A/N: Thanks so much for all your wonderful thoughts!
Hope everyone is having a safe and peaceful 2023 so far.
Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest belong to me. All mistakes are mine.
Okay, so we're almost done! This chapter should answer a few questions we've had from the beginning. :) Also, there are a couple of important things to note as you read this chapter:
1) the date when this chapter begins, and
2) the switching timelines from that date to the italicized past.
3) A different POV
It's a long one, so here we go. ;)
Chapter 16 - Bloodlust
Somewhere deep in the North Canadian Arctic – October 28, 2092:
We crane our necks sharply, but the frigid sun's glare reflects off the ice and briefly hides the climbers from view. The blinding gleam is made so all the more amid unending, brilliant ivory. It plays the part of a reflecting mirror – vast tundra nearly unbroken in its two-dimensionality, a landscape that's been around for millennia, formed from layer upon layer of packed snow and impermeable frost. Full of secrets.
For that same dazzling moment, a sense of smallness wells within me. The staggering scope of the land mass, in combination with my transient incapacity, brings the triviality of my existence into sharp relief. In the grand scheme, what significance does one individual play, even one who's lived hundreds of years? What value are her stories compared to those tales told by rocks, trees, glaciers, the universe itself, and its long-toothed, chaotic memory?
For that fraction of a second, I'm again nineteen-year-old Aquinnah, a young Wampanoag orphaned by the colonizers' disease and left caretaker to her younger sister, Sokanon. So assured was I that we were both fated to live as our ancestors had, for millennia, in the coastal village of Patuxet.
Yet, Sokanon's fate was to give birth and die.
My fate was to raise her son and live.
Patuxet's fate turned out to be oblivion or usurpation by European settlers, who renamed it Plymouth, Massachusetts. Still, it was Patuxet for much, much longer. Just as I have been Alice for much…much longer than I was Aquinnah.
So, perhaps the sun's optical delay is less a sign of my current inconsequentiality and more a reminder of who…of what I once was: a simple being living peacefully and happily off the earth with none of the heightened strength and senses I now possess. Momentary myopia might be Nature's last caveat, lest my kind ever begins to think ourselves equal to the gods.
In the following fraction of a second, our enhanced vision kicks in.
"There they are," Jasper murmurs.
The words are no more than air, a slight shift in the breeze, a minimal displacement of subarctic wind. The comment will make no lasting impression on the world around us nor leave an imprint for having ever been spoken. I can already see that it will be as if we never set foot on this frigid plain.
Jasper and I stand silently observing the three men and two women scaling the mountain's icy crag thousands of feet above us. We'd been surprised when we caught their scent in the cool air. Over five-hundred years since the first colonizers stepped foot on the Canadian Arctic, much of it is still nonviable, no-man's land, occasionally trekked by Inuit, but rarely inhabited for long. Nevertheless, we'd been far from Nunavut, Canada's northernmost settled territory, resigned to an upcoming meal of arctic fox, seals, polar bears, or if we were lucky, a whale, when a potent bouquet of human adrenaline, sweat, and blood wafted our way.
Following the scent meant backtracking a bit, about-facing from this latest lead. Jasper looked to me for the decision, and I made it with a nod. After all, if anyone on this earth believes in fate, it's me. And, of course, my nephew…my creator – my son, for all intents and purposes: Edward, the Soaring Eagle.
'Aunt Aquinnah, I have found her. I have found my love. My fate.'
'Nephew…son, I am glad ye shall no longer be alone.'
Words spoken so long ago now. Yet, Edward has always believed Isabella – Bella, as we came to call her – his fate. I must therefore believe it was always my fate to save her for him.
'Ye must choose, Edward! For I cannot save both!'
Further still, I must believe it fate to someday save her mind, where the other one, the true Hobomock of our waking nightmares, still resides, that part of her Bella was unable to banish harbored in the shadows of her thoughts, in the deepest recesses. Hobomock hides, then shows herself, for more extended periods every year, around the anniversary of that day when she should've rightly been annihilated were it not for an ill-fated rescue necessitated by the perfidy of an entire, damned village. And damned they were; damned to be forgotten, a group of people, a village whose actual manner of demise will only ever be known by a handful.
