Chapter Five: Visiting
The whole family was at the door waiting. Renesmee stood farthest out, staring at Celli with brown eyes that flickered back and forth between curiosity and annoyance. Jacob stood behind her, a snarl waiting in his throat at any sense of danger. Rose and Emmett were inside, cooking a personal pizza for Celli. Rose wasn't happy about it.
Alice was standing stock still in Jasper's arms, her eyes staring ahead into the future, while Jasper fidgeted with her hair. Carlisle and Esme were the only one who didn't seem…unwelcoming. But even they were tense at the thought of having a true human in the house after so many, many years.
Esme walked forward slowly. "Hello, my name is Esme. It's a pleasure to meet you." Her hand stretched out cautiously towards Celli, and she shook it fearlessly. A wide grin stretched across her face, and she seemed to start on fire with excitement.
That relaxed the whole family slightly. They all shook hands with her or hugged her. But that was only Alice. Carlisle walked up last, an odd look on his face. I had no name for it. His expression was a mix between friendliness, shock, hostility, and wonder. And it was all topped off with a dazzling smile.
"Hello, Celli. My name is Carlisle. I understand you are the first to figure out our secret." He raised one eyebrow, and Celli nodded quickly. Emmett's laugh came from the kitchen. He thought this whole thing was exactly like it had been when I had first brought Bella home.
I thought so, too.
Celli's annoying curiosity got the best of her, and she blurted, "Are you really 491 years old?" She blushed a deep red, which she instantly tried to hide with her short red and black hair. Renesmee giggled slightly, and then that set Jacob off. Even the slightest giggle made him double over in laughter.
Carlisle chuckled lightly. "Yes, I am. Would you like to come inside?" He waved a hand towards the door, and Celli followed Bella inside. I stayed still to let all of the others go in first. Alice stopped next to me.
"She's the first person in 150 years to give me a headache like this! She changes her mind so much, it hurts!" She laughed a dry chuckle.
"Stay near Jacob, then. He'll block your sight completely." I offered, placing my foot on the bottom step. Alice stayed on the lawn for a moment, but then followed.
"But he reeks!" She teasingly complained, shoving through the door ahead of me. Everyone was gone. Vanished, all except for Jacob, who stood there looking slightly confused.
"My god, you people move so fast. I hate being slower than a vampire." His voice was filled annoyance. He walked outside onto the back porch and phased, howling for Seth. I heard an answering howl far off, probably around 10 miles away. Jacob leapt off the porch and raced away into the darkness.
Catch ya' later, Edward. Tell Nessie where I went. He thought, before he reached out to find Seth's mind.
The rest of the night went almost exactly the same as it had when Bella had come over; the same questions were asked, the same replies given. It was like watching a movie from the old days, played over again with a different cast.
Celli didn't appear at school the next day, which worried me immensely. What was she doing? After school let out, Bella and I drove all over town, searching for her mind. Finally there was only one place left to look.
As we drove up the winding drive, Bella grew excited. "I've wanted so long to see it again, but I never thought it would be for this reason." She was bouncing up and down with enthusiasm.
"Calm down, love. If she's here, we might even be able to go upstairs to see our old room." I shouldn't have said that. That made her the opposite of calm. I suddenly wished Jasper were here.
We stopped in front of the garage and I gasped. There it was. My little, old Volvo that I had left when we moved. I had wanted to bring it, but we were moving overseas to London, so I couldn't. Bella's jaw dropped open and she let out a small squeak. Whose was it now?
" She's here, lets go up to the door." I muttered, snapping out of my trance and climbing out of the Vanquish. Bella flipped out the other side and sat on the hood. She was still staring at the Volvo.
I pulled her wrist sharply, and she followed me up to the door. Celli was at the door an instant after I had rung the bell. Her smile grew even wider when she noticed who it was.
"Hi, vampires. Come to see your old house?" She said opening the door wider. Bella almost crumbled when she same the piano on it's raised platform. I held her steady. She pulled out of my grasp and zipped to the piano, sitting down on the antique leather piano bench gently.
"Edward, come play. Play my lullaby." Her hands drifted across the keys silently, her face lighting up. I sat down next to her as Celli shut the door and went to sit on the chair next to the piano.
