Disclaimer: SMeyer owns "Twilight." Elysabeth owns "Les Yeux de la Lune."
T/N: There are a couple of cultural references in here that would be well known to French speakers, but not to us poor Anglophones. I'll explain them at the end.
In contrast, Elysabeth, who adores all your reviews, notes that her English-speaking readers are much better acquainted with the geography of the Olympic Peninsula than her French ones. Just assume that Edward drove from Aberdeen to Port Angeles at Mach 1.
Chapter 7: Pas de Deux
Before going to join Bella in her room, I headed home. When I got to the drive leading to my house, I stopped the car. I took the jacket that Bella had worn all evening and breathed in, allowing myself to smell the garment fully.
Feel the burn. Experience it, endure it.
The pain hadn't disappeared, but I tolerated it better. The more I practiced, the easier it would be. I knew that I could control myself, that I could muzzle the monster. My goal was to no longer want that wonderfully scented blood, but to appreciate it for what it was: a substance that allowed Bella to exist, a liquid that represented life – her life.
Soon, I could repeat this exercise in Bella's room, but not tonight. I had to work up to it.
Pleased with my practice session, I headed to the garage. Rosalie was playing with the M3, and I parked my Volvo next to it.
"I'm bringing you some work."
She stood up gracefully, a cylinder in her hand. A fashion model-mechanic: an always amusing vision. Rosalie loved working on cars, and I had something to keep her busy tonight. I indicated to her my window-less car door, and she immediately assessed the situation with her expert eye.
"It was broken from the inside. I'll definitely have to replace the door."
"Do your best. I'll cover the cost."
She rubbed her hands together, thrilled to have a little challenge. But she was intrigued, all the same: I'd never had an accident.
"What happened?"
"I …tapped on the glass a little too hard."
I left her with that vague explanation. She shrugged and shook her head in annoyance before going to work.
Alice had returned from her hunt and awaited me, sitting on the stairs.
"Hey, sis."
I ruffled her hair.
"I want a yellow one," she said.
"A yellow what?"
"You are soon going to offer me an Italian sports car to thank me for having warned you in time."
I chuckled at her teasing little smile. I did owe Alice a lot. Without her, Bella would be lying inert in some dark alley and -
Thinking about what could have happened reawakened my fury.
"Easy, easy. It's over now. I told Carlisle to get his bag ready. He doesn't know why, but I told him that you would explain it."
"Thank you, Alice."
She had seen my plan.
Carlisle was in his library, and when I described to him what had happened, he was perplexed.
"That's incredible. I would never have believed that possible. She really … stopped you, Edward?"
I had expected that he would ask me about the thugs we needed to hunt down, about the peaceful way – too peaceful for my taste – we were going to ensure that justice was done, but I hadn't suspected that he would linger on how my … plans had been interrupted.
"Yes, she stopped me in my tracks."
Memories flooded his mind, and I understood his astonishment. Carlisle was recalling the era when he had tried to dissuade me from leading a non-vegetarian lifestyle. Nothing had stopped me. I was too rebellious. He had tried several times to make me see reason. He had even followed me and put himself between me and my victims. It hadn't worked. No words of wisdom or appeal to compassion from Carlisle had opened my eyes and I had attacked without caring about anything other than quenching my murderous thirst.
"Do you realize what the Swan girl has done? Where I failed, she succeeded … it's extraordinary," he thought, scrutinizing me.
He knew well from his own vain attempts to do so that no one could stop me once I had started. And he found it strange that the girl with the intoxicating perfume had managed to do just that. I could have very well turned from Lonnie and launched myself at Bella. We went into a sort of trance when we hunted that kept us from distinguishing our prey from non-prey.
I knew why Bella had been able to stop me. I loved her beyond measure, and she had a power over me that was stronger than my vampire instincts – at least to a certain point – and while Carlisle didn't know the reason, his thoughts were speculative. He was beginning to understand what had happened to me.
He didn't ask me to confirm his suspicions. Carlisle knew that I would speak of it myself when I was ready.
He took up the conversation where we had left it.
"You very much want these men to be punished?"
"Yes."
I knew that Carlisle would help me tonight, but he wanted to put me on guard, to underline what it meant for us to do this.
"The advantages our state gives us should not be used to interfere in the world of humans, Edward. We should let that world change at its own pace. If we get involved every time a criminal is on the loose, soon that would be all we did. Men like that are unfortunately abundant. I know that we are playing policemen tonight with good intentions, but what is to say that it won't become a habit? We shouldn't develop a taste for it. Sooner or later, we'll end up believing that we're superior, even that humans are incapable of protecting themselves. We have to trust that these thugs will be tracked down sooner or later."
Carlisle was right. Carlisle was always right. For any other victim, I would have been unhappy and frustrated, but I would have gone on my way. But because they had chosen Bella, I couldn't be rational and impartial. It was beyond my power.
"Just this once, I want to make an exception and … speed up the process, to nudge the human authorities in the right direction."
"Because Bella Swan is involved, yes?"
Although his sentence was formulated as a question, it wasn't one.
I nodded, but avoided his analytical gaze.
Carlisle didn't ask for more. He simply smiled and placed a paternal hand on my shoulder. "Let's go take care of those men."
It was all over before midnight. Justice was served. The human authorities were going to find the criminals and they would pay for their actions. They all had long records and the police had been looking for them. We discreetly deposited their sedated bodies in front of the Port Angeles police station.
Well, Carlisle had done all that. I had restricted myself to locating their minds. I wasn't sure that if I came too close to them I would be able to keep myself from ending them.
Mission accomplished, my father returned home and I spent the rest of the night with Bella. To see her sleeping so peacefully reassured me, calmed me. I couldn't tear my eyes from her body overcome by sleep, her mind overcome by dreams. I envied her. I would have liked to have rested my mind as well. I was still thinking about my unassuaged desire for vengeance, about what could have happened, and I would have liked to have been able to forget all that in sleep.