'DAMN YE, AQUINNAH! I SHALL NOT CHOOSE! SAVE THEM BOTH!'
The pain, the desperation behind that decree still makes me flinch. Yet, a break from tracking he who's eluded us for…well, for centuries now won't change fate. I must believe that. For, as Edward and I were once told by an ancient, mystical hag before she died, while fate can be shifted, it cannot be altered.
'I have seen mine fate, and I shall again see him, my husband, my Carlisle, even if 'tis not through mine own eyes. A deviation from fate shall not change fate. And so, I hand down my gift, my Seidr sight, but not to mine own blood, who twisted the gift and turned it into a curse. I pass the gift to ye, Aquinnah, who raised the child of my heart if not my womb.'
'I know not how to practice such sorcery!'
'Ye shall learn as I have learned!'
Over the next few hours, as we stand there and watch the mountain climbers, we learn a lot about their group. Most of them met in college, though a couple met through work. They're all single. None have children. Three have slept with one another. They're all thrill-seekers, daredevils. They're young adventurers whose lives revolve around earning enough to travel from one obscure corner of the earth to the other in search of the highest high, taking the most exhilarating, adrenaline-inducing risks, kicks that usually bring them to…to the brink of death.
This addiction to danger has led them to this remote part of the earth, where few humans have tread, and to this crag, in particular. As per their overjoyed joking and laughing conversation, they stumbled upon it accidentally and are now performing what's known as an "on-sight," going into the climb with few tools for it, with no prior knowledge of the cliffside, with no clue as to where this climb will lead them, with no idea whether they'll survive.
Jasper and I look at one another.
"Times change," he says with a shrug, "but the human need to seek thrills, to cheat death, remains. It's their version of bloodlust, but turned inward."
I reply with a wordless nod, smiling as I imagine my best friend, my daughter-in-law, performing just such a feat had she been human in this day and age. If ever there was a woman born too soon for her time, it was Bella. Of course, Edward would've followed her just to ensure her safety.
Oh, she's climbed mountains since. But it's different once you're changed.
With a sigh, I return my attention to the climbers. Although Jasper and I can quickly scale the crag in a fraction of the time it's taking this bunch, with absolutely no supplies and with zero repercussions should we slip – which we wouldn't – it's more exciting to watch humans try certain things. At this point, we're almost as invested in their success as they are. Harnessed in with figure eight knots, the lead climber continuously anchors the rope to the icy crag. At the same time, the second follows and deploys the rope to the climbers who follow her. Occasionally, they pull out small axes and chip away at the ice, creating grip indentations where there are none. They edge themselves over buttresses; chalk their hands against slippery dampness caused by ice and sweat before gripping the jugs, the horns, the fists, and pockets in the rock. There is more than one instance in the ensuing hours when a couple almost fall to their deaths. Their grips slip, and for a few moments that stop their hearts, if not ours, their bodies wave like flags in the wind thousands of feet above the ground. Calmly, encouragingly, their friends and fellow climbers talk them back from death.
Periodically, Jasper and I look at one another, then return our attention to the climb. By this point, I've seen how it ends.
When the lead climber reaches the crux, she hooks her heel to the edge and swings over the cliff's ridge. Cheers and hollers and hoots follow her. Then, one by one, the rest of the climbers follow.
Again, Jasper and I look at one another, offering the other a broad grin.
"Good for them," Jasper says genuinely.
I nod in agreement.
At the other side of the cliff, the group's conversation has taken on a celebratory tone. We hear pats on the back and shoulders being clapped in congratulations.
"I was totally gripped on that chossy traverse, and I had a flapper by the time I reached the crux. Luckily, I'd put in a few bombers, so I knew I'd be okay!"
"And here me leading this gumby!"
They all laugh at the one who'd been sandwiched between the rest, the weak link, the group's apparent novice.
"Thank God for the wad here," one guy says, referring to the intelligent, courageous lead climber.
"Ugh, my hands! I've got hot aches."
