And
Long I Lay In The Ground
Chapter 8
Jane and Edward, Edward in Jane, a match made in hell. The attitudes their bodies assume now when facing each other tell conflicting stories of frustration, despair, desire unmet and unreturned, hope countered by need - all of it dysfunctional. Poor Jane doesn't want to want him, but she's helpless. As for Edward, I don't understand him yet.
But his shoulders slump, as before he has even repeated his question, her face gives him some sort of response.
"You drink from other people? Not just me?"
So Jane has deceived him entirely as to her nature. He hasn't grasped the truth yet, as he must have had no reason to ever suspect it. And what is this reaction of his? He couldn't possibly be jealous?
"Of course I do. What I take from you would barely keep a bat alive. It's not even subsistence level," she says, patronizingly.
"You've never told me that. But what happens to these others? You and I have an agreement. Do you have other regulars and other agreements? Are you traipsing up and down the country persuading people to let you slit their wrists and take a few mouthfuls, and then extracting a promise that they won't tell anyone? Are you declaring fidelity to them, and that you'll return?"
"No, that's not what happens."
I have lived in this age long enough to know that what was commonplace in ages past is unknown now. To Edward this is new and horrific.
"Well, why did Bella specifically use the word hunt? That implies predation, and capture. It implies force...and non-consent..." His voice slows, and dread creeps into it.
"Jane - ?" He crosses to her and takes her by the upper arms. "What happens? What happens to these others - ?"
"They're where I left them. And their tongues are stilled."
Edward utters a small, "no," and stumbles away from her, his face ashen. He catches a glimpse of me in the open doorway to the balcony, and says, "What does she mean, stilled?"
He already knows the answer and I don't need to provide it.
"And - you? You?" he asks.
Within moments he has flung himself through the hall, and to the bathroom. The sound of his retching fills the silent air.
"Why didn't you tell him?" I say to Jane, but it's obvious why. Only a person who is perverted, amoral, or completely disconnected could live with the knowledge of what Jane does to survive, and Edward is none of these things.
He returns, wiping his mouth, and begins a verbal attack. Monstrous, devious, appalling, murderous, disgusting, loathsome, vile - and many, many more negative adjectives are hurled at Jane, who remains aloof and icy throughout his tirade. Edward is pacing the room, incandescent with bewilderment and pain, hands raking through his hair as he shouts.
When his arsenal has seemingly run out, Jane starts on him. She makes no attempt at appeasement whatsoever. She says he has practiced selective naivety, never questioning her disappearances. Never stopping to wonder at how such a small volume as she took from him, and at such infrequent intervals, could be sustaining her. She says he is opportunistic and self-interested, accepting the benefits she brought to him - the way she has been managing his career over the phone, making bookings, liaising with agents, putting together press-kits and media material, persuading influential people to listen to him. And surely he is aware that his playing has improved beyond measure since they entered into their arrangement? Has he honestly never, ever wondered why that should be? It is because the miniscule amount of saliva she transmits to him through his bloodstream as she drinks has conferred a superior ability. He is not such a fool as to have not recognized this, but he is dishonest with himself for not acknowledging it.
The argument rages on.
At one point I decide I will leave them to it, and I make for the door.
"Where do you think you're going?" Edward rails at me. "Out to snack on a passerby? No, you don't!"
Apparently, he thinks he can stop me. Perhaps Jane, in keeping him in the dark the way she has, has also neglected to mention that our kind, hers and mine, could tear him apart with our bare hands. If he thinks he is stronger than I am, I'm not going to disprove it, because to disprove it would potentially hurt him. I sit as he continues to pace.
