4. Psychology, Hunting, and Secrets
March 2010
Astoria, Oregon
Harry
"When are Edward, Rosalie and the rest coming back from Forks?" I asked Carlisle. They had gone there at the same time that Carlisle and I had left for Britain two weeks ago. Jacob's father Billy, had diabetes had taken a turn for the worse, and he had wanted one last chance to visit him. Bella, Edward, and Nessie were going to support him and to also visit Bella's father, Charlie, and stepmother, Sue. Rosalie had gone with them on the hope that, as Jacob would be busy with his father, she could get some wolf-free time with Nessie or to, watch Nessie while Jacob, Bella, and Edward were busy with their families, as she'd put it. As far as the good people at Astoria High School knew, Edward, Bella, and Rosalie had all decided to spend some time with their 'birth families'. Renesmee and Jacob were not even known about in the town. The presence of a Quileute obsessed with a rapidly developing twelve year old being something we did not wish to have to explain to the humans.
"Edward said they would be coming home in about month, but Jacob may be staying a little longer with his father," Carlisle answered. There was a pause. "Amelia seems to be fitting in well with the family."
We were sitting in his office, as we were both working on trying to figure out exactly what she was. Carlisle wanted to know how she could consume fluid other than blood. I wanted to figure out what was going on with her personalities.
"Yeah," I said. It was true. Amelia had slotted into our family with ease; she was so likeable it was unsurprising.
Alice adored her. A sister, as she already called her, who loved to talk about fashion and such topics, but had the easygoing nature that Rosalie lacked. As Alice summed her up 'she's like the perfect mash-up of both Rosalie and Bella.' Jasper liked her simply because Alice did. Esme was fawning over her new daughter. Emmett enjoyed having someone who was willing to play games with him and didn't get bored. Carlisle liked how well she fit in with everyone. I just liked having her around.
The last I'd seen her she had been downstairs with Esme, discussing the new plans for the house. Since my brothers, sister and I were at the school during the day, and Carlisle was often at the hospital, it was left to Esme to watch our newest family member. As she was still a newborn (albeit a bizarre one) she was subject to the house arrest that Carlisle asked every newborn member of his family to abide by. So far Amelia had insisted on helping Esme redecorate and was also quickly devouring every novel Esme owned, I could tell that as soon as Bella got home she would quickly move on to reading all her books as well. She could read at a speed unlike anything I'd ever seen before, even other vampires. When I'd mentioned it to her, she had simply shrugged and said she'd read fast as a human as well. Esme enjoyed having a 'child' who actually was little more then a child, and the two were fast building a mother-daughter relationship.
"I still don't understand it though," I said to Carlisle.
"The drinking or the personalities?" he asked.
"Well both, but I'll leave it to you to obsess over figuring out her drinking."
Over the past century and a half, I had worked on my theory of how people's personality reflects them, and how vampires bring their human personality with them into this new existence.
Vampires who bring a supernatural or physical trait with them through transformation have three major personality traits; these never change and are what make up their scent to me. However, some vampires bring a personality trait with them instead, and they have only one major personality trait, but it is much more influential on their behaviour.
Carlisle and Esme are classic examples of this. Carlisle brought compassion with him, but it was increased in transformation to a point where it is way beyond human compassion. Esme brought the ability to love with her; her one major personality is loving, but she is able to do it with a passion beyond any human heart.
The rest of the vampires in my family all brought a supernatural or physical trait with them, and so all have three major personality traits.
All eight of them also have several recurring minor personality traits; these influence their behaviour nearly as much as their major personality trait or traits.
Now quite often someone's actions can reflect his or her minor personalities more then their major ones. It all depends what their major personalities are. For example, Rosalie's defensiveness causes her to use her vanity, self-loathing and stubbornness as a shield.
Renesmee has major personality traits that reflect those of both her parents.
Jacob on the other hand is more human-like in his personality. Humans also have three major personality traits, but they are much less defined then vampires, as humans can still change. Jacob's personality is more defined then a human but less defined than a vampire..
Of course they all also have minor personality traits that only appear ever so often in different situations.