As morning broke, I left, intent on getting away from Forks. I couldn't stay with Bella without drawing attention, and I feared falling back into my murderous trance if I couldn't calm myself by seeing her face. I needed to go far away so I wouldn't be tempted to return to Port Angeles and finish what I had started with those pieces of scum …
After making sure that Bella would spend her Sunday safely at home studying (it was idiotic to worry about her constantly, as if something could happen to her if she merely stepped outside her house, but I couldn't help it), I returned to my project of the night before: learning musical Braille. I headed south to Aberdeen and found what I needed. At the end of the day, that language had no more secrets from me. I had even learned mathematical Braille.
I knew that it wasn't prudent, but I wanted to read Bella's compositions. I wanted to know her style, her inspirations, her influences. I welcomed the moment she went to bed and fell asleep. I took my customary position at the foot of her bed and gazed at her a long time before turning toward the papers still piled on her desk. I looked at the series of raised dots and began to decipher the notes.
I studied one piece in particular, and it made my jaw drop. Bella was a gifted composer. Very gifted. I was even more astonished by this because there was no piano in the house. She had written all this without musical aid. Her piece was complex, and unlike anything I'd ever seen. It was clearly destined to be played on a piano – and not just any piano, but one with eight octaves, 97 keys, a rare model. By an odd coincidence - in fact though, I realized, it probably wasn't a coincidence at all - it was the only model that permitted a pianist to play Debussy's works the way the composer intended. As it happened, it was a model that I had in the living room of my house…
I read the score several times, imagining the melody play. I glanced at Bella, still sleeping, while the chords echoed in my head. Her piece was a gentle litany, subtle though clear, but with an undercurrent of sadness and bitterness. It stood on its own, but I had the distinct impression that it was unfinished. There was something missing that I couldn't identify. Nonetheless, the composition was balanced, the silences in good places, the rhythm fluid … No, the piece was finished, but my fingers began to twitch. They played on an imaginary keyboard another melody that was taking shape in my mind, inspired by Bella's work. A melody that I didn't understand, but it was there, in my head. It demanded my attention. It was mysterious, multifaceted, but I felt it could complete what Bella had started.
Imagining the music in my mind was soon no longer enough. I wanted to play. I needed to play.
I left my moon and returned home. I went directly to my Bösendorfer. I scrutinized the keyboard, uncertain. It had been a good decade since I had touched it. I hadn't played for a long time. I was never in the mood, never inspired to compose … until tonight.
I sat on the bench and tried out some keys. They were in tune. Esme still secretly hoped that I would play again and she made sure that my piano was always ready, just in case.
Grateful to her for that, I let my fingers run along the keyboard. It was only in hearing the chords resonate that I realized how much I had missed playing. The notes of Bella's composition sang in my head, but I didn't play them. I didn't have the right: it was her composition, her piece. It belonged to her. It was her. The two were forever entwined, and I had the feeling that I would be stealing part of her soul if I appropriated it. Instead, I would use her piece to fashion my own composition.
I felt it being born at my fingertips as I played. Soon the piece would be finished and would come to an abrupt, sinister end. I would have wanted to have found another denouement, but I couldn't go against my instincts as a musician. The crescendo of the final octave could lead only to this brutal finale. I played my creation again, hoping that my imagination would deviate from this path, but no; this ending demanded to be played. It could not be modified. In playing it this second time, I had the same impression as with Bella's piece – it too was complete, but there was a feeling that something was missing.
I played my new composition again and again, losing awareness of the house around me. I kept my eyes closed in concentration, spirited away by the melody, by these decisive notes, so in harmony with my own mood. It was only when six intrigued, inquisitive minds surrounded me that I stopped.
I opened my eyes with the sensation of coming from far away, from another world. It was difficult to return to reality, but I finally realized that my family was gathered around the piano.
I read the astonishment in their minds; they knew that I hadn't had the heart to play for ages. They had heard the melancholy and the passion of the piece, an indication of my state of mind. They understood that something had changed in me, that this music was born of very powerful emotions.
It was time for me to tell them the truth. My playing had betrayed me, in any case.
Alice sought my agreement and I blinked at her in a sign of assent. I didn't know how to announce it and I was grateful to my sister for taking charge of the matter.
"He loves her."
No need to hear her name to know who it was. Everyone knew that I had been behaving strangely with her for a while. Now they were evaluating my actions of the last weeks in the light of Alice's revelation.
"That can't be true!" Rosalie exclaimed.
The rest of the family had varying degrees of surprise.
"Edward, in love with a human?" Jasper said, incredulous.
Emmett started laughing. "So that's what it is? Good luck, buddy!"
Carlisle saw that his suspicions had been confirmed. "That's what I thought."
"In love with the girl he saved?" my mother said. "A human …"
It was typical of Esme to see her as the girl I had saved, not as my potential victim. Her thoughts orbited around the idea, considering it from the point of view of a mother who wanted her son to be happy. And she concluded that, human or not, if Bella could draw me out of my state of chronic solitude, that was all that mattered.
But she knew nothing of my plan: I would remain alone, for I would never let Bella know my feelings.
As usual, Rosalie thought about her own concerns. She couldn't help thinking of how little interest I had shown in her when Carlisle had sought for us to … be closer. She couldn't get over the fact that I had scorned her only to choose a human nearly a century later, and I growled when she spoke her thoughts out loud.
"Edward, in love with a handicapped girl … My God, you really don't know what to do with yourself."
Jasper considered the news with this usual unshakable practicality. I saw the path his thoughts were taking and it made me erupt in rage.
"No! That won't happen! She will stay human."
My family immediately understood Jasper's unspoken idea.
Emmett shrugged. "That'd take care of a lot of problems if you let Carlisle do that: you'd have her for eternity and there'd be no more danger that you'd kill her. You'd even be her hero since you would cure her blindness. She'd love you instantly for that – she'd rush into your arms."
