Wow, lots of reviews! Thanks to whats. the. time. mr. wolf. again, as well as newcomers xXKazaneXx and Hidden Traces.
Hidden Traces, chapter eight seems fine to me, so I'm not sure why you can't access it. To keep you up plot-wise, the bare bones of chapter eight is that Maureen overhears the Cullen children talking about how she may not be human (she isn't) and Maureen deduces that the Cullens aren't human either, and she needs to investigate them further.
Also, big thanks to TheGizzYall, who added this to their Favorite Stories List. And again to xXKazaneXx and Hidden Traces, who put A Place Where No ONe Lives on their Story Alert.
Chapter ten...once again, the Cullens (or a Cullen, anyway) feature in this chapter. I liked leaving them out of chapters every now and again. Even though this is Twilight fanfic, it amuses me to treat the Cullens as if they are insignificant compared to Maureen, who is the unquestioned star of this story.
The Doctor Is In
Maureen walked down the hall of the county hospital, moving without hesitation even as she scanned the numbers on the doors. It was important that she appeared to know where she was going, that she looked like she had a perfectly good reason for being here. Otherwise someone might ask her what she was doing, and Maureen was hoping not to need any of the flimsy excuses she'd thought up.
She shifted the backpack slung over her shoulder, squinting as she passed under the fluorescent lights. The smell of sterilizing chemicals was thick in her nose. She hadn't wanted to ask the receptionist what the room number was—luckily, there was a physician index posted in the hospital lobby, rendering the receptionist unnecessary
Maureen stopped. Here was the right number…and there was his name on the door, large as life. Peering through the fogged glass, Maureen could only make out one figure—he seemed to be alone. She twisted the knob and pushed the door open, stepping boldly into the room.
"Dr. Carlisle Cullen?" Maureen asked.
Maureen realized it was a stupid question, even as she asked it. The man at the desk was clearly the right one. He was just as pale as his adopted children, his features equally flawless. With the navy blue necktie and spotless white lab coat, he looked like he'd fallen out of a Hallmark hospital drama.
Dr. Cullen sat frozen in his chair, eyes wide with a mild, fearless surprise. Silence stretched between them.
Do they all do the awkward silence thing? Maureen thought irritably.
"I'm glad I caught you in your office, Doctor." Maureen said. She crossed the room, and stood behind the chair in front of his desk. "I didn't make an appointment, I know. But I need a consultation."
"…you're not a human being, are you?"
Now it was Maureen's turn to freeze.
Dr. Cullen smiled at her expression. "I apologize. That must have sounded very rude. You're Maureen Stanley, yes?" He said. "My children told me about you. I see my theory was correct."
Maureen found her voice. "What theory?" She asked.
"That you're something unhuman. A creature outside my ken—if you don't mind my asking, what are you exactly?"
His smile was surprisingly kind—completely free of the patronizing contempt of Edward's smirks.
Maureen shrugged. "I'm just me. There's no name for the kind of creature I am."
Dr. Cullen peered at her. "You're young." He observed. "You're very young."
"Um…yeah. I'm a sophomore." Maureen said.
"But you're actually that age." Dr Cullen said. "You look…but you have nothing of timelessness about you, nothing immortal."
"At the risk of admitting a flaw, I'm not immortal." Maureen said. "Hell, if you're going by genetics most of me is human. Just not all of it."
She stepped around the chair and put her palms flat on the desk, leaning toward the Doctor.
"I didn't come here so you could confirm what I am, Doctor." She said. "I came here to confirm what you lot are."
"You think you know what we are?" Dr. Cullen had stopped smiling, but he did not look upset.
"I haven't the slightest idea." Maureen declared angrily. "If I had, I wouldn't have come to ask you. I need you to tell me."
There was a pause. Dr. Cullen folded his hands together on the desk, and took a deep breath.
"I don't want to insult your intelligence, Miss Stanley." He said. "It's one thing to maintain the charade to delude an inquisitive human. But since we've clearly established that you yourself are not entirely human, it would be facetious to pretend that my family and I are normal people. Nevertheless—"
Maureen opened her mouth, but Dr. Cullen held up a hand.
"Nevertheless, secrecy from outsiders is what keeps my family safe, and allows us to live peacefully. So you will forgive me for not wanting to reveal our exact nature to you, if you have not guessed it. While you do not seem dangerous in of yourself, you're not exactly forthcoming. You won't elaborate on what you are. And my son considers you cruel and untrustworthy."
Your 'son' is a moronic stuck-up douchebag who sees the worst in ordinary people, and judges them by their smallest sins. Maureen bit her tongue.
"Can you read my mind too?" She asked abruptly.
Dr. Cullen seemed surprised that she knew to ask that. "No." He said.
Good. She thought. "Alright." She said.
Maureen sat down in the chair. Tugging her backpack off her shoulder, she opened it and pulled out the wool tapestry.
"Have you ever heard of the Nacirema?" Maureen asked, holding the tapestry in her lap.
"Sorry?"
"The Na-ci-re-ma." Maureen said. "Or rather, the paper titled Body Ritual among the Nacirema. It was written by Horace Miner, and published in 1956, in an Anthropology journal.
"It sounds familiar to me." Dr. Cullen said. "But it's been a while. Please enlighten me."