Then there was Amelia. She had four major personality traits and the most intoxicating scent I'd ever smelled. She had so many minor personality traits they appeared and disappeared too quickly for me to keep up, predict, or understand. She was quickly becoming my own personal mystery.
"FUCK! FUCKING FUCKING FUCKITY FUCK FUCK!" The angry outburst filled the silence that had quickly settled, as Carlisle and I got lost in our own personal musings.
"DAMNIT! DAMNIT! DAMNIT! DAMNIT!" Both Carlisle and I looked at each other questioningly, wondering what on Earth could have fuelled the Amelia's angry outburst. Without a word we rushed out of the study and into the kitchen, arriving next to a confused-looking Esme, who was watching Amelia shout and swear at what appeared to be a cup of tea, a glass of water, and a can of Coke. Carlisle moved to stand beside his wife.
"FUCK IT!" Amelia shouted, crossing her arms angrily.
"Amelia, what's wrong?" Esme asked gently from her place in Carlisle's arms.
"I've drunk, like twenty million glasses of each drink in this house, and my throat is still fucking killing me," she growled angrily. She was self-doubting again but also being stubborn and pessimistic. The last one surprised me; I had only ever sensed optimism off of her. Generally speaking people didn't have contradicting personalities. You were either an optimist or a pessimist - you couldn't be both. But then again this was Amelia – the girl who didn't follow any of the rules, either my own or those of vampirism.
"I think I'm thirsty," she said dejectedly; we all looked at her confused. "You know, like, you people sorta thirsty." Realisation dawned on us all then. For the past month Amelia had stubbornly refused every time anyone asked if she'd like to hunt. You didn't need to be intuitive to realise the idea was repulsive to her.
"It's ok, Amelia. It's to be expected," Carlisle said gently.
"But I thought I'd got out of it," she replied, sounding sadder then I'd ever heard her. My heart swelled with pity at the sound. I was overtaken by a desire to pull her close and make her feel better.
"It'll be ok dear. It's awkward the first time, but you get used to it," Esme said kindly.
"It's really not that bad, believe me," I said.
"But the idea of killing some poor little animal," Amelia said sounding disgusted. She gave a little shiver at the end of her sentence.
"Amelia, you weren't an actual vegetarian as a human were you?" Carlisle asked quizzically. Oh the irony if that were true.
"What? No. It's just, you know," she paused then as if she wasn't certain whether to finish her sentence or not, "my meat came in a packet from the supermarket – I didn't have to actually kill it." She shuddered again. A smile crept on to my face, and I had to try my hardest not to laugh, knowing it would just aggravate her more. I didn't have to turn round to know Carlisle and Esme were doing the same.
"Well, the others only left to hunt a couple of hours ago. Harry, do you think you could take Amelia to catch up with them?" Carlisle asked me.
"Sure," I replied, smiling at her. She smiled back, but I could tell it was forced.
Well, this should be interesting to say the least.
Amelia
What's the point of being a freak if it doesn't even come in useful?
Harry and I ran through the forest. This was the first chance I had had to run at full vampire speed; it was mesmerizing. I had to marvel at my newfound abilities. Unfortunately, there were also downsides to being a vampire. For example, there's the whole blood sucking thing, which it appears I haven't sidestepped after all.
Suddenly a scent on the wind caught my attention.
"Elk," I heard Harry say beside me. I could hear the heartbeats of the herd. I was being pulled forward toward the sound and their scent. Before I knew it I had jumped on the back of one, and my teeth were clamped around its neck. I wasn't thinking about it; I was just doing. I drained the animal dry before chasing after the rest of herd, catching a straggler and bringing it down too. This all happened quicker than I could have imagined.
It felt like it was a stranger doing it, not me. It was almost like having an out of body experience. I could look back at what I'd done, but I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that it was I who had done those things. That girl, that creature, that had killed those two defenseless animals with such ease – she wasn't me. SHE COULDN'T BE ME SHE
"Amelia?" I heard Harry's worried voice. I briefly wondered what my 'personalities' were up to now. "Amelia?" he repeated.
"Did I really do that?" I asked disbelievingly. "That didn't feel like me. It felt like someone else." He was looking at me like I'd lost my mind.