I gritted my teeth and my hands clenched into fists. Emmett's nonchalance was normally refreshing, but not this time.
"Bella would never want to regain her sight at the price of her mortality!
There was an insidious part of me that found Emmett's suggestion appealing, and I hated myself for even thinking about it. No, I would never make the only woman I would ever love endure the same fate as me. It was too cruel.
Carlisle shook his head in disapproval. "Never would I take from her family an innocent child in perfect health, even a blind one, to make her one of ours. Doing that is a last resort, not a choice," he said to Emmett and Jasper.
The latter shrugged and turned to me.
"Why don't you let her choose?" he asked.
"She won't choose anything, because she's not going to know about us, much less how I feel about her."
Esme was suddenly disappointed. "You won't tell her anything? Oh, Edward …" She realized that this love would remain secret and unrequited.
"I don't expect anything from Bella. I don't have the right to upend her life. I don't have the right to tell her what I am or what I feel. I'd rather that she not know than for her to be afraid of me."
I looked at my family an instant before dropping my eyes to my keyboard. The black and white keys seemed symbolic: that was how life seemed to me, black and white. I was black, she was white. "Nothing will change."
Since they were all mated, they were imagining an existence in which their partner was unaware of them, and I felt their pain to the sixth power. They couldn't live apart from their mate, but I didn't have a choice – the person my dead heart had chosen was unattainable. My family knew that my feelings would never change, for they too were attached forever to the person who was their mate by a chain that would never be broken. That's how vampires were: once they loved, once someone touched their dead heart, it was for eternity. We loved only once, and this love was indestructible, limitless. It could be blissful – or very destructive.
I saw in my family's thoughts what they feared: they would lose me in the near future. Too near for a vampire. They knew that I wouldn't survive Bella's death. They knew what I would do if she died from illness or age. The prospect saddened them, and that distressed me, for I loved them and didn't want them to suffer. But they knew better than anyone that we would not survive a lost love. All of them would seek to end themselves if their mate disappeared. They all knew what awaited me.
Still, my fate was sealed. Some of them accepted it, some hoped something would happen to change the future and some were frustrated. Jasper and Rosalie resented this human who had stolen my heart, for she would die sooner or later and I would die with her. Esme would be inconsolable, and in a domino effect, the rest of the family would scatter. Did Alice see that far ahead? Did she see the day that Bella would breathe her last, announcing the end of our family?
It was almost nauseating, thinking of Bella's death. No, I didn't want Alice to see that, but she was seeing something else …
Alice was suddenly lost in her visions and soon let out a gasp of surprise. She showed me an image that shocked me: she and Bella were together, arm in arm. And smiling. The white skin of my sister contrasted with Bella's pale complexion. The strangest part of this vision was that Bella didn't appear disgusted in the least by Alice's cold arms around her.
"I'm going to love her too, in my way. It's becoming more solid. It doesn't matter how your relationship goes, we will be friends. Will she know what we are? I don't know yet, but we will be real friends and I will love her."
Friends?
How could such a thing happen?
I recalled Bella's smile when Alice greeted her in the cafeteria. She had liked it. Did that presage a future friendship?
Jasper's mood changed almost automatically. He couldn't hate what Alice cherished.
Rosalie, however, was still full of animosity. For her, Bella was the catalyst for the destruction of our family, whether she was friends with Alice or not.
Esme had a resurgence of hope. In her opinion, if Alice and Bella become friends, that meant something for me. Bella would be part of my life one way or another, or rather, she would be aware that she was, for she was already part of my life forever. She just didn't know it.
Emmett was already imagining the horrible grimaces he would make at her without her realizing it.
Carlisle was considering the possibilities. He would have resisted any other human's having close contact to us, but he knew that Bella was trustworthy since she hadn't talked about the supernatural circumstances of my saving her. His thoughts were intriguing. She would never know our secret, I had sworn that. But we could be closer to her than anyone else since she couldn't see us. We could … omit certain things, skirting the truth but not lying. I could allow myself - NO. I could not allow myself.
"I'll wait until you decide before I approach her," Alice said tranquilly.
"That I decide what?"
"I don't really know. I just should … wait. That's all that's clear for the moment. Everything else is hazy. Everything concerning you is cloudy – there are all sorts of paths you can choose. You're at a crossroads."
These multiple paths I could see in her mind, but I didn't dare explore them for fear of becoming more confused than I already was.
Esme stepped over to me and caressed my cheek tenderly. "Be careful, Edward."
By careful, I knew that my mother wasn't alluding to the risk that I'd kill Bella. She was warning me to be careful with my heart. I shouldn't make myself more unhappy than I already was.
But that's what was in store for me, wasn't it?
Dawn had arrived. A new week of playing human was beginning. My family scattered, more or less shaken by my news. Their minds reflected waiting and hope: they waited to see how this situation would evolve, and they hoped against hope that it wouldn't end like my composition – brutally and sadly.
That morning, I decided to change my routine. I wasn't going to survey Bella's path. Taken by a sudden impulse, I decided to show up at her door when she was leaving. Why couldn't I for once accompany her openly instead of in secret?
When Bella stepped out with her cane, I announced my presence quietly so as not to startle her.
"Edward?" she asked.
"Shall we walk together?" I suggested without preamble.
She didn't ask me why I was there when my house was at the other end of town, nor why I was walking when I had a car. Bella greeted me simply, with an enchanting smile that rocked me. She was happy that I was there, that I was no longer limiting our contact to our conversations in biology and at lunch.
I exulted silently that Bella, despite all she had to fear from me, still sought my company. I should graciously accept all that she could give me, and her friendship, sincere and true, was without a doubt the most precious thing I could expect, even if the lover in me aspired to more.