"Yeah, me too!"
"That was…without a doubt," the leader says, "the best experience of my life."
"Me too," another climber agrees. "Best day ever."
"For me too," joins another. Then another.
"I don't know that we'll ever surpass this." The leader sighs wistfully. "Come on, let's take some holos, though there's no signal out here. We'll have to wait 'til we're back in the land of the living to share them."
This is when I look over at Jasper with a wistful smile of my own. "Ready?"
Jasper nods.
It takes us a fraction of the time it took the climbers to scale the crag. There is…a sense of exhilaration, but I can't honestly claim it approximates what we heard from the climbers. Silently reaching the cliffside, we move on our prey so quickly that none of them see us coming. In under two seconds, all five necks are broken.
There are always those humans who must risk life and limb to prove something. They explore what should remain unexplored. They want what they should not want.
Such as this group, in this place. When these adventurers go missing, no one will ask questions. After all, the sports they chose and the lives they led opened them up to all manner of accidents.
Nevertheless, they died at the highest of their highs, and I wouldn't want to take that away from them.
Contrary to common belief, our kind – vampires, as we are now known – don't go around indiscriminately draining and killing humans. Neither do we unnecessarily prolong our prey's suffering.
'Lord, spare me from the red-eyed demon!'
'Shout and scream all ye desire, for God has forsaken ye. No god shall grant salvation from what ye have done to my mate nor from the wrath that now shall be mine.'
Occasionally, there are those we kill with glee, whose screams sate our thirst as much…sometimes even more than their blood. There are those whom we look forward to someday killing with as much glee.
This group of climbers was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'd never have them die with fear rather than exhilaration in their bosoms.
I look around as now we do take our time feeding. From up here, the view is even more awe-inspiring than from the ground. Flat earth is broken by hilly terrain in the distance and, further beyond, by the Arctic Ocean. Snowy, white-capped waves ripple in the wind while a white-gray mist blankets the horizon.
It would be easy for someone…for a reclusive immortal who never forgave himself for his transgressions against mankind, against a Wampanoag tribe, against my sister…against his son, to hide in the northern tundra. After all, without human limitations, there is no end to the places our kind can inhabit.
We've searched for him above and below sea level. We've followed leads across mountain ranges all over the world. We've trekked deep into fiery desserts. We've explored floating ice sheets, glaciers, and underneath miles of snow. We've gone into remote, sparsely-populated areas where no unnecessary temptation abounds for someone who never learned to deal with temptation.
Yet, Carlisle Cullen remains elusive.
"You ever feel guilty about our diet?" Jasper asks suddenly. He's begun going through the climbers' few possessions – pulling wallets, holos, and such out of backpacks. It's a thing he sometimes does, and only for prey who are other than the scum of the earth. Curiosity, he says, for who they were.
I reply with a sidelong glance and a snort. "It's been my diet for over 400 years now, and I knew what I was getting into when I asked my nephew to change me." I glance over at the drained bodies, their faces so pale now they almost match the ice sheets. "No. There's no guilt. Besides, these guys left on a great high."
"Pa-da-pam!" Jasper rim shots. "Good one."
I chuckle. "You know what I mean. They reached the pinnacle of their dreams. And no, that's not a pun," I smirk at him. Jasper laughs. "I mean, sure, we feed on the assholes and scum of the world when we're not hundreds of miles from civilization. But here," she shrugs, "you gotta do what you gotta do."
"Survival of the fittest," Jasper nods.
"Yep." I turn to him and frown. "Why? Do you feel guilty?"
"Not at all," he says, playing with a holo and scanning through its images of previous adventures. He touches oceans swam, mountains climbed, desserts crossed, donkeys ridden. His hearty laughter reverberates around the mountain, creating a blanket of snow that tumbles down the cliff's icy face.
"Had that avalanche happened a few minutes earlier," he muses, it would've been a death knell to the climbers."
"In which case, their lives wouldn't have ended on such a high note. We did them a favor."
Jasper chuckles. "And to think I thought guilt had you quiet today."