"When we hunt we have to give in to our instincts – to the more vampiristic side of us," he explained. Was that why I felt so disconcerted? From the minute I woke up, I had still felt distinctly human, but just now I had acted like nothing more than an animal.
"Oh … ok," I replied lamely, not knowing what else to say. It scared me – this vampire version of me.
"Maybe we should try and catch up with the others. Their trail leads east. Do you smell it?" I gave a slight sniff and smelled the now somewhat familiar scents of Alice, Jasper, and Emmett. I was distracted when a trickle of sunlight came through the trees above us. It reminded me of something I wanted to see.
"What have you spotted?" Harry asked me. I looked at him quizzically. "You're curious," he explained.
"Sunlight," I replied. "I want to see what I look like in the sunlight." Before he could reply I flitted over to the stream of sunlight and purposefully stood in it. Despite having been told what to expect, I was still amazed when my skin shone like a million diamonds. It was fascinating to just stare at my own hand and watch it glisten.
"You look wonderful," Harry whispered to me. I wouldn't have heard it without my new sensitive hearing.
Suddenly intrigued, I had an idea. Before he could even guess what was happening, I zoomed over, grabbed his hand and pulled him into the sunlight. Then I let go and stepped out to have a look at him. His entire skin glistened in the sunlight. His entire being was like looking at sculptured diamond. It was a dazzling effect. If I had thought the vampires were beautiful before, it was nothing compared to now.
"How do I look?" he asked jokingly, giving a mock twirl in the sunlight.
"Beautiful," I whispered the truth without thinking about it. He reached across and grabbed my hand, pulling me back into the sunlight.
"So do you," he whispered, staring at me.
I didn't know what to say or do next. There was a sudden tension in the air, caused by how close we were standing in the thin stream of sunlight. Seconds dragged on as we both stood there glittering. I noticed he was still holding my hand, and I realised I didn't want him to let go. He just stood there staring at me like a man who'd never seen the sun before. He took a small step closer, and I found I didn't go backwards as I usually would. I didn't want to. I was staring at his face, the golden eyes surrounded by his glistening skin, the overall effect so entrancing I couldn't look away. Timidly, I took a careful step closer myself, mesmerised by the glittering diamond chasms of his face. His hand reached out and gently stroked my face, and my skin tingled at his touch. I watched him closely, concentrating on his golden eyes, the only part that wasn't sparkling, as our faces drew closer.
Next thing I knew I was flying through the forest, propelled forward by a scent much sweeter than the elk's had been, oblivious to anything else around me. Before I knew what I was doing, I was attacking a large grizzly bear. The bear put up more of a fight than the elk. It took a few swipes at me. I briefly noticed their ineffectiveness before my teeth were clamped against its neck, and I was draining it dry of blood. Only when the last drop was drained did I regain control over my own mind and body. Only then did I remember about Harry left alone in that stream of sunlight.
"Amelia?" I heard him say. He must have followed me; he used the same worried tone as before.
"I don't know what's happening to me!" I wailed as I collapsed onto the forest floor
"You're a vampire," he replied softly.
Only then did the truth of that statement finally impact me. Only then did I realise that, though I had accepted that the Cullens were vampires, up until this point I hadn't accepted that I was truly one. That I would have to spend all of eternity as a blood sucking monster. Up until now I had subconsciously still considered myself something different than them. Despite accepting the vampire explanation, I had still thought of myself as human in a way. There had been a line in my subconscious, with the 'actual' vampires on one side and me on the other, considered a vampire but not really one.
"Amelia?" Harry was sounding more frantic now. God knows what my realisation was doing to my 'personalities'. Well I wasn't explaining myself to him. He'd probably just laugh at my naivety.
"Let's go home," I ordered decisively, looking up at Harry. As soon as I looked at him, he looked away, deliberately not holding my gaze. Who did he think he was? Without even thinking about it I hissed at him and found myself in a crouch.