We walked side by side. We didn't speak about what had happened on Saturday night although it had charged the atmosphere between us. The incident in Port Angeles was taken our relationship to a different level. Not intimate, but everything that occurred that night had made us closer. Or at least I liked to believe.
As always, our main topic of conversation was music. We talked spontaneously, finishing each other's sentences, and even as we debated, I surreptitiously inspected our path. I watched her steps out of the corner of my eye, making sure that nothing would trip her up.
Our arrival at school did not pass unnoticed. People still had difficulty imagining Edward Cullen and Bella Swan spending time together.
"Is Angela around?" Bella asked me suddenly.
I sought out her mind without tearing my gaze from Bella's face.
"She's near her locker, why?"
"I have to talk with her about the science fair, and I especially have to apologize for running out on her on Saturday night," she said wryly. "See you later."
See you later. I loved these words, what they promised of a later conversation, a later proximity, of another moment - other than those when I accompanied her via someone else's mind – that I could be near her. I feared the day when Bella would no longer say those words to me, when for justifiable reasons, she would have had enough of being with the strange Cullen who couldn't tell her the truth of what he really was. I dared hope that day would never come.
She left me, and I tried to suppress the ridiculous feeling of being abandoned. Angela was her friend too, one of the rare people to have built a relationship with Bella. I shouldn't interfere with that
I went to my English class, listening to the two of them all the while. Angela was surprised, even impressed, that her friend had spent Saturday night in my company. She wondered why Bella wasn't intimidated by me, but didn't say this aloud.
They talked about the dance to come and the science fair, then Angela asked a question that roused my curiosity.
"So, before you ran into Edward on Saturday, were you able to find the book you wanted so much?"
Bella looked disappointed. "No, it's not available yet."
"Too bad."
The bell rang and I could learn no more.
Why had Bella seemed so let down that her search had failed? She hadn't given me that impression when she mentioned it on Saturday, but perhaps she was preoccupied by the attack – or rather by my murderous impulses – at that moment.
I sought out information in Angela's mind, but she didn't seem to know anything about what book it was. All that she knew was that this book had just come out and that Bella really wanted it.
I waited impatiently for biology class.
"What book were you looking for?" I asked Bella abruptly.
Surprise.
Bella was used to my going directly to the point. But was she wondering if I had eavesdropped on her conversation with Angela? Was she wondering if she had mentioned it on Saturday night and it was mere coincidence that Angela had brought it up this morning?
Hmm. No. Bella was too clever to believe in coincidences. She would no doubt add this to her personal list of things that made me … unusual, but I couldn't care. After all, her theories could not lead her to vampirism. The clues I had inadvertently given her were too vague to send Bella down that path.
"The last book of Jacques Arago," she said once she had recovered from her surprise. "Actually that book was written more than a century ago, but it was just discovered."
Arago … I had spent countless nights in the last decades reading all sorts of books of all genres, and I knew of this author. He was a blind playwright and explorer.
I smiled. It wasn't surprising that Bella would seek out his work; he must be inspiring to her.
"I didn't find it," she continued, "but I should have expected that."
"You should?"
"It came out too recently for it to be an audiobook or in Braille. It sometimes takes a year before a new book is available to people like me. And in this case, I doubt that it ever will be. He's not famous enough. Usually, only the most popular books are adapted. I have tastes that aren't that … commonplace."
It was only a book, a distraction, something unimportant, but her visible disappointment made me ache for her.
"I could read it to you," I offered.
Her eyes widened. "It's 900 pages," she objected. "You have better things to do, I'm sure."
"I want to read it to you," I insisted.
"Listen, I don't –"
"What's the title?" I interrupted her.
More and more disconcerted, she gave me the information I wanted, but continued to refuse my proposal. I ignored her protests and turned my attention to Banner, who was starting the lesson.
"We'll begin at lunch," I said.
Obliged to listen to the teacher, she was unable to object further.
When lunchtime came, Bella, still unpersuaded, found me under our tree.
"You don't have to do this," she said.
She was always worried about asking others for help, of being a burden … as if what I was going to do was a big sacrifice. As if she could bother me in any way.
I told her to sit down, I opened the book – which I had hastily bought between biology and history – and began to read. I couldn't read her mind, but I had learned to interpret all her expressions: Bella listened to me at first while chewing her lower lip, full of doubt and apprehension about my reactions. She refused to become too captivated, fearing that at any moment I would tire of reading to her, that I would give up and that her curiosity would be forever unsated. She watched for the least indication of boredom in my voice. I knew that if she sensed the smallest sign of a lack of interest, she would demand that I stop. But I read to her enthusiastically, Arago's words tumbling out of my mouth. She soon let herself be carried away by my voice and relaxed completely. She listened avidly. As I read to her, I gazed at her radiant face and was thrilled that I had been able to give her this moment of pure happiness.
That's how life would be with Bella. I would assure her happiness, indulge her desires. It took so little to delight her that it would be easy. I would show her in my own way how much I loved her, in little anodyne, innocent gestures, gestures that were meaningful but would not reveal exactly how strongly I was attached to her.
I had time to read three chapters before classes resumed. That night, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, I walked her home and we started discussing those first three chapters. I was entranced by this author who had traveled the world and had discovered with his remaining four senses all these different countries. I was fascinated by how someone who couldn't see relied on the same senses as vampires to analyze his environment. Like us, he depended on his hearing and his sense of smell. The similarities with us were remarkable.
This book also interested me because I found Bella there – like Arago himself, she was a fighter who didn't let her handicap get in the way of her ambitions.
I knew that Bella was as captivated as I was by this book, though not of course because of its connection to vampires. In watching her as we talked, though, I saw that something in the text bothered her.
"What's rubbing you the wrong way?" I asked.
"Everyone keeps talking about God, and it's annoying. There's a famine? Heaven will help us. War? God will be on our side. My son is sick? I leave his fate up to God."