"No," I reply after a few moments, shaking my head. "No, that's not it. It's just…it's been four-hundred years, Jasper, and sometimes I feel as if we're no closer to finding him…and the answer."
"I know," he says quietly. "I know that's how you feel," he adds empathetically.
"By the time you came into our lives, Edward was a man grown. So, the friendship between you both was that of brothers." I pause. "But I raised that boy from birth. He's my nephew, but in my heart, he's my son – even if I almost killed him when he tore through my sister," I say, smiling now at an event that almost tore out my heart close to five-hundred years ago. But time does that.
Fate shifts, but it doesn't change.
Jasper and I remain silent while more recollections fill my mind.
OOOOO
"Soaring Eagle, tell me more of this young, Puritan woman."
We trekked through the wilds of the country, returning to the colony where she, the Puritan girl, awaited my nephew's return. Jasper had remained behind, for I did not foresee I would be gone for long. I had not the second sight then – the Seidr sight.
Supposedly, the girl was prepared to take on our form of life for her love of Edward. Likely, she knew not what she asked. Likely, sheltered and surrounded by the drudgingly pious, she lusted for life rather than love. Our kind…we were enhanced in many ways, our physical appearance just one example. Edward had inherited his father's appearance, augmented all the more. And aye, I doubted she saw beyond his physical beauty. And I worried, for even one such as Jasper, a warrior born, struggled to adjust to our reality. Someone weak and someone who was not a true mate would never adjust.
"Ye will adore Isabella, Aunt Aquinnah. She is, much like ye, intelligent and adventurous of spirit."
"Intelligent, I can believe. But an adventurous, Puritan woman?" I turned my head sideways and angled it sharply upward to offer my nephew a dubious smile.
"Aye," grinned he.
"Have ye explained what the change shall entail? The pain? The burning?"
"Aye," said he with less humor.
"Be she prepared?"
"She be as prepared as were ye, as was Jasper," replied he pointedly and with a raised brow.
"I be a healer and a deliverer of babes. Jasper was a Mohawk warrior. Blood, pain, and death were already a way of life for us."
"She be as prepared as possible for an event conveyed yet never witnessed," snapped he with more vehemence.
I nodded. "Have ye bedded her?"
"Aye," expelled he through clenched teeth, nostrils slightly flared, all traces of humor gone.
"And have she knowledge of how she shall birth if thy seed takes hold within her?"
"I have told her all, Aquinnah," said he, his impatience overt now in both hissed tone and the square of his jaw – his father's jaw. "What is more, I do not believe my seed shall take hold, but should it, 'tis why I have come for ye. I trust in thy ability to see, heal, and assist me in what I must do to keep her as mine forever, just as I assisted ye when ye needed me."
Although still possessed of reservations, when we had wordlessly crossed a body of water and ran some more, I acknowledged,
"Ye speak truth. But why say that you do not believe thy seed shall take hold?"
"'Twould have occurred already. We have lain together nightly."
"Nephew," snorted I, coming to a halt. "Neither ye nor I have ever seen another such as thee – born to an immortal and a human. All our kind that we have met have been created in the manner thy father was created. Bitten." I reached up and laid a hand on his shoulder. "In the manner in which ye created me. Moreover, females of our kind cannot give birth, so there has been no danger when ye have lain with the women of our kind. But Isabella be a human woman, and if ye be as thy father, thy seed can take hold. What is more, if thy seed grows inside Isabella as fast and strong as did ye within my sister-"
I stopped speaking. For by this time, Edward's brow was deeply furrowed. His shoulders stiffened. His expression darkened from confusion to wariness to alarm. At first, I believed it all due to the possibilities I conveyed. The next moment, I smelt it as well.
We were natives of this land. For the most part, 'twas a lush, bountiful land, teeming with sufficient vegetation and animals to satisfy all. But humans, whether English, native, or other, have always had an insatiable appetite for more. War, battles, bloodshed, and burning, they had always been our way of life.
Something…someone was burning.
