knew that the only thing I wanted was to join my baby. So, still holding his still little body in my arms, I jumped."

I just stared at her, horrified. We were still. We'd stopped walking while Esme told her story. She just cried and cried for a while, perfectly still while the tears poured down her beautiful pale face. I didn't know what to do. I finally reached out and touched her gently on the shoulder. She bent her head down until her cheek rested on my hand for a moment.

"Carlisle had been out hunting that night. He was attracted by the smell of the blood that still poured down my legs. And he heard my cries. He ran to my side as I lay dying at the foot of the cliff. When he picked me up to race me back to his home, I still clutched the baby in my arms. After he changed me, we buried him together. He was nearly as sorrowful as I to have to do it. My husband died soon after. I'm not certain, they'd never tell me of course, but I think maybe Edward…" she smiled. "I think that may be part of his aversion to you right now. He remembers everything that I went through, and he dreads seeing it again. Part of it, of course, is that he knew that your ordeal would remind me of wounds that will never heal, and part of it is that he knows that he himself can barely stand it, the cruelty of what happened to you."

"How does he know?" I couldn't bear the thought of them discussing it.

"Edward knows things. He can hear people's thoughts. He knows better than any of us what happened on the street that night. I know my son. He'll never speak of it to you or to anyone else, but it will haunt him, just as my experience did. I am sorry if he seems angry. I don't think that it is truly directed at you."

"Are you ready to meet the family?" she asked softly.

I looked ahead, to where the house stood on the edge of the woods. It was still miles away, but I could see it. My home.