I furrowed my brow, not sure if I was pleased or dismayed by her words. "You don't believe in God."
"I believe that there is something greater than us, but I prefer not to give it a name. Every culture, every country, has its own interpretation of the divine, but for me it's all the same. It annoys me that everyone Arago meets relies on these higher powers to take care of his problems. In my opinion, there is nobody better to help ourselves than ourselves. What about you? What's your opinion?"
My opinion was that I had all the characteristics of a demon – I was the opposite of divine. I wasn't sure how to answer her, but I wanted to be as honest as possible.
"I think there is someone or something greater than us. I certainly believe in the Last Judgment."
"You think that when someone dies, there is something above … and below? Heaven and Hell?"
For me, there was only Hell.
"Yes. I think there are two possible destinations after life."
Life? In my mind, life included a soul, and it was clear that I didn't have one. I should have said "existence," but she would have found that an odd choice of words.
Disinclined to expound on my opinion, I steered the subject back to her,
"And you?"
"Hmm, I don't know … I haven't really thought about life after death. After … this - " she showed me her scarred wrists "- I understood that you have to live your life fully without worrying about what is to come. Besides, there's no proof that there even is an 'after.' So if there really is nothing, you would have just squandered the precious time that you have in wondering about nothing. You have to live in the present and not think about what happens to your soul, your mind, whatever you want to call it, when everything's over. Life's short, don't waste it."
Life was short for humans, yes. Me, I had eternity to wonder about the great beyond. Eternity until I decided that I'd had enough … or someone managed to destroy me.
In fact, though, my life was short since I knew that the moment Bella ceased to exist, I would too. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps I should stop asking myself what awaited me after and enjoy the decades that remained to me.
"You are afraid of the Last Judgment," she declared suddenly.
I stiffened, not liking the turn in the conversation.
"No, I'm not afraid. I'm resolved. I know what's in store for me."
"And what is that?"
"The flames of Hell," I said with a humorless laugh.
The certainty in my voice surprised her.
"You are convinced that you deserve to go to Hell?"
"Yes."
"You really have a sorry opinion of yourself." She shook her head, dismayed and exasperated at the same time.
"You don't know me well enough to discern whether good or evil is stronger in me."
"You are good enough to save my life, in any case."
"One good deed doesn't make up for a life of sins."
Based on the wrinkles in her brow, she was intrigued by my train of thought.
"You are a sinner, then?"
"You have no idea."
I allowed myself a knowing laugh that left her perplexed. The double meaning of this conversation was material indeed for dark humor.
We had arrived at her house. Bella stopped and turned to me, her lifeless eyes fixed on my chest.
"You know what? The Hell you're expecting, you're living in it already. You spend your time cursing yourself, believing that you're evil. You've constructed your own Hell, Edward, and you're up to your neck in it."
Although she couldn't see my reaction, I reflexively avoided her gaze. I was shaken to be exposed thus by someone who couldn't know anything of the true nature of my torments.
"I deserve it," I replied stubbornly.
"I'm not so sure of that," she said with her half-smile.
On that she went inside, leaving me with wild ideas of redemption and hope that I tried to chase away. I didn't have the right to clemency even if my moon thought I did.
Our discussion the next morning, when I met her at her house once again, turned to less philosophical aspects of Arago's book. I continued my reading at lunch and we again debated the chapters after school.
The explorer often contrasted his life before he went blind to his life afterward. He treated the two eras as if he had been a different person before he lost his sight. I was once more impressed by the resemblance to own history. For us vampires also, our life before the transformation was completely disassociated from our new existence, like memories torn away and put in a vault that was very difficult to open.
I often regretted being unable to open that vault and I wondered if Bella had a similar regret.
"Do you miss your old life?" I asked, repeating the question she had posed to me.
Reluctance. Personal questions always disturbed her. She nonetheless seemed more inclined to give me a response than during our question game on Saturday night.
"Not really. When you accept things, there are no regrets."
"You don't miss anything?"
"Some things I miss, sure. Like …"
There was a pause. The list must be very long.
"Like?"
She seized on one item among so many others.
"Jacques Gestalder."
"Another Jacques?"
"Yes!" she said with a laugh. "A sculptor this time. When I was a little girl, I visited a museum on a school trip and I fell in love with Gestalder's dancers – the body in motion was his favorite subject. They were life-size, and massive. Gestalder had made them ethereal even though the material he used to sculpture them was heavy and imposing. The contrast between light and hard had struck me. These dancers literally flew… And that's why I wanted to start ballet."
I recalled the photo on Charlie Swan's stairway. I knew that she had been a ballerina, but I had to feign astonishment.
"You did ballet?"
"For a time, yes. I wanted to reach the perfection of the dancers captured in marble." She sighed, nostalgic. "I miss not being able to admire those sculptures."
I remembered the two statuettes on her beside tables. They must be miniature reproductions. She probably kept them as a souvenir.
I regretted bringing up an old pain, and I turned our conversation back to Arago.
The third day passed in the same way as the two preceding except for one thing – that afternoon, when we arrived at her house, the patrol car was in the driveway. Charlie had finished work earlier than usual and from what I heard from the house, he was getting his fishing gear ready for the coming weekend.
"Your father knows I'm driving you to Seattle?" I asked.
"I told him that the appointment was canceled."
"It was?"
Disappointment. I had lost an opportunity to be with Bella and I was not even relieved that I would be spared the test of being alone with her for three hours in a small space. I couldn't even manage to see the silver lining: by staying in Forks, she wouldn't risk running into Peter and Charlotte.
"No, the appointment is still on."
Relief.
"But Charlie doesn't know that," she continued.
"Why not tell him that you found another driver?"
"I don't like catching him unawares, but it's better to present it as a done deal. I want him to concentrate on organizing his fishing expedition."
"He wouldn't agree to my taking you?" I asked.
And he wouldn't be wrong.