I recall…I recall the howl he emitted. 'Twas a heart-wrenching sound that, even with all I had seen up to that point in mine life, I had never heard. 'Twas a stomach-churning combination of pain commingled with fear and fury. It shook the heavens, quaked the ground, and quivered the trees. It affected every living organism that had the misfortune to be within range. The bison and deer screeched and scurried. Birds scattered into the wind. And as Edward set off with the speed of an arrow, I followed, already full of dread.
OOOOO
When I meet Jasper's crimson gaze, he offers me an understanding smile. "I know it hurts you," he says. "It's gotten worse over the years."
I nod. "The curse which at first only affected Bella on the anniversary of her death – her human death – grows worse and lasts longer. And then the other one, the witch," I snarl, "when she takes over, she's equally confused. They both believe themselves to be humans married to a human Edward. A fucking Puritan witch playing with dark magic she neither understood nor knew how to word properly. It was a recipe for disaster. Yet, she grows stronger. And Edward can't even kill her – not yet. All we can do is keep her…subdued for now."
"Alice, my love…in the grand scheme of things, it could've been worse," Jasper points out. "They've had a great life. They had a daughter! For most of the year, they lead good lives."
I squeeze my eyes shut as another memory flits through my mind.
OOOOO
I'm on my knees. Flames dance in the background. In the foreground, the dead and dying lay scattered and broken like cornhusk dolls – all by my hand. For Edward's lone thought, his lone concern was reaching Isabella where she stood bound, screaming…and burning.
"Aquinnah!" he chokes, then howls, "HELP HER!"
OOOOO
"The grand scheme of things," I echo, the words themselves echoing upon the cliff. "I've been thinking a lot about the grand scheme of things lately." I sigh. "Yes, it could've been worse in the grand scheme – but not by much."
OOOOOO
She was badly burned, barely clinging to life.
"We must begin the change at once!" And as Edward bared his teeth, I heard what he, in his desperation, failed to hear. I saw what, in his anguish, he was unable to see:
A separate, furiously-fluttering heartbeat.
Isabella's barely breathed words.
"She…Rosalie…witch…wanted ye… She accused me…Newton…the rest…beat…burned…Edward, save…save…child…I beg…I beg ye…"
"I shall save ye, my love," Edward replied, his panic to blame for a rare misunderstanding. Venom gleamed at the sharp points of his teeth as he prepared himself. "Then I shall find the infernal pastor and the golden-haired Hobomock and rip them to shreds," he vowed, bending closer to her. "But first…"
"Edward, NO!" I cried out. 'She be with child! But ye must choose, Edward! For we cannot save both!'
'DAMN YE, AQUINNAH! I SHALL NOT CHOOSE! SAVE THEM BOTH!'
OOOOO
"Alice, what if we do find him, if we find Carlisle, and he no longer has the ring? Or if he refuses to give it to us?"
I shake my head, vehemently refusing, unwilling to ponder those possibilities.
"I know you've seen a vague vision of us finding him in some incalculable time, in some unrecognizable place. But, darling, we've made a thousand different decisions since you had that vision, which could've shifted the outcome."
"I know, and I think that's what makes the time and the place unrecognizable," I insist. "Fate shifts, but it doesn't change."
"Nonetheless, four hundred years of searching for him doesn't bode well. He isn't merely inaccessible, in some unknown place."
"He's hiding," I nod. "I know."
"From your visions?"
"That I don't know."
And yet…Fate shifts, but it does not change.
OOOOO
In my arms rested Sokanon's newborn granddaughter, already with our family's dark hair and ebony eyes. She also possessed a preternatural awareness not unfamiliar to me, for I saw it in her father at his birth. She already owned our hearts. And as her mother's bloodless, limp, broken, and burned form somehow remained alive in her father's arms, refusing to surrender, the babe cried.
Aye, her mother was brave.
Edward vacillated between pooling venom in his mouth once again and, conversely, sending curses and prayers toward the heavens.
"Live for me, my love," he commanded, "as I live for thee."
"I shall…I shall try to live…" replied she weakly.
"You shall not merely try, YOU SHALL LIVE FOR ME!"
The babe wailed at her father's tone, and I held her close as Edward delivered the bite to Isabella, the one meant to change her. But there was so much trauma to her, I was not sure she could survive the burning torture of transformation.