Then Edward's diatribe turns to rights, and states that murder is a violation of people's rights. Jane says if rights are automatic simply by virtue of existence, she and I have the same rights as everyone else. We have the right to keep ourselves alive by feeding. A cat has the right to kill a bird or a mouse because that is what its system is designed to ingest, and that is what will fulfill its nutritional requirements - ergo, a vampire has the right to blood. She points out that he enjoys steak. He takes cream in his coffee, and dairy products are only available because of the ongoing mass slaughter worldwide of day-old calves. Animals die daily in very great numbers for the rapacious demands of humans.
"And leather, Edward? Your shoes, your belt? Animals are slaughtered for far more than to provide humans with sustenance. What about the trade in animal parts for medicines? What about animal testing for every product used around homes, or used as cosmetics? You're a smoker, Edward. How many creatures were secured into harness and mask and forced to smoke cigarettes until it killed them so tobacco companies could grow rich and you could risk cancer?"
"There is a difference," Edward states coldly, and now Jane's eyes are flashing.
"Go live in a cave then, you ignorant boy. Human society is entirely reliant on death for its life. You're sanctimonious and a hypocrite. Did you have all these concerns when you thought your kind were at the top of the food chain? Did you question your entitlements then? Now you find there's something above you. Humans have long considered themselves the most important life-forms. Well, what makes you so special and privileged, and worthy of plundering all earth's resources? And what grants you the justification to sit in such disapproving judgement on me? Everything eats to live. Do you vilify the baleen whale for consuming plankton? Everything feeds on a lower order. So do I. But Edward, I'm not going to harvest your skin to make myself a wallet, or feed you only on milk to make your flesh sweeter and whiter, or make powder from your dried organs to boost my libido."
Edward is finally speechless, but Jane is not.
"And another thing. If you're so opposed to the killing of humans - what are you personally doing about it? How many wars have you stopped? How many armaments factories have you closed down? Which terrorist factions do you negotiate with? I take about half a dozen lives a year. Humans are moralistic, ostensibly law-bound, and answerable to their Gods - but how many lives do self-righteous humans take?"
"Stop," Edward says, shaking his head. "I can't talk to you any more. I can't listen to your twisted arguments. Get out of here."
He doesn't care that he has no authority to order Jane to leave my apartment. His tone is final.
Standing up, Jane jeers at him.
"Fine. I'll get on with the unforgivable reaping and culling and you go back to being what you were before I made you what you are."
The door slams behind her.
Exhausted now, Edward turns back to me. I have found his courage and conviction impressive. Disheveled as he is, having almost pulled hard enough on his hair to have removed handfuls of it, he is disarmingly handsome. But I can see it's more than looks, and more than talent that attracts Jane so much to him. He has a formidable strength of character as well.
"Bella - I have no idea where Jane will go now, but I can't go back to our apartment. I'll make myself alternative arrangements of course, just as soon as I'm able, but may I stay here for a night? Assuming you won't eat me in my sleep, of course," he sighs.
"I have a spare room. You are most welcome to use it. I'm very sorry this has all come as such a shock to you. I confess, it never occurred to me that you wouldn't know."
He doesn't deign to reply, merely sets his jaw then turns his head away. I show him to the second bedroom - Al-ys's haven.
I had done nothing to the room when my Heart left, and signs of her occupation are still everywhere. The hotel staff had made up the bed with clean sheets, but other than that, the room sings of her. Trinkets, jewelery, magazines, shoes, clothes, books - all sorts of paraphernalia that my dear love had espied and fancied lie about in the colorful profusion of disarray that characterizes her. I come in here often to brood, and to remember.
Looking about, Edward is clearly surprised. There is barely a square inch of surface area that isn't a token of my Heart.
"You do have a companion," he says, slowly.
"Not a companion. Not in way you used the word. More like - a sister? A beloved sister?" I answer, unsure how I can describe what Al-ys is to me.
"Where is she?"
"She fell in love with someone and they have gone to discover each other on their own."