"I don't know. I just don't want him to ask me a bunch of embarrassing questions every day about the person taking me."
She bid me goodbye and walked toward her house. "Thanks again for Arago. Till tomorrow, Edward."
I rejoined her at her door. "I'll go in with you."
"What? But … come on, it's pointless."
I turned the doorknob myself. "Introduce me to your father. I want to do things right."
And I especially wanted to have a good reason to bring Bella back to her father alive. If I knew that Charlie was counting on me, the monster would control itself.
In resignation, Bella led me inside.
"Hi, Dad."
Charlie abandoned his lures and line when he heard his daughter's voice. He came to meet her, cheerful.
"Ah, there you are. How did your day –"
Her father saw me and stopped short.
"Hello, Chief Swan," I said.
I could see that Charlie was sizing me up. Knowing how protective he was, I gave him a friendly smile and made sure to stay a respectable distance from Bella. He had to feel confident that my intentions were honorable. I didn't want him to tell his daughter to stay away from me. Bella would do as she wished, but I didn't wish to be a source of friction between father and daughter.
Bella didn't need eyes to guess that Charlie was giving me an X-ray stare.
"Charlie, Edward Cullen. Edward, Charlie."
My name relaxed him immediately. He had heard of my family, but until now had met only Carlisle. I saw in his mind hazy images of Bella in the hospital after her accident. He remembered that I had saved her.
He held out his hand and I shook it. My icy grip could be plausibly attributed to the cold outside.
"Pleased to meet you," he said sincerely. "How is your father?"
"Very well, thank you."
"I never had the chance to thank you in person for having rescued my daughter."
"It was the natural thing to do."
It was even vital.
Embarrassed that we were talking about her, Bella sought to get immediately to the point of my visit.
"Um, Edward has offered to drive me on Saturday. That okay with you?"
"I thought your appointment was canceled?"
"I … I lied," she said pathetically. "I didn't want you to miss your fishing trip."
"Oh."
Bella's savior or not, in his eyes I was still an adolescent with raging hormones and I needed to reassure him.
"With your permission, I can easily take Bella," I said. "I promise I'll take care of her. We'll come back that night."
I must have been convincing, because he became less suspicious. He was even rather pleased. One of his greatest fears was that Bella would never have a boyfriend and he realized suddenly that I was not at all uncomfortable about her handicap, unlike most of his daughter's acquaintances.
"All right. I'm counting on you, Edward."
His tone was affable, but there was still a warning in his words. I took that warning seriously, aware more than ever of the monster I had to muzzle. I wanted to deserve her father's trust.
Bella blushed, uneasy about being the subject of the conversation. I smiled once more at her father and turned to the door. She walked me there, a dismayed expression on her face. She mouthed a "sorry" at me to apologize for Charlie's protective attitude, and I chuckled to show that I wasn't offended.
"Until tomorrow, Bella."
On the fourth day, I wasn't at all surprised to see the patrol car still in the driveway. Charlie had decided to leave later for work that morning so he could watch his daughter go to school. He had made up some pretext for his delay, but I had no need to look at Bella's face or to read his mind to guess that she didn't believe him. She knew she was under surveillance.
She must have told him after I left the night before that I had been walking with her for the past several days, and her father wanted to see for himself. I pretended to not see him lurking at the window as Bella joined me on the sidewalk, although I heard his contradictory thoughts to the end of the block. Charlie was pleased that his daughter had a friend of the male sex, but at the same time he planned to teach me a lesson if I dared to try anything with her. In his mind, Bella was still his little girl.
I smiled, understanding her father's mistrust – besides, he was completely right to fear me even if he was completely wrong about why: the last thing I could allow myself to do was try anything with Bella.
As we walked, I noticed that Bella had left her retractable cane in her knapsack. When had she stopped using it? I didn't know; I had been too engrossed by our conversation these last few days. It was only this morning that I suddenly realized that Bella was relying on me to guide her. Without my being aware of it, she had started to depend on my voice to avoid obstacles. She had understood that as Iong as I was next to her, nothing obstructed her path. It was the same at school: she didn't have to think about the crowds of students in the hallway because everyone instinctively moved aside when I passed. Much of the time, I left her at the door to her classroom, and met her there to escort her to her next class.
I knew that Bella was fiercely independent, that she didn't want to depend on anyone to get around the school. I was delighted that she had made an exception for me. Perhaps she sensed that I didn't pity her or see her as helpless. I was simply there in case, to reassure her and guide her.
Once more, Bella was demonstrating that she trusted me, that she counted on me, that she felt safe with me.
Once more, I was touched and dismayed.
That fourth day, I followed her through her classmates' thoughts until it was time for gym. Excused because of her condition, Bella usually went to an empty lab room to work on her science project or to the library to study. In either case, I couldn't see her since she was alone. It was painful for me, but I tried to endure her absence with patience. This day, though, some intuition prompted me to ditch my own class to look in the library. She wasn't there. I then searched the labs in vain.
I began to worry to the point where I sneaked into the girls' restroom. Nobody.
I surveyed the school, but nobody had Bella in his field of vision.
Where had she gone?
She was a creature of habit. What had happened to make her change her routine?
In my anxiety, I allowed myself to do something I could never have done a month ago without losing control: I tracked Bella's scent.
I sniffed the air, ignoring the odors of cooking and unimportant humans, and isolated her enthralling fragrance. It seared my throat, but I was too worried to pay it much mind. I traced her to the forest next to the school.
I ran there, finding her quickly. Relieved that she was safe and sound, I followed her in silence, discreetly. My anxiety transformed into intrigue: why had she left school? What did she plan to do in the forest?
Her knapsack on one shoulder, her cane in one hand and her other extended before her, she walked unsteadily in the woods. She stumbled over rocks, branches and stumps, and each time I had to force myself not to catch her. Why was she inflicting this on herself? She panted, leaned against trunks, slipped on moss, tripped, fell. I impotently clenched my jaw and my nails dug into my palms.
