Chapter Nine—Practice Makes Perfect
Can you hear me now? Emmett called, standing five feet from me, next to Edward. He was recalling the amusing Verizon commercial as he spoke, reciting the line with the spokesman in the commercial. I rolled my eyes. Apparently that was another thing Edward had picked up after becoming a vampire.
"Yes, Emmett," I sighed. Edward looked disgruntled.
"You'll get it Edward. You just need to get angry," I assured him.
"Don't sweat it, bro, it's bound to be hard—it's not supposed to be your thing," said Emmett, clapping Edward on the back. Maybe if he loosens up a bit later, I can take him on. I'd like to see him cheat now.
"Emmett! Can you focus, please," I asked, my head leaning to one side. I wondered if that was why he had volunteered to help us when he got home from school; trying to find an excuse to fight Edward. Rosalie was sitting on the enormous front porch, pretending to read a novel that was written the year she was born. She was really paying attention to Emmett, Edward, and I.
Alright, sorry. Maybe we need to give him more incentive? Emmett wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. I felt my own eyebrows push together in confusion.
"What do you mean more incentive?"
"Incentive?" Edward echoed, perplexed.
Emmett laughed. "What do I think about that usually makes you want to rip my head off, kid?" Emmett replied, accompanying this with a waggle of his eyebrows that I unfortunately knew all too well.
"Holy Crow!" I gasped as I was assaulted by a vivid stream of mental pictures detailing exactly what Emmett and Rose did last night. My eyes widened. I could not block this ghastly vision from my mind. I instinctively shut them to close it out, but that only made it worse.
Edward, guessing this, growled, and nearly snapped. I could tell he was very close to breaking point.
"Use it. Use the anger," I cried, and suddenly, all was silent, and I was alone in my own head once more. I sighed in vast relief. I dropped to the ground to sit, and relax. Edward looked like he was straining himself.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I know how hard it is." He smiled crookedly, and dropped to his knees as well, so he could look more easily into my eyes, from the vantage of five feet away. S
"It's the least I can do, love. I know how hard it is as well," he said gently. He was trying to hide it, and perhaps could have hidden it, if I had been human still. But I wasn't, and he couldn't, and there was a hint of strain in his voice.
After a moment of strain that was as difficult for me as Edward, knowing, as I did, how hard it was to learn to manipulate my shield, Renesmee let out the saddest-sounding sigh I had ever heard in my life—vampire or otherwise. Edward's concentration snapped and I could hear Emmett's thoughts again, but I was suddenly tuned in to Renesmee.
Her thoughts weren't words, they were just emotions. Sad ones. The saddest emotions I had ever felt even vicariously. At least the saddest since the time that Edward misguidedly left me for my own good. I was stricken myself with despair and fright for my child. Then I heard Jasper think. Oh no. Overdoing it. A picture of Renesmee sobbing with Edward and me growling at Alice and Jasper entered his mind.
Meanwhile, Alice was thinking, Nessie! How do I fix it? How do I fix it!
"Alice, try to think about being calm again. Close your eyes and think about breathing slowly. There you go," he added as Alice did just that and thought about her breathing.
As Alice breathed, Edward and I rushed to Nessie's side
While Emmett and I had been practicing with Edward, Alice was using Renesmee as a test-dummy to work with emotions. Jasper was helping her, although he was sporadically interrupted by visions, usually tiny, inconsequential ones. They had been getting less frequent as they had been practicing longer.
"Nessie, are you okay? Renesmee!" I cried, overreacting even more ridiculously than Edward, who was sensibly patting our daughter's back, as her breathing returned to normal, and the tears disappeared from her eyes.
"That was not funny, Alice," I snapped. Alice frowned. I wasn't trying to make her upset, Bella, I was trying for nicer emotions.
"It was an accident Bella," Jasper answered. I was trying to teach Alice to spread a feeling around, but I forgot to teach her to cultivate the feeling she wants first. She was sad for a long enough moment to accidentally spread them about. I watched this replay in Alice and Jasper's minds. For people who looked so different, their thoughts were incredibly alike.
Edward always describe his mind-reading as "extra-hearing", and it was mostly like hearing people's voices in my head, however, I found that it was more than that, there were often pictures, scenes, memories, mental images of all kinds accompanying the words like illustrations to a text. But more, there was intent, a kind of flavor to every thought that held emotions, intentions. It was the intentions that flavored Alice and Jasper's thoughts, even more than their explanation, and mental replay that had me apologizing to Alice and Jasper. Perhaps the mind-reading contributed to Edward's over protectiveness.
We practiced all night through to be prepared for school the next day. A brief consultation with Carlisle (after he returned from perusing the local Library's history section, when the library closed) led to the decision that it would not be good for us to miss too much school just at the beginning of the year, especially right after moving here. So we practiced more and more determinedly as the world turned blue and purple, and then faded back to green and gray.