And then…despite her deathly weakness moments earlier, Isabella's back suddenly arched sharply, and she emitted a scream I knew all too well.
"All we can do is wait now, Edward," said I.
For an immeasurable moment, the darkness around us filled with Isabella's shrieks and the moans of the dying. The moans began to decrease in number and volume. Isabella's suffering continued. Only a handful of villagers remained alive when Edward abruptly cocked his head. His top lip curled into the most hateful snarl I had ever seen upon his features. Brushing his lips against Isabella's forehead, he gently set her down.
"Edward…" said I.
"Aquinnah, look after my mate and daughter."
In a motion almost blinding to mine enhanced vision, he lunged. And, with an empty, half-smile that could be named nothing less than malevolent, he began snapping the necks of all still taking breaths, of all whose hearts still beat.
At that moment, Edward was his father, on a night four-score earlier, and I cradled his babe then as I had cradled he that horrific night. I nursed a broken body as I nursed Sokanon's broken body.
Edward hovered above a man's bloody, corpulent form, snarling. "The Reverend Newton."
"Demon!" the repulsively girthed man shouted. "Dear Lord in heaven, 'tis the red-eyed demon!"
When Edward laughed, a chill rushed up mine spine. I, who had seen much. "Aye. Aye, I be the red-eyed demon."
"Lord in heaven, spare me! Save me!"
"Shout and scream all ye desire, for God has forsaken ye. No god shall grant salvation from what ye have done to my mate," he spat. "Nor from the wrath that now shall be mine."
Rather than snap his neck, Edward then bit him. But this was a bite a thousand times different from that he had given his Isabella. Isabella's bite was a gift, a hope for a second chance.
Edward tore at the reverend's face, ripped off the flesh from one cheek, then the other. The godforsaken wretch screamed and flailed. Edward then tore into the reverend's rotund form and spat him out, piece by piece. The wretch's cries overpowered Isabella's screams. Only when the evil cur's cries became the weak whimpers of a person in his final moments did Edward stop.
Chest heaving, he swiped the back of his hand 'cross his mouth. Like the crack of a whip, he lashed away the reverend's blood. When he grabbed the wicked man's scalp, he was no longer Edward.
He was Soaring Eagle and meant to deliver a warrior's death – a scalping.
Yet, his kind…our kind need not weapons with which to do.
"No," pleaded the reverend weakly. "I beg thee…"
"Ye beg the demon now, do ye?" Edward sneered.
"Aye…I…I beg…I beg…"
When Edward tightened his grip, the reverend screeched like a banshee.
"Did my Isabella beg before ye bound her to a stake and lit a pyre beneath her?" Edward asked through clenched teeth, his voice quivering with unmitigated rage.
"Forgive me," the reverend wept. "'Twas…'twas the girl…Rosalie…who accused-"
The rest of the reverend's futile attempt was silenced with a warrior's cry to the dark sky.
Edward discarded the beheaded scalp to one side and the fetid body to the other.
"Now ye may get thee to hell, reverend. And where be the witch?"
My nephew was far from done; his rage nowhere near abated. There was a brutal, feral side inborn to our enhanced nature. This instinct toward ferocity, the call to assert our brute dominance and force all others into submission, was an instinct some of our kind allowed full rein, while others of us attempted to temper, to govern.
'Twas not long after Edward's violent birth I learned my nephew's nature: his inhuman strength, what he hungered for, what would sustain him. And so, along with those basics taught to our young, I taught my nephew restraint. I taught him to fight against his instinct to always best the other young boys – and the grown men – of our tribe, to the point of bringing them shame. I taught him to curb his appetite and only feed from those who cheated, lied, murdered, and ravished. Above all, I taught him to fight against his instinct toward bloodlust, toward the euphoric prolonging of the kill.
But, this eve, they had burned Edward's mate for a witch. They had almost murdered her and his child. The scent of Isabella's flesh still lingered, and for our kind with heightened senses, the scent heightened emotions. For 'tis also inborn in our nature to hate as intensely as we love – and to never forgive transgressions toward those we love.