"Look at me," I growled. He reluctantly turned to me and then turned away from me again almost instantly. Then he began unbuttoning his shirt. What the fuck does he think he's doing? I thought angrily. Another hiss came involuntarily from my mouth. If he comes anywhere near me I'll make him pay. The defensive thoughts came unbidden from nowhere.
"Here, you might want to cover up," he said gently to me. He threw his shirt at me without turning to look at me. I looked down and saw the massive rips in my dress, undoubtedly caused by my tussle with the grizzly bear. I quickly put his shirt on, feeling more and more embarrassed about my earlier behaviour. What had come over me? Just like when I had hunted it had felt like a different person had done it. Amelia the vampire, not Amelia Jasmine Hunter.
"Would you like to hunt some more?" Harry asked gently. Now that I was covered up he was looking at me again. Even in my current state of despair, I couldn't help but notice the firm tautness of his chest and arms as he stood there shirtless.
"No!" I replied quickly, barely containing a shudder at the thought of the return of vampire Amelia. "Let's go home," I repeated, and then I set off running back toward the large white house before he could say anything.
The run back wasn't enjoyable like the run there; it was just another reminder of what I now was. Harry said nothing to me, and I said nothing to him, and so we ran in uncomfortable silence. Neither of us brought up what had happened, either before or after the bear had distracted me.
After about ten minutes of running we arrived back at the large white house. I could hear Carlisle and Esme watching the news inside, I could just hear the sound of the reporter, but it was too quiet for me to fully hear the story.
Carlisle instantly turned the TV off as we came through the front door. Weirdly Esme and he had a somewhat guilty look on their faces, like they'd been caught watching something they shouldn't. What was that about? They'd been watching the news for God's sake. It's not like we'd walked in on them watching porn. I quickly shook my head to dispel that bizarre image. Harry glanced at me curiously, but I sure as hell wasn't going to explain my current train of thought to him.
"You're back quickly," Carlisle addressed us, sounding surprised. "What happened?"
"Amelia didn't want to hunt anymore," Harry explained.
"How's your throat?" Carlisle asked me. I got the feeling he was dancing around something.
"Fine," I replied. I hadn't thought about it until now, but I realised it felt better than it had in weeks, though it still burned slightly.
"So … erm," Carlisle began to say something but stopped, looking uncomfortable.
"What happened to your dress, Amelia?" Esme asked softly. I had forgotten about my ripped dress and the fact that I was wearing Harry's shirt. That at least explained Carlisle's discomfort. I wondered what he thought had happened. I wondered what would have happened if that grizzly bear hadn't distracted me?
Harry was looking at me quizzically again.
"Oh you know, my dress got into a bit of an argument with a grizzly bear," I said jokingly.
"And?" Esme prompted.
And … I acted like a terrifying animal. And … I made a fool of myself. And … I really am a fricking vampire and it scares the living (or not so living) daylights out of me.
"Well, put it this way: the bear won the argument, but I won the fight." I forced a smile. Carlisle and Esme instantly relaxed.
"Have the others not come back yet?" Harry asked. Carlisle and Esme both shook their heads.
"So, what's going on in the world?" I asked them. They both looked at me confused. "I was just wondering what was on the news," I explained. Also I'd like to know why you were acting so weird about being caught watching it
"Oh, just someone complaining about Obama and some sport star who's been cheating on his wife," Carlisle replied calmly.
"Nothing of interest," Esme chimed in quickly … a little too quickly. I didn't know why, but I had a feeling they were lying. Why were they lying to me? I wished they wouldn't. Whatever it was they were hiding from me, they should just tell me the truth.
Just then, a funny feeling came over me. It was like something was building up inside my own head but couldn't quite get out.
"Ow!" Esme said, rubbing her forehead. So it wasn't just me then.
"Esme?" Carlisle said worryingly, grabbing his wife's wrists and looking at her face. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I think so," she answered, sounding confused. "My head it just … hurt. Like something was pressing against it. I'm fine now."
"Let me take a look at you," Carlisle insisted.
"No, I'm fine," Esme replied, still sounding confused. Carlisle didn't look like he was buying it.
"Just like me take a look at you," Carlisle insisted again, and the two of them headed up toward his office.