The bruise on her arm wasn't enough for her? She was a masochist.
Stop, Bella, please. Turn around. You're going to hurt yourself.
I observed that she was counting her steps in murmurs, and her outstretched hand touched everything it could reach. I had learned that this was how she learned a route by heart. People like Bella developed a phenomenal tactile memory.
The ground eventually became more even, the trees farther apart, the rocks less common. She stopped in a little meadow, then navigated a circle, touching all the trees and pausing at one, a massive oak with a twisted trunk and low branches. She put her knapsack on the ground and pulled out her laptop, then two small speakers. She switched on her computer, touched a key and put it on the grass. She put her speakers at some distance from each other on the ground. I heard Debussy then, the notes of the piano echoing in the forest.
Bella wanted to be alone to listen to our favorite composer, but why did she feel she had to go so far away?
She stood up and removed her jacket and shoes. She took a barrette from her pocket and put her hair up into a chignon.
She walked into the middle of the meadow, inhaling deeply and closing her eyes. She lengthened her neck and pointed her chin up. She let one foot glide along the grass, then another, making a circle with her leg in a rond de jambe. And I realized what she planned to do.
Dance.
Bella slowly lifted her arms toward the sky and it made me think of a swan spreading its wings. Giving herself over to the movements, she executed several sequences of steps and I recognized the rudiments of ballet. I remembered the awkward young ballerina in Charlie's photographs. She had perhaps become a talented little dancer … before her illness ended it.
The night before, in asking her that personal question, I had not only awakened her childhood memories, I had prompted her to try something that she probably hadn't done for years.
I knew then why she wanted to be alone; she didn't want an audience because she was testing herself, relying on memory to execute these steps, obliged to trust in instinct rather than sight. She had to find her equilibrium with her four other senses. And she feared looking ridiculous in front of someone else. I felt uneasy, a bit of a voyeur, but I couldn't stop watching her. And even if Bella were clumsy, I wouldn't have been able to mock her.
But she wasn't. She moved with so much grace and elegance that I could see that she hadn't forgotten what she had learned when she was younger. Today, she had her own style, less restrained and more fluid than the traditional rigidity of ballet. She executed the cabrioles, jumps, turns and pirouettes that Debussy inspired in her.
She bounded around the meadow, her confidence increasing, and finally rose lightly onto her toes. She pivoted, soared, spun. She never bumped into anything. She had a map of the meadow in her head, and used all the space available to give herself over to her dance. When "Clair de Lune" reached its end, she finished with a twirl and an elegant arabesque and sprang into the splits. That was her finale.
Breathless but happy, Bella went to her knapsack and took out a bottle of water. She had apparently put Debussy on repeat, for the piece began to play again on its own. After a few sips, she put down the bottle and walked to the old oak. She curtseyed to it deferentially in greeting. She began to dance again, but this time the tree was her focus, her imaginary partner. She spun around it, touched it with her fingers, her leg stretched into a perfect arch. She paid homage to it. She repeated the same sequence several times and suddenly I wanted to be closer to her. I leapt into the branches of the oak and had a view down onto her delicate silhouette. I watched her pivot around the tree – around me.
Bella stopped when the piece ended, and I reckoned that she would start again when the song did. I slid silently to the foot of the tree and when she curtseyed to the oak, she was curtseying to me. I became her partner without her knowing it. I copied her movements, then started to complete them. All more quietly and discreetly than ever.
I was so close, yet so far. Never would I permit myself to touch her, even to graze her skin. What was I playing at? I didn't want her to become aware of my presence, my intrusion, but I needed to dance with her, to transform her solo into a pas de deux.
Bella was a three-dimensional painting and I was her frame. I matched my steps to hers.
Once, Bella missed her cue. She stayed a moment too long in her arabesque, frowning. I was mere inches from her, my face right next to hers. I became stone. She was waiting for something, listening, thinking of I don't know what. Had she sensed my presence?
The piano started another measure and Bella took up where she had left off. She finished her arabesque and continued her sequence. I continued to follow her, warily.
I noticed a small change in her choreography. She modified her steps. Soon I no longer knew who was accompanying whom. Who was anticipating? Who was completing? Who was guiding? She matched her movements to mine and we blended, all without physical contact.
A waltz.
She abruptly stopped dancing and stretched her hand in my direction. I retreated to avoid contact.
Her palm was vertical, waiting. Through an impulse beyond my control, I reached out my own hand toward hers. Our palms almost touched. Bella drew a circle in the air and my hand synchronized with hers. She stepped toward me, I stepped back. She stepped to the right, I stepped to the left. She slowly knelt in the grass. I followed, like a mirror. We stayed a long time like this, face to face, palm to palm. Lion to lamb. Predator to prey. Human to non-human. Soul to soulless. Fire to ice. Mind to … mind.
She knew. She knew I was there.
She didn't seem angry or frightened. Perhaps perplexed, but her expression was calm.
Her face lit up with a smile intended for her partner. At that I fled, disappearing from the meadow.
What had I done?
I returned to the school. I should regret having followed her and betraying my presence, but I couldn't. I had loved this dance, and she had too. I couldn't regret that. I had the feeling of having exposed myself more through our waltz than I had in any words – words that I would never have allowed myself to speak. What was most disconcerting of all was that Bella had reacted positively. Her body had moved with mine in harmony.
I was shaken and troubled by this. A jumble of emotions, of illusory hopes, invaded me. I forced myself in vain to repress them, to convince myself that I had an overactive imagination.
I knew that Bella would return to school for her next class; she was too conscientious to stay in the forest all morning. And in her way she was doing her own gym class with all her cabrioles. That's probably how she had justified to herself leaving school without a pass.