"Miner describes the Nacirema, a group of people living between Mexico and the Antilles, who engage in a variety of bizarre rituals. As the reader progresses through the paper, they can't help but think to themselves 'Why, this culture of Indians is truly bizarre and overly complicated! They are devoted to useless rituals, and become unhinged if parted from them. How silly people were back then, living without civilization!'"
Maureen smiled bitterly.
"It's only later that the reader—if he bothers to check—realizes that 'Nacirema' is 'American' spelled backwards. And that the twisted, backwards culture he was reading about was his own all along—observed from the objective perspective of an outsider."
"I do remember that paper." Dr. Cullen said, smiling. "I read it a long time ago. But I'm not sure what it has to do with the subject at hand."
Maureen lifted the tapestry, and unrolled it on the desk, facing Dr. Cullen.
"I made this last night." She said. "It was supposed to tell me what you were. But it's like the Nacirema paper. It's given me all the clues I need. But I can't identify what you are, because it's giving me the answer in a way that doesn't make sense to my outsider mind. So I can't understand it. Do you see?"
Dr. Cullen stood up, and leaned over the tapestry. Maureen stood up too, watching as he examined it.
Like tea leaves scattered at the bottom of a cup, the dark patches within the wool had been unconsciously woven to form a distinct picture. Black against white, the whole thing resembled a rough, yet detailed pencil sketch.
The scene itself was piecemeal, but the background appeared to be a large field, with the sun blazing overhead. The figure in the foreground was male, and conceivably resembled Edward Cullen. His head was thrown back, and his face was turned upwards, shot through with tiny stars. His hands gripped the neck of a dead deer. Behind him huddled six more figures, each grasping or cradling a dead animal. On the left side of the tapestry, there was a large bonfire. A human figure lay within the flames. The head was separated from the body, each limb cut from the torso and split again at the elbow and knee. To the right there was a face, larger than Edward's. It was twisted in pain, eyes closed, lips screaming. The cheek of the face was marked with a ragged, festering bite wound. It bubbled and boiled, rivulets of steaming blood running down the face.
"Are you going to explain this to me?" Maureen asked. "Or do you want me to find out the hard way?"
Dr. Cullen slowly sat back down in his chair.
"I won't deny I dislike your son." Maureen said. "As he clearly dislikes me. But I am no malicious creature, and I despise cruelty. Nevertheless, I will find out what you are. I don't like these kinds of secrets, the ones you can't guess despite the secret-keepers throwing them in your face. I will find out. And if I can't do it quietly, I will do it loudly. That's not a threat, Dr. Cullen. It's just my plan of action. If you don't want me to be loud, you can help me. Just a hint will help."
Dr Cullen rested his hands on the desk again.
"You possess divination?" He asked. "The power to reveal things?"
"I have the power to…ask fiber to do things for me." Maureen said. "As lame as that sounds."
Dr. Cullen's expression was thoughtful. "You put me in mind of a brownie, or a goblin." He said. "Not the kind who cleans the house, but the kind who patches trousers, ties the shoes and mends the stockings."
He chucked quietly, humorlessly. "Servants of the Devil, my father used to say."
"The devil is relative." Maureen said.
Dr. Cullen nodded. He rolled up the tapestry, and handed it to Maureen. She slipped it into her backpack.
"Your weaving is accurate." He says. "My hint for you is to point out that in your picture, my family and I hold only animals. We refuse something else."
Dr. Cullen stood up, and motioned towards the door. "You'll have to excuse me, Miss Stanley, but I would prefer if you left now. You should go home. How did you get here, anyway?"
"I used my Uncle's bike." Maureen said. "I didn't tell him where I was going, or how far."
Dr. Cullen frowned. "Please don't do that again." He said. "Someone should always know where you are going…especially if you are going to see someone like me."
He took a black leather wallet out of his pocket, and opened it. "Here's thirty dollars." He said, holding the money out. "Call a cab to take you home."
"I can get myself home." Maureen said. "But thanks."
She turned and left the office, shutting the door firmly behind her.
Maureen walked back down the corridor, chewing on her lip. They choose the animals…to eat them, presumably. Fine, I got that easy. But they don't seem like deranged hunters, or crazy animal cultists who bite the flesh off while the poor creature is still alive.
Bite. Maureen trotted down the stairwell to the main floor. They bite. They chew. The face has a bite mark. And for some reason, it's infected. It's poisonous?
Maureen shook her head as she exited the hospital, heading for the bike rack. This was the same rut she'd gotten stuck in last night. The poison made no sense to her. They're not snakes, they're not spiders or jellyfish…why the venom?
Maureen rode her bike out of the parking lot, and onto the county road. Pedaling fiercely, she concentrated on putting all the pieces of the puzzle together.
It was a good three-hour bike ride back to the Stanley house. Maureen was only twenty minutes from home when she finally got it.
She jerked her uncle's bike off the side of the road, skidding into the grass. She balanced precariously on one foot, as the answer that had flitted through her head grew solid, and became an absolute certainly
Maureen's eyes bulged. She opened her mouth.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
My favorite chapter is up next. I'm so excited! Tune in tomorrow! :D
And please Read and Review, especially if you found something particularly funny or clever.