I wasn't even going to mention my own bizarre headache. It hadn't been like something pressing against it anyway; it had been more like there was something trying to get out.
Confused, angry, and annoyed, I just wanted to get away from them all.
"I'm going to go read," I announced before flitting off upstairs and into the room Alice had prepared for me, in which I had several of Esme's novels stacked on a shelf.
I could hear Carlisle and Esme in his office, he was panicking other her headache, and I heard Harry go upstairs and ask if they had found out what was wrong. I blocked out the rest of the conversation, not caring what else they wished to talk about. Probably about me anyway, I thought angrily before flipping a book open with such force that I heard the binding tear. At this moment in time I didn't care about ruining Esme's book. She's just a stupid, lying vampire like the rest of them, I grumbled.
Within half an hour I had finished the entire book. I had heard the other three as they returned from their own hunting trip about twenty minutes ago. I was about to go downstairs and join them when I realised I hadn't changed. Quickly, I took off Harry's shirt and discarded it onto the floor, and then I changed my dress for another one of the million Alice had bought me. It had been kind of nice of him to give me his shirt. It wasn't his fault I was in the middle of some random 'oh shit I really actually am a vampire' meltdown. I picked the shirt up, deciding the least I could do was return it.
I knocked on his door nervously.
"Yes?" I heard him reply from within, and I heard the muffled sound of a book shutting. I opened the door and held the shirt up and then threw it at him. He was sitting on the floor with a large leather book on his lap.
"Thanks," I said. I really should apologize for acting like an idiot, but how to bring it up?
"Look I'm sorry, for, you know, what happened," I blathered, unsure of what to say.
"It's ok." He smiled at me tentatively. I didn't know what to say next, so instead I looked around his room uncomfortably. The first thing that caught my eye was a wall covered in pictures. They were beautifully painted – it was almost like looking at photographs. I stared at them, mesmerized.
"They're amazing," I said. "Where did you get them?" I asked, as I looked at the signature of one of them. HLC. Quickly scanning them I noticed that, aside from a few that had only HL on them, they were all signed the same.
"I did them myself," he replied. Of course, HLC: Harry Leone Cullen.
Looking closer I realized that I recognized some of the people in them. Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Jasper, and Emmett. There were other recurring golden-eyed vampires I didn't recognize: a bronze-haired male vampire who always seemed to be accompanied by a brunette and a human-looking child with the same strangely coloured hair, a statuesque blonde who always seemed to be beside Emmett in the pictures, and there was also a Native American. I knew who they were by the descriptions I'd been given of them, though I was yet to meet them: Edward, Bella, Renesmee, Rosalie, and Jacob.
But there were also others who featured prominently in the pictures, but I don't think had been mentioned to me, as I couldn't place whom they could be. The most prominent of them was a red-eyed female vampire with the same sandy-coloured hair as Harry, often beside a black-haired, red-eyed male vampire (whoever he was, it was clear by the way Harry drew him that he didn't like him). Another red-eyed female vampire, who even in the picture seemed to have an immense presence, appeared in a few, often in relation to a cave, darkness and Carlisle.
There were also several humans. A woman was the most common of them, she had brown curly hair and startling blue eyes, she was sometimes drawn alone, but more often she was drawn with a young girl beside her and a baby in her arms, in some of these pictures she was clearly pregnant with another. There was a grieving tone to those pictures. There was a young girl who shared the sandy-hair of both Harry and the red-eyed vampire. There was another young girl who had black wavy hair and deep brown eyes; by the way she'd been drawn I could tell something regretful happened to her.
"You never mentioned you could draw," I said, not looking away from the pictures. I avoided the temptation to ask who and what some of the pictures were about. Looking at them closely, there was a definite difference between the pictures with the Cullens in and the pictures without them. Somehow the pictures that featured the Cullens seemed happy and hopeful, while the others seemed dark and depressed.
"It never seemed important," he replied. I was startled by how close his voice was. I had been so entranced by the pictures I hadn't noticed he had moved to stand beside me. How long had I stood here staring?
My eyes flickered to the book that now lay on the floor where he sat. I now recognized it as a sketchbook.