I started playing slowly, letting the bridge into the song build up. Then I hit the first note of the lullaby and started playing fiercely. Bella sighed happily. As the song slowed to a stop, Celli gasped quietly.
"That was so pretty!" She said. She stood and walked to the kitchen. Can I get you two anything? I'm sorry, we don't keep blood, but we have regular food." The last part was said with humongous sarcasm.
"Sorry. We can't eat human food, only the wolves and Nessie can." Bella said. "Do you mind if we look around?" Celli nodded and continued into the kitchen.
Bella and I dashed up the stairs to the end of the hall. I gingerly opened the door. It looked exactly the same, minus the CDs and the furniture. But my record player was still there, and my CD setup. It wasn't being used at all, just an empty room in a big house.
"Your music players…they're still here! You should ask her if we can take them home; I would love to have them again," Bella said, running her hand across the cover on the record player. I noticed there was a record still in it. I reached across Bella and opened the cover, the dust billowing out in a hazy cloud.
"It's…Debussy. My old Debussy record that Rose said she snapped in half 43 years ago. I can't believe it's actually here. I don't understand how I could have forgotten it," I murmured, dumbfounded. It was still okay. I was relieved.
"Wow. We have to bring your record player home and your CD player, too. Please?" Bella asked, taking my record and stuffing it into her jacket. She walked to the door and yelled down the stairs.
"Celli, can you come here? We want to ask you something…" Bella trailed off as we heard pounding footsteps coming up the stairs. Celli was holding a coffee pot in one hand and an empty cup in the other. Bella giggled.
"These used to be mine, but we had to leave them behind when we moved to London. Is there any way we can take them back to our house?" I asked, waving a hand towards the old electronics.
Celli snorted. "Sure. My mom and dad were going to throw them away, anyhow. We don't even know how to work them." She finished pouring the coffee into the cup and took a drink. Bella scrunched her nose at the scent of it.
"Thank you so much. You don't know how much these mean to me. I've had the record player since 1920, and the CD setup I got the year Bella was born. Human born, I mean." I lifted the record player up and jumped out the window because our car was right there. Bella followed with the CD setup.
I could hear Celli's running footsteps racing down the stairs to catch up to us. When she reached the garage, I turned around to face her. "You see that Volvo? That was mine from 2003 to 2009. Who decided to keep it?" I asked, holding my breath. I hoped that they wouldn't want that, because I sort of missed it.
Celli's eyes grew wide. "Geesh, the piano was yours, the CD and record players, and now my Dad's old Volvo! Yeah, my dad loves the thing. Sorry, I'm sure you probably wanted it back or something." Her eyes were pitiful. I shook my head quickly.
"I'm just amazed that it's still around. It shocks me. I owned this car when I met Bella. We always either drove it or her truck, before that died." I smirked. Then I had gotten to buy her a new car, so she didn't wake up the entire town if she decided to drive around in the middle of the night.
"Aw, that's sweet. I didn't even realize it had belonged to you; I thought my dad had just found it out in the woods or something. How are you sure it's yours?"
"It has the same license plate, and the tabs on them are from 2009." I stated matter of fact, figuring it was obvious. Bella elbowed me. She wasn't alive then, and not everyone memorizes license plates! Her thoughts had a DUH edge to them, and I rolled my eyes.
"Ok, well, I have to go. I have a 'dinner date' thing with my dad. He wants me to help him with one of his scientific studies or something like that." Celli turned and opened the door to the house. "Bye!" Then she disappeared into the house, trotting up the stairs to get dressed for her dinner.
"Are you happy? You got to see your Volvo again, and you got your record and CD players back. Hey, you know that record player would be worth a ton of money now? Because it's from 1920. And that means its 236 years old! It's probably the only left in existence, much less in perfect condition. But I know you wouldn't sell it, and its not like I want you too! But if you ever decided to…" Bella babbled on and on as we drove back to our house, bouncing from one topic to the next. I listened quietly and watched the road ahead of us.
Alice and Renesmee were excited when we got home, and I instantly knew why. Zafrina and the other amazons were coming to visit, and we hadn't seen them in 20 years. Alice bopped up and hugged Bella when we came in, and Bella attempted to hug her back while holding the record player in her right hand. It didn't work well, so I snatched the player before it teetered of off her outstretched hand.