And so, this eve, Edward's bloodlust, his brutal, feral side, had been awoken. It had been wholly stoked. And woe betides all who were not yet dead, for from them would he exact his vengeance.
"Where now be the witch?" called he, casting his red-glared gaze about. "Where be the filthy, lying Hobomock wi- ahh. There. Crawling like the serpent she be."
As a golden-haired woman attempted to crawl away from the dead, she staggered on all fours. Edward was quickly upon her. He plucked her up by her long, gold tresses and held her off the ground.
"Thy end shall be neither quick nor painless." As Edward bared his teeth, she remained limp in his hold.
By this point, I was consumed by almost as much bloodlust as was Edward – an intoxicating admixture of violence, horror, and hate welling within me. Yet, unlike he, I held hope and love within my arms. The child…Edward's child gazed up at me through large, rounded eyes. And perhaps 'twas she who grounded me at that moment, who helped me see what her father was too blinded by rage to see.
There were no true injuries to the woman he was preparing to kill. Nor did I hear anything amiss under her skin. Her heart raced much as did Isabella's. Her pulse quickened, much as Isabella's quickened. Her pain appeared to overwhelm her…much as did Isabella's, though she seemed unable to even scream from it. My bewildered gaze panned back and forth between she and Isabella.
"Edward?" said I, as my nephew moved in for the kill. "Ed-"
"Hear me!" shouted an odd and aged voice. "Hear me, son of Captain Carlisle Cullen!"
The words startled my nephew into momentary inaction.
"Desist! Desist! For if ye kill her now, Isabella shall never again be whole!"
An old woman, an ancient hag, truth be told, emerged from the black smoke left behind by the pyre. The old woman staggered forward, her palm outstretched.
"Hear me, young Edward, Soaring Eagle, son of Sokanon, and warrior of the Wampanoag! Isabella shall live! I have seen it! But by removing the rings, she allowed Rosalie's magic to take root! Now, their fates be entwined!"
Edward laughed mirthlessly. But I knew him. I noted the narrowing of his gaze, the heightened alarm. The unwillingness more than inability to believe.
"What manner of madness do ye speak? Who are ye?"
"I be Esme Platt. Esme Platt…Cullen. Captain Carlisle was my first husband. That girl ye hold by the hair be my granddaughter."
Edward's top lip twisted into a snarl. "Ahh, the witch's grandmother, come to rescue your kin. Be patient, old hag, for thy turn shall come." Again, he bared his teeth.
But my heart raced. The child in my arms wailed. And, with a horrified sense of nausea rising within me, I felt the truth of the old woman's words.
"Edward, wait!" I cried.
"Do not kill her, not yet!" the old woman rejoined.
"She speaks the truth!"
Only then did Edward pause, his wild gaze again searching. When he found she who had spoken, he discarded the flaxen-haired witch like a rag doll and, stepping over the dead, rushed to the woman. When he cradled her, 'twas almost with as much gentle care as he had shown his mate.
"Goody Swan," breathed he.
The woman's hand reached upward…and palmed Edward's cheek.
"I…forgive me, Goody Swan." He shook his head. "We did not…I did not…"
"They meant to hang my husband and I, and…and ye truly loved my daughter."
"Aye," Edward choked. "I love her. She be my life."
"Then…I care not what you are. Only…only that you save her. Her and the child."
"I vow to ye, Goody Swan, they shall live!"
"Believe the old woman, for she speaks the truth. And tell my daughter…tell her to live…to always live."
OOOOO
"Alice…" Jasper says, "four hundred years later, can we truly be assured the old hag, that Goody Platt didn't lie to Bella's mother and to you and Edward about…well, about everything?"
I draw in a long, cold breath and release it slowly. I've always believed it an odd behavior, this human practice of sighing. Yet it's a human practice that remains from my human life. My gaze pans to the waters of the Arctic.
"For Bella's sake…for Edward's sake, for Nessie's sake, for all our sakes, I often pray that Goody Platt wasn't lying…and that she knew what the fuck she was talking about."