"What are you drawing now?" I asked curiously, flitting over to pick the book up.
"Nothing of interest," he replied calmly, though the calmness seemed forced. He had followed me so quickly that I was certain it was only because of my newborn speed that I beat him to it. I went to open it, but he roughly grabbed it from me.
"I only wanted to look," I snapped defensively.
"Well maybe you should have asked," he replied haughtily.
"Fine! Sorry!" I snapped back. I had had it with everyone acting weird and secretive and stormed out at vampire speed without thinking about where I was heading. I came to a stop in the middle of the living room. Stupid, secretive vampires! I seethed to myself. Spotting Carlisle and Esme now sat on the sofa again, my anger increased more. Then suddenly I felt myself calm down unexpectantly.
"I heard you got into a fight with a bear today!" The booming enthusiastic voice of Emmett cut across my internal grumbling.
"Yeah," I said calmly. I was surprised when I remained calm even when thinking about that terrifying hunt. Bizarrely, I was no longer worried about it.
"Jealous, Em?" Jasper asked jokingly. He was looking at me weirdly – the same way Harry did when I assumed my 'personalities' were acting oddly. I guess my emotions were acting strange now as well. To start with, what was with the peculiar calmness all of a sudden? Wait a minute, was the damn empath playing with my emotions? I'd been warned about that. To my surprise, I found that it didn't annoy me. Wait another minute; I wasn't annoyed because he wasn't letting me be annoyed. And as annoying as that was as well, I couldn't be annoyed about it.
"Yeah, man!" Emmett replied to Jasper.
"Jasper, are you playing with my emotions?" I asked calmly.
"Sorry," he said apologetically. I felt the calm leave me and be replaced with the annoyance I hadn't been able to feel under his influence.
"What's wrong?" he asked kindly.
"Doesn't matter," I snapped back. I had to resist the urge to throw a dirty look at either the floor above me where Harry was or to the right of me where Carlisle and Esme sat. A second later guilt flooded me for snapping at him for no reason when he was simply being kind. I should apologize to him. I seemed to be doing that a lot today.
"Apology accepted," he said to me. I was briefly confused before realizing he had been able to sense my guilt.
Across the room Emmett and Alice were having an ongoing conversation. "It's been seventy-five years since that bear beat you, Emmett. Maybe now's the time to, I dunno, let it go," I heard Alice say . The other four in the room laughed at that. I was confused – beating the bear had been so easy with my new vampire body. How had Emmett lost?
"Emmett, how'd you –," I began to ask but was cut off by Alice.
"Emmett was mauled by a bear as a human. Rosalie found him and brought him to Carlisle," Alice explained. This caught my interest again. I knew what had happened to Carlisle, as he'd explained on the plane, and I now knew what had happened to Emmett. What were the rest of the Cullens' stories?
"Pull up a chair, and we'll tell you," Alice replied, clearly predicting my question. "She wants to know all our backgrounds," she explained to the others.
"Can I go get a drink, first?" I asked. The draw of something as human as sitting and drinking a cup of tea while I listened was compelling after my 'vampire Amelia' moments this afternoon. "Does anyone else …" I stopped myself just in time, stupid ingrained human manners, and flitted to the kitchen before anyone could make a joke about it. I was not in the mood to be the butt of the joke.
As I waited for the kettle to boil, I found myself thinking about Alice. Had she foreseen what had happened during my hunt? She said her visions changed as decisions were made. Had she seen what would have happened if I hadn't chased the bear? Did I have the nerve to ask her? The answer to that question was a resounding no.
I sat and drank my cup of tea as first Esme, and then Alice, and then finally Jasper explained to me how they had come into this life. Esme's story filled me with pity – any anger I had toward her quickly disappeared, and I promised myself then and there that I would do all I could to be a daughter for her. Jasper's early beginnings horrified me; the thought of the barbaric nature of vampires scared me senseless after what had happened today. Alice and Jasper's love story appealed to the old romantic in me that just wanted to go 'aww'.
But overall, I couldn't stop concentrating on how the tea didn't taste as nice as it used to. Not now that I'd had the sweet taste of fresh blood on my tongue.