Chapter Two: The Pain Too Much to Bear
It is sweet, the air, filled with new smells. I sit up, surprised by my fluidity. I must be dead. There is no possible explanation for my bones to mend this quickly. My eyesight has improved too and I look in wonderment at my pale hand. It is then I realize I am not alone and quickly, much too quickly, spring to a corner. I want to attack the strangers and I want to know where the urge to attack is coming from. I refuse to let violence conquer me as it had my husband.
The strange room I am in is small, only a bed and an upright piano. The piano that I heard while I burned. And the strangers in the room are not really strangers, at least one of them is not The doctor who set my bone so many years ago is standing close to the bed, looking as perfect as he did ten years ago. I am surprised at how fuzzy that memory seems now. He is beautiful and I cannot tear my eyes from him. I want him again. I have never wanted a man and now I do. I want him. I want to love him, to be his.
I turn my eyes forcibly to the other occupant who is sitting near the piano. I wonder if he is the pianist I've been hearing and he nods his head as if confirming my thought. But that is impossible, hearing thoughts that haven't been spoken. He too is beautiful, not as much as the doctor though. He is younger though, barely a man, with hair of bronze and my heart inexplicably aches for my baby boy.
"We don't mean you any harm." The doctor implores warmly, his hands held neutrally in front of his body. I cannot tear my eyes from his lovely face, even though my throat is burning with a thirst that doesn't seem natural. It is all wrong. I should not be alive, I should not be moving. I cannot be in Heaven. And Hell wouldn't be so fortunate with attractive men.
"Why-" I say, drawing a flavorful breath into my lungs. The new taste of air startles me into distraction for a second before I am reminded of my original question. "Why am I not dead?"
Neither man moves to answer me and their silence is particularly devastating. So maybe this is indeed Hell and I am doomed to live without the child I so desperately long to be with. The bronze haired man-child sighs and glances at the doctor, his eyes as heavy as my heart.
"Esme, it's best if we explain things in another location." He speaks my name as if he knows me and I feel ripples of desire running down my body for this strange doctor. I want to go with him; I want to follow him wherever he leads me. But that newly borne vicious part wants to run far away from these beautiful creatures.
"Yes." I whisper.
He smiles at me lightly, friendly. But his eyes are alert and I realize he knows. He knows the viciousness bubbling under the surface of my skin. The young one looks at me and then at the doctor, his eyebrows raised. He looks impressed. The doctor returns him a soft gaze and leads the way out of the room. I follow him, wary when the man-child takes up the rear. I am afraid of him attacking me from behind. I am afraid that I now know the rear is the best tactical place to attack someone from. This new knowledge, these new feelings, they are all welling up inside of me. They are confusing, strange, different. I do not like it.
"Where are we going?" I manage to ask, my eyes, racing between the man in front and the man in the back.
"Someplace safer." The doctor answers, his voice light and reassuring.
We reach a door and beyond the door, a tangle of forest. My breath catches in my throat as the doctor takes off in lightening speed, disappearing swiftly into the old trunks. The young man comes next to me, whispers "Follow" and disappears much like the doctor did. I do the only option that is available to me. I follow.
My steps are sure and swift. I know I am running at an increased speed but I might as well be strolling lazily in the forest. The trees melt to either side of me and I follow the warm scent of the doctor. He is ahead of me, not that far, but just enough that I cannot see him. But I am aware of him, of the space he is occupying and how much I want to be occupying the same space. I can tell where the man-child is too. His scent, his presence is slightly different than the doctor, but with a similar underlying note. As if some of the doctor's blood flows through the boy.
They are slowing down in front of me and I can smell their scents coming to a stop. I slow my feet, even though the sensation of flying through the woods is a pleasant one. They have come to a full stop in a small clearing in front of a giant cliff face. I do not know how far we have come but I know there is not a mountain like this in at least twenty miles from where I have lived my whole life. I recognize the location as easily defensible, my mind mulling over this new information.
"Who are you?" I ask as we settle into an uneasy calm.
"Esme, we mean you no harm. My name is Carlisle Cullen and this is Edward—"
"Cullen." The young man interrupts. "For all intents and purposes, his son."
The doctor—Carlisle smiles at the young man as if he has just given him the greatest gift in the world. But this Edward is too old to be his son. Or perhaps Carlisle is too young to be his father. It does not take my new abilities to sense that something is abnormal here.
"I know you are confused right now about our relationship, but its best right now if you let Carlisle explain in full." Edward tells me.
How did he know I was pondering their relationship? My thoughts must be more clearly written on my face than I assumed.
"I can hear thoughts." Edward explains swiftly, hoping to ease some of my confusion. It works. I look at him in wonderment.
Once when I was little, I went to a fair. There was a gypsy there who claimed the ability to read minds and see the future. My father pulled me away from her table, telling me that it was a sham, that the human mind was the one sacred place no other person could visit. I snuck back when he was busy looking the other way and let myself into the gypsy's colorful tent. She took my smooth child's hand in her wrinkled one and told me that my death would be extraordinary. I ran from her in fear back to the comforts of my father's leg.
"Esme, I don't want to frighten you." Carlisle says, pulling me from my thoughts. I smile at him, attempting to prove that I am at ease. I find myself taking small steps towards him, as if his very presence is drawing me in.
"We're not like other members of society." He tells me. "We're vampires."
I wait for a punch line. None comes. I do not panic, not quite yet. The myth of the vampire had been the story told around campfires in high school, when we all giggled in fear. I remember them telling us the vampire fed off blood, that they were immortal, that they burned in the sun, that crosses and garlic were repellants to them. I giggled alongside the rest of my classmates the day I heard that tale, but always slightly feared the creatures of the night. However, I did not feel as though these men intended to harm, no matter what they were calling themselves.
Realization dawns on me slowly, like a wave breaking over the shore. Carlisle did not just mean him and Edward when he selected the pronoun 'we'. He meant me as well. I am a vampire. Suddenly, I am rather aware that my heart is no longer beating, that my vision is ten times clearer than anything I could ever imagine. I understand the new urges I have and the reason my bones have mended.
My mind speeds as the blurry memories of vampires float from the past. There is one word that rings clear over and over again in my ear. Immortal. I will never see my baby boy again.
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