He wanders idly, picking up this and that. A ribbon, a bracelet. My Heart had been a sombre thing when first we met, the weight of her alleged insanity far too heavy for her little shoulders. She hadn't been much older than Jane. Time, and my indulgence, had revealed the natural tendency towards joy that is evidenced here. Practical, determined and clever, my Heart had both led and followed me, each of us Mistress and Slave to one another in our differing ways. She is also effervescent and playful. Amongst this pretty jumble I still feel her essence.
"They are vampires?" His detestation of the word and its object is in his enunciation.
"Now, yes. But Al-ys already was, Jasper wasn't - he was human. They fell in love with one another at first sight."
His glance flies to my face. "Wait - a vampire and a human fell in love? Isn't that counter-intuitive?"
"Ah - " I begin, but he hasn't finished.
"And what do you mean - they're both vampires now? Are you telling me that vampires can be created? What nightmare process is that done by? And why on earth would he consent to it?"
"He didn't consent. She chose him. He didn't know what she was when he fell in love with her. I changed him for her, and afterwards - he thanked me."
"You? He was an ordinary man, and you turned him into a blood-drinking murderous demon?"
To tell the truth, Jasper will not hunger for months because he has Al-ys, but once their honeymoon is over he will be just as the rest of us, and will need to feed. Edward is already very distressed, and affirming his accusation is hardly going to help.
"Can I order you anything?" I say instead.
"A negation of this horror," he mutters.
Sensing his need now for privacy and reflection, I leave him, after having provided a fresh towel and a toothbrush.
The night is young, and I return to the main room, where beyond the balcony, the city lights twinkle. Out there is laughter and forgetting - in here Jane and Edward's harsh words still hang in the air, heavy and embittered. But I lack the will to escape from under their oppressive atmosphere. Usually I enjoy walking outside amongst the pulses and heartbeats, vastly preferring their warm, wet sloshing to any of the sanitized, anodyne, vulgarity of television. Tonight all I want is my Al-ys, who is gone from me and lost, for how long, I do not know. I feel Jane's loneliness as a mirror of my own, and yet greater, and I despair for the poor lost creature that she is. I too have loved a human, but mine had accepted me without this recrimination and blame and recoil. We had waited a few years for her to be sure, and for her to be through her childhood, and then she had undergone the transformation willingly. Al-ys and I had been a need and a compulsion for one another. Was that how it had been for Jane with Edward? I wasn't rejected though, just temporarily deserted. Al-ys and I were united forever, of this I was sure. Her miraculous heart was far bigger inside than out; its passages and chambers could house me fully within, and yet expand to fit this new and true love - the boy-man Jasper.
I ponder on these things as Edward sleeps, and envy him the respite.
Suddenly though, my eye is caught by a tiny icon in the screen of the open laptop, lying on my desk. There is a symbol of an envelope that hadn't been there before.
Clicking the mouse over what you want to look at makes things open or enlarge, Edward had told me. I move the arrow and click.
And oh! There is a message from my Heart.
I wander two worlds at once, one is with you and I hold it dear in my memory, real and close
The other is without you, yet filled with discovery and warmth, truth and pleasure. I had no lack of anything while at your side, reveling in plentitude and contentment, and adoration. You and I are twinned souls, I have no doubt about it. But Mistress! Jasper's love is the rushing spring, the thrill, the ease, the climb and the fall. It is the completion of me
We travel fast, he and I. His energy matches mine. We cover such terrain - mountains, deserts, rivers. We fly through towns and cities, or we stop and spend hours on a single street. He likes people. He will stop to play backgammon with an old man on the sidewalk, he will pick up a guitar in a cafe and sing songs of the heartbreak he need never fear. He chuckles at babies and wants to break into churches and attend weddings, that people's flowing happiness may be accentuated by our own. It's catching, he says
My Bella, I know a love eternal and true waits for you. Jasper and I both think he is in the city you and I were living in. How strange, yet how fitting that your mate and mine should be within a matter of miles of each other!
I am, always, your adoring Al-ys
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I am, always, your adoring Syrrah