OOOOO
"She must be unbound from Isabella before she be destroyed, or she will forever reside in the crevices of Isabella's mind, forever show herself when Isabella's memories of this eve rise to the surface. Ye must find my husband, for he wears the ring that holds the origin of my gift, the ring on which I unintentionally cast my first spell. Find him…find the ring, and ye shall unbind them."
"What? I do not under-"
The old woman fell prone, grabbing my wrist, her grip burning me as she gazed upward. It did not seem she saw the blackened sky as she smiled.
"Tis the end of my time. I have seen mine fate, and I shall again see him, my husband, my Carlisle, even if 'tis not through mine own eyes. A deviation from fate shall not change fate."
In the background, Isabella screamed. Edward shouted. The child in mine arms cried. The fair-haired witch whimpered.
"Tell us how to proceed!" I demanded. "Where do we find Captain Cullen? How do we unbind Isabella and the witch?"
"I hand down my gift," the old woman continued weakly, "my Seidr sight, but not to mine blood, who twisted and turned it into a curse. I pass the gift to ye, Aquinnah, who raised the child of my heart if not my womb."
'Keep thy cursed gift for aye, it tastes more of damnation to me! I know not how to practice such sorcery!'
"Ye shall learn as I learned."
"Nay!" I grabbed her hand and hissed, "Nay! Tell me precisely what to do. Tell me, old hag!" I spat, shaking her. "Tell-"
Her back arched, and as she took her last breath, Edward lunged again for Rosalie. He grabbed her by the neck and began choking her while she fought for breath.
"I may not be able to kill ye yet," he hissed bitterly, "but ye shall pray for death every day of thy accursed life until I can."
She wheezed as he released her roughly. Then he returned to my side and claimed his daughter, cradling her, weaving his fingers through Isabella's hand, while she remained insensible through her burn, her transformation.
"Change the witch," he spat, "for my venom shall not do so."
OOOOO
Sighing, I get to my feet and offer my husband a smile as I hold out my hand to him, the brand Goody Platt left on my wrist four-hundred years earlier as glaringly crimson as ever.
"Come on, Jasper. Let's get a move on."
Jasper nods and stands, reaching for my hand with one hand while the other prepares to swipe away the holo's current image.
"Wait! Wait!" I shout.
In the silence that follows, the words echo and rumble. Another avalanche races down the cliffside. This one, I ignore; my attention held rapt.
"What is it, Alice?" Jasper whispers. "What do you see?"
He believes I'm seeing a vision of the future, but I'm not – not really. While Jasper remains stock still, I slowly step forward, stopping in front of the holo. The image is of the lead climber. She's seated at a bar stool at a pub, wearing a pretty sweater, with her hair done up, and laughing with whoever shot the holo.
"Get my good side!" she shouts. "This one's for posterity! Hey, you two, get in here! My best friends! Woo-hoo! We do everything together, don't we?"
She stretches out her arms and wraps a friend in either. I vaguely note that neither friend was part of today's expedition. Again, only vaguely, I wonder why.
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter.
What matters is the man seated a few stools away. He's a man who hasn't aged a day in the almost five-hundred years since I last saw him, on the night I lost my village and my sister…and gained my nephew.
God, Edward looks even more like his father than I'd remembered.
He's reading a book, his gaze averted and completely unaware – or, at least, uninterested – in the slightly drunk group of girls beside him. Though I do note how their eyes trail to him, and they grin at one another. But he's immersed in his book – or pretending to be so. As I watch, he casually flips the page with his left hand, his ring hand.
A plain wedding band glimmers on his ring finger, like the Canadian sun's rays gleaming earlier. Full of secrets. When I reach into the holo and touch the ring…a real vision begins.
By the time it's done, I'm smiling.
A/N: Thoughts?
A "holo" is a futuristic thing I made up, lol. It's a hologram, a replacement for today's pictures and iPhone's Live Photos. I imagine them like three-dimensional images projected in the air, with sound and moving images that you can reach out and touch as if they're actually there, but since they're not, the images won't feel it. Hey, it's 70 years from now! :)
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