I found her again thanks to Angela, who was in math class with her. Bella's cheeks were pink, and she was still panting a bit. She wasn't in the habit of exercising. Angela asked her why she was breathless, and Bella told her that she was so absorbed in their science project that she hadn't heard the bell ring and had to run to get to class on time.
Through my eavesdropping I learned that she didn't plan to meet me at our pine tree at lunch. Fortunately, what had happened in the meadow wasn't the reason: the science fair was next week and she wanted to use the time to work on her project with Angela, especially because Tyler was busy with basketball practice and couldn't "help" them.
She asked Angela to look out the window to see if by chance I was already at our pine, but I arranged it so that I was walking by chance in the same hallway as they were.
"No, he's at the other end of the corridor," Angela reported.
"Oh, okay. I'll meet you in the lab. I need to go tell him."
She left Angela and called to me, uncertain how far away I was.
"Edward? Edward, are you there?"
I came to her, not sure how to act. Should I behave as if nothing had happened?
"Hi, Bella. Are you ready for Chapter 7?"
I decided to mimic her own attitude toward our previous … encounter, but even so I would pretend to know nothing of her plans for the lunch hour.
"Not today. I have to finish the ultrasound machine with Angela."
No awkwardness, no embarrassment, no mute reproach, no questions. No allusion to what had occurred. Nothing.
I had probably fooled myself. Bella hadn't sensed anything at all and I did indeed have an overactive imagination.
"If all goes well, we'll be done tomorrow," she added, her expression cheerful.
I knew that the competition was important to her, a way of showing everyone that her blindness wouldn't keep her from accomplishing something. It was a personal challenge as well. I admired her for that, but the besotted man in me couldn't help but be disappointed at being deprived of her presence … However… I could perhaps combine the two. Something in her voice and expression told me that she too was disappointed to not spend time with me now. I was elated by this observation and I searched for a solution that would please us both.
"I'm curious. I'd like to see your machine," I said.
Bella was agreeably surprised that I wanted to know more. She was so enthusiastic about her project that just my small manifestation of interest provoked a torrent of explanation. I listened attentively, even if, thanks to my daily espionage, I already knew everything about this machine that emitted ultrasounds that were supposed to affect human behavior.
We headed to the lab room and when Angela saw me come in, she couldn't get over it. She was cutting some cardboard that was probably meant to be a poster for their display and she froze in shock.
"Oh, my God. He isn't going to stay here, is he? I can't work if he's here. I can't focus."
Her scissors fell to the table and I stifled a laugh.
"Would it bother you if Edward had a look?" Bella asked, unaware that Angela was in fact very bothered.
"Um… no, not at all. I … I –"
She seized on the first excuse she could find to escape.
"Um, I forgot to bring my lunch. I'm going to get something from the cafeteria and come back. And I hope he'll be gone when I do."
Bella slid her hand along the machine sitting on the table, already concentrating too much on it to notice her partner's awkwardness.
"Okay, see you soon," she said, distracted.
I nodded politely to Angela, trying to not be too intimidating, but my nature was my nature, and all I got from Angela was a grimace before she high-tailed it out of the lab room.
Bella turned on the machine, tested some frequencies and noted them in her laptop.
"I wish I could have seen Angela's face," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"You scared her off. She didn't forget her lunch at all. I can smell the ham and cheese on the lab table. What is it about you that makes her so nervous?"
Always so observant even when she didn't seem to be noticing anything.
I could have answered her question in a variety of ways, each one more terrifying than the other, but I didn't. Instead I asked more about her machine.
"It's not ready yet," she said, resigned to not getting an explanation from me. "We need to make it so that the frequencies are synchronized to get the desired response from human listeners. For the moment, if the machine is set at its maximum, you hear nothing because the frequency is too high to be perceived, but the sound waves in the air make people edge away. They're disturbed, even though they don't know why. It's a rather subtle response. But Angela and I want to get the opposite effect: to draw people closer instead of pushing them away. We haven't managed to do that yet." She demonstrated by turning the dial all the way to the right.
My reaction was explosive. I hadn't expected this, even though I should have suspected the possibility from the beginning. With my hypersensitive hearing, the high pitch was not just uncomfortable, but unbearable. The strident noise made my ears ring. I shoved the heels of my hands into my temples, overcome by a horrible pain that vibrated from my eardrums into my brain.
"Stop! Stop it instantly!" I cried, nearly paralyzed by the pain.
Bella, not anticipating my violent reaction, was startled by my cry and slammed her hand into the point of Angela's scissors…
I saw red.
A/N: In this chapter, there has been a lot of discussion of art in its many forms and I apologize to those of you who read fics for the typical vampire suspense of "Twilight." This chapter is more … tranquil? than ordinarily. Which is what I wanted. You see, in Meyer's version, Bella and Edward are simply made for each other, but I've always wondered about their relationship. Aside from gazing longingly into each other's eyes, what do they do? Aside from his physical qualities, what does Bella see in Edward? What do they talk about when they're not canoodling? We know that an indestructible love ties them together, but Meyer doesn't clearly define the nature of this love. It just is. So I wanted to write some conversations in which they discuss their own philosophies, find some common interests that will make their relationship fuller, more complete. So that's what I did in this chapter. And as you can see, the plot picks up at the end …
T/N: As promised: Jacques Arago (1790-1854) was a blind French writer and explorer, member of a family of distinguished writers, scientists and statesmen. (The French have a charming habit of naming everything for historical figures, and there are many Boulevards Aragos in French cities – much better than the American practice, as the poet Billy Collins describes it, of naming streets after the animals and plants that were eradicated to build them, like Pheasant Ridge Lane and the like. End of digression.) The book Bella and Edward read is "Souvenir d'un Aveugle: Voyage Autour du Monde," which does not appear to be in print in English. Fun fact: Arago also wrote an account of his journey in which the letter A never appears.
Jacques Gestalder (1918-2006) was a French sculptor who specialized in statues of dancers and artists.