"What's this about, Alice? Did some of the Volturi die or something?" Bella joked happily. She was still pumped up from our trip to the old house. Alice's clear laughter rang through the house and echoed slightly in the large entrance hallway.
"No. But Zafrina and the other Amazons, Senna and Kachiri, are coming to visit in 2 weeks. They could help us teach the humans about our kind, and they could demonstrate the eye thing without Tanya or somebody killing a human!" Renesmee said, waltzing up with Jacob trailing along behind her. He looked happy, too. Joy was radiating from everyone in the room.
With this information and the promise of a visit, we could avoid Tanya killing a human at all. Kate would be especially pleased about that, considering she had been depressed when Tanya had brought it up. I could only imagine what she would have felt like if Tanya had drunk human blood exactly like she had. I shuddered.
Bella's voice leapt with happiness and fury. I started at the scathing edge to her voice. " That's good news for Tanya, but what about Zafrina? What if they ask her to kill a human? I realize it won't be that odd for her, but it will hurt her to do that to us. She loves us, so we should take her feelings into consideration, too." I set both musical devices down and reached out to her. She relaxed slightly when my fingers touched her arm.
"Bella, you prove a great point. That is a topic I will discuss with Senna and Kachiri, before I talk to Zafrina about it. She will be curious, but Nessie should be able to keep her company." Carlisle's voice filled the hallway, deeply set with happiness and wonder. I could feel the slight tinge of disappointment, too. Why was he disappointed?
"So, Edward," Jasper said, motioning towards the players," Bring a few souvenirs home from our old house?" Jasper's voice was the only one that was 100% happy, and he knew it. So he changed the subject eagerly and got everyone absorbed in the conversation going on about my music.
"Bella saw them when we were at Celli's house, and Celli let us take them. I was completely and utterly shocked to see them there, but I almost dropped dead like a human when I saw my old Volvo in the garage. It's sitting there, with the license plate still on with tabs from 2009 on it. Celli's dad decided to keep it. It simply amazed me." I said. He knew I was bursting with happiness about it.
"Wow, that's amazing. Now what's with the record and CD players? Did you steal them?" Alice bubbled, moving over to touch the top of the CD speaker. "Ew! They're dusty! Ew!" She drew her hand back like a snake had bitten it.
Bella laughed. "Dust is gross? Odd. I always thought it was really cool. Well, anyway. No, Celli gave them to us because nobody in her family knows how to use them. And, Rosalie, we found Edward's old Debussy record in the player. We know you didn't break it!" Bella laughed at the last part, and a low hiss came from upstairs on the 2nd level.
"They didn't know how to use them? What's so hard about putting a little needle onto a spinning disc? I could do it by the time I was a week old!" Renesmee said, laughter squeaking it's way out. Jacob laughed along with her.
"Yeah, that's what shocked me. And even more so the fact that they didn't know how to use a CD player. I mean, they still sell CDs! It was weird. I had the urge to show her how, but that would have taken too long with her mind. She has a very short attention span," I said, picking up the CD setup. "C'mon, Bella. Let's go hook these up in our room." Bella swiftly reached down to grab the record player and ran up the stairs. I raced after her.
"We can put the CD player in/on the bookshelf, and then the record player directly below it. That will keep it looking exactly like it did in your old room!" Bella hooked up the CD setup while I positioned the record player below it. The record player was still in amazingly good shape for how old it was, which surprised me. And our family's scent was still wrapped around it, engulfing it.
"You still have all your old records, right? Cause I liked them. I liked just sitting in our room listening to them, while reading or something. It was fun." Bella mumbled, her head stuck behind the bookcase.
"I kept every last one of them, Beatles, Debussy, ABBA, and all of the others. There's nearly 500." I said standing up. "And we can listen to every last one of them together."
this will be my last chapter for this story until christmas break b-cuz my teachers won't let us get a break before christmas. I don't even have time to go to the library anymore!!!! I have FPS practices every monday, library trips on tuesdays, dance on wednesdays, gymnastics on thursdays, and riding on fridays. Saturday and sunday are my homework and reading/writing days. So if you're hoping i'll publish before 12/24, you're hoping wrong. Sorry. ^_^